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Archive | Loon People

Liverpool Crown Court far-right demonstration

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Osman Mirghani on Islam, the Rochdale Grooming Case and the Exploitation of Minors

Posted on 20 May 2012 by Emperor

BNP and Far-Right Demonstrate

The Rochdale grooming of minors for sexual exploitation case has devolved into an opportunity for some to Islam-bash.

Islam and the issue of exploiting minors

by Osman Mirghani (Al-Arabiyya)

Over the past few days, Britain has been preoccupied with the prosecution and imprisonment of nine Muslim men (eight Pakistanis and one Afghani) on charges of being part of a child sex exploitation ring. Much has been said about the religious and ethnic background of the defendants, not to mention their victims, who were all white minors suffering from social problems, to the point that all issues became tangled up and intertwined; criminal considerations, religious and ethnic backgrounds and racial sensitivities. The result was heated discussions that mostly inclined towards unfair generalization, the promotion of a stereotyped image of Islam and false accusations against it.

Islam is a religion that is embraced by over 1.5 billion Muslims around the globe, approximately 2.8 million of whom live in Britain. Islam is Britain’s second largest religion, and Muslims make up nearly 5 percent of the country’s population. Of course, there were some rational and balanced discussions of this case; however this all went out the window amidst the clamorous voices that highlighted the religious and racial features of a purely criminal case in which the defendants are a small handful of people who represent only themselves and their own deviant behavior.

This climate served as the perfect opportunity for racists to exploit, and so some movements staged anti-Muslim and anti-immigration demonstrations in which they raised slogans like ‘No to Islam’, ‘Protect our Children…Expel the Rapists’ and ‘Our Children are not Halal Meat’, in a reference to the sale of halal meat to Muslims. Such movements are now active in numerous Western states, and they are exploiting the financial and economic crises as well as the widespread negative image of Islam since the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent terrorist operations, including – of course – the 7 July, 2005 tube bombings in London. This image has contributed to feeding the negative climate which has produced laws banning the niqab and hijab, as well as the construction of minarets in some Western capitals, provoking extremist violence as was the case with the crimes of Anders Behring Breivik in Norway.

The grave problem is that this climate is being strengthened by the statements that are issued by some politicians or so-called specialists, not to mention the superficial articles which promote stereotypical, mistaken, ignorant or sometimes malicious images of Islam and Muslims. In addition to this, there are also some press reports that intend to provoke public opinion or controversy by publishing some defamatory images. For example, a television report screened during the trial session of the nine defendants who were prosecuted on charges of rape, sexual assault and trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, amongst other crimes, showed the defendants standing in front of a mosque.

This represents a dangerous suggestion linking these terrible crimes with Islam, particularly as these defendants were not religious and their crimes were committed in Asian restaurants or empty houses and apartments, nowhere in the vicinity of a mosque! The comparison is truly scandalous when compared with the manner in which crimes involving the sexual abuse of children inside churches at the hands of priests are dealt with, for despite the noise and controversy surrounding such scandals, we have never heard anybody linking this to Christianity as a religion or to the priests’ ethnic background. It is true that there were discussions about deviations within the church, and there were calls for the Catholic Church and others to put an end this phenomenon and uncover its perpetrators, yet no one saw this as something implicating Christianity as a whole or as something that raises moral or ethical questions about all Christians.

The crime of sexual assaulting children deserves the strongest condemnation, regardless of the identity of the perpetrators, their ethnic background or religious affiliation, and this is something that is not confined to individuals of Pakistani or Muslim descent. Statistics and reports prepared by specialists stress that with the exception of Pakistani men being oversubscribed in such crimes, most sexual crimes against minors are committed by ‘white men’. This is how the majority of media outlets used this term in their reports, rather than saying ‘White Christians’, for example, in the same manner that the Pakistanis were described as ‘Asian Muslims.’

One of the striking examples of intentionally linking Islam with the issue of sexual exploitation of children can be seen in an article published by the British Times newspaper last Thursday entitled ‘Let’s be honest. There’s a clear link with Islam’. The title clearly demonstrates that there is an intention to target Islam, distort its image and use the crimes and deviation of a tiny minority to put forward a negative image of all Muslims.

Read the Rest…

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Mumbai: How Some Muslims in India View US Military Courses Teaching “War Against Islam”

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Mumbai: How Some Muslims in India View US Military Courses Teaching “War Against Islam”

Posted on 20 May 2012 by Emperor

Above, members of Raza Academy protest the US military courses which taught that the US is at war with Islam.

They believe there is a “conspiracy” to bomb Mecca and Medina. Whatever could have given them that idea, I wonder? Oh yeah, maybe the fact that the courses advocated “Hiroshima” measures to “defeat Islam.” Or slides like this in the courses presentation:

Hateful US military course instigates protest in Mumbai

By Rehan Ansari, TwoCircles.net,

Mumbai: Although the US has withdrawn the Military course that was instigating anti-Islamic sentiments among military officers, anger among Muslims over the issue is growing in India. Raza Academy, an organization of Barelivi Muslims, conducted a protest demonstration against the US for the idea of bombing Mecca and Madina, the holy cities of Muslim world. The protestors also expressed concern at the silence of Saudi Government over the issue.

Raza Acadmey staged protest on Friday in Azad Maidan, Mumbai. Condemning the US military syllabus, Syed Moinuddin Ashraf, presiding the demonstration said, “We believe that this is total in disregard of the Geneva Convention of 1949. It’s worse than Abu Garib. What they are talking about is essentially the Genocide of Muslims.”

Demanding serious actions against the guilty officers, members of Raza Academy said, “It’s imperative to take actions against the culprit officers and to study the impact of this course on 800 Military officers who were taught this syllabus.”

While talking to TwoCircles.net Saeed Noorie, Secretary of Raza Academy quoted from famous Obama speech to the Muslim World where he had said, “So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.”

Noorie demanded that the people promoting conflict must be brought to justice because they will create cycle of suspicion between America and the Muslim World.

Through a course, US military officers were being taught that America’s enemy is Islam in general, not just terrorists, and suggesting that the country might ultimately have to obliterate the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina without regard for civilian deaths, following World War-II precedents of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima or the allied firebombing of Dresden.

Following the outcry over the hateful course, the Pentagon has suspended the course in late April when a student-military officer objected to the material.

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Beers or Bombs?: 3 Charged for Terrorist Bomb Plot in Chicago

Posted on 20 May 2012 by Emperor

Their faces have been plastered all over US media: Brian Church, 20, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Jared Chase, 27, of Keene, N.H.; and Brent Betterly, 24, of Oakland Park, Fla. They are being charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism and material support of terrorism. These are charges that are generally, as Carol Rose noted, reserved for Muslims, it seems now, however, that this is being applied more broadly.

The hypocrisy and double standards still linger, the US government, including prominent politicians have engaged in the text-book definition of “material support of terrorism.”

Three former, top ranking US officials are supposedly being “investigated” by the US Treasury for “material support of terrorism,” though very quietly, and not with the media hype that we are encountering for instance with the arrest of these “anarchists.” Many other prominent officials have so far escaped investigation or scrutiny.

Prosecutors: Undercover work showed 3 men planned to hit police, mayor’s house, Obama HQ

(Chicago Tribune)

Police surrounded the three men — now known as the NATO 3 — outside a Bridgeport drugstore last week and peppered them with questions as officers searched their car.

The two sides traded barbs about the Occupy movement and the 1968 Democratic National Convention when Chicago police infamously subdued protesters with force. After making jokes about bashing skulls with billy clubs, the officers promised to find the trio during the upcoming NATO summit.

“We’ll come look for you, each and every one of you,” an officer can be heard saying on a video posted onYouTube.

Turns out it was more than just an idle threat. It was already a fact.

Newly filed court documents show the men had been under surveillance for more than a week, suspected of planning a multi-staged attack against high-profile targets including President Barack Obama‘s campaign headquarters, Mayor Rahm Emanuel‘s house and several police stations. Chicago police had begun investigating the men as early as May 1, using information purportedly supplied by two informants whom the suspects believed were fellow Occupy backers named Moe and Nadia.

Prosecutors late Friday charged Brian Church, 20, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Jared Chase, 27, of Keene, N.H.; and Brent Betterly, 24, of Oakland Park, Fla., with conspiracy to commit terrorism, providing material support for terrorism and possession of an explosive or incendiary device. Six other people with them in a late-night raid Wednesday were released without charges, authorities said.

The charges mark the first time anyone has been prosecuted in Illinois under the state’s anti-terrorism laws, which were enacted after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Perhaps more problematic for police trying to control crowds amid the summit, the trio’s arrest has provided oft-splintered factions of the Occupy movement with a shared rallying point this weekend.

Several hundred protesters took to the streets downtown Saturday evening, marching from the city’s financial district to Daley Center Plaza, where they conducted a 10-minute sit-down in sympathy for the men, dubbed the NATO 3 by their supporters.

The men’s attorney, Michael Deutsch, accused authorities of entrapment and suggested police targeted the men because of their anti-establishment views. The edited YouTube video of last week’s police stop has also prompted complaints about unfair treatment, though Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said the patrol officers in the video were unaware of the ongoing undercover investigation.

“What we believe is that this is a way to stir up prejudice against people exercising their First Amendment rights,” Deutsch told a throng of reporters after the three suspects were ordered held on $1.5 million bail each.

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George Zimmerman: Trayvon Martin’s Murderer Also an Islamophobe?

Posted on 19 May 2012 by Emperor

Zimmerman targeted a co-worker of Middle Eastern decent (h/t:Dawud Walid):

AUDIO: Witness Says George Zimmerman Repeatedly Bullied Him At Work, Targeted Him With Racist Jokes

(ThinkProgress)

Among the evidence in the Trayvon Martin case released by the Florida state prosecutor yesterday was a 15-minute interview with a former work colleague of George Zimmerman. The man, who is not identified by name, says that Zimmerman relentlessly bullied him at work.

Zimmerman, according to the witness, targeted him because he was Middle Eastern. He repeatedly called the man a “fucking moron” and mocked him using the voice of “Achmed the terrorist.” Zimmerman’s stories about the man would involve “bombing,” “I’ll kill your family” and other “jokes” about “Middle Eastern stuff.” According to the man, this went on “for days and days.”

Listen:

After a few months, Zimmerman was terminated. According to the witness, “he was fired for calling HR hotline so many times…he would complain about each and every manager and employee.”

Zimmerman is currently being investigated by the FBI, who reportedly may charge him with a hate crime.

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Yitzhar Settlers Torch Palestinian’s Car in Nablus

Posted on 18 May 2012 by Emperor

Settlers from Yitzhar torched a car in Einabus village in the Nablus district.

Fanatical religious settlers who believe God gave them the land have been attacking Palestinians who they hope to intimidate into moving away.

Settlers Torch Car in Nablus

NABLUS (Ma’an) — A group of settlers on Thursday set fire to a car in Nablus, a PA official said.

Three settlers from Yitzhar settlement set fire to the car in Einabus village, PA official Ghassan Daghlas told Ma’an.

The owner, Zain Mustafa Allan, said the car was parked outside his home when the attack took place.

Earlier, settlers threw rocks at Palestinian cars driving near Yitzhar settlement, Daghlas said.

The Nablus district experienced the majority of settler violence in 2011, The Palestine Center says.

In 2011, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that settler attacks had increased by 50 percent on the previous year.

Settler violence against local Palestinian communities is widespread, but figures compiled by Israeli rights group Yesh Din have repeatedly shown that nine out of 10 police investigations about settler crimes fail to lead to a prosecution.

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Golden Dawn MPs Refuse to Stand When 3 Muslims Sworn into Greece’s Parliament on the Qur’an

Posted on 18 May 2012 by Emperor

The Golden Dawn sure are making a name for themselves and I bet the Islamophobes love their antics. (h/t:HSMoghul)

The parliament that was elected on May 6 also convened for a brief session on Thursday, when lawmakers from the far-right Golden Dawn party marched into parliament for the first time.

Deputies from the party, whose members give Nazi-style salutes, refused to stand when three Muslim lawmakers were sworn in on the Koran during the oath ceremony.

You will recall that there was similar outrage in the US, mainly from Right-wingers when Keith Ellison was sworn into Congress with his hand on the Quran. Recall that one of the leading hate-mongers, Robert Spencer remarked,

“I hope there will be some who have the courage to point out that no American official should be taking an oath on the Qur’an.”

Polls Show Greece Electing Pro-Bailout Government

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek voters are returning to the establishment parties that negotiated its bailout, a poll showed on Thursday, offering potential salvation for European leaders who say a snap Greek election next month will decide whether it must quit the euro.

The poll, the first conducted since talks to form a governmentcollapsed and a new election was called for June 17, showed the conservative New Democracy party in first place, several points ahead of the radical leftist SYRIZA which has pledged to tear up the bailout.

EU leaders say that without the bailout, Greece would be headed for certain bankruptcy and ejection from the common currency, which would sow financial destruction across the continent. The prospect SYRIZA would win the election has sent the euro and markets across the continent plummeting this week.

The poll predicted New Democracy would win 26.1 percent of the vote compared to 23.7 percent for SYRIZA.

Crucially, it showed that along with the Socialist PASOK party, New Democracy would have enough seats to form a pro-bailout government, which it failed to win in an election on May 6, forcing a new vote and prompting a political crisis that has put the future of the euro in doubt.

Polls last week had showed SYRIZA well in front, with anti-bailout voters rallying behind its charismatic 37-year-old leader Alexis Tsipras. First place comes with a bonus of 50 extra seats in the 300-seat parliament, so even a tiny edge would be pivotal in determining who forms the next government.

The election is still a month away, and Greek voters have been fickle. Experts warned against drawing any strong conclusions from a single poll. Nevertheless, a trend that had shown SYRIZA surging ahead appears to have turned.

“It seems people vented their anger in the election and then they got scared. They disliked that there was no government and they got worried about a possible exit from the euro,” political analyst John Loulis said of the surprise poll result.

“Still, voters are far from enthusiastic with New Democracy. Things are still volatile. The outcome of the elections will depend on who will make the fewest mistakes.”

Rating agency Fitch underscored the high stakes, downgrading Greece’s debt a further notch below investment grade to CCC.

“In the event that the new general elections scheduled for 17 June fail to produce a government with a mandate to continue with the EU-IMF program of fiscal austerity and structural reform, an exit of Greece from (the euro) would be probable,” the ratings agency said in a statement.

Earlier on Thursday Tsipras predicted his party would sweep next month’s election and refused to give up his demand for an end to “barbaric” austerity policies he said were bankrupting the nation.

“They are trying to terrorize the people to make SYRIZA cave in. We will never compromise,” the ex-Communist student leader told his party’s lawmakers, often addressing them as “comrades”.

“We will never participate in a government to rescue the bailout,” he said. “The Greek people voted for an end to the bailout and barbaric austerity. They ignored the threats and the cheap propaganda. And we are certain they will do the same now.”

“HUMILIATING EXIT”

An emergency government led by a judge and made up of mainly professors, technocrats and a few politicians was sworn in on Thursday in a ceremony presided over by the Archbishop Ieronimos of Athens.

The government has been tasked solely with taking the country to the next election and will not be permitted to take political decisions, meaning Greece will fall further behind on the reforms it has pledged to carry out to receive rescue loans.

At his first cabinet meeting, caretaker Prime Minister Panagiotis Pikrammenos told ministers they would receive no salary and urged them to dispense with frills like limousines or business trips.

The parliament that was elected on May 6 also convened for a brief session on Thursday, when lawmakers from the far-right Golden Dawn party marched into parliament for the first time.

Deputies from the party, whose members give Nazi-style salutes, refused to stand when three Muslim lawmakers were sworn in on the Koran during the oath ceremony.

The parliament is expected to be dissolved later this week ahead of the election in June.

Read the rest here…

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EDL Leader Tommy Robinson Outed as Child Sex Pest

Posted on 18 May 2012 by Emperor

Turns out EDL leader Tommy Robinson likes to abuse young 15 year old Muslim on Twitter. What a hypocritical scumbag:

EDL Leader Tommy Robinson outed as child sex pest

(EDL News)

With the current obsession with paedophiles which seems to occupy the EDL’s every waking minute, you would think that English Defence League leader and deputy leader of the British Freedom Party, Tommy Robinson would try and avoid Tweeting fifteen year old girls and telling them they are ‘pretty fit for a Muslim’.

After realising that he had made a ‘mistake’ you would have thought that Tommy would apologise immediately instead of attacking the schoolgirl by calling her scum and setting his vile followers, the EDL casuals including EDL Twitter attack dog, Becky Marsh, on her.

Did Tommy’s need to make racist mysogynistic remarks to a Muslim cloud his judgement or is there something he is not telling us?

Maybe all that time spent with Richard Price has rubbed off on him but we at EDL News feel Tommy has some explaining to do to CEOPs.

What we can guarantee is EDL members will be extremely quiet about this and a stark contrast to how they would foam if a Muslim had Tweeted that.

We await a demo outside Tommy’s house but will not be holding our breath, because the average EDL member have proven time and time again that they have little interest in white paedophiles.

(We have obfuscated the girl’s name, photo and Twitter address because of her age)

 

Clearly panicking Robinson went on to claim the schoolgirl was not 15, even though her date of birth was on her profile. Robinson then went on to delete the Tweet.

Not content with shaming himself enough on one day and despite knowing her age, Robinson goes on to accuse the schoolgirl of flirting with him.  Being a ballsy young Asian women who is not going to put up with sex pests, she went on to kick him from one end of Twitter to the other and the #tommyisapaedo hashtag started trending.

Tommy’s response got more and more vile:

As did the response from many of his supporters including Becki Marsh, cheerleader for the EDL’s football hooligan division, The casuals.

These would be the people who would be calling for the hanging of Muslims if they make sexual advances towards a schoolgirl on Twitter.

Read the rest…

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Reuters Figures it Out: Yemenis “Deeply Resentful” of Drone Attacks which “Often” Kill Civilians

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Reuters Figures it Out: Yemenis “Deeply Resentful” of Drone Attacks which “Often” Kill Civilians

Posted on 17 May 2012 by Garibaldi

Why_do_they_hate_us_Muslims

It’s not rocket science, if you are going to employ tactics in which you kill 10s or 100s of more civilians for each terrorist then you are not going to be liked.

Reuters seems to have figured this out:

But many say U.S. drone attacks, which have often killed civilians and are deeply resented by Yemenis, may do more harm than good, potentially discrediting Hadi as a lackey of Washington and turning the wider population against him.

Now if we could only get the policy-makers and military strategists to realize this.

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Pat Robertson Says the Christian Thing to do is, “Destroy Your Friend’s Buddha Statue”

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Pat Robertson Says the Christian Thing to do is, “Destroy Your Friend’s Buddha Statue”

Posted on 17 May 2012 by Emperor

Everyone knows the Taliban are just the Afghan version of the Pat Robertson’s of the world, right? Pat Robertson was asked on air by a concerned Christian named “Jenny” about a moral quandary she had relating to her roommate’s “Buddha statue.”

Jenny: My friend who is a Christian has a Buddha statue next to her Christian ones. Is this ok?

Pat Robertson, who always speaks Biblically gave a pretty unequivocal answer, “Destroy it.”

Pat Robertson: No its not. Take it away and break it. Break it! Destroy it.

So the message is Christian statues are OK but not Buddhist ones, oh and don’t respect the property of other peoples!

Pat Robertson: Destroy Your Friends Buddha Statue

(WhatIfTheyWereMuslim.com)

Here at WITWM, we frown upon all acts of religious desecration. When the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan in March of 2001 it was not only unIslamic but immoral on many levels. Now Pat Robertson is calling for similar measures, can one imagine if a Muslim Imam had said something similar? As of now there is barely a peep about this. (h/t Critical Dragon)

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Members of Greece’s Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party Took Part in Srebrenica Genocide

Posted on 17 May 2012 by Garibaldi

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The Greek neo-Nazi party, The Golden Dawn has won 7% of the vote in Greece. According to Neni Panourgia, members of the Golden Dawn were also a part of the massacres in Srebrenica, Bosnia (h.t: HSMoghul),

Golden Dawn gained notoriety after 1991, when it started attacking the first Albanian immigrants and after some of its members participated in the Srebrenica massacre. The organisation registered as a political party in 1993 and first won political representation in 2010, when Michaloliakos was elected to the Athens City Council.

Neni describes the Golden Dawn as a “European problem”:

Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn is a European problem

by Neni Panourgia (AlJazeera English)

New York, New York - By now, nearly everybody has been exposed to the phenomenon of Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi in Greek), the neo-Nazi organisation that received almost 7 per cent of the vote in the Greek elections of May 6.

After the initial shock, the question “How is this possible?” was followed by the legitimate worry: “Are Greeks becoming fascists?” Some commentators on various blogs (many of them from northern and western Europe) even left messages urging the Greek electorate to feel shame, the deeper the better, for this unsightly and frightening development.

But let’s set a few things straight. First of all, Golden Dawn, despite its recent claims, is indeed a neo-Nazi party. Their ideology, which they describe on their website as “Popular and Social Nationalism”, gives their precise coordinates within Nazi ideology.

So do the origins of their party, which was founded by Nikolaos Michaloliakos in 1985 under a direct order from the imprisoned leader of the Greek junta, George Papadopoulos. And so do their self-representation, language and tactics. The official publication of Golden Dawn runs articles praising the Nazis and often places photographs of Hitler, Himmler, and Nazi gatherings on its front cover. The members of the organisation have the same uneducated, invented, and highly idiosyncratic understanding of ancient Greece as the Nazis did.

And their tactics are virtually indistinguishable from Nazi terrorist tactics: they terrorise immigrants, leftists, and journalists; they beat and maul teachers and students; they have infiltrated athletic clubs and have introduced hooliganism to the Greek landscape; and they have assumed the role of vigilantes and protectors of the general public. Some of those attacks have been documented, and the Golden Dawn-affiliated perpetrators have gone on trial and been imprisoned.

The history of the organisation is inextricably connected to the history of Michaloliakos, whose first public intervention in 1976 was an attack on journalists who were covering the funeral of the junta torturer Evangelos Mallios, who had been executed by the urban guerrilla organisation 17 November. Arrested and briefly detained, Michaloliakos met the leaders of the military junta in jail. Two years after his release he engaged in a series of bombings of public places in Athens, for which he was indicted. Golden Dawn gained notoriety after 1991, when it started attacking the first Albanian immigrants and after some of its members participated in the Srebrenica massacre. The organisation registered as a political party in 1993 and first won political representation in 2010, when Michaloliakos was elected to the Athens City Council.

It is doubtful, however, whether the 21 Golden Dawn deputies will ever enter the Greek parliament (legally, that is). We now know that no coalition government can be formed (without a gross violation of the Constitution), which means that new elections will be held, probably on June 17. Yesterday’s polls showed that 76 per cent of the Greek electorate expects Golden Dawn to lose most of its vote, with a large number of those polled expressing doubts that it would even win the 3 per cent needed to enter parliament.

Two questions remain, however, regardless of whether Golden Dawn ever enters parliament. The first one is a question of democracy: namely, what sorts of legitimate steps are available to democratic polities when they face the development of a totalitarian, racist, exclusionary formulation that actively engages in violent acts that severely restrict the civil and human rights of others? I argue that when a state is faced not simply with ideas but with themateriality of actions, then the state is obligated to outlaw them and the media are obligated to report on them. In Greece this is a multiply complex issue, since what I suggest was used from the beginning of the 20th century as the groundwork upon which the elimination of the left took place, based on fabricated accusations.

A second question remains: Why would Greeks, who fought against totalitarianism in massive numbers and paid one of the heaviest tolls in Europe for their participation in the resistance against Nazi Germany, vote for this despicable, emetic, and deeply anti-political formation, even as a protest?

What we need to keep in mind is that this tolerance of violence in the public sphere, especially violence that is directed towards the unarmed and the unprotected, is the result of the state’s long-term suppression of dissent and the collaboration of the police forces with right-wing extremists whose violent tactics the police have used. This tolerance is evident even in mundane instances, such as when, in 1999, the ludicrous Gerasimos Yakoumatos, a deputy and member of the centre-right New Democracy party, wanting to show the Minister of Public Order that he “meant business”, walked into Parliament brandishing his (legally obtained) revolver as protest for his house having been burglarised by immigrants the previous evening. Not only was this tolerated, but he was not arrested and was not in any way reprimanded.

The Greek polity has always found itself in a tug-of-war. On one end, there is a wide, democratic, proceduralist, but largely powerless (and ultimately apathetic) body politic. On the other end, there is a small but powerful authoritarian class that constitutes the core of state structures. Decades of brutal suppression of dissent has relied upon various para-state and paramilitary organisations. Police brutality, hooliganism, and the deep-seated intimacy between fragments of the police force and Golden Dawn have made the organisation’s temporary surge possible.

There is no right, centre, or left distinction in this, if by left one means the nominally socialist PASOK party. All post-junta Greek governments have availed themselves of this intimate relationship, as all Greek governments, at least from the early years of the 20th century, have invested more energy and resources into producing a polity that relies on snitches and turncoats than in producing responsible, accountable, and democratically minded citizens. For example, in the summer of 2002, as the dismantling of 17 November was taking place, the Greek prime minister – clearly at the behest of the British and the American antiterrorist secret services – asked the citizens to report anyone who appeared to be suspicious and dangerous.

A month ago I wrote in the Anthropology Newsletter about the claim that under the current circumstances in Europe, in which the social welfare state is being eviscerated and the destitute are pitted against the poor, the distinction between right and left is no longer useful. I argue, however, that it is precisely now that the elision of such a distinction is pregnant with dangers that the world has faced before.

The neo-cons, the neo-fascists, and the neo-Nazis have been selectively appropriating leftist discourses and practices in order to obscure and obfuscate the distinctions between left and right. Michaloliakos, the coddled child of the junta, uses the term “junta” pejoratively (to indicate the totally inept but democratically elected Greek government, the press, and the memorandum), calls the actions of Golden Dawn “national resistance” when he instigates violence against immigrants and politicians, and has warned about an “uprising of the masses”.

Europe stands on the head of a needle, steeped in a crisis that threatens the foundational premises of democracy, self-determination, and autonomy. Golden Dawn is a European problem, not a limited and containable Greek one. It is a European problem because its ideology developed and flourished in Germany and Italy of the early 20th century. It is not a “natural”, essential, ontological property of Greece, and it is intractably connected to the moralistic and punitive positions that have organised the actions of the troika that put the bailout packages together.

When people are pushed to the brink, ugly things happen, and the troika (and particularly Merkel) ought never to forget the warning of George Santayana: “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it”.

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Ratko Mladic on Trial For Genocide that Islamophobes Love to Deny

Posted on 16 May 2012 by Emperor

Suffice to say many Islamophobes deny the Genocide against Bosnian Muslims, chief amongst them are Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller.

Ratko Mladic goes on trial for genocide

(AlJazeera English)

The trial of General Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army chief accused of orchestrating war crimes and a campaign of genocide, has begun at a special UN court at The Hague in the Netherlands.

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia made their opening statements against Mladic on Wednesday almost a year after his arrest in Serbia and subsequent deportation after years on the run.

Mladic is accused of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including orchestrating the week-long massacre of over 7,000 Muslim boys and men at Srebrenica in 1995 during the Bosnian war.

Prosecutor Dermot Groome said the prosecution would present evidence showing “beyond a reasonable doubt the hand of Mr. Mladic in each of these crimes”.

“The world watched in disbelief that in neighborhoods and villages within Europe a genocide appeared to be in progress,” said Groome, describing the beginning of the war in 1992.

“By the time Mladic and his troops murdered thousands in Srebrenica … they were well-rehearsed in the craft of murder,” Groome told the court.

Older but defiant

Dressed in a dark grey suit and dark tie, Mladic, now 70, flashed a thumbs-up and clapped his hands as he entered the courtroom in The Hague.

In the packed public seating area, a mother of one of the Srebrenica victims whispered “vulture” several times as prosecutors opened their case.

Later, Mladic made eye contact with one of the Muslim women in the audience, running a hand across his throat, in a gesture that led Presiding judge Alphons Orie to hold a brief recess and order an end to “inappropriate interactions.”

“Ratko Mladic is clearly not the stocky, physically imposing, bullish man that we remember from images of the early ’90s,” Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Phillips reported from The Hague.

Phillips added, however, that even with his age, the general remained as defiant as ever.

“You could really sense his contempt for this court, which he calls the ‘NATO’ court,” he said.

Axel Hagedorn, a lawyer for many of the mothers of those killed in Srebrenica, said that many of his clients had travelled to The Hague, where they were relieved to finally see Mladic stand trial.

“I think he looks much more healthy than last year, when he appeared, that is good for us, because we hope that he can survive this trial and face imprisonment,” he said.

The Mladic trial would also help build a separate case by the Srebrenica families against the United Nations, he said.

In April, the Dutch Supreme Courht ruled that the UN could not be prosecuted in the Netherlands for failing to prevent genocide in Srebrenica, but the families’ lawyers plan to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

“This case is very linked to our case, on the failure of the United Nations to protect the people of Srebrenica,” Hagedorn said.

There are concerns that Mladic’s trial could be disrupted by the defendant’s poor health. He is believed to have suffered at least one stroke while in hiding and was admitted to hospital for pneumonia last October.

Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian leader, died of a heart attack in detention in 2006 before a verdict in his trial could be reached.

‘Biggest butcher’

Outside, protesters held up placards including one that said “we want justice for the victims of Srebrenica”.

Mladic, who was arrested in a village in northern Serbia last May, is also charged over the 44-month siege of Sarajevo during which more than 10,000 people died.

Mladic has refused to enter a plea and rejected the charges against him as “monstrous” and “obnoxious” in a preliminary hearing last June. He says he was defending his country and his people as leader of the Bosnian Serb army. The court entered a ‘not guilty’ plea on his behalf.

He is the last of the main protagonists involved in the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia to go on trial in front of the special court established by the United Nations to prosecute crimes committed during the conflicts.

“This is the biggest butcher of the Balkans and the world,” Munira Subasic, 65, told the AFP news agency. She lost 22 relatives to Bosnian Serb military forces when Srebrenica was overrun in July 1995.

“I’ll look into his eyes and ask him if he repents,” said Subasic, who said she would watch the trial’s opening from the public gallery at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The case has stirred up deep emotions in the Balkans and Wednesday’s proceedings were broadcast live on big screens in Sarajevo, where thousands died between 1992 and 1995.

“I hope that many of those who are disillusioned and believe that Mladic is a Serb hero will change their minds, and that the trial will demonstrate that he was just a criminal and a coward,” Fikret Grabovica, president of the association of parents and children killed in the siege of Sarajevo, said.

“Even if Mladic lives until the verdict, it will bring only mild satisfaction for the victims of Srebrenica and hundreds of other places in the Serb Republic,” Grabovica added, referring to the entity that rules Serb majority areas of Bosnia.

‘Not satisfied’

Since the end of the war, Bosnia-Herzegovina has been divided into a federation of Bosnian Muslims and Croats, and the Serb Republic.

Mladic’s lawyers last week attempted to have the trial pushed back as the court pondered their request to have presiding judge Alphons Orie removed from the bench. They had argued that Orie would be biased against Mladic because he had already condemned several of his former subordinates.

But Theodor Meron, the president of the court, denied the request.

“I am not satisfied that Mladic has demonstrated that a reasonable observer … would reasonably apprehend bias. I accordingly find Mladic’s request for Judge Orie’s disqualification to be unmeritorious,” he said in a statement.

Mladic is being held in the same prison as his former political leader Radovan Karadzic, who was arrested in 2008 and is now about halfway through his trial on similar charges to Mladic.

Mladic’s lawyers on Monday night filed another request to have the trial adjourned for six months, saying they had not had enough time to prepare, due to “errors” by the prosecution in disclosing documents.

Groome said on Wednesday he would not oppose a “reasonable adjournment”.

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What Radical Anti-Islam Christians Teach Their Flock: Islam “Does Not Teach” Charity

Posted on 15 May 2012 by Garibaldi

tim-wildmon

This is supposed to be a positive picture of Tim Wildmon

American Family Association president Tim Wildmon says, “Islam does not teach charity.”

It is a blatant lie, since one of the five pillars of Islam is Zakat, or mandatory charitable giving. The Qur’an, if these right-wingers would ever read it is also filled with exhortations on nearly every page extolling the virtues of Sadaqah or voluntary charity.

Tim Wildmon Says Islam ‘Does Not Teach’ Charity

(Right-Wing Watch)

American Family Association president Tim Wildmon today used his column praising the admirable works of Christian charitable organizations to criticize Muslims.

If there ever was a contrast in worldviews, it is with Christianity and Islam. One of the most striking differences is that Christianity teaches, practices, and encourages charity. Islam does not. It is the Christians from America who are doing the majority of the private charity and humanitarian work around the world. Just these past couple of weeks alone, I was reminded by several examples of this.

American Family Association/American Family Radio has been participating in this project with Gospel for Asia for several years. Why do we care about the outcast people of India? Because in the Bible, Jesus instructs us to do so.

There is no such comparable work being done around the world by Islamic groups or organizations — because the Koran does not teach such charity.

Religion, more than anything else, affects the values and morals of a culture, a society, a country.

In fact, charitable giving is one of the five pillars of Islam. Wildmon could have done a simple Google search to find the names of major Muslim charitable organizations like Islamic ReliefRed Crescent Societies and Muslim Aid, but seeing that the American Family Association is one of the most malicious purveyors of misinformation and bigotry in this country, it should come as no surprise that its leader can twist an article about the importance of charitable work into an attack on the Muslim people.

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Class Materials from Military’s anti-Islam Class Repeatedly Cite Islamophobic Authors

Posted on 15 May 2012 by Emperor

When it was first revealed that anti-Islam classes were being taught by the US military we were pretty certain that the anti-Muslim authors that we are so familiar with were likely heavily cited, now it has been confirmed:

Class materials from military’s anti-Islam class repeatedly cite Islamophobic authors

A class taught by the military to officers at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, came under fire when a report on Wired’s Danger Room blog last week exposed it for teaching soldiers to engage in a “total war” on Islam and taking a war on Islam “to the civilian population wherever necessary.”

The full set of course materials, hundreds of documents and slide shows obtained by ThinkProgress, reveal just how deep Islamophobia ran through the military instruction. The material contained dozens of citations to the work of some of America’s best known anti-Muslim bigots.

Not all of the material in the course, however, was anti-Muslim. Materials from reputable sources such as the Brookings Institution and RAND corporation also appeared among the readings, and only some of the presenters to the class used blatantly Islamophobic material. (The public affairs officer of the Joint Forces Staff College didn’t respond to repeated inquiries by press time.)

But the “Islamophobia network,” discussed in the Center for American Progress’s report, “Fear, Inc.“ played a prominent role in many of the 266 documents acquired by ThinkProgress.

ThinkProgress, 15 May 2012

The Islamophobes named are Robert Spencer, David Yerushalmi and Daniel Pipes, along with Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy. Right-wing anti-Muslim publications like the Washington Times and the National Review are also cited numerous times in the documents.

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Former EDL Extremists Roberta Moore and Joel Yossi Arrested

Posted on 15 May 2012 by Emperor

Former EDL extremists Roberta Moore and Joel Yossi Arrested

(EDL News)

Roberta Moore makes a long overdue reappearance on EDL News this week for getting arrested for racial abuse and making a fool of herself at a Nakba commemoration in London on Saturday.

Moore, the former head of the English Defence League’s Jewish Division and supporter of mass murderer, Anders Behring Breivik, posted a long rambling blog where she claims that she was handcuffed and managed to free herself and a bizarre rant about the weight of the police officers who arrested her.

Moore and her mob, which is thought to have included terrorist supporter Robert Bartholomeus ane Joel Yossi who was also reported as being arrested, went to great pains to explain ‘they were just walking past the demo’ on the way to somewhere else and claimed they were just trying to debate but her own blog post details them throwing abuse at the protesters by calling them ‘Kapos’.

Bartholomeus has previously featured on this website for threatening to rape a female EDL member who he had a fall out with. Last year after the horrific attacks in Norway, both of them were quick to applaud the actions of Breivik and blamed his victims, denouncing them as ‘scum’.

One witness at the event in London emailed us the following:

“First time I have seen Yossi in person, he was every much the vile piece of crap I imagined him to be, He argued with an man of Arab decent and said to the child he had with him something like ‘do not grow up to be a degenerate waste of air like your father kid’ he ran his finger across his throat at anybody who spoke to him, called women “whores, sluts and Leftist animals” shouted Islamophobic hatred and then hurled sickening abuse at the Orthodox Jews who never fail to show their support for our Palestine protest.

I put the video of the arrest on youtube (link below), Yossi is wearing a black cap and coat, obviously he had calmed down a little at that point due to be constantly warned by the police.

Last week the Jewish Division posted this on their Facebook wall.

 

Moore, a Brazilian immigrant who is not Jewish is believed to have been released without charge. You can read her bizarre rant here:

“The coward Sgt. Walker handcuffed me tightly, as if I was a dangerous criminal, and the handcuffs were hurting my wrists. I got really outraged at this, so I discreetly removed my handcuffs but the policemen did not see it, of course.  I kept my hands behind me as if I was still wearing them. When I got out of the car I told Sgt. Walker he was quite incompetent as he did not even realise I was not wearing my handcuffs anymore, and was actually holding it in my hand. If I had been a “dangerous” criminal none of them would have stood a chance!

Grinning and riding in comfort. The two good officers in this photo were outraged at my being arrested.

Once inside the office they started asking me for my details and all that palava, but still Sgt. Walker was unable to state to the officer behind the desk the real reason of my arrest and kept on mumbling that I was arrested for my own safety and for “disturbing the peace”, when I was in fact simply debating with them, and only for a few seconds at that.  A disgrace for our police force!! This is a time when people can no longer debate with protesters (Principally Muslims) if they have opposing views, as they get arrested ”for their own safety”, as they claim, simply because the police are far too scared of protecting us from these vermin in our streets.

“Disturbing the peace” is just their pathetic excuse for not having to “work hard” protecting innocent members of the public from random and sudden violence from these communist and Islamofascist groups.

Logically this has once again proven that Muslims are violent scumbags and that the police is AFRAID of dealing with it. Perhaps because most of the police force is obese?  This is utterly shameful for the City of London.

While I was at the van I mentioned to Sgt. Walker that I was aware the police force was facing cuts and I hoped to see him and his corrupt comrades sacked as soon as this is implemented, for they are a very useless bunch.

When in custody I noticed and mentioned that many of the police officers were really fat.
We cannot have obese police officers, as they could not even run to catch real criminals. No wonder they were scared of the Muslims. Had it been a proper confrontation, these fat officers would probably faint breathless if they ran 10 meters! And I am not surprised because as soon as I got into the police station I saw at least 4 officers munching away on cakes and biscuits while sitting down on their desks. Lack of exercise while munching non stop causes obesity, didn’t they know that?

What a disgrace for the London police! I had to smirk when I pointed out to them that Brazilian cops are slim and carry guns. Much easier to deal with criminals, but that obviously these incompetent cops could not even be trusted with one, I wouldn’t trust them even with a 22!

Rio Police officers on the beat catching a drug dealer. Fit for the job and armed.

When I got to the station, without my handcuffs on, Sgt. Walker walked in front of me (Stupid moron!) and expected me to follow him inside. I then pointed out to him that I was still holding the handcuffs and that he should have ensured he was BEHIND me, as after all I was the one arrested, right? I was the “dangerous criminal”, right? What a joke they were!
Jokingly I told him, “Ladies first!”, so I volunteered to go in front of him, since he seems to have forgotten his manners in the toilets of his shack, and even his intelligence.

The moron took my phone and took the battery out for a bit, since I was getting calls from my friends. I pointed out to him that I was filming everything and that he had LIED to the officer behind the desk. He had told them I ‘swore’  when I didn’t. The dirty Arab who insulted me swore at me and my colleagues, made threats about raping me, and anti-Semite Sgt. Walker totally ignored it. So he lied and exposed himself as a man without honour or morals. He lied to justify his arrest. I made sure I told him 4 times he was a pathetic individual and understandably he did not argue with me of course.

After taking my belongings, Sgt Walker found some dog biscuits inside my bag. He asked me what was that for, so I told him that I thought he might be hungry and offered him a few. He said: “Very funny”. Well it was, as I could swear he was mouthwatering over those gravy meaty biscuits.

He also removed my camera (The one I used to film everything), my money, my bank cards, etc… and after taking two of my gold rings, one with encrusted diamonds, my gold magen David necklace, and my Michal Negrin’s earrings, oh yes and my belt, I was feeling quite bare. The only thing I did not allow them to take from me was my black and red African “juju” (candomble) bracelet, as it is a powerful magical talisman that was consecrated and given to me by a powerful medium many years ago. Unholy hands cannot touch it.

He had to register everything he took in the police computer to have me sign for it. He referred to my gold rings as ‘Yellow Metal’, instead of gold and after complaining that they were GOLD and not ‘yellow metal’ he refused to change it because according to him I could be telling him anything.
I then had to point out to the ignorant fool the goldmark of my belongings.
I told them I expected to have it all back intact, since these guys can steal your stuff and pretend it disappeared somewhere. Maybe this is why they don’t like to list the proper value of the things they temporarily confiscate.

I was then allocated a cell. Quite nice and clean by the way. I was impressed. Since I had never been arrested before, I was quite amused. The only complaint I have is that these perverts have cameras facing the toilet inside the cells. G-d knows what they do when they watch female prisoners going to the loo. It is creepy.

When inside the cell I started exploring my surroundings… not much of it but still, interesting. Frankly I was a bit tired because of a late night before, so I decided to sleep for a bit. I must have slept for 1 hour or so and when I woke up I started playing with a metal thing with a button on the wall.  I pressed it a few times while I was cleaning it with a paper tower. All of a sudden an officer appears at the door and lifts the window. So he says to me: “Hello”. I said hello back and continued to clean the button. He kept looking at me and I asked: “What can I do for you”? He said: “You called me”. I said, “I didn’t. How would I have called you?”  He said: “This button on the wall, when you press it, you call an officer.”
I said, “Oh, I didn’t know it! You can go now. I don’t need you”. So he left and I went to meditate in the cell for a bit.

I got disturbed some 20 mins later by someone offering me food. I refused it and told them I don’t eat Halal. And 5 minutes later another officer comes and tells me I am free to go.

I argued a bit because I was expecting them to interview me and charge me with whatever they had accused me of, so I made him call my solicitor. He got me out of the cell and told me the solicitor was on the phone. I spoke to him and the solicitor told me they could not charge me with anything so they had to let me go. Hmmmm….. disappointing really. But they did apologize though. They also apologized for making me late since I was hosting guests for dinner and just about made it in time.

Furthermore they noticed the injuries done on my wrist because of the handcuffs being so tight and offered for me to see a nurse, which I refused. They were just scratches and I did not need a nurse, principally since I did not keep the damn things on for long anyway, as I had removed them as soon as they put them on me.

During my time in custody, two nice officers started expressing their disgust with his colleague for arresting me, and started dishing out some real dirt about the police force. They were outraged that they had to bow to political correctness in several things, including not able to chase after a criminal (They said this when I mentioned that most of the officers I saw inside were obese) and they also mentioned that they are not allowed to stop a druggie from injecting himself with drugs, even in front of them. (The druggies from Antifa, UAF and others might be very excited to hear that.)

Among the few things they told me in confidence, they also mentioned that some of their colleagues were indeed scared of Muslim violence and rather take me away than face their wrath. And to make things worse, they were understaffed and facing huge cuts in the force.

So there you have it straight from the horse’s mouth. These officers just confirmed everything I suspected. It felt good to know that there are still some good guys with a conscience inside, and very sad to know that apart from some, the rest of the force is corrupted by political correctness and forced to bow down to Islamonazis due to fear of their aggressiveness, although it seems the cowards are found more often at the top of the chain.

I have to say, I enjoyed calling the Neturei Karta kapos as “traitors” and telling them in Hebrew: “Atem lo yehudim” (You are not Jewish). I don’t think they could understand Hebrew though. Either that or they were on heavy anti-depressant or other kinds of drugs, which is the norm among their community.

However the good news is that the tide is turning and that he made me aware that there are many disagreements in the force now. The people are waking up and officers are also turning against the political correct government. They are also afraid of Islamization and many of them are standing up against their peers on this matter. So expect some very welcome changes soon.”

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Kuala Lampur War Crimes Tribunal: George W. Bush and Co. Guilty of ‘War Crimes’

Posted on 14 May 2012 by Emperor

George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and their legal advisers have been convicted of war crimes by a tribunal in Malaysia. (h/t: Al)

(via. Information Clearing House):

In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were today (Friday) found guilty of war crimes.

Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.

The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They included testimony from British man Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee and Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was tortured in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

Full transcripts of the charges, witness statements and other relevant material will now be sent to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission is also asking that the names of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Yoo, Bybee, Addington and Haynes be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals for public record.

This verdict does not currently have any sort of enforcement power behind it but the hope is that it will be taken up by the International Court,

War crimes expert and lawyer Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law in America, was part of the prosecution team.

After the case he said: “This is the first conviction of these people anywhere in the world.”

While the hearing is regarded by some as being purely symbolic, human rights activist Boyle said he was hopeful that Bush and Co could soon find themselves facing similar trials elsewhere in the world.

“We tried three times to get Bush in Canada but were thwarted by the Canadian Government, then we scared Bush out of going to Switzerland. The Spanish attempt failed because of the government there and the same happened in Germany.”

Boyle then referenced the Nuremberg Charter which was used as the format for the tribunal when asked about the credibility of the initiative in Malaysia. He quoted: “Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit war crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any person in execution of such a plan.”

The US is subject to customary international law and to the Principles of the Nuremberg Charter said Boyle who also believes the week-long trial was “almost certainly” being monitored closely by both Pentagon and White House officials.

Professor Gurdial Singh Nijar, who headed the prosecution said: “The tribunal was very careful to adhere scrupulously to the regulations drawn up by the Nuremberg courts and the International Criminal Courts”.

He added that he was optimistic the tribunal would be followed up elsewhere in the world where “countries have a duty to try war criminals” and he cited the case of the former Chilean dictator Augustine Pinochet who was arrested in Britain to be extradited to Spain on charges of war crimes.

“Pinochet was only eight years out of his presidency when that happened.”

The Pinochet case was the first time that several European judges applied the principle of universal jurisdiction, declaring themselves competent to judge crimes committed by former heads of state, despite local amnesty laws.

Throughout the week the tribunal was packed with legal experts and law students as witnesses gave testimony and then cross examination by the defence led by lawyer Jason Kay Kit Leon.

The court heard how
· Abbas Abid, a 48-year-old engineer from Fallujah in Iraq had his fingernails removed by pliers.
· Ali Shalal was attached with bare electrical wires and electrocuted and hung from a wall.
· Moazzam Begg was beaten, hooded and put in solitary confinement.
· Jameelah was stripped and humiliated, and was used as a human shield whilst being transported by helicopter.

The witnesses also detailed how they have residual injuries till today.

Moazzam Begg, now working as a director for the London-based human rights group Cageprisoners said he was delighted with the verdict, but added: “When people talk about Nuremberg you have to remember those tried were all prosecuted after the war.

“Right now Guantanamo is still open, people are still being held there and are still being tortured there.”

In response to questions about the difference between the Bush and Obama Administrations, he added: “If President Bush was the President of extra-judicial torture then US President Barak Obama is the President of extra judicial killing through drone strikes. Our work has only just begun.”

The prosecution case rested on proving how the decision-makers at the highest level President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld, aided and abetted by the lawyers and the other commanders and CIA officials – all acted in concert. Torture was systematically applied and became an accepted norm.

According to the prosecution, the testimony of all the witnesses exposed a sustained perpetration of brutal, barbaric, cruel and dehumanising course of conduct against them.
These acts of crimes were applied cumulatively to inflict the worst possible pain and suffering, said lawyers.

The president of the tribunal Tan Sri Dato Lamin bin Haji Mohd Yunus Lamin, found that the prosecution had established beyond a “reasonable doubt that the accused persons, former President George Bush and his co-conspirators engaged in a web of instructions, memos, directives, legal advice and action that established a common plan and purpose, joint enterprise and/or conspiracy to commit the crimes of Torture and War Crimes, including and not limited to a common plan and purpose to commit the following crimes in relation to the “War on Terror” and the wars launched by the U.S. and others in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

President Lamin told a packed courtroom: “As a tribunal of conscience, the Tribunal is fully aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in nature. The tribunal has no power of enforcement, no power to impose any custodial sentence on any one or more of the 8 convicted persons. What we can do, under Article 31 of Chapter VI of Part 2 of the Charter is to recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission to submit this finding of conviction by the Tribunal, together with a record of these proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.

“The Tribunal also recommends to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission that the names of all the 8 convicted persons be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and be publicised accordingly.

“The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon nations to institute prosecutions if any of these Accused persons may enter their jurisdictions”.

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The United States of America Defence League: “The Crusade Begins”

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The United States of America Defence League: “The Crusade Begins”

Posted on 14 May 2012 by Garibaldi

usadl-edl

United States of America Defence League

Shouldn’t the United States of America Defence League (USADL for short) spell “defence” with an “s” as in “defense”? Just saying, it doesn’t seem very, as George W. Bush would say, ‘Merican to spell it with a “c.”

bill-turner-usadl

Bill Turner

If you thought Captain America was leading this “defence league,” you’d be wrong, it’s a chap by the name of Bill Turner, who used to moonlight in the anti-Islam Twitterverse as “Jihadihunter.” Turner is the “national director” of this offshoot of the UK-based EDL. Turner titled his first press release introducing the organization, “The Crusade Begins.”

Phew, and here I was thinking it was going to be some sort of bigoted, Anders-Breivik-esque, Christian-identity hate group! Glad that’s cleared up!

Bill Turner and the USADL, like all the other extremist anti-Muslim leaders and organizations in the so-called “counter-jihad” claim to be acting in defense of “human rights”:

[USADL is] a human rights organization that was founded in the defense of our nation and to stand in unison with the EDL and other such organizations, to halt the spread of Sharia law.

Defenders of the nation, fighters for freedom, where else have we heard such claims? Oh right, the KKK.

The USADL’s goal is essentially missionary. They seek to “inform” the public about the “true” nature of Islam, to provide a,

“more realistic and less sanitized view of Islam…”

While the USADL’s mission statement gives the necessary caveat, much like the EDL claims to that it is not against “Muslims” and warns against assuming that all Muslims are guilty of committing acts of terrorism (aren’t they merciful!?), it goes on to say that,

“the Islamic book of worship calls for all Muslims to participate in Jihad, in one form or another.”

The ADL (not to be confused with the USADL) notes that Turner is “well known” on right-wing websites already for his conspiratorial rantings about the government,

USADL’s National Director is Bill Turner, who is known for his anti-government and conspiratorial writings, which have been published on a number of right-wing websites and disseminated through his Twitter handle, “JihadiHunter.”

While anti-Muslim bias has been a primary theme in his writings as well, Turner’s role in launching the USADL suggests that he is gearing up to advance a more conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda.

USADL’s website indicates that membership is open to all who “recognize the threat that Sharia Law poses to free people everywhere.” Although it is still too early to confirm the size and viability of the new organization, it already claims to have approximately 60 members.

I expect the USADL’s membership will increase as the usual suspects join its cause.

Already the nut jobs at the hate site BareNakedIslam are celebrating with all caps in the title, you can feel their adulation, FINALLY! USA DEFENCE LEAGUE. You will recall that BareNakedIslam is the same site that called for the murder of Muslim worshippers at mosques, so they will fit in nicely as “Crusader” drones in the USADL.

The USADL is just one more group for the SPLC to document and add to their list of the ever-growing anti-Muslim hate organizations proliferating around the country.

Some of the organizations that we have exposed in the past are on the SPLC’s list. They include AFDI, SIOA, ACT! for America and Veterans Defenders of America, amongst others.

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Shifren with EDL leaders

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Nachum Shifren: Racist Rabbi Still Trying to Run For Senate Seat

Posted on 14 May 2012 by Emperor

Nachum Shifren is still trying to run for senate. He thinks “White Americans” like “him” are under assault by everyone else. In the past we exposed Shifren for being the racist and hate-monger he is in our article, Rabbi Nachum Shifren: Rides the Wave of Islamophobia and Rabbi Nachum Shifren: EDL is the Salvation of the West from the “Muslim Dogs”.

I am not even sure if Shifren is still a Jew, how can he say this and remain a Jew, perhaps he is a “self-hating” Jew?:

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

Clearly he didn’t mean to say that he is a “Christian,” maybe he forgot to add the “Judeo” part?

Also see Richard Silverstein’s take: California Tea Party “White Christian” Settler Rabbi for US Senate

California: EDL-supporting Senate candidate claims to defend ‘white Americans’ against threat of Islam

San Mateo, CA — In the US Senate primary in California on June 5th, where 23 candidates vie to challenge Senator Dianne Feinstein in November, conservative candidates were recorded on videoverbally attacking teachers, Muslims, and minority groups to excite their base at GOP and Tea Party venues.

The video was recorded at a “Get to Know Your Candidates” event hosted by the San Mateo GOP at the American Legion Hall here. Dr. David Levitt, the candidate who recorded the event, reports unmasked homophobia, Islamophobia, and racism in the Republicans’ speeches.

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

PRWeb, 14 May 2012

In October 2010 Nachum Shifren visited the UK to express his solidarity with the English Defence League, joining them for ademonstration in support of Israel and against “Islamic fascism” at which he was the main speaker. Fired up by Shifren’s Islamophobic rhetoric – he described Muslims as “dogs” who were trying to “take over our countries” – three EDL members attacked an Islamic literature stall and were later convicted of public order offences, with one of them receiving a seven-day prison sentence and a five-year CRASBO.

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Buffalo: 2 Women Sentenced for Hate Crime Attack on Muslim Woman

Posted on 12 May 2012 by Emperor

ENLARGE_01shereesabater

Sheree Sabater

The two women who beat a Muslim woman walking with her children in Niagara Falls have been sentenced:

2 women sentenced in hate crime

(BuffaloNews)

LOCKPORT — Two women from Niagara Falls were sentenced to weekend jail terms Friday for their hate crime assault on a Pakistani woman last summer.

Niagara County Judge Sara Sheldon Farkas ordered Sheree A. Sabater, 39, to four months of weekends in the County Jail and three years’ probation. Antoinette S. Ivey, 32, drew two months of weekends in jail and five years’ probation.

The 26-year-old Muslim victim, who was walking with her two children July 14 near the Tops Market on Portage Road in Niagara Falls, was wearing a head scarf at the time, police said.

“This woman and her two children were just minding their own business,” Farkas said. “These two drunk, high, out-of-control women, and I use that term loosely, pummeled her to the ground in front of her children.”

The victim said in a later Buffalo News interview that she heard one of the attackers say, “She’s Pakistani and I want to kill her.”

The nationality was just a lucky guess, Assistant District Attorney Cheryl L. Nichols said.

“I didn’t know who she was,” Ivey said in court.

Sabater said, “I feel foolish.”

Read the rest…

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More ‘Anti-Islam’ Courses at US Military, AlJazeera Reveals

Posted on 12 May 2012 by Emperor

AlJazeera uncovered another “anti-Islam” class in the US military. The class seems to have been lifted directly from the talking points of extremists such as Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer:

US Military Under Fire for ‘Anti-Islam Class’

(AlJazeera)

The United States military has called for a review of all its training classes after receiving criticism for a course taught to senior officers that allegedly encouraged war against Islam.

The controversial class presented slides that accused dozens of Islamic groups, many widely recognised as mainstream advocacy groups, of infiltrating the US media, education system, government and military.

One slide titled “The Muslim Brotherhood and Violence” showed a photo of an al-Qaeda beheading, erroneously conflating the two groups.

Through the slides and other presentations, the course created a picture of a US government co-opted by subversive Muslim elements.

Al Jazeera’s Josh Rushing reports from Washington.

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UK: Ian Brazier Arrested for “Ripping Veil” Off a Muslim Woman’s Face

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UK: Ian Brazier Arrested for “Ripping Veil” Off a Muslim Woman’s Face

Posted on 11 May 2012 by Emperor

What kind of man rips a veil off a woman’s face (via. Islamophobia-Watch):

Man arrested for attack on Muslim woman in Solihull

A Shirley man has been summoned to appear at Solihull Magistrates Court after he allegedly ripped a veil from a Muslim woman’s face in Touchwood.

Police reported that Ian Brazier, 26, had grabbed the victim, also 26, by her head and removed her face covering as she walked past the Disney store, on March 3. It’s alleged that he then threw the veil to the floor and left the shopping centre. A Solihull Police spokesman said the woman had not been physically harmed but was left severely shaken by the incident.

Officers tracked down Brazier following a CCTV image appeal. He will now appear at Solihull Magistrates on June 13.

Chief Inspector Kevin Doyle, from Solihull Police Station, said previously: “Reports of crimes like this are exceptionally rare both in Solihull and the wider West Midlands. We are treating this incident as a hate crime as we believe the woman was deliberately targeted because of her faith symbolised by her attire.”

Solihull News, 9 May 2012

Via ENGAGE

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Tom Trento Tries to Rally Shock Troops to Protest Local Muslim Conference

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Tom Trento Tries to Rally Shock Troops to Protest Local Muslim Conference

Posted on 11 May 2012 by Emperor

Florida loon Tom Trento is perhaps only out shined in his lunacy by Joe “Nuke the Mooslims” Kaufman. (h/t: JH):

Tom Trento Tries to Rally Shock Troops to Protest Local Muslim Conference

by Jacob Hausner (Islamophobia Today)

That Tom Trento is a hate-filled propagandist is common knowledge by now. He is as much a ‘human rights’ activist as David Duke or any racist who relies on lies, half-truths and innuendo to plead his case.

Trento has for quite some time been active in agitating anti-Islam and anti-Muslim efforts in Florida. In 2008, in the run up to the election of President Barack Obama, Trento was busy peddling the hate-filled anti-Muslim movie, “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War with the West.”

The website, Obsession for Hate, both catalogued and detailed the propagandistic efforts of the funders of “Obsession,” Aisha HaTorah and the Clarion Fund, to affect the outcome of the election. The not-so veiled strategy was to freely distribute 28 million DVD’s of Obsession in newspapers inside key electoral swing states, to fear-monger about the so-called pending Islamization of the USA. If anyone recalls the election of 2008, Barack Obama’s faith was a central talking point in which Republicans sought to take advantage, thinking they could sway voters by maligning the president as an evil, madrassa-indoctrinated, fifth-columnist “Muslim.”

“Obsession” failed, but that did not stop Trento.

It is 2012 now, and another election is around the corner, queue-in Trento and his fanatical band of doomsday, fear-mongering naysayers! Once again Islam and the Muslims are to be feared, and even more so, ironically because of the Arab Spring!

Trento produced the video below, calling on his compatriots to join him to protest an upcoming Islamic Society of North America conference in Florida:

Now, I would have been content to just post this article in response: ‘The United West’ Video: Is It From the Onion? No, This Lunacy is Real!, but on further consideration I don’t want to leave the Islamophobes with any excuses!

About the only thing that Trento got right in the above video is that, yes, Hasan Al-Banna did create the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928.

By now there is a plethora of well researched, academic and even lay literature on the “Muslim Brotherhood.” Just Google “Muslim Brotherhood” and you will come out with dozens of interesting titles.

One does not have to agree with or like the Muslim Brotherhood to, at the very least, concede that the Muslim Brotherhood never “joined” the Nazis in World War II. That is just a blatant lie!

So let’s look at the lies presented by Trento, one by one:

Trento Lie #1.) “Muslim Brotherhood joined the ‘Nazis’ during World War II.”

Truth: As Matthias Kuntzel noted in his book, “Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11″ (Telos Press, 2007),

‘it would be wrong to characterize the Muslim Brothers as ardent followers of the Nazis.’

Richard Wolin in an exchange with Jeffrey Herf (author of “Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World”) comments on this, saying,

Here there is simply no squaring the circle; too many aspects of Nazi ideology–its paganism, its Aryan racial doctrines, its conception of Germanic geopolitical supremacy–are incompatible with the key tenets of political Islam. As Küntzel rightly concludes, Hassan al-Banna was too devout a Muslim to latch on to someone as impious as Hitler as a political role model.

Trento Lie #2: “In 1981, that same Muslim Brotherhood assassinated Anwar Sadat.”

Truth: A quick read on Wikipedia could have easily disabused Trento of this embarrassing falsity. Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Khalid Islambouli and a group of renegade Egyptian military soldiers. Islambouli, in fact was not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood but instead of a group called the “Egyptian Islamic Jihad,”

After graduating from the Egyptian Military Academy with excellent grades, he was accepted as an officer in the Bombardment Forces of the Egyptian Army with the rank of Lieutenant. Sometime after this appointment, Islambouli joined the proscribed Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement.

Trento Lie #3: “In 2011, that same Muslim Brotherhood overthrew President Hosni Mubarak, for the express purpose, as the United West predicted, to establish the Islamic caliphate in Egypt.”

Truth: Trento seems to be living in the past when the internet and new media wasn’t readily available. As it turns out it wasn’t the “Muslim Brotherhood” that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, (who wasn’t really a “president” as Trento so reverently refers to him, but a “dictator”) they were actually late to the protest game, it was a mass popular movement of “Egyptians” that toppled Mubarak. To suggest otherwise is tantamount to spitting on the sacrifices of all those brave souls who were killed, injured and tortured by Mubarak-thugs. Most rational people realize this.

Trento Lie #4: “Obama…gave the Muslim Brotherhood 1.5 billion dollars”

Truth: Seriously? Do we have to even answer this one? In fact, the money was not given to the Muslim Brotherhood, but to Egypt, just as it has been for over thirty years ever since the Camp David accords, when President Jimmy Carter reached a peace deal between Egypt and Israel.

Trento Lie #5: “Now, in May, the Muslim Brotherhood is coming to Tampa Bay, Florida for the express purpose of continuing the ‘cultural jihad’ to turn the United States eventually into an Islamic State.”

Truth: Trento is referring to the Islamic Society of North America’s (ISNA) “East Zone Conference.” ISNA happens to be one of the oldest and largest Muslim organizations in the United States, and perusing their website, ISNA.net, and looking at the program and topics of the conference, there was surprisingly NOT one lecture, seminar or group activity relating to “cultural jihad to turn the United States eventually into an Islamic State.”

If we were to find anything relatively close to what Trento is talking about I am sure it would have been on ISNA’s own website, right!? Alas, it does not exist, and much like Trento’s ludicrous video, this too is an outlandish, kooky lie, ginned up to try and rally anti-Islam bigots and shock troops to counter a peaceful Muslim conference.

Hopefully, Trento’s “protest” won’t devolve into the type of hate-filled “protests” we have come to know and expect from him and his friends:

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UC San Diego Students Need to Protest the “Stand With Us” Destroying Human Rights Conference

Posted on 10 May 2012 by Emperor

tritons-4-israel

An update to this story. It is confirmed that certain anti-Muslim hate-mongers will be involved. Muslims and their partners on campus need to protest this, as Richard mentions a good part of the $20K or so being spent to secure these speakers,

…comes from student fees, meaning that all students, including those who are Muslim, are supporting this hate fest.

STANDWITHUS: DESTROYING HUMAN RIGHTS AT UC SAN DIEGO

by Richard Silverstein (Tikkun Olam)

Thanks to Audrey Jacobs of StandWithUs, I’ve managed to confirm that the far-right Israel advocacy group is indeed sponsoring Rescuing Human Rights, and that the program will feature four controversial figures in the national anti-jihadi movement. This event is part of Israel Awareness Week on campus. This in turn is directly connected to Israel Apartheid Week held at the same time. One of SWU’s key missions is to take the pro-Israel message directly to those it considers enemies on campus. Getting in the face of campus Muslim or Palestinian groups is SWU’s stock-in-trade.

SWU has done us the favor of uploading three of the speaker agreements between Tritons for Israel and SWU indicating they’re paying Zuhdi Jasser $4,250 plus hotel and travel, and Brooke Goldstein $3,500 plus expenses. The Wall Street Journal’s Brett Stephens is being paid $8,500 plus expenses.  Avi Bell, who teaches law at the Catholic institution, the University of San Diego may be speaking gratis.  That’s well north of  $20,000 if you include speaker expenses and rental of Price Theater, where the event will be held.  A good part of this comes from student fees, meaning that all students, including those who are Muslim, are supporting this hate fest.

The SWU promotional material notes the “inspiration” for the title and substance of the event supposedly comes from a Wall Street Journal column Stephens wrote, The Decline of Human Rights.  One of the key “bright ideas” in the piece is that there are “too many” human rights.  By allowing every Tom, Dick and Harry to claim their rights have been abused, we’ve cheapened the principle.  It’s something akin to the argument that there are too many sex discrimination or rape claims made in courts because every woman has come to see them as her meal ticket.  Yup, pretty damn offensive.

After reviewing the piece, it seems to me that Stephens filched some of his ideas from, and that the title for the UCSD event comes from the Henry Jackson Society essay, Rescuing Human Rights, which I referred to inyesterday night’s post.

In order to bolster Zuhdi Jasser’s Muslim bona-fides, SWU calls him a “devout” Muslim.  In fact, Jasser’s own promotional material make this claim.  I wouldn’t trust his claims as far as I could throw ‘em unless they were independently verified.

SWU and like-minded anti-jihadi pro-Israel groups are quick to point out the supposed international Muslim conspiracy to topple western civilization and replace it with a caliphate or Sharia law (depending on which anti-Muslim extremist you talk to). What few people are noticing is that there is a similar coordinated international pro-Israel campaign financed and directed in large part by the Israeli government. Though the pro-Israel cabal at times maintains its own initiative, funding and agenda.

This is far more than lobbying. It’s much more akin to the surreptitious surveillance and flacking for war against Iran which I described in my posting about the work on which Shamai Leibowitz and I collaborated. In the current case, we can call this an all-out campaign to legitimize Israel and in the process delegitimize anything or one that stands in the way.

The May 15th conference is a perfect example. Human rights are a terrific thorn in the side of Israel. If SWU and HJS can redefine and defang the contemporary concept of human rights then Israel will once more be able to stand tall in the international community. In fact, this program doesn’t “rescue human rights.” It destroys human rights as a robust principle for reining in the worst excesses of authoritarian regimes. If conferences like this “rescue” anything it’s state-sponsored torture (see last night’s post) and murder (seemy critique of John Brennan’s apologia for targeted killing and dronicide).

The premise of the pro-Israel anti-jihadis is that western civilization is at war with Islam (they claim only “radical Islam,” but make little or no distinction between the two). In such a war, there must be a no-holds barred approach to terror, since the Islamists know the weaknesses in our system and exploit it to their advantage. That’s why we need to emulate Israel and kill and torture more bad guys. There’s only one way to stop them. By being tougher and meaner than they are. That’s why human rights as currently defined are not only expendable, but inimical to the SWU anti-jihadi world view.  So bring on torture, bring on targeted killings as long as they get the bad guys–except when they miss and get a few of the innocents.  But can any Muslim truly be innocent?

Returning to pro-Israel flackery, some of my pro-Israel readers are fond of pointing out that lobbying is as American as apple pie. Indeed it is. But Israel’s activities and that of its “Amen choir” is more than lobbying. It’s no holds barred pull out all the stops advocacy. It skirts the bounds of propriety and even legality at times. It’s opaque, often mendacious, always slick and slimy.

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U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam

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U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam

Posted on 10 May 2012 by Ilisha

Dooley

A slide from Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley's training materials

It’s one thing when loony bloggers and their fans suggest we “NUKE MECCA,” and quite another when similar suggestions are featured in training materials once used by the US military. (h/t: Just Stopping By)

U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam

By Noah Shachtman and Spencer Ackerman, Wired

The U.S. military taught its future leaders that a “total war” against the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims would be necessary to protect America from Islamic[sic] terrorists, according to documents obtained by Danger Room. Among the options considered for that conflict: using the lessons of “Hiroshima” to wipe out whole cities at once, targeting the “civilian population wherever necessary.”

The course, first reported by Danger Room last month and held at the Defense Department’s Joint Forces Staff College, has since been canceled by the Pentagon brass. It’s only now, however, that the details of the class have come to light. Danger Room received hundreds of pages of course material and reference documents from a source familiar with the contents of the class.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently ordered the entire U.S. military to scour its training material to make sure it doesn’t contain similarly hateful material, a process that is still ongoing. But the officer who delivered the lectures, Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley, still maintains his position at the Norfolk, Virginia college, pending an investigation. The commanders, lieutenant colonels, captains and colonels who sat in Dooley’s classroom, listening to the inflammatory material week after week, have now moved into higher-level assignments throughout the U.S. military.

For the better part of the last decade, a small cabal of self-anointed counterterrorism experts has been working its way through the U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement communities, trying to convince whoever it could that America’s real terrorist enemy wasn’t al-Qaida — but the Islamic faith itself. In his course, Dooley brought in these anti-Muslim demagogues as guest lecturers. And he took their argument to its final, ugly conclusion.

“We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam,’” Dooley noted in a July 2011 presentation (.pdf), which concluded with a suggested manifesto to America’s enemies. “It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction.”

Dooley could not be reached for comment. Joint Forces Staff College spokesman Steven Williams declined to discuss Dooley’s presentation or his status at the school. But when asked if Dooley was responsible for the course material, he responded, “I don’t know if I would classify him [Dooley] as responsible. That would be the commandant” of the school, Maj. Gen. Joseph Ward.

That makes the two-star general culpable for rather shocking material. In the same presentation, Dooley lays out a possible four-phase war plan to carry out a forced transformation of the Islam religion. Phase three includes possible outcomes like “Islam reduced to a cult status” and “Saudi Arabia threatened with starvation.” (It’s an especially ironic suggestion, in light of today’s news that Saudi intelligence broke up the most recent al-Qaida bombing plot.)

International laws protecting civilians in wartime are “no longer relevant,” Dooley continues. And that opens the possibility of applying “the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki” to Islam’s holiest cities, and bringing about “Mecca and Medina['s] destruction.”

Dooley’s ideological allies have repeatedly stated that “mainstream” Muslims are dangerous, because they’re “violent” by nature. Yet only a few of al-Qaida’s most twisted fanatics were ever caught musing about wiping out entire cities.

“Some of these actions offered for consideration here will not be seen as ‘political correct’ in the eyes of many,” Dooley adds. “Ultimately, we can do very little in the West to decide this matter, short of waging total war.”

Dooley, who has worked at the Joint Forces Staff College since August 2010, began his eight-week class with a straightforward, two-part history of Islam. It was delivered by David Fatua, a former West Point history professor. “Unfortunately, if we left it at that, you wouldn’t have the proper balance of points of view, nor would you have an accurate view of how Islam defines itself,” Dooley told his students. Over the next few weeks, he invited in a trio of guest lecturers famous for their incendiary views of Islam.

Shireen Burki declared during the 2008 election that “Obama is bin Laden’s dream candidate.” In her Joint Forces Staff College lecture, she told students that “Islam is an Imperialist/Conquering Religion.” (.pdf)

Stephen Coughlin claimed in his 2007 master’s thesis that then-president George W. Bush’s declaration of friendship with the vast majority of the world’s Muslims had “a chilling effect on those tasked to define the enemy’s doctrine.” (.pdf)  Coughlin was subsequently let go from his consulting position to the military’s Joint Staff, but he continued to lecture at the Naval War College and at the FBI’s Washington Field Office. In his talk to Dooley’s class (.pdf), Coughlin suggested that al-Qaida helped drive the overthrow of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak and Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. It was part of a scheme by Islamists to conquer the world, he added. And Coughlin mocked those who didn’t see this plot as clearly as he did, accusing them of “complexification.”

Coughlin titled his talk: “Imposing Islamic Law – or – These Aren’t the Droids Your Looking For!”

Former FBI employee John Guandolo told the conspiratorial World Net Daily website last year that Obama was only the latest president to fall under the influence of Islamic extremists. “The level of penetration in the last three administrations is deep,” Guandolo alleged. In his reference material for the Joint Forces Staff College class, Guandolo not only spoke of today’s Muslims as enemies of the West. He even justified the Crusades, writing that they “were initiated after hundreds of years of Muslim incursion into Western lands.”

Guandolo’s paper, titled “Usual Responses from the Enemy When Presented With the Truth” (.pdf), was one of hundreds of presentations, documents, videos and web links electronically distributed to the Joint Forces Staff College students. Included in that trove: a paper alleging that “it is a permanent command in Islam for Muslims to hate and despise Jews and Christians” (.pdf). So was a video lecture from Serge Trifkovic, a former professor who appeared as a defense witness in several trials of Bosnian Serb leaders convicted of war crimes, including the genocide of Muslims. A web link, titled “Watch Before This Is Pulled,” supposedly shows President Obama — the commander-in-chief of the senior officers attending the course — admitting that he’s a Muslim.

Dooley added the caveats that his views are “not the Official Policy of the United States Government” and are intended “to generate dynamic discussion and thought.” But he taught his fellow military officers that Obama’s alleged admission could well make the commander in chief some sort of traitor. “By conservative estimates,” 10 percent of the world’s Muslims, “a staggering 140 million people … hate everything you stand for and will never coexist with you, unless you submit” to Islam. He added, “Your oath as a professional soldier forces you to pick a side here.” It is unclear if Dooley’s “total war” on Muslims also applied to his “Muslim” commander in chief.

After the Pentagon brass learned of Dooley’s presentation, the country’s top military officer, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, issued an order to every military chief and senior commander to get rid of any similar anti-Islam instructional material. Dempsey issued the order because the White House had already instructed the entire security apparatus of the federal government — military and civilian — to revamp its counterterrorism training after learning of FBI material that demonized Islam.

By then, Dooley had already presented his apocalyptic vision for a global religious war. Flynn has ordered a senior officer, Army Maj. Gen. Frederick Rudesheim, to investigate how precisely Dooley managed to get away with that extended presentation in an official Defense Department-sanctioned course. The results of that review are due May 24.

Ironically, Dooley and his guest lecturers paint a dire picture of the forward march of Islamic extremism right as its foremost practitioner feared its implosion. Documents recently declassified by the U.S. government revealed Osama bin Laden fretting about al-Qaida’s brutal methods and damaged brand alienating the vast majority of Muslims from choosing to wage holy war. Little could he have known that U.S. military officers were thinking of ways to ignite one.

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Gun Parts, Ammo Found Hidden Inside Stuffed Animals at Rhode Island Airport, Suspects are Free to Go

Posted on 10 May 2012 by Emperor

TSA via AP

This photo provided by the Transportation Security Administration shows pistol parts hidden in a stuffed animal found at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, R.I.

Can you imagine if a Muslim or “Muslim looking” person had stuffed animals with gun parts and ammo? You can bet he would be on a one way ticket to Guantanomo! (via. What If They Were Muslim?)

By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services
(msnbc.com)

WARWICK, R.I. — Gun components and ammunition were found hidden inside three stuffed animals carried by a passenger at Rhode Island’s T.F. Green Airport on Tuesday, federal transportation officials said.

Authorities later allowed the 4-year-old boy and his father to continue their travel to Detroit after concluding the man didn’t pose a risk, authorities said. He told police that he didn’t know the parts were inside the stuffed toys — which included a Mickey Mouse and a teddy bear.

“It appears to be the result of a domestic dispute,” Rhode Island Airport Police Chief Leo Messier said. “It was jointly investigated by the RI Airport Police, FBI and the RI State Police and it was determined that there was no threat at any time to air safety.”

NBC News station WHDH reported that a magazine loaded with two .40-caliber rounds was discovered inside a bunny and a firing pin was inside Mickey Mouse.

‘Artfully concealed’
Officials with airport police and the Transportation Security Administration declined to comment further, saying the incident remained under investigation.

A TSA officer noticed the disassembled gun components “artfully concealed” inside three stuffed animals. The stuffed animals were inside the child’s carry-on bag, which had been put through an X-ray machine as part of normal security screening.

The parts could have been assembled to make a full firearm, authorities said.

The items were confiscated. Police have not released the man’s name.

Passengers at T.F. Green told WHDH they were thankful the system worked.

“I know a lot of people don’t like the screening procedure, but I’m thankful that they really screen people and we feel much safer because of it,” one woman told the station.

NBC News station WHDH and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson: “Wherever Women are Taking Over, Evil Reigns”

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Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson: “Wherever Women are Taking Over, Evil Reigns”

Posted on 09 May 2012 by Emperor

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Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson

by Emperor

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson is a regular guest on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program and is usually brought in to be the token Black man who comes on to legitimate and provide cover for Hannity’s “criticism” (i.e. thinly-veiled racism) of the Black community. Hannity also happens to sit on the board of Rev. Peterson’s organization, BOND. (h/t: Ali)

Rev. Peterson is quite the kook, and of course every religion has ‘em, but here he is bemoaning the progress women have made in the US, saying all of the social ills we have today are due to women:

So I guess Conservatives don’t just believe in the “Islamization” of society, but also the “womenization” of society?

As you can see he wants women to be stripped of the right to vote, taken out of positions of power and essentially returned to being obedient, child producing, housewives who obey and submit to men. He even ridicules his grandmother!

Can one imagine the reaction if an Imam had said something similar to what Rev. Peterson said? Wouldn’t Islam once again be cast as the uniquely and inherently “misogynistic” faith that is irreconcilable with modernity?

Will we hear similar attributions of misogyny and anti-women positions to Christianity now?

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, along with Robert Spencer also happen to be on the list of the Young America’s Foundation‘s (YAF) “Conservative speakers.”

Spencer has appeared as a guest on Rev. Peterson’s radio show, directly after Peterson’s anti-women screed. There goes Spencer and Geller’s so-called concern for the ‘human rights’ of women! They have no problem schmoozing with clerics who want to role back the right of women to vote but will gladly try to smear Muslims as honor-killing-pro-pedophilia-misogynists:

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Sexist Sermon: ‘Greatest Mistake America Made Was Allowing Women To Vote’ [VIDEO]

by Jacob Kleinman (ibitimes)

Frequent Fox News guest Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson drew sharp criticism for arguing that women should not have the right to vote in a sermon that was posted on YouTube in March. The minister argued that women are destroying American society and wield too much political power.

Fox News host Sean Hannity has invited Peterson to speak on his show several times, even after the offensive sermon was posted online.

Even News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch, corporate master of Fox, disagreed with Peterson’s sexist rant according to theDaily Mail. He tweeted in response, “When? Women voting is best thing in a hundred years.”

“I think that one of the greatest mistakes America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote,” Peterson said in the sermon.

Peterson even went so far as to associate woman in politics with evil.

“We should’ve never turned this over to women,” he said. “It was a big mistake. … And these women are voting in the wrong people. They’re voting in people who are evil who agrees (sic) with them who’re going to take us down this pathway of destruction.”

“And this probably was the reason that they didn’t allow women to vote when men were men,” he continued. “Because men, in the good old days, understood the nature of the woman. They were not afraid to deal with it and they understood that if they let them take over, this is what would happen.”

This is not Peterson’s first controversial and offensive statement. He previously said “thank God for slavery” because it brought African people to the United States.

Peterson has also stated, “Barack Obama hates white people, especially white men.” He argued that men should be legally permitted to hit their wives and expressed a desire to take “all black people back to the South and put them on the plantation so they would understand the ethic of working.”

During his most recent offensive statement, the sermon titled “How most women are building a shameless society,” he said women are incapable of making good decisions because they get too emotional.

“You walk up to them with an issue, they freak out right away,” he said. “They go nuts. They get mad. They get upset, just like that. They have no patience because it’s not in their nature. They don’t have love.”

Peterson appeared on Fox News last week after being invited again by Sean Hannity, and was confronted by Democratic commentator Kirsten Power, who called the sermon “misogynistic.”

“I have a responsibility to tell the truth,” replied Peterson. “You’re on the side of lies. Why shouldn’t I be on the side of truth? And it’s the truth that’s going to make us free. Somebody gotta tell the truth, so I’m going to tell the truth.”

Peterson is the president and founder of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, a group pushing a conservative agenda among African Americans where Hannity sits on the board, and its allied BOND Action Inc. In the past he has hosted a radio talk show and a cable TV program. He is well known for fighting against affirmative action and is a member of Choose Black American, a black group fighting illegal immigration.

Originally posted on What if they were Muslim?

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Salon.com: US attack kills 5 Afghan kids

Posted on 09 May 2012 by Amago

We didn’t hear much about this in the news media. Not only that we don’t even know the names of these children because their lives aren’t as valuable as “Western lives.” Let the “Greater Islamophobia” march on: (h/t: Saladin)

US attack kills 5 Afghan kids

The way in which the U.S. media ignores such events speaks volumes about how we perceive them

BY , Salon.com

(updated below – Update II)

Yesterday, I noted several reports from Afghanistan that as many as 20 civilians were killed by two NATO airstrikes, including a mother and her five children. Today, the U.S. confirmed at least some of those claims, acknowledging and apologizing for its responsibility for the death of that family:

The American military claimed responsibility and expressed regret for an airstrike that mistakenly killed six members of a family in southwestern Afghanistan, Afghan and American military officials confirmed Monday.

The attack, which took place Friday night, was first revealed by the governor of Helmand Province, Muhammad Gulab Mangal, on Monday. His spokesman, Dawoud Ahmadi, said that after an investigation they had determined that a family home in the Sangin district had been attacked by mistake in the American airstrike, which was called in to respond to a Taliban attack. . . . The victims were the family’s mother and five of her children, three girls and two boys, according to Afghan officials.

This happens over and over and over again, and there are several points worth making here beyond the obvious horror:

(1) To the extent these type of incidents are discussed at all — and in American establishment media venues, they are most typically ignored — there are certain unbending rules that must be observed in order to retain Seriousness credentials. No matter how many times the U.S. kills innocent people in the world, it never reflects on our national character or that of our leaders. Indeed, none of these incidents convey any meaning at all. They are mere accidents, quasi-acts of nature which contain no moral information (in fact, the NYT article on these civilian deaths, out of nowhere, weirdly mentioned that “in northern Afghanistan, 23 members of a wedding celebration drowned in severe flash flooding” — as though that’s comparable to the U.S.’s dropping bombs on innocent people). We’ve all been trained, like good little soldiers, that the phrase “collateral damage” cleanses and justifies this and washes it all way: yes, it’s quite terrible, but innocent people die in wars; that’s just how it is. It’s all grounded in America’s central religious belief that the country has the right to commit violence anywhere in the world, at any time, for any cause.

At some point — and more than a decade would certainly qualify — the act of continuously killing innocent people, countless children, in the Muslim world most certainly does reflect upon, and even alters, the moral character of a country, especially its leaders. You can’t just spend year after year piling up the corpses of children and credibly insist that it has no bearing on who you are. That’s particularly true when, as is the case in Afghanistan, the cause of the war is so vague as to be virtually unknowable. It’s woefully inadequate to reflexively dismiss every one of these incidents as the regrettable but meaningless by-product of our national prerogative. But to maintain mainstream credibility, that is exactly how one must speak of our national actions even in these most egregious cases. To suggest any moral culpability, or to argue that continuously killing children in a country we’re occupying is morally indefensible, is a self-marginalizing act, whereby one reveals oneself to be a shrill and unSerious critic, probably even a pacifist. Serious commentators, by definition, recognize and accept that this is merely the inevitable outcome of America’s supreme imperial right, note (at most) some passing regret, and then move on.

(2) Yesterday — a week after it leaked that it was escalating its drone strikes in Yemen — the Obama administration claimed that the CIA last month disrupted a scary plot originating in Yemen to explode an American civilian jet “using a more sophisticated version of the underwear bomb deployed unsuccessfully in 2009.” American media outlets — especially its cable news networks — erupted with their predictable mix of obsessive hysteria, excitement and moral outrage. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer last night devoted the bulk of his show to this plot, parading the standard cast of characters — former Bush Homeland Security adviser (and terrorist advocate) Fran Townsend and its “national security analyst” Peter Bergen — to put on their Serious and Concerned faces, recite from the U.S. Government script, and analyze all the profound implications. CNN even hauled out Rep. Peter King to warn that this shows a “new level” of Terror threats from Yemen. CNN’s fixation on this plot continued into this morning.

Needless to say, the fact that the U.S. has spent years and years killing innocent adults and children in that part of the world — including repeatedly in Yemen — was never once mentioned, even though it obviously is a major factor for why at least some people in that country support these kinds of plots. Those facts are not permitted to be heard. Discussions of causation — why would someone want to attack a U.S. airliner? – is an absolute taboo, beyond noting that the people responsible are primitive and hateful religious fanatics. Instead, it is a simple morality play reinforced over and over: Americans are innocently minding their own business — trying to enjoy our Freedoms — and are being disgustingly targeted with horrific violence by these heinous Muslim Terrorists whom we must crush (naturally, the solution to the problem that there is significant anti-American animosity in Yemen is to drop even more bombs on them, which will certainly fix this problem).

Indeed, on the very same day that CNN and the other cable news networks devoted so much coverage to a failed, un-serious attempt to bring violence to the U.S. — one that never moved beyond the early planning stages and “never posed a threat to public safety” — it was revealed that the U.S. just killed multiple civilians, including a family of 5 children, in Afghanistan. But that got no mention. That event simply does not exist in the world of CNN and its viewers (I’d be shocked if it has been mentioned on MSNBC or Fox either). Nascent, failed non-threats directed at the U.S. merit all-hands-on-deck, five-alarm media coverage, but the actual extinguishing of the lives of children by the U.S. is steadfastly ignored (even though the latter is so causally related to the former).

This is the message sent over and over by the U.S. media: we are the victims of heinous, frightening violence; our government must do more, must bomb more, must surveil more, to Keep Us Safe; we do nothing similar to this kind of violence because we are Good and Civilized. This is how our Objective, Viewpoint-Free journalistic outlets continuously propagandize: by fixating on the violence done by others while justifying — or, more often, ignoring — the more far-reaching and substantial violence perpetrated by the U.S.

(3) If one of the relatives of the children just killed in Afghanistan decided to attack the U.S. — or if one of the people involved in this Yemen-originating plot were a relative of one of the dozens of civilians killed by Obama’s 2009 cluster bomb strike — what would they be called by the U.S. media? Terrorists. Primitive, irrational, religious fanatics beyond human decency.

* * * * *

This point cannot be emphasized enough.

UPDATEFrom the comments:

I was just sitting here thinking “I love reading GG, but I think he is being quite harsh here, it was only 5 kids that died, and that happens in war – its hardly as if it was some really major tragedy”.

And this is despite the fact that I would describe myself as a staunch anti-Imperialist who shuns the MSM – yet still I seem to be getting conditioned that the killing of these 5 kids is “normal”. Scary. Very scary.

We’re all subject to that conditioning, which is why it’s so necessary to pause every now and then to realize what a “really major tragedy” it actually is: one that could be easily avoided with different choices.

UPDATE II: It is now confirmed that the would-be bomber of the civilian jet was, in fact, a double agent working for the CIA and Saudi intelligence. So just as virtually every “domestic Terror plot” is one conceived, directed, funded and controlled by the FBI, this new Al Qaeda plot from Yemen was directed by some combination of the CIA and its Saudi partners. So this wasn’t merely a failed, nascent plot which is causing this fear-mongering media orgy: it was one controlled at all times by the U.S. and Saudi Governments.

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Jewish Settlers Torch 250 Olive Trees in Nablus

Posted on 09 May 2012 by Emperor

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Uprooted trees

This is a recurring thing, in which extremist settlers, who believe that God gave them the land attempt to intimidate and terrorize Palestinian landowners in the hope that they will leave and then the settlers can annex the land. (h/t: Musa)

NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers on Wednesday set fire to hundreds of trees in Nablus in the northern West Bank, a Fatah official said.

Ghassan Doughlas said residents of Tappuah settlement chopped down and torched around 250 olive trees in Jammain village. The settlement is built on land belonging to the village.

Settlers also chopped down 17 trees in nearby village Burin and forced shepherds off their pastures in Aqraba and Yanun, also in Nablus, Doughlas said.

I’am not sure if the following is a report of the same incident, but it was reported a week ago, and reports that the settlers came from Etamar rather than Tappuah (via. Occupied-Palestine):

NABLUS, (PIC)– Jewish settlers uprooted 200 olive trees near Aqraba village, Nablus, on Wednesday morning, local sources said.

Hamza Deiriya, a member of the committee for the defense of Aqraba land, said that the settlers came from Etamar settlement and chopped off the trees planted in an area of six dunums.

He noted that the settlers were attacking this same area for the sixth time, recalling that olive trees and water wells in it were destroyed at their hands.

He charged that the Jewish settlers want to terrorize the Palestinian landowners and to annex their land.

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Amiens: Two elderly Muslims Attacked by Far Right Thugs on way to Mosque

Posted on 07 May 2012 by Amago

Amiens: two elderly Muslims attacked by far right thugs on way to mosque

By France-Soir News / Service Miscellaneous Facts (with AFP)

En route to the mosque, the two old men were beaten by two men claiming the extreme right.

Two elderly people belonging to the Muslim community have been assaulted in the night from Friday to Saturday at Amiens. The two attackers claimed to be the extreme right, it was learned Sunday from the Regional Council of the Muslim faith of Picardy and the Somme prefecture.

The two victims, two men of 70 and 71, were attacked about five o’clock in the morning when they went to the mosque of Amiens-Nord to the prayer of Fajr, which must take place at dawn. After being manhandled by two men “  with very short hair and claiming to be the extreme right  , “the two men were beaten.

Two complaints

Their lives are not endangered, but they were admitted to the hospital of Amiens including injuries to legs and ribs, according to the CRCM-Picardie.Their attackers, meanwhile, had fled.

Two complaints were filed Saturday afternoon at the police station of Amiens and an investigation was opened by the prosecutor of Amiens, the prefecture has confirmed, adding that the area where the assault took place was not equipped surveillance cameras.

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For Local (Davis)

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Kamal Saleem Uncovers Plot to Use Roe v. Wade to Bring in Sharia Law

Posted on 07 May 2012 by Amago

Add one more to the loony anti-Muslim conspiracy bucket:

Kamal Saleem Uncovers Plot to Use Roe v. Wade to Bring in Sharia Law

by Brian Tashman, Right Wing Watch

At last week’s Awakening 2012 conference, phony “ex-terrorist” Kamal Saleem not only detailed a treacherous scheme by President Obama to use immigration reform to legalize terrorism, but also uncovered a liberal plot to use the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade to “bring Sharia law liberally in our face.” Responding to co-panelist Frank Gaffney’s specious allegation that there have been anywhere between fifty to seventy instances where American judges used Sharia law to decide cases, Saleem blamed the Religious Right’s most hated ruling on the supposed proliferation of Sharia law in America.

Watch:

Here’s a picture, I’m going to draw it very simply. What they’re trying to integrate into our laws is Roe v. Wade, Roe v. Wade. When they put this Islamic clause, we tracked fifty and now I’m going like there’s seventy, wow, when they establish this what happened is, they will be able to bring Sharia law liberally in our face. That’s why he said fight against those—any court that allows it we need to demonstrate outside and say no Sharia law but our constitution.

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Glenn Greenwald: More Federal Judge Abdication

Posted on 07 May 2012 by Amago

More federal judge abdication

The branch designed to be insulated from political pressures has been the most craven of all in the post-9/11 era

BY , Salon.com

The abdication of U.S. federal judges in the post-9/11 era, and their craven subservience to Executive Branch security claims, has been a topic I’ve written about several times over the past couples of weeks. Yesterday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals adopted the argument of the Obama DOJ that John Yoo is — needless to say — fully immune from any and all liability for having authorized the torture of Jose Padilla, on the ground that the illegality of Yoo’s conduct was not “beyond debate” at the time he engaged in it. Everything Iwrote a couple of weeks ago about the identical shielding of Donald Rumsfeld by federal courts and the Obama DOJ from similar claims applies to yesterday’s ruling, and The New York Times has a good editorial today condemning this ruling as “misguided and dangerous.”

In sum, this yet again underscores that of all the American institutions that have so profoundly failed in the wake of 9/11 to protect the most basic liberties — Congress, both political parties, the establishment media, the Executive Branch, the DOJ specifically — none has been quite as disgraceful as the federal judiciary, whose life tenure is supposed to insulate them from base political pressures that produce cowardly and corrupted choices. And yet, just consider these two facts:

(1) not a single War on Terror victim — not one — has been permitted to sue for damages in an American court over what was done to them, even when everyone admits they were completely innocent, even when they were subjected to the most brutal torture, and even when the judiciary of other countries permitted their lawsuits to proceed; and,

(2) not a single government official — not one — has been held legally accountable, either criminally or even civilly, for any War on Terror crimes or abuses; perversely, the only government officials to pay any price were the ones who blew the whistle on those crimes.

That is how history will record the behavior of American federal judges in the face of the post-9/11 onslaught of anti-Muslim persecution and relentless erosions of core rights.

Even worse, if you’re a Muslim accused of any Terror-related crime, your conviction in a federal court is virtually guaranteed, as federal judges will bend the law and issue pro-government rulings that they would never make with a non-Muslim defendant; conversely, if you’re a government official who abused or otherwise violated the rights of Muslims, your full-scale immunity is virtually guaranteed. Those are the indisputable rules of American justice. So slavish and subservient are federal judges when it comes to Muslim defendants that if you’re a Muslim accused of any Terror-related crime, you’re probably more likely at this point to get something approximating a fair trial before a Guantanamo military tribunal than in a federal court; that is how supine federal judges have been when the U.S. Government utters the word “terrorism” in the direction of a Muslim or any claims of “national security” relating to 9/11.

Just to underscore the point a bit further: the Justice Department fileda report this week setting forth its 2011 eavesdropping activities under FISA. Here’s the summary (h/t EPIC):

# of DOJ requests to the FISA court to eavesdrop on and/or physically search Americans/legal residents: 1,745

# of FISA court denials:  0

The DOJ filed close to 1,800 requests for FISA court permission to eavesdrop on the electronic communications of Americans or legal residents or to physically search their property (the vast majority, more than 90%, were for eavesdropping), and the FISA court did not deny a single request, though they did “modify” 30. This is a perfect expression of how the federal judiciary, in general, behaves in the face of claims of National Security from the Executive Branch: as an impotent, eager rubber-stamping servant.

* * * * *

Just by the way: the 1978 FISA law that required court approval before the U.S. Government could eavesdrop on Americans has produced this sort of blindly accepting rubber-stamping from the FISA court since its inception. Nonetheless, it was this FISA process that the Bush administration claimed was too significant of an obstacle to its eavesdropping powers when it decided to violate the law by eavesdropping without asking for FISA court permission, and it’s the same claim which the Democratic-led Congress and then-Sen. Obama made in 2008 when they enacted a new FISA law that dramatically expanded the U.S. Government’s warrantless eavesdropping powers. A 100% victory rate in court is apparently too low for those who see presidential powers as monarchical, and our nation’s federal judges seem all the time to be eagerly attempting to increase that rate.

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‘The United West’ Video: Is it from The Onion?  No, This Lunacy is Real.

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‘The United West’ Video: Is it from The Onion? No, This Lunacy is Real.

Posted on 06 May 2012 by Danios

What do you get when you cross a ShamWow commercial with the Rainbow Six video game?  Answer: A video from the anti-Muslim, racist, supremacist hate group, The United West (h/t Khuram Zaman):

It’s hard to tell the difference between that and this classic video from The Onion:

To all the loons who buy into these crazy anti-Muslim conspiracy theories: you’re certifiably nuts.

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Declaring War on ‘Political Islamism’

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Declaring War on ‘Political Islamism’

Posted on 06 May 2012 by Ilisha

William Kristol

William Kristol

The neocons have been around for decades, first to mobilize support against Soviet-led communism, and then, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to wage a so-called “Global War on Terrorism.”

As the architects of the spectacularly disastrous Iraq War, the necons should have been thoroughly discredited and relegated to the political fringe. Yet it seems these foreign policy hawks have simply retooled their message, founded a new think tank, and are poised to wreak havoc once again.

By Robert Parry

Like George W. Bush, Mitt Romney has responded to his lack of foreign policy experience by surrounding himself with clever neoconservatives who are now looking forward to expanding Bush’s “global war on terror” into what neocon ideologue William Kristol calls a U.S. “war with political Islamism.”

In a Washington Post op-ed on Thursday, Kristol dismissed President Barack Obama’s phased military withdrawal from Afghanistan – and his statement that “this time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end” – as foolish wishful thinking.

“It would be wonderful if Obama’s view of 9/11 and its implications were correct,” Kristol wrote. “But if it’s not going to be true that Afghanistan is where ‘this time of war … will end’ — even if Afghanistan is pacified and we’re no longer fighting there — then the American people should know that.”

What the American people should know, in Kristol’s view, is that a post-Obama administration – presumably headed by Republican Mitt Romney and staffed by neocon hawks – will undertake a grander “war with political Islamism,” a conflict whose full dimensions even “war president” George W. Bush shrank from.

“This isn’t a pleasant reality, and even the Bush administration wasn’t quite ready to confront it,” Kristol wrote. “But President George W. Bush did capture the truth that we are engaged in — and had no choice but to engage in — a bigger war, a ‘global war on terror,’ of which Afghanistan was only one front.

“There are, of course, problems with ‘global war on terror’ as a phrase and an organizing principle. But it does capture what we might call the ‘big’ view of 9/11 and its implications.”

As part of an even “bigger” view of 9/11, Kristol called for engaging in a broader conflict, ranging “from Pakistan in the east to Tunisia in the west, and most visibly now in places such as Iran and Yemen and Somalia.”

In other words, Kristol and the neocons expect a President Romney to let them refocus the United States onto a “war” not simply against al-Qaeda and its affiliates but against nations where “political Islamism” gains power, which could include Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and many other Muslim countries.

One might as well say the United States will be at war with the Muslim world, though Kristol hastily added that this “war with political Islamism” does not always have to involve open warfare.

He wrote: “This doesn’t mean we need to be deploying troops and fighting ground wars all around the globe. [But] unfortunately, the war in which we are engaged won’t end with peace in, or withdrawal from, Afghanistan.”

A Romney Presidency?

Most political analysts say the November elections will turn on the economy with foreign policy a second-tier issue. In addition, many progressives have denounced Obama and his more targeted approach of relying on drone strikes to kill alleged terrorists as unacceptable, with some on the Left vowing not to support his reelection.

But it shouldn’t be missed that a President Romney would reinstall the neocons, including many who worked for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, at the levers of American power. Indeed, Romney’s foreign policy “white paper” was largely drafted by neocons. Even the name, “An American Century,” was an homage to the neocon manifesto of the 1990s, “Project for a New American Century.”

Romney’s foreign policy advisers include:

Cofer Black, a key Bush counterterrorism official; Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Homeland Security; Eliot Cohen, a neocon intellectual; Paula Dobriansky, a former Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs; Eric Edelman, a national security aide to Vice President Cheney; Michael Hayden, the ex-director of CIA and the National Security Agency who defended Bush’s warrantless spying program; Robert Kagan, a Washington Post columnist; former Navy Secretary John Lehmanand Daniel Senor, spokesman for Bush’s Iraq occupation.

Romney’s foreign policy also would restore George W. Bush’s “with us or against us” approach to the world – except that Romney, like Kristol, advocates even a more confrontational style, essentially a new Cold War against “rogue nations,” a revised “axis of evil.”

“A special problem is posed by the rogue nations of the world: Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba,” Romney’s white paper declares. “Their interests and values are diametrically opposed to our own and they threaten international peace and security in numerous ways, including, as in the case of North Korea and Iran, by seeking nuclear weapons, or by harboring criminal networks, exporting weapons, and sponsoring terrorists. …

“Mitt Romney would work to protect and advance America’s interests by employing all the instruments of national power at the president’s disposal. He will defend our country, defend our allies, and restore American leadership around the world. It is only American power — conceived in the broadest terms — that can provide the foundation of an international system that ensures the security and prosperity of the United States and our friends and allies. …

“A Romney foreign policy will proceed with clarity and resolve. The United States will clearly enunciate its interests and values. Our friends and allies will not have doubts about where we stand and what we will do to safeguard our interests and theirs; neither will our rivals, competitors, and adversaries. …

“The United States will apply the full spectrum of hard and soft power to influence events before they erupt into conflict. In defending America’s national interest in a world of danger, the United States should always retain a powerful military capacity to defend itself and its allies.”

No Apologies

The Romney “white paper” also treats any recognition of past American errors as unacceptable “apologizing” and calls any notion of seeking multilateral consensus on a problem as an admission of weakness.

“A perspective has been gaining currency, including within high councils of the Obama administration, that regards that United States as a power in decline. And not only is the United States regarded as in decline, but that decline is seen as both inexorable and a condition that can and should be managed for the global good rather than reversed.

“Adherents of this view argue that America no longer possesses the resources or the moral authority to play a leadership role in the world. They contend that the United States should not try to lead because we will only succeed in exhausting ourselves and spreading thin our limited resources.

“They counsel America to step aside, allow other powers to rise, and pursue policies that will ‘manage’ the relative change in our national fortunes. They recoil from the idea of American Exceptionalism, the idea that an America founded on the universal principles of human liberty and human dignity has a unique history and a special role to play in world affairs.

“They do not see an international system undergirded by American values of economic and political freedom as necessarily superior to a world system organized by multilateral organizations like the United Nations. Indeed, they see the United Nations as an instrument that can rein in and temper what they regard as the ill-considered overreaching of the United States.

“This view of America in decline, and America as a potentially malign force, has percolated far and wide. It is intimately related to the torrent of criticism, unprecedented for an American president, that Barack Obama has directed at his own country. …

“Among the ‘sins’ for which he has repented in our collective name are American arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision; for dictating solutions, for acting unilaterally, for acting without regard for others; for treating other countries as mere proxies, for unjustly interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, for committing torture, for fueling anti-Islamic sentiments, for dragging our feet in combating global warming, and for selectively promoting democracy.

“The sum total of President Obama’s rhetorical efforts has been a form of unilateral disarmament in the diplomatic and moral sphere. A President who is so troubled by America’s past cannot lead us into the future. … Mitt Romney believes in restoring the sinews of American power.”

Hawks in the Middle East

As for the Middle East, Romney’s team advocates unquestioned support for Israel both regarding its treatment of the Palestinians and toward Iran:

“Israel is the United States’ closest ally in the Middle East and a beacon of democracy and freedom in the region. The tumult in the Middle East has heightened Israel’s security problems. Indeed, this is an especially dangerous moment for the Jewish state. …

“To ensure Israel’s security, Mitt Romney will work closely with Israel to maintain its strategic military edge. … The United States must forcefully resist the emergence of anti-Israel policies in Turkey and Egypt, and work to make clear that their interests are not served by isolating Israel.

“With regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Romney’s policy will differ sharply from President Obama’s. President Obama and his administration have badly misunderstood the dynamics of the region. Instead of fostering stability and security, they have diminished U.S. authority and painted both Israel and ourselves into a corner.

“President Obama for too long has been in the grip of several illusions. One is that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is the central problem in the region. This has been disproved repeatedly by events, most recently and most dramatically by the eruption of the Arab Spring.

“But it nonetheless led the administration to believe that distancing the United States from Israel was a smart move that would earn us credits in the Arab world and somehow bring peace closer. The record proves otherwise. The key to negotiating a lasting peace is an Israel that knows it will be secure. …

“[Under President Romney] the United States will reduce assistance to the Palestinians if they continue to pursue United Nations recognition or form a unity government that includes Hamas, a terrorist group dedicated to Israel’s destruction.

“The United States needs a president who will not be a fair-weather friend of Israel. The United States must work as a country to resist the worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel. We must fight against that campaign in every forum and label it the anti-Semitic poison that it is. Israel’s existence as a Jewish state is not up for debate.”

Regarding Iran, the Romney “white paper” repeats many of the canards about Iranian intentions that have been debunked even by Israelis, such as the mistranslation of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s statement regarding “wiping Israel off the map.” But Romney’s neocon foreign policy team even suggests using that mistranslation to indict Ahmadinejad for war crimes:

“Romney will also push for greater diplomatic isolation of Iran. The United States should make it plain that it is a disgrace to provide Iran’s Holocaust-denying president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the trappings and respect offered to responsible heads of state. He should not be invited to foreign capitals or feted by foreign leaders.

“Quite the opposite. Given his calls for Israel to be wiped off the map, Ahmadinejad should be indicted for incitement to genocide under Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”

So, even Americans disappointed in Obama’s foreign policy should recognize what the stakes are in November. They include whether to put hard-line neocons back in charge of U.S. foreign policy and the American military.

[To read more of Robert Parry’s writings, you can now order his last two books, Secrecy & Privilege andNeck Deep, at the discount price of only $16 for both. For details on the special offer, click here.]  

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there.

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US Government Targets Yonas Fikre in Poorly Disguised Attempt at Retaliation

Posted on 05 May 2012 by Emperor

Yonas Fikre accused the FBI of involvement in his torture in the UAE after he refused to become an informant for the FBI.

US Charges Yonas Fikre, American Who Claimed Torture, With Conspiracy

by Nick Baumann (Mother Jones)

Last month, Mother Jones broke the story of Yonas Fikre. An American Muslim now living in Sweden, Fikre claims he was tortured in the United Arab Emirates at the US government’s request after refusing to become an informant for the FBI. On Tuesday, less than three weeks after Fikre’s allegations were made public, the Justice Department charged Fikre, his brother Dawit Woldehawariat, and a third man, Abrehaile Haile, with conspiring to hide $75,000 worth of money transfers to the UAE and Sudan from the government, all in violation of federal reporting requirements for large international financial transactions. Woldehawariat, Fikre’s brother, was also charged with failing to file a tax return in 2009 and 2010.

There are no allegations of terrorism associated with the charges.

Gadeir Abbas, a lawyer with the Council on American-Islamic Relations who has been working with Fikre, told Mother Jones on Wednesday that the federal charges were retaliation for Fikre’s refusal to cooperate with the FBI. “It is disappointing but not surprising that the FBI is retaliating against Yonas by filing specious charges against him after they promised to make his life difficult after he refused to become their informant,” Abbas wrote in an email. “While FBI agents lied to Yonas about many things, in this case, it seems that they have kept their word.”

Thomas Nelson, Fikre’s Portland, Oregon-based lawyer, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Tuesday that he was unaware of the charges against his client. But Abbas said he’s been in touch with Nelson since then and the two are working together to decide what to do next.

Here’s the charging document:

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Barth’s Notes: Hypocrisy from Thomas More Law Center on Kamal Saleem and Free Speech

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Barth’s Notes: Hypocrisy from Thomas More Law Center on Kamal Saleem and Free Speech

Posted on 05 May 2012 by Emperor

Kamal Saleem has his scared face on

Good piece by Richard Bartholomew on the manipulative tactics of the Thomas More Law Center and Kamal Saleem:

Hypocrisy from Thomas More Law Center on Kamal Saleem and Free Speech

by Richard Bartholomew

From Wood TV, 27 January:

ALLEGAN, Mich. (WOOD) – Rep. Dave Agema told 24 Hour News 8 he thinks Allegan’s police chief overreacted when he shut down an event the representative and a self-proclaimed former terrorist were both speaking at.

Allegan City Police Chief Rick Hoyer told 24 Hour News 8, he didn’t find out there was a bounty on the head of Kamal Saleem, until his speech at Allegan High School was already underway.

…Hoyer said Commissioner [Willis] Sage actually walked up to one of his officers during the event and told him that Saleem had a $25 million dollar bounty. That officer, a sergeant on the force, checked out the information with Saleem’s body guard. When the armed body guard confirmed it, telling police that Islamic terrorists who follow the teaching of the Quran that have been directed to behead Saleem, that’s when Hoyer said they took action.

Hoyer perhaps did misjudge the situation – but he found himself himself having to make a immediate decision on a matter of public safety based on information given to him at the last moment. It appears that Saleem was a victim of his own self-publicity;  the obvious question is why, if the “$25 million” bounty really exists, Saleem is not under round-the-clock police guard, in the same way that Salman Rushdie was for many years.

The Thomas More Law Center has now put its own spin on the event in Allegan, as it announces a lawsuit:

Amid shouts of “What about free speech?” from the audience, the Allegan Police Department ordered the event shut-down.   School officials notified police that they had received a letter complaining about the event from Dawud Walid, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI).   The letter asked the school to disallow the event despite an existing contract.  CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism funding trial in U. S. history, U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation.

…TMLC’s federal lawsuit was brought on behalf of State Representative David Agema; a chapter leader of ACT! for America, Elizabeth Griffin; Allegan County Commissioner, Willis Sage; and Mark Gurley, one of the event sponsors.

In fact, the TMLC’s lawsuit stinks of bad faith – and here’s why:

193. Defendants’ pretextual claim that the free speech event needed to be shut down subverts the true cause for the closing of the free speech event: complying with the demands of  hecklers, evidenced by the letter of Defendants CAIR, People For the American Way, Walid, and Keegan, and valuing the heckler’s veto over Constitutional freedoms of Plaintiffs.

…225. Defendants CAIR, [Dawud] Walid, People For the American Way, and[Michael] Keegan intentionally interfered with the Contract by sending a letter to Defendant [Kevin] Harness requesting  that the School District breach its Contract with Plaintiffs.

226. Defendants CAIR, Walid, People For the American Way, and Keegan improperly interfered with the Contract.

First, there is no evidence that Hoyer acted on any “letter” that was sent to the School District – why would he? And if so, why would he have allowed the event to get underway in the first place? But more substantively, the TMLC is seeking to punish groups and individuals for daring to contact the School District with their concerns about Saleem. Neither CAIR nor PFAW had any decision-making power over whether the event went ahead – the only reason they are included in the lawsuit is because TMLC wishes to suppress free speech while pretending to uphold it. It’s a SLAPP, and utter humbug.

In fact, there are very good public interest reasons for interested parties and concerned individuals to have contacted the School District – and PFAW’s liberal political perspective or troubling allegations about some of CAIR’s associations are irrelevant. Saleem presents himself as an ex-terrorist turned Christian whistleblower, when in fact his back-story is extremely dubious, and his claim to be an expert on Islam cannot be taken seriously. A couple of weeks ago, for instance, he spoke a Christian Right/conservative conflab called The Awakening 2012; as Right Wing Watch has documented, he used the occasion (standing alongside Frank Gaffney) to allege that when Obama appears to pledge allegiance to the flag, he holds his hand in a special way which shows that in reality he is praying to Allah. Saleem also statedthat Roe vs Wade was part of a plot to establish shariah, and that plans to reform immigration law involves “sending money to Hamas” in order to import Muslims, with the result “this world will become past tense and one day we’ll be wearing ragheads”. Such extravagances speak for themselves – and demonstrate that Saleem’s presence degrades the dignity any educational setting.

In 2010, Saleem was debunked in a piece published in Books & Culture, a sister publication of the evangelical Christianity Today. According to the article’s author, Doug Howard:

I first encountered Kamal Saleem when he appeared at Calvin College in November 2007. A look at his website told me immediately that he was not who he said he was. The signature of his deception was his statement that “in my family was the Grand Wazir of Islam.” The term is ridiculous, a spurious title meant to mislead the innocent with an aura of authority.

…In The Blood of Lambs, Kamal Saleem writes, “I wanted to be like Bond.” In these pages he is Bond, James Bond, in size 6X. He gets those emphatic rivals, the PLO and the Muslim Brotherhood, both to recruit him. He recalls the intricate details of raids he carried out at age seven. Abu Jihad himself teaches him how to use an AK-47. He is shown off by Yasser Arafat as a model warrior. In Libya at age 14 he has Muammar Qaddafi gushing in gratitude. In Iraq, he waves to Saddam Hussein… Even if one were disposed to give these entertaining claims the benefit of the doubt, the book’s frequent mistakes give the reader pause. The Islamic umma does not mean one world government, and it is not “coming.” The PLO was a secular organization even though Yasser Arafat prayed and quoted the Qur’an.

Further details appear in a recent article in Mother Jones:

Saleem claims that the Muslim Brotherhood has put a $25 million bounty on his head, and that there have been attempts to earn it: After a 2007 event in Chino Hills, California, he writes in his book, he returned to his Holiday Inn to find his room ransacked and a band of dangerous Middle Easterners on his trail. Saleem describes calling the police to alert them to an assassination attempt. Local law enforcement, however, has no record of any such incident.

The same article contains a quote from someone who knew Saleem in the USA before he was famous:

…[Wally] Winter recalls his former roommate as a devout Muslim whose yarns often lapsed into wild exaggeration. “He could sell swampland in Louisiana,” Winter says. “I really do not believe the story about the terrorism. I totally believe that he would make up something like that to either make money or become well known.”

The City of Allegan, meanwhile, has issued a statement, as reported by MLive:

Attorney Scott Smith, representing Allegan, said in a statement that the city has not been served with the lawsuit, but he reviewed it this morning. It names the city, police chief, police officers, school officials and two advocacy groups as defendants.

…”This lawsuit is disappointing in many ways,” Smith wrote. “It is based on conjecture, logical fallacies, and, more disappointingly, factual inaccuracies. The plaintiffs did not even spell one of the defendants’ names correctly. It is disappointing that the lawsuit wrongly imputes motives to the police officers.”

He said he was disappointed that the lawsuit was filed. He said the city cooperated with Thomas More as it sought information about the Jan. 26 event.

“The City quickly provided the requested information and offered to address any other questions or concerns the Thomas More Law Center or its client might have. But, without any further inquiries or any attempts to address the plaintiffs’ concerns, a lawsuit was filed. If, as seems to be alleged by the complaint, its sole purpose is to ensure the defendants respect First Amendment rights, a lawsuit was unnecessary.”

UPDATE: I note that one of the the plaintiffs, Mark Gurley, is a pastor (at the Healing Rooms of Grand Rapids), and he is a member Rick Joyner’s Christian Right group theOak Initiative. He’s also a birther.

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The Obama Team Just Doesn’t Get It: US Violence and Occupation Spark Terrorism

Posted on 04 May 2012 by Emperor

brennan

A bit of a long read, but well worth it (h/t: BA):

The Obama Team Just Doesn’t Get It: US Violence and Occupation Spark Terrorism

(Alternet.org)

John Brennan, President Obama’s chief adviser on counter-terrorism, has again put on public display two unfortunate facts: (1) that the White House has no clue as to how to counter terrorism; and (2) (in Brennan’s words) “the unfortunate fact that to save many innocent lives we are sometimes obliged to take lives.”

In a speech on April 30, Brennan did share one profound insight: “Countries typically don’t want foreign soldiers in their cities and towns.” His answer to that? “The precision of targeted [drone] strikes.” Does he really mean to suggest that local populations are more accepting of unmanned drones buzzing overhead and firing missiles on the push of a button by a “pilot” halfway around the world?

Beneath Brennan’s Orwellian rhetoric lies the reality that he remains unable (or unwilling) to deal with, the $64 question former White House correspondent Helen Thomas asked him repeatedly on Jan. 8, 2010, about why terrorists do the things they do:

Brennan: “Al Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland.”

Thomas: “But you haven’t explained why.”

Is it possible he still has no clue? To demonstrate how little progress Brennan has made in the way of understanding the challenge of “terrorism,” let’s look back at my commentary in early 2010 about Brennan’s vacuous non-answers to Helen Thomas. At the time, I wrote:

Thank God for Helen Thomas, the only person to show any courage at the White House press briefing after President Barack Obama gave a flaccid account of the intelligence screw-up that almost downed an airliner on Christmas Day 2009.

After Obama briefly addressed L’Affaire Abdulmutallab and wrote “must do better” on the report cards of the national security schoolboys responsible for the near catastrophe, the President turned the stage over to counter-terrorism guru John Brennan and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

It took 89-year old veteran correspondent Helen Thomas (now 91) to break through the vapid remarks about rechanneling “intelligence streams,” fixing “no-fly” lists, deploying “behavior detection officers,” and buying more body-imaging scanners.

Thomas recognized the John & Janet filibuster for what it was, as her catatonic press colleagues took their customary dictation and asked their predictable questions. Instead, Thomas posed an adult query that spotlighted the futility of government plans to counter terrorism with more high-tech gizmos and more intrusions on the liberties and privacy of the traveling public.

She asked why Abdulmutallab did what he did. Thomas: “And what is the motivation? We never hear what you find out on why.”

Brennan: “Al Qaeda is an organization that is dedicated to murder and wanton slaughter of innocents. … They attract individuals like Mr. Abdulmutallab and use them for these types of attacks. He was motivated by a sense of religious sort of drive. Unfortunately, al Qaeda has perverted Islam, and has corrupted the concept of Islam, so that he’s (sic) able to attract these individuals. But al Qaeda has the agenda of destruction and death.”

Thomas: “And you’re saying it’s because of religion?”

Brennan: “I’m saying it’s because of an al Qaeda organization that used the banner of religion in a very perverse and corrupt way.”

Thomas: “Why?”

Brennan: “I think this is a — long issue, but al Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland.”

Thomas: “But you haven’t explained why.”

Neither did President Obama, nor anyone else in the U.S. political/media hierarchy. All the American public gets is the boilerplate about how al Qaeda evildoers are perverting a religion and exploiting impressionable young men. There is almost no discussion about why so many people in the Muslim world object to U.S. policies so strongly that they are inclined to resist violently and even resort to suicide attacks.

Obama’s Non-Answer

I had been hoping Obama would say something intelligent about what drove Abdulmutallab to do what he did, but the President uttered a few vacuous comments before sending in the clowns. This is what he said before he walked away from the podium:

“It is clear that al Qaeda increasingly seeks to recruit individuals without known terrorist affiliations … to do their bidding. … And that’s why we must communicate clearly to Muslims around the world that al Qaeda offers nothing except a bankrupt vision of misery and death … while the United States stands with those who seek justice and progress. … That’s the vision that is far more powerful than the hatred of these violent extremists.”

But why it is so hard for Muslims to “get” that message? Why can’t they end their preoccupation with dodging U.S. missiles in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Gaza long enough to reflect on how we are only trying to save them from terrorists while simultaneously demonstrating our commitment to “justice and progress”?

Does a smart fellow like Obama expect us to believe that all we need to do is “communicate clearly to Muslims” that it is al Qaeda, not the U.S. and its allies, that brings “misery and death”? Does any informed person not know that the unprovoked U.S.-led invasion of Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and displaced 4.5 million from their homes? How is that for “misery and death”?

Rather than a failure to communicate, U.S. officials are trying to rewrite recent history, which seems to be much easier to accomplish with the Washington press corps and large segments of the American population than with the Muslim world. But why isn’t there a frank discussion by America’s leaders and media about the real motivation of Muslim anger toward the United States? Why was Helen Thomas the only journalist to raise the touchy but central question of motive?

Peeking Behind the Screen

We witnessed a similar phenomenon when the 9/11 Commission Report tiptoed into a cautious discussion of possible motives behind the 9/11 attacks. To their credit, the drafters of that report apparently went as far as their masters would allow, in gingerly introducing a major elephant into the room: “America’s policy choices have consequences. Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.” (p. 376)

When asked later about the flabby way that last sentence ended, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, Vice-Chair of the 9/11 Commission, explained that there had been a Donnybrook over whether that paragraph could be included at all.

The drafters also squeezed in the reason given by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as to why he “masterminded” the attacks on 9/11: “By his own account, KSM’s animus toward the United States stemmed … from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.”

Would you believe that former Vice President Dick Cheney has also pointed to U.S. support for Israel as one of the “true sources of resentment”? This unique piece of honesty crept into his speech to the American Enterprise Institute on May 21, 2009.

Sure, he also trotted out the bromide that the terrorists hate “all the things that make us a force for good in the world.” But the Israel factor slipped into the speech, perhaps an inadvertent acknowledgement of the Israeli albatross adorning the neck of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Very few pundits and academicians are willing to allude to this reality, presumably out of fear for their future career prospects.

Former senior CIA officer Paul R. Pillar, now a professor at Georgetown University, is one of the few willing to refer, in his typically understated way, to “all the other things … including policies and practices that affect the likelihood that people … will be radicalized, and will try to act out the anger against us.” One has to fill in the blanks regarding what those “other things” are.

But no worries. Secretary Napolitano has a fix for this unmentionable conundrum. It’s called “counter-radicalization,” which she describes thusly: “How do we identify someone before they become radicalized to the point where they’re ready to blow themselves up with others on a plane? And how do we communicate better American values and so forth … around the globe?”

Better communication. That’s the ticket.

Hypocrisy and Double Talk

But Napolitano doesn’t acknowledge the underlying problem, which is that many Muslims have watched Washington’s behavior closely for many years and view U.S. declarations about peace, justice, democracy and human rights as infuriating examples of hypocrisy and double talk. So, Washington’s sanitized discussion about motives for terrorism seems more intended for the U.S. domestic audience than the Muslim world.

After all, people in the Middle East already know how Palestinians have been mistreated for decades; how Washington has propped up Arab dictatorships; how Muslims have been locked away at Guantanamo without charges; how the U.S. military has killed civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere; how U.S. mercenaries have escaped punishment for slaughtering innocents.

The purpose of U.S. “public diplomacy” appears more designed to shield Americans from this unpleasant reality, offering instead feel-good palliatives about the beneficence of U.S. actions. Most American journalists and politicians go along with the charade out of fear that otherwise they would be accused of lacking patriotism or sympathizing with “the enemy.”

Commentators who are neither naïve nor afraid are simply shut out of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM). Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald, for example, has complained loudly about “how our blind, endless enabling of Israeli actions fuels terrorism directed at the U.S.,” and how it is taboo to point this out.

Greenwald recently called attention to a little-noticed Associated Press report on the possible motives of the 23-year-old Nigerian Abdulmutallab. The report quoted his Yemeni friends to the effect that the he was “not overtly extremist.” But they noted that he was open about his sympathies toward the Palestinians and his anger over Israel’s actions in Gaza. (Emphasis added)

Former CIA specialist on al Qaeda, Michael Scheuer, has been still more outspoken on what he sees as Israel’s tying down the American Gulliver in the Middle East. Speaking Monday on C-SPAN, he complained bitterly that any debate on the issue of American support for Israel and its effects is normally squelched. Scheuer added that the Israel Lobby had just succeeded in getting him removed from his job at the Jamestown Foundation think tank for saying that Obama was “doing what I call the Tel Aviv Two Step.”

More to the point, Scheuer asserted: “For anyone to say that our support for Israel doesn’t hurt us in the Muslim world … is to just defy reality.”

Beyond loss of work, those who speak out can expect ugly accusations. The Israeli media network Arutz Sheva, which is considered the voice of the settler movement, weighed in strongly, citing Scheuer’s C-SPAN remarks and branding them “blatantly anti-Semitic.”

Read the rest here…

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Chris Stedman: Sam Harris, Will You Visit A Mosque With Me?

Posted on 03 May 2012 by Emperor

Chris_Stedman_2011

Chris Stedman

A vey good piece by Chris Stedman. He invites Sam Harris to leave his comfort zone, the bully pulpit of his blog, and come experience meeting real, life Muslims, the one he’s eager to have profiled (H/T: CriticalDragon):

by Chris Stedman (Huffington Post)

Sam Harris–I know you’re a busy man, but I’d like to ask you out. Will you go to mosque with me?

I’m not trying to convert you to Islam. Like you, I’m not a Muslim. Like you, I don’t believe in any gods. I’m happily, openly atheist. A queer atheist, even. Like you, I have many significant concerns about Islamic beliefs and practices. But still, I want to visit a mosque with you.

We don’t have to go alone–we could go with Mustafa Abdullah, a young community organizer in Winston-Salem, North Carolina who is currently campaigning against the state’s proposed anti-gay Amendment One. We could attend with Najeeba Syeed-Miller, a teacher and activist who has dedicated her life to peacebuilding initiatives. Or we could go with Eboo Patel, founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, who is committed to promoting pluralism and opposing bigotry, and who regularly speaks up for atheists as a religious minority in the United States.

Why am I inviting you to visit a mosque with me and my friends? Since I’m asking you publicly (I couldn’t find your phone number anywhere and I’m pretty sure this MySpace page isn’t really you), I should probably give some context.

A few weeks ago I saw you speak at the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, Australia. Before I go on, I need to confess: your remarks blew me away. In a weekend full of incredible intellects, your frank, contemplative, eloquent speech on death, grief, and mindfulness was easily my favorite. So I was not prepared for the crushing disappointment I felt when, just a few weeks later, you published a piece called “In Defense of Profiling” in which you unequivocally stated: “We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it.”

Never mind that your argument doesn’t hold water–to quote my friend Hind Makki: “What does a Muslim look like? The 9/11 hijackers didn’t have beards and ‘dressed Western.’ The shoe bomber wasn’t Arab or South Asian. Sikhs wear turbans. The majority of American Muslim women don’t wear hijab. The majority of Arab Americans are Christian–though they often share the same names as their Muslim counterparts. Perhaps Harris would support an initiative that required all Muslims to sew a crescent and star onto our clothes. It would make his airport security time a more pleasant experience. (Though, I suppose, it wouldn’t have stopped McVeigh or Breivik.)” Though as a frequent traveler I share your frustrations with the TSA, profiling doesn’t make sense as a solution to its problems.

Instead, while we’re en route to mosque, I’d like to talk to you about something else. As I read your piece, which (along with the clarifying addendum you tacked on a few days later) failed to explain how you would determine who “looks… Muslim,” I thought back to another moment at the Global Atheist Convention a few weeks ago. As you were speaking, rumors began to fly that a group of extremist Muslims would be protesting the convention. Sure enough, a group of less than a dozen appeared just a short while later, holding signs that said “Atheists go to hell” and shouting horrible things. But to my dismay, their hate was mirrored by hundreds of conference attendees, some of whom shouted things like “go back to the middle east, you pedophiles,” tweeting ”maybe the Muslim protesters [are] gay so [they] don’t have wives? … A lot are/were camel shaggers,” and wearing shirts that said “Too stupid for science? Try religion.” Watching the scene unfold, I was reminded of how much work there is to be done in combating prejudice between the religious and the nonreligious.

I’m not sure you share my concerns about this divide. In fact, last year you wrote this about the 2011 attacks orchestrated by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway that resulted in the deaths of over 70 people:

One can only hope that the horror and outrage provoked by Breivik’s behavior will temper the growing enthusiasm for right-wing, racist nationalism in Europe. However, one now fears the swing of another pendulum: We are bound to hear a lot of deluded talk about the dangers of “Islamophobia” and about the need to address the threat of “terrorism” in purely generic terms.

In the wake of an atrocity of unimaginable proportions–one perpetrated by an anti-Muslim terrorist who was influenced by anti-Muslim writers–I could not believe that you decided to write a blog suggesting that the real problem is the fight against Islamophobia.

Whether you think so or not, Sam, Islamophobia is quite real. The American Muslim community experiences disproportionately high rates of discrimination and violence, and Islamophobic rhetoric has a significant bearing on this. This from a detailed report on the network of Islamophobia in America: “According to former CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman, just as religious extremism ‘is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged,’ the writings of these anti-Muslim misinformation experts are ‘the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.’”

As a society, we need to acknowledge the reality of the consequences of Islamophobia. As one Norwegian Muslim recently said:

“I think it is good and healthy that this comes out,” he told AFP in a telephone interview, arguing that Breivik built his ideology largely on the basis of Islam-critical writings in the media and online and rumors he has heard about violent Muslims. “This should help show people that this kind of rhetoric can be very, very dangerous. It is a wake-up call, and I think many people will moderate the way they talk about these things.”

We desperately need to discuss these things. An argument I frequently hear from atheists is that if moderate Muslims really exist, they need to speak out more. The problem is that Muslims are speaking out against extremists who cite Islam as their inspiration. Need some examples? ThereAreSoManyThat.ICan’tLinkToThemAll. (But those eleven are a good start.)

The real problem is the Islamophobic misinformation machine, supported by our conflict-driven media. Stories of Muslims engaging in peaceful faith-inspired endeavors don’t sell nearly as well as stories of attempted Times Square bombings. Yet even coverage of violent stories is skewed against Muslims: for example, the mainstream media largely ignores violence against Muslims, such as when a mosque in Florida was bombed. (Just imagine the media frenzy if that had been a Muslim bombing a church.) The press also ignores stories of Muslim heroism, such as the fact that the man who stopped the Times Square bomber was himself a Muslim. Perhaps we perceive Islam as inherently violent, and imagine that an “Islam versus the West” clash of civilizations is inevitable, because our perspective is shaped by the warped way the media reports on Islam.

The feeling that we need to profile “Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim,” as you wrote–that Muslim Americans are dangerous and should be viewed with suspicion–is an outgrowth of the Islamophobic misinformation that proliferates our culture. I’m proud to say that nontheist organizations like the Center for Inquiry, the American Humanist Association, and the Institute for Science and Human Values recognize this, which is why just last week they signed on to a letter (alongside many interfaith and religious organizations) decrying racial and religious profiling.

The idea that we should single out Muslims is a misguided and damaging one, and it has serious ramifications for the Muslim community. After the thwarted “Christmas tree” bombing by a young Muslim in Portland, OR, Eboo Patel wrote:

It would be perfectly understandable if, in this time of Muslim terrorism and Islamophobia, everyday Muslims tried to slink into the shadows, to hide in the mosque. But it would be a huge mistake. Now more than ever, we need Muslim community leaders to be loud and proud about Islam’s glories, to inspire a new generation to follow in the footsteps of the Muslim heroes who bent the arc of the universe towards justice.

As Muslims become more and more marginalized, that will be increasingly difficult. When I posted a link to Patel’s column on my Facebook page, a friend commented on the FBI’s involvement in the Portland incident, and a subsequent arson attack on a Portland-area mosque: “I’m starting to wonder how any of this makes our country more secure or keeps our citizens safe. It certainly made things more dangerous for Muslims in Corvallis.”

I look around and I see a country deeply divided over the place of Muslims in America’s civic landscape–a nation roiling with fear and uncertainty, where hundreds of people will crowd outside of a benefit for a Muslim relief organization and scream things like “go home” and “terrorist” while waving American flags. That despicable display of anti-Muslim hate didn’t really make the news either, by the way.

Profiling feeds this fear and paranoia, and it plays right into the notion held by the tiny percentage of Muslims who are extremists that all Muslims are under attack and need to be defended. It is truly dangerous territory, and not just for Muslims–the recent congressional “Muslim radicalization” hearings in the U.S. echo the anti-gay “lavender scare” and the explicitly anti-atheist undertones of the “red scare” in the 1950s. As a gay atheist, I recognize that it could just as easily be me who is targeted.

But I do have hope, Sam. I’m currently reading a wonderful book called The Young Atheist’s Handbook by Alom Shaha–I could lend it to you after our mosque visit. In the book, Shaha writes about growing up Muslim and later becoming an atheist. In the fourth chapter of the book, he touches on the tragedy in Norway and delves into a lengthy, must-read exposition of the ugly reality of Islamophobia in the U.K., Australia, and the United States. In it, he points to the major role the media has played in guiding the narrative that says that Muslims are a monolithic, loathsome bloc–or as Shaha wrote, a perspective that “see[s] all Muslims as the same, and completely fail[s] to acknowledge the diversity and differences in values that are held by the millions of Muslims in the world.” Shaha goes on to write:

You may wonder why, if I no longer identify as Muslim, I care so deeply about this… Although I am an atheist, I nevertheless find it distressing that people can be contemptuous of all Muslims based on their own prejudices about what it means to be Muslim. Some atheists are guilty of this ideological categorization, too, and it bothers me that some of those who really should know better feel that Muslims and non-Muslims cannot, by definition, get along. I suspect this is a point on which I differ from more-hardline atheists, but perhaps my own experience of being judged for my skin colour has made me acutely sensitive to such judgments being exercised upon others.

Shaha is definitely on to something. Over the last few years, I’ve watched with despair as an increasing, increasingly-less-subtle xenophobic anti-Muslim undercurrent has spread throughout the atheist movement, cloaked by intellectual arguments against Islam’s metaphysical claims and practices and rallying cries in defense of free speech. Though it has been spreading throughout our broader culture, I’m especially disheartened to see it among my fellow atheists. At my first American Atheists conference, for example, I witnessed a crowd of people shout things like “show us some ankle” at three women wearing burkas for a satirical musical performance. It’s one thing to critique Islam; but the glee I saw in some of their faces as people whistled and shouted “take it off” was something else.

Writing about an incident where an American Atheists State Director posted an Islamophobic rant to their official Facebook page, atheist blogger Hemant Mehta said:

It’s always a touchy subject when atheists go after Islam… because people have to be very careful that they don’t stereotype all followers of Islam as if they’re all extremists. Our society does a terrible job of this. Atheists, especially when they’re ‘leaders’ among us, ought to know better than to fall into that trap.

You ought to know better, Sam. Your insistence that Islamophobia isn’t a problem and your willingness to play into the irrational anxieties of those who fear Muslims is irresponsible and dangerous. With your great reach, you have the opportunity to build bridges of understanding–instead, you have chosen to make the dividing lines that keep our communities apart that much thicker.

Read the rest….

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What If They Were Muslim?: Pipe Bomb Found At North Belfast Church

Posted on 03 May 2012 by Emperor

The uptick in attempted bombings in Northern Ireland is causing concern that there will be a return to heightened sectarian conflict.

Another bomb has been discovered, this time in the grounds of a Presbyterian Church in North Belfast. (H/T: JD)

Can one imagine if Muslims had been behind this? It would be all over international media, and you can bet the anti-Islam haters would lump it in as one more attempted “Islamic terrorist” attack, but they would never call it “Christian terrorism”:

(u.TV News)

A suspect object discovered at a church in north Belfast has been declared a viable device, police have confirmed.

The pipe bomb was found in the grounds of the Ballysillan Presbyterian Church on the Crumlin Road area on Wednesday morning.

Evacuated residents have been allowed to return to their homes and the road has re-opened to traffic.

Chief Inspector Andrew Freeburn, North Belfast Area Commander, said the device was capable of causing injury or death to anyone in the vicinity.

“The people who carried this out have shown a callous disregard for everyone in our community, not least those local residents who have been inconvenienced through being evacuated.

“This incident will be fully investigated with view to bringing criminal charges against those responsible.”

SDLP Oldpark Councillor Nichola Mallon said the object was discovered during the cutting of grass on the grounds of the church.

She continued: “The people of North Belfast have seriously suffered through the years as a result of the brutality of the Troubles. They don’t want or need to live under the renewed threat and fear of disruption and attack as they have been increasingly forced to do in recent days.”

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Bomb_North_Ireland

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WhatIfTheyWereMuslim?: Bomb Defused in Northern Ireland Would Have Caused Devastation

Posted on 02 May 2012 by Emperor

Widely (un)reported terrorist bomb attack, would have killed many,

“To put it in perspective – anyone within 50 metres of this device would have been killed and anyone within 100 metres, seriously injured,” District Commander Chief Superintendent Alasdair Robinson told a news conference.

“This was a very significant device. If this had exploded it would have caused devastation.”

Bomb defused in Northern Ireland would have caused devastation

(news.yahoo.com)

BELFAST (Reuters) – Two bombs planted by militant Irish nationalists, including one packed with enough explosives to have killed anyone within a 50-metre (yard) radius, were defused in Northern Ireland on Saturday, police said.

The 600-pound (270-kg) bomb, roughly the same size as one used to kill 29 people in the town of Omagh in the single deadliest attack of Northern Ireland’s three decades of violence in 1998, was left in an abandoned vehicle in the town of Newry.

Police blamed nationalist groups opposed to a 1998 peace deal that largely ended violence in the British-controlled province, and said the device was fully primed to cause devastation.

“To put it in perspective – anyone within 50 metres of this device would have been killed and anyone within 100 metres, seriously injured,” District Commander Chief Superintendent Alasdair Robinson told a news conference.

“This was a very significant device. If this had exploded it would have caused devastation.”

Army bomb disposal experts defused a similarly sized bomb in the border town of Newry this time last year. Another bomb was also found near the main Dublin-to-Belfast motorway earlier this month that police said had the potential to kill.

The other bomb also made safe by the army on Saturday was discovered under a parked car in Belfast where 80 people were moved from their homes for five hours overnight. There was no confirmation yet of its size.

Police investigating dissident activity also found guns and ammunition in the mainly Catholic Ardoyne area of Belfast.

The 1998 peace agreement called a halt to more than three decades of violence between mainly Catholic Irish nationalists opposed to British rule of Northern Ireland and predominantly Protestant unionists who wanted it to continue.

But dissidents, many of them belonging to splinter groups that have broken away from the IRA, fight on with mostly unsuccessful and sporadic gun and bomb attacks.

(Reporting by Ivan Little; Editing by Padraic Halpin/Maria Golovnina)

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Sam Harris, “Profile the Muslim Looking People!”

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Sam Harris, “Profile the Muslim Looking People!”

Posted on 02 May 2012 by Haddock

Sam Harris continues the absurdist act that he has something intelligent to say when it comes to topics other than Neuroscience. We also learn that he possesses a 9mm, and travels with 75 rounds of ammunition, if the religion-bashing industry doesn’t work out maybe he can be the new spokesman for the NRA?

In a recent blog post, the pop Atheist guru writes that “we” should specifically profile Muslims at airports, and “be honest about it.” He is sick of the “tyranny of fairness” in which airport security searches people randomly when we all know that it’s the “Mooslims” who want to kill everyone on the plane. He concedes that he hasn’t “had to endure the experience of being continually profiled…”, and that he would find it “frustrating” if he had, but if someone looks like they may commit a crime (based on their ethnic appearance), they should be targeted for extra scrutiny.He uses the comedian Ben Stiller’s appearance as an example:

“But if someone who looked vaguely like Ben Stiller were wanted for crimes against humanity, I would understand if I turned a few heads at the airport. However, if I were forced to wait in line behind a sham search of everyone else, I would surely resent this additional theft of my time.”

Attempting to speak on behalf of the very people he wants profiled, he implies that Muslims should “welcome” profiling, at the very least it would “save them time!”

He goes on;

We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it.

Maybe Sam will want Muslims to wear crescent and star badges so as to be identified as “Muslim?” By saying “conceivably be Muslim” Sam is really saying any Brown, Middle Eastern or South Asian looking person, perhaps someone with a turban?

In a very poor attempt to soften the racialist tone, he adds this caveat;

And, again, I wouldn’t put someone who looks like me entirely outside the bull’s-eye (after all, what would Adam Gadahn look like if he cleaned himself up?)… (emphasis added)

As with most advocates of procedures that single out specific people for harassment, Sam Harris himself doesn’t have to experience the frustration that comes from this harassment. It’s easy to say, “Muslims should just cooperate and make it easier on themselves and everybody else” when one doesn’t have to experience such situations, multiple times, themselves.

He recounts earlier in the blog post an ironic experience he had at the airport whereby he “accidentally” smuggled nearly 75 rounds of ammunition past the inspectors, while a three-year old was momentarily taken from her family so that her sandals could be inspected.

I once accidentally used a bag for carry-on in which I had once stored a handgun—and passed through three airport checkpoints with nearly 75 rounds of 9 mm ammunition.

Question: What the hell is Sam Harris doing with 75 rounds of ammunition?

As of today (May 1st), he has added an addendum to his blog, complaining that some people didn’t take too kindly to his simply presenting the “facts” as he sees them. One of those basic “facts” is;

“…that, in the year 2012, suicidal terrorism is overwhelmingly a Muslim phenomenon. If you grant this, it follows that applying equal scrutiny to Mennonites would be a dangerous waste of time.”

He must have not read the report which stated that only 6% of terrorist acts committed in the United States from 1980-2005 years were committed by Muslims, and that even in 2012 an American is more likely to get struck by lightning than to be killed/hurt by a Muslim terrorist.

He goes on;

“1. When I speak of profiling “Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim,” I am not narrowly focused on people with dark skin. In fact, I included myself in the description of the type of person I think should be profiled (twice). To say that ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, dress, traveling companions, behavior in the terminal, and other outward appearances offer no indication of a person’s beliefs or terrorist potential is either quite crazy or totally dishonest.”

Well that’s a sigh of relief! It’s not “just” dark-skinned Muslims that he wants to be profiled, but all Muslims! What universalistic spirit!

It has already been established that the more “Muslim” a person looks at the airport, the less likely they are to attempt anything violent on the plane. It simply would make no sense for a person to raise a thousand red flags in the minds of airport security, before they even board the plane. The entire point of a terrorist is to accomplish their goal, not to raise the suspicions of everyone around them before they get the chance to do so.

Since the stereotypical image of a Muslim in the minds of many is that of a “dark-skinned man of the Orient,” Muslim profiling is for all practical purposes racial profiling.

Juan Cole wrote about this on his blog nearly a year ago, when two Muslim clerics were forced to exit a plane because the pilot refused to fly if they were still on board;

“The terrorist costume is a simulated reality, circulated in Hollywood and countless news broadcasts, that evokes a causal relation between appearance and action. The terrorist costume is familiar to nearly all Americans: a thick beard, an ashen robe, brown skin, sandals holding dirty feet, and some sort of headgear, usually a turban (Sikh style, of course). The terrorist wearing this costume often sports a Qu’ran, so the audience can be certain that he is a Muslim.

Yet the acts of terrorism that have been committed by radicals of Muslim heritage involved perpetrators, like Mohamed Atta, who didn’t at all resemble the image of the Hollywood terrorist. Rahman and Zaghloul dressed in a way that set off alarms in some of their American co-passengers because the latter entertained Orientalist fantasies. Ironically, Muslim-American clerics are among the more law-abiding people in the country.”

Harris’s pro-profiling views are not shocking to anyone who knows his history of loonieness. Harris after all is the same unprincipled and bigoted individual, who has, as Bob Pitt noted;

backed Geert Wilders, joined the hysterical campaign against the so-called Ground Zero mosque and claimed that “the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.”

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WhatIfTheyWereMuslim?: 5 Anarchists Nabbed in Terrorist Plot to Blow up Ohio Bridge

Posted on 02 May 2012 by Emperor

Ohio_Anarchist_Terrorism

The above individuals are charged with conspiracy and attempted use of explosive materials. Imagine if they were “brown” or “Muslamic” looking, this would be called a terrorist plot from the get go. (via. WhatIfTheyWereMuslim)

This piece was reported not as a “terrorist” plot but rather simply a “bomb plot”:

(msnbc.com)

Federal agents have arrested five people who were plotting to blow up a bridge near Cleveland, Ohio, an incident not connected to the anniversary of former al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden’s death, officials say.

Douglas L. Wright, 26, Brandon L. Baxter, 20, and Anthony Hayne, 35, were arrested by members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force on April 30 on charges of conspiracy and attempted use of explosive materials to damage physical property affecting interstate commerce. Also arrested were Connor C. Stevens, 20, and Joshua S. Stafford, 23. Charges are pending against them.

The five were “controlled by an undercover FBI employee,” and agents had them under extensive surveillance for a long period of time. The explosives they allegedly purchased were inoperable.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking newsworld news, and news about the economy

“There was never any danger,” one federal official said.

Court documents say the FBI became aware of the men in October. A confidential source told the FBI that they were acting suspiciously at a protest event, wearing masks, talking on radios, and saying they didn’t believe in peaceful protest. They carried flags associated with anarchist groups.

From that point on, the informant was in constant touch with the group members. Their goal, one of them said, was to destroy private property “to send a message to corporations.” Last November, they discussed setting off smoke grenades on Veterans Memorial Bridge in Cleveland as a diversion while they would be knocking bank signs off the tops of tall buildings downtown.

Federal officials say Wright, Baxter and Hayne describe themselves as anarchists who considered a series of evolving plots over several months.

As Stevens and Stafford came into the plot, they started talking about using explosives.

The informant brought in two people he said could help them get explosives. These people were actually FBI undercover agents. The group members agreed to buy tear gas and gas masks. Two weeks later, they said they wanted to buy plastic explosives.

A photo of the Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge taken in 1995 as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey and Historic American Engineering Record projects for the U.S. National Parks Service.

In late April, they settled on trying to blow up the Route 82 Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge. This bridge crosses from Brecksville, Ohio to Sagamore Hills, Ohio over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

On April 29, they met with the undercover agents and bought what they thought were two homemade bombs for $450. They planned to place them on April 30 but were arrested by the FBI.

The members of this group had a strong desire to commit acts of violence but no idea how to do it. At one point, a member of the group says what they needed was “mainly bleach,” because, he said, that’s what land mines and hand grenades were made with during World War II.

“The complaint in this case alleges that the defendants took specific and defined actions to further a terrorist plot,” said U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio Steven Dettelbach. “The defendants stand charged based not upon any words or beliefs they might espouse, but based upon their own plans and actions.”

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Claiming Chris Christie Has An ‘Islam Problem,’ Pipes And Emerson Demonstrate NRO’s Islamophobia Problem

Posted on 01 May 2012 by Amago

Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes

(h/t: Frank Gold)

Claiming Chris Christie Has An ‘Islam Problem,’ Pipes And Emerson Demonstrate NRO’s Islamophobia Problem

By Matt Duss on May 1, 2012, ThinkProgress

In National Review, Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson — two key figures in the Islamophobia network discussed in CAP’s 2011 Fear, Inc report — write that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) “has a problem, specifically an Islam problem, that can and should get in the way of his possible ascent to higher office”:

In short, Christie has hugged a terrorist-organization member, abridged free-speech rights, scorned concern over Islamization, and opposed law-enforcement counterterrorism efforts. Whenever an issue touching on Islam arises, Christie takes the Islamist side against those — the DHS, state senators, the NYPD, even the ACLU — who worry about lawful Islamism eroding the fabric of American life.

A perusal of the authors’ case against Christie reveals it as comically weak, full of highly questionable characterizations and buttressed by links that don’t actually demonstrate what they’re supposed to. In a typical example, they criticize Christie for voicing support for Mohammed Qatanani, imam of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, “on the eve of his deportation hearing for not hiding an Israeli conviction for membership in Hamas.” They do not mention that the hearing resulted in Qatanani being cleared of charges.

Pipes and Emerson knock Christie for his concern over revelations of the New York City Police Department’s spying on New Jersey Muslims, suggesting that he should’ve shown “gratitude” for the NYPD operating outside its jurisdiction.

And of course the authors take special offense at Christie’s bold defense of New Jersey state superior court judge Sohail Mohammed against attacks by anti-Islam activists, in which Christie offered the most cogent summation of the anti-sharia movement on record: “It’s crap. It’s just crazy.”

Pipes and Emerson suggest that there is tension between Christie’s friendly relations with Muslims and his “ostentatiously” pro-Israel stance. “This makes him unusual,” the authors write, “for a pro-Israel stance typically goes hand-in-hand with concern about Shari’a.” But in asserting such a zero-sum relationship between support for Muslim constituents and support for Israel, Pipes and Emerson inadvertently demonstrate two things: First, their own ignorance about Israel. Since its founding, Israel has maintained a publicly-funded Sharia court system for the some 19 percent of Israelis who are Muslim. (Israeli society is fraught with numerous challenges, but imminent takeover by sharia law does not appear to be one of them.) And second, that their real agenda involves creating difficulty for Christie among pro-Israel voters. As with all such smear efforts, the goal here isn’t to actually demonstrate that Christie has done anything wrong, merely to create the sense that there are “troubling questions” about Christie’s views and relationships.

While Pipes and Emerson fail to demonstrate that Chris Christie has an “Islam problem,” they succeed in demonstrating that National Review still has an Islamophobia problem. Last month the magazine took important steps to rid itself of two writers who had expressed bigoted views toward African-Americans. It’s long past time that National Review do the same with those of its writers expressing similar views toward Muslim Americans.

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Robert Spencer to Debate Achmed the Dead Terrorist and The Dictator

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Robert Spencer to Debate Achmed the Dead Terrorist and The Dictator

Posted on 01 May 2012 by Danios

Sheila Musaji of The American Muslim (TAM) has been keeping a close eye on the loons who write for Jihad Watch.  The chief loon of JW, Robert Spencer, had initially been slated to debate David Wood, another Christian loon like himself.  Realizing no doubt that they are on the same side of the loony equation, the debate has been scrapped.  Instead, both Spencer and Wood have agreed to face off against Anjem Choudary and Omar Bakri.

As Musaji presciently noted, “[b]oth Choudary and Bakri are part of the Muslim lunatic fringe.”  The nefarious duo are very familiar to the Muslim community of the U.K., not because they have a large following (they don’t), but because they are routinely trotted out by anti-Muslim right-wingers.  The set-up is always the same: a right-winger pundit will invite one of these two clowns onto their show for a “debate.” By making the hated Choudary and Bakri the representative for the Muslim side, the debate is of course already won.  Muslims are left thinking, “with friends like these, who needs enemies…”

Anjem Choudary and Omar Bakri are absolutely despised by the vast majority of the Muslim community, even by the ultra-conservative and radical Muslims they pretend to represent.   They are caricatures, just one step away from being Achmed the Dead Terrorist or a character thought up by Sacha Baron Cohen (like Ali G or Admiral General Aladeen, A.K.A. The Dictator).  Choudary and Bakri play the part of terrorists and radical Islamists, which is why hateful Islamophobes love giving them ample air time: look at how crazy those Moozlums are!

It’s absolutely no surprise then that Robert Spencer and David Wood, two loons in their own right, would debate two even loonier loons.  Spencer wastes his time engaging such unserious clowns, because–just as Sheila Musaji noted long time ago–he has a pattern of seeking out complete fools to debate with so that he can then crow in victory afterward.  Meanwhile, Spencer will doggedly avoid debating anyone (1) with a serious grasp of knowledge of the topic at hand and (2) the debating skill to back it up.  And of course, (3) anyone named Danios.  What’s interesting is that even Robert Spencer’s debating partner, David Wood, seemed to imply on his website that Anjem Choudary and Omar Bakri are weak debaters.  Wood agrees with Choudary and Bakri’s view that Muhammad existed, but he doesn’t think that they will be able to make the convincing argument.  Why not just debate Achmed the Dead Terrorist or The Dictator?  It would certainly be just as enlightening and perhaps a bit more entertaining.

Robert Spencer’s homepage boldly declares that he is “the acclaimed scholar of Islam”, and yet he has no educational qualifications to validate that lofty claim.  In fact, all he has is an M.A. in Christian studies…If I get an M.A. in Buddhist studies, does that mean I get to be “the acclaimed scholar of Judaism”?  Spencer has never had his work submitted for peer review in the academic world, and so his arguments–while they certainly might pass off in the non-scholarly world–have never been tested by the real experts in the field.  Spencer’s version of peer-review is debating the equivalent of Achmed the Dead Terrorist and The Dictator.

In any case, let’s not beat around the bush.  It’s me in particular who Robert Spencer fears. One would think that he would want to debate me now that I’ve won the Brass Crescent Award for Best Writer last year (and was runner-up the year before), in no small part due to my writings against Spencer.  I have been refuting his book for a long time now, decimating his arguments one by one.  Spencer can’t respond intelligently, so of course, he naturally fears facing off in debate.  It has now officially been 684 days–that’s 1 year, 10 months, and 14 days–since I agreed to have a radio debate with Robert Spencer.  In that time, Spencer has furiously been generating excuse after excuse to avoid the debate.

Spencer continues to use my anonymity as an excuse to cover up his cowardice.  I’m an anonymous blogger and I have expressed my intent in preserving that anonymity for now.  Yet, Spencer repeatedly insists on a public venue–so that I “show my face”–knowing full well that I won’t accept such a condition.  In this way, Spencer gets out of the debate and can then disingenuously claim that I was the cause of the impasse.

Robert Spencer engages in typical right-winger projection: look how cowardly Danios is that he doesn’t show his face.  But, it is Spencer who is the coward, at least when it comes to defending his views.  What difference does it make who I am or what I look like?  The obvious answer is that Spencer wants to engage in ad hominem attacks against me, instead of focusing on the substantive value of his arguments, which my writings have shown to be severely lacking.  It’s now quite evident to all who want to see it: my refutations of his book are irrefutable.  I know it, you know it, he knows it.

And that’s why Robert Spencer will keep running away from me.  Instead, he’ll debate fools and loons.  Yawn, what’s new?

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.

*  *  *  *  *

Here is Sheila Musaji’s article from TAM:

David Wood and Robert Spencer “Debate”?

by Sheila Musaji

David Wood is not as well known as Robert Spencer, so a little background is in order.  Wood is an Evangelical pastor and has a series of polemical articles on Answering Islam.  His focus seems to be on anti-Muslim polemics.

Kiera Feldman reported on an incident in 2010:

Organized by Stop the Islamization of America, the first rally against the “Ground Zero mosque” was held in a plaza near the site of the Twin Towers on June 6th—D-Day. “We are not hatemongerers!” Pamela Hall proclaimed from the podium. “We just want our families and our future to be safe from the racist, bigoted ideology that murdered 3,000 people.” In the crowd, signs ranged from “Everything I need to know about Islam, I learned on 9/11” to crude drawings of Mohammed with the label “beast.”

Toward the end of the rally, two dark-skinned men were overheard speaking Arabic. The crowd transformed into an angry mob, surrounded the men, and shouted, “go home” and “get out.” The Bergen Record reported that the two scared men, Joseph Nasralla and Karam El Masry, had to be extricated by police. It turned out they weren’t even Muslim. They were Egyptian Coptic Christians who’d trekked cross-country from California to join the cause against the “Ground Zero mosque.” Nasralla later told John Hawkins of Right Wing News that the Record coverage was indeed accurate, adding that he’d been shoved and his camera knocked to the ground. “He said he was worried that things might have really gotten out of hand if the police hadn’t escorted him and Karam El Masry away,” Hawkins wrote.

“I actually caused that by accident,” an evangelical pastor named David Wood told me with a chuckle. He meant the near race riot. Wood is a PhD student in philosophy at a respectable New York institution whose name he didn’t want me to use. Passionate about proselytizing to Muslims, Wood’s expertise is Christian apologetics, the practice of arguing unbelievers into faith. He is best known as the creator of a viral video “Of Mosques and Men,” which argues all Muslims—even those who seem “peaceful,” like “good citizens in public”—had an urge to “smile when there were terrorist attacks.” But Wood allows himself a little laugh about violence when Muslims are on the receiving end.

As he tells the story of that day, “[The Copts] were complaining about not having anything to hand out. And I said, ‘I’ve got some pamphlets on Islam, specifically on whether Islam is a religion of peace.” The pamphlets contained passages of the Qur’an selected to suggest the answer is no. “People thought they were there to defend the mosque and promote Islam,” Wood explained. “Lots of people were fired up about that.” But it was a goofy case of mistaken identity, a funny little mix-up. “The guys who were doing it were actually Christians,” Wood told me as if clearing up the whole matter. “They weren’t Muslims.” In other words: the mob’s anger and actions were justified, but misdirected. Aim better next time?

Garibaldi of Loonwatch has written exposes about Wood in two articles here and here

Wood and Robert Spencer will have a “debate” this coming Sunday on the thesis of Spencer’s new book Did Muhammad Exist?  This “debate” will be moderated by Pamela Geller.  That may be the only time that you will see the combination of Pamela Geller and moderation in the same sentence.

Wood made the “challenge to a debate” by video and Spencer accepted the “challenge”.

Spencer is still falsely claiming that Muslims are afraid to debate him, and says in his acceptance: So David Wood will do their work for them.  Read my article Danios vs Spencer:  18 months and Spencer still avoiding a debate for the Saga of Spencer’s avoidance of a debate with Danios.  See The Muslim Communities Useful Idiots for information on some of Spencer’s past debates with Muslims, and why I believe that engaging with bigots is not productive.

These are not individuals who hold respectable, if controversial opinions.  These are bigots, and engaging them in such a forum only provides them with some veneer of respectability.

Hosts like Hannity, or Bolling can claim that they have been “fair and balanced” because they included a Muslim.  And, full time, paid mercenaries in a “holy war” against Islam like Spencer, will claim “victory” no matter what the outcome.  If they have no “facts” that will stand up to scrutiny, they will stoop to ridiculous slurs, as they did with Christina Abraham.  And, when all else fails, if any Muslim says anything reasonable, they will say that it is taqiyya.

This sort of devious, unethical, and downright childish behavior, is not surprising from individuals who consistently “get it wrong” when it comes to Islam and Muslims, and who see no ethical problem with simply removing articles from a site when they are proven to be inaccurate.  Not too surprising for individuals who are co-founders (Spencer & Geller) of a group, Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  The group is also described by the ADL in the following terms: “Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), created in 2009, promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy “American” values. The organization warns of the encroachment of shari’a, or Islamic law, and encourages Muslims to leave what it describes as the “falsity of Islam.”

I believe that it is not “cowardly” to leave these folks alone, just sensible.   It is not that their claims cannot be, and have not been answered, but rather that they have proven themselves time and time again to be untrustworthy and dishonorable in both their tactics and their responses to reasoned argument.

Spencer and Wood seem to have a mutual admiration society.  Spencer posted a notice about the “debate” with a note to watch Wood’s video, and Wood posted a notice with a note to read Spencer’s book.

The notice points out that this “debate” will be right after Geller and Spencer’s “Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference” (their most recent anti-Muslim hate fest) ends.  It is worth noting that David Wood will be a speaker at Spencer and Geller’s conference.  I’m sure their promotional video will be more exciting than the actual “debate”.

It seems pretty obvious that rather than a debate, this is a calculated publicity stunt to gain a little more notoriety for their conference, and to publicize Spencer’s book.  I’m sure that they will both have an opportunity to get in a few anti-Muslim zingers in the course of this “debate”.  Let the bigots talk among themselves.

UPDATE 4/30/2012

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more strange.  Robert Spencer just posted a new notice about tonights “debate”.  The debate is now to be between Spencer and Wood (on the same side) versus Anjem Choudary and Omar Bakri.

Both Choudary and Bakri are part of the Muslim lunatic fringe.  Just type their names or the term lunatic fringe into our TAM search engine for more information on these disreputable folks.

I’m curious as to how Spencer is going to talk to Omar Bakri since the last I heard he had been denied re-entry to England, and arrested in Lebanon.

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France: Muslim Section of Cemetery in Carros Desecrated by Vandals

Posted on 30 April 2012 by Emperor

cemetery_desecrated_Carros_France

A Muslim section in a Carre cemetery was desecrated

This is a report from the French website, Al-Kanz which does a good job in covering anti-Islam and anti-Muslim trends and attacks, they also alerted us to this story. Here is an approximate translation via. Google:

Desecrated Muslim section near Nice

Hatred of the living led some to attack the dead. The Muslim section of a cemetery in Carros, near Nice, has been desecrated, as reported by France Soir .

The brave Snatchers drew swastikas in reverse and inscribed “Vive Le Pen” and “Arab dehor” outside without s. The UMP proposed a few days ago to reform the spelling. Utility is measured. Like drawing classes with swastikas in place?

Here is the original in French:

La haine des vivants conduit certains à s’en prendre aux morts. Le carré musulman d’un cimetière à Carros, près de Nice, a été profané, comme le rapporte France Soir.

Les courageux profanateurs ont dessiné des croix gammées à l’envers et inscrit « Vive Le Pen » et « Arabe dehor », dehors sans s. L’UMP proposait il y a quelques jours de réformer l’orthographe. On mesure l’utilité. Tout comme des cours de dessin de croix gammées à l’endroit ?

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Dearborn: Muslims and Members of Other Faiths Successfully Counter Anti-Muslim Conference

Posted on 30 April 2012 by Emperor

MSNBC describes it as “dueling in Dearborn.” I think the real story is the rejection of Islamophobia, and the anti-Islam outsiders who arrived only to agitate:

Dueling in Dearborn over murder of a 20-year-old woman

By Kari Huus, msnbc.com

In Dearborn Mich., a Detroit suburb known for its concentration of Muslim Americans, anti-Islam leaders from around the country are gathering to discuss how to rescue women from that faith. The “Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference on Honor Killings” on Sunday is named for a local Muslim woman murdered one year ago.

But Muslims, civil rights groups and other religious leaders say the conference is merely another event put on by well-known bigots to attack the minority religion. Their response was to schedule a town hall meeting just a few miles away on Sunday called “Rejecting Islamophobia: A Community Stand Against Hate.”

The honor killing conference, organized by Pamela Geller, who became nationally famous for her vocal opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque, aka Park 51 in Manhattan, is based on the premise that Mokdad, 20 years old when she died in April 2011, was the victim of an honor killing justified by Islam.

Mokdad’s family maintains that the killing was a tragedy that has nothing to do with their Islamic beliefs, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press.

“It’s not a case based on honor,” Macomb County Assistant Prosecutor Bill Cataldo, chief of homicide, told the Free Press on Friday.

In court, prosecutors have said the motive for Mokdad’s killing was that her stepfather, Rahim Alfetlawi had “been sexually abusing her,” Cataldo said, according to the report. They argue that when she threatened to go public about the abuse he killed her.

Cataldo said the family strongly objects to the conference using Mokdad’s killing, which they say was a tragedy that had nothing to do with their faith.

Geller insists this was an honor killing carried out by a devout Muslim because his stepdaughter was not following Islam, and that the family is covering it up. She alleges that law enforcers systematically cover up honor killings here and elsewhere under “stealth enforcement” of Islamic shariah law.

On her web site, Geller says: “Despite pressure from the media and members of Jessica’s family who want to cover up the honor killing aspect of her murder, we are not going to change the name of the conference. Unlike those closest to her, we are going to honor Jessica’s memory and stand up against the brutal practice that took her life.”

The Dearborn conference will feature speeches by Geller and Robert Spencer — author of the blog “Jihad Watch” — as well as several like-minded legal and religious figures. They have also invited a young man who says he was Mokdad’s friend to offer “firsthand testimony” that she was a victim of honor killing.

Stop the Islamization of America, which Geller and Spencer founded, has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit civil rights watchdog.

“Pamela Geller is the anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and flamboyant figurehead,” according to a profile published by SPLC on its web site. ”She’s relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam and makes preposterous claims.”

The Arab American Institute, a decades-old community organization in the Detroit area, discouraged Muslims and their supporters from protesting at the site of Geller’s conference.  But they organized a competing event, said AAI president Jim Zogby, because Geller and Spencer have become too prominent to ignore.

“Geller and Spencer have thousands of followers, and are given airtime to spew their hate on major American news networks, as if they are respected analysts with just another viewpoint,” Zogby said on the AAI announcement for the “Rejecting Islamophobia” town hall in Detroit.

Although many Americans have never encountered a Muslim in person, about 43 percent questioned in a recent Gallup Poll said they felt at least “a little” prejudice against Muslims.

“This group, we cannot ignore. This is the time for our community to take a stand, along with all those who value America’s commitment to diversity and freedom of religion, against the politics of division and bigotry promoted by the Islamophobes.”

A variety of community, interfaith and religious leaders and Michigan public on their agenda, for a “community conversation about how to respond to these continued attacks,” said Zogby.

One participant who was just on his way to the town hall was Dawud Walid, who heads the Michigan office of the Council on American Islamic Relations, a civil rights advocacy group for Muslims.

“I think firstly we have to better expose who these anti-Muslim bigots are as well as their funders,” said Walid. “We believe that the Islamophobia that permeates our country is being pushed by a well-organized, highly-funded network.”

He says that while Dearborn and Detroit have become a focus for the activities of Geller and others of like mind, the problem is bigger.

“Islamophobia is a national illness,” he said.

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teaser-wilders-book-2704121

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Geert Wilders and Islamophobia in the US—on their way out?

Posted on 30 April 2012 by Emperor

We speculated that Wilders star was fading in Europe and that he will try to cash in on the anti-Islam buzz in the USA amongst the “fanatical anti-Islam movement.”

Geert Wilders and Islamophobia in the US—on their way out?

Published on : 30 April 2012 – 8:00am | By John Tyler (Photo: Freefoto.com)

Geert Wilders’ autobiographical book Marked for Death: Islam’s War against the West and Me will be presented in New York on Tuesday. Will his message against Islam and the West’s alleged “Islamification” still resonate in the United States? Here in the Netherlands this week’s political upheaval has seriously dented his influence.

Now that Wilders has disqualified himself from governing, relegating his party to opposition status, his political future here is limited. Even if his Freedom Party emerged as the largest in September’s elections, he would find it difficult, if not impossible, to find any coalition partners. No other party will be eager to work with a politician who has proved so unreliable.

So where does a savvy Islam-basher turn when he is down on his luck? To the United States, of course. Following her stint in Dutch politics, Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali embarked on a successful career as Islam-critic in the US. There is speculation that Wilders may follow her example.

Frequent flyer

Wilders is no stranger to American shores. He has travelled there frequently, raising money and giving lectures. He most famously gave a speech in New York in the autumn of 2010 opposing the building of a Muslim Centre a few blocks from Ground Zero. The protest against the centre gave Wilders a platform for his message against Islam. He said New York “must defend itself against the powers of darkness, the force of hatred and the blight of ignorance. …This means we must not give a free hand to those who want to subjugate us.” His speech received broad coverage in the American press.

Changed attitudes 
Two years later, however, Wilders will find that attitudes in the US have changed. Anti-Muslim sentiment has been fading. A Gallup poll released in the summer of 2011 showed that Muslims, while still facing discrimination, are more confident about their future than any other group in the US. The standard of living among Muslims is improving faster than among other groups.

Gallup researcher Mohamed Younis: “The debate about Islam flares up when something happens, but the last couple of years have been pretty quiet and the public’s interest has waned. Wilders will have a hard time selling his book right now.”

There is more evidence that the attitude toward Muslims in the US is softening. The most outspoken anti-Islam candidates in the Republican presidential primaries did not do well. Mitt Romney, who is all but certain to win the Republican nomination, is known for his moderate views on American Muslims.

As for entertainment, a reality programme called “All-American Muslim” was cancelled, not because it generated a small controversy, but because it failed to attract viewers. People were bored by the premise that Muslims were everyday, normal Americans, and the show got poor ratings. And the New York Muslim Centre Wilders tried to block is going ahead, albeit in a more modest form. The protests have petered out.

Fringe element
American opinion toward Islam may be evolving, but there’s still an energetic minority of writers and bloggers who continue to warn of the imminent danger that Islam allegedly poses to the US. The small publishing house which is bringing out Wilders’ book is a driving force in such circles.

Regnery Publishing specialises in far-right conspiracy theories and scare-mongering. Books currently featured on the website include: Fast and Furious: Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up,Secret Weapon: How Economic Terrorism Brought Down the U.S. Stock Market and Why It Can Happen Again, and After America: Get Ready for Armageddon.

The author of the last work, Mark Steyn, a fervently anti-Islam journalist from Canada, has written the introduction of Wilders’ new book. Regnery’s head, Marji Ross, says she knows Wilders’ views are seen as extreme, but “that’s what makes the book exciting and bold and newsworthy.”

Judging from the response to review copies of Marked for Death, it fails to fulfil Ms Ross’ expectations. It is reported to be a relatively dry description of how Wilders got to where he is, with hardly anything polemical about it. It also appears to lack the verve of Fitna, his short anti-Islam film of 2008.

Curiously, there is no mention of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who helped elevate Wilders to the powerful position he held for the past 18 months. On the other hand, he refers a few times to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, claiming they think along the same lines.

One reviewer said the book could be considered Wilders’ calling card to America. But in contrast to Hirsi Ali’s books Infidel and Nomad, published by mainstream houses and selling well, Marked for Death is not likely to attract a wide readership outside the fanatical anti-Islam movement.

Deafening silence
When Wilders spoke in parliament earlier this week after bringing down the government, MPs largely ignored him. With one exception, no one bothered to confront him. Apart from a few trusted Islam bashers, the broader public in the US may greet Wilders with the same deafening silence.

(cl)

© Radio Netherlands Worldwide

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Alan Lake and Roberta Moore

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Alan Lake and Roberta Moore Have a Difference of Opinion Over Killing their Political Opponents

Posted on 29 April 2012 by Emperor

Alan Lake and Roberta Moore have a difference of opinion over killing their political opponents

Richard Bartholomew points out that the 4 Freedoms Community website run by former English Defence League financier and ideologist Alan Ayling (“Alan Lake”) has updated its Code of Conduct.

Under the heading “Unlawful Killing” this now includes the following: “You must not endorse or encourage people to perform criminal executions. However, you can endorse enforcement of execution by the state (capital punishment) after application of due judicial process.”

The latter qualification is to cover Ayling himself, who has in the past advocated the execution of political opponents like Rowan Williams, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Still, as long Ayling states that their killing should take place after “application of due judicial process” nobody could reasonably object to that, could they? Well, Ayling’s employers, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, evidently did. At the end of last year they suspended him from his job after his identity was revealed.

The ban on endorsing or encouraging “criminal executions”, as distinct from the sort of executions Ayling himself advocates, was imposed after he was contacted by the Norwegian paper Dagbladetin connection with a comment posted on the 4 Freedoms site by Roberta Moore, the former leader of the EDL Jewish division who now heads the Jewish Defence League UK.

Expressing her regret that Anders Breivik had failed to kill Eskil Pedersen, the leader of the Norwegian Labour Party’s youth section who escaped from Utøya by boat, Moore wrote: “It seems Breivik missed one. This is precisely the coward that should have been killed. Cowards can run but eventually they meet their fate. May KARMA play its part now.”

Five years ago four Muslim extremists were jailed for four to six years after being convicted of soliciting to murder because they chanted slogans such as “bomb, bomb, Denmark”, “bomb, bomb the UK”, “7/7 on its way” and “Europe, you will pay with your blood” at a protest in London against the Jyllands-Posten anti-Islam cartoons.

The Director of Public Prosecutions said at the time: “Terrorism attacks our way of life and incitement can make a very real contribution to it. We shall continue to take incitement very seriously and prosecute it robustly where there is enough evidence for us to do so.”

Why, then, has Roberta Moore not been charged with the same offence?

Moore is not the only member of the Jewish Defence League UK to advocate terrorist violence against their political opponents. Another is Rob Sims, who posted the following comment on the EDL’s official Facebook page in response to Breivik’s trial:

“We should be supporting this guy, The lot he killed where a bunch of Anti-Semite scum, These left wing idiots and muslims are making europe resemble Germany under NSDAP rule, Whats it gonna take for people to realise that we need more people like Breivik who are willing to actually fight for what he believes in.”

So far as we know no action has been taken against Sims either, even though Durham Constabulary has been notified.

If the police and Crown Prosecution Service can find the time and resources to prosecute a Muslim teenager for posting offensive online comments about British troops, why aren’t the likes of Moore and Sims in court too?

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EDL England Will Never be a Muslim State

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Britain’s Far Right to Focus on Anti-Islamic Policy

Posted on 29 April 2012 by Emperor

A follow up to our lead story.

Britain’s far right to focus on anti-Islamic policy

The head of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson, will be named deputy leader of the British Freedom party this week after proposing that the group adopt virulent anti-Islamic policies as its central strategy.

Confirmation that Robinson is to be offered a political platform within the BFP is contained in internal documents revealing that he has forwarded a number of “potential policy suggestions” that suggest the party will widen its attacks on Muslims.

The document suggests the BFP with Robinson would “focus on non-Islamic population, not white/black population”, a move that critics describe as an attempt to antagonise relations between Muslims and other Britons. Other proposed areas of campaigning for the party, which will contest several seats in this week’s local elections, include calls for regulation of all mosques and religious schools and the banning of the burqa and niqab.

The unveiling of Robinson as deputy leader of the British Freedom Party will take place in Luton ahead of an EDL demo in the town, during which supporters will be banned from its centre by police, following previous disturbances.

Last week, a BFP member tweeted his support for Norwegian killer Anders Breivik, while an EDL member defended the 34-year-old, currently on trial in Oslo after confessing to the murder of 77 people last July, and said that if he had “singled out the muslim filth” he would be viewed as a hero.

Internal notes of a meeting held in a Luton hotel between senior EDL and BFP figures on 14 April, which have been seen by the Observer, reveal that participants believe the alliance is a development that “will change the direction of British politics”.

However Nick Lowles of campaign group Hope not Hate said: “Although this shows the new face of the far right, a move that further marginalises the BNP, their agenda is so hate-filled that it will remain a minority message.”

Robinson and the BFP have yet to comment, but the documents show that he backs a ban on the building of mosques and madrassas, an end to mass immigration, withdrawal from the EU, and promotion of “Christian values”.

Last week a report by Amnesty International warned of the rise of extremist political movements targeting Muslim practices in Europe, a development evidenced by the surprisingly strong showing of support for the French Front National, the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen, in France’s presidential election. It also said that European laws on what girls and women could wear on their heads were encouraging discrimination against Muslims.

Observer, 29 April 2012

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MSNBC: Mona Eltahawy vs. Leila Ahmed

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MSNBC: Mona Eltahawy vs. Leila Ahmed

Posted on 28 April 2012 by Ilisha

FP Sex Issue

Mona Eltahawy is no doubt an engaging and well-spoken woman, and although her recent article in Foreign Policy Magazine was inflammatory and lacking in nuance, she’s raised some important issues about women’s rights in Egyptian society and the broader Arab world. Danios challenged Eltahawy’s sweeping generalizations in a feature article, Why Do They Hate Us? They Don’t.

Dr. Leila Ahmed, Harvard Divinity School’s first women’s studies professor, also challenged Eltahawy during an interview with MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry.  Eltahawy said during the interview that Dr. Ahmed is one of her personal heroes.

However, the two women don’t see eye-to-eye on some key issues. For example, Eltahawy supports a ban on the burqa, but in the summer of 2011, Dr. Ahmed wrote her own article for Foreign Policy Magazine, Veil of Ignorance, advancing the notion modern feminists had gotten it wrong when it comes to the veil:

These are just the first stirrings of a new era in the story of Islam in the West. Historically, religions undergo enormous transformations as one strain of belief and practice gains ascendancy over another. Living religions are by definition dynamic: Witness the changes that have occurred in the last decades as women have become pastors and rabbis. A similar process is now under way within Islam, as the veil, once an emblem of patriarchy, today carries multiple meanings for its American and European wearers. Often enough, it also serves as a banner and call for justice — and yes, even for women’s rights.

Some of Eltahawy’s fiercest criticism has come from Arab and Muslim women, and it’s refreshing to see the mainstream media showing opposing views. The video starts out with a thoughtful discussion between Perry and Eltahawy, and the part featuring Dr. Ahmed begins about halfway through.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Stephen Tweed BFP

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BFP Organiser Who Said ‘Muslims are Bearded Scum’ Claims Party is ‘Centre Right’

Posted on 28 April 2012 by Emperor

More intriguing info. on Stephen Lennon’s British “Freedom” Party:

BFP organiser claims party is ‘centre right’

Lynn News has published an update on the controversy over the proposed conversion of a disused King’s Lynn pub into an Islamic community centre.

They interview Stephen Tweed of the British Freedom Party who has been organising a campaign against the development. Tweed claims that his objections to the mosque are concerned only with noise and parking. He states that he is not a racist and that his party is “centre right”.

This from a man who describes King’s Lynn’s Muslim community as “bearded scum”, denounces ”complacent, wishy-washy liberal governments” for having “let Muslim immigrants flood in”, calls for “the banning of the Koran” and “an immediate stop to the building of mosques anywhere”, has a photo of a burning mosque as hisprofile picture on Facebook, and is the Norfolk organiser of a party launched by former prominent figures in the fascist British National Party, one of whom recently commented that he “couldn’t care less” about the young people killed by Anders Breivik because they were “leftist youths” who would “grow up to betray Norway”.

Tweed will be raising his concerns about “noise and parking” on Monday at a meeting of West Norfolk Council’s planning committee, which has been recommended to approve the application to convert the pub into a community centre. Hopefully the committee will take into consideration Tweed’s repulsive political beliefs and treat his arguments accordingly.

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Salah Al-Nasrawi: A Lesson From Iran: Islamic Sharia is Flexible After All

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Salah Al-Nasrawi: A Lesson From Iran: Islamic Sharia is Flexible After All

Posted on 28 April 2012 by Ilisha

Stop Stoning

It might surprise many to learn the Qur’an never commands “stoning,” though death by stoning is specified as a punishment numerous times in the Bible:

For taking ”accursed things”

Achan … took of the accursed thing. … And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones. … So the LORD turned from the fierceness of his anger. Joshua 7:1-26

For cursing or blaspheming

And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him. Leviticus 24:16

For adultery

If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city. Deuteronomy 22:23-24

For animals

“If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. Exodus 21:28

For a woman who is not a virgin on her wedding night

If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her … and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: And the damsel’s father shall say … these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. … But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she dieDeuteronomy 22:13-21

For worshipping other gods

If there be found among you … that … hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them … Then shalt thou … stone them with stones, till they die. Deuteronomy 17:2-5

If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers … thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die. Deuteronomy 13:5-10

For disobeying parents

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother … Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city … And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he dieDeuteronomy 21:18-21

For witches and wizards

A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:27

For giving your children to Molech

Whosoever … giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stonesLeviticus 20:2

For breaking the Sabbath

They found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. … And the LORD said unto Moses, the man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones…. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded MosesNumbers 15:32-56

For cursing the king

Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die1 Kings 21:10

In the modern world, it’s Muslim-majority countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan, that have become infamous for brutal punishments, including stoning. Ignoring dozens of Muslim-majority countries that don’t engage in such practices, anti-Muslim bigots constantly shine a spotlight on the most regressive regimes, leaving the public with the impression harsh punishments are an inevitable feature of Islamic Law.

Yet Iran has recently passed a law abolishing stoning as a punishment for adultery. As fixated as the major media usually are on that country, the story has attracted relatively scant coverage–and predictably, it’s been completely ignored by hate sites devoted to demonizing Muslims and generating hysteria about “creeping sharia.”

A lesson from Iran: Islamic Sharia is flexible after all

by Salah Al-Nasrawi, Ahram (Egypt)

A new law by the Islamic Republic of Iran to abolish stoning to death for adulterers passed last month has been received with a lot of skepticism in the West and little attention in the Arab and Islamic world.

But the ruling could have a significant bearing on the debate about the role of Islamic Sharia as Islamic groups gain power throughout the Middle East with many of them aspire to see Islamic jurisdiction as the law of the land.

Iran’s Guardian Council and Iranian parliament have approved an amendment to the country’s penal code by removing all executions by stoning which will come into effect once signed by the country’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Under Iran’s old penal code, stoning to death was one of the sentences applied for adultery. Iranian activists who campaigned against the practice said at least 99 men and women have been executed by stoning over the last 30 years.

The stoning sentence against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 45-year-old Iranian woman, on charges of adultery and murder in 2006 has turned the spotlight on Iran as one of very few countries which adopts Sharia, or Islamic law.

The concept was equated in the West and among Muslim secularists with a variety of retributions including stoning of adulterers, chopping of limbs of thieves, death in blasphemy cases and restrictions on rights of women and minorities.

Ashtiani’s was convicted of having an “illicit relationship” with two men after the murder of her husband and was sentenced to 99 lashes. The verdict led to an international condemnation which has made Tehran delay carrying out the sentence.

While Ashtiani’s case points to a larger divide between the West and Iran, the punishment of the mother of two has highlighted how the contentious issue is a practice that has largely survived through centuries’ long cultural heritage.

The sentence, and now its abolishment, renewed a theological controversy in Islam on whether the harsh punishment is God’s commands, or a man-made effort to interpret Islamic Sharia, or Islamic law.

The case has spilled over into larger and even more complex issues within Islamic discourse, such as what consist Sharia, and if it is compatible with modern day human rights standards.

Most of Iran’s legal code was based on the constitution enacted under guidance of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled secular regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The document declared Iran as a Muslim nation whose laws are derived from Islamic Sharia, which it defines as God’s “exclusive sovereignty and the right to legislate”, based on God’s commands in Quran and Sunnah, which is Prophet’s Mohammad’s teachings.

Sharia is still wide open for judgment under Islamic principle of Ijtihad. The term means an endeavor of a Muslim scholar to derive a rule of divine law from the Quran and Prophet Mohammad’s heritage.

Since the Islamic revolution some Iranian clerics have said stoning should be stopped because it may harm the reputation of Islam or the Islamic nation.

Others believed stoning is a divine punishment.

Some Muslim scholars believe stoning to death was never contemplated by Islam as a punishment for the act of adultery since the Quran does not even mention the word “stoning” or ‘death by stoning in any of its verses.

According to the Holy book of Islam all sexual intercourse outside the marital bond is considered sinful. Some scholars say Quran makes no distinction between adultery and fornication; in both cases the punishment is flogging to those found guilty.

In Quran verse “The Light (24:2) says: “The adulteress and the adulterer shall each be given a hundred lashes. Let no pity for them to cause you to disobey Allah.”

On the other hand, many Islamic legal scholars and judges agree that the Quranic text does not refer to executions by stoning but state they are part of the Sunnah.  They say there is no necessity that all orders of Sharia to be mentioned in Quran, one by one.

Other clerics say that even if stoning was practiced by Prophet Mohammad and his immediate followers it cannot be enforced nowadays. They believe stoning is a part of Islamic law but only the Prophet and his immediate successors are authorized or qualified to order and implement it.

In theory, stoning to death is still enacted in laws of countries which apply Islamic Sharia, such as Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. It has been also carried out in the previous Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and some parts of Nigeria.

Iran’s amendment of the penal code is believed to have been adopted in response to international criticism of its violations of human rights. It also coincides with mounting tension with the West over its nuclear program and increasing fear of a military conflict.

Critics, however, say the new code still considers adultery for married persons as a crime, although it doesn’t designate any specific punishment for it, leaving that for the judge to rely on a fatwa by a reliable cleric. Human rights organizations argued that such measures were inadequate and insisted that real change in the law is necessary.

Whether Iran wants to improve its human rights record or it is trying to ward off increasing Western pressure, the revision of its Islamic law now remains highly significant from both political and theological standpoints.

As Islamic groups gain power throughout the Middle East, the role of Sharia is coming under increased focus. Modernist forces in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia were shocked by the remarkable collective rise to power of these parties and the sudden transformation of their civil states into states with budding theocratic inclinations.

While fundamentalist movements, such Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Tunisia’s Enhhada Party and the Justice and Development Party in Morocco speak about a broadly defined application of Sharia as “a main source” for legislation, other ultra-orthodox groups want a full-fledged Islamic legal code.

Yet there are increasing signs that show Islamic groups in these countries want more religion than previously admitted. Multiple reports and research works are suggesting that these countries are evolving towards more conservative rules and an Islamisation of social life.

There have already been calls from some Islamists to close down the tourist sites and to impose Islamic dress codes on the costal resorts. Women are also worried that political Islam might impose new restrictions on them such as forcing them to wear the Hijab (veil) and restrict their personal freedom.

Christians, a religious minority in the countries recently taken over by Islamists, complain of more intolerance and say they fear for their safety after increased cases of sectarian violence and discrimination.

Many secularists and liberals in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and other countries now want to see their next constitutions to have solid guarantees of democratic and civic commitments.

Here comes the Iranian experiment of abolishing a deep rooted Islamic concept of retribution and the lesson to be drawn from that by newly empowered Islamic groups in these three Arab countries and perhaps in others that will soon follow.

In Egypt, where the debate will open soon on drafting a new constitution, focus will increase on the role of Sharia in the country’s political and social life, especially in balancing Islam with democracy, personal freedom and modernity.

Although it is generally agreed among mainstream political groups that Sharia is the point of reference in legislation, the challenge will remain about how to distinguish what directly comes from the Quran and Sunnah from man-made interpretation of God’s revelations and the Prophet’s teachings.

Article 2 of Iran’s constitution provides such a room for maneuverability by combining both Ijtihad by qualified Faqih, or scholar(s) and the resort to “sciences, arts and the most advanced results of human experience” with Quran and Sunnah in legislation.

Under such overwhelming circumstances, the most liberal, secularists and reform minded Egyptian Muslims can argue for is that any stipulation of Islamic Sharia in the new constitution should provide flexibility, so that Islamic laws should be viewed and amended in light of time and changing circumstances.

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Rejecting Islamophobia: Town hall counters ‘Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference’ in Dearborn

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Rejecting Islamophobia: Town hall counters ‘Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference’ in Dearborn

Posted on 27 April 2012 by Emperor

Jessica_Mokdad

Jessica Mokdad "loved Islam" according to her parents.

Striking back and rejecting Islamophobia:

Rejecting Islamophobia: Town hall counters ‘Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference’ in Dearborn

Dearborn, home to one of the nation’s largest concentrations of Arab Americans, once again will become a focal point for debate over the practice and persecution of Islam in the west.

Pamela Geller, conservative activist and co-founder of Stop Islamization of America, is scheduled to host the “Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference” from the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Dearborn on Sunday at 5 p.m.

The event is named after a 20-year-old woman fatally shot by her stepfather last year in Warren. Initial reports suggested Rahim Alfetlawi shot Mokdad because he believed she had strayed from Islam, but prosecutors have since said that religion did not play a role.

Despite opposition from family members who say Mokdad’s murder has nothing to do with Islam, Geller has refused to rename the conference, suggesting an attempt to cover up what she continues to call an “honor killing.”

“Unlike those closest to her, we are going to honor Jessica’s memory and stand up against the brutal practice that took her life,” Geller said in a statement announcing the conference.

Local leaders say the conference is misleading and argue that Dearborn has become a convenient target for anti-Muslim groups, pointing to recent protests led by activist Pastor Terry Jones.

To counter Geller’s conference, The Arab American Institute and partners have scheduled a competing town hall on Sunday titled “Rejecting Islamophobia: A Community Stand Against Hate.” It is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. at the Doubletree Hotel in Dearborn.

“This is clearly not the first time our community in Michigan has had to deal with a hate group,” AAI President Jim Zogby said in a statement. “Despite repeated efforts to target Arab Americans and American Muslims, the community has remained resilient and poised, sometimes choosing to ignore the fervor.

“This group we cannot ignore and this is the time to stand up and make our voices loud and clear in opposition to the politics of division and bigotry.”

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breivik_norwayflowers-1-300×90

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In Norway’s Tragedy and a Nation’s Response Lies a Lesson For Us All

Posted on 27 April 2012 by Emperor

Anders Behring Breivik’s destructive actions will not define a nation’s response and the lesson’s learned: (h/t: Roger via. Islamophobia Today)

In Norway’s Tragedy and a Nation’s Response Lies a Lesson For Us All

International media has been gripped by the trial of Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. A self-declared ‘Knights Templar Crusader’ who believed he was acting in ‘defense’ of Norway by killing a future generation of aspiring Leftist leaders he accused of abetting the ‘Islamization’ of Europe.

During the initial reporting of the rampage the speculation of who or what could be behind the attack was rife, most media outlets zeroed in on Muslims with many (mis)attributing the attacks to ‘Islam.’

“AlQaeda”… “the Muslims, who else,” many thought and were told. The rush to judgement was swift.

When the culprit was captured, Breivik’s Scandanavian features and anti-Islam manifesto belied the narratives swirling in the media, shell shocking a media-world expecting the arrest of a “disgruntled, unintegrated, bearded ‘brown’ emigre” from a Muslim majority nation.

Breivik’s ideology was formed in the far recesses of the internet, within the chambers of the blogosphere, where anti-Islam rhetoric coupled with conspiracies about the pending decline of the West created a toxic lethal cocktail of xenophobia and violent bigotry.

Ironically, Breivik claimed to be acting in the name of “Christianity,” claiming to be a scion and reviver of the medieval “Knights Templar” order of Crusaders, defending Europe from Islam while preserving its “Christian” culture and identity.

In the swift “rush to judgement” and the resultant revelation that the actual perpetrator of the atrocities in Oslo and Utoya was a man claiming to act in the interests of “Christianity” lies a lesson for us all.

It is well known that Christianity is a religion that promotes peace. The overwhelming majority of Christians in the world are averse to violence against innocents and view murder in the name of “Christ” as both illegitimate and unchristian. Just as we must recognize that the great religion of Christianity cannot be besmirched by the actions of a lone man, we must also ask the opinion-makers to be consistent and declare that Islam should not be essentialized as a “religion of violence” because of the actions of a lunatic fringe.

There is also another lesson that we can take away from the violence in Norway, and it relates to the response of the Norwegian people to the attacks.

Anger, a natural fiery fuel with the potential to engulf was present early on, but its tide ebbed because of the response of a nation. They were resolved, resolute that their disposition was not going to suffer a paradigm shift because of the actions of one man.

Quickly, the Prime Minister of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg who suffered his own personal loss in the attacks said, “we will respond to hate with our values.” A nation mourned, Christians and Muslims held joint services, healing songs were sung, and flowers left by citizens covered the destroyed, mangled concrete at the scene of the attacks.

A need to cover up the ugly…a need to respond to it with beauty. This characterized the essence of the collective Norwegian spirit, not a turn to fear and hate, but a response that said, ‘we will uphold our values.’ A reminder, it seemed to me, of the oft-repeated Quranic maxim, “return evil with good.”

Beauty will face ugliness and transform it, as the famous tradition relates, “God is beautiful and loves beauty.” In the response of the Norwegians to the nightmare of Oslo and Utoya lies a lesson for all of us, do not succumb to fear and hate, instead respond to it with justice, goodness and love of the most beautiful kind.

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New and Improved Rules for Drone Warfare

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New and Improved Rules for Drone Warfare

Posted on 27 April 2012 by Ilisha

Drone in Iran

This photo released, Dec. 8, 2011, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, claims to show US RQ-170 Sentinel drone which Tehran says its forces downed. (AP Photo)

Drone warfare has made killing people from afar easy and virtually risk free.

Now the Iranians claim that they’ve reverse engineered a captured US drone and cracked its secrets. This claim was met with skepticism, but even if it’s true and the technology proves useful, can anyone imagine Iranian drones in the skies over Western countries? Of course not!

In the real world, we kill and they die, not the other way around. If that sacred rule is broken, they are clearly engaging in “terrorism,” which merely gives us an excuse to unleash even more death and destruction. If the Iranians don’t grasp the rules, they can expect to be obliterated.

US drones prowl the skies of a growing list of countries, killing suspected terrorists and innocent civilians with mindless efficiency. Heavy with sarcasm, Hamilton Nolan describes new, relaxed (and frightening) rules that will allow the US to expand drone warfare, in Yemen and beyond.

New and Improved Rules for Drone Warfare

by Hamilton NolanThe Gawker

Good news for people who love freedom, hate terrorism, and people who do not live in Yemen and will never visit Yemen and do not appear to be from Yemen or its surrounding areas: the U.S. government is relaxing its rules for drone strikes in Yemen. When it comes to incinerating more or less inscrutable targets with unseen missile attacks like Zeus himself, why be encumbered by a bunch of bureaucratic rules?

The new policy reportedly ”includes targeting fighters whose names aren’t known but who are deemed to be high-value terrorism targets or threats to the U.S.” No more pesky hours of intelligence-gathering before you can vaporize that jeep from above. But do these rules go far enough in eliminating those who Hate Our Freedoms and Familes and Children, and Our Children and Families’ Freedoms™? We think not. A few common sense edits for the future of warfare:

  • If someone is carrying a machine gun, RPG, or shoulder-fired missile that looks like an imminent threat to any Coalition soldiers, whether from the Western world or from the Muslim world, they may be killed.
  • If someone in an area known for militant activity appears to be transporting cargo with brown and grey markings consistent with databases of the graphic skin that covers the outside of missiles or rockets and moves with an intent to set up and fire those armaments at Coalition forces, they may be blown up.
  • If someone is determined through confirmed intelligence of a reliable nature to be forming a terrorist group with the intent and capability of causing mass casualties in America or in any territory of an American ally in the Middle East, and they cannot be apprehended without significant risk of loss of civilian life, they may be kabazongaed to bababooey with a f***ing Hellfire, bro.

A little common sense goes a long way.

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Gen. Martin Dempsey

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Anti-Islam Courses Being Taught in the Military

Posted on 26 April 2012 by Emperor

Gen. Martin Dempsey

Whodathunkit? Only the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the NYPD. So why not the US Military as well:

Military Halts Class Teaching Anti-Islam Material

(HuffingtonPost)

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has suspended a course for military officers that officials say contained inflammatory material about Islam.

Defense Department spokesman Capt. John Kirby said Wednesday that among problems with the course taught at Norfolk, Va., was a presentation that asserted the United States is at war with Islam. Kirby noted that officials across two American administrations have stressed that the U.S. is at war with terrorists who have a distorted view of the religion.

Kirby declined to detail what he said were other problems with the course, called “Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism.”

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has ordered all service branches to review their training to ensure other courses don’t use anti-Islamic material.

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The director of the Islamic Center of Charlotte holds up an anti-Muslim letter it received.

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Threat Letter to Islamic Center: We have no Problem Killing Muslims

Posted on 25 April 2012 by Amago

The director of the Islamic Center of Charlotte holds up an anti-Muslim letter it received.

The director of the Islamic Center of Charlotte holds up an anti-Muslim letter it received.

No religious community should have to endure this.

The article notes that this letter was sent to not only one Islamic center but a few:

Hough says he contacted authorities about the letter on Friday and the FBI was already investigating because of letters sent to other Islamic centers across the state.

Threat letter to Islamic Center: We have no problem killing Muslims

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – The head of the Islamic Center of Charlotte is speaking out after the center received a letter threatening physical violence against Muslims.

According to the center’s director Jibril Hough, the letter was just one of several sent to Islamic centers around North Carolina.

Hough called the letter a “pretty detailed threat” and said the threat was serious enough that Charlotte police and the Federal Bureau of Investigations are now investigating the letter.

The letter, according to Hough, came from a person who claimed to be “part of a large network of folks from the business community, from the public services community, from the public school community that is seeking to make life harder on the public square for Muslims.”

Hough says he contacted authorities about the letter on Friday and the FBI was already investigating because of letters sent to other Islamic centers across the state.  Hough says he knows the center in Raleigh received the same letter and hopes it will get the same attention as if it was any other house of worship.

“We all need the same protection, under the law, as citizens. We all need that,” he told WBTV. “We deserved the same attention as anyone would receive.  We’re not trying to make more out of this than it deserves, but we’re also concerned that it gets the attention it truly deserves.”

Hough says it isn’t unusual for the center to get, what he calls, “minor threats” based on current events, but this letter appears to be more serious.

“It goes on to give some very derogatory and racial epitaphs, using the ‘N’ word a couple of times in different phrases, Hough says. “And then it ends with the threat that if we decide for any kind of retaliation based on this letter – that they have no problem killing Muslims legally, if we tried anything, so consider yourselves advised.”

The letter ends, in part, “We are prepared for the Muslim war that is going on overseas to begin in the streets right here.”

It was signed, but Hough says he doesn’t know if the name on the letter is actually the person who wrote it.

“We have to remain vigilant and we have to give this the attention that it deserves,” Hough says. “Not sweep it under the rug or ignore it, because who knows? It could more than just a lonely guy in the middle of the night typing up a letter just to let off some steam. It could be much more than that.”

Hough says so far it’s not clear what the motivation behind the letter is, but he is hoping that authorities will find out as a part of their investigation. He also hopes the letter writer will be prosecuted.

“We think that putting an extra eye on something like this – sometimes it helps. A lot of times these types of things go unnoticed and unheard of and you only maybe hear about something after the fact,” he said.

“We don’t want to wait until after the fact that something has actually taken place  – something much more harmful than this letter.”

<em>Copyright 2012 <a href=”http://www.wbtv.com/” target=”_blank”>WBTV</a>. All rights reserved.</em>

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Temple-University-protest-300×206

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Temple University, Philadelphia: Protestors Condemn Geller and Spencer’s ‘Irrational Hatred’

Posted on 25 April 2012 by Amago

Protesters at Temple University condemned Geller and Spencer’s irrational hatred of Muslims.

Temple University, Philadelphia: protestors condemn Geller and Spencer’s ‘irrational hatred’

PROTESTERS who had filled the auditorium seats at an anti-Muslim event on Temple University’s campus Monday night left the room quite empty when they marched out in opposition after the discussion began.

The organization hosting the “Islamic Apartheid Conference,” Temple University Students for Intellectual Freedom, says its mission is to introduce controversial issues often left out of mainstream debates and defends its right to political incorrectness. Panelists at the conference included Robert Spencer, contributor to the blog Jihad Watch, and Pamela Geller, famous for her hostility to the proposed construction of an Islamic community center near the site of the World Trade Center.

After walking out, more than 50 demonstrators, consisting of North Philadelphia residents, campus groups and Occupy Philly protesters, remained outside in the rain, holding signs and confronting attendees as they left the event in Ritter Hall, on Cecil B. Moore Avenue near 13th Street.

Walter Smolarek, a freshman education major at Temple University, said that the content of the conference is “based solely on irrational hatred toward people, in this case, because of their religious faith, and we don’t feel like it falls under the umbrella of free speech, or should be part of political debate.

“An attack against Muslim communities is an attack against all working people,” said Smolarek.

Though Temple University approved the conference for its calendar, it did not promote the event in the daily campus-events email distributed to the student body.

Note from Amago: To be perfectly clear: hate speech must be protected in order to have freedom of speech, that is not in question here.  The initial wording of the article was unclear and in response to several inquiries the article was amended. 

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Anti-Muslim banners protesting against the establishment of a Muslim prayer room, in Catalonia, Spain

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Amnesty International finds bias against European Muslims

Posted on 24 April 2012 by Amago

Anti-Muslim banners protesting against the establishment of a Muslim prayer room, in Catalonia, Spain

Anti-Muslim banners protesting against the establishment of a Muslim prayer room, in Catalonia, Spain

(h/t: mjasghar)

Amnesty International finds bias against European Muslims

(BBC via. Islamophobia Today)

European governments must do more to challenge the negative stereotypes and prejudices against Muslims fuelling discrimination especially in education and employment, a new report by Amnesty International reveals today.

“Muslim women are being denied jobs and girls prevented from attending regular classes just because they wear traditional forms of dress, such as the headscarf. Men can be dismissed for wearing beards associated with Islam,” said Marco Perolini, Amnesty International’s expert on discrimination.

“Rather than countering these prejudices, political parties and public officials are all too often pandering to them in their quest for votes.”

The report Choice and prejudice: discrimination against Muslims in Europe, exposes the impact of discrimination on the ground of religion or belief on Muslims in several aspects of their lives, including employment and education.

It focuses on Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland where Amnesty International has already raised issues such as restrictions on the establishment of places of worship and prohibitions on full-face veils. The report documents numerous individual cases of discrimination across the countries covered.

“Wearing religious and cultural symbols and dress is part of the right of freedom of expression. It is part of the right to freedom of religion or belief – and these rights must be enjoyed by all faiths equally.” said Marco Perolini.

“While everyone has the right to express their cultural, traditional or religious background by wearing a specific form of dress no one should be pressurized or coerced to do so.  General bans on particular forms of dress that violate the rights of those freely choosing to dress in a particular way are not the way to do this.”

The report highlights that legislation prohibiting discrimination in employment has not been appropriately implemented in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. Employers have been allowed to discriminate on the grounds that religious or cultural symbols will jar with clients or colleagues or that a clash exists with a company’s corporate image or its ‘neutrality’.

This is in direct conflict with European Union (EU) anti-discrimination legislation which allows variations of treatment in employment only if specifically required by the nature of the occupation.

“EU legislation prohibiting discrimination on the ground of religion or belief in the area of employment seems to be toothless across Europe, as we observe a higher rate of unemployment among Muslims, and especially Muslim women of foreign origin,” said Marco Perolini.

In the last decade, pupils have been forbidden to wear the headscarf or other religious and traditional dress at school in many countries including Spain, France, Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

“Any restriction on the wearing of religious and cultural symbols and dress in schools must be based on assessment of the needs in each individual case. General bans risk adversely Muslims girls’ access to education and violating their rights to freedom of expression and to manifest their beliefs.” Marco Perolini said.

The right to establish places of worship is a key component of the right to freedom of religion or belief which is being restricted in some European countries, despite state obligations to protect, respect and fulfil this right.

Since 2010, the Swiss Constitution has specifically targeted Muslims with the prohibition of the construction of minarets, embedding anti-Islam stereotypes and violating international obligations that Switzerland is bound to respect.

In Catalonia (Spain), Muslims have to pray in outdoor spaces because existing prayer rooms are too small to accommodate all the worshippers and requests to build mosques are being disputed as incompatible with the respect of Catalan traditions and culture. This goes against freedom of religion which includes the right to worship collectively in adequate places.

“There is a groundswell of opinion in many European countries that Islam is alright and Muslims are ok so long as they are not too visible. This attitude is generating human rights violations and needs to be challenged,” said Marco Perolini.

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A Group of South Korean Christians Beg God to Strike Down Evil Lady Gaga

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A Group of South Korean Christians Beg God to Strike Down Evil Lady Gaga

Posted on 24 April 2012 by Ilisha

South Koreans Pray

“Well, that’s your opinion, isn’t it? And I’m not about to waste my time trying to change it.” ― Lady Gaga

Hundreds of religious conservatives are praying together to prevent Lady Gaga from performing her “Born this Way” concert in Seoul.

South Korea has a substantial Buddhist population, and is home to East Asia’s largest Christian community, after the Philippines. The nation’s Muslim population is negligible.

The prayers are being organized by Christian groups who fear the American pop diva will corrupt the youth with “homosexuality and pornography,” which begs the question: What if they were Muslim? 

A Group of South Koreans Begs God to Strike Down Evil Lady Gaga

by Cassie MurdochJezebel

Did you feel a change in the energy of the Earth today? It could have been our new climate-change induced crazy weather, but it was probably because hundreds of South Koreans were busily praying as one in hopes of convincing God to stop Lady Gaga from performing her scheduled concert in Seoul. Why would they object to the reigning Queen of Pop appearing in their country? Because they want “to stop young people from being infected with homosexuality and pornography,” according to the Korean Association of Church Communities. And here we had no idea that pornography and homosexuality were diseases that could be spread through song. You really do learn something new every day!

These crazed opponents of Lady Gaga’s “lewd lyrics and performances” have been raising quite a fuss. They’ve protested outside the officies of Hyundai Card, the show’s sponsor, and they also put up banners all over Seoul. The banners were taken down, but the state did raise the show from 12 and over to 18 and over. The prayer gathering is the last hope to stop Lady Gaga’s infectious grooves from poisoning the hearts of South Koreans. Organizers of the event, which was expected to draw about 300 Protestants, said, “We will pray to God that the concert will not be realised so that homosexuality and pornography will not spread around the country.” I’m sure God will be listening with an open heart and strike down Lady Gaga with a nasty case of laryngitis—or he’ll be too busy determining the outcome of various sporting events to act. We’ll just have to wait until April 27th to find out if the show will go on without holy intervention.

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Defendant Anders Behring Breivik in court prior to the opening of day 6 of the trial in Oslo, Monday April 23, 2012. Breivik has admitted setting off a car bomb outside the government headquarters, killing eight, before unleashing a shooting massacre at the governing Labor Party's youth camp on Utoya. (AP Photo/Lise Aserud, POOL)

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Anders Behring Breivik Trial: Norway Gunman Complains Of Being ‘Subjected To Racism’

Posted on 23 April 2012 by Amago

Defendant Anders Behring Breivik in court prior to the opening of day 6 of the trial in Oslo, Monday April 23, 2012. Breivik has admitted setting off a car bomb outside the government headquarters, killing eight, before unleashing a shooting massacre at the governing Labor Party's youth camp on Utoya. (AP Photo/Lise Aserud, POOL)

Defendant Anders Behring Breivik in court prior to the opening of day 6 of the trial in Oslo, Monday April 23, 2012. Breivik has admitted setting off a car bomb outside the government headquarters, killing eight, before unleashing a shooting massacre at the governing Labor Party's youth camp on Utoya. (AP Photo/Lise Aserud, POOL)

Breivik’s delusional fantasies continues. The victim card will not work for him.

Anders Behring Breivik Trial: Norway Gunman Complains Of Being ‘Subjected To Racism’

OSLO, Norway — Anxious to prove he’s not insane, confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik told a court Monday that questions about his mental health are part of a racist plot to discredit his extreme anti-Muslim ideology.

Breivik, who has admitted to killing 77 people in a bombing and youth camp massacre, said that no one would have asked for a psychiatric examination had he been a “bearded jihadist.”

“But because I am a militant nationalist, I am being subjected to grave racism,” he said. “They are trying to delegitimize everything I stand for.”

Breivik rejects criminal guilt for the rampage on July 22, saying the victims had betrayed their country by embracing immigration.

Even the defense admits there is virtually no chance of an acquittal, so the key issue to be determined in the trial is whether Breivik is criminally insane.

Two psychiatric examinations reached opposite conclusions on that point. In a statement to the court, the Norwegian Board of Forensic Medicine asked for additional information from two pscyhiatrists who found Breivik sane, saying their report was incomplete.

Breivik himself insists he is sane, and accuses the prosecutors of trying to make him look irrational.

“I know I’m at risk of ending up at an insane asylum, and I’m going to do what I can to avoid that,” he told the court.

Breivik became defensive as prosecutors quizzed him about sections of the 1,500-page manifesto he posted online before the attacks. It describes uniforms, medals, greetings and codes of conduct for the “Knights Templar” militant group that he claims to belong to. Prosecutors don’t believe it exists.

In one section, read by prosecutor Svein Holden, Breivik speculated that in his future society, the loyalty of potential knights might be tested by asking them to undergo surgical amputation and castration. Breivik chastised the prosecutor for what he called “low blows” and said the segment was taken out of context.

Breivik, 33, showed no remorse as he continued his shocking testimony about his shooting spree at the annual summer youth camp of the governing Labor Party.

Calling the rampage “necessary,” Breivik compared being shunned by those close to him to the grief of the bereaved.

“The only difference was that for my part it was a choice,” he said.

The self-styled crusader apologized to the family of a pub owner who was among the eight people killed in the blast outside the government offices in Oslo, saying it was not his intention to kill “civilians.”

Holden asked him if he wanted to express a similar apology to the families of the other victims, including the 69 killed on the youth camp on Utoya island.

“No I don’t,” Breivik said. “Utoya is a political indoctrination camp.”

“I see all multicultural political activists as monsters, as evil monsters who wish to eradicate our people, our ethnic group, our culture and our country,” he said.

Jon Hestnes, who heads a support group for victims’ families and survivors, told The Associated Press it was “gruesome” to listen to Breivik’s apology.

“It’s an insult to the 76 other people who actually died because of that man,” Hestnes said.

“He’s not in our world. He isn’t, and he doesn’t have humanity at all. The way I slap little mosquitoes in the summer, that’s how he is about human lives,” Hestnes said.

Speaking calmly, Breivik said he used a handgun to kill victims if the distance was less than 10 meters. Otherwise he used his rifle.

Asked why he spared one man who survived the shooting spree, Breivik said he thought it was because the man’s appearance made him look “right wing-oriented.”

“When I looked at him I saw myself,” Breivik said. “I think that was the reason that I didn’t fire shots at him.”

If found sane Breivik would face 21 years in prison, though he can be held longer if deemed a danger to society. If sentenced to psychiatric care, in theory he would be released once he’s no longer deemed psychotic and dangerous.

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King of Bollywood Detained in the US….Again

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King of Bollywood Detained in the US….Again

Posted on 23 April 2012 by Ilisha

Shahrukh Khan

Shahrukh Khan

India boasts the largest film industry in the world, and Shahrukh Khan is one of Bollywood’s biggest stars. The Muslim actor was recently detained at a US airport–for the second time in three years.

The incident caused a stir in India and once again raised questions of ethnic profiling, but Khan seemed to take it in stride. Later when addressing students at Yale University, he quipped:

“Yes it always happens, it’s nice. Whenever I start feeling arrogant about myself, I always take a trip to America.”

“The immigration guys kick the stars out of stardom,” said Khan, who boasted of some small victories when he was questioned under detention, such as fibbing about his height.

“The next time I’m gonna be more adventurous. What colour are you? I’m gonna say white,” Khan said.

What’s in a name?

Editorial, The National

Shah Rukh Khan has more Facebook fans than Tom Cruise (2.58 million to 1.79 million) and has acted in more films (78) than most Hollywood A listers do in a lifetime. And yet, he still can’t get through immigration in New York without trouble.

During a weekend visit to the US to be honoured at Yale University, Khan was detained for two hours at the small regional airport in White Plains, NY. Were this the king of Bollywood’s first run-in with American border policy it might have been a mere inconvenience. Coming after a similar detention in 2009, it looks like a trend.

US officials, clearly embarrassed, defended their screening of Khan by rejecting allegations of profiling. As State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Friday, Khan was less “detained” than he was “simply delayed”. But anyone with a Muslim-sounding name who has travelled to the US since September 11 2001 will find this explanation unsatisfying.

Two US administrations in a row, one Republican and one Democratic, have subordinated everything else, often including common sense, to an obsession with security.

Nor has this been done intelligently: Islamophobia has been in practice – though not, at least, in theory – a frequent element of this policy. Combined with American ignorance of the rest of the world, that leads to incidents like this one, ludicrous if they weren’t so damaging.

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The Daily Show, following the prior incident in 2009:

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anti-Mosque_Buddhist_Protesters

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Sri Lankan Muslims Forced to Suspend Prayers, Relocate Mosque Amid Violence

Posted on 22 April 2012 by Emperor

On Friday, April, 20 Buddhists protesters threatened violence if a mosque was not removed from the Dambulla region. A fire bomb was also lobbed at the mosque over night. On Sunday Sri Lankan authorities ordered the mosque’s relocation. (h/t: msmrishan)

Read the report from friday: Sri Lanka Buddhists Disrupt Mosques Prayers.

Sri Lanka orders relocation of mosque

(AlJazeera English)

The Sri Lankan government has ordered a mosque be relocated after Buddhist monks threatened to demolish it because they said the 50-year-old structure had been built illegally in an area sacred to Buddhists.

The order came on Sunday, two days after an estimated 2,000 monks in the island nation’s central town of Dambulla protested against the mosque, forcing it to abandon Friday prayers, and threatened violence if it was not removed.

The monks have also asked that a Hindu temple in the area be removed.

“Following a discussion with the relevant parties, the prime minister has ordered the disputed mosque moved to a suitable location as soon as possible,” Sisira Wijesinghe, media secretary to Prime Minister DM Jayaratne, told the Reuters news agency on Sunday.

He said several Muslim ministers took part in the discussion, a claim rejected by Muslim political leaders.

“It is a false statement and there was no discussion on this and we don’t agree with the mosque relocation,” AHM Fowzie, a senior Muslim cabinet minister, told Reuters.

Buddhist majority

The mosque has reportedly existed since 1962 and regular prayers have been conducted there for the past three decades.

Buddhist monks said the government mistakenly had allowed the mosque to be expanded recently, despite a 1982 state regulation declaring the area sacred for Buddhism.

The chief of the mosque said, however, that the construction was legal and the building was simply being refurbished.

Buddhism is the main religion in Sri Lanka, ahead of Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. Buddhists make up around 70 per cent of the population.

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Round 2: THE 99 Superheroes Vs. The Loons

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Round 2: THE 99 Superheroes Vs. The Loons

Posted on 22 April 2012 by Ilisha

Wham! Bam! Islam!

By Ilisha

Last October, the loons were celebrating a small victory in their epic battle against THE 99 Comic Stealth Jihad:

THE 99 is an animated series featuring superheroes inspired by Islamic culture and society. The series was scheduled to launch in the US last week on the The Hub children’s television network, but producers have since announced the broadcast will be postponed indefinitely. Vicious anti-Muslim bigots everywhere are gleeful, boasting that their small but boisterous outcry may have prompted the delay.

The New York Post published a scathing article by outrage peddler Andrea Peyser criticizing the series and calling on anti-Muslim bigots to protest loudly so they can “cancel THE 99 before it starts.”  Peyser says the series will indoctrinate impressionable young children with Sharia-compliant Muslim superheroes “masquerading as the good guys.”

For Peyser the Hateful, Muslims are always super villains, so characters who represent the 99 virtues of God in the Qur’an will naturally use their powers to wage the ultimate jihad. She conjures up fearsome images of Jabbar the Powerful dishing out a mean stoning, and Darr the Afflicter venting his rage on hapless dhimmis

…Despite all the controversy, Dr. Al-Mutawa remains optimistic.  He has faced many hurdles in the last eight years, and his frustrations have been chronicled in the PBS documentary Wham! Bam! Islam!  ”One way or the other,” he says, “‘The 99′ will get on air in the U.S.”

Read the rest: THE 99 Superheroes Vs. The Loons

Now it seems professional outage peddler and hate sophisticate, Daniel Pipes, has at last detected THE 99 Comic Stealth Jihad and taken up the battle in his alarmist article, Islam’s Cartoon Missionaries:

Comic books as a method of missionizing for Islam (da’wa)?

Yes. One year ago, Harvard University hosted a workshop to teach comic book artists how to address Americans’ “unease with Islam and the Middle East.” And later this week, Georgetown University will air a PBS documentary, Wham! Bam! Islam! celebrating a comic book called The 99.

The 99 sounds innocuous. Adweek describes its topic as “a team of multinational superheroes [who] band together to fight the forces of evil.” The American children’s network Hub more fully explains that, “Created by noted Middle East scholar and clinical psychologist Dr. Naif al-Mutawa, [it consists of] superhero characters who must work together to maximize their powers. Each member of The 99embodies one of 99 global values such as wisdom, mercy, strength or faithfulness, and they hail from 99 different countries on seven continents. The series’ superheroes portray characters designed to be positive role models, representing diverse cultures, who work together to promote peace and justice.”

Who can object to the promotion of “global values … representing diverse cultures”?

But a closer look reveals the Islamic nature of the comic book. The title, 99, refers to Islam’s concept that God has 99 names, each of which appears in the Koran and embodies some attribute of His character: the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Kind, the Most Holy, and the All-Peaceful, but also the Avenger, the Afflicter, and the Causer of Death.

The comic book, produced by the Teshkeel Media Group of Kuwait, tells a partly-factual, partly-fantastical tale that begins in 1258 A.D., when the Mongols besieged Baghdad. Librarians supposedly saved the wisdom of the city’s main library by encoding it in 99 gems that get scattered around the world. The heroes must find these “gems of power” before an arch-villain does. Each of them is an ordinary Muslim who, through contact with a gem, achieves superhuman powers and represents one of God’s 99 attributes.

The superheroes are all Muslims (i.e., not Christian, Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist), some of whom come from Western countries like the United States and Portugal. In contrast, villains are primarily non-Muslims….

….Likewise, Barack Obama praised the comic books for having “captured the imagination of so many young people with superheroes who embody the teachings and tolerance of Islam.” An Islamic investment bank whose products “fully comply with Shari’ah principles” invested US$15.9 million in Teshkeel and complimented it for “highlighting Islam’s rich culture and heritage.”

In short, The 99, available in both Arabic and English, contains overtly Islamic content and explicitly promotes Islam. Granted, its Islam has modern aspects, but among non-Muslims the series engages in surreptitious da’wa.

In addition to the comic books, Al-Mutawa has developed some spinoffs (online comics, games, lunch boxes, and theme parks) and envisages others (newspaper comics, stickers, and perhaps toys). But most of all, he wants an animated cartoon. Although the Hub network planned in 2011 to air The 99, this never happened, largely because criticism caused it to shy away from a show instilling “Islamic values in Christian, Jewish and atheist children.”

In short, to the Islamic indoctrination of Western children, already present in schools through textbooks ,additional school materials, and classroom trips, now add comic books and their many spin-offs, actual and potential. The 99 might be fine for Muslim children but, support from Georgetown University notwithstanding, non-Muslim children should not be exposed to missionizing propaganda of this sort.

Will THE 99 Comic Stealth Jihad succeed and lure our children into the clutches of the Mooslem supervillains?!? What are we to do now that Pipes the Courageous has revealed that even our Secret-Mooslem-President, Barak HUSSEIN Obama, is in on the plot?!?

Quick! Someone call Spencer Man and Geller Woman

The 19

The 19: Spencer Man and Geller Woman..ugh.

…or before you can say derka derka Mohammed jihad, ”our children” will be snubbing pork rinds, and Mooslamic theme parks will be springing up like mosques in the heartland.

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Christians for Palestine

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Christians for Palestine

Posted on 22 April 2012 by Ilisha

Jerusalem Church

“Jesus was the first Palestinian martyr.” –Yasser Arafat

A few months back Israel’s Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren penned an article titled, “Israel and the plight of Palestinian Christians,” in which he attempted to manipulate the reality of Christians in the Holy Land. Oren’s article came on the heels of an Islamophobic screed by Ayaan H. Ali in Newsweek titled, “The War on Christians.”

Also, today, Bob Simon of 60 minutes will be reporting on the “slow exodus of Christians from the Holy Land.”

As the birthplace of Christianity, Palestine is home to the oldest Christian populations in the world. But after centuries of continuous presence in the Holy Land, the creation of modern-day Israel in 1948 precipitated a quiet exodus of native Christians.

Although Christian opinion on the Arab-Israeli conflict has always been mixed in Western countries, many evangelicals have been blind to the plight of  Palestinians in favor of Israeli hardliners. Though their unconditional support for Israel can be attributed to many factors, the phenomenon of “Christian Zionism” can at least in part be traced to concerted outreach efforts on behalf of Israel–bolstered by negative portrayals of the Palestinian people, and an absence of their narrative.

Christian Palestinian groups like Sabeel Center and Al-Bushra have had an on-line presence for years, but they were not widely known outside the Middle East. Recently, Palestinian Christians reached out to the global community with the launch of the Kairos Palestine Document, modeled after the South African Kairos Document published in 1985 as part of a successful effort to abolish Apartheid:

This document is the Christian Palestinians’ word to the world about what is happening in Palestine. It is written at this time when we wanted to see the Glory of the grace of God in this land and in the sufferings of its people. In this spirit the document requests the international community to stand by the Palestinian people who have faced oppression, displacement, suffering and clear apartheid for more than six decades. The suffering continues while the international community silently looks on at the occupying State, Israel. Our word is a cry of hope, with love, prayer and faith in God.

We address it first of all to ourselves and then to all the churches and Christians in the world, asking them to stand against injustice and apartheid, urging them to work for a just peace in our region, calling on them to revisit theologies that justify crimes perpetrated against our people and the dispossession of the land.

Also, last month in the West Bank city of  Christ’s birth, the Bethlehem Bible College  held an annual conference under the banner, “Christ at the Checkpoint.” Hundreds of Christians from around the world attended, and organizers hailed the event as, ”a major breakthrough in the evangelical world.”

While Palestinian Christians have so far reached only a small minority of their Western counterparts, their apparent success has captured the attention of Israel’s increasingly worried supporters.

Christians for Palestine

By Lee SmithTablet

For most American Jews and Israelis, evangelical Christians are synonymous with zealous, biblically inspired support of the Jewish state—so zealous, in fact, that it makes some Jews uneasy. But the days when Israel could count on unconditional support from evangelicals may be coming to an end.

Last month, a conference convened in Bethlehem by Palestinian activists and Christian clergy long at odds with the Jewish state managed to bring a number of leading lights from the evangelical community in North America and Europe to the Holy Land. Many of the speeches at the conference touched on themes that one would commonly hear at a BDS teach-in, like blaming the entire Middle East conflict on Israel’s occupation and the settlements.

Indeed, the name of the conference, Christ at the Checkpoint, is indicative of the different direction this segment of the evangelical movement is heading toward. The idea is that evangelicals should rethink their support for a state that occupies another people and oppresses them. Once they get the full story, conference organizers hope, Western evangelicals may find they have more in common with the downtrodden Palestinians than with the Israelis.

To pro-Israel evangelicals and Zionists who were paying attention, Christ at the Checkpoint was a wake-up call. The larger trend, which for want of a better phrase might be called the pro-Palestinian evangelical movement and is indeed spearheaded by Palestinian Christians, is already changing minds. Giving them momentum are money raised in the United States, theology, and perhaps most important of all, a movie. The documentary film With God on Our Side is leaving many former pro-Israel evangelicals wondering why they never heard the Palestinian side of the story.

Many friends of Israel, as well as Israelis, have long been concerned that evangelical support is premised largely on self-interest of an especially macabre nature. Israel, in this reading, is ground zero for the apocalypse: Before Christ can return to Earth, the Jews must return to Israel and the Temple must be restored, ushering in first a time of tribulation and then a reign of peace.

Of course, the apocalypse and Christ’s return is not the only justification for Christian support of Israel. Indeed, this end-time scenario embarrasses some evangelicals whose support is premised on the idea that God keeps his promises, not only to Christians but also to Jews, to whom God pledged the land of Israel. This conviction is further buttressed by a sense of historical responsibility, specifically to stand with the Jews and atone for the failure of Christians during the Holocaust to save the nation that gave them their savior.

Though the vast majority of evangelicals still maintain that support, for the first time since the establishment of Israel in 1948, there is an increasingly heated debate in the evangelical community that may augur a shift in the political winds. And if the Christ at the Checkpoint camp wins out, the pro-Israel Jewish community that once looked warily upon evangelical support may come to regard that movement with nostalgia.

***

“The debate in the Jewish community should not be about whether or not to be comfortable with Christian support for Israel,” David Brog, executive director of Christians United for Israel, told me last week. “Christians are going to be involved in the issue whether we are comfortable or not. The question is whether they’re going to be on Israel’s side or not.”

Christians United for Israel is the United States’ largest and best-known Christian Zionist organization. Founded in 2006 by John Hagee, pastor of the CornerStone Church in San Antonio, Texas, CUFI boasts over a million members. Hagee has found himself in the middle of political controversy in the past—most recently during John McCain’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign when his statements regarding the Holocaust were misinterpreted and McCain rejected his support. (Hagee declined to comment for this article.)

John Hagee
John Hagee

Hagee and other figures base support for the Jewish state on biblical foundations, specifically on Genesis 12:3, where God tells Abraham, “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee.” The message is clear: Those who support Israel will be rewarded by God. But pro-Israel evangelicals have sent their flock out into the field vulnerable—that is, without an account of the conflict that besets the citizens of the present-day homeland of the Jews. Armed only with a biblical defense of the Jewish state, evangelicals are unprepared to justify it on political grounds.

This gap has made room for people across the cultural and ideological spectrum—whose motivations run the gamut from genuine compassion for Palestinians to anti-Semitism—to fill the space with their own interpretations of contemporary Middle East history. Not surprisingly, many of these narratives tend to be drawn from precincts of the left, like the BDS movement, that are known for their hostility to the Jewish state. What is peculiar is that these accounts are being entertained and sometimes embraced in evangelical churches, Bible schools, and Christian colleges that are not typically known for their progressive politics.

It wasn’t difficult for these Christian critics of Israel to find a weak link in the Christian Zionist narrative—it’s the ethical morass inherent in the formulation of Genesis 12:3. The children of the Bible, Christians as well as Jews, believe that all people are created in God’s image and are therefore born with individual dignity. But if people of faith are supposed to bless Israel because they’ll be blessed in return, then they are treating others, Jews and Arabs, not as individuals but rather as instruments in their own spiritual drama.

You can’t treat people as chess pieces, says Porter Speakman Jr., the 40-year-old director of With God on Our Side. This 82-minute-long documentary, which premiered in 2010 and is now being shown at churches and college campuses, has had a major role in tilting evangelical opinion, especially among young people, against Israel. Speakman told me in a phone interview that isn’t aim isn’t to “delegitimize Israel, but to be critical of policies that are having an effect on real people’s lives.”

“I grew up in a Christian home in the south, where not to support Israel was to go against God,” Speakman told me. He said he made the film in order to explore a question that he thinks has been missing from the conversation in the evangelical community. That is: “What are the consequences of my beliefs and my theology for real people living on the ground?”

With God on Our Side follows the intellectual odyssey of Christopher Harrell, a twenty-something recent film-school graduate, who is trying to come to grips with the reality of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is a very different story from the Bible-based injunctions that formed his spiritual life as a child. The film’s narrative trajectory starts with Harrell’s parents, who he recalls once celebrated Passover—“I’m not sure why we did that. We’re not Jewish. We’re just this normal American Midwestern family”—and who support Israel because that’s “just what everyone did.” The film moves then to a series of interviews with figures in the evangelical community known for their animus toward Zionism, like Gary Burge and Stephen Sizer, and writers outside the evangelical milieu whose reputation rests on their hostility to Israel, like Ilan Pappé and Norman Finkelstein.

These interviews challenge the mainstream evangelical narrative with well-worn accusations typical of BDSers. For instance, the Israeli occupation, says one South African evangelical, is “apartheid on steroids.”

“Growing up,” Speakman said of his childhood, “there was never a choice, you were supposed to love and support Israel. That meant following Genesis 12 as well as a fulfillment of endtime prophecies. But does supporting Israel mean supporting all of Israel’s geopolitical decisions?”

Speakman, who lived in Israel with his wife from 1998 until 2003, said that he thinks the role of Christians is to support both Jews and Arabs in their search for a solution. But some critics of his documentary think that the film goes much further. They see it as making the case that evangelicals have taken the wrong side—favoring a nation inhabited by those who rejected Jesus as their savior rather than the Christian communities that have existed in the Holy Land since the time of Christ. The issue is that key segments of the Palestinian Christian community have a vested political interest in delegitimizing Zionism—a fact that Speakman and other Western activists in the evangelical community may or may not be aware of.

Among the Palestinian outfits leading the campaign critical of Israel is the Bethlehem Bible College, which organized Christ at the Checkpoint, for which Speakman served as a media coordinator. The most prominent and active organization is the Jerusalem-based Sabeel, headed by a Palestinian Anglican priest, Rev. Naim Ateek. Its American branch, Friends of Sabeel North America, is based in Portland, Ore., and raises money for its Jerusalem affiliate.

“Sabeel is nakedly hostile to Israel,” Dexter Van Zile, Christian media analyst for CAMERA, told me in an interview. In an article on Sabeel and Ateek published last week, Van Zile quotes the clergyman at length, including this peculiar admission: “From my perspective as a Palestinian Christian, Zionism is a step backward in the development of Judaism.”

***

According to Randy Neal, Western Regional Coordinator of CUFI, the ideological foundations of the pro-Palestinian Christian movement are grounded in both liberation theology and replacement theology. The first is a politicized doctrine that requires a continual mindset of victimhood, in order to solicit political sympathy and action on behalf of the “oppressed” against the “oppressors.” The latter holds that the church has replaced Jews as God’s chosen and become the real Israel.

“It’s not just that church has replaced Israel,” said Neal, but for many of the Palestinian Christian clergy and their activist sympathizers, “the Palestinian church is the real church. Jesus, on this reading, was an underdog, who came to champion the underdog. He was oppressed by the Romans, so if you are Christ-like, you are also oppressed, like the Palestinians. This increasingly includes the idea that Jesus was a Palestinian. It’s an adopted narrative that is believed to have started with Yasser Arafat, but to some people it’s become a gospel fact.”

In other words, it’s a narrative that denies Jesus’ Jewish identity. “It is a very ugly expression of Christian anti-Semitism,” Neal said.

But Brog, Neal’s colleague, disagrees: “anti-Semitism is not the driving force.” Rather, he said, the impetus comes from a combination of two ideological streams. “There’s the anti-Israel perspective, which comes from the Palestinian Christians, who are using theology to preach a politically anti-Israel message. And then there are the Christians based in North America and Europe who are allowing liberal politics to trump Christian beliefs.”

The unpleasant reality is that Christian anti-Semitism has as much, if not more, theological justification as Christian support for Israel. Compared to two millennia of Christian anti-Semitism culminating with the Holocaust, one biblical verse is a pretty thin thread on which to hang support of the Jewish state.

Neal says that he believes Christian love of Israel is premised on Genesis 12:3 and on Joel 3:2: “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will enter into judgement with them there for my people, my heritage Israel.”

“We are supposed to love what God loves,” Neal said. “We consider ourselves ambassadors of Christ. For centuries, Christians abused and abandoned the apple of God’s eye, and we are not going to let that happen again on our watch.”

But as CUFI pushes Genesis and Joel, the Christ at the Checkpoint crowd is focused exclusively on Palestinians’ distress and apparently ignoring history. CAMERA’s Van Zile, who attended last month’s conference, noted that nowhere in the pro-Palestinian evangelical narrative is there any account of Jewish persecution. “I’ve heard moving testimony about Palestinian suffering. But they don’t acknowledge Muslim anti-Semitism. They don’t talk about Palestinian leadership, or how it’s abused the Palestinian community. There’s no account of Hamas in their story about Israel.”

********

John Hagee of the rabid Zionist Christians United for Israel, trying to drag the US into a war with Iran:

 

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beef-fest-clash

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WhatIfTheyWereMuslim?: Hindus Riot Over University ‘Beef Festival’

Posted on 21 April 2012 by Emperor

Hardline, right-wing Hindus have rioted over a ‘Beef festival’ put together by Dalit students at Osmania University in Hyderabad, India.(h/t: JD)

Shall we now blame all of Hinduism for their violent response, and remark that Hinduism is innately, uniquely incapable of dealing with ‘offense’ to their religion? Of course not, it is not Hinduism, but the interpretation of a specific group of Hindus with a specific approach to their religious texts that has caused this:

Osmania University Beef Festival Leads To Violence

(WhatIfTheyWereMuslim.com)

beef festival organized by Dalit students at Osmania University in Hyderabad, India on April 15th erupted into violence, the BBC reports. About 100 members of the Hindu right wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarti Parishad(ABVP) protested the festival, leading to five injuries according to The Hindureport.

ABVP protested the beef festival on the ground that consumption of beef is against Hindu culture. Ramkrishna, senior ABVP leader told BBC, “Today they are asking for beef, tomorrow they will want alcohol.”

The purpose of the festival was to oppose “food fascism” in university hostels, reports NDTV. The festival organizers demanded beef be included in the university canteen menu as it is part of their “cultural identity.”

“The festival was intended to make the point that upper caste diktats over food habits need to be resisted, however another group of students opposed the idea on the grounds that it is against Indian culture,” a police official said in a quote reported by the NDTV.

More than 1500 students attended the beef festival and consumed various dishes made of beef according to the BBC report.

The beef festival was organized by the Telangana Students Association, Progressive Democratic Student Union, Student Federation of India and student groups from English and Foreign Languages University.

S. Satyanarayana, Osmania University vice-chancellor announced yesterday that there would be no change in the hostel menu, reports NewsWala.

Despite the violence, the organizers of the beef festival were generally pleased with the large turnout and aim to make this an annual event, reportsDeccan Chronicle.

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Mother Jones: American Muslim Alleges FBI Had a Hand in His Torture

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Mother Jones: American Muslim Alleges FBI Had a Hand in His Torture

Posted on 20 April 2012 by Ilisha

Fikre

Justin Norman/Flickr

We are no longer shocked at crimes and excesses committed by those in authority, we have become complacent and either accept such things as a daily part of life, an aberration or even something praiseworthy.

Below we have another US Muslim alleging that the FBI had a hand in his torture:

American Muslim Alleges FBI Had a Hand in His Torture (Updated with Video)

MOTHER JONES EXCLUSIVE: Yonas Fikre believes the US government played a role in his hellish three-month detention in the United Arab Emirates.

By Nick Baumann

UPDATE: Fikre’s lawyers have written a letter to the Justice Department about his allegations and released a video of him talking about his ordeal.

Last June, while Yonas Fikre was visiting the United Arab Emirates, the Muslim American from Portland, Oregon was suddenly arrested and detained by Emirati security forces. For the next three months, Fikre claims, he was repeatedly interrogated and tortured. Fikre says he was beaten on the soles of his feet, kicked and punched, and held in stress positions while interrogators demanded he “cooperate” and barked questions that were eerily similar to those posed to him not long before by FBI agents and other American officials who had requested a meeting with him.

Fikre had been visiting family in Khartoum, Sudan, when, in April 2010, the officials got in touch with him. He agreed to meet with them, but ultimately balked at cooperating with FBI questioning without a lawyer present and he rebuffed a request to become an informant. Pressing him to cooperate, the agents told him he was on the no-fly list and could not return home unless he aided the bureau, Fikre says. The following week he received an email from one of the US officials; it arrived from a State Department address: “Thanks for meeting with us last week in Sudan. While we hope to get your side of the issues we keep hearing about, the choice is yours to make. The time to help yourself is now.”

“When Yonas [first] asked whether the FBI was behind his detention, he was beaten for asking the question,” says his lawyer. “Toward the end, the interrogator indicated that indeed the FBI had been involved.”

Fikre made his way to the UAE the following year, where, he and his lawyer allege, he was detained at the request of the US government. They say his treatment is part of a pattern of “proxy” detentions of US Muslims orchestrated by the the US government. Now, Fikre’s Portland-based lawyer, Thomas Nelson, plans to file suit against the Obama administration for its alleged complicity in Fikre’s torture.

“There was explicit cooperation; we certainly will allege that in the complaint,” says Nelson, a well known terrorism defense attorney. “When Yonas [first] asked whether the FBI was behind his detention, he was beaten for asking the question. Toward the end, the interrogator indicated that indeed the FBI had been involved. Yonas understood this as indicating that the FBI continued to [want] him to work for/with them.” Nelson, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Council on American Islamic Relations are assembling a high-powered legal team to handle Fikre’s case in the United States.

Fikre’s story echoes those of Naji HamdanAmir MeshalSharif MobleyGulet Mohamed, and Yusuf and Yahya Wehelie. All are American Muslim men who, while traveling abroad, claim they were detained, interrogated, and (in some cases) abused by local security forces; the men claim they were arrested at the behest of federal law enforcement authorities, alleging the US government used this process to circumvent their legal rights as American citizens.

As Mother Jones reported in its September/October 2011 issue, the FBI has acknowledged that it tips off local security forces on the names of Americans traveling overseas that the bureau suspects of involvement in terrorism, and that these individuals are sometimes detained and questioned. The FBI also admits that its agents sometimes “interview or witness an interview” of Americans detained by foreign governments in terrorism cases. And as several FBI officials told me on condition of anonymity, the bureau has for years used its elite cadre of international agents (known as legal attachés, or legats) to coordinate the overseas detention and interrogation by foreign security services of American terrorism suspects. Sometimes, that entails cooperating with local security forces that are accustomed to abusing prisoners. (FBI officials have told Mother Jones that foreign security forces are asked to refrain from abusing American detainees.)

It’s difficult to confirm US involvement in the detentions of Fikre or other alleged proxy detainees—indeed, plausible deniability is part of the appeal of the program. But what’s clear is that Fikre was on the FBI’s radar well before his detention in the UAE. (The FBI declined to comment on his case, as did the State Department.) Fikre, whose only previous brush with the legal system came when he sued a restaurant for having ham in its clam chowder, may have drawn the FBI’s interest because of his association with Portland’s Masjed-as-Saber mosque, where he was a youth basketball coach.

The mosque has been a focus of FBI scrutiny ever since the October 2002 case of the “Portland Seven,” in which seven Muslims from the Portland area were charged with trying to go to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban in the wake of 9/11. (Six are now in jail; the seventh was killed in Pakistan.) Masjed-as-Saber was in the news again in 2010 when Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19-year-old Somali American who sometimes worshipped there, was charged with trying to detonate a fake car bomb provided by an undercover FBI agent.

More recently, three other men who attended Fikre’s mosque—Mustafa ElogbiMichael Migliore, and Jamal Tarhuni—have found themselves on the no-fly list after traveling abroad. (The government’s use of the no-fly list to prevent American terrorist suspects from returning home after traveling overseas is currently the subject of a major ACLU lawsuit.)

Fikre’s case “really does make a mockery of the FBI’s use of watchlisting as a means of protecting the US,” says Gadeir Abbas, a staff attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. ”It’s not a means of protecting America—it’s a tool the FBI uses to put people in vulnerable positions.”

Fikre, who is currently living in Sweden and believes that it would be unsafe for him to return to the United States, has given a series of videotaped interviews detailing his ordeal. His presence in Sweden beyond the three-month window allowed for tourist visas suggests that he has applied for permanent status there, and local media have so far refrained from reporting on the story for fear of affecting his case to stay in the country.

In the interviews, Fikre describes a series of events that are similar to the 2008 case of Naji Hamdan, a Lebanese American auto-parts dealer from Los Angeles who was then living in the UAE. Like Hamdan, Fikre claims he was detained in the UAE, tortured (including with stress positions and beatings on the soles of his feet, so as to not show marks), and asked about his activities in the United States. Like Hamdan, Fikre believed a western interrogator was present in the room at some points during his detention, because when he could peek out under his blindfold (“after being kicked/punched and falling over,” Nelson says) he occasionally saw western slacks and shoes. “In those occasions there was a fair amount of whispering,” Nelson added.

The similarities between the two cases were so striking that Michael Kaufman and Laboni Hoq, lawyers who are representing Hamdan in his separate case against the government, initially thought that Fikre had simply parroted Hamdan’s story. But once they heard more, they decided “the backstory of why the government was interested in him was reasonable and something that didn’t sound fabricated,” Kaufman said. “It seemed like a long way to go for a lie,” Hoq added.

A key difference between Hamdan’s and Fikre’s stories is that Hamdan eventually confessed—under torture, he now emphasizes—to being a member of several terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda. He ultimately spent 11 months in UAE custody before being deported to Lebanon, where he now runs a children’s clothing store. Despite an extensive FBI investigation, he was never charged in the United States.

Fikre, his lawyer says, “never confessed to anything”—”thankfully.”

“The FBI does this stuff because they can get away with it,” Nelson says. “But the bureau has totally destroyed any relationship it had with the Muslim community in Portland.”

Nick Baumann covers national politics and civil liberties issues for Mother Jones’ DC Bureau. For more of his stories, click here.

UPDATE, Wednesday, 1:00 p.m. EST: Fikre’s lawyers have released a video of him talking about his ordeal (they’ve also written a letter to the Justice Department). You can watch the video here:

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Shaul Spitzer: Teen Gets Prison in Religious Dispute Firebomb

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Shaul Spitzer: Teen Gets Prison in Religious Dispute Firebomb

Posted on 20 April 2012 by Emperor

Shaul_Spitzer_Hasidic

Shaul Spitzer

What if he were Muslim? Spitzer firebombed his neighbor for disagreeing with a Rabbi’s religious opinion. Should Judaism be blamed for this now? Of course not.

Spitzer’s sentence was reduced because of concern about how he will fair in prison life. Hopefully some Muslim prisoners can protect Spitzer while he is in prison, he will certainly need help (h/t: JD):

NY teen gets prison in religious-dispute firebomb

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A Hasidic teenager was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in prison for the firebomb attack that badly burned a neighbor during a religious dispute in an insular Jewish enclave.

A defense attorney said the sentence was fair but worried about prison life for an 18-year-old who has “never seen TV, never been on the Internet, doesn’t know who Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter are.”

Shaul Spitzer of New Square had been charged with attempted murder but pleaded guilty to assault as potential jurors gathered for his trial in February. A trial would have brought unwanted attention to New Square, a New York village where nearly every one of the 7,000 residents is a member of the Skver Hasidic sect.

Spitzer admitted that he attacked Aron Rottenberg, a plumber, outside Rottenberg’s home in May. He said he did it because Rottenberg defied New Square’s grand rabbi by worshiping with nursing home residents rather than at New Square’s main synagogue.

Rottenberg, a plumber, claimed in a lawsuit that Spitzer was acting at the direction of the rabbi, David Twersky. The rabbi denied involvement and was not charged. The lawsuit was settled for $2.3 million.

Rottenberg had asked Rockland County Court Judge William Kelly to be lenient with Spitzer, who was also burned, and the judge came down from the 10-year cap he had promised after the plea deal.

Defense attorney Kenneth Gribetz said the sentence was “fair and compassionate.” But he said he fears for Spitzer, who he said will be the rare inmate who has had “no exposure to the outside world.”

“His whole life has been the rabbi and the synagogue and now he’s going to state prison,” Gribetz said. “This is a very severe sentence for a boy from New Square. I hope he can be safeguarded.”

New Square is about 30 miles north of Manhattan. The sect and the village are named for the Ukrainian village of Skver, where sect members were killed during the Holocaust.

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Mosquebusters

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Joshua Haddow: Hate the Thought of Muslims Being Near You? Call Mosquebusters

Posted on 20 April 2012 by Emperor

We did an article on the ridiculous organization known as the Mosquebusters not too long ago. They have since changed their name to the less sexy, Law and Freedom Foundation. Their whole purpose is to use the UK equivalent of zoning laws to protest Mosque construction.

Below Vice.com interviewed director Spike Johnson went undercover and caught a lot of their extremism and loonieness:

HATE THE THOUGHT OF MUSLIMS BEING NEAR YOU? CALL MOSQUEBUSTERS

by Joshua Haddow (Vice.com)

Ever heard of Mosquebusters? It was the original nom de guerre of a gang of jerks who have vowed to help British Islamophobes oppose any plans the Muslims might have to erect big, fat mosques in their particular enclave of Albion.

But Mosquebusters don’t do this by turning at up building sites when all that’s left to do is put the crown on the minaret, or by driving bulldozers menacingly around mostly-Islamic neighbourhoods at night. They use planning permission, or rather they support anyone who wants to protest when planning permission is granted for mosques to be built. They’ve been really, really successful at it, too, citing things like a non-regulation number of parking spaces to baffle mosque planners into bureaucratic failure.

In an attempt to dent Mosquebusters’ 100 percent win rate, last year Spike Johnson (who went to the gypsy eviction at Dale Farm for us last year) spent a day working undercover with the organisation, which has now changed its name to the more corporate-friendly Law and Freedom Foundation. I spoke to Spike about his time with this secretive cabal of white-collar bigots.

VICE: Hey Spike, how are you? 
Spike: Hey, I’m good thanks.

How did you discover Mosquebusters?
I started looking at extremism for a story. On the EDL website, they have links to all kinds of pseudo-racist things. One of them was an advert asking for people to do volunteer work for Mosquebusters, but it’s gone now – at some point, they just began to shut down all their websites.

So do they still exist?
Oh, they still exist, definitely. They’re using the new name now: the Law and Freedom Foundation. It’s run by the same guys and it’s the same company.

So you applied as a volunteer to try to get access to them?
Yep. Gavin Boby – who runs Mosquebusters – was interviewing me. I was going to accompany him to court hearings and video the proceedings. He was beginning to get a lot of attention and wanted video evidence of things. To start with, I had access for maybe 24 hours and he sent me all of their instructions on how to do what they do and all of that crap. But then he figured out who I was and he shut me down.

So they try to keep what they do secret, despite a logo with a cartoon Abu Hamza on it and a name like “Mosquebusters”?
Yeah.

Is any of what they do illegal?
No, it’s all completely legal. I just think they realised that the majority of the population frown upon what they do.

You used the word “insidious” in your original investigation into what Mosquebusters do. What do you think is more damaging to the Muslim community – Islamophobes using bureaucracy to quash plans for mosques, or EDL numbskulls shouting insults at them in the street?
The former, for sure. And they realise it as well. You know, they’re not stamping their feet, they’re not waving flags. They’re being a bit quiet and cerebral about it. They realise that in order to make a change they have to go about these things from kind of a lateral route.

What did the members of the EDL that you spoke to think of Mosquebusters?
I went to a few rallies and the guys on the street don’t really know about Mosquebusters. Lately, I think Gavin Boby has been trying to distance himself from the EDL. The Mosquebusters don’t want that kind of publicity, they want to keep really quiet behind the scenes.

Did you speak to any of the everyday Islamophobes who’d used Mosquebusters’ petitions to complain about a mosque being built?
Yeah. I followed the case of this mosque that some Muslims were trying to build in West London. The people making the complaints against it sent Mosquebusters’ pre-written petition to the council.

Continue reading at Vice.com…

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Volker_Kauder

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Volker Kauder: Merkel Ally Says Islam Not Part of Germany

Posted on 19 April 2012 by Emperor

Volker_Kauder

In America, if someone were passing out Qurans it would not be controversial, except in maybe Tennessee or the like, but in Germany it has caused a ridiculous firestorm of controversy. More so you have Chancellor Merkel’s ally, Volker Kauder saying while “Muslim do belong in Germany…Islam does not.” How do you have Islam without Muslims in a country?

Merkel ally says Islam not part of Germany

(Reuters)

A leading conservative politician said on Thursday that Islam did not belong in Germany, fuelling tension at a conference on integrating Muslims that also debated a controversial Salafist campaign to hand out copies of the Koran across the country.

“Islam is not part of our tradition and identity in Germany and so does not belong in Germany,” Volker Kauder, head of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives in parliament, told the Passauer Neue Presse.

“But Muslims do belong in Germany. As state citizens, of course, they enjoy their full rights,” he added.

His remarks added to a highly charged nationwide debate about a campaign by an ultra-conservative Salafist Muslim group to hand out millions of free German translations of the Koran to non-Muslims.

The conference was one of a series hosted by the government to improve the integration of the four million Muslims living in Germany, about half of whom have German citizenship.

Kauder’s comments quickly drew fire. “Volker Kauder is the last crusader for the conservatives. He is putting a bomb in the Islam conference,” said senior opposition Social Democrat (SPD) lawmaker Thomas Oppermann.

Two years ago a painful row erupted over a bestseller by former central banker Thilo Sarrazin, who said Turkish and Arab immigrants sponged off the state and threatened German culture.

Soon after, Germany’s then-President Christian Wulff won wide praise from Muslims by saying that Islam was part of Germany.

Reuters, 19 April 2012

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LondonMet

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London Metropolitan University: Muslim Students Oppose Alcohol Ban

Posted on 19 April 2012 by Garibaldi

They might appreciate the fact that the Vice Chancellor was well intentioned but Muslim students oppose an “alcohol ban” they say the never asked for:

London Metropolitan University: Muslim students oppose alcohol ban

Muslim students at a university considering banning alcohol from parts of its campus have hit out at the plan – fearing they will be blamed for the move.

Students at London Metropolitan University said banning alcohol in the name of Muslims will cause tension on campus, divide the community, and could be exploited by far-Right groups such as the English Defence League.

Malcolm Gillies, Vice Chancellor of London Met, has said he might stop alcohol being served in parts of the university because some religious students view it as “immoral”. But Syed Rumman, vice president of the Student Union, warned that any ban would be “catastrophic”.

Mr Rumman, who is a Muslim, said: “I do not drink, but it doesn’t mean that I will deprive another student from having alcohol.” He added: “It is unethical, catastrophic and it will isolate Muslims further in society. This will go against the ethos of London Met where students are so diverse but also socialise together. Students who do drink will resent Muslims. It will divide the student body. We must not allow this to become a religious issue. Muslim students never asked for this ban.”

The debate began after a decision was made to close The Hub, a student bar on the university’s Aldgate campus.

In an open letter, Ellie May, president of the university’s Unite Against Fascism Society, said: “We believe that the Vice Chancellor’s comments are insensitive and dangerous, provoking hostilities among students and the wider community.”

Evening Standard, 19 April 2012

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Breivik/ Kevin Forts

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Kevin Forts: One of Anders Breivik’s US Admirers

Posted on 19 April 2012 by Emperor

Imagine if a Muslim were corresponding with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, expressing support for his terroristic actions, wouldn’t he be locked up for material support of terrorism?

Kevin Forts is not the only US Breivik admirer out there:

Breivik’s US admirer

The young man has black hair and a piercing gaze, and poses with his arms behind his back. He wants to appear decisive and courageous for the photographer. His parents and friends have tried to dissuade him from taking this step, says Kevin Forts from Worcester in the US state of Massachusetts. “But I want to, so that I can represent the views of Anders Breivik that have otherwise been demonized by the mass media,” the 23-year-old told reporters from the Norwegian tabloid VG, the country’s most-read newspaper.

In a major story the newspaper reveals that Forts shares the views of mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. “I represent a nationalist alternative, just like Breivik,” he says. Forts writes letters to the assassin and exchanges ideas with him. As proof he shows off one letter the mass murderer wrote him from his prison cell.

Breivik praises the somewhat haggard looking American. VG quotes from the letter Breivik reportedly sent to Forts, in which he writes: “I have received letters from supporters in 20 countries, but you appear to be someone who can write well. Yes, I am absolutely interested in discussing ideological issues with you and am thinking about how we can work together.”

It could be a craving for attention that is now pushing the young American into the public eye. Since the attacks of July 22, 2011, the right-wing, anti-Islam scene has largely retreated from the digital public sphere. Its protagonists, who until then had used the Internet for regular exchanges, have rushed to distance themselves from Breivik’s acts. Chief among them is Fjordman, a Norwegian blogger, who until the killings had regularly exchanged ideas with Breivik and is considered to be a kind of ideological mentor to him. “It should be painfully obvious by now that Breivik does not care for anything greater than himself,” the anti-Islam author wrote in his blog of the ongoing trial this week.

Most are distancing themselves from Breivik, but not Kevin Forts. In a video of the interview posted on the VG website on Wednesday in which he explained why he is defending the murders, Forts said: “I believe it demonstrates a sense of nationalism and a moral conscience. He’s fighting against cultural Marxism and the Islamization of Norway and he found that the most rational way to accomplish that was through terrorist actions on Utøya and in Oslo.”

When asked how one could defend the murder of innocent children, Forts added: “Because I believe that he used it as an unprecedented attack. I don’t believe that it should occur again, but I do believe that it was atrocious but necessary in that it has raised awareness for it and Breivik did that with the executions.”

Forts says he believes Breivik is a “nationalist and a patriot and not the terrorist neo-Nazi that the media portrays him to be.” He continues by saying, “Now, all you see is the shock and the gore on Utøya and in Oslo, but you do not see the actual political ramifications that will come true in the future. I believe that, at that point, it will be impossible to hate Breivik, and you will see that he was actually acting in a matter of preemptive war.”

Spiegel Online, 18 April 2012

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Vistoria Jackson, best known as a cast member on SNL.

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Former SNL Star, Victoria Jackson, Questions Murfreesboro Mosque

Posted on 18 April 2012 by Amago

Vistoria Jackson, best known as a cast member on SNL.

Victoria Jackson

I hope she’s trying to outdo Andy Kaufmann. This is not the first time Jackson spewed her anti-Muslim views.

Former SNL Star Questions Murfreesboro Mosque

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - She’s best known for her satirical comedy on Saturday Night Live. Twenty years after leaving the hit show, Victoria Jackson is back in the spotlight, but this time it’s for her political views.

She’s now a controversial conservative commentator and she’s in Middle Tennessee taking a critical look at the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro.

Victoria Jackson is best known for her dim-witted characters on Saturday Night live which brought her a lot of laughs, and fame. She now works as a citizen journalist.

“I’m trying to use my fading SNL fame to shine a light on the topic that nobody in the media will talk about,” said Jackson.

That topic is Islam. Jackson came to Middle Tennessee to produce a story on the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro and its new mosque now under construction. The comic-turned- conservative political activist doesn’t mince words about why she thinks this building is rising in the middle of rural Tennessee.

“This is the Bible Belt, and Murfreesboro is the buckle on the bible belt. And it’s a college town. So my feeling is they came here to convert people to Islam,” said Jackson.

Jackson brought her camera to the current Islamic Center offices in Murfreesboro — but no one was available for an interview. No luck either at the construction site just outside town.

Jackson did recently interview Congressional candidate Lou Ann Zelenik for her story. Zelenik has been an outspoken opponent of the mosque. Jackson claims there’s a fatwa , or Islamic decree ,calling for her death because of her criticisms.

“I tolerate all religions. Except the ones that want to kill me,” said Jackson

Jackson plans to post her story on the conservative web site Patriot Update. 

 

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Attacks on Llanelli’s Mosque Prompts Security Rise

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Attacks on Llanelli’s Mosque Prompts Security Rise

Posted on 17 April 2012 by Emperor

An update on the Llanelli mosque:

Attacks on Llanelli’s mosque prompts security rise

SECURITY measures have been taken at Llanelli’s mosque following claims of attacks on the building.

Metal bars have been fitted over the Station Road mosque’s front window after reports were made that the glass was smashed while someone was praying inside.

The incident came just months after the door was kicked through and a group of elderly women were followed in.

And police are now conducting high visibility patrols in the area to calm the concerns of people using the mosque.

Press officer for Llanelli’s Ethnic Minority Help Association Anne Stevens-Bevan said she was working hard to ensure people feel safe when they go to pray.

“I met with the police last week and I am negotiating with them and the Muslim Council for Great Britain to see what advice they can give,” she said.

“There have been problems with things thrown at the window and people being chased and abused physically and mentally.

“The trouble has been on-going for 14 years, but I have made a promise that it won’t happen again because it’s just not fair.”

Mrs Stevens-Bevan said she was “sickened to the stomach” to hear that the window was smashed while someone was praying.

“It should be a world of calmness,” she said.

“Having to put bars over the window takes away from that — it takes away from the sense of peace.”

She added that while lighting would soon be installed near the mosque, efforts were still being made to have CCTV cameras installed.

“The mosque is well used — and by some very elderly people — and they should feel safe,” she said.

“They get mouthy people passing, and these words can build up and rob them of their self-esteem.

“People don’t forget things like that, and for the women who were followed into the mosque it must be in their minds all the time.

“The mosque is a sacred place, like our churches and chapels, and we will not give up until people feel safe to go there.”

PC Dylan Davies said: “When they reported the criminal damage to me I did advise them to think about taking some security measures, which they did by adding the grill to the window.

“Having said that, this is a one-off instance. I am aware of concerns the people using the mosque have, and I am keeping an eye on the building and making sure that there are regular high visibility patrols in and around the area.”

alana.lewis@swwmedia.co.uk

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Anders Behring Breivik

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Anders Breivik: ‘I Would Do it Again’

Posted on 17 April 2012 by Emperor

The anti-Muslim/anti-left terrorist known as Anders Breivik has shown no remorse, saying he would commit his evil actions once again. He also said the youth he murdered on Utoya Island were not “innocent” and akin to the “Hitler youth.”

‘Hitler Youth’ is a term that Geller used to describe the youth on the island.

Breivik boasts he’d do it all again

(UKPA)

Anders Breivik has tried to defend his massacre of 77 people, insisting he would do it again and calling his rampage the most “spectacular” attack by a nationalist militant since the Second World War.

Reading a prepared statement in court, the anti-Muslim extremist lashed out at Norwegian and European governments for embracing immigration and multiculturalism.

He claimed to be speaking as a commander of an “anti-communist” resistance movement and an anti-Islam militant group he called the Knights Templar. There is no evidence the group exists. Maintaining he acted out of “goodness, not evil” to prevent a wider civil war, Breivik said: “I would have done it again.”

Breivik has five days to explain why he set off a bomb in Oslo’s government district last July, killing eight people, and then gunned down 69 others at a Labor Party youth camp outside the Norwegian capital. He denies criminal guilt, saying he was acting in self-defence.

“The attacks on July 22 were a preventive strike. I acted in self-defence on behalf of my people, my city, my country,” he said as he finished his statement, in essence a summary of the 1,500-page manifesto he posted online before the attacks. “I therefore demand to be found innocent of the present charges.”

If found mentally sane – the key issue to be decided in the trial – Breivik could face a maximum 21-year prison sentence or an alternate custody arrangement that would keep him locked up as long as he is considered a menace to society.

Judge Wenche Elisabeth Arntzen repeatedly interrupted Breivik, asking him to keep his statement short. “It is critically important that I can explain the reason and the motive” for the massacre, Breivik replied.

Mette Yvonne Larsen, a lawyer representing victims’ families, also interrupted Breivik, saying some were concerned that he was turning the trial into a platform to profess his extremist views. Her remarks prompted the judge to again urge Breivik to wrap it up.

Breivik rejected suggestions that he has a personality disorder. He said: “July 22, wasn’t about me. July 22 was a suicide attack. I wasn’t expecting to survive that day,” he said. “A narcissist would never have given his life for anyone or anything.”

Asked why he started crying in court on Monday, when prosecutors showed an anti-Muslim film that Breivik posted on YouTube before the attacks, he said: “I was thinking about Norway and Europe, which are ruled by politicians and journalists killing our country. I was thinking that my country is dying.”

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Muslims_Are_Coming

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New Documentary: The Muslims Are Coming!

Posted on 17 April 2012 by Emperor

Dean Obeidallah and the comedy group that he is a part of created a documentary called “The Muslims are Coming!” It features interviews with such comedic luminaries as Jon Stewart, Lewis Black, and David Cross as well as media personalities Rachel Maddow and Soledad O’Brien.

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Now We All Agree the Afghan War Was Not Worth Fighting

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Now We All Agree the Afghan War Was Not Worth Fighting

Posted on 16 April 2012 by Ilisha

Afghan Graves

“Speak good words to an enemy very softly; gradually destroy him root and branch.” ~ Pashtun Proverb

For many, it seemed as if the 9/11 terrorist attacks instantly indicted the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims, and transformed many Muslim-majority countries into potential bomb targets.

No Afghans were identified among the hijackers involved in the attacks, but US-ally-turned-Prime Suspect, Osama Bin Laden, had taken refuge in Afghanistan’s forbidding lands. After then-President George Bush rejected repeated offers by Taliban leaders to turn over the Saudi-born suspect, the US  invaded the already war-torn and impoverished country in October, 2001.

No Iraqis were identified among the hijackers involved in the attacks, and though the public was initially led to believe otherwise, Bush later acknowledged that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Soon a new excuse was proffered: US-ally-turned-Scary Global Menace, Saddam Hussein, supposedly had Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Fear peddling administration officials repeatedly warned that we must not let the “smoking gun be a mushroom cloud,” but the Downing Street Memo proved to be the real smoking gun, later revealing they knew all along the WMDs threat was a blatant lie.  The final pretext was “spreading freedom and democracy” at gunpoint, and the US-led invasion of the already war-torn and beleaguered nation of Iraq began March, 2003.

America was dragged into war under false pretenses, yet it seems no one has been held accountable. While President Obama at least acknowledged the war in Iraq was “the wrong one,” he also claimed the war in Afghanistan was “the right one.” But was it?

Shock, anger, and the thirst for vengeance certainly played a role in the decision to go to war with Afghanistan in 2001, and the Afghan people have paid a heavy price. Yet in 2010, nearly a decade after the invasion, a report revealed that 92% of Afghans were unaware of the 9/11 attacks. The finding was confirmed last fall when Afghans were asked what they thought of the war and they simply said: “Why are you here?”

A growing number of Americans seem to be asking themselves the same question–even as the usual suspects gin up yet another senseless war, this time with Iran.

Now We All Agree the Afghan War Was Not Worth Fighting

by Hamilton Nolan, Gawker

For the first time since we invaded Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, a majority of Republicans say that the war was not worth fighting. Even the superpatriots, the military do-or-die-ers, the America Firsters, the my-country-right-or-wrong crowd, have come to the conclusion that this war should never have happened. They’re right.

At this point, more than a decade on from the events that inspired us to invade Afghanistan in the first place, the burning sense of rage and desire for retribution and need to just do something have all faded away. We are more clear-eyed now. For almost every American that died in the Twin Towers, another American soldier has been killed in Afghanistan. Fifteen thousand more have been wounded. And tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed or wounded in the fighting as well.

And was it worth it? No. It was not worth it. It was clearly not worth it. No rational person could say it was worth it. September 11 was a horrible tragedy. Our response to it, starting with a decade-long war in a nation that Americans neither know nor care about, was a tragedy as well. We have poured our blood and treasure into a desolate, poverty-stricken and already war-torn country halfway across the world—not to improve it, but to further destroy it. For this, we have gained nothing that we could not have gained with a much more limited and rational response.

You don’t send in the U.S. Army to invade an entire nation to find one man. You don’t send in the U.S. Army to invade an entire nation to deal with one numerically small terrorist group, for the same reason that you don’t use an M1 Abrams tank to tackle your household mouse infestation. You don’t cause tens of thousands of violent deaths to poor civilians to prove some vague notion of national toughness on a world stage. It is insane. The urge to lash out in a muscular fashion after 9/11 is perfectly understandable. But it is not rational, or ethical, or even, it is now clear, to our own national benefit. Such impulses are the reason that we need strong leaders. To prevent us from doing things like invading Afghanistan.

In the end, it turns out, America’s entire post-9/11 response was exactly wrong. The much-derided idea of treating the terrorist attacks as a crime would have been the rational thing to do. Doing our best to launch a world war was not to our benefit. It was not to the benefit of geopolitical stability. It was not to the benefit of the kids who entered the military, full of patriotism and love for their country, and ended up dead halfway around the world. It was not to the benefit of Afghan civilians, people who had nothing to do with any of this, who ended up bombed, shot, maimed, driven from their homes, victims of circumstance. We can fight, if we like, another decade in Afghanistan. When we leave, Afghanistan will still belong to the people who live there, and they, not us, will determine its future. Our stated goal took far too long to accomplish. Now that it’s been accomplished, we’re still in Afghanistan. And we’ll be there for years more.

A small group of bad men attacked targets in America. For this, we invaded an entire nation. Where they weren’t. Let’s not do that again.

***********************

Rethink AfghanistanThe war in Afghanistan is increasing the likelihood that American civilians will be killed in a future terrorist attack.

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tajmahal_large2

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EDL Leader Inadvertently Starts Comedy Twitter Hash Tag

Posted on 16 April 2012 by Emperor

EDL Leader Stephen Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson didn't recognize the Taj Mahal, thought it was an example of "Creeping Sharia"

EDL aren’t the smartest bunch of lads, but c’mon, you can’t tell one of the greatest wonders of the world?

EDL Epic fail #6453109521:

EDL Leader Inadvertently Starts Comedy Twitter Hash Tag

An attempt to whip up anti-Islamic sentiment by the leader of the English Defence League has spectacularly backfired on Twitter on Monday.

On Sunday night, EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, tweeted a complaint about a picture of a “mosque” on the Twitter front page (it was actually the Taj Mahal), highlighting the image as another example of #creepingsharia.

However, rather than stoke far-right feeling, the Luton-based activist unintentionally started a comedy twitter trend.

Amid traffic about the start of Anders Breivik’s trial in Oslo, the Twitterati hijacked the tag, with #creepingsharia being blamed for everything from “algebra on the curriculum” to “no ham left in the fridge”.

Here is the original tweet from Robinson,

welcome to twitter homepage has a picture of a mosque. what a joke #creepingsharia

However, rather than stoke far-right feeling, the Luton-based activist unintentionally started a comedy twitter trend.

Amid traffic about the start of Anders Breivik’s trial in Oslo, the Twitterati hijacked the tag, with #creepingsharia being blamed for everything from “algebra on the curriculum” to “no ham left in the fridge”.

The trend was encouraged by stand-up comedian Richard Coughlan, who posted a video on YouTube encouraging users to “f*ck with the EDL” by turning the hash tag to a comedy bent.

You can watch Coughlan’s video here (WARNING: Strong language throughout).

Here are some of the best tweets:

Adam Bowman @knownasbowman
Adam Bowman

Muslamic bloke walked past on tiptoes #creepingsharia
Francesca Kay @CesKay
Francesca Kay

I take my shoes off when I go into my house. Been doing it for years. Didn’t even make the connection. #creepingsharia

 

Akkas Al-Ali @akkasistan
Akkas Al-Ali

I just got my head stuck in a jumper I was trying to put on. For a full five minutes, I was wearing a burka. @EDLTrobinson #creepingsharia
For more see Huffington Post article

 

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Anders Breivik wiped tears away as his video was shown to the court

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Anders Behring Breivik, Norway Mass Killer, Claims ‘Self Defense’ As Trial Begins

Posted on 16 April 2012 by Amago

Anders Breivik wiped tears away as his video was shown to the court

Anders Breivik wiped tears away as his video was shown to the court

One might think that these are tears of remorse, but rather these tears are from watching his own propaganda video in court.

Anders Behring Breivik, Norway Mass Killer, Claims ‘Self Defense’ As Trial Begins

OSLO, Norway — With a defiant closed-fist salute, a right-wing fanatic admitted Monday to a bomb-and-shooting massacre that killed 77 people in Norway but pleaded not guilty to criminal charges, saying he was acting in self-defense.

On the first day of his long-awaited trial, Anders Behring Breivik rejected the authority of the court as it sought to assign responsibility for the July 22 attacks that shocked Norway and jolted the image of terrorism in Europe.

Dressed in a dark suit and sporting a thin beard, Breivik smiled as a guard removed his handcuffs in the crowded court room. The 33-year-old then flashed his salute before shaking hands with prosecutors and court officials.

“I don’t recognize Norwegian courts because you get your mandate from the Norwegian political parties who support multiculturalism,” Breivik said in his first comments to the court.

Eight people were killed in Breivik’s bombing of Oslo’s government district and 69 were slain in his shooting massacre at the left-leaning Labor Party’s youth camp on Utoya island outside the capital. Breivik has said the attacks were necessary to protect Norway from being taken over by Muslims.

“I admit to the acts, but not criminal guilt,” he told the court, insisting he had acted in self-defense.

The key issue to be resolved during the 10-week trial is the state of Breivik’s mental health, which will decide whether he is sent to prison or into psychiatric care. Anxious to prove he is not insane, Breivik will call right-wing extremists and radical Islamists to testify during the trial, to show that others also share his view of clashing civilizations.

Norway’s NRK television was broadcasting parts of the trial live but was not allowed to show Breivik’s testimony.

During Monday’s opening session, he remained stone-faced and motionless as prosecutors read the indictment on the terror and murder charges, with descriptions of how each victim died, and when they explained how he prepared for the attacks.

But Breivik suddenly became emotional when prosecutors showed an anti-Muslim video that he had posted on YouTube before the killing spree, wiping away tears on his cheek with trembling hands.

After a lunch break, Breivik was again expressionless as he watched prosecutors present surveillance footage of the Oslo explosion. The blast ripped through the high-rise building that housed government headquarters, blowing out windows and filling surrounding streets with smoke and debris.

He didn’t flinch as prosecutors played a three-minute recording of a young woman’s frantic phone call to police from Utoya.

“Shots have been fired,” Renate Taarnes, 22, said with panic in her voice. “I’m pretty sure that there are many injured.”

More than a dozen shots in close succession could be heard as Taarnes fell silent.

“Are you still there?” the police officer asked.

“Yes,” she whispered. She fell silent again, breathing into the phone as more shots cracked in the background.

Taarnes escaped the massacre unharmed and is scheduled to testify later in the trial.

Breivik also announced he doesn’t recognize the authority of Judge Wenche Elisabeth Arntzen, because he said she is friends with the sister of former Norwegian Prime Minister and Labor Party leader Gro Harlem Brundtland.

The anti-Muslim militant described himself as a writer, currently working from prison, when asked by the judge for his employment status.

He claims he targeted the government headquarters in Oslo and the youth camp to strike against the left-leaning political forces he blames for allowing immigration in Norway.

If deemed mentally competent, Breivik would face a maximum prison sentence of 21 years or an alternate custody arrangement under which the sentence is prolonged for as long as an inmate is deemed a danger to society.

Breivik wants to be judged as a sane person and will call radical Islamists, and extremists on the right and left to testify to support “his perception that there is a war going on in Europe,” his defense lawyer, Geir Lippestad, told the court. Lippestad said Breivik wants to read a new document he’s written at the start of his testimony on Tuesday.

While Norway has a legal principle of preventive self-defense, that doesn’t apply to Breivik’s case, said Jarl Borgvin Doerre, a legal expert who has written a book on the concept. “It is obvious that it has nothing to do with preventive self-defense,” Doerre told The Associated Press.

Police sealed off the streets around the Oslo court building, where journalists, survivors and relatives of victims watched the proceedings Monday in a 200-seat courtroom built specifically for this trial.

Thick glass partitions were put up to separate the defendant from victims and their families, many of whom are worried that Breivik will use the trial to promote his extremist political ideology. In a manifesto he published online before the attacks, Breivik wrote that “patriotic resistance fighters” should use trials “as a platform to further our cause.”

After he surrendered, Breivik had told investigators he is a resistance fighter in a far-right militant group modeled after the Knights Templar – a Western Christian order that fought during the crusades. Police, however, have found no trace of any organization and say he acted alone.

“In our opinion, such a network does not exist,” prosecutor Svein Holden told the court on Monday.

In his manifesto, Breivik described the supposed group’s initiation rites, oaths and the “clenched fist salute” that he used in court, symbolizing “strength, honor and defiance against the Marxist tyrants of Europe.”

After blowing up parts of the government building and shooting dozens to death on Utoya island, Breivik surrendered to police 1 hour and 20 minutes after he arrived on Utoya. The police response to his terror spree was slowed by a series of mishaps, including the lack of an operating police helicopter and the breakdown of an overloaded boat carrying a commando team to the island.

Breivik called police twice, saying he wanted to turn himself in. In one of the calls, played in court Monday, he identified himself as a commander of “the Norwegian resistance movement” and said he had “just completed an operation on behalf of Knights Templar.”

When the operator asked him to repeat himself, Breivik sounded irritated and hung up.

___

Associated Press writers Bjoern H. Amland and Julia Gronnevet contributed to this report.

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Brookfield_Mosque_Protest

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Hundreds Attend Anti-Islam Rally in Waukesha

Posted on 15 April 2012 by Emperor

Anti-Mosque initiatives continue to proliferate across the US. In Brookfield that agitators against the Mosque brought in fraudster Walid Shoebat to reaffirm their animosity and misconceptions about Islam and Muslims:

Hundreds Attend Anti-Islam Rally in Waukesha

With the big-name draw of Walid Shoebat, more than 200 people gathered at the Waukesha Expo Center Saturday night to hear the message that Islam is a growing threat to law and peace in the United States.

The rally was an especially strong draw for Brookfield residents who oppose a mosque proposed for the city by the Islamic Society of Milwaukee.

Shoebat, who says he is an ex-terrorist, has been confronted about his past by media outlets like CNN, who reported they could find no evidence to support his background story. But he stood by his case Saturday, saying the media were the real frauds.

“Heck, sometimes even FOX News doesn’t even like what I have to say, because I say Islam is not a peace-loving religion,” Shoebat told the crowd.

Brookfield residents Chuck and Sharon Bloom left the rally Saturday with a plastic bag full of books sold by VCY America, a Christian radio station that sponsored the event. The couple was hoping to learn more about Islam and to build a case against the proposed mosque.

“More than just me and my wife, the community needs to be informed,” Chuck Bloom said. “I think it’s important to find out exactly what questions we need to ask to make sure there’s no sharia law, etcetera.”

Sharia law was the buzz phrase of the evening, especially surrounding the mosque. Shoebat said while he supports freedom of religion, Islam as an institution stretches beyond religious practice with sharia law. Sharia guides all aspects of Muslim life including daily routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

“It’s not the mosque I have a problem with,” Shoebat said, making no specific reference to the Brookfield proposal. “It’s, where is the funding coming from, and will the mosque sign and swear that they will never be sharia?”

Brookfield aldermen were invited to the event and had reserved seats in the front row, but the seats were quickly filled by other attendees when it appeared they did not show up.

Brookfield Mayor Steven Ponto and Alderman Scott Berg have both previously stated they do not think the religion of Islam should be considered in deciding whether to grant the Islamic Society of Milwaukee the permit they need to build their proposed mosque for land northeast of the intersection of Calhoun Road and North Avenue.

But Shoebat’s comments were echoed by the audience as the filed out of the Expo Center.

David Ball, a pastor from New Berlin, said he came “to find out if the message about what Islam really is is getting out properly.”

“I hold freedom of religion very dear, but Islam is not just a religion; it is also a state government system, completely contrary to our system of government,” Ball said. “Our Constitution should not be subverted to sharia law.”

Brookfield resident Robin Couillard said she found out about the proposed mosque for the first time at the event. She said she was especially concerned about Shoebat’s remark that a mosque is like an embassy for Islam and sharia law.

“I’m just shocked that this is being proposed for Brookfield,” she said. “I’m concerned about Islam overtaking our community, and our country, and the world.”

Organizers with the Islamic Society of Milwaukee have previously defended their proposal — and their religion — to opposition that surfaced at a meeting in March at the Brookfield Public Library.

Related story: Opponents of Proposed Mosque Clash with Islamic Society Organizers

Several residents said they want to mobilize opposition to the mosque, but did not have set plans for doing so, other than attending to the public hearing set for May 7 at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 2000 N. Calhoun Rd. There will also be a public information hearing May 2 at 5 p.m. in the public safety building courtroom at 2100 N. Calhoun Rd.

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English Defence League demonstrate in Bradford

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Far-right anti-Muslim Network on Rise Globally as Breivik Trial Opens

Posted on 14 April 2012 by Emperor

The anti-Muslim movement is growing. I expect we’ll see even more groups this time next year:

Far-right anti-Muslim network on rise globally as Breivik trial opens

(The Guardian)

The international network of counter-jihadist groups that inspired Anders Behring Breivik is growing in reach and influence, according to a report released on the eve of the Norwegian’s trial.

Far-right organisations are becoming more cohesive as they forge alliances throughout Europe and the US, says the study, with 190 groups now identified as promoting an Islamophobic agenda.

This week Breivik will appear on trial in Oslo after confessing to the murder of 77 people in Norway last July, killings that he justified as part of a “war” between the west and Islamists.

The report, by anti-racism group Hope Not Hate, states that since the 33-year-old’s killing spree, the counter-jihad movement – a network of foundations, bloggers, political activists and street gangs – has continued to proliferate.

Campaigners cite the formation three months ago of the Stop Islamization of Nations (Sion) group, designed to promote an umbrella network of counter-jihad groups across Europe and the US, as evidence of a global evolution.

An inaugural Sion summit is planned in New York this year to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11. Speakers are set to include Paul Weston, chairman of the anti-Islamic British Freedom Party (BFP), which recently announced a pact with the English Defence League. In the manifesto that Breivik published online 90 minutes before his attacks, he cited blog postings by Weston which discussed a “European civil war” between the west and Islam.

Researchers at Hope Not Hate name the UK as one of Europe’s most active countries in terms of counter-jihad extremism, with 22 anti-Islamic groups currently operating.

In Europe as a whole, 133 organisations were named in the report, including seven in Norway, and another 47 in the US, where a network of neo-conservative, evangelical and conservative organisations attempts to spread “negative perceptions of Islam, Muslim minorities and Islamic culture”.

Nick Lowles, director of Hope Not Hate said: “Breivik acted alone but it was the ‘counter-Jihadist’ ideology that inspired him and gave him the reasoning to carry out these atrocious attacks. All eyes this week will be on what Breivik did last July, but we ignore those people who inspired him at our peril.”

Andreas Mammone, a historian at Kingston University in London and an expert on European fascism, said broader factors had helped the counter-jihad movement to consolidate support. “The economic crisis continues to promote nationalism alongside the need for a common enemy. A fear of radical Islam is being developed, the idea that it presents a threat to our freedom,” he said.

The report also identifies the counter-jihad network’s most influential figures, including EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (known as Tommy Robinson), but also the more discreet London property tycoon Ann Marchini, whose details surfaced on a leaked list of EDL donors and who is understood to have attended counter-jihad conferences in Scandinavia, Brussels, Zurich and London. She attended a recent meeting where the EDL agreed its electoral pact with the BFP and is also understood to be involved with the UK wing of the Centre for Vigilant Freedom (CVF), and a well-funded US group renamed the International Civil Liberties Alliance (ICLA), which is based in Fairfax, Virginia, and co-ordinates individuals and groups in 20 countries.

The ICLA also runs the Counter-Jihad Europa website, which acts as a “clearing house for national initiatives to oppose the Islamisation of Europe”. Three months after Breivik’s attacks the ICLA organised a counter-jihad conference in London with the help of its European co-ordinator, Christopher Knowles, another EDL co-founder and director of the UK branch of the CVF, which is registered in Wakefield.

New anti-Islamic groups continue to emerge. Two weeks ago in Denmark, Yaxley-Lennon held the inaugural meeting of a Europe-wide network of defence leagues. Another new group, founded in Belgium last month, is Women Against Islamisation, a pan-European network whose launch was addressed by Jackie Cook, the wife of Nick Griffin, chairman of the British National party (BNP).

In Greece, polls suggest the ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn could pass the 3% threshold required to enter parliament in elections next month.

Another development concerns the hardening of links between European and US anti-Islamic organisations. US blogger Pamela Geller is a key figure driving closer transatlantic relations. Geller, who is president of Sion, was mentioned in Breivik’s manifesto and was a vociferous protester against the development of a mosque in Lower Manhattan in 2010.

The co-founder of Sion is Denmark’s Anders Gravers, organiser of Stop Islamisation of Europe. Gravers met Yaxley-Lennon in Denmark last month.

Campaigners are concerned that US neo-conservative and evangelical groups will begin sharing resources with the leagues. Images of EDL demonstrations are already used at Tea Party movement fundraising events, while officials from groups such as the Christian Action Network have met EDL activists. Other US and UK links include the Virginia-based anti-Islamic blog, the Gates Of Vienna, which counted Breivik as a contributor. As attention turns to Norway, experts are keen to stress that the country was not unusual in terms of the extent of its counter-jihadist movement. Among the online forums linked to Breivik are the nationalist blog Document.no, on which Breivik posted more than 100 comments.

Breivik – an admirer of the EDL – was also an online supporter of the Norwegian Defence League, which retains close links with its English counterpart.

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Opposition Grows to Religious Freedom Nominee, Zuhdi Jasser

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Opposition Grows to Religious Freedom Nominee, Zuhdi Jasser

Posted on 13 April 2012 by Emperor

Zuhd Jasser does not belong on the USCIRF, sign the petition:

Muslim opposition grows to religious freedom nominee

By Lauren Markoe| Religion News Service, Published: April 12 (The Washington Post)

More than 50 Muslim and non-Muslim civic and religious groups asked leading senators on Thursday (April 12) to rescind the appointment of an outspoken Muslim activist, Zuhdi Jasser, to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Jasser, a Navy-trained physician, is decrying the effort – and others to oust him from the independent watchdog panel – as a “smear tactic.”

A separate online petition that began circulating last week, also asking for his ouster, has garnered more than 2,000 signatures.

“Their letter is patently dishonest, deceptive, and continues their unprofessional unbridled smear campaign against anyone who chooses to take on Islamic reform against Islamist ideologies and groups regardless of whether we are observant traditional Muslims,” Jasser wrote in an email to Religion News Service.

The signatories to the letter, sent to three key senators, argue that Jasser’s rhetoric and activism contribute to a culture that treats Muslims as suspects, and that he would subvert the work of the bipartisan commission, which advises federal officials on the status of religious freedom abroad.

“His consistent support for measures that threaten and diminish religious freedoms within the United States demonstrates his deplorable lack of understanding of and commitment to religious freedom and undermines the USCIRF’s express purpose,” they wrote.

They cite Jasser’s effort to prevent the construction of an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, his support for the New York Police Department’s spying on Muslim institutions, and his defense of anti-Shariah laws, which most Muslim civil rights groups say unfairly paint Muslims as anti-American.

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Spelling Bee for Muslim schools provokes Islamophobic Hate Fest

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Spelling Bee for Muslim schools provokes Islamophobic Hate Fest

Posted on 13 April 2012 by Emperor

Sheila Musaji discusses the anti-Muslim hysterics over Muslim school spelling bees:

Spelling Bee for Muslim schools provokes Islamophobic Hate Fest

by Sheila Musaji

There will be a Muslim Spelling Bee this year for students of Islamic schools across the country.  This is the first year that Muslims have held such an event.

OnIslam reported that

A Michigan Muslim school is planning to organize the world’s first national spelling bee in an effort to help connect the sizable minority with the wider American society.

The competition will “help connect the Muslim community to the mainstream community.” Tausif Malik, the owner of TMA Worldwide with his wife Asma, told Ann Arbor news portal.

“Muslims are not aware of spelling bees because they are focused on getting their children into engineering or medicine.

Sounds like an excellent idea, certainly not one that anyone could object to, or at least that’s what any reasonable person would think.

There are many other such events for other private and religious schools and groups.  Here are just a few:

—A Hebrew Spelling Bee in Cleveland, and a tri-county Hebrew Spelling Bee in Florida
— a spelling bee for Jewish Day Schools in New York, and for the Jewish community inOmaha, Nebraska,
— a spelling bee for Catholic grade schools in Philadelphia, and another in Minnesota,
— a spelling bee for Lutheran schools in Michigan
— Christ Methodist Church School has a spelling bee in Memphis, Tennessee

Nevertheless, there are some who are so filled with hatred towards Islam and Muslims that even such a simple activity as holding a spelling bee for children becomes an opportunity to spread their poisonous bile.

Bonni Benstock-Intall of Bare Naked Islam posted an article MICHIGANISTAN: ‘Muslim-Only’ Spelling Bee which opened with

So much for integration and assimilation with the filthy kuffar. Then again, how many of us pork eaters know how to spell ‘Intifada’ in Arabic?

Here are a few of the comments left by readers

—We should sponsor a little infidel into the contest and when they disqualify our little infidel – SUE THE CRAP OUTTA THEM!!! Lawfare can go both ways!!

— AMEN! Can you spell A-S-S-L-I-F-T-E-R?!

— Well its always nice to see the future terrorists of the world at least able to spell allah,or dirt bag,or mohammad,or virgin,before they detonate their bomb vest in one of our schools.

— Like Mr. Rogers: Now children, can you spell “DEPORTATION” ? How about “BEHEADING” ? Maybe “INBRED” ?
“ANIMALISM” ? “BAGHEAD”?

— Muslims can’t spell. They’re too f*&%ing inbred and retarded to spell. F*&% Muslims. Jesus sent Mohammed to hell f*&%ers.On the site the actual swear words are spelled out

— Can you believe that this is happening? We are watching them take over our county piece by piece.

— Imagine the uproar if there was a Christian only spelling bee.

This goes beyond Islamophobia into the realm of pure hatred, and such hatred is truly savage. They should be ashamed, but I don’t believe that they are capable of even that much awareness.

SEE ALSO:

A Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industryhttp://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/a_whos_who_of_the_anti-muslimanti-arabislamophobia_industry

Bonni Benstock-Intall and Bare Naked Islamhttp://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/celebrating-and-encouraging-violence-against-muslims

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David_Haivri

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David Ha’ivri: Blatant Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab Racism on YNetNews

Posted on 12 April 2012 by Emperor

David_Haivri

David Ha'ivri

We have linked several times in the past to articles on YNetNews, a popular Israeli online news source. I am unaware of their “op-ed” policy, but today they published an article by David Ha’ivri titled, The Arab-Muslim Narrative.

Ha’ivri is the “director of the Shomron Liaison Office. He and his wife Mollie live in Kfar Tapuach.” Ha’ivri’s op-ed is racist tripe and generalizes both Arabs and Muslims.

I can understand such an op-ed being published on Arutz Sheva, or the The Israel Times Online but on YNetNews, a leading Israeli online site read by hundreds of thousands daily?

Here are some of the most egregious quotes:

This conversation was a great help to me in understanding the Muslim Arab mindset and culture. Facts are not really so important to them. They can be made up or even changed as needed.

Muslim people celebrate detachment from reality as part of their worship:

Understand that we are dealing with people who celebrate being detached from reality as part of their worship of Allah.

And perhaps the most racist and ridiculous of them all:

It is unrealistic, in my opinion, to believe that we can turn the Arabs into a society that truly embraces western concepts and values – like facts and sticking to truth. It makes much more sense to understand that fantasy and stretching the truth are very deeply embedded in the mindset of the Muslim and Arab culture. I do not mean to say this as an insult, but to suggest that we accept it as a fact, take it as it is and move on.

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Robert George: Saying Nice Things About Islam While at the Same Time Funding Islamophobes?

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Robert George: Saying Nice Things About Islam While at the Same Time Funding Islamophobes?

Posted on 11 April 2012 by Emperor

While Robert George has had positive relations with Muslim leaders such as Hamza Yusuf, and has also made positive statements regarding Islam and Muslim in the public, he has still left unanswered lingering questions about his troubling membership on the board of the Bradley Foundation, one of the largest funders of Islamophobia.

George’s unwillingness to answer questions about his position as a board member of the Bradley Foundation since 2006 is one of the main reasons he should not be considered as a commissioner on the USCIRF. His positive statements about Muslims do not give him a free pass in this regard.

Robert George’s Moral Cowardice on Islamophobia

(FaithInPublicLife)

Since it was revealed last fall that Robert George sits on the board of a conservative foundation that funds some of the worst anti-Islam extremists, the prominent Princeton professor has remained silent on the issue. Even when asked directly, he refused to discuss the subject.

Monday, his colleague Jennifer Bryson of the Witherspoon Institute tried to defend him. Unfortunately her attempt comes up short.

Bryson starts by conceding that the anti-Islam organizations in question are “in [her] view, misguided” before moving on. But let’s be clear, the people we’re talking about are indefensibly hateful. They describe Muslims as “Islamic Nazis,” tell lies about the President’s faith, and promote elaborate conspiracy theories about secret Muslim infiltration of the United States government and civil society. They also bear some responsibility for the rise in attacks on the religious freedom of Muslims in the last few years. And their work is being funded to the tune of over $4 million dollars by the board on which Robert George sits.

Bryson goes on to allege that critics are charging George with “being anti-Muslim” or being “hostile to Islam” and rebuts these charges with a litany of George’s statements criticizing anti-Islam bigotry. I might have missed something, but none of the posts I’ve written or read on this subject have said any such thing. In fact, I’ve made a point to laud these very statements and suggested his otherwise positive record on this issue is exactly what makes his place on the Bradley Foundation board so disappointing.

After twelve paragraphs refuting this straw man, Bryson finally gets to the fundamental moral conflict at stake, relaying George’s defense:

Yet what about George’s position on the Bradley Foundation board? Is it inconsistent with his advocacy of the rights of Muslims and his work for Christian-Muslim cooperation? The Bradley Board discussions are confidential and, says George, “what I have to say about Bradley grants and grantees I will say to them and my colleagues on the Bradley board.”

But this of course is a non-answer. Under the guise of confidentiality, George refuses to say what (if anything) he says to the board about the Bradley Foundation’s record of funding the Islamophobia industry. Did he show them the disgusting records of the people they’re funding? Was there a fight about this decision? Even if he protested and voted no, is he embarrassed that his colleagues are contributing to the same religious bigotry he opposes in other contexts? We don’t know any of this, because George won’t say.

Bryson, however, jumps to conclusions:

Frankly I am glad that he is part of the Bradley Board. He can have more influence by participating inside than by protesting from outside, and having so prominent a defender of Muslim rights, and of Islam as a faith, in such a visible place of honor and influence in the conservative movement sends a clear message to other conservatives that they need not, and should not, view Islam with contempt or regard their Muslim fellow citizens with suspicion.

If George’s strategy is to influence the board from within, he’s failing spectacularly. The foundation has been giving money to these extremists since 2001. George’s election to the board in 2006 failed to do anything to stop the flow of funds — publicly available annual reports through 2010 show that grants have been awarded in every year since.

Moreover, Bryson has her cause and effect wrong. George is not a prominent conservative leader because he is on the board, his stature comes from his other work and lends the board credibility and visibility. Given that practically no one knew about this situation until a few months ago, can Bryson really argue with a straight face that George’s secret, silent protest of an unknown issue has “sent a clear message” about religious tolerance to his fellow conservatives?

Of course not. George’s silent participation does the exact opposite, sending the message that these organizations are credible and worthy of funding.

What if the groups in question weren’t anti-Islam extremists, but active racists? Would George act the same way if the Bradley Foundation were funding the KKK? Would being a silent advocate for African Americans be morally sufficient? Would conservatives accept George’s “behind the scenes advocate” defense?

Imagine, though, what kind of message George could send by making public his vociferous opposition to his colleagues’ decision and resigning from the board in protest. Now that would be a moral example that might inspire fellow conservatives to refuse to sit by silently while xenophobic extremists hijack their movement.

But instead, George appears content to whistle past the graveyard. That’s certainly a moral and strategic choice he has a right to make. But it’s a choice that deserves to be made public, especially for someone recently appointed to a prominent position defending religious liberty around the globe. And he and his allies shouldn’t be surprised if others determine that his association with anti-Muslim groups disqualifies him from such an important and prestigious role.

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n2

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SpencerWatch: Bank Robbing: Hard to Kick the “Habit”

Posted on 11 April 2012 by Amago

Bank Robbing: Hard to Kick the “Habit”

Robert Spencer writes in a blog titled, “Philadelphia: Police hunt niqab-wearing bank robbers”:

Here is still more reason why Western countries should take off the multiculturalist straitjacket and ban the burqa and niqab.

Spencer is unable to make legitimate criticisms about Islam or Muslims because underlying all of his half-baked arguments is a weak, fact-less, and hate-mongering core.

In this instance, in order for Spencer to attempt to make his point he succumbs to a baseless ridicule-centered argument by calling the niqab and/or burqa a “multiculturalist straightjacket”.

If one were to go along with Spencer’s logic of why the burqa and niqab should be banned, then he would paradoxically also be an advocate for banning the “habit,” i.e. the traditional catholic garb for nuns.

Just as the burqa/niqab has been used by criminals during bank robberies so has the habit:

The two suspects were both dressed in black sweat pants and sweatshirts and wore nuns’ habits and identical ghoulish rubber masks, with small slits for eyes.

No one calls for the banning of the habit. No one ridicules that religious garb as a symbol of oppression because that would be illogical.

Of course, when Spencer wants to make an anti-Islam/Muslim point he won’t allow common sense or logic to get in the way. This is just another instance of silly Spencer.

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Mamilla cemetery in Jerusalem, where Israel has approved the start of work on a controversial Museum of Tolerance, Ahmad Gharabli / AFP / Getty Images

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Tolerance of Whom?

Posted on 11 April 2012 by Amago

Mamilla cemetery in Jerusalem, where Israel has approved the start of work on a controversial Museum of Tolerance, Ahmad Gharabli / AFP / Getty Images

Mamilla cemetery in Jerusalem, where Israel has approved the start of work on a controversial Museum of Tolerance, Ahmad Gharabli / AFP / Getty Images

(h/t BA)

Tolerance of Whom?

by 

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is planning to build a Museum of Tolerance on the Muslim Mamilla cemetery. This project is a grotesque attempt to erase the well-established history of a continuous Muslim presence in the city that dates back over a millennium.

For over six centuries, many of my ancestors have been buried in an historic cemetery that holds the remains of some of the most prominent public figures and military leaders ever to live inside the Holy City of Jerusalem.  The Mamilla cemetery is said to contain the remains of Muslims who walked alongside the Prophet Muhammad, fought in the Crusades, and influenced the city over many centuries.  It is one of the most important remaining Muslim heritage sites in the Holy Land.

In recent years, however, I and surviving members of many of Jerusalem’s oldest families have witnessed the desecration of the cemetery. The efforts of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center to build a “Museum of Tolerance” on the site have already tarnished the cemetery and damaged its integrity.

Hundreds of sets of remains have been disinterred and carted off for disposal in unmarked mass graves in unknown locations, or worse. The Jerusalem municipality has enabled this effort with the approval of the Israeli Antiquities Authority. This project is a grotesque attempt to erase the well-established history of a continuous Muslim presence in the city that dates back over a millennium.

Last month, new images surfaced that confirm excavations in the ancient Cemetery continue in secret, proving false the repeated claims of the Wiesenthal Center that there would be no further digging on the historic site. Footage made public by the Center for Constitutional Rights shows new power equipment and electrical supply within a fenced-off and covered pit, that borders an as-yet undisturbed portion of the cemetery.  As an American from New York who can trace the burial of my own ancestors at Mamilla back to the 14th century, I can only hope that the news of likely additions to the hundreds of remains already wrongfully disposed of increases the urgent calls to stop this abuse of the dead before the site is entirely desecrated.

Since the plans to construct the Museum of Tolerance on Mamilla Cemetery began in 2004, nearly 60 other descendants of those buried at the cemetery and I have made repeated appeals to try and stop the disinterring and destruction of the remains of our ancestors.  We have appealed directly to the Wiesenthal Center’s Rabbi Marvin Hier, to the Jerusalem Municipality, and to the UN. We have received the support of over 80 prominent archaeologists from Israel and around the world, who have petitioned for the preservation of the site, while others have filed legal appeals in Israeli courts.

Israeli courts have not provided a remedy, and our suggestions of compromise, including relocating the Museum to a new location—a move that would showcase genuine tolerance—have been met with silence.  Meanwhile, the Wiesenthal Center has skirted responsibility, initially disavowing knowledge of the graves, and now clinging to a flimsy defense that the sanctity of the site has long since diminished.

To show that these claims are patently false, one need only look to the Israeli Religious Affairs Ministry’s 1948 declaration of Mamilla  as “one of the most prominent Muslim cemeteries, where seventy thousand Muslim warriors of [Saladin’s] armies are interred along with many Muslim scholars… Israel will always know to protect and respect this site.”  As recently as 1986, in response to a UNESCO investigation regarding Israel’s development projects on the site, the Israeli government stated that “no project exists for the deconsecration of the site… the site and its tombs are to be safeguarded.”

There is no justification for these desecrations. If they were occurring in any other place on earth, the outcry would be deafening.  Unfortunately, the treatment of Mamilla is not an anomaly; Muslim and Christian sites of cultural, religious and historical significance continue to be systematically disrespected by Israeli authorities.  The Protection of Holy Sites Law in Israel now covers 137 sites.  Not one of these is Christian or Muslim.

At a time when Americans are engaged in a national dialogue about division along racial and cultural lines, a time when discrimination and the marginalization of minorities are subjects of public protest, it is disheartening to see  some individuals and institutions exporting and abetting division elsewhere.  The Wiesenthal Center’s mission statement says its goal is to promote human rights and dignity.  People of conscience everywhere must press the respected and influential Rabbi Hier, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center to adhere to those goals, and to allow the thousands still buried at Mamilla cemetery to rest in peace.

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

 

Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and a former advisor to Palestinian negotiators. Khalidi is the author numerous books, including Palestinian Identity and The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. He currently serves as the editor of theJournal of Palestine Studies.

 

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

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People charged in connection of setting a building on fire weep inside a police vehicle as they are taken to a prison after their hearing in a court at Mehsana, about 60 km (37 miles) north from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. (File Photo - November 9, 2011)

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23 Convicted for Deadly 2002 Anti-Muslim Violence in India’s Gujarat

Posted on 10 April 2012 by Amago

People charged in connection of setting a building on fire weep inside a police vehicle as they are taken to a prison after their hearing in a court at Mehsana, about 60 km (37 miles) north from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. (File Photo - November 9, 2011)

People charged in connection of setting a building on fire weep inside a police vehicle as they are taken to a prison after their hearing in a court at Mehsana, about 60 km (37 miles) north from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. (File Photo - November 9, 2011)

23 Convicted for Deadly 2002 Anti-Muslim Violence in India’s Gujarat

In India, a court has convicted 23 people in connection with the killing of 23 Muslims during deadly religious riots that swept through Gujarat state in 2002. The massacre was investigated by a special team after allegations that the probe by state police was not impartial.

A special court Monday found the 23 people guilty of setting fire to a house in Gujarat’s Ode village where a group of Muslims had taken shelter to protect themselves from rioting mobs.

Twenty-three others were acquitted for lack of evidence. Most of those who stood trial are Hindus.

The massacre took place a decade ago, when towns and villages in Gujarat were convulsed with riots that targeted Muslims homes and neighborhoods. The violence erupted after a train fire, blamed on Muslims, killed 60 Hindu pilgrims and prompted retaliation by Hindu mobs.
The prosecutor, P.N. Parmar, called it a historic judgment in the mass killings in Ode village.

“Nine children, nine women and five men burnt alive in this heinous crime,” he said.

The sentences will be announced later. Defense lawyers say they will appeal the verdict.
The massacre in Ode village is one of nine incidents into which the Supreme Court has ordered a special investigation, following allegations that the Gujarat police were not impartial in their probe into the deadly riots. About 1,000 Muslims died in the violence.
This is the third judgment to be handed down in connection with the riots. In two separate judgments last year, 31 people were sentenced for burning 39 Muslims to death, while 31 Muslims were found guilty for setting fire to the train that killed the Hindu pilgrims.

Gujarat is ruled by the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. The state’s chief minister, Narendra Modi, has often been accused of not doing enough to stop the riots or bring the perpetrators to justice.

After Monday’s verdict, senior BJP leader Balbir Punj said justice has been handed to the riot victims.

“It is a victory for the people of Gujarat and it is a slap on the face of those people that [say] justice cannot be done in Gujarat,” said Punj.

Although the 2002 violence tarnished Narendra Modi’s image, the controversial leader remains one of BJP’s top leaders. He has won state elections in Gujarat twice since the riots and hopes to play a larger role in national politics.

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391px-Flickr_-_europeanpeoplesparty_-_EPP_Summit_October_2010_(105)

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Corsica: Racist Arson Attack on Muslim Prayer Room

Posted on 10 April 2012 by Amago

Corsica: Racist Arson Attack on Muslim Prayer Room 

France’s interior ministry says an arsonist has partially destroyed a Muslim prayer room in the Mediterranean island of Corsica’s capital city.

A ministry statement said racist inscriptions were found Monday on the front of the building housing the prayer room in Ajaccio after it was damaged in the early morning fire.

French Muslim leaders have voiced fear of renewed stigmatization following March attacks that killed seven people in southern France that were attributed to an Islamist who claimed al-Qaida links. Mohamed Merah was shot dead by police.

Rivals of conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy in presidential elections starting April 22 claim a recent sweep of terror suspects is an electoral ploy.

AFP, 9 April 2012

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Bischof Dröge besucht Sehitlik-Moschee

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Berlin’s Largest Mosque Targeted in Hate Crime Attack

Posted on 10 April 2012 by Amago

Berlin’s largest mosque targeted in hate crime attack

Berlin’s largest mosque has been targeted in an Islamophobic attack in the German capital’s predominantly migrant district of Neukölln.

Unknown assailants threw several paint bombs at the Sehitlik mosque Saturday night. They also placed an insulting anti-Islam picture at the entrance to the building.

Berlin police said that a threatening letter had been sent to the mosque recently.

The Sehitlik mosque has been the target of four arson attacks over the past three years. Berlin mosques have been the scene of at least seven fire bombings since June 2010.

German Muslim leaders have time and again called for stepped up security measures for the country’s mosques and Islamic centers.

They also accuse the center-right government of Chancellor Angela Merkel of trying to downplay the danger of anti-Muslim crimes caused by the wave of Islamophobia in Germany.

Press TV, 9 April 2012

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Norway’s Mass Killer Breivik Declared Sane

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Norway’s Mass Killer Breivik Declared Sane

Posted on 10 April 2012 by Emperor

Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who confessed to a bombing and mass shooting that killed 77 people on July 22, 2011, arrives for a detention hearing at a court in Oslo, Norway, Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. About 100 survivors and relatives of the victims of the July 22 massacre attended the hearing in Oslo's district court - expected to decide to keep Breivik in jail until his trial begins in April. (AP Photo/Heiko Junge, Scanpix Norway) NORWAY OUT

Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who confessed to a bombing and mass shooting that killed 77 people on July 22, 2011, arrives for a detention hearing at a court in Oslo, Norway, Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. About 100 survivors and relatives of the victims of the July 22 massacre attended the hearing in Oslo's district court - expected to decide to keep Breivik in jail until his trial begins in April. (AP Photo/Heiko Junge, Scanpix Norway) NORWAY OUT

This may get Breivik less years, but terrorist-inspirers will have a harder time trying to deflect the influence their writings had on Breivik:

Norway’s mass killer Breivik declared sane

(BBC News)

A second psychiatric evaluation of Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has found him sane enough to face trial and a jail term.

The findings contradict a previous evaluation, published in November, that found him legally insane.

Breivik is due to stand trial on Monday over a bomb attack and shooting spree last July that killed 77 people.

The 33-year-old, who insists he is mentally stable, was “pleased” with the new assessment, his lawyer said.

Geir Lippestad told reporters his client would defend his actions during his 10-week trial, adding, “he will also regret that he didn’t go further”.

Both reports will be considered by the court when it decides, at the end of the trial, whether he should be sent to a psychiatric ward or jail.

If Breivik is deemed to have been sane at the time of the killings then he could face 21 years in prison with the potential for indefinite extensions to his term as long as he is considered a danger to the public.

‘Crusade’

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

His first reaction was that he was pleased with the conclusion”

Geir LippestadBreivik’s lawyer

The second evaluation was approved by a court in January following widespread criticism of last year’s assessment that concluded he was psychotic at the time of the attacks and diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic – meaning he would most likely be detained in psychiatric care.

Many of his surviving victims believed he was sane, and that the only proper punishment would be a prison sentence.

“Our conclusion is that he is not psychotic at the time of the actions of terrorism and he is not psychotic now,” psychiatrist Terje Toerrissen, who carried out the second assessment with fellow psychiatrist Agnar Aspaas, told the Associated Press.

The full report is confidential, and the two psychiatrists will give their reasons for arriving at a different conclusion to the first team of experts when they testify during the trial, AP reports.

Breivik was charged with terror offences last month.

Prosecutors said at the time they were prepared to accept that he was criminally insane and would therefore seek compulsory psychiatric care, but they reserved the right to alter that view if new elements emerged about his mental health.

Update: (H/T: Jai)

Source: http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16205754

Extract:

“Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway last year, plans to tell his trial he regrets “not going further”.

The 33-year-old is accused of committing the terrorist attacks on July 22, 2011, and will face court in Oslo on Monday.

“This will be extremely difficult, an enormous challenge to listen to his explanations,” his lawyer Geir Lippestad told reporters. “He will not only defend (his actions) but will also lament, I think, not going further.””

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Llanelli mosque front

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Further Attack on Llanelli mosque

Posted on 09 April 2012 by Amago

Further attack on Llanelli mosque

Last September the mosque in the Welsh town of Llanelli was attacked. Thugs racially abused a group of elderly women who were entering the mosque and kicked the door in. As a result, extra CCTV cameras were installed.

We are told that there was a second attack on the mosque in February, when the windows were smashed while someone was praying inside. As you can see from the photo, the building has now been fitted with a window grille in addition to the existing steel gate in front of the door (cf. earlier photo here).

The Llanelli Star did, rather belatedly, get round to covering the September attack, but the February incident was apparently not considered important enough to merit a report in the local press.

The EMRC study Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hate Crime: UK Case Studies found that Muslims and their mosques face a higher level of violence and intimidation in UK market towns and suburbs than in big cities. See also the Al Jazeera report here.

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LGF: Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer’s Friend Freely Admits to Beating and Stabbing Muslims

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LGF: Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer’s Friend Freely Admits to Beating and Stabbing Muslims

Posted on 09 April 2012 by Garibaldi

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer‘s thugish friend exposed as violent anti-Muslim hate-mongering psychopath, freely admits to targeting, beating, cutting and stabbing Muslims.

Rodan Exposed: The Shocking Audio

by Gus (Little Green Footballs)

CONTENT WARNING: Listener discretion is advised. The following video (audio) contains explicit language, hate speech, racial slurs, and violent rhetoric including descriptions of past incidents of violent crimes as described by the subject.

ADDITIONAL WARNING: Rodan also drops the N-Word towards the end of the audio.

The following is an audio recording of Rodan (real name: Rick Martinez) as described in the captioned text below the audio. The subject is Rodan (aka Trajan 75, Emporer Palpatine, et al). Rodan began as webmaster for Think Progress Watch and is currently the webmaster and primary functionary at The Blogmocracy and The Diary of Daedalus.

The Diary of Daedalus is a site dedicated to the tracking and harassment of Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs and members of Little Green Footballs. It has been previously cited in blogs or on Twitter by Andrew Breitbart; Dan Riehl of Riehlworldview; Donald Douglas of American Power; R.S. McCain of The Other McCain; Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch; and others.

Please note that I am not the creator of said video nor am I affiliated with the uploader of said video on Youtube. This is not an endorsement of his or her beliefs whatever they may be. Also note that this is all public information and this video/audio has been present on Youtube since 2009. The purpose of this information herein is to reveal the true nature and background of the creator and webmaster for The Blogmocracy and The Diary of Daedalus most commonly known as Rodan.

The Diary of Daedalus most commonly known as Rodan. (Click here to view the video)

This description is from the original post at YouTube; Rodan and his followers reported the video for “hate speech” and got it pulled from YouTube. (Yes, they reported their own founder for hate speech.) It’s now hosted at LGF so they can’t make it disappear.

Rodan a.k.a. Emporer Palpatine shares his thoughts on Muslims, and gives anecdotes in regards to the Muslims he “sliced and diced” in the early 90’s.

The recording you are about to hear was recorded on the morning of June 6th, 2009 at approximately 3:40 AM.

It was recorded in “Wine Drinkers kick ass”; the room of Emporer Palpatinea.k.a. Rodan.

The following rant given by Rodan is recorded as it was, with the exception of a pause to insert Marlen2008’s text.

This, although heard by a select few, is being released after 6 months. We feel that it is time for this recording to be made public.

The subject matter may be shocking. Listener discretion is advised.

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zelenik

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Tennessee Congressional Race Gets 100 Percent More Anti-Shariah-y

Posted on 08 April 2012 by Emperor

We may have spoke to soon when we wrote that the Murfreesboro Mosque saga in Tennessee may be coming to an end.

Tennessee Congressional Race Gets 100 Percent More Anti-Shariah-y

By Tim Murphy (Mother Jones)

If you live in Middle Tennessee, get ready for another four months of overheated rhetoric about Islam. On Thursday, tea partier and anti-Shariah activist Lou Ann Zelenik announced that she’s challenging incumbent Rep. Diane Black (R), setting up a rematch of a 2010 GOP primary that focused heavily on the question of whether Muslims in Murfreesboro should be allowed to build a new mosque.

In that campaign, Zelenik lashed herself to the mosque issue, speaking at a march to protest the construction, and accusing Black of being soft on Shariah. As she told Talking Points Memo, “This isn’t a mosque. They’re building an Islamic center to teach Sharia law. That is what we stand in opposition to.” Zelenik feared that a new mosque in Murfreesboro would be a stepping stone to a more sinister end—the encroachment of radical Islam into Middle Tennessee. It wasn’t a winning issue, it turned out, but Zelenik’s argument resonated in the city. Later that year, a handful of residents filed a lawsuit to block the construction of the mosque, arguing that Muslims weren’t protected by the First Amendment because Islam is a totalitarian political system, not a religion (the Department of Justice was forced to file an amicus brief noting that, yes, Islam is a religion).

Although Black took a relatively moderate stance on the mosque when she ran for Congress, promising to respect Tennesseans’ freedom of religion, she has an anti-Islam history, too: as a state Senator, she sponsored Tennessee’s 2010 law designed to ban Islamic law from being enforced in state courts.

The added wrinkle here, which should give the primary an added degree of out-in-the-open animosity, is that until two weeks ago, Zelenik was being sued by Black’s husband. The suit centered on an ad Zelenik ran during the 2010 pointing out that then-state Sen. Black had steered contracts to her husband’s forensic science business. Black and his company, Aegis Sciences, considered this charge defamatory, but the court ruled that Zelenik’s spot was accurate, and in this case the truth was the only defense necessary. So: drama.

One quibble, though: The Murfreesboro News-Journal notes that Zelenik will step down from her job at the Tennessee Freedom Coalition, “a nonprofit 501(c)4 organization that has been instrumental in sounding the alarm over the growing Islamic movement in America and the threat of Sharia Law.” That’s not quite accurate, as there is no real threat from Shariah law in the United States. More accurately, TFC has been instrumental in running around stirring up fears over a phantom menace. This would be a small point, except that Murfreesboro isground-zero for the Islamophobia movement, so it’s something the local newspapers really ought to get right.

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Angry, Paranoid and Sporting a Fu Manchu: A Triumphant Terry Jones Does Dearborn

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Angry, Paranoid and Sporting a Fu Manchu: A Triumphant Terry Jones Does Dearborn

Posted on 07 April 2012 by Ilisha

Terry Jones

Terry Jones is a crackpot “Reverand” who gained infamy by publicly burning the Qur’an.

Last year Jones was denied a permit to protest on Good Friday in front of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan, prompting howls of protest all across the looniverse. Anti-Muslim bigots accused the court of subverting the US Constitution and caving in to Sharia.

Dearborn is home to America’s largest Muslim community, and a model of interfaith tolerance. Jews, Christians, and Muslims responded to Jones’ hateful message by holding their own rally and carrying a banner that read:

“We, as caring neighbors in southeastern Michigan, stand together in condemning the actions of those who spew hate and fear, and who misuse and desecrate holy books of faith.”

Before and during the rally, hundreds of people signed a 50-foot-long banner that exhorted them to oppose Jones and remember the best parts of their faith. Jones was briefly jailed and banned from returning to the mosque for three years.

This year, a Michigan judge overturned the decision to ban Jones, and the “Reverend,” dressed in a dapper black leather ensemble and sporting a carefully trimmed fu manchu, delivered an impassioned speech about the grave danger Islam poses to America–to all 20 of his supporters.

Florida pastor at Dearborn protest: ‘Islam has one goal — that is world domination’

By Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free Press

Speaking today in front of the biggest mosque in Michigan, the Florida pastor known for burning the Quran blasted Islam and called upon Americans to take back their country.

Islam has one goal — that is world domination,” said Terry Jones, wearing sunglasses, jeans and a faded black-leather jacket. “It’s time to stand up.”

Holding signs in English and Arabic that read “I Will Not Submit,” about 20 supporters cheered as Jones and his assistant spoke outside the Islamic Center of America, a Dearborn mosque that sits off Ford Road. Framed by the mosque’s minarets, Jones said he’s concerned that the growth of the Muslim population in metro Detroit and the U.S. will lead to the oppression of non-Muslims.

“Muslims, no matter they go around the world … they push their agenda on the society,” said Jones. “We must take back America.”

The mosque was placed on lockdown Saturday afternoon, with about 30 police cars from Detroit, Dearborn, Wayne County and Michigan surrounding the complex, which also includes several churches. Traffic in and out was prevented, disappointing some worshippers who were not aware of Jones’ rally and couldn’t access the mosque. During the anti-Muslim rally, an electronic billboard with the Islamic Center read: “Happy Easter.”

About 500 feet from Jones was a group of counter-protesters, some of whom were with an activist organization, By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). Police prevented them from approaching the grassy area in front of the mosque where Jones spoke. Muslim leaders had urged people not to attend the counter-protest. Unlike Jones’ last two visits to Dearborn, this one was uneventful with no arrests and no street clashes.

Jones said during his talk that he’s also concerned about the free speech rights of Americans. Over the past year, Jones has battled the City of Dearborn for the right to speak in front of the mosque. Last year, a Dearborn judge threw him briefly in jail and ordered him to stay away from the mosque for three years. That decision was later overturned by a Detroit judge.

Last month, the city asked Jones to sign a legal agreement before protesting. Jones then filed a lawsuit, prompting a Detroit federal judge to rule Thursday in his favor. Jones was represented for free in his battles with the city by the Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center, a conservative Christian group established by Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan.

During the talk, some supporters of Jones made derogatory remarks and jokes about Muslims. When Jones criticized Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson during his speech, one supporter blurted out: “Throw ‘em in the pit with the Muslims.”

After the rally, supporters of Jones posed for photos in front of the mosque.

A crew from Real Catholic TV, a media outlet based in Ferndale that’s owned by a member of Opus Dei, was at the rally. Its host, Michael Voris, said he supports Jones’ right to free speech and some of his views. Jones, who was a pastor in Germany, said Europe is increasingly under the sway of Islamic law.

“There are whole sections of London ruled by sharia law,” Voris said. “I think there’s the potential to happen in the U.S. what has happened — and is happening — in Europe.”

Tim Voss, 64, of Wayne, said he came Saturday to support Jones because “sharia law is the most dangerous thing. We can’t have it in this country.”

Down the road, counter-protester Laura Dennis, 38, of Detroit, held up a sign that read: “God Loves Us All.”

Speaking about Jones, Dennis said: “This guy’s just a hate monger, no different from the Klan or a Nazi.”

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Seymour Hersh Reveals that MEK Terrorists Were Trained in the USA by the Pentagon

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Seymour Hersh Reveals that MEK Terrorists Were Trained in the USA by the Pentagon

Posted on 07 April 2012 by Emperor

As Glenn Greenwald noted in his book “With Liberty and Justice for Some,” equality before the law is an illusion in the United States. If you are wealthy and have political clout you are most likely to get away with breaking the law and committing crimes, such as “material support” of terrorism.

We reported in July of last year that many politicians from both parties were working with and receiving money from a US State Department designated terrorist organization, the MEK. A group Islamophobes are also quite fond of at the moment.

It was then revealed that the US and Israel have been supporting the MEK to carry out terrorist missions in Iran. Now it has been revealed by the trailblazing investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh that the Pentagon has been training the MEK in Nevada for years, starting in 2005:

US Pentagon Trained Iranian terrorists in Nevada: Hersh

Posted on 04/07/2012 by Juan Cole

The intrepid Seymour Hersh reports at the New Yorker that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) of the US military gave members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK or People’s Holy Jihadis) training in signals intelligence at a facility in Nevada during the Bush era. The MEK was then and is now on the US State Department’s terrorism watch list, so the Pentagon’s deployment of this group was quite illegal.

The MEK was given a base in eastern Iraq by Saddam Hussein, who used the some 4,000 guerrillas who gathered there to harass the Islamic Republic of Iran. The MEK had its origins in an Islamic-Marxist guerrilla group of the 1970s that fought the forces of the Shah. It joined in the revolution against the Shah in 1978-79 but broke with the Khomeini regime and turned to a massive campaign of bombing and sniping against it. In return, the regime killed some 10,000 suspected MEK members, many of whom it just shot down in the street. The group evolved into a political cult, with insistence on glaze-eyed absolute obedience to the leader, Maryam Rajavi, and cult-like practices such as forced marriages and divorces (not to mention the long history of violence inside Iran).

When the US occupied Iraq, some in the Pentagon adopted the MEK at Camp Ashraf near the Iranian border for use against Iran. The MEK has bought a lot of big American politicians and seems to have promised the Israelis it would recognize Israel if it ever came to power in Iran; figures connected to the Israel lobbies have hypocritically campaigned to have the MEK delisted as a terrorist organization, despite it long and bloody record of attacks on civilians. As recently as this year, NBC quoted unnamed US government officials alleging that the MEK has been assassinating Iranian scientists in Iran.

Hersh reveals a trail of blatant hypocrisy on the part of the US government. “Our” terrorists are not terrorists even if they have blown up non-combatants, but national liberation groups such as Hizbullah in Lebanon are designated terrorists. Government officials have even brandished the word “terrorism” to describe perfectly peaceful protesters and dissidents inside the US, while JSOC was flying dyed-in-the-wool terrorists to Nevada for training.

The USG Open Source Center translated a report in the MEK newspaper regarding the hobnobbing of Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton and others with the MEK leadership in Paris recently:

“– On 24 March, the NCRI secretariat website published a report on an international conference held in Paris to address MEK concerns and issues, which was attended by NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi as well as former high ranking officials from the United States and Europe including Rudy Giuliani, Tom Ridge, John Bolton, Patrick Kennedy, and Colonel Wesley Martin.. According to the report, the issues raised included the adoption of a “decisive policy” against Iran’s regime, protection of the rights of Camp Ashraf and Liberty residents, and the elimination of MEK’s “terrorist label.” Rajavi said that “the only way to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb or the occurrence of an unprecedented conflict” was “regime change” by the Iranian people and resistance. On the issue of Camp Liberty, Rudy Giuliani said: “Let us go there. Let us see it with our own eyes.” He added: “Currently the enemy of stopping Iran becoming nuclear is appeasement. This wrong perception has made Iran more determined in becoming nuclear. Let us stop appeasement. Let us stop the efforts for negotiations. Stop writing letters to the ayatollahs. Let us rise up and say as Americans that we are for regime change in Iran and we will take every step necessary to stop Iran becoming nuclear” (National Council of Resistance of Iran in Persian — Website of an exiled political umbrella coalition of Marxist and Islamist organizations — Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO), National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA), People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI), National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and Muslim Iranian Students Society (MISS); on US State Department’s list of terrorist groups since 1997; URL: http://www.iranncr.org/).”

As Sheila Musaji points out, lots of American Muslims are in jail for ‘material support of terrorism,’ but American politicians and pundits get a free pass for actively supporting the MEK– which, remember, is definitively on the terrorism watch list.

Note to the US government and the Neocons: George Orwell’s 1984 was a dark political satire, not a blueprint for how you should do things.

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I’ll See Your Jihad, and Raise You One Crusade

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I’ll See Your Jihad, and Raise You One Crusade

Posted on 07 April 2012 by Ilisha

Modern Day Crusaders

Eric Prince, Modern-Day Crusader and founder of Xe, formerly known as Blackwater

by Ilisha

“I’ll See Your Jihad, and Raise You One Crusade” is a popular refrain among loons convinced they’re modern-day crusaders locked in an epic battle with Islam. Unfortunately, their apocalyptic visions are not confined to the lunatic fringe. Eric Prince, the reclusive co-founder of Blackwater “private military company” used to outsource US wars fancies himself a modern-day crusader, and he’s not alone.

Blackwater is infamous for its brutality, belligerence, and reckless disregard for the lives of Iraqi and Afghan civilians. This month, Harper’s Magazine featured an exposé, “The Warrior Class”: The Blackwater Videos, by Charles Glass on the rise of private “security contractors” in the years since 9/11. Video clips featured in the article are reminiscent of scenes  from George Miller’s 1979 dystopian action film, Mad Max, but for Iraqis, this was real life–and all too often, death.

In one of the most disturbing clips, a Blackwater vehicle struck down a veiled pedestrian and never bothered to stop, or even to pause. Subsequent vehicles in the convoy also barreled past with total disregard for the victim, apart from making the effort to capture the monstrous crime on video:  (H/T: Saladin)

Video of Blackwater Contractors Driving Over Iraqi Woman

In 2007, Blackwater mercenaries massacred 17 innocent Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square, including 9-year-old Ali Kinani. In January of this year, the “private military contractor” reached a wrongful death “settlement” with the victim’s families and survivors, though criminal charges were dropped, allowing the perpetrators to escape accountability.

Ali Kinani

9-year old Ali Kinani

In 2009, Blackwater re-branded itself as Xe (pronounced “Zee”), apparently to escape its well-deserved image as a gang of ruthless thugs or hire.

What’s missing from the Harper’s Magazine article, and much of the coverage surrounding Xe, is that Erik Prince is a fundamentalist Christian who built his military empire around the notion of Christian Dominionism. An exclusive video featured on Democracy Now revealed previously undisclosed details regarding the companies methods and motives.

The Economist provided more shocking details in an article entitled, “Erik Prince and the last crusade,” : (H/T: MasterQ)

In an affidavit lodged with a court in Virginia, one of the witnesses said that Mr Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe.” The statement continues:

To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.

Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince’s executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to “lay Hajiis out on cardboard.” Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince’s employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as “ragheads” or “hajiis.”

Mr Prince is further accused of trying to cover up Blackwater’s misdeeds, which allegedly include profiteering and arms smuggling, by killing employees who tried to blow the whistle on the company….

Sending Christian crusaders to a Muslim country where you’re trying to restore peace is what I would call a very bad idea. Perhaps that wasn’t the case, but sending freelance soldiers into a country unbound by any laws is still a terrible strategy. It breeds a shoot first, ask questions later mentality. And for Blackwater, at times, it was more like shoot first, drive on. The latest allegations are shocking, but much of the story is not surprising at all.”

No, modern-day crusader themes and utter contempt for the lives of innocent Iraqis shouldn’t be surprising at all, and it isn’t confined to private “security” contractors like Xe. Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik also fancied himself as a modern-day crusader who sought to restore the medieval Knights Templar, though he certainly wasn’t alone in this peculiar brand of madness.

It seems Christian-themed holy wars have captured the imaginations of prominent US politicians, journalists, and military leaders. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then President George Bush  referred to the so-called “War on Terror” as a “crusade,” sparking widespread criticism in the Islamic world, and even in Europe. Four years later, the BBC reported that Bush told Palestinian ministers that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq:

“President Bush said to all of us: ‘I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, “George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.” And I did, and then God would tell me, “George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq .” And I did.”

A “born again” dry drunk, Bush appealed to millions of conservative Christians, some of the biggest backers of the Iraq war and endless conflict in the Middle East to fulfill their apocalyptic visions:

This is the dark side to their religious world view. Their fantasy is often sung to uplifting gospel music of a soon-to-come Paradise. Its concomitant message (not openly discussed) is that God will then (brutally) kill the entire human race except for Christians (for many meaning “born again” Christians). The Left Behind book series dwells on how God will eviscerate, torture and kill all non-Christians. Why so many of them dwell on this is not clear.  Perhaps it gives meaning to their lives.  Or instilling fear is a way to keep them in line under their preachers’ domination. In any case they are cleverly used by the Israeli lobby, imperial neoconservatives and (more profitably) by the military industrial complex.

The Book of Revelation is the integral passion of their foreign policy, their belief that the founding of Israel foretells the imminent Second Coming, conversion or death for Jews and eternal happiness for themselves in Heaven. In their view America, as God’s instrument, should encourage wars and chaos in the Middle East in order to “hurry up” God and His agenda. One of their leaders is John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel. Senator Liebermanis a friend and favored speaker at his events. I have described The Strangest Alliance in History about how each side thinks it is using the other for its own ends.

Also in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, “conservative” journalist  Anne “All Terrorists Look Alike” Coulter said in her “battle cry”  for Washington:

“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

Her sentiment was echoed in subsequent statements by prominent Christian war monger Ellis Washington, in an article featured in the far right WorldNetDaily. Such statements weren’t merely confined to the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and in fact, persist into the present day, according to an article in the Huffington Post, Newt and the Loony Religious Fringe That Now Runs the Republican Party:

America needlessly went to war in Iraq because neoconservative war mongers — who laugh at the “those rubes,” as they think of earnest Evangelical Christian Zionists, and whose own sons and daughters seem notably absent from our armed services — used the religious passion and dedication of conservative Evangelicals to provide political means and cover for the neoconservatives’ commitment to America’s military dominance of the world. In other words the Evangelicals provided the votes to put foolish warmongers like George W Bush in power. And now Gingrich wants their votes.

Gingrich shares a crowded stage with other prominent Republicans who also court the religious right, including Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachman, and Herman Cain.

Not surprisingly, the US military also is also plagued with Blackwater-like perversity and religious extremism. Gen. Tommy Franks, who directed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, callously dismissed concerns over the number of innocent civilians killed in Iraq saying, “We don’t do body counts.” Not to be outdone, Democracy Now has revealed the Pentagon refers to the victims as “Bugsplat,” the name of a computer program that estimates how many civilians will be killed in US-led bombing raids.

Adding perhaps the most infamous religious twist to this madness is Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin. An outspoken Evangelical Christian, Boykin claimed Muslims hate America, ”because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian … and the enemy is a guy named Satan.”

Referring to a battle in Somalia, Boykin also said, ”I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol,” and later he said, “We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this.” Boykin also claimed God put George Bush in office, and continued to frame the so-called “War on Terror” as a religious conflict, even as George Bush tried to assure the world the US was not at war with Islam.

Should these remarks be dismissed as the rantings of a lone loon?

Last January, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist  Seymour Hersh said key branches of the US military are being run by “crusaders,” According to a Huffington Post article:

“What I’m really talking about is how eight or nine neoconservative, radicals if you will, overthrew the American government. Took it over,” Hersh said.

He said that the attitude that “pervades” a large portion of the Joint Special Operations Command, which is part of the military’s special forces branch and which has carried out secret missions to kill American targets, is one that supports “[changing] mosques into cathedrals.”

Hersh also said that Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC before his tenure as the top general in Afghanistan, as well as his successor and many other JSOC members, “are all members of, or at least supporters of, Knights of Malta.” Blake Hounsell, the reporter for Foreign Policy, speculated that Hersh may have been referring to the Sovereign Order of Malta, a Catholic organization.

“Many of them are members of Opus Dei,” Hersh said. “They do see what they’re doing…it’s a crusade, literally. They see themselves as the protectors of the Christians. They’re protecting them from the Muslims [as in] the 13th century. And this is their function.

While the world focused myopically on “Islamic” terrorists, it seems the crusader mentality that germinated in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has flourished and permeated not only the lunatic fringe, but high-ranking officials within the US establishment. Apparently extremists on both sides of the so-called Clash of Civilizations are inspired to play their respective roles, equally hellbent on hurtling the rest of humanity ever closer to Armageddon.

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Family Upset “Human Rights” Conference Has Deceased Daughter’s Name On It

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Family Upset “Human Rights” Conference Has Deceased Daughter’s Name On It

Posted on 06 April 2012 by Emperor

Jessica_Mokdad

Jessica Mokdad "loved Islam" according to her parents.

The decrepit vileness that is Pamela Geller knows no bounds. She is going ahead with her planned anti-”Human Rights Conference.”

Please see our previous coverage of Geller’s egregious attempt to use the suffering of Jessica Mokdad and her family for her own personal anti-Muslim and material advantage:

Family upset “human rights” conference has deceased daughter’s name on it

(Arab American News)

DEARBORN – A local Arab American family is angry over an upcoming ”human rights” conference that features the name of their deceased daughter, believing that its true goal is to push an anti-Islam agenda.

The Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference is scheduled to take place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Dearborn on April 29 at 5 p.m., and marks the one year anniversary of Mokdad’s death.

Mokdad was only 20-years-old when her step-father Rahim Alfetlawi shot her to death in Warren.

Following the fatal incident mixed reports about Alfetlawi’s motive for killing Mokdad were disputed. Family members of Mokdad and a prosecutor on the case say Alfetlawi was controlling, and obsessed with Mokdad.

The family says Alfetlawi wanted to have a romantic relationship with Mokdad. Others say it was a honor killing and religiously motivated, because Mokdad wasn’t following traditional Islamic customs and becoming “Westernized.”

“It wasn’t a honor killing at all,” a close friend of the family said. Speaking to The Arab American News by phone Macomb County Assistant Prosecutor, Bill Cataldo says there’s sufficient proof that religion was not a factor that triggered the crime.

He says days leading up to the incident Mokdad came forward to police with information about Alfetlawi, and also shared that information with a friend. The information is not being disclosed, because those who knew Mokdad well may be sensitive about it.

When Alfetlawi learned Mokdad had shared the information with police and a friend he became angry  according to Cataldo. She was found dead afterwards.

Conservative blogger Pamela Geller is hosting the conference. Geller is also the executive director of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, and Stop Islamization of America. In a television interview Geller said she’s just trying to save other women from being the next Mokdad.

In a local televised interview, Cassandra Mokdad, the victim’s step-mother said that Geller is, “using Jessica as her poster child for anti-Islam.” Cassandra declined to speak, but has said she might make an appearance at the conference to let Geller know how she feels.

Geller refuses to remove Mokdad’s name from the conference despite requests from the family. Conference speakers include television host and author Michael Coren, human rights activist Nonie Darwish; Sudanese ex-slave Simon Deng; David Wood, one of the former Christian missionaries who was charged with preaching the peace at the Arab American International Festival in Dearborn; James Lafferty of the Virginia Anti-Shariah Taskforce, co-cost of the conference. Wood is from the group Acts 17 Apologetics.

The conference is dedicated to exposing what the group says is the plight of women under “Islamic Law in Dearborn.” Organizers say they chose the Hyatt in Dearborn to stand in solidarity with other women in the area who may be in danger or oppressed under Islam. In the past the city’s mayor and officials have took drastic measures to prove the fact that Islamic Law does not exist in Dearborn. There are also misconceptions that women in Dearborn are oppressed, another claim the mayor has rejected.

The Mokdad family friend has lived in Dearborn for 25 years, and says such claims about Dearborn and its women are not true. The Arab American Women’s Business Council is based in the city, and includes well educated Arab American professionals. “Dearborn is home to the 2010 Miss U.S.A.,” she said. “We have a very good community.”

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agression-juivisy

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France: Young Muslim Woman Attacked, Threatened and Beaten in Islamophobic Attack

Posted on 06 April 2012 by Emperor

In France a young Muslim woman was threatened, beaten and had her hijab ripped from her head. (via. Al-Kanz)

The below is a rough google translation and video of the victim speaking about the violent experience. The original is in French:

The CCIF (suit against Islamophobia in France) met S., a young woman struck and insulted, her veil ripped off in Juvisy-sur-Orge, near Paris. Treated as a terrorist and threatened by an armed individual, S. relates in the video below the story of the Islamophobic aggression.

Below is a copy of the complaint:

Feel free to contact the CCIF at the slightest Islamophobic aggression. The work done by the watch group since 2003 has, despite a strong desire to hide the reality, created awareness to many that Islamophobia is real.

Visit the CCIF: www.islamophobie.net

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Nonie Darwish on C-Span: Spreads Anti-Muslim Hate at Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute

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Nonie Darwish on C-Span: Spreads Anti-Muslim Hate at Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute

Posted on 05 April 2012 by Amago

Nonie giving a passionate anti-Muslim lecture

Nonie Loonie Darwish‘s new book, “The Devil We Don’t Know: The Dark Side of Revolutions in the Middle East” pretends to provide insight on the Arab Spring. For Darwish, this is just another ample opportunity to spew her well-worn (phony) tale of woe and Islamophobic diatribe.

Surprisingly C-Span allowed itself to be used as a platform for this hatred, featuring her over one and a half-hour speech rant at the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute (a Conservative group, amongst who’s goal is to produce more “Sarah Palin’s.”)

Here are some of the choice quotes that I caught in just the last 20 minutes (if anyone has the stomach to listen to the rest of it and provide us quotes we’ll be happy to add it):

  • When asked about Obama’s relationship with the Muslim world her response was as the following. ”From his [Barack Obama] books and from what he says, he doesn’t unfortunately. He has a lot of sympathy towards Islam and a lot of closing the eyes like apologizing a lot for things that we should be apologized for.”
  • “Where are the Muslim leaders who will stand up and say ‘We apologize for 9-11?”
  • “All the ills of Muslim society go back to Sharia.”
  • She repeatedly says “Islam has already been interpreted.”
  • “In America, we have a growing population of Muslims who are now, many of their leadership is calling for sharia. The application of Sharia.”
  • “The ultimate goal of being a Muslim is living under an Islamic state.”
  • “Our college campus is becoming like the West Bank and Gaza. They are not allowing the freedom of speech of people like me.”
  • “Another generation of America who have been brought up with a lot of guilt about their country, have been brought up with  an educational system that told them that there bad, you’ve hurt the world. Islam is a religion of peace. Christianity is bad. Your constitution should be changed. American constitution is no longer, it’s an old document. “
  • “In fifty years, we can have a Chechnya in America, which means, we can have a population, a majority population of Muslims in a certain state or certain area and they might say they want to live under sharia.”
  • “We want to call our state, Islamist Republic of Michigan.”
  • “There is no feminist movement in the Middle East, in the Muslim world.”
  • “Women who call themselves Muslims are not standing up.”

At the core of Darwish’s rhetoric is that Muslims are taking over America. She full-heartedly claims that there is a systematic way in which Muslims are working to achieve the dissolution of the USA. First, they act passive, and then they demand rights. Once we succumb to the evil Mooslims’ demands, they will rise to power and implement Sharia and have states that will be called…“Islamist Republic of Michigan.” Darwish’s loony conspiracy that Muslims want to secede from the states and over throw the constitution is an insult to intelligent Americans.

She forgets that we live in a country that is supposed to protect the rights of all citizens. In reality, what Americans are, and need to be skeptical about are individuals like Darwish who write books and speak on Conservative platforms for the twin goals of: self-enrichment and driving fear of the other.

This type of Islamophobic rhetoric hearkens to the anti-Semitic rhetoric of old: They control the media. They control the banks. etc… Such  conspiratorial language is non-nonsensical, illogical and unproductive toward making this country one that we can be proud of.

For anyone that is interested in watching the video, you can do so here: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Nonie

For more on Darwish see our previous articles: Nonie Darwish Caught in a Pool of Lies and Nonie Darwish: “Because Islam should be feared, and should be fought, and should be conquered, and defeated, and annihilated, and it’s going to happen.”

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Murfreesboro Islamic Center under construction

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Murfreesboro Mosque Saga May be Finally Coming to an End

Posted on 05 April 2012 by Garibaldi

A lot has happened since the Murfreesboro mosque first became a point of controversy for bigots and hatemongers. We hope to do a a feature piece summarizing the drama that played out over it, what it means for freedom of religion and the future in an upcoming article:

Attorneys ask judge to throw out legal challenge to Murfreesboro Islamic Center

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — The final legal hurdle over construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro may be over.

County attorneys asked a judge to throw out the final legal challenge on Wednesday. Opponents have argued the county failed to give sufficient public notice before approving the project.

The judge will review the motion on April 19. County officials are hoping he will toss out a lawsuit that claims they did not give proper notice when approving building plans for the new Islamic Center of Murfreesboro.  Mosque opponents say they are readying a response.

Meanwhile, major progress has been made in construction of the center.  Distinctive arches have taken shape, the frame of the building is complete and workers are starting to put bricks around it.

“We are so excited,” said Imam Ossama Bahloul.  “I think when we have the new facility it will be a time for us to celebrate freedom of religion.”

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Guenter_Grass_What_Must_be_said

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Guenter Grass Being Labeled an Anti-Semite for Critical Poem of Israel

Posted on 05 April 2012 by Emperor

The New York Times like many newspapers will not print Guenter Grass’ anti-War poem, I wonder if the hatemongers are going to compare this to the Danish cartoons that were supposedly “silenced” in attacks on “free speech” as they claimed at the time?

Quite a few commenters are calling Grass an “anti-Semite” and making hay out of his being drafted into the Waffen-SS in the final two months of World War II which dented his moral authority in Germany. Grass, for his part claims to have never fired a single bullet.

An opinion article in Haaretz has termed the poem “pathetic” but exonerates Grass from being an “anti-Semite,” which if anyone has read his works knows he is not.

Perhaps Guenter Grass is not the most astute individual when it comes to commenting on the geo-political intrigues playing out with regards to the war rhetoric between Israel and Iran, but it is a mistake to censor his work, not to take his points about double standards and hypocrisy seriously and to label him an anti-Semite.

Laureate accuses Israel of plotting to ‘wipe out’ Iran Israel to build 1,121 settler homes – Hebron squatters evicted

BERLIN: German Nobel literature laureate Gunter Grass touched off a firestorm of protest yesterday with a poem accusing Israel of plotting Iran’s annihilation and threatening world peace. The 84-year-old longtime leftist activist wrote in “What must be said” that he worried Israel “could wipe out the Iranian people” with a “first strike” due to the threat it sees in Tehran’s disputed nuclear program. “Why do I only say now, aged and with my last ink: the atomic power Israel is endangering the already fragile world peace?” reads the poem, which appeared in the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung yesterday.

Grass answers that Nazi Germany’s “incomparable” crimes against Jews and his own fear of accusations of anti-Semitism kept him from openly criticising Israel. But now, “tomorrow could already be too late” and Germany could become a “supplier to a crime”, Grass wrote, referring to a deal sealed last month for Berlin to sell Israel a sixth nuclear-capable Dolphin-class submarine. “I admit: I will be silent no longer, because I am sick of the hypocrisy of the West”.

Israel slammed the poem, which also sparked a fevered debate on German-language news and culture websites. “What must be said is that it belongs to European tradition to accuse the Jews of ritual murder before the Passover celebration,” said Emmanuel Nahshon, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Israeli embassy in Berlin, in a statement. “It used to be Christian children whose blood the Jews used to make matza (unleavened bread), today it is the Iranian people that the Jewish state purportedly wants to wipe out.” Nahshon said Israel was “the only state in the world whose right to exist is publicly doubted”. “We want to live in peace with our neighbours in the region. And we are not prepared to assume the role that Gunter Grass assigns us in the German people’s process of coming to terms with its history.”

The Israel director of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Efraim Zuroff, accused Grass of making himself the spokesman “for anti-Semitic Germans sick of the Holocaust and seeking to rid themselves of any responsibility for its aftermath”. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle released a statement without mentioning Grass by name in which he warned against “making light of the dangers of the Iranian nuclear program”. “Iran obtaining nuclear weapons is not only a threat to Israel and the entire region but also a danger for the world’s security architecture,” he said, underlining Germany’s efforts to prevent Iran from having nuclear arms.

Grass, author of the renowned anti-war novel “The Tin Drum”, shocked his admirers in 2006 when he admitted, six decades after World War II, that he had been a member of the notorious Waffen SS – a revelation that severely undermined his until then substantial moral authority in Germany. Grass said he long kept silent on Israel’s own nuclear program because his country committed “crimes that are without comparison”, but he has come to see that silence as a “burdensome lie and a coercion” whose disregard carries a punishment – “the verdict ‘anti-Semitism’ is commonly used”.

Henryk M Broder, a prominent German Jewish columnist, accused Grass in light of his poem of having become “the prototype of the educated anti-Semite”. “Grass has always had a problem with Jews but he has never articulated it as clearly as with this ‘poem’,” Broder wrote in the daily Die Welt. The country’s most influential media commentators were unanimous in their criticism, saying Grass had offered up a one-sided portrayal of Israel as the aggressor and Iran as a victim of a mortal threat. “Never before in the history of the republic has a prominent intellectual waged a battle against Israel in such a cliched way,” wrote the website of news weekly Der Spiegel. Only Wolfgang Gehrcke of the far-left Die Linke party defended Grass in public, saying he had the “courage” to express “what is widely kept silent”.

Israel, the sole if undeclared nuclear power in the Middle East, has said it is keeping all options open for responding to Iran’s program which it says is aimed at securing atomic weapons, posing an existential threat to the Jewish state. Iran, whose President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad frequently questions Israel’s right to exist, has consistently denied that its sensitive nuclear work is aimed at making weapons.

Separately, Israel’s government yesterday published tenders for 1,121 new settler homes as it faced settler anger over its decision to evict Israeli families from a disputed home in the Palestinian city of Hebron. Documents published on the Israeli housing ministry website showed the government had issued tenders for 872 new homes in Har Homa, a contentious settlement neighbourhood in the southern part of Arab east Jerusalem. Another 180 are to be built in Givat Zeev, just to the north of Jerusalem in the West Bank, while the remaining 69 are to be built in Katzrin in the occupied Golan Heights, the documents showed. Read rest here

The full text of the poem:

Why I am silent, silent for too much time,
how much is clear and we made it
in war games, where, as survivors,
we are just the footnotes

That is the claimed right to the formal preventive aggression
which could erase the Iranian people
dominated by a bouncer and moved to an organized jubilation,
because in the area of his competence there is
the construction of the atomic bomb

And then why do I avoid myself
to call the other country with its name,
where since years – even if secretly covered -
there is an increasing nuclear power,
without control, because unreachable
by every inspection?

I feel the everybody silence on this state of affairs,
which my silence is slave to,
as an oppressive lie and an inhibition that presents punishment
we don’t pay attention to;
the verdict “anti-Semitism” is common

Now, since my country,
from time to time touched by unique and exclusive crimes,
obliged to justify itself,
again for pure business aims – even if
with fast tongue we call it “reparation” -
should deliver another submarine to Israel,
with the specialty of addressing
annihilating warheads where the
existence of one atomic bomb is not proved
but it wants evidence as a scarecrow,
I say what must be said

Why did I stay silent until now?
Because the thought about my origin,
burdened by an unclearing stain,
had avoiding to wait this fact
like a truth declared by the State of Israel
that I want to be connected to

Why did I say it only now,
old and with the last ink:
the nuclear power of Israel
threat the world peace?
Because it must be said
what tomorrow will be too late;
Because – as Germans and with
enough faults on the back -
we might also become deliverers of a predictable
crime, and no excuse would erase our complicity

And I admit: I won’t be silent
because I had enough of the Western hypocrisy;
Because I wish that many will want
to get rid of the silence,
exhorting the cause of a recognizable
risk to the abdication, asking that a free and permanent control
of the Israel atomic power
and the Iran nuclear bases
will be made by both the governments
with an international supervision

Only in this way, Israelis, Palestinians, and everybody,
all people living hostile face to face in that
country occupied by the craziness,
will have a way out,
so us too

(The original German):

Warum schweige ich, verschweige zu lange,
was offensichtlich ist und in Planspielen
geübt wurde, an deren Ende als Überlebende
wir allenfalls Fußnoten sind.

Es ist das behauptete Recht auf den Erstschlag,
der das von einem Maulhelden unterjochte
und zum organisierten Jubel gelenkte
iranische Volk auslöschen könnte,
weil in dessen Machtbereich der Bau
einer Atombombe vermutet wird.

Doch warum untersage ich mir,
jenes andere Land beim Namen zu nennen,
in dem seit Jahren – wenn auch geheimgehalten -
ein wachsend nukleares Potential verfügbar
aber außer Kontrolle, weil keiner Prüfung
zugänglich ist?

Das allgemeine Verschweigen dieses Tatbestandes,
dem sich mein Schweigen untergeordnet hat,
empfinde ich als belastende Lüge
und Zwang, der Strafe in Aussicht stellt,
sobald er mißachtet wird;
das Verdikt ‘Antisemitismus’ ist geläufig.

Jetzt aber, weil aus meinem Land,
das von ureigenen Verbrechen,
die ohne Vergleich sind,
Mal um Mal eingeholt und zur Rede gestellt wird,
wiederum und rein geschäftsmäßig, wenn auch
mit flinker Lippe als Wiedergutmachung deklariert,
ein weiteres U-Boot nach Israel
geliefert werden soll, dessen Spezialität
darin besteht, allesvernichtende Sprengköpfe
dorthin lenken zu können, wo die Existenz
einer einzigen Atombombe unbewiesen ist,
doch als Befürchtung von Beweiskraft sein will,
sage ich, was gesagt werden muß.

Warum aber schwieg ich bislang?
Weil ich meinte, meine Herkunft,
die von nie zu tilgendem Makel behaftet ist,
verbiete, diese Tatsache als ausgesprochene Wahrheit
dem Land Israel, dem ich verbunden bin
und bleiben will, zuzumuten.

Warum sage ich jetzt erst,
gealtert und mit letzter Tinte:
Die Atommacht Israel gefährdet
den ohnehin brüchigen Weltfrieden?

Weil gesagt werden muß,
was schon morgen zu spät sein könnte;
auch weil wir – als Deutsche belastet genug -
Zulieferer eines Verbrechens werden könnten,
das voraussehbar ist, weshalb unsere Mitschuld
durch keine der üblichen Ausreden
zu tilgen wäre.

Und zugegeben: ich schweige nicht mehr,
weil ich der Heuchelei des Westens
überdrüssig bin; zudem ist zu hoffen,
es mögen sich viele vom Schweigen befreien,
den Verursacher der erkennbaren Gefahr
zum Verzicht auf Gewalt auffordern und
gleichfalls darauf bestehen,
daß eine unbehinderte und permanente Kontrolle
des israelischen atomaren Potentials
und der iranischen Atomanlagen
durch eine internationale Instanz
von den Regierungen beider Länder zugelassen wird.

Nur so ist allen, den Israelis und Palästinensern,
mehr noch, allen Menschen, die in dieser
vom Wahn okkupierten Region
dicht bei dicht verfeindet leben
und letztlich auch uns zu helfen.

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Shaima AlAwadi’s Murder Less Likely to Be a Hate Crime

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Shaima AlAwadi’s Murder Less Likely to Be a Hate Crime

Posted on 05 April 2012 by Emperor

Shaima_AlAwadi

Shaima AlAwadi

New facts emerging in the Shaima AlAwadi murder case reveal a family in turmoil, and though we have not reached the end of the investigation, it seems the turmoil within the family has cast doubt on the likelihood that Alawadi’s murder was a hate crime.

The uncertainty and dearth of facts surrounding the case is why at the time I wrote,

*We cannot conclude anything at this point, some facts have been presented, such as the note but we will have to wait for the police investigation to relay more information on this crime.

Of course the hatemongerers, the same people who were quick to attribute the Oklahoma City bombings to Muslims, the terrorist shooting rampage by Anders Breivik to Muslims and many more such incidents are receiving the news with glee. Islamophobes are already jumping to the conclusion that the murder is an “honor killing” though there is no evidence for such a claim.

In any case lets hope justice is served and the murderer identified and sentenced.

We will pen an update about this case as more facts are presented and also discuss the ramifications and the critical distance necessary when presented with an ambiguous murder:

Police Records Suggest Death Isn’t a Hate Crime | NBC San Diego

Police records obtained from the murder of an El Cajon woman nearly two weeks ago suggest the it may not be a hate crime.

The records reveal new information about a possible suspect and a police call made to police — in late January — by the victim herself: Shaima Alawadi.

This case has received national attention because some believe it could be a hate crime. But recently obtained records could paint a different picture.

Alawadi, 32, was found bloodied and beaten inside this home on March 21. Her 17-year-old daughter Fatima found her on the floor of their dining room – a piece of paper nearby. That note and one the family found earlier in the month — has left some fearing terrorism.

“It said this is my country, go back to yours…terrorist,” Alawadi’s son Mohammed said in an interview last week.

But police are continuing to call this an “isolated incident” and no arrests have been made.

Police records reveal on the day of the crime –a neighbor gave police a description–of a possible suspect. An unidentified witness spotted a young man running from the crime scene.

The suspect is described as a “darker skinned boy in his late teens or early 20s … with a skinny build, carrying a donut shaped cardboard box.”

The suspect was seen at 10:30 a.m., about 45 minutes before Alawadi’s 17-year-old daughter called 911.

Police would not comment on these records — which also reveal — Alawadi called the police herself nearly two months earlier to report her 17 year old daughter missing.

On Jan. 31 Alawadi reported the girl had been missing for 2 hours, but the call was cancelled 20 minutes later when the 17-year-old was located.

The investigation is ongoing.

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Thousands of Spanish mothers have similar stories of stolen children. (AFP/Getty Images) (ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images)

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Did a Spanish Nun Steal Thousands of Newborns?

Posted on 04 April 2012 by Amago

Thousands of Spanish mothers have similar stories of stolen children. (AFP/Getty Images) (ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images)

Thousands of Spanish mothers have similar stories of stolen children. (AFP/Getty Images) (ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images)

Where is the outrage and outcry from the hate peddlers?

Thousands of newborns have allegedly been stolen from their parents by Sister Maria Gómez Valbuena, obstensibly for good, wholesome “Christian” motivations, making a pretty penny in the process.

Please see today’s article, as well: Islamophobia and Adoption.

Did a Spanish nun steal thousands of newborns?

BARCELONA, Spain — “Where is my baby?” Luisa Torres wondered after waking up from general anesthesia on March 31, 1982.

“Your baby is dead,” Sister Maria Gómez Valbuena told her as she lay in bed at the Santa Cristina Maternity Hospital in Madrid. “You gave birth to nothing,” the nun said.

It was a lie, with consequences that would span almost three decades.

Torres alleges that her daughter was stolen at birth by a mafia of nuns, doctors and other officials who sold children for profit.

Thousands of Spanish mothers recount similar stories. Enrique Vila, a Barcelona lawyer who specializes in adoptions, estimates there might be as many as 300,000 cases, about 15 percent of total adoptions that took place in Spain between 1960 and 1989.

Since GlobalPost first wrote about the spate of stolen babies last year, the number of cases being handled by Spanish prosecutors has jumped from 900 to 1,500.

A trickle of complaints began decades ago, but turned into a flood two years ago. But the nun, now in her 80s and known as Sister Maria, is the first to be indicted in the scandal since complaints began to pour in two years ago. Her trial begins today, April 3.

About one-quarter of the cases have been dismissed due to a lack of documents or other evidence, which is often hard to provide when decades-old birth certificates have been forged, or when the parents and children haven’t yet found each other.

Torres and her daughter are just one of a dozen who have, and it is their reunion that has led to the first indictment.

‘Like a horror film’

Like hundreds of mothers who believe their babies had been stolen at Santa Cristina Maternity Hospital, Torres met Sister Maria, a social worker, in her fifth month of pregnancy after seeing an ad in a magazine offering help for expectant mothers in need.

“It said she had access to nurseries and foster homes, and that she would take care of the children until we had enough resources to take care of them by ourselves,” Torres recalled. “I went to see her with my mom and she was very nice — we didn’t suspect anything.” She said she was given a “special card” to show at the hospital when going into labor.

But it became “like a horror film,” she added.

After first saying that the baby girl was dead, Sister Maria changed her story, Torres said. The nun admitted that the child was alive, and told the 24-year-old woman that she would give the child up for adoption to a French family. She implied that Torres, who had given birth out of wedlock, would be an unfit mother.

And she told Torres, who wanted to name her child Sheila, that such a name was not “Christian,” and that the baby girl would be called Maria, “after herself.”

Torres said she became increasingly hysterical, and began cursing at the nun. She climbed from her bed and stumbled to the neo-natal unit. There, one girl lay in an incubator with a name tag on her crib: Maria.

“You saw nothing,” the nun told her. Sister Maria dragged Torres back to her room and threw her onto her bed, Torres said. “I will report you to the authorities as an adulteress and you will go to jail. Then I will also take away your 2-year-old daughter,” said Sister Maria, according to Torres.

Torres says she was terrified. Inés, her first child, was the result of a failed marriage. Separated from her husband, she started a new relationship, but that man left her once she became pregnant. In a country that was still waking up from a 40-year dictatorship and was extremely socially conservative, Torres didn’t know that anti-adultery laws had already been repealed in 1978.

Her new child had been born slightly premature, at eight months, and had some health problems. The infant was taken to another floor to receive special care, and Torres wasn’t allowed to visit her because she had never been officially identified as the child’s mother. She lost track of her baby, and was too afraid to approach Sister Maria again.

A devastated Torres left the hospital nine days later “with empty arms,” and the pacifier and baby blanket she had bought for her baby Sheila. She kept them for almost three decades, never losing hope that she could one day give them to her.

Obsessed for three decades

Months before Torres’ daughter was born, Alejandro Alcalde and his wife learned they could not have children and began considering adoption. But the adoption process was difficult. They had almost lost hope until they were told by Madrid’s regional council, which handled adoptions, to contact a woman named Sister Maria.

The adoptive parents paid 200,000 pesetas for Maria Pilar — the equivalent of about $6,600 today. The nun told them it was for hospital costs and for the mother to stay at a home after the birth. They arranged everything at a public hospital, which was why Alejandro Alcalde says they were never suspicious.

Maria Pilar Alcalde, now 30, recounts how she had looked for her biological mother since she was 15 years old, when her adoptive parents divorced.

“I spent nights crying, looking at my adoption documents over and over, trying to see a way to find my mother,” said Maria Pilar, who says she had a very “lonely childhood.” She described her adoptive mother as “a very dry woman” and said that her adoptive relatives never made her part of the family.

“I always missed that love in families,” she said. “When I was a teenager, I used to wonder: ‘How will my real family be?’”

After her parents’ divorce, Maria Pilar lived with her adoptive father, who helped her hunt for her mother. He spent a fortune on detectives and lawyers. Seven years ago, they appeared together on El Diario TV talk show, where they told Maria Pilar’s story. But it resulted in no leads.

“If my father thought he had been involved in anything illegal, he would have never helped so much in my search,” Maria Pilar said. Her adoptive mother, with whom she has a distant relationship, never liked the fact that Maria Pilar wanted to look for her biological parents.

At the beginning of their search, Maria Pilar and her father even went to see Sister Maria, who had kept in touch with the adoptive parents over the years. “I swore to God in front of your mother that I would never reveal her identity,” she told Maria Pilar. “She was probably a drug addict or a prostitute, it would only hurt you to find her.”

Ten miles away, Torres mourned her little girl.

“I was obsessed for 30 years…I used to stare at babies on the street when [my daughter] would still have been a baby, at young couples when she was still a teenager…sadness was always with me, especially on her birthdays,” Torres recalls, shaken at the memories.

Afraid that her other daughter would be taken away from her, Torres didn’t do much for years. She also didn’t know where to begin looking. According to Spanish privacy laws, parents who give their children up for adoption don’t have the right to get information about their whereabouts or new identities.

A year-and-a-half ago, when other “stolen babies” cases started appearing in the media, Torres says her determination to find her missing child was renewed. Her oldest daughter, Inés, eventually told the story to Spanish daily El Mundo.

Soon after the story appeared, a journalist at Antena 3 recalled the appearance of Alejandro and Maria Pilar on El Diario show seven years before, and realized that Maria Pilar and Torres’ stories matched. She dug into the matter. Eventually, she managed to contact both parties.

An “unbelievable” moment

On June 30, 2011, Torres, 54, and Maria Pilar, were brought on El Diario TV show after having had their DNA tested. They had been at the studio the entire day prior to the appearance, being interviewed separately, never crossing paths. They sat tense on the set until the TV host read out the result of their DNA test results on air: It was a match.

As they threw themselves at each other, Torres repeatedly murmured through tears, “I love you, forgive me.” Her daughter, sobbing, replied: “I have nothing to forgive.”

Many months later, they recall that pivotal moment as if it were yesterday.

“I almost fainted, my legs buckled. …It was a very beautiful and happy day, but too intense,” Torres said.

“I just threw myself in her arms,” said Maria Pilar. “I still cannot believe it.”

Still, settling into the reunion has taken time.

“I look at my mother and at the physical warmth she has with my sisters, and I wish it could be the same [closeness and naturalness] with me,” said Maria Pilar, who says it is still “strange” for them to be around each other.

Even so, she says she now has a “mom,” two “wonderful” half-sisters, two nephews and “a loving grandmother” she is getting to know and love.

Day of reckoning

Hundreds of women have named Sister Maria as the woman involved in the theft of their babies. The nun dealt with about 3,000 adoptions per year between 1967 and 1983, says Guillermo Peñas, the lawyer who represents Torres and Maria Pilar as well as 50 other families as plaintiffs.

Her name was first linked to the theft of babies in 1982, when investigative magazine Interviú uncovered several cases at another clinic in Madrid where Sister Maria used to work. Authorities closed the clinic down, but no one was prosecuted then.

The reunion of Torres and Maria Pilar offers the first mother-and-child pair who can accuse an alleged abductor, and have made it possible to indict the nun. She is currently charged with illegal detention, fraudulently faking another’s pregnancy, forgery of public and private documents, threatening behavior and coercion, according to Peñas.

So far, Sister Maria hasn’t responded to the prosecutor’s charges in court. GlobalPost’s attempts to reach Sister Maria for a comment were unsuccessful.
The public prosecutor’s office declined to comment on the case.

Torres and Maria Pilar will first appear in front of the judge on April 3.

“This is a very important step because it [is taking on the Church] – [Sister Maria] represents the Church, and that is sacred in Spain,” said Flor Diaz, one of the representatives of SOS Stolen Babies, a support organization that Torres also belongs to.

Both Maria Pilar and Torres say that no matter what happens in the courts, they will never be able to recover the 30 years they lost. “I want that nun to pay for all the pain she has caused,” said Torres.

But at her age, it is unlikely that Sister Maria will end up behind bars.

“There have to be many more people involved,” said Peñas. “It is a matter of common sense to realize that a social worker does not have enough legal authority to do whatever she wants — she had superiors and the hospital director had to authorize the adoptions in the end.”

“But Sister Maria is the only thread we have to untangle the tangled web,” he added.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s newly installed minister of justice, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, said last week that resolving these cases “will be a priority” for his department, although advocates in the case are skeptical.

“For the government, this is like holding a screaming child,” said Peñas. “If it is held that civil authorities were in the end responsible, the state will have to compensate [thousands of families], and these are not the best times for that.”

But most of these mothers and their children, like Maria Pilar and Torres, say they don’t want any money, just to find their loved ones and recover the lost time.

As they work on that, Maria Pilar keeps the still-new pacifier and the baby blanket on her bed. In the days that followed her first meeting with her mother, she says she would fall asleep “like a baby,” grabbing onto them.

While that phase has passed, Maria Pilar says she plans to get a tattoo with her mother’s name — her way to make sure that Torres is never far from her again.

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Rep Abdul-Samad talks about letter: Rep Abdul-Samad talks about letter/powder after all clear is called at Iowa Statehouse.

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Iowa State Representative, Ako Abdul-Samad Recieves Threatening Letter Containing Mysterious Powder

Posted on 04 April 2012 by Amago

Rep Abdul-Samad talks about letter: Rep Abdul-Samad talks about letter/powder after all clear is called at Iowa Statehouse.

Rep Abdul-Samad talks about letter: Rep Abdul-Samad talks about letter/powder after all clear is called at Iowa Statehouse.

(Via Islamophobiatoday.com)

Iowa State Representative, Ako Abdul-Samad recieves threatening letter containing mysterious powder


A threatening letter containing a mysterious powder sent the Iowa Capitol into lockdown and delayed action in the House for several hours on Tuesday.

Ultimately, a hazardous materials team found the substance not to be dangerous and released a crowd of perhaps 300 lawmakers, staffers and observers who had been sequestered in the House chamber and elsewhere at the Statehouse.

The letter was received by Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, late Tuesday afternoon and was opened on the House floor in the midst of debate.

Abdul-Samad told reporters Tuesday evening that the letter contained “very threatening” language but declined to describe it in detail, citing an investigation now under way by state police.

“I cannot talk about what was in the letter at this point, because it’s turned over now to the State Patrol and also to DCI, but it was a threatening letter,” he said, referring to the state Division of Criminal Investigation. “This has now become a very serious legal matter.”

Abdul-Samad’s clerk, Drake Law School student Michael McRae, opened the letter after retrieving it from the lawmaker’s mailbox in the Capitol rotunda. The powder billowed out, he said, covering the area around Abdul-Samad’s desk, McRae’s clothing and hands, and even being inhaled by Abdul-Samad.

Rep. Kevin Koester, R-Ankeny, who said he was sitting near Abdul-Samad after the letter was opened and saw a white powder spill from an envelope, said the substance looked like flour or powdered sugar. Others described it as resembling a powdered detergent.

Abdul-Samad and Iowa State Patrol Capt. Mark Logsdon declined to identify the substance.

The letter apparently was hand-delivered to the Capitol, Logsdon said.

House leaders paused the debate that was then under way at about 3:45 p.m. and directed Abdul-Samad and McRae to the vestibule separating the House chambers from the Capitol’s second-floor rotunda.

They remained there throughout the afternoon and early evening. The entire building was locked down shortly before 5 p.m.

A hazardous materials team — wearing bright yellow plastic suits with orange boots and breathing apparatus — arrived around 5:30, and appeared to collect samples both inside the vestibule with Abdul-Samad and McRae and at the lawmaker’s desk on the House floor.

The two-man team’s fluorescent safety garb and Darth Vader-like exhalations contrasted sharply with the crowd of lawmakers and staff, who milled about on the floor in shirt-sleeves. Some even stood within an arm’s reach of Abdul-Samad’s desk, snapping photos as the hazmat workers conducted their work.

At around 6 p.m., House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, reported that preliminary testing indicated the substance was not hazardous. Officials with the 71st Civil Service Team, an inter-agency cooperative responsible for dealing with potentially hazardous situations like this, completed further testing, finally giving an all-clear at 7:50 p.m.

“With the sensitivity of government, it’s a realistic threat,” said Brian O’Keefe with the Des Moines Fire Department. “That’s why we’re going to this level of security and testing.”

Lawmakers resumed considering legislation before the all-clear, and even before Abdul-Samad returned to the chamber, wrapping up debate and holding a final vote on a bill to bar cities from using traffic cameras. The decision to get back to business didn’t sit well with everyone in the chamber.

“Continuation of this debate tonight is dumb, disrespectful and in poor taste,” Rep. Nathan Willems, D-Lisbon said, addressing Paulsen from the floor.

Others criticized the manner in which the incident itself was handled.

The initial response was uncontrolled and overly dismissive, potentially exposing an unknown number of Iowans to highly lethal agents like anthrax, said Sen. Bill Dotzler, a Waterloo Democrat who is trained in toxic threats.

More than an hour after the powder was discovered, state representatives and others were moving freely out of the House chambers to other areas of the Capitol and outside the building. Some senators even joked that their House peers should be banned from the Senate chambers.

But Dotzler, who was a volunteer with the John Deere Fire Brigade and fully trained with the Waterloo hazmat team, said the situation was no laughing matter.

House members should have been immediately isolated and even removed from the chambers to an isolated area to avoid further possible exposure, he said, rather than allowed to move freely inside and outside the building.

“In the world we live in you have to take every case seriously,” he said. “People said, ‘Well, it smelled like soap.’ Well, you can mix toxic biological agents in with soap and it could be something that’s pretty bad.”

Law enforcement and Abdul-Samad himself, however, defended the way the situation played out.

“Everything was handled properly, and I’m really happy with how things were handled,” Abdul-Samad said.

Logsdon, the state patrol captain, said it was easier to second-guess the response than to manage a potentially dangerous situation in a crowded and public place.

“It’s easy to question and armchair quarterback people, but the fact of the matter is once the letter was open and the substance was airborne, then it literally contaminated everyone in there,” he said.

House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer said the situation was unprecedented for most, if not all, of the lawmakers now serving.

She said the response will be reviewed to determine if additional procedures are necessary for dealing with such situations.

“We’ll do a look back and make sure we have the systems in place that we need and the processes that make sure everyone gets here safe,” Upmeyer said.

Among the first people out of the Capitol were Michael Mericle and his grandparents, who had been visiting the building.

Mericle, who was visiting Des Moines from Omaha, said the ordeal wasn’t what he expected for his first visit to the Capitol.

“It was long,” he said. “We were walking out, and they told us to go back in. It was boring, but everyone is OK.”

Mericle passed the time by playing with his smartphone and sending text messages to friends, he said. He said he wasn’t nervous, and others in the Capitol didn’t seem to be either.

“But his mom was,” put in Julie Almquist, Mericle’s mother, who had been waiting outside the building for her son.

Almquist, who said she had interned at the Capitol while growing up in Des Moines, said she initially didn’t think the incident was a big deal, until the hours began dragging on.

They missed their dinner reservation at Splash, she said, but once they left the Capitol, they headed there anyway to try to get a table.

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SYI Galloway threat

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South Yorkshire “Infidels” Group Wants to Kill George Galloway

Posted on 03 April 2012 by Emperor

(via. Islamophobia-Watch)

Infidels threaten George Galloway

Via Expose, here is the response of the South Yorkshire Infidels, a breakaway faction from the EDL, to George Galloway’s by-election victory in Bradford West.

Given that West Yorkshire Police recently arrested and charged a young Muslim over an offensive Facebook comment about British soldiers in Afghanisatan, will their colleagues in South Yorkshire be taking any action over this Facebook post?

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TYT: Muslims Taking Over Tennessee Schools?

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TYT: Muslims Taking Over Tennessee Schools?

Posted on 03 April 2012 by Amago

Is anyone surprised with the anti-Muslim hysteria coming from Tennessee?:

Muslims Taking Over Tennessee Schools?

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Pamela Geller, Guide Dogs, and Genocide

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Pamela Geller, Guide Dogs, and Genocide

Posted on 03 April 2012 by Mooneye

Pamela Geller

Pamela Geller

More lunacy from the looniest blogger ever:

Pamela Geller, Guide Dogs, and Genocide

by Sheila Musaji (The American Muslim)

Pamela Geller posted a letter she received from an Atlas Shrugs reader calling himself Scott Sylte.  She introduces this letter saying Remember, there is no golden rule under Islam.

Here is the text of the posted letter

I have a disability which requires that I use a service dog. His name is Ray and he helps to counterbalance, alert and guide me. Under Federal Law, The Americans with Disabilites Act of 1990, a disabled person with their service dog must be allowed public accomodation and admittance. Among such places include Airplanes, Public Transportation, Businesses which serve the gerneral public, restaurants, etc.

One evening two friends, myself and my service dog Ray entered a kabob restaurant in Virginia. Within seconds a man, apparantly who was the owner, made a scene about my service dog and asked me to leave. I was fairly certain he was Pakistani Muslim. There were other people in the restaurant who apparantly were also Muslim because of their coverings. Anyhow, I told him about the ADA, which he knew nothing about, and I told him that I was refusing to leave the restaurant and demanded that we be served the food we ordered. He was obviously very, very unhappy about it, yet he did eventually very reluctantly comply.

If he had insisted that my dog and I leave and refused to serve us in his restaurant, I would have filed a Human Relations Complaint of Discrimination or a ADA complaint with the US Dept. of Justice. If that would ever happens I wonder if this Islamization has gone that far that it would limit me from entering a Muslim owned or opperated establishment which serves the public? It’s sad to see our society begin sliding down the slippery slope of making these kinds of self serving accomodations. The people who are in favor of these kinds of accomodations as being in the friendly spirit of Freedom and Liberty are missing the point that our strong tendancies for “cultural” and “religious” acceptance are really being used to undermine our very freedoms and liberties in a very clandestine manner.

The very essence of the Judeo-Christian belief is based upon “Loving our neighbors,” but all to frequently forgotten is another teaching of our sacred writings is that if we know that someone is going to kill us “We are “obliged” to kill them before they can kill us. In the context of this teaching, “obliged is stronger than being commanded.” We are not commanded to murder someone because of their belief system or because they are different, but if they are going to kill us, self defense is an imperative. I believe as many of our fellow Americans would like to believe, is that the majority of Muslims here in our country are not about Jihad; HOWEVER, a belief system which commands its believers to deceive and lie to non-adherants about their murderous intentions is most certainly one that should be closely examined.

Respectfully submitted, Scott Sylte

This individual is claiming that someone at a kabob restaurant in Virginia that he believed to be a Muslim asked him to leave the restaurant with his guide dog.  After he explained about the ADA, the man reluctantly served him.  He does not say what his disability is, or what kind of a service dog.  Since he is describing the appearance of people in the restaurant, it seems that he is not blind, and perhaps his disability was not readily apparent.  The law does not require service dogs to wear identifying markings, and if this was the case it is possible that the restaurant employee/owner simply thought it was a man and his dog coming in to eat.

He says that if he had not been served he would have filed an official complaint of discrimination.  That is absolutely appropriate, and he would have been well within his rights to do so – if this is an accurate recounting of a genuine incident.  If, however, there was no way for the man who worked in the restaurant to know that he was disabled, and that his dog was a service dog, then that would be a very different story.

However, the last paragraph of Mr. Sylte’s letter makes me doubt everything he claims.  I’ll repeat that paragraph

The very essence of the Judeo-Christian belief is based upon “Loving our neighbors,” but all to frequently forgotten is another teaching of our sacred writings is that if we know that someone is going to kill us “We are “obliged” to kill them before they can kill us. In the context of this teaching, “obliged is stronger than being commanded.” We are not commanded to murder someone because of their belief system or because they are different, but if they are going to kill us, self defense is an imperative. I believe as many of our fellow Americans would like to believe, is that the majority of Muslims here in our country are not about Jihad; HOWEVER, a belief system which commands its believers to deceive and lie to non-adherents [sic] about their murderous intentions is most certainly one that should be closely examined.

I would have highlighted the genocidal take on what is required of Christians out of their love for their Muslim neighbors, but the entire paragraph would need to be highlighted.

He is saying that he would like to believe that most Muslims are not out to kill “us”, but since their religion (in his view) teaches Muslims to lie about their murderous intentions, then the command to kill Muslims before they kill you mandated in Christianity “should be closely examined”.  We should consider that it might be a “Christian mandate” to begin killing Muslims.  He does not give any references to particular verses of Christian “sacred scriptures”, but I am certain that whatever passages he believes would justify such genocide are being misinterpreted by him.

That Pamela Geller thinks such hatred is deserving of a positive mention, and of being published on her site is yet more evidence as to why the SPLC lists not only her Atlas Shrugs site, but her partner Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch site, and their joint organizations AFDI and SIOA as active anti-Muslim groups, and why they are listed in our Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industry.  This is hatred pure and simple.

As to the issue that set off this tirade – Muslims who serve the public refusing service to people with guide dogs – that has happened.  There needs to be a clear statement issued by scholars in the U.S. and Canada clarifying this, and that statement needs to be widely distributed and discussed in mosques.  The problem is that many immigrants confuse cultural and religious beliefs, and some are not aware of the law.

This process has begun, and Muslim scholars are attempting to educate people, but to avoid any such difficulties in the future, this needs to be much more widely discussed.  Here are a few examples of community efforts to educate:

In 2008, the issue of service dogs came up in England and a fatwa
was issued

“The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association described the decision as “a massive step forward for other blind and partially-sighted Muslims”. Previously, all dogs were banned from mosques because the Islamic faith historically sees them as being for guarding and hunting only. However, the position was softened because guide dogs could be classed in the “working dogs” category. The animals are still barred from entering the prayer hall for the sake of hygiene but are allowed to guide their owners to the area where shoes are placed, the fatwa says.

A special rest area has been set up in the entrance of the Bilal Jamia mosque for Vargo while Khatri is praying. Previously, the teenager, who attends the RNIB College in Loughborough, had to be accompanied to the mosque by a sighted helper. “

…  After issuing the fatwa, Muhammad Shahid Raza, director of the Imams and Mosques Council UK and secretary of the Muslim Law (Sharia) Council UK, said: “I hope that all existing mosques will follow Bilal mosque in serving the disabled people in a similar way by providing facilities to them. I also believe that, in all new mosques, such facilities for disabled people will be an essential part of their design.”

You can see a video about this here

In a case in Minnesota, the local CAIR-MN chapter issued a statement

The moral and legal need to accommodate individuals using service dogs far outweighs the discomfort an individual Muslim might feel about coming into contact with a dog, which is one of God’s creatures, said CAIR-MN Communications Director Valerie Shirley.

Muslims believe the saliva of dogs invalidates the ritual ablution performed before prayer. For this reason, it has become a cultural norm for individuals not to have dogs in their houses – not because the dog is unclean.

The Prophet Muhammad allowed the use of dogs for protection and for hunting. He related several traditions (hadith) in which individuals were rewarded by God for protecting animals and punished for mistreating them.

Shirley mentioned that in 2007, a similar misunderstanding took place between Minneapolis cab drivers and passengers with guide dogs. After CAIR-MN facilitated dialogue between the two groups and cleared the misunderstanding, the Muslim taxi drivers offered free rides to attendees of the American Council of the Blind Convention in downtown Minneapolis. Abdinoor Ahmed Dolal, owner of Twin Cities Airport Taxi, said “Islam forbids us to turn away a blind passenger, whether they have a guide dog or not. Their rights come first.”

CAIR-MN says it will continue to work with the Muslim community in Minnesota to educate them about their Islamic and legal duty to accommodate those using service or guide dogs.

In another case in Vancouver, Canada a local Imam issued a clarification

An Iman from the local Az-Zahraa Islamic Centre, Javed Jaffri, researched the dog topic and served as an expert witness for a blind man refused passage by a Muslim taxi driver. Jaffri spent long hours on this, and provided an unbiased interpretation of the Koran that indicated “there is nothing saying that one must refuse service to another person because of the fear of contamination by a dog.”

He also said that “there can be exceptions to blanket refusals to deal with dogs, especially if it means helping someone in need. All that would be required in most circumstances would be for a Muslim person to wash their hands before eating if they have been in contact with a dog. That’s not a terrible task to go through,” he said.

“There is not an animal on earth, nor a bird that flies on its wings, but they are communities like you. Qur’an 6:38.

“The Holy Prophet told of a prostitute who, on a hot summer day, saw a thirsty dog hovering around a well, lolling its tongue. She lowered her socks down the well and watered the dog. God forgave her all her sins (for this one act of kindness)”  Sahih Muslim

SEE ALSO:

A Fatwa on dogs, Khaled Abou El Fadl http://www.scholarofthehouse.org/tloofesfaond.html

All-American Muslim and Wrigley the Dog, Sheila Musaji http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/wrigley-dogs

Animals’ Lawsuit Against Humanity, Ikhwan al-Safa http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/books_the_animals_lawsuit_against_humanity

Animals in Islam, al-Hafiz B.A. Masri, http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/7368/an1.htm

Dogs in the Islamic tradition and in nature, Khaled Abou El Fadl http://www.scholarofthehouse.org/dinistrandna.html

Islam and Experiments on Animals *, al-Hafiz B.Z. Masri http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/islam_and_experiments_on_animals1

Misconceptions About Islam and Dogshttp://misconceptions-about-islam.com/dogs-allowed-muslims.htm

Quotes from Qur’an and Hadith about dogs as service animals http://toledomuslims.com/criterion/Article.asp?ID=288

What’s up with Muslims and dogs?, Dr. Ingrid Mattson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ingrid-mattson/whats-up-with-muslims-and_b_1144819.html

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Right-Wing Terrorism: String of Firebombs Against Planned Parenthood Under Reported in the Media

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Right-Wing Terrorism: String of Firebombs Against Planned Parenthood Under Reported in the Media

Posted on 02 April 2012 by Emperor

abortion_protest_terrorism

The above protesters believe abortion is terrorism

It’s only terrorism when Muslims do it, right? Even though data from both the US and Europe shows otherwise, and you have more of a chance of being killed by peanuts or lightning than you do a “Muslamic terrorist!”

Is it safe to presume in this case that those individuals targeting Planned Parenthood are likely Right-Wing extremists and likely Christian? There are a couple of reasons for me to think this is the case: 1.) All or at least most previous attacks on abortion clinics and women health center’s, such as Planned Parenthood have been carried out by Right-wingers, 2.) There are many militant Christian organizations whose ideologies are violently opposed to abortion.

Muslims aren’t involved because a.) abortion is not a particularly too controversial issue within the Muslim community, and b.) Planned Parenthood is not occupying or invading Muslim countries.

Such events seem to be quite under reported in the media. You can bet that if a Muslim was suspected of such bombings the Islamophobesphere would be going buck-wild about our nation being under attack and the creeping “Islamization” of society, etc.

As of now they are mostly unconcerned and silent as the string of bombings continue:

Homemade bomb detonates at Wisconsin Planned Parenthood clinic

By Stephen C. Webster (RawStory)

A homemade explosive device detonated outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, Wisconsin on Sunday night.

Police are still looking for whoever left the device, which exploded around 7:30 p.m. and caused little damage to the building. Nobody was injured.

The attack is one of a string across the U.S. in recent months.

Amid a heated debate over funding for Planned Parenthood last month, the Fort Worth offices of Texas State Senator Wendy Davis (D) — a strong supporter of the female health program — were attacked with two firebombs. Another clinic in the Dallas area was attacked in a similar manner by a separate person last July.

This video is from NBC 26 in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, broadcast Sunday, April 1, 2012. (Click link to view video)

I wonder if these bombings will make it into the FBI’s compilation of terrorist attacks?

There is also a propensity for Right-wingers and their acolytes to shift blame, as this individual below does, calling liberals “Islamic jihad ass-kissers.” That’s essentially what Anders Breivik was calling the kids he mowed down in Utoya during his horrific terror splurge:

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Yemen child marriages1

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Yemen’s Child Marriages: 52% of Girls Married Before 18 and 14% Before the Age of 15

Posted on 02 April 2012 by Emperor

Islamophobes often times confuse tribal custom and practice as a reflection of Islam. They cannot concede the view that marriage practices vary across the Islamic world, and that most Muslim countries have age limits on marriage.

The article below highlights quite a few salient points in regards to the high number of girls in Yemen, between the ages of 15-18 being married off, 38%, and girls under 15, 14%, for a total of 52%. It doesn’t say anything about the age of those whom the young girls are marrying, it’s safe to presume that many of them are young men as well. It is also safe to assume however that a significant portion are likely men who are quite older than them (see picture above).

The article reveals that it is Yemeni Muslims, many of them deeply committed to Islam: Imams, scholars, politicians and human rights activists who are attempting to reform this practice within their own culture and society.

Of course this won’t stop the Islam haters from trying to bash Islam and further the “Mo was a pedo” myth that they are so fond of.

See our article that deals with the topic of marriage age: Translating-Jihad’s Completely Fraudulent Translations.

Also see: Man Married his 10 year old niece and justified it through Biblical passages.

Yemen’s Child Marriages

By Catherine Shakdam (OnIslam)

SANAA – Yemenis are marrying off their daughters at a very early age, a practice seen by Muslim imams as rooted in tribal traditions, rather than in Islamic teachings.

“Much of child marriages are rooted in tribal tradition and not in Islam,” Sheikh Mohamed al- Iryani, an Imam in Aden, told OnIslam.net.

He blamed poverty and fear of stigma for the common practice in the Arab Peninsula country.

“Poor families see raising daughters as a heavy burden which they are happy to unload on someone else at the first opportunity,” he said.

“It is contrary to our teachings but as long as local Imams agree to perform the ceremonies it will continue.

Child marriages are widespread in Yemen.

Estimates show that 52 percent of Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18 and 14 percent before the age of 15.

There are some cases in which young girls as little as 8 were being allowed to enter a marital union.

Well-remembered is the case of Nujud, a young Yemeni girl who challenged her family, demanding that a judge free her from her abusive husband by dissolving her marriage.

“We as a society need to tackle this issue and launch some sort of a national dialogue,” said Iryani.

Marriage in Islam is of utmost importance as it is upon the lawful union of a man and a woman that society grows strong and that moral is preserved.

In Islam it is not permissible for the guardian to compel the one under his guardianship to marry someone she does not desire to marry.

Rather, it is necessary to seek her consent and permission.

Marriage Age

Human rights activists have called for setting a minimum age limit to marriage to help uproot the phenomenon.

“Setting a minimum age limit to marriages will help prevent child abuse and young bride trafficking,” Nadya Khalife, a women’s rights researcher for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch, told OnIslam.net.

“Yemen’s political crisis has left issues such as child marriage at the bottom of the political priority list.

“But now is the time to move on this issue, setting the minimum age for marriage at 18, to ensure that girls and women who played a major role in Yemen’s protest movement will also contribute to shaping Yemen’s future.”

Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, the highest religious body in the Sunni Muslim world, has recently issued a manual on the rights of Muslim children.

“Marriage in Islam is regulated by certain rules, namely, children must reach puberty and maturity so that they can get married,” the manual said.

A recent HRW report said the repercussions of child marriages reverberate throughout Yemeni society as it prevents women from completing their education, keeping Yemen in a state of prolonged ignorance.

“Education is the key to progress,” said Human Rights Minister Hooria Mashour.

“If we are to build a strong Yemen, we need our people to push on their study, child marriages prevent that.”

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Luton mosque fire

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UK: Police Investigate Mosque Fire, Possible Arson

Posted on 02 April 2012 by Emperor

Luton mosque fire

Luton mosque fire

Another mosque fire in the UK:

Luton: police probe mosque fire

An investigation is underway after an arson attack at a mosque in Bury Park in the early hours of this morning (April 2).

Fire crews were called to the Bury Park Jamia Masjid in Bury Park Road at 4.30am, after two large metal bins were pushed up against a door and set alight. The scene has been cordoned off by police while a fire investigation takes place.

Det Con Colin Knight, investigating the incident, said: “We’re keeping an open mind and appealing for witnesses. We don’t know at this stage what the motive was.”

Anwar Hussain, the mosque’s cultural secretary, said its leaders were angry about what had happened. “People are going to be very upset when they come for prayers,” he said. “But we will tell them to remain calm. The investigation is ongoing but my opinion is that it was deliberate. The police response has been very good, they will be checking CCTV footage from the cameras in the street, and we hope they will catch the culprits.”

Luton Today, 2 April 2012

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Anti-Muslim Hate Comes to Hillsborough County School Board Meeting

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Anti-Muslim Hate Comes to Hillsborough County School Board Meeting

Posted on 01 April 2012 by Emperor

Parents, and Adults attend Hillsborough School Board Meeting

Parents, and Adults attend a Hillsborough School Board Meeting

Hillsboroughbilly County, Florida–

In November 2011, a Tampa, Fla., high school invited a Muslim lecturer, Hassan Shibly to speak about Islamic history and tradition to college level advanced placement students. When anti-Muslim extremists David Caton and Terry Kemple found out, they brought dozens of Islamophobes to spread lies, fear and hatred against Islam and Muslims at school board meetings (H/T: A. Lessirey):

David Caton was described in a Tampa Bay Times column as a “theo thug,” and a “Biblical bully” with a history of anti-Muslim activism:

Perhaps the best way to get your hands around this latest example of theo-thugs gone wild is to think of local sanctimonious mouth foamer David Caton as the North Korea of faux piety.

For whenever Caton feels he’s fallen off the publicity-hound radar and isn’t being paid enough attention, the vicar of vituperativeness feels compelled to engage in some really daffy behavior as if to reassure the world he’s just as loopy as ever.

Well, brother and sisters — he’s back! It was this man of fleece who just a few weeks ago managed to persuade Lowe’s, a Fortune 500 company, to drop its sponsorship of All-American Muslim on TLC.

Caton got his sackcloth in a wad because the series revealed Muslims in America are quite capable of living just as stultifyingly boring, law-abiding lives as Protestants, rather than spending their days assembling car bombs.

And Lowe’s fell for it, acquiescing to the Islamaphobic demands of a single illiterate hate-monger who should have about as much influence on the affairs of the day as the defense minister of Groucho Marx’s Freedonia.

Now, fresh off his Florida Family Association campaign to make Lowe’s look like corporate America’s answer to a cowering puppy that just piddled on the kitchen floor, Caton, the Ernst Blofeld of the Bible, has set his myopic sights on Kelly Miliziano, a history teacher at Steinbrenner High School, who committed the unpardonable, unforgiveable sin of (dare it be said) educating her students.

For several years Miliziano has invited speakers representing various faiths to meet with her classes. The idea here is to expose students to a range of ideas and beliefs, which in the end will serve to make them better informed, discerning, well-rounded, independent-thinking, educated members of society.

Miliziano obviously posed a threat to Caton’s recruitment efforts. After all, if these kids learn stuff, well, the next thing you know, they’ll figure out obtuse gasbags like Caton are full of hooey. And that’s bad for the bigotry business, which needs a steady stream of lemmings to keep the flames of malevolence burning.

Another Tampa Bay Times article described the school board meeting as one of “did-I-just-hear-that” intolerance. It went on to criticize Caton and Kemple, saying,

What’s not good is wrapping your hands around the eyes and ears of kids out of fear. What’s not good is assuming a local Muslim leader, a young lawyer raising a family here, comes not to educate but to indoctrinate and steal young minds — and that teachers are either in on it or too clueless to care.

Such rhetoric is unhelpful and it seems that students who actually participated in the class don’t think it was a big deal.

But for those who believe they are on a Crusade against Islam, such as Caton and Kemple the Muslim speaker’s presentation represents the apocalypse!

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Omid Safi: Confessions of a Would be Muslim Reformer (sort of)

Posted on 01 April 2012 by Emperor

A real witty article:

Confessions of a Would be Muslim Reformer (sort of)

by Omid Safi (Religion News Service)

I have been doing a lot of soul-searching, and I have reached a few important conclusions.    Speaking as a moderate Muslim, I realize that my community is primitive, backwards, mired in tradition, and in need of massive help from KONY 2012 people to reform this tradition to catch up with the luminosity of secular West.

I know that there is a trouble with Islam today, and everyday.  I also want to have gay-friendly mosques where people can just go have a beer after the optional prayer services, ‘cause that is what it means to be a progressive Muslim.

Because all the secret jihadists (and the FBI people who have infiltrated them) just want to impose this Shari’a thing on us, and for some reason all that beer drinking and hooking up seems to be frowned upon in that Shari’a thing.

With that, and in the name of She who is the source of All-Mercy, here are the fruits of my search.    If anyone wants to put me in touch with Fox News or MEMRI, please do so, I’ll recite all these on camera—just contact my agent, and he can tell you my appearance fee.   I know that we are in need of a Muslim Reformation, and I am working on my “Martin Luther of Islam” speech.    I can’t quite make it up to ML’s 95 theses, but I have got a good head start below.   With that, “I give you permission to think freely”:

First, speaking as a Muslim, I am so disappointed in my Muslim brother Barack Hussein Obama.   He eats pork, drinks alcohol, regularly attends church service, had his daughters baptized, has yet to set foot in a mosque since becoming president, kisses AIPAC’s behind, authorizes indefinite detentions, and has seen many Muslims killed by his drone attacks and ongoing wars.   Really, a pathetic Muslim if ever there was one.   I mean, if I wanted a Muslim ruler that would do all the above, I would move back to the Muslim countries where most of the rulers do that kind of stuff anyway, and the food is a little better than here.

Second, I have been so so wrong about Israel. It is a peaceful, peace-loving, just, democratic state, and all criticism of it is just motivated by anti-Semitism.  Israel today is perfect, kind of like America before all the civil rights stuff in the 1960’s came along.   As to those so-called Palestinians who do not want to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, they should just go back where they came from.    (I’m not sure where that is, but I am told it used to be a “land without a people.”)

Third, the Wahhabis are unjustly criticized. We Muslim have messed up Islam, and they are just trying to restore it to its original model of purity.   And I just love the changes they are making to Mecca and Medina, making it so much more traveler friendly.

Fourth, I have been way too defensive in my criticism of the erosion of civil rights and liberties in America. Fact of the matter is that we Muslims should just be honored to be allowed in this country, to consumer here, and even if we live here as second (or third) class citizen, it’s better to be here than whatever country my parents came from.

Fifth, I recognize that the Islamophobes are right, and there is something inherently vile and violent about Islam.

When the Prophet Muhammad was doing the prophet thing in the 7th century, he was so sneaky smart that he immediately set about opposing the whole notion of modernity that would emerge in the 17th century.  How clever he must have been… It’s like he was a thousand years ahead of his time.    We backwards Muslims have to catch up with the times, because all 1.5 billion Muslims are really in a time warp, living in the 7th century.   It’s like Islam is a breach in the time-space continuum.    It makes perfect sense to me to have people who hate a religion be the ones to help guide us as to how to reform Islam.   So I’ll be sure to tune into Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Daniel Pipes, Franklin Graham, and others.

Sixth, I testify that Sufism is just a perversion of the true Islam of the Pious Forefathers (al-salaf al-salih), and I pledge my allegiance to the driest, most boring, most hierarchical reading of Islam there is.   All this talk of love and beauty and being a child of Muhammad’s soul and coming to see God face-to-face, love and service to humanity, blah blah, people are just trying to make us think that there is something beautiful and mystical about Islam.   Don’t’ fall for it.  Remember:  Order, Discipline, Fitna (strife), Bid’a (heretical innovation), Haram (forbidden)…

Seventh, I pledge myself to making sure that Muslims, Hispanics, Gays/Lesbians, women, the Poor, immigrants, the Radical Left, everybody on the coasts, and everybody who doesn’t look like me, talk like me, worship in my church, can leave this country so us proper Americans can have it all to ourselves.  And it would be a much less crowded country.   Love it or leave it baby!

And one last one:  We civilized people have to protect Muslim women from Muslim men.  And from themselves.  Because Muslim women cannot and should not be trusted to make choices for their own lives, their own bodies.   So it’s up to us enlightened people to tell them what to wear, how to dress, and what not to wear.   Make sure that we don’t make the mistake of having them tell us what their attire means to them, because they have all been brainwashed.

Ok…. April’s Fools!!!     :-)

Take a deep breath.   All the above is a little April Fool’s satire about a very serious subject.

It would be all funny, except that as absurd as—I truly pray—all the above sounds, this is actually much of what we hear in today’s public discourse about Islam, from both wannabe Muslim reformers such as Zuhdi Jasser and Irshad Manji (who all too often have no grounding in Islam) to ex-Muslims (Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali), to Islamophobes (Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes) who repeatedly tell Muslims about the true meanings of their tradition.   I hope that satire can be a way to recognize the absurdity of the whole situation.

We need to do better than this.   May we all be participants in the redemption of our traditions, our communities, our nations.   That redemption can only come about through love and participation in a tradition and a community, not by standing outside and voicing one’s shame.    Love transforms us towards the better and more beautiful.    May our faith traditions, our nations, be redeemed through this love and service to humanity.

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Sheldon Adelson: “All Terrorists are Islamic”

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Sheldon Adelson: “All Terrorists are Islamic”

Posted on 31 March 2012 by Emperor

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who is the biggest patron of Newt Gingrich's presidential bid, giving a reported $10m to a Gingrich-supporting Super Pac. Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who is the biggest patron of Newt Gingrich's presidential bid, giving a reported $10m to a Gingrich-supporting Super Pac. Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP

Newt Gingrich’s former, and Mitt Romney’s soon-to-be sugar-daddy, Sheldon Adelson recently commented on terrorism, and how he believes all terrorists are “Islamic” or “Islamist.”

Sheldon Adelson could have saved himself from looking like a complete doofus and unintelligent moron if he read our most popular article: “All Terrorists are Muslims…Except the 94% of Terrorists that Aren’t”

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Danish_Anti-Islam_Demo

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European Far-right Stage anti-Islam Rally

Posted on 31 March 2012 by Emperor

Danish_Anti-Islam_Demo

The Israeli flag makes a regular appearance next to the flags of other European countries in such anti-Islam and anti-Muslim protests.

The above anti-Islam meeting organized by the Danish Defense League attracted 300 people.

Anti-Racists who protested the DDL attracted 5,000.

European far-right stage anti-Islam rally

Hundreds of far-right sympathisers are holding a rally in Denmark against what they call the Islamisation of Europe, starting with a moment of silence for the seven people who were killed by an al-Qaeda-inspired gunman in France.

Saturday’s “European Counter-Jihad Meeting” was organised by the Danish Defence League – an anti-Muslim movement claiming to have no neo-Nazis ties.

It has drawn participants from several European countries, including Britain, Germany, Poland and Sweden.

The rally is being held in Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city, 200km northwest of Copenhagen, the capital. Police spokesman Georg Husted says 300 people are taking part.

Nearby, a much larger group – about 2,500 people – marched in a counter-demonstration, under the banner “Aarhus For Diversity”.

‘No Breivik ties’

The rally takes place a few weeks before the start of the trial of Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right extremist who murdered 77 people in Norway last July.

Breivik claimed to have had contact with the English Defence League (EDL) ahead of the attacks, adding that he had “spoken with tens of EDL members and leaders”.

In response to the killings, the league condemned the killings and added that it had no contact with Breivik.

In a statement on its website, the EDL said it would not associate with any individual or group who did not reject “extremism” and said “racists, neo-Nazis and any other extremists” were not welcome.

It said it had called on participating groups to sign a memorandum declaring that they were “anti-extremist, anti-fascist, and anti-racist”.

“We will protest peacefully, but we will defend ourselves if need be. We will be loud, and we will not back down,” the memorandum states.

EDL leader Stephen Lennon said: “We hope it [the rally] will be the start of a European movement that will continue to grow.”

Various far-right groups have been in Aarhus since Wednesday where they have had a chance to hold meetings and discuss ideas.

Counter-demonstration

Anti-racist groups are worried that hardline anti-Islamic groups are mobilising and gathering support in Europe.

Police in Aarhus said the rally would be kept apart from an expected counter-demonstration by anti-racism campaigners.

Projekt Antifa, a Danish coalition of anti-fascist groups, had booked coaches to take protesters from Copenhagen to Aarhus.

Police Superintendent Mogens Brondum said: “The police can and will handle this situation. We will be out massively.”

Last week, several thousands people turned out for an open-air concert organised to protest against the far-right rally.

A statement issued by city officials said the concert was organised because ”Aarhus does not want to be associated with extremist groups” that represent “everything we want to distance ourselves from”.

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The Right Wing’s Election-Year Islamophobia Fuels a New Smear Campaign Against Obama

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The Right Wing’s Election-Year Islamophobia Fuels a New Smear Campaign Against Obama

Posted on 30 March 2012 by Emperor

Barack_Obama

Barack Obama

Interesting article about the evolving “Obama is a Muslim” myth and the raging Islamophobia in the GOP, as well as the reality of Obama’s relationship with Muslims in both the US and overseas:

The Right Wing’s Election-Year Islamophobia Fuels a New Smear Campaign Against Obama

by John Feffer (AlterNet)

Those who fervently believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim generally practice their furtive religion in obscure recesses of the Internet. Once in a while, they’ll surface in public to remind the news media that no amount of evidence can undermine their convictions.

In October 2008, at a town hall meeting in Minnesota for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, a woman called Obama “an Arab.” McCain responded, incongruously enough, that Obama was, in fact, “a decent family man” and not an Arab at all. In an echo of this, a woman recently stood up at a town hall in Florida and began a question for Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum by asserting that the president “is an avowed Muslim.” The audience cheered, and Santorum didn’t bother to correct her.

Though they belong to a largely underground cult, the members of the Obama-is-Muslim congregation number as many as one third of all Republicans. Arecent poll found that only 14% percent of Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi believe that the president is Christian.

These true believers treat their scraps of evidence like holy relics: the president’s middle name, his grandfather’s religion, a widely circulated photo of Obama in a turban. They occasionally traffic in outright fabrications: that he attended a radical madrasa in Indonesia as a child or that he put his hand on the Qur’an to be sworn in as president. An even more apocalyptic subset believes Obama to be nothing short of the anti-Christ.

By and large, however, this cult doesn’t attract mainstream support from the larger church of Obama haters. Indeed, these more orthodox faithful have carefully shifted the debate from Obama being Muslim to Obama actingMuslim. Evangelical pundits, presidential candidates, and the right-wing media have all ramped up their attacks on the president for, as Baptist preacher Franklin Graham put it recently on MSNBC, “giving Islam a pass.”

The conservative mainstream still calls the president’s religious beliefs into question, but they stop just short of accusing him of apostasy and concealment. What they consider safe is the assertion that Obama is acting as if he were Muslim. In this way, Republican mandarins are cleverly channeling a conspiracy theory into a policy position.

There is a whiff of desperation in all this.  After all, it’s not an easy time for the GOP. The economy shows modest signs of improvement. The Republican presidential candidates are still engaged in a fratricidal primary. By expanding counterterrorism operations and killing Osama bin Laden, the president has effectively removed national security from the list of Republican talking points.

One story, however, still ties together so many narrative threads for conservatives. Charges that the president is a socialist or a Nazi or an elitist supporter of college education certainly push some buttons. But the single surefire way of grabbing the attention of the media and the public — as well as appealing to the instincts of the Republican base — is to assert, however indirectly, that Barack Obama is a Manchurian candidate sent from the Islamic world.

Obama and the Muslim World

A succession of Republican candidates have attempted to run to the right of party favorite Mitt Romney by asserting that only a true conservative can defeat Obama in November. Most of them boasted of the same powerful backer. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum all declared that God asked them to run for higher office. Together with Newt Gingrich, they have deployed various methods of appealing to their constituencies, but none is more potent than religion.

Rick Santorum, a Catholic and the favorite of the evangelical community, has been particularly adept at using his soapbox as a pulpit. The president subscribes to a “phony theology,” Santorum has claimed, “not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology.” Although he occasionally asserts that “Obama’s personal faith is none of my concern,” he nonetheless speaks of the president’s attempt to “impose values on people of faith”– implying that the president is certainly no member of that community.

In his attacks on the president’s spirituality, Santorum is cleverly attacking Mitt Romney’s Mormonism as well (a theology also based on text other than the Bible). At the same time, the suggestion that Obama is somehow “other” operates as a code word for “Black” in a race in which race goes largely unmentioned.

It’s an odd set of charges. Obama, after all, did everything possible during his first presidential campaign to foreground his Christianity. He was repeatedly seen praying in churches and assiduously avoided mosques. He never made a campaign appearance with a prominent Muslim. He talked about his “personal relationship” with Jesus Christ.

The day after he clinched the Democratic Party nomination in 2008, he gave a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in which he reaffirmed that he was “a true friend of Israel.” Although he would occasionally mention his Muslim relatives and the time he spent in Indonesia as a child, he generally did whatever he could to emphasize only two out of the three major monotheisms.

As president, Obama has certainly “reached out” to the Muslim world. In Cairo, in June 2009, he spoke of seeking “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.”

That new beginning, however, has yet to come. At home, for example, the Obama administration provided federal funds that the New York City Police Department then used to expand its surveillance of Muslim American neighborhoods. (Even the CIA was involved in this “human mapping” project.) The FBI has spent the Obama years rounding up suspected Muslim terrorists in operations that flirt dangerously with entrapment. The administration has expanded the no-fly list, though because the list is secret it’s difficult to know whether Muslim-Americans are specifically profiled. Anecdotal evidence, however, suggests that they are.

The administration’s record internationally is even more disappointing. The conduct of U.S. troops in Afghanistan — the night raids, massacres (including the recent murders of 16 Afghan villagers), and the Qur’an burnings — have enraged local Muslims. Obama has expanded the CIA’s drone air campaign by a considerable margin in the Pakistani borderlands. Civilian casualties, overwhelmingly Muslim, continue to occur there and in other “overseas contingency operations” as U.S. Special Operations Forces have dramatically expanded their activities in the Muslim world.

Despite right-wing charges, Obama has maintained a tight relationship with Israel and the Israeli leadership. As former New Republiceditor Peter Beinart concludes, “The story of Obama’s relationship to [Prime Minister] Netanyahu and his American Jewish allies is, fundamentally, a story of acquiescence.”

It’s no surprise, then, that surveys in six Middle East countries taken just before and two months after the Cairo speech in 2009, the Brookings Institution and Zogby International discoveredthat the number of respondents optimistic about the president’s approach to the region had suffered a dramatic drop: from 51% to 16%. A 2011 Pew poll found that U.S. favorability ratings had continued their slide in Jordan (to 13%), Pakistan (12%), and Turkey (10%).

continue reading…

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Yossi Gurvitz: IDF Colonel-Rabbi Implies Rape is Permitted in War

Posted on 29 March 2012 by Emperor

Rabbi_Colonel_Eyal_Karim

Rabbi Colonel Eyal Karim

Israeli journalist Yossi Gurvitz describes himself as a former Orthodox Jew who claims to have seen the “light” and turned atheist at the age of 17. We are unfamiliar with his work but received this tip from a reader regarding one of his recent articles.

It is titled, IDF Colonel-rabbi implies: Rape is permitted in war. Colonel Eyal Qarim was questioned, (seemingly while not in uniform) about whether rape is permitted in war, and his answer implied that it was allowed.

Now I am unfamiliar with halacha or Jewish law, but my guess is it is a system as varied and expansive as Sharia’. Most likely you can find any opinion under the sun within halacha and so I am sure many will insist that the opinion proffered by the IDF Rabbi is not the only one, and is not the position of the IDF.

However, looking at the question and answer it exposes a troubling indication that an IDF Colonel Rabbi who was once being considered for the position of Chief Rabbi held the view that “rape is permitted in war.” More over it is not the first time that extremely problematic views have been expressed by influential IDF Rabbis.

It also brings us back to the question, “what if they were Muslim?”  If a prominent Muslim scholar had offered such an opinion one can be assured that it would be all over MEMRI.

Gurvitz omitted the whole question from the reader to the Rabbi, but we provide an approximate translation via. Google for context:

There have been various wars between nations, such as the First World War, for example, different nations fought each other, and no one was particularly good for the Jews or bad for the Jews…

But if they had captured a village and there were Jews and Jewish girls were raped, it is considered, rightly, a disaster and tragedy to the girl and family.

If yes, rape in war is considered a shocker. How, then was I told that a long, beautiful woman is allowed, according to some authorities, even before the process described in the Torah, I mean, surrender and lay with it created, and only then take her home, etc.?

This seems contradictory. After all, if rape is considered a civil war and not something shocking, why, apparently, Jews allowed?

Is it allowed in our days [sic] for an IDF soldier, for example, to rape girls during a fight, or is such a thing forbidden?

Now it’s very clear that the questioner is asking whether or not rape is allowed in war time. This is the answer that Rabbi Qarim gave (translation via. Gorvitz):

“The wars of Israel […] are mitzvah wars, in which they differ from the rest of the wars the nations wage among themselves. Since, essentially, a war is not an individual matter, but rather nations wage war as a whole, there are cases in which the personality of the individual is “erased” for the benefit of the whole. And vice versa: sometimes you risk a large unit for the saving of an individual, when it is essential for purposes of morale. One of the important and critical values during war is maintaining the army’s fighting ability […]

As in war the prohibition against risking your life is broken for the benefit of others, so are the prohibitions against immorality and of kashrut. Wine touched by gentiles, consumption of which is prohibited in peacetime, is allowed at war, to maintain the good spirit of the warriors. Consumption of prohibited foods is permitted at war (and some say, even when kosher food is available), to maintain the fitness of the warriors, even though they are prohibited during peacetime. Just so, war removes some of the prohibitions on sexual relations (gilui arayot in the original – YZG), and even though fraternizing with a gentile woman is a very serious matter, it was permitted during wartime (under the specific terms) out of understanding for the hardship endured by the warriors. And since the success of the whole at war is our goal, the Torah permitted the individual to satisfy the evil urge (yetzer ha’ra in the original  -YZG), under the conditions mentioned, for the purpose of the success of the whole.”

Gorvitz comments on this:

Wow. Herein lies a hornet’s nest. The first is that according to Qarim, the rape of female prisoners is not just permitted, it is also essential to war; the success of the whole at war relies on it.

….

Another problem is that Qarim invokes here the usual apologetics of those who speak of “Jewish morality”: he claims war is a conflict between nations, not individuals, and that the individual has no importance at war. The raped woman is not a woman, is not a person, has no feelings and if she feels pain it is unimportant: she is not a woman or a person, just an individual of an enemy tribe whose misfortune was to be captured. Furthermore, Qarim says that rape during wartime is immoral if carried out by a rival tribe – but all Jewish wars are, by definition, mitzvah wars. If the rape of the defenseless is part and parcel of “Jewish morality,” it’s not hard to reach the conclusion it is inferior to all modern morality systems. It is also worth noting (Hebrew) that “Jewish morality” is a by-product of German blood and iron romanticism.

Yet a third problem is that, essentially, Qarim says there is nothing which may be prohibited in war, if it is done “for the success of the whole.” We know that the killing of armed combatants is permitted (this is, after all, the essence of war), and we now learn that, for His Blessed Name, the rape of women is also permitted. Then we must ask ourselves whether it is also permitted, for the sake of victory, to also kill unarmed people. Children, for instance, who we have good reason to think may seek one day vengeance for the death of their fathers and brothers and the torturing of their mothers and sisters. The notorious book “Torat Ha’Melekh” answered in the affirmative; it would be interesting to know what Qarim thinks, and whether there is anything he thinks a Jewish soldier ought not to do for victory.

But the real problem here is that Eyal Qarim is an IDF colonel (Aluf Mishneh), and is a senior officer in the Military Rabbinate, i.e. is in a senior position in the IDF religious edicts apparatus. I’ve sent the following questions to the IDF Spokesman:

  1. Is the rape of women during wartime agreeable to the IDF Ethics Code?
  2. If not, why does a prominent military rabbi promote it?
  3. If not, does the IDF intend to end the service of Col. Qarim, or bring charges against him?
  4. How does the IDF Spokesman intend to deal with the anticipated damage to its image in the international arena, resulting from Col. Qarim’s ruling?

Frankly, I did not expect an answer, but surprisingly enough an enraged officer from IDF Spokesman New Media Unit called me. His official response was that Qarim was not an officer in active service when he wrote that ruling, and furthermore that my question “disrespects the IDF, the State of Israel and the Jewish religion,” and hence his unit will no longer answer my questions.

I told him that, as an Israeli citizen, I considered Col. Qarim to be a ticking time bomb, which will blow up in the IDF’s face should a soldier rape an enemy woman: it would automatically be seen as official policy. I told him this happened in the past. He vehemently denied it, and wouldn’t listen.

I think that the fact that Qarim was on hiatus at the time – earlier he was the religious officer of a crack unit, Sayeret Matkal (commando unit) – is unimportant. What is important is that the Military Rabbinate chose to re-call an officer who wrote such a ruling to active service. Qarim was briefly considered a candidate for the position of the Chief Military Rabbi. This is the face of the IDF in 2012, and this is the face of the rabbis it chooses to employ. There are certainly more humane rabbis than Qarim; yet somehow these are not the rabbis who are promoted.

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The neo-Nazi group, which has been dubbed the Zwickau cell, operated for more than 10 years

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Germany’s new breed of neo-Nazis pose a threat

Posted on 29 March 2012 by Amago

The neo-Nazi group, which has been dubbed the Zwickau cell, operated for more than 10 years

The neo-Nazi group, which has been dubbed the Zwickau cell, operated for more than 10 years

Neo-Nazism in Germany is on the rise. Interestingly, the Islamophobes ignore the terror threat from such groups:

Germany’s new breed of neo-Nazis pose a threat

By Katya Adler, BBC Newsnight, Germany

The security services in Germany are scrambling to track down and arrest far-right fugitives and Germany’s federal and state interior ministers have announced they are taking concrete steps towards banning the country’s far right National Democratic Party, the NPD.

This comes after a public outcry following revelations in November that a neo-Nazi cell had apparently been able to go on a nationwide spree of racially motivated murders over several years, under the noses of the German intelligence services.

The group of three are being held responsible for the deaths of eight Turkish and one Greek immigrant between 2000 and 2006, as well as a German policewoman in 2007.

Yet the existence of the group, dubbed the Zwickau cell after the name of the town where they spent most of their time in hiding, only came to light in November when two of its members died in an apparent joint suicide or murder-suicide and the third handed herself in to the authorities.

The NPD has been linked to the group, though the allegations have yet to be accepted in a court of law.

The trio had made a DVD in which they boasted of the killings and said they had acted to serve the German nation and its people, describing themselves as the National Socialist Underground – echoing the national socialism (Nazism) of Hitler’s Germany.

The story of the killers has dominated headlines in Germany for months now and given rise to one of the biggest scandals in post-war Germany.

It turns out intelligence agencies had had the group under surveillance for years, and even found a bomb-making factory in their garage back in 1998.

So why were the trio not stopped earlier? Why were they allowed to disappear and then stay underground? And why was it that security services blamed the murders on the Turkish mafia at the time? A right-wing motive was never investigated.

The failures have prompted some to ask whether there is more than incompetence to blame, whether Germany’s police and security services contain elements sympathetic to the far right – an accusation the institutions vehemently deny.

A parliamentary inquiry is currently under way into their activities, and Newsnight has seen a secret internal report revealing serious blunders by law enforcement agencies.

Police limitationsWhen we spoke to Peter Altmaier, a senior official in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party, he admitted that mistakes had been made:

“You have to know Germany is a federal state, and competencies are shared and divided between federal and state levels… and because we have drawn the lessons from the Nazi dictatorship, we have very limited powers of police and security institutions.

“There have been hints and indications of right-wing extremism that were not taken seriously enough, and therefore we have put this very high on the political agenda.”

Another question that now worries many Germans is just how big a threat the far right poses.

Human rights groups say more than 180 people have been killed in right-wing attacks in Germany over the last 20 years.

Neo-Nazis have murdered more people in post-war Germany than any other single group, including Islamists and the far left. But this is not yet reflected in official data.

>> Continue reading: Germany’s new breed of neo-Nazis pose a threat

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Documents Reveal FBI Spied On Peaceful Muslims

Posted on 28 March 2012 by Amago

Documents Reveal FBI Spied On Peaceful Muslims

By Josh Israel Newly released FBI documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, suggest that the bureau illegally spied on the religious practices of Muslim Americans, under the guise of community outreach. An FBI spokesman defended the information gathering as “within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity, whether investigation or liaison, including activities designed to strengthen relationships in various communities.” The ACLU explains:

The FBI’s targeting of American Muslim religious organizations for secret intelligence gathering raises grave constitutional concerns because it is an affront to religious liberty and equal protection of the law. The bureau’s use of outreach meetings to gather intelligence also undermines the trust and mutual understanding necessary to effective law enforcement. Additionally, the FBI’s retention of information gathered through “mosque outreach” in its intelligence files violates federal Privacy Act prohibitions against the maintenance of records about individuals’ First Amendment-protected activity.

But this would hardly be the first time the FBI spied on peaceful Americans. Here are just a few recent examples:

  • Iraq War Opponents — A 2002 FBI memo showed the bureau investigated gatherings of the Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice, as the pacifist group leafleted against the Iraq War.
  • Environmentalists — The FBI improperly investigated two planned Greenpeace corporate protests, a three-year inquiry extending long after the protests were over.
  • Animal Rights Supporters — The bureau also improperly investigated People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.This intelligence, while not useful for public safety, was at least better than the virtual restaurant reviews gathered by the New York Police Department’s spying operation.A 2010 Inspector General’s report lambasted the FBI for equating nonviolent protests with terrorism and for “false and misleading statements to the public and to Congress.”Of course, these groups are in good company. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself was spied on regularly by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. The COINTELPRO investigations into whether the civil rights leader might be a Communist including tapped phone conversations, bugs at his house, and even a 1964 infamous poison-pen letter warning him he would be exposed as a fraud. But nearly 50 years later, it seems perhaps the FBI should have learned from its mistakes.

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Why you shouldn’t tell American border guards you’re in Islamic Studies

Posted on 28 March 2012 by Amago

Why you shouldn’t tell American border guards you’re in Islamic Studies

by ANDREANNE STEWART

On May 1, 2010, Pascal Abidor was riding an Amtrak train from Montreal to New York. His parents live in Brooklyn, and he was on his way to visit them. The school year at McGill had just ended, and he felt relieved and calm as the train rolled south towards America.

At about 11 a.m., the train arrived at the U.S. border and made a routine stop. A team of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers boarded the train and advanced through each car, questioning passengers. Pascal had made this trip countless times before, so when a customs officer approached him, he didn’t give it a second thought.

But Pascal had never met Officer Tulip.

After looking over Pascal’s U.S. passport and customs declaration, Officer Tulip asked two simple questions: Where do you live, and why?

Pascal answered that he lived in Canada. He lived in Canada because that’s where he was pursuing a PhD in Islamic Studies.

Next, she asked him where he had traveled in the previous year, and he answered Jordan and Lebanon. He showed her his French passport (he’s a dual citizen) with the “Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” stamp, and the Lebanese stamp with the little cedar tree on top.

That didn’t help. Officer Tulip immediately told him to grab his things and follow her to the train’s cafe car. Pascal gathered his luggage, but Officer Tulip carried the bag containing his laptop. At the time, he thought she was just being helpful.

In the cafe car, they were joined by five or six more CBP officers. Pascal sat across from Officer Tulip as she took out his laptop, turned it on, and asked him to enter his password, which he did.

As she scrolled through the contents of his computer, Pascal could only see her reaction. Officer Tulip signaled to her colleagues and pointed at something on the screen. She then turned to Pascal and demanded an explanation.

Pascal was now surrounded by half a dozen suspicious American border police, staring at photos – on his laptop – of Hamas and Hezbollah rallies.

Where had he gotten “this stuff,” Officer Tulip asked. Pascal explained that his PhD research is on the Shiites of modern Lebanon. This was not, in her books, a good answer. Finally, the officers told Pascal that he would have to leave the train with them.

“Take me off the train, I’ll walk back to Montreal,” Pascal offered. Given what he would go through in the next few hours, Pascal might well have preferred the walk.

Instead, he was frisked, with particular vigor around his genitals. Then he was handcuffed. Pascal winced.

As they led him off the train, the officers draped a coat over his bound wrists. They claimed it was to spare him the embarrassment of a perp walk. But as Pascal walked past the train’s windows, he tried to show the passengers that he was cuffed. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and he wanted witnesses.

Pascal was then loaded into the back of a van. Oddly, as one of the officers tried to close the van’s side door, it fell clean off. It could have been a moment of levity in a grim situation. But Pascal didn’t dare laugh.

The Detention Cell

When they arrived at the Champlain Port of Entry, Pascal was put in a five-by-ten foot cell with cinder block walls and a steel-reinforced door. He was told to wait. He stayed in the cell for about an hour. Officers came in at random intervals to ask him questions.

“I thought I was going to throw up,” he said. “I thought I was going to be sent to Guantanamo Bay.”

Pascal was then removed from the cell and brought to an interrogation room, complete with florescent lighting and a two-way mirror. He sat across from two CBP officers – Officer Tulip and a man named Officer Sweet – while another officer sat at the end of the table, seemingly in case Pascal got violent.

“They thought I was straight-up dangerous,” Pascal said.

Then the real interrogation began, an hour and a half of intensive questioning. Where was he born? Where were his parents born? What religion was he raised with? Had he ever been to a rally in the Middle East? Had he heard any anti-American statements in the Middle East? Had he ever seen an American flag burned? Had he ever been to a mosque? But the questions always came back to the same point – why Islamic Studies?

“I want to be an academic – this is just what I happen to be an academic in,” Pascal told them.

His answers seemed to fall on deaf ears. The interrogation continued. It was the same questions, over and over. They were looking for him to make a mistake.

They soon fell into a good-cop, bad-cop routine.

“He thought I was cool,” Pascal said of Officer Sweet. Officer Tulip, on the other hand, “thought I was the most evil person. She thought I was a movie villain or something.”

They claimed Pascal’s dual citizenship made him untraceable. They suggested he was attractive “to both sides.” Pascal was baffled. Both sides of what?

Finally, after about three hours in detention, he was released. But there was a catch – the CBP was keeping his laptop and hard drive.

Pascal was enraged. While he had been waiting in the cell, Pascal had given some thought to what he would say to the officers once he was free. Now, with his anger compounded by the loss of his computer, Pascal delivered a blistering speech, directed at his arch-nemesis, Officer Tulip.

“I ripped into her,” he said. “She just stood there, [then] walked away.”

When an FBI agent came up to him and attempted to apologize, Pascal stopped him mid-sentence. “I don’t want to hear your apology,” he told the agent.

Before he left, he was given his camera and his two cell phones. There was a scratch on the back of one of the phones, as if someone had tried to open it.

Taking Legal Action

After being released from detention, Pascal hitched a ride on the next bus with an open seat that came through the checkpoint. He arrived in New York at midnight. That night, he had trouble sleeping, as he would have for the next week or so.

The next morning, he sat down and wrote eleven single-spaced pages detailing exactly what had happened to him. The day after that, he began making phone calls to state senators and advocacy organizations in the hope of finding someone who would help him. Lots of them were interested in his case, including Anthony Weiner, the former New York Congressman.

Finally, Pascal settled on the ACLU. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is the oldest and largest civil liberties organization in the United States. Free speech cases are its bread and butter. And they told Pascal that his right to free speech, protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution, had been violated.

Two days after his first phone call with the ACLU, Pascal was in downtown Manhattan, sitting in a meeting with a team of lawyers. The first thing they did was to write a letter to the CBP demanding that they return Pascal’s laptop. The day after the letter was sent, Pascal got a call from the CBP asking him where they should overnight his belongings.

But at this point, the damage was done. When the laptop arrived in the mail, the seam between the keyboard and the outer case that led to the internal hard drive appeared to have widened. The warranty seal on his external hard drive had been broken open, too. The government had already searched, and, they later conceded, made copies of Pascal’s electronic life.

Pascal and the ACLU were incensed. His laptop contained intimate personal information: chat logs with his girlfriend, university transcripts, his tax returns.

The problem was, everything Homeland Security had done was completely by the book.

 

The Policy

In August 2009, the Department of Homeland Security enacted a policy that allows for the search and seizure of electronic devices at the border without reasonable suspicion. Under the policy, the DHS can detain any electronic device indefinitely, and copy and share the information it contains. Between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010, more than 6,500 people had their electronic devices searched at U.S. border stops.

It was under this policy that Pascal’s laptop and hard drive were searched and detained.

Upon the enactment of the policy, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano stated that, “keeping Americans safe in an increasingly digital world depends on our ability to lawfully screen materials entering the United States. The new directives announced today strike the balance between respecting the civil liberties and privacy of all travelers, while ensuring DHS can take the lawful actions necessary to secure our borders.”

The policy makes a point of specifying that, “at no point during a border search of electronic devices is it necessary to ask the traveler for consent to search.”

This struck the ACLU as deeply unconstitutional. So they and Pascal decided to sue Janet Napolitano, Director of Homeland Security, to challenge the constitutionality of the policy.

In September 2010, they filed their “complaint” against Napolitano, the legal document that kicks off a lawsuit. The ACLU argued that the DHS policy violates the First and Fourth Amendments, which guarantee free speech and protection against unreasonable search and seizure respectively.

The U.S. government tried to get the case thrown out, arguing that while Pascal’s story was true, the government’s actions had not broken any laws.

On the question of the Fourth Amendment, the government effectively said that just about any kind of search is legal at the border, in the name of national sovereignty.

“Searches made at the border, pursuant to the long standing right of the sovereign to protect itself by stopping and examining persons and property crossing into this country, are reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border,” the government wrote in its Motion to Dismiss, the legal maneuver for getting a case thrown out.

With regard to the First Amendment, the Motion to Dismiss stated that, “an otherwise valid search under the Fourth Amendment, does not violate the First Amendment rights of an individual – even a completely innocent individual – simply because the search uncovers expressive material.”

In other words, a border search is a border search is a border search.

And it’s true that all travelers are subject to a routine search at the border, whether or not there’s suspicion of wrongdoing.

But while the U.S. government argues that the search of laptops should be considered a part of these routine searches, the ACLU says these searches are more invasive and therefore must be held to a higher standard.

“It is different to go through someone’s shoes and contact solution, than to go through all the documents on their computer,” said Catherine Crump, one of Pascal’s ACLU lawyers.

Last July, Pascal and his ACLU lawyers went to a courtroom in Brooklyn to argue against throwing out their case. The judge has still not come to a decision.

Meanwhile, the DHS policy remains on the books. Laptops and cell phones continue to be detained and searched without reasonable suspicion at the U.S. border.

Pascal, for his part, hasn’t had a normal border-crossing since that May 1 morning. “Now, every time I cross the border, I get harassed,” he said.

In December 2010, he was crossing the border with his father. The border guards began interrogating him in unusual ways. “They refused to believe my dad was my dad,” he said. “If you saw my dad, you could not believe we were not related.”

The guards then searched the car top to bottom, and made the Abidors wait at the checkpoint for two hours.

“This is about lowering the threshold of what is acceptable to us,” Pascal said of his treatment at the hands of the CBP. “You can’t have rights and then selectively apply them.”

 

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Barth’s Notes: More Endorsements for “Islamic Antichrist” Theory

Posted on 27 March 2012 by Emperor

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Joel Richardson trying to make $$$ off of Islam and Muslims

Last time we checked in on the nutty Joel Richardson he was fear-mongering about the Muslamic “anti-Christ” alongside Zuhdi Jasser on Glenn Beck’s old TV show, looks like he is continuing such efforts:

More Endorsements for “Islamic Antichrist” Theory

(Barth’s Notes)

Joel Richardson (widely known as “Glenn Beck’s End-Times Prophet“) has a new book coming out in the autumn: Mideast Beast: The Scriptural Case For an Islamic Antichrist. One might have thought that the well would be dry by now, but the author of The Islamic Antichrist: The Shocking Truth about the Real Nature of the Beast (previously published in 2006 as Antichrist: Islam’s Awaited Messiah) has apparently managed to milk the subject further.

As before, the prophetic tome will be published by Joseph Farah’s WND Books, and Richardson’s website lists a number of endorsements: Chuck Missler of Koinonia House, who praises Richardson’s “sharp sword of diligent scholarship”; Walter C. Kaiser of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, who tells us there is “much to commend this argument for a final Islamic Empire”; Daniel Juster, Founding President of Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations and Director of Tikkun International, who advises that “prophecy teachers would do well to ask if he his not giving us a new way to look at the prophecies of the last days”; Joshua Lingel, adjunct professor of Christian apologetics to Islam at  Biola University, who judges that “Joel Richardson’s thesis cuts to the core of the issues at stake”; and, among others, Billy Humphrey, of the House of Prayer Atlanta Missions Base, who sees “a compelling argument for the Islamic Antichrist position”.

Missler is a veteran in the Bible “prophecy teacher” circuit, and he regularly takes partin events with WND‘s Jospeh Farah; Kaiser, by contrast, is an evangelical with a more scholarly reputation, and he has published in mainstream academic journals. Juster is a significant figure within Messianic Judaism; Lingel was featured on this blog recently when I discussed evangelical worries about “Chrislam”. The “House of Prayer Atlanta Missions Base” has a website here.

Richardson’s previous “Muslim Antichrist” books also come with blurbs; these are mostly by pastors and the owners of apocalyptic websites, along Phil Roberts, the then-president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (“this volume will immerse you in end times, Islamic style”). Both previous books were also graced with cover quotes from Robert Spencer. A number of endorsements are also listed on Richardson’s website, and include Walid Shoebat (blogged here) and Ergun Caner (blogged here).

However, Richardson is generous enough not to want the whole field to himself; he in turn recently endorsed a book by a certain Mark Davidson, entitled Hidden in Plain Sight: The Signposts of the Coming of the Antichrist Revealed.Davidson’s specialty appears to be the splicing together of Biblical symbolism with events of the past few years. Here’s a taste:

The First Signpost would certainly include the ending of the career of the rider on the white horse. That happened early on in America’s occupation of Iraq. Entering Iraq in March 2003 and toppling Saddam in April 2003, American forces finally captured him in December 2003.

Any end of the First Signpost would also include a withdrawal of the force used in Daniel 7 that made the lion stand on its hind legs and replaced its heart. Iraq, the former lion with wings, is now standing erect somewhat like a man, and indeed has a heart of a man, rather than that of a beast. That unnamed source of the force in Daniel 7 was the United States and its international coalition.

It should be noted, though, that not all Christian Right prophecy pundits are enthusiasts of the “Islamic Antichrist” theory – Hal Lindsey, who made his name by offering up a European Anti-Christ for 1970s evangelicals, reportedly complains that Richardson’s position is a “lie”. I suspect that 20 years from now Richardson will be pronouncing similar anathemas against prophecy books proving the existence of a Chinese Anti-Christ.

2006

1991

1988

1974

etc, etc…

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NYTimes: Killing of Iraqi Woman Leaves Immigrant Community Shaken

Posted on 27 March 2012 by Emperor

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Alawadi's daughter

Background on El Cajon, CA in light of the tragic murder and possible hate crime against Shaima AlAwadi:

Killing of Iraqi Woman Leaves Immigrant Community Shaken

By IAN LOVETT and WILL CARLESS (NYTimes)
Published: March 27, 2012

EL CAJON, Calif. — Shaima Alawadi’s family says they found the first note taped to the front door of their house on a quiet suburban street here. It said: “This is my country. Go back to yours, terrorist,” according to her 15-year-old son Mohammed.

Like many others in the neighborhood, Ms. Alawadi and her husband, Kassim Alhimidi, are immigrants from Iraq. Mr. Alhimidi says he wanted to call the police. But his wife said no, insisting the note was only a child’s prank. In 17 years in the United States, they had been called terrorists before, he said.

But last Wednesday, her 17-year-old daughter found Ms. Alawadi in their dining room, lying unconscious in a puddle of blood with a severe head wound. Nearby lay another threatening note, similar to the one the family found a week earlier.

Ms. Alawadi, 32, died three days later, and the police say they are still trying to determine whether she was, indeed, targeted because of her religion or ethnicity, calling that just one possibility.

“At this point, we are not calling it a hate crime,” said Lt. Mark Coit of the El Cajon police department. “We haven’t made that determination. We are calling it an isolated incident, because we don’t have any evidence of anything similar going on at this point.”

Isolated or not, the crime has shattered the sense of security for Iraqi immigrants in El Cajon, exposing cultural tensions and distrust that have often simmered just below the surface since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Hanif Mohebi, director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that many Muslim women in the area were worried that Ms. Alawadi had been targeted because she wore a headscarf in public, as many observant Muslim women do.

“The majority of the community that wears scarves are concerned,” Mr. Mohebi said. He cautioned against a rush to judgment before the police had finished investigating. Still, he added, “the community has gone through some hate crimes before, and the assumption the people have is that they’re going through one now.”

Just two decades ago, El Cajon, just northeast of San Diego, was largely white and English-speaking. But as wars in their homelands pushed more and more Iraqis and other people to emigrate, the Middle Eastern population here has exploded. El Cajon now houses one of the largest Iraqi communities in the country. Middle Eastern groceries and restaurants dot both sides of Main Street, while on the sidewalks, many families stroll by speaking only in Arabic.

Ms. Alawadi and her family moved to the United States from Saudi Arabia in 1995, after fleeing Iraq during the first Gulf War. They have five children, and, for the most part, Mr. Alhimidi said, the neighbors made them feel welcome.

Still, even before this month, he was already familiar with the kind of language he says was on the notes left at his house.

“Some neighbors, I say ‘hi’ to them, and they just turn away,” Mr. Alhimidi said in Arabic, with his son Mohammed translating. “More than 95 percent of the time, I feel welcome. But once in a while, people shout at you. They shout ‘terrorist,’ or ‘go back to your country.’ ”

Most people in town lamented Ms. Alawadi’s killing as a tragedy. Janet Ilko, a middle school teacher, said the news had come as a shock to students.

“It was upsetting to everyone,” Ms. Ilko, 47, said. “Our community is very close-knit. Our students get along very well. People have been here a long time.”

But tension between the newcomers from the Middle East and some of the town’s other residents was also readily apparent on Main Street, even this week. One woman, 30, who was at a park with her children and refused to give her name, called the city’s Iraqi residents “territorial,” adding, “maybe because we are at war with them.” She said her own background was Mexican, though she had grown up in Southern California.

That tension extends to non-Muslims as well.

“I’ve lived here for 32 years, and I’ve been told many times to go back to my country,” said Sascha Atta, an immigrant from Afghanistan. “Here in El Cajon, most of the Iraqis are not even Muslim, they are Christian, but people don’t know the difference.”

One of those Iraqi Christians is Lara Yalda, 18, who fled the country with her family in 2004, living in Syria for six years before coming to El Cajon, where she is now in high school. She said that last year one teacher told all of the Iraqi students to go back to their country, complaining that they took welfare and other money from the United States. That teacher does not teach Iraqi students any more but still works at the school, she said.

Ms. Yalda said Ms. Alawadi’s death frightened her.

“Yeah, I’m scared,” Ms. Yalda said. “I feel sad, because here it is a free country, and there is no reason to kill her. She has a family. So why they kill her? ”

The killing does not make sense to Ms. Alawadi’s son Mohammed either.

“There’s only three people that know what happened,” he said. “God, my mom and the guy who did it.”

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Juan Cole: Basic Facts on Clothing and Murder for American Bigots

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Juan Cole: Basic Facts on Clothing and Murder for American Bigots

Posted on 27 March 2012 by Emperor

Hard hitting piece from Juan Cole, addressed to the bigots (h/t:BA):

Basic Facts on Clothing and Murder for American Bigots

(Informed Comment)

Dear American bigots:

Basic Fact: Wearing a veil, as Iraqi-American Shaima al-Awady did before she was brutally murdered in her home as part of a hate crime, does not make a person a terrorist. You don’t mind it when pious Roman Catholic women wear a nun’s habit, and you recognize that dress as a sign of dedication to God. You don’t blame all the violence ever committed by Roman Catholics, or events like the Inquisition, on a nun in your neighborhood. Be as tolerant to pious Muslim women.

Basic Fact: Wearing a hoodie is not an invitation to murder, as Geraldo Rivera suggested it was in the case of Trayvon Martin. In fact, if you think about it, St. Francis of Assisi wore a hood, as did many other saints and monks. In the United States, we don’t kill people for how they dress, but how dressing like St. Francis is a crime is a special mystery.

Basic Fact: And, by the way, there is nothing worse than being both a bigot and a f*ck-up. So for God’s sake leave the poor Sikhs alone. Few Muslim men wear turbans, so if you see someone with a turban and a beard, he is likely from Indian Punjab and not a Muslim. I mean, you shouldn’t be bothering Muslims either, but your sad ass is definitely going to clown hell if you shoot down a Sikh because you mistook him for a Muslim.

Basic Fact: And by the way, all this emphasis on clothing as a motive for murder is just a smokescreen for sidestepping the real issue, which is that bigots shouldn’t be allowed to have hand guns. In fact, since you can’t hunt deer with a hand gun and most owners of a hand gun are not reservists in the National Guard of their state, it is unclear why the US tolerates so many hand guns. In countries like Britain, which do not, the murder rate by gun is vanishingly small compared to the annual carnage in the US.

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Man Pleads Guilty to Hanging Camel with Noose on Muslim’s Apartment Door in Cleveland

Posted on 26 March 2012 by Mooneye

Hmmm, wonder if this young man was motivated by ISLAMOPHOBIA? Oh, but it doesn’t exist, right?

Man pleads guilty to hanging camel with noose on Muslim’s apartment door in Cleveland

CLEVELAND – A Middleburg Heights man pleaded guilty to putting a plastic camel with a noose around its neck on the apartment door of a Muslim person.

Christopher M. Sanford, 25, entered a guilty plea to interfering with housing rights of another based on the victim’s race, religion or national origin.

The U.S. Department of Justice said that on the morning of Dec. 1, 2009, Sanford took a plastic camel and a noose, and hung them on the door of the victim, identified only as A.F.A. The victim is a native of Jordan, who is Arab and Muslim, and lived in the Stonebridge Apartments in downtown Cleveland.

“The freedom of all Americans to live where they wish, without fear or threats based on their religion or race, is central to our way of life as Americans and Ohioans. This conduct violates those core values, values that we will continue to uphold through appropriate federal prosecutions,” said. U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach.

Sanford said he used the plastic camel because of the victim’s race and religion, Dettelbach said.

Sanford will be sentenced on June 18. He faces up to one year in prison and a $25,000 fine.

Read more: http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/cleveland_metro/man-pleads-guilty-to-hanging-camel-with-noose-on-muslims-apartment-door-in-cleveland#ixzz1qH0nTgxF

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Fake Ex-Terrorist Fraudster Kamal Saleem: I Was a Terrorist…Seriously!

Posted on 26 March 2012 by Garibaldi

We’ve done several pieces on the fake ex-terrorist con that Kamal Saleem and his buddy Walid Shoebat have been pulling for years now. No matter how much evidence or facts are shown, gullible folks who so desperately want to believe Kamal’s story continue to fall for it and send him money:

I Was a Terrorist…Seriously!

by Tim Jones (MotherJones)

As Michigan state legislators considered a plan to curb illegal immigration last fall, they heard dramatic testimony from a man namedKamal Saleem. He warned the lawmakers that Islamic extremists were sneaking into the country with nefarious plans. “If we don’t pass this bill,” the fiftysomething Lebanese American told them, “we will be legalizing terrorism to be part of our culture.”

Saleem’s testimony was rooted in an extraordinary backstory: He purports to have spent half a decade recruiting Islamists in America—before finding Christ and laying down arms. “I came to the United States of America not to love you all,” he declared at a rally on the Capitol steps after the hearing. “I came to…destroy this country as a terrorist.”

Over the last five years, Saleem’s tale of terror and redemption has made him a minor celebrity among Christian conservatives. Part national-security wonk, part evangelist, he is one of a handful of self-described “ex-terrorists” who have emerged in the post-9/11 era to share their experiences. He has spoken in state capitols, at the Air Force Academy, and at colleges and churches around the country. He has been a guest on Pat Robertson’s 700 Cluband started his own nonprofit, Koome Ministries, of which he was the only full-time employee in 2009. Tax records show Saleem earned $48,000 from the ministry that year—and had a $39,000 expense account—while Koome took in nearly $100,000 in donations and grants.

According to his memoir, The Blood of Lambs, Saleem, who grew up in Lebanon, broke into the terror biz at the age of seven by running weapons—strapped onto sheep—for Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat (who kissed his forehead at a public ceremony, “his breath bearing tales of garlic and onion”). As a teenager, he helped run a terrorist camp in the Libyan desert at the behest of Moammar Qaddafi. He visited Iraq, where he rubbed shoulders with Saddam Hussein. In the late 1970s, he traveled to Afghanistan, working alongside the mujahideen and CIA spooks to beat back the Soviets. A Kansas City Star columnist skeptically dubbed him the “Forrest Gump of the Middle East.

Saleem claims that the Muslim Brotherhood has put a $25 million bounty on his head, and that there have been attempts to earn it: After a 2007 event in Chino Hills, California, he writes in his book, he returned to his Holiday Inn to find his room ransacked and a band of dangerous Middle Easterners on his trail. Saleem describes calling the police to alert them to an assassination attempt. Local law enforcement, however, has no record of any such incident.

That’s just one of many of Saleem’s tales that don’t stand up to scrutiny. (Through a spokeswoman, Saleem refused to comment for this story.) Doug Howard, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Michigan’s Calvin College, first encountered Saleem in 2007, when he was invited to speak at the school. Howard quickly became suspicious: For starters, Saleem claimed to be a descendant of the “Grand Wazir of Islam,” a position that doesn’t exist. Howard dug deeper and discovered that Saleem’s original name was Khodor Shami—and that for more than a decade before outing himself as a former terrorist he had worked for Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. (CBN declined to comment. Focus on the Family confirmed Saleem was an employee but would not comment further.)

A former friend also sheds light on Saleem’s past. Wally Winter, a nurse in Albuquerque, New Mexico, first met him when they both worked at a hospital in Abu Dhabi in 1979. Two years later, he got a phone call from Saleem; he’d come to the United States and needed help. Winter says he welcomed Saleem into his spare bedroom, opened a bank account for him, taught him how to drive, and helped get him a job at the hospital where he worked near Oklahoma City. When Winter moved to the city, Saleem came along. “He had no money,” Winter says. “I had to drive him wherever he was going.” The two were close; Winter would bring Saleem to his parents’ home on holidays.

Winter recalls his former roommate as a devout Muslim whose yarns often lapsed into wild exaggeration. “He could sell swampland in Louisiana,” Winter says. “I really do not believe the story about the terrorism. I totally believe that he would make up something like that to either make money or become well known.”

A cloud of doubt also hangs over Saleem’s frequent speaking partner, Walid Shoebat, another converted ex-terrorist who runs a ministry and whose books include Why I Left Jihadand Why We Want to Kill You. Shoebat has offered contradicting statements on whether he uses an assumed name. An Israeli bank he claims to have bombed in the 1970s has said it has no record of the incident; a spokesman for Shoebat says that’s probably because the attack “caused no injury and minor damage.”

Wouldn’t authorities have some interest in someone who claims to have been involved in some of the biggest Middle Eastern militant movements of the 1970s and ’80s? Saleem claims that local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have “reached out” to him to learn about “the Islamist mindset and tactics.” But Kathleen Wright, an FBI spokeswoman, says she has “no information that Kamal Saleem has spoken at an FBI-sponsored event.” She could not say definitively whether the bureau had ever been in contact with him. Winter, for his part, says he has never been questioned by authorities about his former roommate.

Ironically, this apparent lack of official scrutiny may be the strongest evidence against Saleem’s credibility. As Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, puts it, “The FBI or the Department of Homeland Security don’t let people who are terrorists into the country and not detain them just because they claim they got the Holy Ghost.”

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Vandals Strike Sacramento Mosque Again

Posted on 26 March 2012 by Emperor

The second time that this mosque, Masjid Aisha has been targeted. Mosque vandalisms seem to be on the increase:

Sacramento: Mosque Attack

(Sacremento Bee)

SACRAMENTO, Calif., March 24, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – The Sacramento Valley office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SV) today called on the FBI and local law enforcement authorities to investigate a possible bias motive for vandalism targeting a West Sacramento mosque.

Vandals reportedly threw three rocks through a window of the almost-completed Masjid Aisha (formerly the West Sacramento Islamic Community Center) last night as two worshippers prayed inside.

“Whenever a house of worship is targeted in this manner, the possibility of a bias motive must be considered,” said CAIR-SV Executive Director Basim Elkarra.

In 2009, vandals broke into the back door of the previous mosque on the site and damaged religious wall hangings and a bookshelf that held Qurans. The vandals also stole items from the mosque.

CAIR: Sacramento Mosque Vandalized http://tinyurl.com/89mhcnf CAIR Video: Sacramento Mosque Vandalized http://tinyurl.com/7wn5hxm

Earlier this year, a man was sentenced in federal court for vandalizing a Madera, Calif., mosque in 2010. He placed a sign in front of the mosque that read “No temple for the god of terrorism at ground zero.” The man also threw a brick at the front of the mosque and damaged its facade.

 

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Forward.com: Christians Called to Serve Jewish Settlers

Posted on 26 March 2012 by Emperor

Christians helping Jewish settlers cultivate stolen land

Evangelical Christians are heeding the call to help Jewish settlers occupying Palestinian land harvest  crops. They are doing so because the “Bible” says so.

So the Bible legitimates the confiscation of other people’s land, driving them out and then aiding the occupiers and initiators of violence in reaping the harvest from land that they stole?:

Christians Called To Serve Jewish Settlers

(Forward.com)

PSAGOT, WEST BANK — It is a typical, even stereotypical, West Bank settlement scene: bearded young men pruning vines while enthusing about the Chosen People’s God-given right to this region. But in this case it is Jesus, and not Jewish identity, that animates these tillers.

For years, Westerners have flocked to the Israeli-occupied West Bank to help Palestinians with their olive harvest, as part of left-wing activist groups like the International Solidarity Movement. Among other things, the activists seek to resist efforts by settlers to disrupt the Palestinians’ reaping.

Now, the settlers have international harvest help of their own. The young Christians working in the Psagot Winery’s vineyards near Ramallah in mid-March were members of HaYovel. Last year, this Tennessee-based evangelical ministry started a large-scale operation to bring volunteers to tend and harvest settler grapes. They attach epic importance to their work.

God’s Work: Volunteers come to the West Bank to further a Biblical mission.

NATHAN JEFFAY
God’s Work: Volunteers come to the West Bank to further a Biblical mission.

“When you see prophecy taking place, you have the option to do nothing or become a vessel to it,” said volunteer pruner Blake Smith, a 20-year-old farmer from Virginia.

HaYovel preaches the old-school ideology of Religious Zionist settlers with one innovation: a sacred role for Christians.

The group’s members believe that the establishment of the State of Israel, its subsequent conquering of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and specifically the flourishing of agriculture in the occupied areas are fulfillments of biblical prophecies. Like many settlers, HaYovel cites a prophecy by Jeremiah that refers to the Samaria region of the West Bank: “Again you shall plant vines on the mountains of Samaria.” And like them, HaYovel believes that the settlement movement will help to bring the Messiah to Jerusalem — the only difference being that the volunteers anticipate a second coming.

But these Christians also focus on a prophecy rarely cited by settlers, who tend to place ideological value on using only avoda ivrit, or “Hebrew labor,” whenever possible. “And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and foreigners shall be your plowmen and your vine-dressers,” Isaiah prophesized to the Israelites.

Basing itself on this verse, HaYovel — which takes its name from the Bible’s twice-a-century agricultural jubilee — has made reverence of settlers into a central religious virtue.

“Being here, we just want to serve — and to bless the Jewish people in building up the land,” said Joshua Waller, a HaYovel ministry leader and one of the 11 children of Tommy Waller, the group’s founder and spiritual head. During a lunch break, a settler with yarmulke and sidelocks came to address volunteers. They keenly asked him to explain why the international community is wrong and the West Bank is not really occupied, and seemed prepared to accept what they were told. “We are not here to teach anything, just to learn,” Joshua Waller said shortly before the talk began.

To some of the volunteers, becoming settler laborers is a way of righting a historical Christian wrong. “This is a crazy time,” said Joe Trad Jr., a 23-year-old college dropout from Missouri. Over 2,000 years of contention, he said, “we saw Constantine and the Holocaust. Yet today, in this spot of the world, you have Christians and Jews for the first time with the same goal.”

The volunteers are a mix of people who, like Smith, had a mainstream Christian upbringing and were drawn to HaYovel out of curiosity; people from families that gave up the organized church to develop their own brand of religion, one they see as closer to Judaism, and some people who are emerging from personal crises.

Trad, a former alcoholic and cocaine addict, went through rehab and became a Christian two years ago. He described his volunteering as a way of giving thanks “for what the Lord has done for me in my life by freeing me from these addictions.”

Aaron Hood, a 21-year-old HaYovel staff employee, comes from a Tennessee family of 14 children that gave up on any organized church and started observing the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible according to its own understanding. The family observes Saturday, not Sunday, as a rest day.

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Muhammed Hussain

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UK: Racists Convicted of Attack on Muslim Taxi Driver

Posted on 25 March 2012 by Emperor

According to Islamophobes, this taxi driver probably deserved his beating:

Racists convicted of attack on Muslim taxi driver

A taxi driver today told how he feared for his life after a group of passengers launched a racist attack on him before threatening to “take him down a side street and kill him”.

During the terrifying incident, father-of-five Muhammed Hussain, from Holme Slack, Preston, was spat at, punched in the face, grabbed around the neck and called racist names. His attackers even threatened to cut off his beard.

The Millers taxi driver, who has been in the trade for 10 years, gave evidence in Urdu via an interpreter at the trial of his attackers, Shaun Burns, 19, of Mayfield Avenue, Ingol, and Callum Tennant, 20, who lives with his grandparents on Marshall Grove, Ingol.

Preston Magistrates Court found both men guilty of racially aggravated assault and criminal damage to the taxi, which was kicked and dented when Mr Hussain pulled over to let them out at Lane Ends pub in Ashton.

Burns’ girlfriend Bryanne-Serrita Langham, 22, of Sylvancroft, Ingol, pleaded guilty to criminal damage to a taxi and making off without paying the £4.50 fare.

Today Mr Hussain, 36, told the Evening Post: “I thought they were going to kill me. This is the first time someone has been so violent towards me. It is out of order particularly being spat on – that was an insult. I believe it was because I am a Muslim. I was scared for my life.”

Lancashire Evening Post, 23 March 2012

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Shaima Alawadi: Iraqi Muslim Woman Severely Beaten, Note Near Her Body Read, “Go back to your own country. You’re a terrorist.”

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Shaima Alawadi: Iraqi Muslim Woman Severely Beaten, Note Near Her Body Read, “Go back to your own country. You’re a terrorist.”

Posted on 24 March 2012 by Emperor

 

Shaima_AlAwadi

Shaima AlAwadi

A hijab wearing Iraqi woman has been severely beaten and is not expected to recover from a violent attack on her inside of her home near San Diego.

Apparently this was a premeditated attack. A similar note to the one found by Shaima Alawadi’s body was found by the Alawadi family earlier this month, but the family dismissed it as a “prank.”

USAToday reports:

A family friend, Sura Alzaidy, told the newspaper UT San Diego that the attack apparently occurred after the father took the younger children to school.

Was someone scoping the house out before the attack, waiting for an opportune moment to strike?

A woman’s life has most likely been taken as she is not expected to survive the gruesome attack. What motivated this individual to do something so grisly? If what Alzaidy told the newspaper is true, and we see no reason why it wouldn’t be, clearly we are witnessing an attack motivated by hatred and bigotry.

Islamophobes will try and claim another Muslim did this, but how then do they explain the note?

*I want to point out that we cannot conclude anything at this point, some facts have been presented, such as the note but we will have to wait for the police investigation to relay more information on this crime.

California: Muslim woman’s attacker left note reading ‘Go back to your own country. You’re a terrorist’

A 32-year-old woman was critically injured and not expected to survive after an assault in her El Cajon home on Wednesday, police said Friday, and a threatening note telling the mother of five to go back to her home country was found near her, a family friend said.

The woman’s 17-year-old daughter found her unconscious in the dining room of the house on Skyview Street off Lemon Avenue about 11:15 a.m. Wednesday, said El Cajon police Lt. Steve Shakowski. Police identified her as Shaima Alawadi.

“Based on the type of injuries Alawadi sustained, and other evidence retrieved at the scene, this case is being investigated as a homicide,” Shakowski said.

Police did not disclose the contents of the note. Sura Alzaidy, a family friend, said it told the family to “go back to your own country. You’re a terrorist.” The family is from Iraq, and Alawadi is a “respectful modest muhajiba,” meaning she wears the traditional hijab, a head scarf, Alzaidy said.

El Cajon police Lt. Mark Coit said the family stated they had found a similar note earlier this month, however did not report it to authorities.

The daughter who found her mother told KUSI Channel 9/51 on Friday night that her mother had been beaten on the head repeatedly with a tire iron. She said her mother had dismissed the previous note, found outside the house, thinking it was a child’s prank.

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Update I: Shaima Alawadi has succumbed to her injuries according to this youtube user who uploaded video of Alawadi’s daughter being interviewed:

Update II:  EL CAJON, Calif. (AP) — A 32-year-old woman from Iraq who was found severely beaten next to a threatening note saying “go back to your country” died on Saturday.

Hanif Mohebi, the director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he met with Shaima Alawadi’s family members in the morning and was told that she was taken off life support around 3 p.m.

“The family is in shock at the moment. They’re still trying to deal with what happened,” Mohebi said.

Alawadi, a mother of five, had been hospitalized since her 17-year-old daughter found her unconscious Wednesday in the family’s house in El Cajon, police Lt. Steve Shakowski said.

The daughter, Fatima Al Himidi, told KUSI-TV her mother had been beaten on the head repeatedly with a tire iron, and that the note said “go back to your country, you terrorist.”

Addressing the camera, the tearful daughter asked: “You took my mother away from me. You took my best friend away from me. Why? Why did you do it?”

Police said the family had found a similar note earlier this month but did not report it to authorities.

Al Himidi told KGTV-TV her mother dismissed the first note, found outside the home, as a child’s prank.

A family friend, Sura Alzaidy, told UT San Diego (http://bit.ly/GYbfB7) that the attack apparently occurred after the father took the younger children to school. Alzaidy told the newspaper the family is from Iraq, and that Alawadi is a “respectful modest muhajiba,” meaning she wears the traditional hijab, a head scarf.

Investigators said they believe the assault is an isolated incident.

“A hate crime is one of the possibilities, and we will be looking at that,” Lt. Mark Coit said. “We don’t want to focus on only one issue and miss something else.”

The family had lived in the house in San Diego County for only a few weeks, after moving from Michigan, Alzaidy said. Alzaidy told the newspaper her father and Alawadi’s husband had previously worked together in San Diego as private contractors for the U.S. Army, serving as cultural advisers to train soldiers who were going to be deployed to the Middle East.

Mohebi said the family had been in the United States since the mid-1990s.

He said it was unfortunate that the family didn’t report the initial threatening note.

“Our community does face a lot of discriminatory, hate incidents and don’t always report them,” Mohebi said. “They should take these threats seriously and definitely call local law enforcement.”

El Cajon, northeast of downtown San Diego, is home to some 40,000 Iraqi immigrants, the second largest such community in the U.S. after Detroit.

Update III:  Reporting from San Diego— El Cajon police are asking for the public’s help in its investigation into the fatal beating of an Iraqi immigrant and have not ruled out the possibility that Shaima Alawadi was the victim of a hate crime.

“We’re investigating all aspects of this crime,” Lt. Mark Coit said Sunday. “The minute you rule out a possible motive, you start to get tunnel vision. As of now, we have not ruled out any of the motives for why people kill people.”

Near the body of the 32-year-old Alawadi, police found what has been described as a threatening note. Police have declined to release the text, but relatives and friends say the handwritten note warned Alawadi to “go back to your own country” and labeled her a terrorist.

The family told police they had received a similarly threatening note several days earlier but considered it a prank by teenagers.

Alawadi was found unconscious Wednesday morning in the dining room of the family’s home by her 17-year-old daughter. She was taken to a hospital, where she was diagnosed as brain-dead. Her family decided on Saturday to discontinue life support.

Police said that whatever the motive, the attack appears to be “an isolated event,” not part of an overall pattern of violence toward immigrants.

Coit said police are unsure about the murder weapon but that Alawadi was beaten with a large object.

Alawadi’s husband had reportedly left earlier to take the couple’s younger children to school.

Alawadi and her husband had moved to El Cajon from a Detroit suburb several weeks ago. The two areas are considered the most popular destinations for Iraqi immigrants to the United States.

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Staff Sergeant Robert Bales and America’s “Abysmal” Record in Prosecuting War Crimes

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Staff Sergeant Robert Bales and America’s “Abysmal” Record in Prosecuting War Crimes

Posted on 24 March 2012 by Emperor

(H/T: JD) How should one even discuss the ethical implications of the “death penalty” when such a consideration is absurd in light of the USA’s abysmal record in prosecuting war crimes committed by its soldiers and leaders.

Usually those involved in massacres are treated with sympathy, given a slap on the wrist and or exonerated in one form or another:

Robert Bales, Afghanistan Shootings Suspect, Not Likely To Face Death Penalty

(HuffingtonPost)

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the death penalty is possible if a U.S. military court finds an Army staff sergeant guilty of gunning down Afghan children and family members. But it isn’t likely.

History shows that the U.S. military system is slow to convict Americans, particularly service members, of alleged war crimes. And when a punishment is imposed, it can range anywhere from life in prison all the way down to house arrest. Other factors can seem to play more of a role than the crime itself.

In the case of Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the suspect in the March 11 Kandahar shootings, legal experts say the 38-year-old married father of two young children could face a lengthy prison sentence if convicted of the crime, which has threatened U.S.-Afghan relations. But on his fourth combat tour and with a head injury on his record – the sergeant remembers little about that night, Bales’ lawyer says – he might well be shown some leniency by the military jury, even if convicted.

“Political pressure is going to drive the push for the death penalty. Doesn’t mean they’re going to get it,” said Charles Gittins, a Virginia-based defense attorney who represents service members and has handled capital cases.

Of the long list of alleged U.S. atrocities – from prison massacres in World War II to the slaughter of civilians at My Lai in Vietnam – relatively few high-profile war crimes believed to involve Americans in the past century have resulted in convictions, let alone the death penalty.

In the case of My Lai, President Richard Nixon reduced the only prison sentence given to three years of house arrest. In the 2005 Haditha shooting of Iraqi civilians, eight Marines were charged but plea deals and promises of immunity in exchange for testimony meant no prison sentences.

Prosecution against Blackwater employees in the 2007 shootings in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square similarly floundered as civilian prosecutors tried to assemble the case. Charges eventually were thrown out on the grounds that prosecutors mishandled evidence, although a federal appeals court last year resurrected the case.

Legal experts say a big part of the challenge is assembling forensic evidence and eyewitness testimony from remote, often dangerous parts of the battlefield thousands of miles away from the United States. And there’s an emotional component, too, in prosecuting U.S. citizens who have risked their lives in combat.

“Terms like `fog of war’ mean nothing legally,” said Eugene Fidell, who teaches military law at Yale University. “But there’s a reluctance to invoke the full moral sanction of criminal justice in these cases.”

The military hasn’t executed a service member since 1961. And like that case in 1961, in which an Army ammunition handler was hanged for raping an 11-year-old girl in Austria, none of the six men on death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., today were convicted for atrocities against foreign civilians. All of their crimes involved the killing of U.S. civilians or fellow service members.

The military doesn’t even have the equipment necessary to carry out an execution. If a service member were to be put to death, the military would rely on the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.

Of note is that U.S. service members – as well as contractors supporting them in war zones – are subject to a different set of rules than civilians when it comes to capital punishment. Unlike in the civilian world, the president must personally agree to the death sentence of a service member.

Gittins estimates that since 1961, more than half of the death penalty cases involving U.S. service members have been overturned by military appeals courts. He attributes that high percentage in part to the lack of experience that military judges and prosecutors have in pursuing capital cases. Inexperience means making mistakes, he says, which higher courts use to knock down rulings.

“If someone does two (military death penalty cases) in their entire career, that would be miraculous,” he said. The question Panetta and others will have to ask, Gittins says, is whether pursuing the death penalty for Bales is worthwhile, given the likelihood such a punishment wouldn’t stick anyway.

Human Rights Watch in Washington, which opposes the death penalty, says it’s not clear the U.S. has the political stomach to follow through with the prosecution of war crimes involving its own citizens.

Andrea Prasow, the organization’s senior counterterrorism counsel, said there was only one word to describe America’s track record for punishing war crimes: “abysmal.”

She says she is most troubled by a lack of accountability in suspected abuse of detainees, including the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq and secret interrogations led by the CIA.

“Every time a case is not prosecuted, it contributes to a culture of impunity,” Prasow said.

Much of U.S. policy in recent years has focused on protecting troops from prosecution by foreign states. In the 1990s, the U.S. objected to the creation of an international court to prosecute war crimes, in part because of the potential that such a court might try to claim jurisdiction over American troops fighting abroad.

And while Congress in 1996 agreed that the standards for treating prisoners of war as outlined by the Geneva Conventions should be put into law, lawmakers revised the rules 10 years later under pressure by the Bush administration out of concern that U.S. interrogators could be prosecuted for alleged war crimes.

The U.S. also has insisted on maintaining immunity from local prosecution for its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, signing specific agreements with those countries that preserve the military’s legal jurisdiction in all cases involving service members.

While the U.S. track record for prosecuting alleged war crimes is spotty, some say the tide is changing.

In one 2006 case, four soldiers were given substantial prison sentences for raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her and her family. Steven Dale Green, a former 101st Airborne soldier, is serving five life terms after jurors couldn’t agree on whether to impose the death penalty.

Stephen Carter, a Yale law professor who writes frequently about the ethics of war, notes that many of the cases that are prosecuted are aided by other service members tipping off authorities.

“Nearly all of our military forces serve with enormous honor and courage. It bears mention that at Abu Ghraib, just as at My Lai, it was fellow soldiers who blew the whistle on the perpetrators,” Carter wrote in a Newsweek Magazine editorial.

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Trayvon Martin: The Myth of US Post-Racialism

Posted on 23 March 2012 by Emperor

We must start connecting the dots, racism, which is alive and well in the US is very much related to Islamophobia. The tragic slaying of Trayvon Martin exemplifies the point that the USA’s original sin of “racism” is still alive and well:

Trayvon Martin: The myth of US post-racialism

(AlJazeera English) by Linda Sarsour and Khalid and Khaled Beydoun

Washington, DC - Trayvon Martin was just beginning his life. Trayvon Martin was a son. He was a high school junior, with college to look forward to, a career and perhaps a family of his own.

Trayvon Martin was many things, but for George Zimmerman, he was just Black.

The teenager’s race was enough to raise “suspicion” and trigger the neighbourhood watchman – who possessed no training or authority, except for his racist prerogatives – to murder an unarmed and frightened teenager running for his life.

On November 28, 2011, no other colour but his Blackness mattered – and his rush for safe haven was intercepted by Zimmerman, and the structurally entrenched demonisation of Black men codified in our laws, perpetuated by our police forces and subscribed to by our friends and colleagues, classmates and family members.

Trayvon Martin is not, as many writers and pundits commented following his death, “a reminder of American racism”. For Africans Americans and most people of colour, racism, xenophobia and religious animus are common, if not expected, parts of their daily lives.

In the case of Trayvon Martin, a twin set of correlated racisms prematurely ended his life: Zimmerman’s view that a young Black male must be engaged in criminal or thuggish activity by virtue of his race alone; and the neighbourhood watchmen and police alike who execute the structural racism embedded in police departments and penal systems nationwide in the name of the law.

The myth of the Obama era

The election of President Barack Obama, for white America, signalled the shift away from America’s racially charged past. After 2008, white Americans have contended that the United States is experiencing the embryonic stages of a post-racial moment; Martin’s murder is a reminder of the fatal consequences of racism that makes the headlines. Yet, the intermediary steps – the institutional racism and empowering of people like Zimmerman – to police our communities either formally or informally are not deemed newsworthy.

Racism, generally understood as a conscious perspective, action or decision, is a salient core of the US’ history and present. American racism is interwoven into the country’s narrative, codified in its law and entrenched in its institutions. Its authors and gatekeepers were, and are, still largely white.

Whites seldom experience racism, either in its fatal, frequent, or latent form. This constructs the political ideology that the rest of the US has entered this racism-free utopia. Citizenship to this colour-blind state, however, is denied to African Americans, Muslim Americans and Latinos by virtue of a triumvirate of suspicions: crime, terrorism and illegal immigration.

However, whites are not the only culprits of racism. On March 10, an Arab American gas station clerk on the Westside of Detroit gunned down and killed a 24-year-old African American customer after a dispute over the high-price of condoms. Racially charged crimes and murders between Latinos and Blacks are all too frequent, and the sometimes-explosive tension between Asian American and Arab American storeowners is well documented.

Institutional and structural racism is still robust in the US. This is evidenced by the disparate incarceration rates of brown and Black Americans, the decimation of affirmative action and race-conscious legislation in the US, the crumbling public education systems in minority-populated communities and the all too common cold blooded murders of people of colour – both in the US and beyond its boundaries, whether by policemen, neighbourhood patrolmen or soldiers.

The ‘worst of a national psychosis

Kumar Rao, a defence lawyer for the Bronx Defenders in New York City, stated that: “Martin’s killing reflects the absolute worst of a national psychosis: The view that Black males – young and old alike – are inherently threatening and unworthy of personal security; and that the state’s commitment to enduring that belief is perpetuated and institutionalised.”

Trayvon Martin’s murder was avoidable, but yet perversely justified through the cold silence of the state.

Zimmerman was a neighbourhood patrolman – not a police officer – but the distinction is thin in this instance. Some police officers, from Miami to Oakland, exhibit the same reckless and cavalier behaviour as Zimmerman. What is more troubling is that police officers and entire departments routinely cover up racially charged arrests, the roughing up of individuals under custody and operate with impunity under the cover of the law.

Yet, for Zimmerman, he had no such cover. This makes this case more absurd and baffling, particularly because he was given police orders to “discontinue his chase of Martin”, as revealed by 9/11 tapes released on March 19. If Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watchman – a volunteer with no training – had obeyed the policeman’s order, Martin would still be alive today.

Zimmerman ignored those order, and took the law into his own hands; he has still not been arrested.

The importance of Trayvon Martin’s is also based on the urgency of the current socio-political moment. The New York Police Department makes every Muslim in the City, whether Black or Arab, South Asian or Latino, targets of illegal spying or worse – unjust convictions of terrorism based solely on their religion and ethnicity. The fact that the NYPD so far as to label Black American Muslims as an “ancestry of interest” shows how far law enforcement would go to justify religious and ethnic profiling.

Connecting the dots

Arab and Muslim Americans in New York are connecting the dots – whether it is the stopping and frisking of young Black and Latino men or the illegal spying on the everyday aspects of Muslims, people of colour are being targeted by the largest police force in the country. In order to defeat the institutionalised racism of the NYPD and set a precedent for the rest of the country, we must build coalitions, connect our struggles and in unison demand accountability for our communities. None of us will win alone.

In June 2009, a Miami policeman shot and killed Husein Shehada, a 29-year-old Arab American, after an evening club-hopping with his brother and girlfriend. Shehada, like Martin, was unarmed and posed no threat. Yet, the white policeman, Adam Tavss, believed that Shehada’s ethnicity substantiated the suspicion to shoot and kill.

The value of Arab life – whether nameless Palestinian children bombed by American-funded fighter jets or American youth profiled, questioned and incarcerated for frequenting a particular mosque – is spiralling downwards rapidly in the US and at a more accelerated rate in the Arab World.

Trayvon Martin is not a martyr or a symbol of racial injustice. Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Malice Green or Ramaley Graham, are all other young African American men shot down and killed because of the colour of their skin and countless others that remain unnamed. Most recently, Troy Davis shook the nation as another victim of a broken justice system that continues to fail people of colour not one person at a time but through mass incarceration and mass conviction rates.

Trayvon Martin was his own person and an archetype of our brothers, our sons, our nephews, grandsons. Trayvon is Mohammed walking down Atlantic Avenue, vulnerable to patrolmen wary of his beard. Trayvon is Carlos, donning Dodger Blue in Pico Rivera, mistaken by the LAPD Gang Squad as a gangbanger because of the colour of his skin.

Linda Sarsour is Palestinian Muslim American, non-profit leader, public speaker and community organiser.

Follow her on Twitter: @Lsarsour

Khaled A Beydoun is a Washington, DC-based attorney and author.

Follow him on Twitter: @Legyptian


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EDL Cleckheaton March 2012

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Appeal: Damage and Assault in Heckmondwike and Dewsbury Following EDL Demo in Cleckheaton

Posted on 23 March 2012 by Emperor

(via. Islamophobia-Watch)

Appeal: Damage and assault in Heckmondwike and Dewsbury following EDL demo in Cleckheaton

Police in Kirklees are appealing for information from the public after a series of incidents in Cleckheaton, Heckmondwike and Dewsbury that followed an English Defence League (EDL) demonstration on Saturday in Cleckheaton.

At 1pm on Saturday around 60 members of the EDL took part in a peaceful, pre-planned demonstration in Cleckheaton Town centre. The demonstration, something that the police had been fully notified about, ended without incident at 3pm and the group dispersed.

Shortly afterwards the police responded to reports that the window of the Co-Op in Heckmondwike had been smashed. Two men from Bradford, a 32-year old and a 20-year old were arrested at the time and are currently on bail pending further enquiries.

At 4pm the police received reports of disorder in Dewsbury Town centre. A group of men in Corporation Street, near to Pizza Go-Go, had abused and assaulted a 35-year old Asian man, knocking him the floor and leaving him with a black eye and bruising to his ribs. The suspects then moved onto Northgate and Westgate. The 35-year old was taken to hospital and released the next day.

As the investigation into both incidents continues, Superintendent David Lunn of Kirklees police said: “We know that following the demonstration in Cleckheaton a number of men, purporting to be members of the EDL turned up at various location across Kirklees, displaying posters and flags and shouting abuse at members of the public. We have had a shop front damaged in Heckmondwike and the serious incident of the assault on the 35-year old man in Dewsbury Town centre.

“These incidents cause fear and concern for innocent members of the public caught up in them and the Police simply will not tolerate such behaviour. Whilst arrests were made for the damage offence, I am appealing for anyone with any information that could help us identify further suspects for the assault and disorder in Dewsbury to contact us.

“If people have mobile phone footage of racist chanting, damage, or assaults taking place anywhere in Kirklees on Saturday, I would appeal for those people to contact us as the information they have could help us greatly with our enquiries.”

Anyone who thinks that they can help with this investigation is asked to contact Dewsbury CID via 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

West Yorkshire Police news report, 21 March 2012

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JihadWatch Zombie Eric Allen Bell and Glazov Gang Lose Debate with Nadir Ahmed Want Rematch

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JihadWatch Zombie Eric Allen Bell and Glazov Gang Lose Debate with Nadir Ahmed Want Rematch

Posted on 22 March 2012 by Garibaldi

Eric_Allen_Bell_Jamie_Glazov

The "Glazov gangbangers"

Eric Allen Bell, the weirdo turned JihadWatch zombie was advertising about how he was going to debate a Muslim apologist by the name of Nadir Ahmed. I am unfamiliar with Nadir Ahmed, his past debates, level of debate proficiency or his positions but listened to it nonetheless to see what went down.

Nadir Ahmed accepted the challenge, knowing full well the deck was stacked against him. For one he was going to be on the hate-mongerers home turf, FrontPageMagRag. Second, the moderator was a hostile Islamopohobe; Jamie Glazov. Third, Eric Allen Bell was already slandering him on his facebook calling him a “Taqqiya artist” and “professional pedophile prophet apologist,” i.e. it was clear the debate wasn’t going to be fact-based or logical but one where Bell would try to slander his way to a self-declared victory.

To top it off the Glazov gang brought in Robert Spencer (By the way when will Spencer ever accept Danios’ debate challenge?), ostensibly to help the child-like Eric Allen Bell, because we know Bell is not only a poor debater who regularly reverts to lying but he is also plain…dumb.

As you can see the tactic blew up in the Glazov gangs face and for the most part they looked ridiculous to even their own fans, one commenter named Damon Whitsell noted,

I felt Nadir won a 3 on 1 and I bet he is gloating all over himself today.

Other such comments were magically deleted. The truth is after listening to this I believe an illiterate 12 year old Afghan child memorizing Quran all day in a madrassa could probably defeat Bell in debate.

Here is the debate:

Bell’s initial reaction to losing the debate:

Bell wants a rematch and is sounding like quite the sore loser:

 

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In this Aug. 23, 2011 Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System photo, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 1st platoon sergeant, Blackhorse Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division participates in an exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. (Credit: AP Photo/DVIDS, Spc. Ryan Hallock)

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Glenn Greenwald: When Killer is One of Us, We Find Excuses

Posted on 21 March 2012 by Amago

In this Aug. 23, 2011 Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System photo, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 1st platoon sergeant, Blackhorse Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division participates in an exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif.  (Credit: AP Photo/DVIDS, Spc. Ryan Hallock)

In this Aug. 23, 2011 Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System photo, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 1st platoon sergeant, Blackhorse Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division participates in an exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. (Credit: AP Photo/DVIDS, Spc. Ryan Hallock)

Discussing the motives of the Afghan shooter

(Salon.com)

Here’s a summary of the Western media discussion of what motivated U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales on March 11 to allegedly kill 16 Afghans, including nine children:

† He was drunk.

† He was experiencing financial stress.

† He was passed over for a promotion.

† He had a traumatic brain injury.

† He had marital problems.

† He suffered from the stresses of four tours of duty.

† He saw his buddy’s leg blown off the day before the massacre.

Et cetera.

Here’s a summary of the Western media discussion of what motivates Muslims to kill Americans: they are primitive, fanatically religious, hateful Terrorists.

Even when Muslims who engage in such acts toward Americans clearlyand repeatedly explain that they did it in response to American acts of domination, aggression, violence and civilian-killing in their countries, and even when the violence is confined to soldiers who are part of a foreign army that has invaded and occupied their country, the only cognizable motive is one of primitive, hateful evil. It is an act of Evil Terrorism, and that is all there is to say about it.

Note, too, that in the case of Sgt. Bales (or any other cases of American violence against Muslims), people have little difficulty understanding the distinction between (a) discussing and trying to understand the underlying motives of the act (causation) and (b) defending the act (justification). But that same distinction completely evaporates when it comes to Muslim violence against Americans. Those who attempt to understand or explain the act — they’re responding to American violence in their country; they are traumatized and angry at the continuous deaths of Muslim children and innocent adults; they’ve calculated that striking at Americans is the ony way to deter further American aggression in their part of the world — are immediately accused of mitigating, justifying or even defending Terrorism.

There is, quite obviously, a desperate need to believe that when an American engages in acts of violence of this type (meaning: as a deviation from formal American policy), there must be some underlying mental or emotional cause that makes it sensible, something other than an act of pure hatred or Evil. When a Muslim engages in acts of violence against Americans, there is an equally desperate need to believe the opposite: that this is yet another manifestation of inscrutable hatred and Evil, and any discussion of any other causes must be prohibited and ignored.

* * * * *

I’ll be speaking at several events over the next few weeks. For now, I’ll note two: (1) this Thursday, March 22, in Philadelphia, I’ll be speaking at the University of Pennsylvania, at 5:00 pm, on “Endless War and the Erosion of Civil Liberties in the Age of Terrorism”; it is free and open the public, and event information is here(2) on Thursday, April 12, in Ottawa, Canada, at 7:00 pm, I’ll be speaking at an event coordinated by long-time commenter Bill Owen, and in attendance will be the heroicMaher Arar; ticket and event information is here. Over the next few weeks, I’ll also be speaking in Seattle, Chicago and Washington, D.C. and will post details as those dates approach. Finally, this Friday night, I’ll be on Real Time with Bill Maher.

 

UPDATE: From today’s issue of Reader’s Express, the Washington Post‘s publication for Metro riders:

Can you even imagine what would happen to someone who wrote or published an article like this about a Muslim killer of Americans?

 

UPDATE II: I have an Op-Ed in The Guardian today about the removal by the U.S. military of the accused shooter from Afghanistan.

Continue Reading

 

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Craig Monteilh

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The ex-FBI Informant with a Change of Heart: ‘There is no real hunt. It’s fixed’

Posted on 21 March 2012 by Amago

Craig Monteilh

Craig Monteilh

The ex-FBI informant with a change of heart: ‘There is no real hunt. It’s fixed’

 in Irvine, California

Craig Monteilh describes how he pretended to be a radical Muslim in order to root out potential threats, shining a light on some of the bureau’s more ethically murky practices

Craig Monteilh says he did not balk when his FBI handlers gave him the OK to have sex with the Muslim women his undercover operation was targeting. Nor, at the time, did he shy away from recording their pillow talk.

“They said, if it would enhance the intelligence, go ahead and have sex. So I did,” Monteilh told the Guardian as he described his year as a confidential FBI informant sent on a secret mission to infiltrate southern Californian mosques.

It is an astonishing admission that goes that goes to the heart of the intelligence surveillance of Muslim communities in America in the years after 9/11. While police and FBI leaders have insisted they are acting to defend America from a terrorist attack, civil liberties groups have insisted they have repeatedly gone too far and treated an entire religious group as suspicious.

Monteilh was involved in one of the most controversial tactics: the use of “confidential informants” in so-called entrapment cases. This is when suspects carry out or plot fake terrorist “attacks” at the request or under the close supervision of an FBI undercover operation using secret informants. Often those informants have serious criminal records or are supplied with a financial motivation to net suspects.

In the case of the Newburgh Four – where four men were convicted for a fake terror attack on Jewish targets in the Bronx – a confidential informant offered $250,000, a free holiday and a car to one suspect for help with the attack.

In the case of the Fort Dix Five, which involved a fake plan to attack a New Jersey military base, one informant’s criminal past included attempted murder, while another admitted in court at least two of the suspects later jailed for life had not known of any plot.

Such actions have led Muslim civil rights groups to wonder if their communities are being unfairly targeted in a spying game that is rigged against them. Monteilh says that is exactly what happens. “The way the FBI conducts their operations, It is all about entrapment … I know the game, I know the dynamics of it. It’s such a joke, a real joke. There is no real hunt. It’s fixed,” he said.

But Monteilh has regrets now about his involvement in a scheme called Operation Flex. Sitting in the kitchen of his modest home in Irvine, near Los Angeles, Monteilh said the FBI should publicly apologise for his fruitless quest to root out Islamic radicals in Orange County, though he does not hold out much hope that will happen. “They don’t have the humility to admit a mistake,” he said.

Monteilh’s story sounds like something out of a pulp thriller. Under the supervision of two FBI agents the muscle-bound fitness instructor created a fictitious French-Syrian altar ego, called Farouk Aziz. In this disguise in 2006 Monteilh started hanging around mosques in Orange County – the long stretch of suburbia south of LA – and pretended to convert to Islam.

He was tasked with befriending Muslims and blanket recording their conversations. All this information was then fed back to the FBI who told Monteilh to act like a radical himself to lure out Islamist sympathizers.

Yet, far from succeeding, Monteilh eventually so unnerved Orange County’s Muslim community that that they got a restraining order against him. In an ironic twist, they also reported Monteilh to the FBI: unaware he was in fact working undercover for the agency.

Monteilh does not look like a spy. He is massively well built, but soft-spoken and friendly. He is 49 but looks younger. He lives in a small rented home in Irvine that blends into the suburban sprawl of southernCalifornia. Yet Monteilh knows the spying game intimately well.

By his own account Monteilh got into undercover work after meeting a group of off-duty cops working out in a gym. Monteilh told them he had spent time in prison in Chino, serving time for passing fraudulent checks.

It is a criminal past he explains by saying he was traumatised by a nasty divorce. “It was a bad time in my life,” he said. He and the cops got to talking about the criminals Monteilh had met while in Chino. The information was so useful that Monteilh says he began to work on undercover drug and organised crime cases.

Eventually he asked to work on counter-terrorism and was passed on to two FBI handlers, called Kevin Armstrong and Paul Allen. These two agents had a mission and an alias ready-made for him.

Posing as Farouk Aziz he would infiltrate local mosques and Islamic groups around Orange County. “Paul Allen said: ‘Craig, you are going to be our computer worm. Our guy that gives us the real pulse of the Muslim community in America’,” Monteilh said.

The operation began simply enough. Monteilh started hanging out at mosques, posing as Aziz, and explaining he wanted to learn more about religion. In July, 2006, at the Islamic Center of Irvine, he converted to Islam.

Monteilh also began attending other mosques, including the Orange County Islamic Foundation. Monteilh began circulating endlessly from mosque to mosque, spending long days in prayer or reading books or just hanging out in order to get as many people as possible to talk to him.

“Slowly I began to wear the robes, the hat, the scarf and they saw me slowly transform and growing a beard. At that point, about three or four months later, [my FBI handlers] said: ‘OK, now start to ask questions’.”

Those questions were aimed at rooting out radicals. Monteilh would talk of his curiosity over the concepts of jihad and what Muslims should do about injustices in the world, especially where it pertained to American foreign policy.

He talked of access to weapons, a possible desire to be a martyr and inquired after like-minded souls. It was all aimed at trapping people in condemning statements. “The skill is that I am going to get you to say something. I am cornering you to say “jihad”,” he said.

Of course, the chats were recorded.

In scenes out of a James Bond movie, Monteilh said he sometimes wore a secret video recorder sewn into his shirt. At other times he activated an audio recorder on his key rings.

Monteilh left his keys in offices and rooms in the mosques that he attended in the hope of recording conversations that took place when he was not here. He did it so often that he earned a reputation with other worshippers for being careless with his keys. The recordings were passed back to his FBI handlers at least once a week.

He also met with them every two months at a hotel room in nearby Anaheim for a more intense debriefing. Monteilh says he was grilled on specific individuals and asked to view charts showing networks of relationships among Orange County’s Muslim population.

He said the FBI had two basic aims. Firstly, they aimed to uncover potential militants. Secondly, they could also use any information Monteilh discovered – like an affair or someone being gay – to turn targeted people into becoming FBI informants themselves.

None of it seemed to unnerve his FBI bosses, not even when he carried out a suggestion to begin seducing Muslim women and recording them.

At one hotel meeting, agent Kevin Armstrong explained the FBI attitude towards the immense breadth of Operation Flex – and any concerns over civil rights – by saying simply: “Kevin is God.”

Monteilh’s own attitude evolved into something very similar. “I was untouchable. I am a felon, I am on probation and the police cannot arrest me. How empowering is that? It is very empowering. You began to have a certain arrogance about it. It is almost taunting. They told me: ‘You are an untouchable’,” he said.

But it was not always easy. “I started at 4am. I ended at 9.30pm. Really, it was a lot of work … Farouk took over. Craig did not exist,” he said. But it was also well paid: at the peak of Operation Flex, Monteilh was earning more than $11,000 a month.

But he was wrong about being untouchable.

Far from uncovering radical terror networks, Monteilh ended up traumatising the community he was sent into. Instead of embracing calls for jihad or his questions about suicide bombers or his claims to have access to weapons, Monteilh was instead reported to the FBI as a potentially dangerous extremist.

A restraining order was also taken out against him in June 2007, asking him to stay away from the Islamic Center of Irvine. Operation Flex was a bust and Monteilh had to kill off his life as Farouk Aziz.

But the story did not end there. In circumstances that remain murky Monteilh then sued the FBI over his treatment, claiming that they abandoned him once the operation was over.

He also ended up in jail after Irvine police prosecuted him for defrauding two women, including a former girlfriend, as part of an illegal trade in human growth hormone at fitness clubs. (Monteilh claims those actions were carried out as part of another secret string operation for which he was forced to carry the can.)

What is not in doubt is that Monteilh’s identity later became public. In 2009 the FBI brought a case against Ahmad Niazi, an Afghan immigrant in Orange County.

The evidence included secret recordings and even calling Osama bin Laden “an angel”. That was Monteilh’s work and he outed himself to the press to the shock of the very Muslims he had been spying on who now realised that Farouk Aziz – the radical they had reported to the FBI two years earlier – had in fact been an undercover FBI operative.

Now Monteilh says he set Niazi up and the FBI was trying to blackmail the Afghani into being an informant. “I built the whole relationship with Niazi. Through my coercion we talked about jihad a lot,” he said. The FBI’s charges against Niazi were indeed later dropped.

Now Monteilh has joined an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against the FBI. Amazingly, after first befriending Muslim leaders in Orange County as Farouk Aziz, then betraying them as Craig Monteilh, he has now joined forces with them again to campaign for their civil liberties.

That has now put Monteilh’s testimony about his year undercover is at the heart of a fresh legal effort to prove that the FBI operation in Orange County unfairly targeted a vulnerable Muslim community, trampling on civil rights in the name of national security.

The FBI did not respond to a request from the Guardian for comment.

It is not the first time Monteilh has shifted his stance. In the ACLU case Monteilh is now posing as the sorrowful informant who saw the error of his ways.

But in previous court papers filed against the Irvine Police and the FBI, Monteilh’s lawyers portrayed him as the loyal intelligence asset who did sterling work tackling the forces of Islamic radicalism and was let down by his superiors.

In those papers Monteilh complained that FBI agents did not act speedily enough on a tip he gave them about a possible sighting of bomb-making materials. Now Monteilh says that tip was not credible.

Either way it does add up to a story that shifts with the telling. But that fact alone goes to the heart of the FBI’s use of such confidential informants in investigating Muslim communities.

FBI operatives with profiles similar to Monteilh’s – of a lengthy criminal record, desire for cash and a flexibility with the truth – have led to high profile cases of alleged entrapment that have shocked civil rights groups across America.

In most cases the informants have won their prosecutions and simply disappeared. Monteilh is the only one speaking out. But whatever the reality of his year undercover, Monteilh is almost certainly right about one impact of Operation Flex and the exposure of his undercover activities: “Because of this the Muslim community will never trust the FBI again.”

 

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Mohammed Merah: Al-Qaeda Linked Terrorist is Chief Suspect Behind French Murders

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Mohammed Merah: Al-Qaeda Linked Terrorist is Chief Suspect Behind French Murders

Posted on 21 March 2012 by Garibaldi

French_Shooting

The chief suspect in the murders of three French soldiers (2 North Africans, 1 Caribbean), and four Jews, including three children, is a 23 year old man named Mohammed Merah we are being told. The French interior minister, Claude Gueant alleges that the motive behind the attack was to,

“take revenge for Palestinian children” killed in the Middle East, and [he] was angry at the French military for its operations abroad.

The explanation of a motive will give little comfort to the bereaved families. How can Merah purport to be acting in the cause of Palestine when he TARGETED innocents? What demented, twisting acrobatics enabled him to let go of the innate morals within his humanity and kill children? Did he not realize he was betraying Islam, its core principles and the causes he claimed to be fighting for when he went on this killing spree?

The sort of callousness and cold precision with which he operated reveals the mind of a sickening sociopath.

Islamophobes in their haste had pinned their hopes on this murderer being a Muslim, so that they could once again smear and condemn Islam and Muslims. They attempt to minimize and cover for the role that occupation, war, invasion and murder plays in producing anger and…terrorists.

The double standards from them are expected, when an Anders Behring Breivik exterminates 60+ children he is, according to them, a “lone gunman,” a “nutter.” No discussion about the ideology, the anti-Muslim Islamophobic extremism that inspired Breivik’s terrorist Crusade, and which they propagate daily, is mentioned. When a US soldier goes on a rampage and eliminates 16+ civilians as they sleep, including 9 children we do not even learn their names and the soldier is treated with sympathy in the media and PRAISE amongst the Muslim haters.

If the allegations against Mohammed Merah are true, and they likely are, he should face the full brunt of the law for his crimes, but lets hope that the anti-Muslims do not attempt to use these horrific incidents to shift the focus from the true enemy, radical violent extremism whether Islamist (AlQaeda) or Radical Right (Anders Breivik, EDL, etc.). Life in Europe and particularly France, which is already seeing a campaign feeding off of right-wing populism and anti-Muslim rhetoric, will most likely get more difficult now.

What will be missing from all this is the fact that as long as wars of occupation, daily bombing and hate-mongering persist against Muslim majority nations you can rest assured that you will create more Mohammed Merah’s.

*Update I: If it’s not abundantly clear from the above, let me say it, Merah and the AlQaedah ideology is responsible for this crime, no one else, he stands completely condemned by Loonwatch as he does by nearly every honest and humane person. There is no apology above or blame shifting, just stating the facts. Merah himself claims to be acting out in revenge due to the killing of Palestinians and Afghans, I didn’t say this, the French Interior Minister did. Many seem to think we can’t even discuss the motives of these attacks?

Update II (via B-Boy Blue): Having tracked live updates on various online news outlets all day the contraditory information being released is painting a confusing picture of Merah’s background & history.

It was stated with some authority that he has been to Afghanistan & Pakistan to fight for the Mujehadeen. It was claimed that he’d actually been arrested, jailed & then escaped from prison in a Taliban jailbreak. Here are some excerpts:

“Reuters report that the suspect had been serving a three year sentence when he escaped from jail, quoting the director of Kandahar prison.”

“According to Reuters news agency, the head of Kandahar prison in Afghanistan, says the suspect Mohammed Merah, escaped from the prison in a mass Taliban jailbreak.”

“Details of the suspect’s time in Afghanistan are still sketchy, but Le Monde is reporting that he went twice to Pakistan, once in 2010 and again 2011, to speak with groups of fighters based in the tribal regions near the border with Afghanistan. The paper claims that he trained in the camps there alongside the Pakistani Taliban, foreign jihadis and members of the Haqqani network — and that he even crossed the border into Afghanistan as part of groups sent to fight Nato troops.

It says he is understood to have stopped off in Waziristan before heading to Kandahar and Zabul in the south of Afghanistan. Interestingly, it also says that he was stopped by police on the outskirts of Kandahar city. Although he was not arrested, his presence in the region as a foreign national was unusual enough for the police to report him to the Afghan intelligence services, who reportedly then passed on the information to western intelligence services.”

Jawed Faisal, a spokesman for the Kandahar provincial government, said:

I can’t confirm it was the same person but there was someone in Kandahar prison with the name Mohammed Merah, who was famous as ‘the French guy’. His father and grandfather had Afghan names, and he could pass as an Afghan. His father’s name was Mohammad Seddiq, grandfather was Mohammad Shah.

“His crime was that he was captured laying IEDs, and he was sentenced to three years in jail, but only served five months of it when the prison break happened and he escaped.

“We don’t know which part of Kandahar province he was caught in.”
Faisal added that he didn’t know how long Merah had been in Afghanistan or how long he stayed after prison break.

Lt Col Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the Nato-led coalition, said he was aware of reports that Merah had been held in an Afghan prison, but refered all questions to Afghan officials.”

This is all extremely detailed & seemingly conclusive. If it wasn’t for the fact the official twitter account of the Kandahar Governor’s Media office refuted the claim that he had been imprisoned there.

https://twitter.com/#!/KandaharMediaOf

@KandaharMediaOf
Security Forces in Kandahar have never detained a French citizen named Mohammad Merah.

@KandaharMediaOf
@SkyNewsBreak He wasn’t the 1 responsible for the school shooting, but another 1 responsible for bomb blasts in Kandahar. 2 separate cases.

@KandaharMediaOf
@MaryFitzgerldIT Toulouse gunman wasn’t arrested in Kandahar, he is not the one that escaped from Kandahar prison, perhaps names r the same.

It appears that a man with the same name was but not a French national. This fact calls into question many of the previous assertions & casts doubt on much of the official narrative up until this point.

Some other pertinent quotes to consider.

“As for political or religious beliefs, he was very discreet. He never said anything that might lead one to believe he had these views.”

“He didn’t have a dad. This has absolutely nothing to do with Islam, or with us, and I really hope that all the young people of our type of neighbourhood won’t be sullied by this.”

“He wasn’t into having fun, he became harder. He didn’t really go to the mosque, he seemed more likely to meet people in obscure flats.”

“The North African community is doubly hit, first by the grief for the victims and what happened, and also that we’re from the Magreb and people will be pointing fingers at us. I appeal to the French, don’t mix up the whole community with what has happened. Never never has Islam said to kill people.”

A group of four 24-year-old men who said they were friends of Merah tried to go to his apartment block on Wednesday to persuade him to surrender but were stopped at a police roadblock.

“All told a Reuters reporter he had never talked to them about religion and they had no idea he had been to Afghanistan.”

“He never spoke about Islam but he did pray. But we all pray five times a day. There’s nothing strange about that.”

Another friend of Moroccan origin said Merah had tried to enlist in the French army but had been rejected. He said he had seen Merah in a city centre nightclub just last week.

Merah did not drink “but I don’t think he is any more religious than I am. I think he has just lost the plot,” Danny Dem said.

A third contemporary, who declined to give his name, said he went to primary school with Merah and they had remained friends.

“He likes football and motor-bikes like any other guy his age,” said the man, dressed in a blue French national soccer shirt. “I didn’t even know he prayed.”

The head of the French Muslim Council, Mohammed Moussaoui, says: “These acts are in total contradiction with the foundations of this religion”. In remarks quoted by AFP he added: “France’s Muslims are offended by this claim of belonging to this religion.”

A little more background via AFP on the suspected gunman’s attempts to join the French military. The news agency reports that Merah “twice tried and failed to join the French army”.

It quotes the country’s defence ministry saying that Merah first tried to enlist at the age of 19 in the northern city of Lille in January 2008.

The French prosecutor, Francois Molins, has been giving more information on Merah. He told a press conference the suspect in the shooting attacks had been to Afghanistan twice and trained in Pakistan’s Waziristan, a militant stronghold. He said Merah’s brother had been implicated in a network that sent militant fighters to Iraq.

The French interior minister, Claude Gueant, said Merah had told police he belonged to al-Qaida and wanted to take revenge for the deaths of Palestinian children. Gueant said Merah was also angry against French military intervention overseas.

“The mystery here is that he was found to have quite a good arsenal of weapons, war weapons, and given that he was under surveillance it’s not clear how this could have escaped the attention of the authorities.” – Pierre Haski

Was he ever in Afghanistan or Pakistan? If not, why the claims of being under surveillance since returning? Who’s lying? The Government official or Kandahar Media Dept? With his Mother & siblings in precautionary custody surely they can establish his whereabouts during this period.

He has a history of petty theft & thuggery and no overt signs of religious or political militancy. Between 2007 and 2012 he attempted to join the French army twice & visited Pakistan & Afghanistan twice. He supposedly served 5 months in a Kandahar jail yet found his way back to France and was allowed to settle back into society whilst stockpiling weapons under surveillance. Despite being under suspicion for the murder of the soldiers, he was able to carry out the atrocity at the Jewish school.

As I write the siege is still in progress. If Merah doesn’t survive we’ll probably never find out exactly what is fact or fiction, which will no doubt fuel conspiracy talk. The web is already awash with speculation about false flag operations, inside jobs etc allowing Sarkozy to play the hero running up to the election.

What is certain, is that the only people who will suffer due to the actions of Merah and any repercussions are more innocents.

My thoughts are with the victims and their families.

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steveemersonImage6

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Fearmonger Does Little to Improve Conversation on Terrorism

Posted on 20 March 2012 by Amago

Fearmonger does little to improve conversation on terrorism

by John L. Smith

For Steve Emerson, the danger is very clear and very present: A surprising number of American officials and institutions are in the tank to Islamic extremists and their handmaidens.

Emerson accuses the Obama administration of being infiltrated by radical followers of Islam inside our own country and throughout the world.

That’s right. Infiltrated.

Emerson, the executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, spent an hour last week with the Review-Journal editorial board and was accompanied by Elliot Karp, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas. In the short time Emerson spent at the newspaper, he managed to indict a number of law enforcement institutions and officers as patsies for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic extremists in our midst.

For one, there’s the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Emerson said the FBI is so focused not offending Islamist and Arabic groups with allegiances to Hamas and Hezbollah that it’s getting in the way of anti-terrorism investigations.

“The agents on the ground understand exactly what’s going on,” Emerson says cryptically of the bureau’s political atmosphere. When asked to elaborate, he replies, “I have to protect my sources.”

Forgive me, but I thought the FBI was doing a pretty good job on the terrorism front. Turns out they’re falling down on the job.

It’s OK, though. Emerson has confidence in his own ability to spot the terrorists among us. He brags that his sources are “sometimes even better than the bureau.”

He adds that his field intelligence was superior to the FBI’s in part because “informants are more likely to work for us.”

That’s not all. He also has the sneaking suspicion that a talk he was scheduled to give to a group of CIA operatives was derailed by the Obama administration. Who knew President Barack Obama had enough hours in the day to dispatch CIA Director David Petraeus to teach Emerson a lesson?

Then there’s Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca. In 2010, Baca was honored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has been linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. CAIR also actively challenges Muslim stereotypes and presents the Islamic side of issues.

“He believes CAIR is a wonderful organization,” Emerson says sarcastically. ” … I’m not calling him evil, or fundamentally stupid, but he is in bed with the bad guys.”

Obviously, Emerson isn’t shy about pointing fingers. Nor is he simply a sign-waving conspiracy theorist. His allies on the right consider him a Cassandra who warns us about the dangers of Islamic extremism at home and abroad, and especially as it affects Israel. He pens op-ed pieces in major newspapers, is often quoted on television and radio talk shows, is cheered on the speaking circuit, and has a loyal following on his website. He is a leading firebrand from the school of thought that goes something like, “Not all Muslims are plotting terrorist acts, just most of them.”

He claims he is the victim of “a fatwa by NPR” largely because National Public Radio officials don’t invite him on their programs these days. But you can still catch plenty of Emerson’s opinions in a variety of media and networks.

Lest you think he’s just a right-wing extremist out to frighten people, Emerson repeats often that his work is dangerous and he has received many threats. He says things like “I’ve got to look over my shoulder every day,” and “If I had a wife and kids, I couldn’t do this.”

Certainly not. He made it sound a little dangerous just sitting in the room with him.

That’s Emerson’s problem whether you believe he’s full of facts or fudge. His hyperbolic rhetoric plays well on the fundraising circuit, but it does nothing to forward the understanding of complex issues.

The Middle East is a political tinderbox. There’s heated talk of possible U.S. and Israeli military intervention in Iran to halt its development of nuclear technology.

At the risk of becoming part of a vast conspiracy to silence Steve Emerson, that complex conversation isn’t improved by his shouts of conspiracy at the highest levels of our government.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Email him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.

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gellerglare

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Pamela Geller Quietly Deletes Obama Assassination Comment, Doesn’t Ban Commenter

Posted on 20 March 2012 by Amago

Pamela Geller Quietly Deletes Obama Assassination Comment, Doesn’t Ban Commenter

(LGF)

Today, anti-Muslim hate group leader Pamela Geller has quietly deleted the comment by “Brian_R_Allen” calling for the assassination of President Obama, with no statement about it on her blog.

But she didn’t ban this hateful freak, and he promptly re-posted the comment — with the direct advocation “Kill him” edited into something a bit less direct.

This was the comment as it appeared yesterday:

Goes to prove the psychopathological hesperophobics, product of fourteen-hundred years of the manifestation of evil that calls itself both “submission” and a “religion,” are not gunna provide fierce competition for the sub-Saharan Africans (mean-IQ: 67) in the ‘If Brains Were Dynamite Would Yours Even Blow Off Your Bloody Kufiya On A windy Day? Stakes!’

Unless it was Missus Billy-Bubbah Blythe (“Cli’ton”) – no-one – not even Plugs, the one-time most dangerous dullard in the senate, who at least – best I can tell – doesn’t loath us all – could be less competent that the mobbed-up marijuana-mumbling murtadd-Muslim modified Marxist mother’s milquetoast presently pretending to what his perilously-pernicious predatory pack passes off as the “presidency.”

Kill him and kill any chance to – this century or so, anyway – inflict any further serious harm upon America.

Posted by: Brian_R_Allen | Sunday, March 18, 2012 at 07:39 AM

The re-posted comment is just as full of racism and insanity, but the last sentence has been edited — and he refers to the “meat-locker-IQ’d LGF-Cyber-Terrorist Gang,” so very obviously, Geller and her commenter are aware of our whistle-blowing post:

Goes to prove that – just like the meat-locker-IQ’d LGF-Cyber-Terrorist Gang – the psychopathological hesperophobics, product of fourteen-hundred years of the manifestation of evil that calls itself both “submission” and a “religion,” are not gunna provide fierce competition for the sub-Saharan Africans (mean-IQ: 67) in the:

“If Brains Were Dynamite Would Yours Even Blow Off Your Bloody Kufiya On A windy Day? Stakes!”

Unless it was Missus Billy-Bubbah Blythe (“Cli’ton”) – no-one – not even Plugs, the one-time most dangerous dullard in the senate, who at least – best I can tell – doesn’t loath us all – could be less competent that the mobbed-up marijuana-mumbling murtadd-Muslim modified Marxist mother’s milquetoast presently pretending to what his perilously-pernicious predatory pack passes off as the “presidency.”

If the Osamaniacs had killed him, they would have killed, with him, any chance, in this century or so, anyway, of the followers of the mass-murdering Muhummud inflicting any further serious harm upon America. Buraq Hussayn Zero is their best ever ally!

Posted by: Brian_R_Allen | Monday, March 19, 2012 at 06:01 AM

It shouldn’t be surprising that comments advocating the assassination of public officials appear at Geller’s blog; after all, she was one of the main inspirations for Norwegian anti-Muslim mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik — and it’s not the first time such comments have been posted at Atlas Shrugs.

This is the audience for whom she performs: insane bigots with sick fantasies of murder.

UPDATE at 3/19/12 10:18:34 am

A few minutes after this LGF article was posted, Geller deleted the second comment too.

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seosweden

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Sweden’s Jews, Muslims Face Web Hate Rise: Study

Posted on 20 March 2012 by Emperor

We’ve always noted that Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism are linked and on the rise. (H/T: Benjamin Taghiov)

Sweden’s Jews, Muslims face web hate rise: study

(The Local)

The number of xenophobic web sites have almost doubled since 2007 and Jews and Muslims wearing apparent religious symbols are subjected to significant discrimination in Sweden today, according to a new report from the Living History Forum (Forum för levande historia). 

“Sweden as a whole is a tolerant country but this report shows that racism is growing and is being professionalized on the internet. There is today a small but growing minority that harbour hatred against Muslims and Jews,” minister for integration, Erik Ullenhag, wrote in a statement on Monday.

The report, which was requested by the government and carried out by the Forum, also shows that an increased number of racist web pages have been created in recent years and that prejudice is being spread through schoolbooks.

According to the report, the number of racist sites in Sweden has almost doubled in two years. In 2009 there were around 8,000 xenophobic Swedish sites whereas today the authors of the report estimate an increase to 15,000.

This follows a EU-wide trend where right wing extremist groups are using the internet to spread hate-propaganda.

According to the report, these are characterized by anti-Semitic and Islamophobic views, where conspiracy theories are the most recurring elements.

The Jewish group is often cast as world conspirators whereas the Muslim group is seen as physical occupiers, actively are on their way to taking over society through mass-immigration and rising nativity figures.

The Jewish community in Sweden consists of some 20,000 individuals and the Muslim community of 300,000. Fresh crime statistics show that there were 161 reports of crimes with anti-Semitic motives and 272 with Islamophobic motives last year.

But according to the Forum it is difficult to get a fair idea of the situation from these statistics as they are based on police reports and the authors believe there may be many more unrecorded cases.

“Above all this study shows that research and follow-ups into preventative actions regarding intolerance against Jews and Muslims is sorely needed,” said head of Forum for Living History, Eskil Franck, in a statement.

According to Ullenhag, Swedish authorities must further their knowledge about what causes the hate against these groups to grow in Sweden and how they should meet it. That, he said, is the aim behind the investigation regarding xenophobia that the government launched earlier this spring.

“We have learnt from experiences in other European countries that all the forces who want a tolerant society need to be active in the public debate. Prejudice against Jews and Muslims can never be normalized,” said Ullenhag.

When American research centre Pew recently investigated the development of religious conflicts and oppression worldwide between 2006 and 2009, Sweden distinguished itself as a country where hostilities related to religion are increasing the most.

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s-RICK-SANTORUM-large

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Pastor Dennis Terry Introduces Rick Santorum: ‘We’re a Christian Nation; if You Don’t Like it, Get Out’

Posted on 20 March 2012 by Amago

Rev. Dennis Terry

Rev. Dennis Terry

The circus that is known as the GOP presidential primary is still undecided, and may likely remain that way up until the Republican convention. Rick Santorum has been one of the surprising success stories in this race, going from polling at 2% early on to now emerging as the greatest challenge to Mitt Romney.

This is shocking because many considered it a bygone conclusion that Santorum was an outlier, someone so far to the right that there was no way that he would have a chance with the mainstream in the Republican party.

Santorum’s problematic stances range from birth control and abortion to his interventionist position on Iran. When it comes to Muslims it is clear that he is a bigoted Islamophobe. He was featured as a regular speaker in David Horowitz’s “Islamofascism week” and also supports profiling Muslims.

Santorum was featured recently on Loonwatch for illustrating why the “Christian religious right” is one of the greatest threats to our nation, This is Why Radical Christians Are the Greatest Threat to the US Constitution.

Now here he is being introduced by Rev. Dennis Terry, delivering an unequivocal message that America is a Christian nation and implying that all who don’t agree with that can “get out.” For some reason I imagine Santorum, who believes the Church should have a role in the operation of the government, probably wholeheartedly supports such a proposition:

Pastor Dennis Terry Introduces Rick Santorum, Tells Non-Christians And Liberals To Get Out (VIDEO)

“I don’t care what the liberals say, I don’t care what the naysayers say, this nation was founded as a Christian nation…There is only one God and his name is Jesus. I’m tired of people telling me that I can’t say those words.. Listen to me, If you don’t love America, If you don’t like the way we do things I have one thing to say – GET OUT. We don’t worship Buddha, we don’t worship Mohammad, we don’t worship Allah, we worship God, we worship God’s son Jesus Christ.”

In a revival type speech, Greenwell Springs Baptist Church pastor Rev. Dennis Terry introduced Family Research Council president Tony Perkins and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Christians, according to Rev. Terry, are the conscience of the state and even the key to turning the economy around. The pastor offered some pointed words about abortion, gay marriage, and prayer in schools, shouting about ‘sexual perversion’ and putting God back in Washington, D.C., as Senator Santorum was seen clapping, if not cheering, in the background.

“I know what’s in his heart. It’s the fact that he’s a Christian,” said Vickie Raabe, a 69-year-old Baptist who told the Washington Post she would be voting for Santorum in 2012. Evangelicals have become Sen. Rick Santorum’s major source of support in the 2012 election as they turn out in record numbers for the Catholic candidate.

But as then Presidential hopefuls Senator Barack Obama, Gov. Sarah Palin, and Senator John McCain found out, endorsement from pastors can be a double edge sword.

At the end of the evening Rev. Terry prayed over the presidential hopeful asking for God’s will to be done in the upcoming election intoning: “God, have favor on Rick Santorum.”

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David Horowitz1

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University of North Carolina students walk out on David Horowitz as he compares Muslims to Nazis

Posted on 19 March 2012 by Amago

University of North Carolina students walk out on David Horowitz as he compares Muslims to Nazis

About 20 minutes after David Horowitz began speaking Monday, nearly all the students in attendance walked out of Hamilton Hall in protest. The action came in response to what participants said were slanderous remarks about Muslims and members of Arab nations.

Committee for a Better Carolina, along with Christians United for Israel, sponsored Horowitz to speak at UNC in a lecture titled “Why Israel is the Victim in the Middle East.”

Horowitz is a pro-Israel activist who has been the subject of controversy in the past for buying anti-Palestine ads in college newspapers. In Monday’s lecture, Horowitz argued that Palestine is trying to destroy Israel and that Israel fights back only in self-defense.

Horowitz criticized groups like the Muslim Students Association, linking them to various terrorist groups. He also compared Muslims to Nazis. “There are good Muslims and there are bad Muslims,” he said. “But there were good Germans too, and in the end they didn’t make a damn difference.”

Daily Tar Heel, 14 March 2012

See also “UNC Hillel won’t stand for vilification of Muslim students”, Daily Tar Heel, 12 March 2012

Comments (42)

LOBBY-1-articleInline

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Pro-Israel Hawks Steering Debate on Iran

Posted on 19 March 2012 by Emperor

Tell us something we don’t know:

Pro-Israel Hawks Steering Debate on Iran

By and  (NYTimes)

WASHINGTON — Even before President Obama declared this month that “I have Israel’s back” in its escalating confrontation with Iran, pro-Israel figures like the evangelical Christian leader Gary L. Bauer and the conservative commentator William Kristol were pushing for more.

In a slickly produced, 30-minute video, the group that the two men lead, the Emergency Committee for Israel, mocked Mr. Obama’s “unshakable commitment to Israel’s security” and attacked his record on Iran as weak. “I’ll be brutally honest: I don’t trust the president on Israel,” Mr. Bauer, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, said in an interview. “I think his record on Israel is abysmal.”

With Israeli leaders warning of an existential threat from Iran and openly discussing the possibility of attacking its nuclear facilities, pro-Israel groups on all sides have mobilized to make their views known to the Obama administration and to Congress. But it is the most hawkish voices, like the Emergency Committee’s, that have dominated the debate, and, in the view of some critics, pushed the United States closer to taking military action against Iran and another war in the Middle East.

“It’s not about Israel,” said Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, the House majority leader and a key Congressional ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

“It’s about the U.S.,” Mr. Cantor said in an interview. “It’s about our interests in the region. There have been a lot of conflicting messages coming out of the White House.”

Among those advocating a more aggressive approach toward Iran are prominent Republicans in Congress, like Mr. Cantor and Senator John McCain of Arizona; the party’s presidential candidates; groups like the Emergency Committee and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac; the so-called “neocons” from the George W. Bush administration who were strong proponents of the war in Iraq; pro-Israel evangelical Christians like Mr. Bauer, who is also active in the group Christians United for Israel; and many Democrats.

Urging diplomacy are liberal groups like J Street, which is helped by $500,000 a year in contributions from the liberal philanthropist George Soros, and Tikkun, a Jewish journal that has begun running newspaper advertisements here and abroad that urge, “NO War on Iran and NO First Strike!” Tikkun, based in Berkeley, Calif., is hoping to link its antiwar message with the Occupy protests.

“A lot of people talk about the ‘Israel lobby’ as if it’s a monolithic thing,” said Dylan Williams, head of government affairs for J Street. “It’s a myth. There is a deep division between those who support military action at this point and those who support diplomacy.”

Clear fissures have developed among pro-Israel groups — not only between hawks and doves over whether to use military force against Iran, but among hard-liners themselves over just how aggressively to confront it.

Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino owner who is a staunch supporter of Israel, was once a major donor to Aipac. But because of Aipac’s support for American aid to the Palestinian Authority, he has broken from the group. This year, Mr. Adelson has given at least $10 million, along with his wife, to support Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign.

Like Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, Mr. Gingrich has pushed for stronger support of Israel and attacked Mr. Obama’s policies on the Iranian issue as weak. He also described the Palestinians as an “invented people.”

The disagreements over what to do about Iran reflect the divisions among Jews themselves. In a survey of American Jews last September by the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group, 56 percent of those polled said they would support American military action against Iran if diplomacy and sanctions failed, while 38 percent opposed it. Support was down slightly from a year earlier.

Rabbi Michael Lerner, a leader of Tikkun and an affiliated antiwar coalition of religious groups, said backers of diplomacy want to slow what they have seen as a “drumbeat to war” in recent weeks. Rabbi Lerner and other opponents of military action say the debate over Iran echoes the political climate in 2002 before the United States-led invasion in Iraq.

Representative Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat who opposes military action against Iran, said, “The rhetoric is overblown.”

Those advocating military intervention “whip up fear and whip up doomsday scenarios,” Mr. Ellison said in an interview. “It has an effect. If nothing else, they’re making Obama talk about military options with regard to Iran.”

But Mr. Ellison is in the minority on Capitol Hill, where the debate over Israel and Iran was largely settled long ago.

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Abel_Chennouf

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France: Shooter Targeting North Africans, Caribbeans and Jews

Posted on 19 March 2012 by Emperor

Abel_Chennouf

Murder victim Abel Chennouf (left) was due to become a father with his partner (right)

A killer on the loose on a “powerful moped?” That’s kind of comical but the results have been tragic, as this murderer is going around targeting people of ethnic and religious minorities. (H/T: Zakariya Ali Sher) 

*Ahmed makes some good points:

This could be a “Muslim”. That the three French troops happened to be ethnic minorities might just be a coincidence. So it could be possible that this is a Muslim extremist who is targeting French troops and Jews.

Of course, the sensible thing is for people not to speculate until more evidence comes through. I did notice at Fox News Forums this morning however that they were all going mental over this, saying it is the fault of the French for letting all those Muslims in and having gun control. So if it ends up not being a Muslim, they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for politicising a horrendous spate of killings.

Lets not jump to conclusions.

Shootings in Toulouse and Montauban: What we know

(BBC)

Three gun attacks which left seven people dead and two wounded have sparked a security alert in south-western France, with fears that the same killer could be at work.

In each case the attacker is said to have been a gunman on a moped, using a weapon of the same calibre, striking in broad daylight.

All of the attacks took place within a radius of about 50km (30 miles), between the city of Toulouse and town of Montauban.

The first two shootings saw soldiers targeted but the third took place at a school.

What the victims have in common is that they belong to, or are associated with, ethnic or religious minorities – North African, Caribbean and Jewish.

That they were singled out is suggested by reports that, in at least one attack, the killer pushed aside a bystander to get to his victims.

A manhunt is under way and France has placed its national judicial police in charge of the investigation, with anti-terrorist investigators and specialists in serial crimes at its disposal.

While little has been reported about the identity or motivation of, in the words of Le Figaro newspaper, the “most wanted man in France”, some of the strongest clues may have been left by the first attack.

Cyber trail

Investigators believe it is “highly plausible” that the same .45 calibre gun was used in the first two shootings, a judicial source told France’s AFP news agency several days before the third.

On Sunday 11 March, Imad Ibn-Ziaten, a 30-year-old staff sergeant in the 1st Airborne Transportation Regiment, was shot dead around 16:00 (15:00 GMT) behind a school in a quiet district of Toulouse.

According to Le Figaro, Sgt Ibn-Ziaten, who was not in uniform, was unwittingly waiting for his own killer.

He had posted a small ad on a website to sell a Suzuki Bandit motorcycle, and the suspected gunman had arranged a meeting to see it.

The sergeant was found shot in the head, his motorcycle beside him.

French cyber police are working to extract clues from the two men’s internet exchanges, Le Figaro says.

Sgt Ibn-Ziaten had a clean service record, prosecutors stressed, rejecting suggestions that there could have been a gangland element to his murder.

‘Tattoo’

In the second attack, in Montauban on Thursday 15 March, 46 surveillance cameras picked up the gunman on his scooter, according to Le Figaro.

They showed “a man in dark clothing wearing a black helmet and riding a powerful moped”.

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Anti-Muslim and Faux Liberal Sam Harris to Debate Dr. Robert Pape Soon?

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Anti-Muslim and Faux Liberal Sam Harris to Debate Dr. Robert Pape Soon?

Posted on 18 March 2012 by Garibaldi

Sam Harris, considered one of the “four horsemen” (now perhaps the “three horsemen” after the death of Christopher Hitchens) of the cult of new age atheism may be set to debate Dr. Robert Pape, or so he claims on his website:

Almost invariably, I am urged to read the work of Robert A. Pape. Pape is the author of a very influential paper, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism” (American Political Science Review 97, no. 3, 2003), and the book Dying to Win, in which he argues that suicide bombing is best understood as a strategic means to achieve certain well-defined nationalist goals and should not be considered a consequence of religious ideology. No one has done more to convince my fellow liberals that if we just behaved ourselves on the world stage, our problems with Islam would go away. I am happy to say that Pape has agreed to discuss these issues with me on this page in the coming weeks. Stay tuned…

I don’t believe Sam Harris belongs on the same stage or platform with Pape discussing these issues. He has no study in the field of “suicide terrorism,” he is a novice going up against an academic who has researched and critically analyzed the issue from various angles, and whose work has been the subject of intense scrutiny and peer review.

The tone and tenor in which Harris discusses his possible future encounter with Pape is revelatory in the sense that it exposes the fact that Harris’s mind is already made up. He is not interested in a real dialogue or conversation nor does he seem to be open to the possibility of changing his mind. Harris, like all dogmatists, has already arrived at his conclusion, he is entrenched in his belief that suicide terrorism is largely, if not completely a “consequence of religious ideology.” This is mostly the case because “suicide terrorism” being linked to religious ideology is vital to his claim that Islam is “uniquely” violent and should be held to a different level of scrutiny than other religions.

This recalls a prescient point Reza Aslan made in his interview with us when questioned about his encounter with Sam Harris:

There is no doubt Sam Harris is a smart guy, he has a PhD in neuro-science. You can be a smart guy and be ignorant about particular topics and issues. The problem with Sam Harris is that he tends to write about the things he is ignorant about, (laughs) I think Sam Harris should stick to writing about neuro-science, I think his last book was great. When Sam Harris writes about neuro-science, in other words his expertise, I think it’s great, I love reading his work. When he talks about religion, a topic he knows nothing about, that he’s never studied as an academic discipline, that he’s done no field research in whatsoever, and in which he frankly is unqualified to opine about, that’s the problem. I don’t write about nero-Science because I’m not a neuro-scientist.

Either way, it seems Pape has accepted Harris’s request to debate and it will be interesting to see the correspondence between the two. For Harris it may turn into a similar humiliation as the one he received when going head-to-head with Scott Atran:

******************************************

Lastly, I want to say a few words about the article in which Harris reveals he may be debating Pape. Harris titled the article, Islam and the Future of Liberalism, in it he essentially repeats many of his common, uncritical, and by now, well worn attacks on Islam and Muslims.

Like the predictable Islamophobe that he is, he illustrates his post with this image:

Orientalism 101 anyone?

Yes Sam, Afghan women in burqas is a really great way to illustrate the “threat” of  liberalism accommodating “evil Islam.” Can somebody send Harris, Edward Said‘s Covering Islam? He’s got some readin’ to do.

Harris writes,

I appear to have left many viewers with the impression that I believe we invaded Afghanistan for the purpose of rescuing its women from the Taliban. However, the points I was actually making were rather different: I think that abandoning these women to the Taliban is one of the things that make our inevitable retreat from Afghanistan ethically problematic. I also believe that wherever we can feasibly stop the abuse of women and girls, we should. An ability to do this in places like Afghanistan, and throughout the world, would be one of the benefits of having a global civil society and a genuine regime of international law.

Here is another instance of Harris posturing as an expert on an issue that he is wholly unprepared to discuss, mostly due to his lack of understanding.

Here are some facts for Sam to ponder: 1.) Afghanistan is a tribally based culture, following tribal customs and norms that are ingrained within society and which formed over thousands of years, you are not going to transform that over night, and you are definitely not going to do so with ‘smart bombs’ 2.) Who did the US replace the Taliban with? Northern Alliance war lords, many of whom are the most egregious violators TO THIS DAY of women’s rights. When they ruled before the Taliban child rape was endemic, as it has become once again today. 3.) Changing attitudes towards women can only happen from within society, unless Harris is advocating the removal of women and girls from their husbands, fathers and brothers? Oh wait, he has pondered such stupidity in the past.

Harris is not finished with the inanities, he writes,

Recent events in Afghanistan demonstrate, yet again, that ordinary Afghans grow far more incensed when a copy of the Qur’an gets defaced than when their own children are accidentally killed by our bombs—or intentionally murdered. I doubt there is a more ominous skewing of priorities to be found in this world.

Excuse me for how inarticulate I am about to become, but this must be said: Sam Harris is a S**THEAD. Harris dehumanizes Afghans, to him they are a bunch of dirty savages who cannot even properly mourn or balance their outrage. Regardless of what Harris says, yes, Afghans are very upset that they are being occupied and murdered by an invading foreign nation. The recent protests were not only in response to Qur’an burnings as Harris would have us believe, but as we noted: the murder, maiming and jailing of innocent Afghan civilians!

Harris continues the Islamophobic, anti-Muslim drivel in the rest of the article. He pushes the myth about the silent “millions” of moderate Muslims who are too “afraid” to speak out against violence in the name of their faith. He says that he finds the concept of a Jewish State “obnoxious,” but he immediately contradicts himself writing, “But if ever a state organized around a religion was justified, it is the Jewish state of Israel, given the world’s propensity for genocidal anti-Semitism.”

Profound double standards but that is something Harris has in common with the rest of his Islamophobic buddies in the anti-Muslim movement and hence comes as no surprise.

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dv269070b

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Israel Really Isn’t All That Friendly to Its Christians

Posted on 18 March 2012 by Emperor

The shameless Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, attempted to manipulate Christian reality to score points in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some well informed commenters responded to Oren with facts:

Israel Really Isn’t All That Friendly to Its Christians

(Wall Street Journal)

Regarding Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s “Israel and the Plight of Mideast Christians” (op-ed, March 9): No doubt, his piece will be compelling for many readers. Christians in North America are generally sympathetic to Christians who suffer elsewhere. More negatively, many respond well when blame for that suffering is placed on Muslims. The biggest problem with Mr. Oren’s analysis, however, is that it stands in sharp disagreement with the perspectives shared by those he presumably wants to protect. Mr. Oren seeks to speak for Palestinian Christians before he has spoken with them.

Palestinian Christians have produced major studies of Palestinian Christian demographic trends. Difficulties created by Israeli occupation policies far outweigh pressure from Muslim neighbors as reasons for Christian migration from the West Bank. According to a study by the Bethlehem-based Diyar Consortium, “most of those who choose to emigrate” are “aggravated by the lack of freedom and security.” At “the bottom of the scale,” they found, “are family reunification, fleeing religious extremism and finding a spouse.”

It is irresponsible for Amb. Oren to make political points among some segments of the U.S. population by intentionally disregarding factors contributing to Palestinian Christian migration away from their homeland. By blaming their condition on Muslims alone, while ignoring the negative effects of Israeli occupation policies, including the debilitating economic effects of the separation barrier, Mr. Oren is using anti-Muslim sentiments among some Americans to hide the effects of Israeli policy. This cynical political rhetoric fuels extremism and does not promote peace.

The Rev. Robert O. Smith

Chicago

 

I am a Palestinian Christian, and the numbers and facts given by Mr. Oren are erroneous and misleading. With the creation of the state of Israel, 80% of Palestinian Christians were forced into exile. The number of Christians in Jerusalem dropped dramatically since the occupation of the city in 1967, and Palestinian Christians are denied access to Jerusalem. To pretend that their numbers greatly increased contradicts all statistics, including Israeli statistics. Allowing “holiday access to Jerusalem’s churches to Christians from both the West Bank and Gaza” is denying free access, and those permits are given selectively, in small numbers and revoked often with the “closure” of the occupied territories. Pretending to defend the interests of the Christians contradicts facts on the ground, where Christians suffer the same consequences of military occupation as all Palestinians. Most of the land belonging to Christians in Bethlehem is being confiscated with the building of the separation wall. Is that the “respect and appreciation” the Christian community receives from the Jewish state?

Fr. Jamal Khader, D.D.

Dean of the Faculty of Arts

Bethlehem University

Bethlehem

 

I am one of those Palestinian Christians that Mr. Oren refers to, who live inside Israel. At no time in my life have I ever felt the “respect and appreciation” by the Jewish state which Mr. Oren so glowingly refers to in his last paragraph. Israel’s Christian minority is marginalized in much the same manner as its Muslim one, or at best, quietly tolerated. We suffer the same discrimination when we try to find a job, when we go to hospitals, when we apply for bank loans and when we get on the bus. In my daily dealings with the state, all I have felt is rudeness and overt contempt.

Fida Jiryis

Fassuta, Israel

 

Amb. Michael Oren presents a distorted and inaccurate account of Christians in Palestine. He conveniently omits gross Israeli violations against the Palestinian Christian community, such as Israel’s revocation of residency rights to many whose birthplace was Jerusalem, or the fact that it restricts their right to worship in their holy sites by imposing an onerous permit system to access the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem or the baptism site on the River Jordan. Even family visitations between Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem are heavily restricted.

It doesn’t stop at that. Recently there has been a spate of attacks by Jewish extremists vandalizing Christian properties and spray-painting slogans denouncing Jesus and Mary and attacking Christianity.

Finally, Palestinian Christians are a vibrant component of Palestine’s social, cultural and religious fabric. Many of our most prominent figures in politics, academia and the arts are Christian. This is the case precisely because of a long history and deeply rooted culture of tolerance and integration in Palestine.

Ambassador Maen Rashid Areikat

General Delegation
of the PLO to the U.S.

Washington

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Ousha_Chowdhury_Saly_Chowdhury

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Racist Thugs Spat On Four-year-old Girl and Beat up Her Mother in a Sickening Attack in Her Corner Shop

Posted on 17 March 2012 by Garibaldi

Ousha_Chowdhury_Saly_Chowdhury

Mother Saly Chowdhury and her daughter Ousha outside the shop where they were attacked

No Islamophobia to see here, no racism. These racist thugs must have appeared out of no where.

It’s also interesting that the Daily Mail chose to highlight the fact that the victim of the racist attack, store owner Saly Chowdhury “refuses to sell alcohol in her store.” Why is that important:

Racist thugs spat on four-year-old girl and beat up her mother in a sickening attack in her corner shop

by Leon Watson (Daily Mail)

Racist thugs spat on a four-year-old girl and brutally beat her mother in a 
sickening attack.

Saly Chowdhury was left with a black eye and facial injuries after two men and a woman tried to steal two boxes of crisps from her shop, the Hendon Valley Stores in Sunderland.

The incident took place on last Friday at 4.40pm when the mother-of-four ran out of the shop after the thieves and accidentally locked herself outside.

When the trio started hurling racist abuse at her, she fled to her home nearby. 

But they caught up with her and spat on her four-year-old daughter Ousha, shoved her seven-year-old daughter against the wall and thumped her 13-year-old daughter in the face.

The gang then turned their attentions to Saly, 31, punching her in the face, tearing out chunks of her hair and choking her with her scarf.

Saly, who also has a nine-year-old daughter, managed to free herself and get herself and her children inside to safety. 

And just 12 hours later the mum-of-four was back behind the shop counter, determined not to let the vicious thugs get the better of her. 

Saly, who refuses to sell alcohol in her store, said: ‘I had to close my shop 
on Friday and I lost business.

‘I’m not letting them do that to me again. It was scary and it’s worrying going back to work but there is no need for this behaviour.

‘I have many great customers who know me and I know them. If this is all about stealing, then please speak to me first and we can see if something can be sorted out.

‘The problem of people coming in here and stealing things is getting worse and worse.’

Northumbria Police yesterday said the incident ‘simply won’t be tolerated’.

An investigation into the attack has been launched and is being treated as
racially aggravated.

Sergeant Tom Connor, who covers the area, said: ‘This type of behaviour is despicable.’

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Aftermath of the killings of civilians by a US soldier

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Pepe Escobar: The Horror, The Horror

Posted on 16 March 2012 by Garibaldi

Pepe Escobar tears apart US Empirical hegemony worldwide, specifically its immorality, hypocrisy and deadly consequences in Afghanistan:

The horror, the horror

“We must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig… cow after cow… village after village… army after army…”  – Colonel Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now

Hong Kong - It started way before a lone killer, a US Army sergeant, married with two children, walked into villagesin Panjwayi, southwest of Kandahar city, and “allegedly” went on a shooting spree, leaving at least 16 civilians dead.

This was Afghanistan’s Haditha moment – as in Iraq; or My Lai – as in Vietnam.

It had been building up via the serial drone-with-Hellfire bombings of tribal wedding parties; the serial secret US Special Forces’ “night raids”; the serial “kill team” murders in 2010; the ritual urination onto dead Afghans by “our men in uniform”; and last but not least, the Quran burnings in Bagram. Mission … accomplished?

According to the latest Post-ABC News poll - conducted even before the Kandahar massacre – 55 per cent of Americans want the end of the Afghan war.

US President Barack Obama once again stressed that 10 years into a war that has cost at least $400bn, the “combat role” of NATO troops will end in 2014. According to Obama, Washington only wants to make sure “that al-Qaeda is not operating there, and that there is sufficient stability that it does not end up being a free-for-all”.

Al-Qaeda “is not operating there” for a long time; there are only a bunch of instructors “not there” but in the Waziristans, in the Pakistani tribal areas.

And forget about “stability”. The “Afghan security forces” that will be theoretically in charge by 2014, or even before, are doomed. Their illiteracy rate is a staggering 80 per cent. At least 25 per cent become deserters. Child rape is endemic. Over 50 per cent are permanently stoned on hashish, on steroids.

The level of mistrust between Afghans and Americans is cosmic. According to a 2011 study that became classified by the Pentagon after it was leaked to the Wall Street Journal - the American military essentially view Afghans as corrupt cowards while Afghans see the American military as coward bullies.

Get a Saigon 1975 moment now or in 2014, the facts on the ground will remain the same: Hindu Kush-rocking instability.

Toss the COIN and I win

Afghanistan was always a tragedy trespassed by farce. Think about NATO’s original 83 restrictions on the rules of engagement, which led, for example, to a rash of French soldiers killed in 2008 because France, pressed by the US, stopped paying protection money to the Taliban; or think about Berlin calling it not a war, but a “humanitarian mission”.

Internal battles – unlike Vietnam – became legend. Such as the COINdinistas – the counter-insurgency gang, supported by then Pentagon chief Bob Gates – invested in a “new mission” and a “new military leadership”, winning against Vice-President Joe Biden’s CT PLUS strategy, as in less soldiers on the ground doing counter-terrorism.

The winner, as everyone remembers, was rockstar General Stanley McChrystal, who insisted that the Biden plan would lead to “Chaosistan”, which happened to be the name of a classified CIA analysis.

Stanley McChrystal – a Pentagon spokesperson during the March 2003 invasion of Iraq – badly wanted to change the culture of NATO and the US Army in Afghanistan. He wanted to destroy the culture of shoot-first-and-blow-shit-up and go towards “protecting the civilian population”. In his own words, he stressed that “air-to-ground munitions” and “indirect fires” against Afghan homes were “only authorised under very limited and prescribed conditions”.

He prevailed – shielded by his rockstar status – only for a brief moment.

Meanwhile, even if on one side the State Department, the DEA and the FBI would be warning about nasty drug smugglers and assorted criminals, on the other side the CIA and the Pentagon, praising them for good intel, would always win.

And everything was fully justified by an array of reluctant warriors/liberal hawks in places such as the Center for a New American Security – crammed with “respectable” journalists.

Hamid Karzai won the Afghan elections by outright fraud. His half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai – then provincial council chief in Kandahar – was free to keep running his massive drug business while dismissing elections (“the people in this region don’t understand it”).

Who cared if the Afghan government in Kabul was/is in fact a crime syndicate? “Loyal” local commanders – “our bastards” – increasingly got funding and even dedicated Special Forces as personal advisors to themselves and their death squads.

McChrystal, to his credit, admitted that the Soviets in the 1980s did many things right (for instance, building roads, promoting central government, education for boys and girls alike, modernising the country).

But they also did a lot of things terribly wrong, such as carpet-bombing and killing 1.5 million Afghans. If only Pentagon planners had the presence of mind to read Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1970-89 (Profile Books), by former British ambassador Rodric Braithwaite, drawing on a wealth of Russian sources from the KGB to the Gorbachev Foundation; from the internet to a spectacular book by the late General Alexander Lyakhovsky.

You have the right to be misinformed

The Pentagon will never accept the withdrawal date of 2014: it goes full-frontal against its own Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine, which counts on scores of US bases in Afghanistan to monitor/control/harass strategic competitors – Russia and China.

The way out will be a ruse. The Pentagon will transfer its special operations to the CIA; they will become “spies”, not “troops on the ground”.

This will mean, essentially, an extension ad infinitum of the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which carried out the targeted killing of over 20,000 “suspected” Vietcong supporters.

And that leads us to the current CIA director, media-savvy General David Petraeus and his baby – COIN field manual FM 3-24, the Pentagon’s answer to William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell as the marriage of counter-insurgency with the war on terror. And this, even after a 2008 RAND study titled How Terrorist Groups End stressed that the only way to defeat them was through a good old law enforcement operation.

 Afghan killings strain relations with US

Petraeus couldn’t care less. After all, his “information operations” – as in all-out media manipulation, coupled with the massive distribution of the proverbial suitcase full of US dollars – had won “his” and George W Bush’s surge in Iraq.

Proud Pashtuns were a much tougher nut to crack than Sunni sheikhs in the desert. They went so low-tech – fabricating tens of thousands of IEDs with fertiliser, wood and old munitions – that they in fact froze US technology dead in its tracks, leading to endless Pentagon newspeak reports on “vast increase in IED activity”.

Since Obama’s inauguration, the Pentagon had been playing extra-dirty to extract the exact war they wanted to carry out in Afghanistan.

They got it. Petraeus went on non-stop spin mode on “progress”. Local populations were “becoming more receptive” to US troops, even as a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) – the cumulative knowledge of 17 US intelligence agencies – remained grim.

Petraeus did what he does best: he remixed the NIE. He never admitted that the war would be over by 2014.  He cranked up airstrikes, unleashed Apache and Kiowa attack helicopters, tripled the number of night raids by Special Forces, authorised a mini-Shock and Awe, totally levelling the town of Tarok Kolache in southern Afghanistan.

After yet another US massacre in February 2011 in Kunar Province, with 64 dead civilians, Petraeus even had the gall of accusing Afghans of burning their own children to make it look like collateral damage. Good for him. At the time, his relationship with Obama was even improving.

The Obama administration is, in fact, convinced that Obama’s surge, led by Petraeus and scheduled to finish by September, has left Afghanistan “stable”, at least in the region known as “regional command east”; that’s what Petraeus dubs “Afghan good enough”.

Most of the country is in fact “Talib good enough”, but who cares? As for burning babies, cynics might qualify it as a feature of American exceptionalism. One just has to remember the Amiriya Shelter in Baghdad on February 13, 1991, when no fewer than 408 children and their mothers were burned to death by the US.

I’ll never look into your eyes… again

How not to remember the inimitable Dennis Hopper as the psychedelic photojournalist in Apocalypse Now, talking about Colonel Kurtz/Marlon Brando: “He’s a poet-warrior in the classic sense…”

“Poet-warrior” McChrystal was convinced Afghanistan was not Vietnam; in Vietnam the US was fighting a “popular insurgency”, unlike Afghanistan (wrong: the many strands bundled under the moniker “Taliban” have become more popular in direct proportion to Karzai’s disaster, not to mention that in Vietnam the official Pentagon spin was that the Vietcong were never popular).

Generals, anyway, don’t go on Kurtz-style killing sprees. Petraeus was promoted to unleash Shadow War Inc at the CIA. After he was sacked following a profile in Rolling Stone magazine – how rockstar is that? – McChrystal ended up rehabilitated by the White House.

He taught at Yale, went into consulting, is making a fortune on the conference circuit – distilling wisdom about “leadership” and the Greater Middle East – and was made an unpaid adviser to military families by Obama.

McChrystal sees Afghanistan as stuck in “some kind of post-apocalyptic nightmare”. Conrad’s “the horror… the horror…” is perennial. The Pentagon’s key lesson from Vietnam was how to seal off the horror, how to put it in boxes, and how to, voluptuously, embrace it.

So it’s no wonder McChrystal could not possibly see that he was starring as the remixed Colonel Kurtz – while Petraeus was a more methodical, but no less deadly Captain Willard. Unlike Vietnam, though, this time there won’t be a Coppola to win the war for Hollywood. But there will be plenty of Hollow Men left at the Pentagon.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His latest book is named Obama Does Globalistan(Nimble Books, 2009).

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EDL Fail to Disrupt Opening of New Islamic Centre

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EDL Fail to Disrupt Opening of New Islamic Centre

Posted on 16 March 2012 by Garibaldi

(via. Islamophobia-watch)

EDL fail to disrupt opening of new Islamic centre

The presence of the English Defence League failed to disrupt the opening of a new Islamic centre in Luton yesterday.

The Discover Islam Public Information Centre, based in Upper George Street, is a community project which aims to provide a neutral environment for people to ask questions about Islam or Muslims that they would feel too embarrassed or intimidated to talk about otherwise.

But outside, surrounded by police, EDL leader Tommy Robinson and around 20 of his followers handed out leaflets which stated that the centre promoted “Luton In Harm-enemy“. The protest was responding to the views expressed on a blog by the centre’s manager, Yusuf Bonner, which Mr Robinson claims are “extremist”. Mr Bonner was not present at the event.

Inside, those running the centre attempted to ignore the EDL and instead focus on what the new building would bring to the town.

Discover Islam representative, Sufian Sadiq said: “Outside is an act of intimidation. I actually wanted to sit down and have a cup of tea with them, but they refused. I think the only problem is they haven’t had the opportunity to mix in with people like ourselves.”

Speaking about the centre, he said: “We conducted a survey and asked over 500 people, who are predominately non-Muslim, about their views on co-existing. The responses included, ‘I don’t know enough about Islam … I don’t know enough about religious practices … and I feel scared going into Bury Park and intimidated going into a Mosque’. We need to sit down as a community and combat this. We will come out and show that Islam is not intimidating.”

However, Tommy Robinson said: “We’re here to let the residents of Luton know what this centre is really about. We don’t need this form of Islam in our town and it is unbelievable that they are doing it under a banner of peace. We will be stepping up a campaign over the next three months, and we will close this place down.”

Luton council leader, Hazel Simmons attended the launch to show her support for the centre. She said: “A few weeks ago we had another challenge to Luton in the form of two television programmes. They gave an image that doesn’t represent us or the town that we live in or work in. Unfortunately that is the message that has gone out nationally and we’ve got to fight back against it. This is a groundbreaking initiative and a great opportunity for the town.”

A spokesman for Luton in Harmony said: “From what I’ve heard today, this centre is something the town needs, and something the non-Muslim community have said that they wanted. This is a lovely example of the Muslim community engaging, because they recognise they need to come out and dispel the myths and propaganda coming from people who don’t know anything about what Muslims are really about.”

Luton & Dunstable Express, 14 March 2012

Via ENGAGE

Update:  See “Luton Borough Council takes action against EDL over logo use”, BBC News, 15 March 2012

Update 2:  Via Exposing the English Defence League here is a comment posted in response to the Luton Today report of the council’s legal action against the EDL:

Stephen Yaxly, lennon, tommy robison, whatever his name is now days – its un like him to break the law!! really?!?!?! considering he was a very well known drug dealer in the Wigmore area a few years back, driving around in his pimped corsa that had what can only be described as the worst paint job in the world. this guy would not think twice about stamping on your face regardless of of skin colour or background. how can somebody claim to be defending england when its people like him that give it a bad name?!?! some things the EDL say make sence but this is not the person that they should have fronting them!! i saw him on news night telling us about muslims taking girls and getting them addicted to drugs………..who the hell is he to comment when he made his living from selling drugs to anybody who would take them…….I am proud to be english but i am not proud to have StephenTommyfool speaking on behalf of the ‘english’. he is just a drug dealing thug! he is not defending england! he is giving the working class english man a bad name. On your bike Stephen!!! go back to what you do best and sell drugs to low-lives like yourself!

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European “Counterjihad Activists” Making Links with Christian Right

Posted on 16 March 2012 by Emperor

Hate groups solidifying their links:

European “Counterjihad Activists” Making Links with Christian Right

by Richard Bartholomew (Barth’s Notes)

The British Freedom Party reports:

On Friday March 9 a media team from the Christian Action Network came to London to conduct interviews with various Counterjihad activists about the spread of sharia and the Islamization of Europe. Below is their interview with Paul Weston, the Chairman of the British Freedom Party.

The CAN interview with Tommy Robinson was posted yesterday at Gates of ViennaElisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff will be up next.

CAN previously interviewed English Defence League members in 2009, during a visit to the UK with Robert Spencer. CAN used the opportunity to invite EDL activists to a private dinner with Spencer and Douglas Murray, to the embarrassment of the two men; Murray’s Centre for Social Cohesion sent me a message asking me to clarify that “CAN asked Douglas to do an interview with them – upon seeing the presence of the EDL at the CAN discussion he refused to deal with them and left the venue.”

CAN was primarily known for anti-gay activism prior to taking an interest in Islam; CAN’s president, Martin Mawyer, has a history of virulent statements on the subject (in particular, in 1997 he denounced Ellen DeGeneres’ “FILTHY LESBIAN LIFESTYLE”), which Spencer initially dismissed in 2009 as “not jihad-related”. However, in 2010 Mawyer’s views were reported in Dutch media, prompting Geert Wilders to withdraw from the Los Angeles premiere of a CAN documentary entitled Islam Rising: Geert Wilders’ Warning to the West. The premiere, which had been organised by Pamela Geller and Spencer, was quickly cancelled, and Spencer affected to be shocked at the discovery of Mawyer’s “ugly, vitriolic… hysterical, self-righteous, abusive rhetoric”.

The British Freedom Party and the EDL now have several links with Christian Right activists. Weston and Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) are regular guests on Michael Coren’s Arena TV show; Coren is a member of the more intellectual end of the Catholic right, and, like Mawyer, he is particularly known for his objections to homosexuality. Weston and Lennon are also friendly with the Tennessee Freedom Coalition’s Andy Miller (the TFC was in the news recently after arranging for local police to be trained in Islam at an evangelical church in Murfreesboro; the group alsohas links with the British organisation Christian Concern).

Sabaditsch-Wolff, meanwhile, was recently invested as a Dame of “the Knights of Malta — The Ecumenical Order”, by Nicholas Papanicolaou and none  other than Gen William “Jerry” Boykin; the two men are, respectively, the Order’s “Grand Master” and “Grand Chancellor”. Both men are close to the evangelist Rick Joyner, who is a “Deputy Member of the Supreme Council”. Joyner, who receives messages from God about how an earthquake will soon destroy the west coast of the USA, claims that he was introduced to the Order by an “Austrian baron”, and that his books were responsible for a “spiritual renewal” in the Order.

(Hat tip: EDL News)

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Forward: Israel Fails To Rein In Jewish Extremists

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Forward: Israel Fails To Rein In Jewish Extremists

Posted on 15 March 2012 by Emperor

Israeli settlers attack Palestinians daily

Israeli settlers attack Palestinians daily

Something tells me the below numbers are very conservative:

Israel Fails To Rein In Jewish Extremists: Report

by JTA (Forward)

Israel is not doing enough to stop the large increase in attacks on Palestinians by Jewish extremists, according to an internal European Union report.

The report by the 22 heads of mission of EU countries’ ambassadors in Ramallah said there were 411 assaults in 2011, compared to 266 in 2010 and 132 in 2009, according to Euobserver.com, which saw the report. The Netherlands was the lone country that refused to endorse the report.

The attacks ranged from throwing stones to gunfire, and uprooting olive trees to burning mosques. Three Palestinians were reported dead and 183 injured by the attacks.

Eight Jewish settlers, including five members of the Fogel family, were killed and 37 injured.

The report said that a small “hard-core” group of Jewish settlers carried out the attacks, according to Euobserver. But the diplomats also called the settler attacks part of a broader Israeli campaign to get rid of the Palestinians, saying they “effectively force a withdrawal of the Palestinian population away from the vicinity of settlements, thereby increasing the scope for settlement expansion.”

The EU report said that more than 90 percent of complaints filed by Palestinians ended with no indictment.

Israel has set up a police task force to stop settler attacks and Israeli leaders have roundly condemned such attacks, an Israeli official told Euobserver. The EU report also acknowledged that Israeli soldiers helped prevent attacks during the Palestinian olive harvest last year.

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CBN’s Erick Stakelbeck Mixes ‘Terrorism Analysis’ with Biblical Prophecy

Posted on 15 March 2012 by Emperor

Erick Stakelbeck’s Biblical worldview muddies his so-called “terrorism-analysis.”

CBN’s Erick Stakelbeck Mixes ‘Terrorism Analysis’ with Biblical Prophecy

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Mon, 03/12/2012 – 5:15pm (RightWingWatch)

It has been almost-comical to see how the Christian Broadcasting Network’s Erick Stakelbeck went from working as a sports reporter to a “terrorism analyst” heralded by Religious Right and anti-Muslim groups, which never seem to question his complete lack of credentials and expertise. But Stakelbeck knows how to please a crowd with his vehement diatribes against Muslims and progressives, warning that they are both have a “shared hatred for this country.”

Stakelbeck’s “expert analysis” even includes biblical prophecy, as he recently told Marcus and Joni Lamb on Celebration that he knows the Syrian civil war will end with the destruction of Damascus because the Bible tells him so in Isaiah 17:1. “I believe right now we are seeing the seeds laid for the eventual destruction of Damascus,” Stakelbeck says. “The Bible says it’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen.”

Stakelbeck went on to claim that Islamic terrorists had infiltrated cities all over the United States, including Dearborn, Michigan, which he referred to as a “radical Islamic enclave” and “Dearbornistan.” This may come as a surprise to Dearborn’s Catholic mayor, John O’Reilly, Jr., who called claims that Dearborn is beheld to Sharia law “absurd” and notes that only a minority of Dearborn’s population are Muslims, who have been in Dearborn for ninety years. Earlier this year, a 63 year old man was caught traveling with explosives with the intention of blowing up a mosque in Dearborn.

He later said that while he was in Israel God spoke to him and told him to defend Israel, saying, “I know why I’m here on this earth.”

Watch:

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Brookfield Mosque Backers Parry Volley of Questions

Posted on 15 March 2012 by Emperor

Using zoning laws to try and undermine the construction of mosques:

Brookfield mosque backers parry volley of questions

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Brookfield - A crowd gathered at the Brookfield Public Library raised questions Tuesday not just about a proposed mosque in the area, but about the faith and ideology of those who plan to use it.

“We’re not fighting against a religion, what we’re fighting against is a tyrannical ideology,” said Janet Spiewak of the conservative Eagle Forum, which hosted the discussion.

She urged residents to raise concerns about the mosque’s traffic impact and other zoning issues at the city’s upcoming meetings on the project, presumably as a way of stopping it from being built.

“We can, through public pressure, force the aldermen and the mayor to acknowledge where the majority of Brookfield stands,” she said.

The project was intended to be discussed inside the library, but more than 30 people showed up, so it was moved outside, while the regular Forum meeting continued inside.

Islamic Society of Milwaukee President Ahmed Quereshi and Executive Director Othman Atta answered a barrage of questions – at times hostile – on the size of the building, terrorism, sharia law, the role of women in Islam, and what is and isn’t in the Qur’an.

Their answers were at times met with derisive laughter and heckling. Some people focused on basics such as traffic; others threw out examples of violence and terrorism done by people claiming to act in concert with Islamic teaching.

Police officers watched from cars nearby.

“We are not advocating extremism,” said Atta, noting that as an attorney he has sworn an oath to uphold the laws of the United States. “We’re here as American citizens. Our goal here is just to provide a house of worship for the community who reside here.”

The Islamic Society is proposing to build a 12,950-square-foot mosque and community center on 4.25 acres east of N. Calhoun Road on Pheasant Drive.

The Society, which operates a 70,000-square-foot complex near S. 13th St. and W. Layton Ave. in Milwaukee, said it has about 100 families who live within a 4-mile radius of the Brookfield site.

Members of the Brookfield-Elm Grove Interfaith Network, which has endorsed the project, attended the gathering as a show of support.

“People were afraid of us, too, when we first moved here in 1961,” said the Rev. Suzelle Lynch of the Unitarian Universalist Church West in Brookfield.

Much of the rancor had abated by the end, with some residents inviting the Muslim leaders to host a local forum and asking that copies of the Qur’an be sent to local churches.

“My question is about what’s being taught there,” said Swannie Tess. “I’m 80 years old, and I’ll be dead in 10 years, but I have children and grandchildren growing up.”

Tess said she’d like to hear more in a different, less-charged setting.

“I thought it was a good exchange,” said Quereshi. “It started out a little bumpy, but by the end, people were having a good conversation.”

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Shepherdsville Business Said to be Target of Hate Crime Will Close

Posted on 13 March 2012 by Emperor

(Via. Islamophobia-watch)

Shepherdsville business said to be target of hate crime will close

LOUISVILLE, KY. (WDRB) – The Iraqi-owned business that police say was the target of a hate crime will not reopen.  The business manager for Jacob’s Smoke Shop says he filed paperwork with the secretary of state to officially close the business.

Vandals broke in and ripped apart the Shepherdsville store last month, spray painting “Hate Arab” and “Go Home” on the floors and walls.  Community members have now posted words of encouragement on the front of the business.

Owner Ali Alboodi told them he feared for his life and was returning to Iraq.  The FBI is investigating.

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Rush Limbaugh Defended Joseph Kony, Leader Of Rebel Militia Accused Of Atrocities

Posted on 12 March 2012 by Amago

Rush Limbaugh Defended Joseph Kony, Leader Of Rebel Militia Accused Of Atrocities

Joseph Kony, the African strongman who is suddenly a major villain thanks to a viral video about his atrocities, has a friend in Rush Limbaugh.

In 2011, President Obama sent American troops to fight Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a guerilla group in Uganda. The LRA has been condemned for human rights violations and using child soldiers to carry out atrocities. A video from the charity group, the Invisible Children, about Kony and the violence in central Africa, has garnered nearly 40 million views since it went up on Youtube three days ago.

But last October, Limbaugh blasted the president for committing troops to “wipe out Christians.”

WATCH:

Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians.  It means God.  I was only kidding.  Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians.  They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan.  And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them.  That’s what the lingo means, “to help regional forces remove from the battlefield,” meaning capture or kill.

So that’s a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda, and — (interruption) no, I’m not kidding.  Jacob Tapper just reported it.  Now, are we gonna help the Egyptians wipe out the Christians?  Wouldn’t you say that we are?  I mean the Coptic Christians are being wiped out, but it wasn’t just Obama that supported that.  The conservative intelligentsia thought it was an outbreak of democracy.  Now they’ve done a 180 on that, but they forgot that they supported it in the first place.  Now they’re criticizing it.

Lord’s Resistance Army objectives.  I have them here.  “To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people.” Now, again Lord’s Resistance Army is who Obama sent troops to help nations wipe out.  The objectives of the Lord’s Resistance Army, what they’re trying to accomplish with their military action in these countries is the following:  “To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people; to fight for the immediate restoration of the competitive multiparty democracy in Uganda; to see an end to gross violation of human rights and dignity of Ugandans; to ensure the restoration of peace and security in Uganda, to ensure unity, sovereignty, and economic prosperity beneficial to all Ugandans, and to bring to an end the repressive policy of deliberate marginalization of groups of people who may not agree with the LRA ideology.”  Those are the objectives of the group that we are fighting, or who are being fought and we are joining in the effort to remove them from the battlefield.

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swiss min ban

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Swiss Muslim life in wake of minaret ban

Posted on 12 March 2012 by Amago

Swiss Muslims, a 4% minority, are not only worried about lamophobic tactics such as a minaret ban, but the fact that the far right are gaining ground in Sweeden.   ( h/t: david livingston)

Swiss Muslim life in wake of minaret ban

BBC

Last year, in a referendum, the Swiss voted to ban the building of minarets, the towers which for centuries have been an integral part of Muslim mosques.

Peter Marshall has travelled to Switzerland, where he found Swiss Muslims bruised and those who forced the vote unrepentant.

Broadcast on Thursday 15 December 2010.

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Fox News Commenters React to Afghan Killings: ‘A Dead Muslim Is a Good Muslim’

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Fox News Commenters React to Afghan Killings: ‘A Dead Muslim Is a Good Muslim’

Posted on 11 March 2012 by Emperor

From Charles Johnson at LGF:

Fox News Commenters React to Afghan Killings: ‘A Dead Muslim Is a Good Muslim’

It’s no longer surprising, but the right wing blogs are full of comments today praising the soldier who allegedly committed mass murder in Kandahar, killing men, women, and children asleep in their beds.

Gateway Pundit:

It’s a start. Now for the rest of the bastards.

[…]

Congratulations to the soldier…give him a heros welcome….buck fobama

[…]

WAAAAAY TO GO!!!!!

But why did he stop? Run out of ammo?

Michelle Malkin’s new site, Twitchy.com:

Good. More, please.

[…]

I don’t think he was unbalanced. I think he was getting some payback. It’s nice to see someone on our side who actually wants to hurt the enemy.

[…]

Forget apologies; Pardon that soldier…

I’ve looked at about a dozen right wing sites this morning to see how they’d react to the news from Afghanistan, and the comments at every single one of them were full of people celebrating the killings, praising the soldier who allegedly committed them, and denying there was any crime, while at the same time frantically trying to blame the crime on President Obama.

But the worst site by far is the right wing’s premier news channel, Fox News:

This is nothing! Wait until you see what happens to the n!qqqers here in the US of A when the new civil war starts!

[…]

THATS 15 LESS AFGAN POLICE WHO HAVE BEEN MUR D ER ING OUR TROOPS AND CIVILIANS

[…]

Obama just announced that he is personally going to provide fe la tio to every Afghani male to compensate for their loss.

[…]

The P O S P apoligizes to moooooooooooooslimes and doesnt have any respect for American solders ! Sent the ragehead obummerdeen and his entire family to Kenya where their dirty s c u m b a g b o d i e s belong !

[…]

This guy only did what the NewBIackPanthers promise to do to white babies.

[…]

What? Our wim mpy prez going, sorry for our troops for getting in the way of your rag head sol diers bul lets. I see the stre ss that our tro ops are under in that f-kin country. Let’s pull out NOW. The only good rag head is a d—d ragh ead

[…]

I don’t see a problem here.

[…]

Obummer what is tragic and shocking that you are a lying P O S P that supports t e r r o r i s m ! Burn in L L E H
moooooooooooooooooooslime

[…]

It’s perfectly okay for the Afghanistan military to mur der our troops, Obama dosen’t even flinch, however, condolences go out when it’s the other way around. I’ll be very glad when the loser-in-chief is on his way out. I hate muslums, big time, in a very big way! Right behind the muslums are the libtards, they’re just as bad.

[…]

What comes around goes around That soldier deserves a medal!!!!!

[…]

Well, that should be enough to start a MASS RIOT. And then that will spiral all thru the middle-east causing more Americans to be killed. We got two choices here…. Keep putting up with this mooslime S H I T..or… Drop a freaking nuke on that islamic radical country and end this cat and mouse game forever. We know its going to happen sooner or later, lets get this World War III started so our economy will come back. Our Industries will come back. Our Jobs will come back. And most important, Our American Patriotism will once again lead…

[…]

I’m tired of apologists, tired of a woosie President and his woosie administration that constantly fall over themselves apologizing. Tell Karzai to pound sand and if one more American is k illed by his crazies, Karzai himself will be assuming room temperature.

[…]

This soldier made a great point. You kiI I our family, we will kil l yours.

[…]

LOL….DUMB_NIGGERS like you are humorous actually. Isn’t there some food stamp line you should be standing in? Oh yes, it’s Sunday and you have to shine your spinners.

[…]

Blahhh, Blahhh, Blahhh…… you’re still just a DUMB_NIGGER. LOL.

[…]

Every M U S L I M that reads the Quran is an enemy combatant…at home or abroad.

[…]

musIim civilians????? Yea Right…Blow Me

[…]

The Muzzie men are P issed they had plans to strap b ombs on the women and childern…just sayin

[…]

Just another day at the office, even up the score

[…]

Must have been one of those G a y soldiers they are letting in now. Probably emotionally distraught that his g a y lover was ki11ed by Taliban rebels in retaliation for Koran burning that the prisoners defaced to begin with. So what? No big deal. Obamao caused this by letting them in the ranks. Now libturds will blame it on our forces and personally attack us for saying so.

[…]

Our mus lum president is on their side

[…]

There is no such thing as a musIim civilian

[…]

A dead Mus lim is a good Mus lim. Give the soldier a medal.

Again, note that these freaks deliberately insert spaces and misspell their racial slurs in order to sneak them past the automatic word filters. Many of the worst comments quoted above had numerous “likes” from other Fox News readers. And this is a tiny selection from more than 2,200 comments; there are many, many more like this.

Comments (57)

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March 10, 1906 Meets March 11, 2012: Infamous Days in US Army Massacres

Posted on 11 March 2012 by Garibaldi

philippines-massacre-morro-bud-dajo-crater-massacre-1906

Moro Crater Massacre Victims

History has a horrifically persistent way of repeating itself, almost 106 years ago to the date US soldiers massacred more than 600 mostly unarmed Muslim Moro villagers in the Phillipines. Today we hear news of the bloody massacre carried out by an Army Staff Sergeant in Afghanistan, killing 16 civilians, mostly women and children as they slept in their homes.

I provide a Wiki article below about the Moro Massacre, it might not be the best citation but the article below is accurate:

Moro Crater massacre

(Wikipilipinas)

The Moro Crater massacre is a name given to the final phase of the First Battle of Bud Dajo, a military engagement of the Philippine-American War which took place March 10, 1906], on the isle of Jolo in the southern Philippines. Forces of the U.S. Army under the command of Major General Leonard Wood, a naval detachment comprising 540 soldiers, along with a detachment of native constabulary, armed with artillery and small firearms, attacked a village hidden in the crater of the dormant volcano Bud Dajo. No American soldiers were killed, though sixteen were wounded; more than 600 mostly unarmedMuslim Moro villagers were killed, but none wounded.

Mark Twain’s indignation

The Filipinos were not yet defeated on July 4 1902, when Theodore_Roosevelt|President Roosevelt declared that the war was over. The Muslim Filipinos, or Muslim Filipino|Moros, in the Southern Philippines were as tenacious in opposing U.S. colonization, as they were in resisting Spanish rule during the preceding three centuries. But those whose slaughter is described below were not a military group.

Mark Twain must have felt strongly compelled to comment on the massacre. It provided another opportunity to condemn the brutality of the U.S troops, and Leonard Wood, already the subject of his scorn, was the commanding officer involved. In all of his writings about Wood, Mark Twain emphasized the irony that he was a medical Physician|doctor whose profession, as a soldier, was to kill people. This theme was developed here with references to the “doctor” who led the massacre, the “heroes” who performed it, and the “savages” who suffered it. The savagery was performed by the “heroes,” not the sympathetically-presented Moros, whose slaughtered children represented “our perfectest symbol of innocence and helplessness.”

The Anti-Imperialist League quickly published two leaflets about the massacre. A photograph [1] of the carnage that it distributed to the press in 1907 was later described as “the most hideous Philippine Picture . . . published in the United States during the subjugation of the islands.”

Mark Twain, however, thought that his own comments were too controversial to publish. They are from his autobiography, which was planned for publication after his death, so he could discuss his contemporaries without restraint. Later in 1906, while choosing sections of the autobiography for publication in the North American Review, he marked these dictations as “not usable yet”.

 Part 1: Monday, March 12, 1906

This incident burst upon the world last Friday in an official cablegram from the commander of our forces in the Philippines to our Government at Washington. The substance of it was as follows: A tribe of Moros, dark-skinned savages, had fortified themselves in the bowl of an extinct crater not many miles from Jolo; and as they were hostiles, and bitter against us because we have been trying for eight years to take their liberties away from them, their presence in that position was a menace. Our commander, Gen. Leonard Wood, ordered a reconnaissance. It was found that the Moros numbered six hundred, counting women and children; that their crater bowl was in the summit of a peak or mountain twenty-two hundred feet above sea level, and very difficult of access for Christian troops and artillery. Then General Wood ordered a surprise, and went along himself to see the order carried out. Our troops climbed the heights by devious and difficult trails, and even took some artillery with them. The kind of artillery is not specified, but in one place it was hoisted up a sharp acclivity by tackle a distance of some three hundred feet. Arrived at the rim of the crater, the battle began. Our soldiers numbered five hundred and forty. They were assisted by auxiliaries consisting of a detachment of native constabulary in our pay — their numbers not given — and by a naval detachment, whose numbers are not stated. But apparently the contending parties were about equal as to number — six hundred men on our side, on the edge of the bowl; six hundred men, women and children in the bottom of the bowl. Depth of the bowl, 50 feet.

Gen. Wood’s order was, “Kill or capture the six hundred.”

The battle began-it is officially called by that name-our forces firing down into the crater with their artillery and their deadly small arms of precision; the savages furiously returning the fire, probably with brickbats-though this is merely a surmise of mine, as the weapons used by the savages are not nominated in the cablegram. Heretofore the Moros have used knives and clubs mainly; also ineffectual trade-muskets when they had any. [page 172]

The official report stated that the battle was fought with prodigious energy on both sides during a day and a half, and that it ended with a complete victory for the American arms. The completeness of the victory for the American arms. The completeness of the victory is established by this fact: that of the six hundred Moros not one was left alive. The brilliancy of the victory is established by this other fact, to wit: that of our six hundred heroes only fifteen lost their lives.

General Wood was present and looking on. His order had been. “Kill or capture those savages.” Apparently our little army considered that the “or” left them authorized to kill or capture according to taste, and that their taste had remained what it has been for eight years, in our army out there – the taste of Christian butchers.

The official report quite properly extolled and magnified the “heroism” and “gallantry” of our troops; lamented the loss of the fifteen who perished, and elaborated the wounds of thirty-two of our men who suffered injury, and even minutely and faithfully described the nature of the wounds, in the interest of future historians of the United States. It mentioned that a private had one of his elbows scraped by a missile, and the private’s name was mentioned. Another private had the end of his nose scraped by a missile. His name was also mentioned – by cable, at one dollar and fifty cents a word.

Next day’s news confirmed the previous day’s report and named our fifteen killed and thirty-two wounded again, and once more described the wounds and gilded them with the right adjectives.

Let us now consider two or three details of our military history. In one of the great battles of the Civil War ten per cent. Of the forces engaged on the two sides were killed and wounded. At Waterloo, where four hundred thousand men were present on the two sides, fifty thousand fell, killed and wounded, in five hours, leaving three hundred and fifty thousand sound and all right for further adventures. Eight years ago, when the pathetic comedy called the Cuban War was played, we summoned two hundred and fifty thousand men. We fought a number of showy battles, and when the war was over we had lost two hundred and sixty-eight men out of our two hundred and fifty thousand, in killed and wounded in the field, and just fourteen times as many by the gallantry of the army doctors in the hospitals and camps. We did not exterminate the Spaniards — far from it. In each engagement we left an average of two per cent. of the enemy killed or crippled on the field.

Contrast these things with the great statistics which have arrived from [page 172] that Moro crater! There, with six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright, and we had thirty-two wounded-counting that nose and that elbow. The enemy numbered six hundred — including women and children — and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States.

Now then, how has it been received? The splendid news appeared with splendid display-heads in every newspaper in this city of four million and thirteen thousand inhabitants, on Friday morning. But there was not a single reference to it in the editorial columns of any one of those newspapers. The news appeared again in all the evening papers of Friday, and again those papers were editorially silent upon our vast achievement. Next day’s additional statistics and particulars appeared in all the morning papers, and still without a line of editorial rejoicing or a mention of the matter in any way. These additions appeared in the evening papers of that same day (Saturday) and again without a word of comment. In the columns devoted to correspondence, in the morning and evening papers of Friday and Saturday, nobody said a word about the “battle.” Ordinarily those columns are teeming with the passions of the citizen; he lets no incident go by, whether it be large or small, without pouring out his praise or blame, his joy or his indignation about the matter in the correspondence column. But, as I have said, during those two days he was as silent as the editors themselves. So far as I can find out, there was only one person among our eighty millions who allowed himself the privilege of a public remark on this great occasion — that was the President of the United States. All day Friday he was as studiously silent as the rest. But on Saturday he recognized that his duty required him to say something, and he took his pen and performed that duty. If I know President Roosevelt — and I am sure I do — this utterance cost him more pain and shame than any other that ever issued from his pen or his mouth. I am far from blaming him. If I had been in his place my official duty would have compelled me to say what he said. It was a convention, an old tradition, and he had to be loyal to it. There was no help for it. This is what he said:

Washington, March 10. Wood, Manila:- I congratulate you and the officers and men of your command upon the [page 173] brilliant feat of arms wherein you and they so well upheld the honor of the American flag. (Signed) Theodore Roosevelt.

His whole utterance is merely a convention. Not a word of what he said came out of his heart. He knew perfectly well that to pen six hundred helpless and weaponless savages in a hole like rats in a trap and massacre them in detail during a stretch of a day and a half, from a safe position on the heights above, was no brilliant feat of arms – and would not have been a brilliant feat of arms even if Christian America, represented by its salaried soldiers, had shot them down with Bibles and the Golden Rule instead of bullets. He knew perfectly well that our uniformed assassins had not upheld the honor of the American flag, but had done as they have been doing continuously for eight years in the Philippines – that is to say, they had dishonored it.

The next day, Sunday, — which was yesterday — the cable brought us additional news – still more splendid news — still more honor for the flag. The first display-head shouts this information at us in the stentorian capitals: “WOMEN SLAIN MORO SLAUGHTER.”

“Slaughter” is a good word. Certainly there is not a better one in the Unabridged Dictionary for this occasion.

The next display line says:

“With Children They Mixed in Mob in Crater, and All Died Together.”

They were mere naked savages, and yet there is a sort of pathos about it when that word children falls under your eye, for it always brings before us our perfectest symbol of innocence and helplessness; and by help of its deathless eloquence color, creed and nationality vanish away and we see only that they are children — merely children. And if they are frightened and crying and in trouble, our pity goes out to them by natural impulse. We see a picture. We see the small forms. We see the terrified faces. We see the tears. We see the small hands clinging in supplication to the mother; but we do not see those children that we are speaking about. We see in their places the little creatures whom we know and love.

The next heading blazes with American and Christian glory like to the sun in the zenith:

Death List is Now 900.”

I was never so enthusiastically proud of the flag till now! [page 174]

The next heading explains how safely our daring soldiers were located. It says:

“Impossible to Tell Sexes Apart in Fierce Battle on Top of Mount Dajo.”

The naked savages were so far away, down in the bottom of that trap, that our soldiers could not tell the breasts of a woman from the rudimentary paps of a man — so far away that they couldn’t tell a toddling little child from a black six-footer. This was by all odds the least dangerous battle that Christian soldiers of any nationality were ever engaged in.

The next heading says:

“Fighting for Four Days.”

So our men were at it four days instead of a day and a half. It was a long and happy picnic with nothing to do but sit in comfort and fire the Golden Rule into those people down there and imagine letters to write home to the admiring families, and pile glory upon glory. Those savages fighting for their liberties had the four days too, but it must have been a sorrowful time for them. Every day they saw two hundred and twenty- five of their number slain, and this provided them grief and mourning for the night — and doubtless without even the relief and consolation of knowing that in the meantime they had slain four of their enemies and wounded some more on the elbow and the nose.

The closing heading says:

“Lieutenant Johnson Blown from Parapet by Exploding Artillery Gallantly Leading Charge.”

Lieutenant Johnson has pervaded the cablegrams from the first. He and his wound have sparkled around through them like the serpentine thread of fire that goes excursioning through the black crisp fabric of a fragment of burnt paper. It reminds one of Gillette’s comedy farce of a few years ago, “Too Much Johnson.” Apparently Johnson was the only wounded man on our side whose wound was worth anything as an advertisement. It has made a great deal more noise in the world than has any similarly colossal event since “Humpty Dumpty” fell off the wall and got injured. The official dispatches do not know which to admire most, Johnson’s adorable wound or the nine hundred murders. The ecstasies flowing from Army Headquarters on the other side of the globe to the White House, at a dollar and a half a word, have set fire to similar ecstasies in the President’s breast. It appears that the immortally wounded was a Rough Rider under Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt at San [page 175] Juan Hill — that extinguisher of Waterloo — when the Colonel of the regiment, the present Major General Dr. Leonard Wood, went to the rear to bring up the pills and missed the fight. The President has a warm place in his heart for anybody who was present at that bloody Collision of military solar systems, and so he lost no time in cabling to the wounded hero, “How are you?” And got a cable answer, “Fine, thanks.” This is historical. This will go down to posterity.

Johnson was wounded in the shoulder with a Slug. The slug was in a shell — for the account says the damage was caused by an exploding shell which blew Johnson off the rim. The people down in the hole had no artillery; therefore it was our artillery that blew Johnson off the rim. And so it is now a matter of historical record that the only officer of ours who acquired a wound of advertising dimensions got it at our hands, not the enemy’s. It seems more than probable that if we had placed our soldiers out of the way of our own weapons, we should have come out of the most extraordinary battle in all history without a scratch.

Part 2: Wednesday, March 14, 1906

The ominous paralysis continues. There has been a slight sprinkle — an exceedingly slight sprinkle — in the correspondence columns, of angry rebukes of the President for calling this cowardly massacre a “brilliant feat of arms,” and for praising our butchers for “holding up the honor of the flag” in that singular way; but there is hardly a ghost of a whisper about the feat of arms in the editorial columns of the papers.

I hope that this silence will continue. It is about as eloquent and as damaging and effective as the most indignant words could be, I think. When a man is sleeping in a noise, his sleep goes placidly on; but if the noise stops, the stillness wakes him. This silence has continued five days now. Surely it must be waking the drowsy nation. Surely the nation must be wondering what it means. A five-day silence following a world-astonishing event has not happened on this planet since the daily newspaper was invented.

At a luncheon party of men convened yesterday to God-speed George Harvey, who is leaving to-day for a vacation in Europe, all the talk was about the brilliant feat of arms; and no one had anything to say about it that either the President or Major General Dr. Wood, or the damaged Johnson, would regard as complimentary, or as proper comment to put into our histories. Harvey said he believed that the shock and shame of [page 176] this episode would eat down deeper and deeper into the hearts of the nation and fester there and produce results. He believed it would destroy the Republican party and President Roosevelt. I cannot believe that the prediction will come true, for the reason that prophecies which promise valuable things, desirable things, good things, worthy things, never come true. Prophecies of this kind are like wars fought in a good cause — they are so rare that they don’t count.

Day before yesterday the cable-note from the happy General Dr. Wood was still all glorious. There was still proud mention and elaboration of what was called the “desperate hand-to-hand fight.” — Doctor Wood not seeming to suspect that he was giving himself away, as the phrase goes — since if there was any very desperate hand-to-hand fighting it would necessarily happen that nine hundred hand-to-hand fighters, if really desperate, would surely be able to kill more than fifteen of our men before their last man and woman and child perished.

Very well, there was a new note in the dispatches yesterday afternoon — just a faint suggestion that Dr. Wood was getting ready to lower his tone and begin to apologize and explain. He announces that he assumes full responsibility for the fight. It indicates that he is aware that there is a lurking disposition here amidst all this silence to blame somebody. He says there was “no wanton destruction of women and children in the fight, though many of them were killed by force of necessity because the Moros used them as shields in the hand-to-hand fighting.”

This explanation is better than none; indeed it is considerably better than none. Yet if there was so much hand-to-hand fighting there must have arrived a time, toward the end of the four days’ butchery, when only one native was left alive. We had six hundred men present; we had lost only fifteen; why did the six hundred kill that remaining man — or woman, or child?

Dr. Wood will find that explaining things is not in his line. He will find that where a man has the proper spirit in him and the proper force at his command, it is easier to massacre nine hundred unarmed animals than it is to explain why he made it so remorselessly complete. Next he furnishes us this sudden burst of unconscious humor, which shows that he ought to edit his reports before he cables them:

“Many of the Moros feigned death and butchered the American hospital men who were relieving the wounded.”

We have the curious spectacle of hospital men going around trying to [page 177] relieve the wounded savages — for what reason? The savages were all massacred. The plain intention was to massacre them all and leave none alive. Then where was the use in furnishing mere temporary relief to a person who was presently to be exterminated? The dispatches call this battue a “battle.” In what way was it a battle? It has no resemblance to a battle. In a battle there are always as many as five wounded men to one killed outright. When this so-called battle was over, there were certainly not fewer than two hundred wounded savages lying on the field. What became of them? Since not one savage was left alive!

The inference seems plain. We cleaned up our four days’ work and made it complete by butchering those helpless people.

The President’s joy over the splendid achievement of his fragrant pet, General Wood, brings to mind an earlier presidential ecstasy. When the news came, in 1901, that Colonel Funston had penetrated to the refuge of the patriot, Aguinaldo, in the mountains, and had captured him by the use of these arts, to wit: by forgery, by lies, by disguising his military marauders in the uniform of the enemy, by pretending to be friends of Aguinaldo’s and by disarming suspicion by cordially shaking hands with Aguinaldo’s officers and in that moment shooting them down — when the cablegram announcing this “brilliant feat of arms” reached the White House, the newspapers said that that meekest and mildest and gentlest and least masculine of men, President McKinley, could not control his joy and gratitude, but was obliged to express it in motions resembling a dance. Also President McKinley expressed his admiration in another way. He instantly shot that militia Colonel aloft over the heads of a hundred clean and honorable veteran officers of the army and made him a Brigadier General in the regular service, and clothed him in the honorable uniform of that rank, thus disgracing the uniform, the flag, the nation, and himself.

Wood was an army surgeon, during several years, out West among the Indian hostiles. Roosevelt got acquainted with him and fell in love with him. When Roosevelt was offered the colonelcy of a regiment in the iniquitous Cuban-Spanish war, he took the place of Lieutenant Colonel and used his influence to get the higher place for Wood. After the war Wood became our Governor General in Cuba and proceeded to make a mephitic record for himself. Under President Roosevelt, this doctor has been pushed and crowded along higher and higher in the military service — always over the heads of a number of better men — [page 178] and at last when Roosevelt wanted to make him a Major General in the regular army (with only five other Major Generals between him and the supreme command) and knew, or believed, that the Senate would not confirm Wood’s nomination to that great place, he accomplished Wood’s appointment by a very unworthy device. He could appoint Wood himself, and make the appointment good, between sessions of Congress. There was no such opportunity, but he invented one. A special session was closing at noon. When the gavel fell extinguishing the special session, a regular session began instantly. Roosevelt claimed that there was an interval there determinable as the twentieth of a second by a stop-watch, and that during that interval no Congress was in session. By this subterfuge he foisted this discredited doctor upon the army and the nation, and the Senate hadn’t spirit enough to repudiate it.

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Woman Beaten and Taunted as she Wore Hijab

Posted on 11 March 2012 by Emperor

What motivated this young mother, only 23 to have a violent reaction to a woman wearing the hijab:

Woman beaten and taunted as she wore hijab

A young Muslim student was punched in the face and racially taunted as she walked down a Dublin street wearing a head scarf.

A Dublin mother (23) has been convicted for assaulting the young Libyan, who was rescued by a passing motorist who stopped and helped her home.

Helen Doran’s victim was wearing a traditional Muslim hijab or head scarf. Doran followed her across a road after assaulting her and continued to shout racist insults at her.

Doran, of Castlecurragh Vale in Mulhuddart, admitted before Blanchardstown District Court to assaulting a 20-year-old Libyan student on November 2 last year.

Judge Anthony Halpin sentenced Doran to three months in prison, suspended for one year.

Garda Sergeant Maria Callaghan said the victim was walking along Castlecurragh Road when two men and a woman approached her.

The victim had just attended a FAS course and was putting credit into her mobile phone.

The sergeant said the woman was wearing a traditional Muslim head scarf, and Doran and her accomplices started taunting her.

The court heard one of the men grabbed the woman’s mobile phone and Doran punched her in the face.

Sgt Callaghan said Doran repeatedly shouted racist slurs at the woman, who crossed the road to get away from her attacker.

However, Doran followed her across the road and continued to shout racist insults at her.

Sgt Callaghan said a motorist stopped and helped the victim, who later reported the matter to gardai.

Ashamed

Defence solicitor John O’Doherty said Doran, a married mum of one, had been drinking heavily and was on tablets.

Mr O’Doherty said Doran was completely ashamed of her behaviour and had never been in this kind of trouble before. He said she was under the influence of one of her accomplices at the time, and he is also before the courts.

Judge Halpin said Doran frightened the young woman and made her feel like a lesser person. He gave her a three- month suspended sentence.

hnews@herald.ie

- Eimear Cotter

Original post: Woman beaten and taunted as she wore hijab

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Greater Islamophobia Alert: US Soldier Goes on Rampage, Murders 16 Afghan Civilians

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Greater Islamophobia Alert: US Soldier Goes on Rampage, Murders 16 Afghan Civilians

Posted on 11 March 2012 by Emperor

Why_do_they_hate_us_Muslims

We are told that in Afghanistan they only get upset when the occupying forces “burn Korans.” The protests, we are told, have nothing to do with the bombing and murdering of innocent civilians, you know the Greater Islamophobia.

Now we have one more instance of a soldier liquidating the lives of innocent Muslim civilians in a clearly premeditated fashion. How much do you want to bet he gets off scott free or with a suspended sentence like the last guy?

Afghans killed in rampage by US soldier

(AlJazeera English)

Sixteen Afghan civilains including three women and nine children have been shot dead in their homes by a rogue US soldier in a pre-dawn rampage.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the slaughter on Sunday as “unforgivable” and furiously demanded an explanation from Washington.

“When Afghan people are killed deliberately by US forces this action is murder and terror and an unforgivable action,” Karzai said in statement.

Senior US officials were scrambling to determine what caused the soldier to go on a shooting spree after leaving his base in southern Afghanistan, apparently heavily-armed and carrying night-vision equipment.

Officials confirmed that the soldier was being detained in Kandahar and that the military was treating at least five wounded.

One US official said the soldier, an Army staff sergeant, was believed to have acted alone and that initial reports indicated he returned to the base after the shooting and turned himself in.

Gen. John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan, issued a statement pledging a “rapid and thorough investigation” into the shooting spree, and said the soldier will remain in US custody.

The US embassy in Kabul sent out an alert to its citizens in Afghanistan warning that as a result of the shooting “there is a risk of anti-American feelings and protests in coming days”.

An AFP news agency reporter at the scene of the killings counted the bodies of 16 people. In one house, an elderly woman screamed: “May God kill the only son of Karzai, so he feels what we feel.”

The shootings come at a particularly sensitive and critical time for the US, just as violence over the burning of Muslim holy books at a US base was starting to calm down. At least 41 people were killed in the violence.

Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith, reporting from Herat, said the soldier entered three houses near the base and opened fire on civilians.

“We are now being told by the police sources that the US soldier left his base at three o clock this morning. It would have been pitch-black wherever he walked,” he said.

“The soldier went through three separate houses, shooting at people as they slept in their beds. After the soldier shot these people, he turned himself in.”

“It is frankly disastrous. It is not just a disaster for the people who were murdered and killed in their houses, it is disaster for the country I suspect,” our correspondent said.

Najeeb Azizi, a Kabul-based Afghan analyst, said the shooting will have deep repercussions on the already tenuous relations with the US.

“It is a very tragic incident in particular because the Afghan and US governments are trying to sign a strategic agreement for a long term,” he said.

“A very bad message the Afghan people are getting – that if US military remains in Afghanistan beyond 2014 and their attitude and behaviour remains the same – of killing innocent civilians- what will be the consequences, and how will the Afghan people respond to it.”

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The Haunting of Daniel Pipes by Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart”

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The Haunting of Daniel Pipes by Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart”

Posted on 10 March 2012 by Ilisha

Gaza

A Palestinian boy sits on rubble in an area that was destroyed during Israel's January 2009 Gaza offensive, in the Jebaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip. Hatem Moussa / AP

“We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinians] never do return … The old will die and the young will forget,said David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, in 1949.

The old are dying, the young are dying, but no one has forgotten.

Despite rabid anti-Arab, anti-Muslim Daniel Pipes’ wishful thinking, the Palestinians are not a “defeated people.” They  continue to demand their rights, and support for their cause is steadily growing worldwide. That trend will continue as it becomes increasingly difficult to obscure Israel’s rejectionist stance and continued illegal settlement building in the Occupied Territories.

The Arab Peace Initiative, proposed in 2002 and re-endorsed in 2007, offered full normalization with the entire Arab world in exchange for the two-state solution with the Palestinians. In 2003, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators proposed the Geneva Accord, which also offered Israel a comprehensive peace agreement, also based on the two-state solution enshrined in international law.

Israel rejected both peace proposals.

Last year, 1,600 confidential Palestinian records of negotiations with Israel from 1999 to 2010 were leaked to al-Jazeera. The Palestine Papers showed Palestinian negotiator’s shameless acquiescence to an unjust “peace” agreement that savaged Palestinian rights in favor of Israel.

Israel nevertheless rejected the settlement.

Last September, Palestinian leaders requested UN membership for a Palestinian state. The proposal is once again based on the two-state solution, but is opposed by both the US and Israel. If the Palestinians achieve recognition, the United States has vowed to veto the decision.

In the meantime, Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza Strip continue to be refugees in their own land, stubbornly refusing to appease Daniel Pipes and his ilk by dying off or disappearing.  Mr. Pipes doesn’t seem to grasp that refugees who remain unsettled remain refugees, a status which is inherited by their children, hence his hysterical predictions.

What solution does Pipes have in mind for solving the problem?  Stall the so-called “peace process” indefinitely, and ultimately, “population transfer” (ethnic cleansing) of the unwanted Palestinian population of “Greater Israel.”

The “problem” is the Palestinian peace offensive is gaining support, and that apparently has Pipes fuming and waxing paranoid.

The Haunting of Daniel Pipes by Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart”

by Franklin Lamb, Foreign Policy Journal

BEIRUT — Daniel Pipes, the anti-Arab Islamophobe, is reportedly spooked these days. “Actually he has become an almost terrified man”; so says a colleague at Pipes’ Islamophobic Middle East Forum (MEF) and the McCarthyesque Campus Watch (CW) organization.

MEF was founded by Pipes in 1986, and the witch hunting anti-Arab McCarthyesque Campus Watch in 2001. CW’s function is to hound and intimidate faculty and students at colleges who are critical of the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Pipes and CW create “dossiers” on professors, students and university administrations thought hostile to Israel. Under civic pressure from Americans who opposed his tactics and insisted on having their own names added to his personal “terrorist list,” Pipes withdrew his dossiers from the CW website, but he still circulates them to scores of “select and executive subscribers” and other hate groups in order to get the word out about academics and others who support Palestine or criticize Israel.

Pipes increasingly exposed racist views are carried by journals like the National Review as well as pro-Zionist Islamophobic internet outlets. In 1990, Pipes wrote in the National Review that:

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

Having briefly written anti-Muslim screeds for Rudy Giuliani’s failed White House quest in 2008, Pipes claims he liked the job and seeks to do the same for Mitt Romney (Pipes has labeled Mormonism “a cult”) or even Rick Santorum (Pipes has referred to Rick as “one of those kook dispensationalist Christians”). Daniel told a copy editor at the Washington Times (who edited his recent article noted below) that he would prefer to work for Newt Gingrich if he gets the nomination since they share the same views of Palestinians as “an invented people”.

The two also agree on moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem, increasing aid to Israel, and the evitable necessity of transferring most of the remaining Palestinians out of “Eretz Israel” in order to stop once and for all the demographic and existential threat and pressure for a one state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict which Pipes and Gingrich consider, if not reversed soon will lead to the collapse of Israel.

Pipes makes his fears plain to readers what has unnerved him in his recent 2012 Republican presidential candidates “application for a position as Middle East adviser”, which he launched in the Washington Times on February 21, but which was first presented in occupied Jerusalem at a recent MEF seminar.

Pipes chose the low hanging fruit of the underfunded and over stretched UNRWA to target Palestinian refugees and to promote himself and his thesis. But even from the sarcastic title of his article, “Eventually, All Humans Will Be Palestine Refugees!”, to his bizarre conclusions, Pipes demonstrates a preference for Arab bashing over truth. Pipes maintains that UNRWA has conspiratorially inflated the number of Palestinian refugees by including the children of the original nearly 800,000 (UNWRA uses a lower 750,000 figure) who were ethnically cleansed in 1948 (the “Nakba”, or “catastrophe”) and adding Palestinians ethnically cleansed in 1967. Both groups absolutely should be included on Palestinian refugee’s lists, since they are also victims of the original and continuing ethnic cleansing.

Pipes writes: “In contrast all other refugee populations have diminished in number as people ‘settle down’ or die.”

By Palestinians “settling down”, one guesses Pipes means sardine-canned into squalid refugee camps, while Jews from Brooklyn or anywhere else can live on their lands, move into new housing financed partly from US taxes, and enjoy swimming pools while nearby Palestinian orchards and crops are destroyed by drought, bulldozers, or psychotic settlers.

Pipes laments to Washington Times readers that the second thing that should have happened is that “almost all of the real 1948 refugees should have died by now” but for sure the last one will be dead in a few years. Instead, Pipes warns that rather than disappearing as they were supposed to, “the Palestine refugee population has dramatically grown over time.” Pipes, claiming to be a historian, calls this apparently unanticipated unwillingness of the Palestinian refugees to forget their country and the Nakba a “bizarre historical phenomenon.”

Considering his “application-article” title about all humans being Palestinian refugees, Pipes is well aware that many human rights organizations, when it comes to the right and responsibility to resist the Zionist occupation of Palestine and to liberate their stolen land and homes, we are indeed all Palestinians.

We are all Palestinians because all people of good will who seek justice and the full right of return for those who were ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba identify with those brutally ethnically cleansed over the past 64 years.

Until Palestine is liberated and its refugees return, as Nelson Mandala has repeatedly instructed us, none of us is truly free. We are all Palestinians as we increasingly support international law’s rejection of any settlement or any colonist on any part of occupied Palestine.

What haunts Pipes also is Ben Gurion’s failed boast to fellow Zionist terrorists in Palestine during the Nakba. The Palestinian holocaust that saw the ethnic cleansing of 531 villages in Palestine by more than 62,000 well armed troops, many WWII veterans predictably decimated the approximately 2,500 Palestinian defenders scattered, approximately 25-30 per village across Palestine who were at a hopeless military disadvantage with largely Ottoman-era rusting rifles and very little ammunition.

Given the above noted reality, the Zionist leaders worked arduously so that roughly one-half of the villages and approximately 50% of the population would not be discovered by the west, and Ben Gurion’s words that “in any event, the old will die and the young will forget” were more than wishful thinking. Pipes and his associates in the “Israel-first” culture have realized that not only was Ben Gurion fundamentally mistaken, but also that the 19th Century Zionists fundamentally erred in their calculations and hasbara.

Pipes’ basis for panic appears straight out of Edgar Allen Poe’s Novel, “The Tell Tale Heart”, where Poe’s character committed a savage crime and then was haunted because the evidence of this crime could not be hidden. The victim’s heart kept beating louder and louder and would not stop informing the world of the crime. Try as he might, the evil perpetrator could not get the heart to stop proving the crime and it drove the criminal more deeply into suicidal insanity.

In some aspects, Poe’s telltale heart appears a microcosm of the 19th Century Zionist colonial crimes which continue to this day in Palestine. The current efforts being made by Israel-firsters like Pipes include keeping Palestinian refugees invisible. They were to be erased by now, but instead the global community, and younger generations are increasingly taking up their cause and joining the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) and other non-violent campaigns against their Zionist occupiers.

Pipes argues in his Washington Times article, “Were the Palestine refugee status a healthy one this infinite expansion would hardly matter. But the status has destructive implications for Israel which suffers from the ‘depredations’ of a category of persons whose lives are truncated and distorted by an impossible dream of return to their great-grandparents’ houses; and the ‘refugees’ themselves, whose status implies a culture of dependency, grievance, rage, and futility.” Pipes continues: “All other refugees from the World War II era (including my own parents ) have been long settled and the Palestine refugee status has already endured too long and needs to be narrowed down to actual refugees before it does further damage to Israel.”

Pipes and his ilk, who appear to tally on a daily basis the Nakba refugees and their families, are horrified that Palestinian victims have refused to die off or forget the Nakba crimes committed against their families while at the same time the global community is beginning to support the Palestinians right to return.

Even many American taxpayers, long intimidated by Zionist hasbara and fears of being labeled “anti-Semitic” or “self-hating Jews” but who have long opposed Israel’s occupation of the political power centers in Washington DC, are outing themselves. Increasingly they are calling publicly for their government to break with Israel and its intensely promoted and sometimes engineered US wars in the region, and bring our troops home, and  heal and repair America while reclaiming American values.

This last remaining 19th Century colonial enterprise, which brutally implanted Israel in the heart of Palestine, has created more than six million refugees, each of whom has the separate, personal, and inalienable right and responsibility to return home.

One remarkable quality of the Palestinian refugees which Pipes keeps from his readers is that in the main they, unlike the European colonists who continue to ethnically cleanse them from their homes, may be willing to share their lands with any Jew who will agree to live as equals in a democratic one person one-vote governed country without religious preferences or a foreign “chosen colonial people” imposing an Apartheid regime.

Franklin Lamb, a former Assistant Counsel of the US House Judiciary Committee at the US Congress and Professor of International Law at Northwestern College of Law in Oregon, earned his Law Degree at Boston University and his LLM, M.Phil, and PhD degrees at the London School of Economics.

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Why I Agree With Asra Nomani: KFC Restaurants Need to be under Constant Surveillance

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Why I Agree With Asra Nomani: KFC Restaurants Need to be under Constant Surveillance

Posted on 10 March 2012 by Danios

Asra Nomani, who is a real life Muslim, recently wrote a piece for the Daily Beast defending the NYPD’s practice of racial profiling and spying on the American Muslim community.  Haroon Moghul, another prominent American Muslim figure, blogged a response, which was cross-posted on LoonWatch.  Nomani had written in her article:

Indeed, just as we need to track the Colombian community for drug trafficking and the Ku Klux Klan for white extremists, I believe we should monitor the Muslim community because we sure don’t police ourselves enough.

Moghul shot back:

The first part of her sentence, about Colombians, is actually right on (by her silly logic); the second part contradicts her own logic (she can call for profiling some Latinos, but she doesn’t have the courage to apply her racializing logic to white America), and everything after “I believe” speaks to how little Asra actually knows anything about the Muslim community, as well as the several seconds of your life which you could have done something better with.  For law enforcement to go after white extremism the way it seems to be going after Muslims (at least, with respect to the NYPD), they wouldn’t be going after the KKK, as Asra suggests–unless Asra means to suggest that Muslim student organizations at Yale and UPenn are offshoots of al Qaeda. Law enforcement would instead have to spy on as many white institutions (churches, civic clubs, student organizations, etc.) as they could.

Danios of LoonWatch chimed in: “Will Asra Nomani stay consistent and support spying on white people?”

But, Haroon Moghul and Danios of LoonWatch are way off: it’s not proper to compare peace-loving, good Christian white folk to Muslims or Latinos.

The real million dollar question is: should the police racially profile and spy on the black community?  Using Asra Nomani’s sage advice, I think we must.  For the longest time though, I have worried that our sense of political correctness has kept us from sensible law-enforcement strategies that carefully look at black male youth, black neighborhoods, and black hangout spots.

The LAPD and other police departments should send “rakers” into the black community–police officers whose racial background (black) and language skills (ebonics) match the places they are monitoring, including black streets, black high schools, and black hangout spots like basketball courts.

Public spaces, especially those protected from police scrutiny due to racial sensitivities, are a natural meeting spot for criminals. If the NYPD was tracking shopping malls or pizza shops where criminal activity is being planned, we wouldn’t complain. Because of racial political correctness, we’re protesting looking into black communities.  Alas, criminals and gang-bangers use our political correctness and racial sensitivity as a weapon against us.

There are other black people who believe law enforcement has to do its job and spy on black people.  I know at least four different random black people who feel the same way I do.

The last few decades of battling violence in the black community has revealed one truth: black neighborhoods are spaces used by blacks intent on criminal activity.  Asra Nomani wrote:

[M]osques and Muslim organizations are institutional spaces used by Muslims intent on criminal activity, not much unlike the pews of a Catholic church or a Godfather’s Pizza might be the secret meeting spot for members of the Italian mafia.

Nomani has done extensive research on this topic.  I heard she watched all three parts of The Godfather.  If we want to crack down on black crime, I suggest especially high surveillance of watermelon stands, basketball courts, and near white women.  As far as I’m concerned, we need plenty of “raking.”

Police and FBI sources reveal that blacks are responsible for much of the violence and crime in our nation.  Kevin Alfred Strom went through the FBI Uniform Crime Report and found the following:

According to the FBI, Blacks are more than 3 times as likely to be thieves as Whites. They are more than 4 times as likely to commit assault as Whites. They are almost 4.5 times as likely to steal a motor vehicle. According to the FBI, Blacks are more than 5 times as likely to commit forcible rape as Whites, over 8 times as likely to commit murder, and more than 10 times as likely to commit robbery. For all violent crimes considered together, Blacks are almost 5.5 times more likely to commit violent criminal acts than Whites, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Report…

A few more statistics:

85% of all felonies committed against cabbies in New York City are committed by Blacks.

Nearly 25% of all Black males between the ages of 20 and 29 are in jail or on probation. This doesn’t include those wanted or awaiting trial!

Statistically, Black neighborhoods are 3500% more violent than White ones.

Nearly 25% of all Black males between the ages of 20 and 29 are in jail or on probation. This doesn’t include those wanted or awaiting trial!

Statistically, Black neighborhoods are 3500% more violent than White ones.

Well, since blacks won’t police themselves, I think it’s high time the police do it for them.  (Does anyone have an Official “I’m Black” card I can use so this sounds less offensive?)

Nomani notes:

Like the NYPD tracking the Newark restaurants where Muslims congregate, Karachi police have a local spot they have on constant surveillance: a restaurant called Student Biryani, selling a rice dish popular in the country. I learned this tracking the police case against the militants involved in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The mastermind, Omar Sheikh, met with his logistical chiefs at Student Biryani, and the police report reveals the men even took some biryani home as carryout. Militants can easily huddle in Student Biryani’s crowded restaurant space and get a hot meal and much-needed noise.

Damn those wily terrorists and their biryani bellies.  Although my extensive googling revealed no evidence for this claim that the popular food chain Student Biryani in Pakistan is under “constant surveillance” by police, I think Nomani raises a good point.  In our fight against black violence, I think we need to keep all KFC restaurants under constant surveillance.  A tracking and listening device should be included in all takeout boxes.  I once heard a gang of Bloods once ate a full 12-piece of crispy chicken at one KFC in one city at one moment in history.  Gang members can easily huddle in KFC’s crowded restaurant space and get a hot meal and much-needed noise (and chicken).

Many African countries make no apologies for monitoring their black citizens.  Neither should the LAPD or other police departments apologize for monitoring blacks.  Blacks should in fact open their doors to the surveillance and help the cops smoke out the criminals in their community, so that black neighborhoods and communities are safe spaces.

Note: If you didn’t figure it out already, the above article is not to be taken seriously and is actually a spoof of Asra Nomani’s article on American Muslims.  My purpose was to reveal how utterly revolting Nomani’s expressed views are, something that only becomes apparent when you switch out “Muslim” for black, Jewish, etc.

Addendum I:

I had thought I was being especially creative when I came up with the KFC bit, but then I realized I had missed this gem from Nomani’s original article (I almost spit my drink out when I saw it): Nomani defended the NYPD spying on

restaurants frequented by Muslims, including Kansas Fried Chicken, a place run by folks of Afghan descent, according to the report.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

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From Voting to Violence

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Far Right Hardcore ‘Willing to Prepare for Armed Conflict’, New Study Finds

Posted on 09 March 2012 by Emperor

A lot of Anders Behring Breivik’s not only in the UK but across Europe:

Far right hardcore ‘willing to prepare for armed conflict’, new study finds

(Guardian)

A hardcore of far-right supporters in the UK appears to believe violent conflict between different ethnic, racial and religious groups is inevitable, and that it is legitimate to prepare even for armed conflict, according to a new report.

The study, From Voting to Violence? Rightwing Extremists in Modern Britain, by Matthew Goodwin, of the University of Nottingham, and Jocelyn Evans, of Salford University, was launched at Chatham House on Thursday. The report questioned more than 2,000 supporters of “radical-right” and “far-right” groups and found that many endorsed violence, with a “hostile inner core” apparently willing to plan for and prepare for attacks.

“What we have got here is a group of people who self-identify as supporters of the far right and who are, to quite a large extent, backing ideas about preparing for violence and appear to view violence as a justifiable political strategy,” said Goodwin, who is a specialist in far-right politics.

The findings come ahead of the trial next month of Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right extremist who has confessed to the murder of 77 people in Norway in July. Breivik said he had contact with far-right groups in the UK and that he carried out the attacks on Utoya Island and Oslo to help protect Europe from a “Muslim takeover”.

Goodwin said his report’s findings should also be seen in light of the 17 people affiliated to the far right who have been imprisoned in the UK in recent years for terrorism offences.

“When you go through the transcripts of those cases what they often emphasise is this notion of impending race war, the impending clash of civilisations that meant they needed to stockpile explosives and plan attacks to defend their group from a perceived threat. It is that apocalyptic, almost survivalist notion that goes with far right ideology that we have begun to explore through these exploratory questions.”

The study was based on a survey, carried out by YouGov, of 2,152 people who self identify as supporters of either the British National Party, the UK Independence Party and a smaller sample of English Defence League supporters.

The authors found that almost half of the BNP supporters in their sample thought “preparing for conflict between different groups is always or sometimes justifiable” and two-fifths considered armed conflict to be “always or sometimes” justifiable.

The report states: “The responses point towards a tranche of BNP supporters who endorse the view that both preparing for and engaging in inter-group conflict are always justifiable actions…. the BNP members in our sample appear to view themselves as a core vanguard who are preparing for a forthcoming conflict in a way that the party’s more passive supporters are not.”

In line with previous studies, the respondents to the survey were largely men who had not been to university, were generally dissatisfied with their lives and were mostly concerned about immigration, the economy and a perceived threat from Muslims and Islam. Twenty per cent of BNP supporters and 25% of UKIP supporters who responded said they had served in the armed forces.

Goodwin said the study’s findings should be seen as a preliminary first step towards addressing that shortcoming and warned that the far right in the UK was now at a “fork in the road”.

“On one side, we have a far-right party [the BNP] disintegrating at elections and closing down any chance of a ballot box strategy. On the other we have a more combative and confrontational form of street politics in the EDL. Then for the first time in recent history we have somebody in Breivik who has essentially offered a brand to would-be perpetrators of far right violence.

“Our findings would appear to suggest that within this wider climate and amidst continuing public anxiety over immigration, Islam and economic hardship there is a significant section within the far right who believe violence and armed conflict is a legitimate option should they feel their wider group is under threat.”

Guardian, 9 March 2012

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SPLC Intelligence Report Spring 2012

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SPLC: Number of Anti-Muslim Groups ‘Tripled’ in 2011

Posted on 09 March 2012 by Emperor

My guess is there are even more anti-Muslim hate groups then reported:

SPLC reports growth of US hate groups

The Southern Poverty Law Center has published the Spring 2012 issue of its Intelligence Report, on “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2011″, which identifies a continued growth in the number of hate groups operating in the United States.

In “The ‘Patriot’ Movement Explodes” Mark Potok states: “The radical right grew explosively in 2011, the third such dramatic expansion in as many years.” Potok writes:

The number of anti-Muslim groups tripled in 2011, jumping from 10 groups in 2010 to 30 last year. That rapid growth in Islamophobia, marked by the vilification of Muslims by opportunistic politicians and anti-Muslim activists, began in August 2010, when controversy over a planned Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan reached a fever pitch. Things got worse later in the year, when Oklahoma residents voted to amend the state constitution to forbid the use of Islamic Shariah law in state courts – a completely unnecessary change, given that the U.S. Constitution rules that out. The overheated atmosphere generated by these events also helped spur a 50% jump in the FBI’s count of anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2010. Then, in March 2011, U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) held hearings on the radicalization of U.S. Muslims that seemed meant to demonize them. At the same time, there was a swelling of truly vicious propaganda like this remarkable Jan. 14, 2011, comment from columnist Debbie Schlussel: “They are animals, yes, but a lower form than the dog, as they won’t learn to change their behavior for a carrot or a reward.”

In connection with anti-gay groups Potok points out:

In another development, most of the religious right groups that started out opposing abortion but moved on to attacking LGBT people have recently begun to adopt anti-Muslim propaganda en masse. The gay-bashing Traditional Values Coalition, for instance, last year redesigned its website to emphasize a new section entitled “Islam vs. the Constitution,” published a report on Shariah law, and joined anti-Shariah conferences.

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Asra Nomani in The Daily Beast: Spy on White People

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Asra Nomani in The Daily Beast: Spy on White People

Posted on 09 March 2012 by Danios

(cross-posted from avari)

By Haroon Moghul

So, Asra Nomani writes an(other) embarrasing example of self-hatred for The Daily Beast, applauding law enforcement’s apparent targeting of Muslims throughout the Greater New York City area. Her essay is riddled with simple errors, clear misperceptions of how law and constitutionalism function, an inability to process profiling, and some faulty logic, perhaps the finest instance of which is here:

Indeed, just as we need to track the Colombian community for drug trafficking and the Ku Klux Klan for white extremists, I believe we should monitor the Muslim community because we sure don’t police ourselves enough.

The first part of her sentence, about Colombians, is actually right on (by her silly logic); the second part contradicts her own logic (she can call for profiling some Latinos, but she doesn’t have the courage to apply her racializing logic to white America), and everything after “I believe” speaks to how little Asra actually knows anything about the Muslim community, as well as the several seconds of your life which you could have done something better with.For law enforcement to go after white extremism the way it seems to be going after Muslims (at least, with respect to the NYPD), they wouldn’t be going after the KKK, as Asra suggests–unless Asra means to suggest that Muslim student organizations at Yale and UPenn are offshoots of al Qaeda. Law enforcement would instead have to spy on as many white institutions (churches, civic clubs, student organizations, etc.) as they could.

Because, of course, by Asra’s article’s painful logic, a person’s whiteness is a sufficiently significant lead to get law enforcement to pay attention to him, just as a Muslim institution is, on the grounds of its Muslimness, a target of suspicion sufficient to merit law enforcement’s full attention. This is a point Amy Davidson made far more succinctly in an excellent post at The New Yorker:

There is a difference between chasing clues and treating Islam, in and of itself, as a lead.

Does Asra mean to suggest we should be spying on white folks indiscriminately, because they, like the KKK, are white? Should we spy on white Muslims twice, since they are white and Muslim, and so somehow become extremists that hate themselves. I spoke about this issue on a far more relevant basis to Welton Gaddy of State of Belief Radio.

By the way, I’ll be at Fordham’s Manhattan campus today (Monday, March 5th), speaking about the long history of Islam and especially Islam in America. It’s free, and I’ll try to make it fun, educational, and enlightening. We’ll be starting at 6pm at Fordham’s South Lounge inside 113 West 60th Street, right off Columbus Circle in Manhattan. The event ends at 8pm.

Haroon Moghul is a Ph.D. Candidate at Columbia University in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies. He is an Associate Editor and columnist at Religion Dispatches and writes for the Huffington Post.

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Kony 2012: Viral video tries to take down Lord’s Resistance Army Leader

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Kony 2012: Viral video tries to take down Lord’s Resistance Army Leader

Posted on 08 March 2012 by Ilisha

Joseph Kony

A former Catholic altar boy from northern Uganda, Joseph Kony has waged war in central Africa for more than two decades.

A video campaign launched by San Diego-based nonprofit, Invisible Children Inc., attempts to harness the power of the Internet–and especially social media, including Twitter, YouTube and Facebook — to stop Joseph Kony, head of the Lord’s Resistance Army. The Uganda-based militia is infamous for killings, kidnappings, mutilations and torture in several African nations.

A 30-minute viral video exposes Kony’s enslavement and abuse of 30,000 children in Uganda, and has received over 10 million views since Monday. The documentary has garnered support from major celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, Rihanna and Justin Beiber.

Kony attempts to justify his crimes in the name of Christianity, which is clearly a reflection of his own madness rather than a divinely inspired religion. However, the story begs the question: What if he were Muslim? 

Joseph Kony: Profile of the LRA leader

From the BBC

He claims that his Lord’s Resistance Army movement has been fighting to install a government in Uganda based on the Biblical 10 Commandments.

But his rebels now terrorise large swathes of the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, and he is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Regional armies are trying to hunt them down with the help of 100 US soldiers.

Mr Kony was due to sign a peace deal with the Ugandan government in 2008, but peace talks fell apart because the LRA leader wanted assurances that he and his allies would not be prosecuted.

Born in the early 1960s in Odek, a village east of Gulu, Mr Kony is remembered as an amiable boy.

“He played football and was a brilliant dancer,” one of his former classmates said, recalling the rebel leader’s days at Odek primary.

The LRA’s aims were heavily influence by the Holy Spirit Movement, a 1980s group that represented the Acholi people of northern Uganda.

Teen LRA Victim

This teenager had her lips, nose and ears cut off by the LRA

The movement was formed by Alice Lakwena, a former prostitute who was believed to be Mr Kony’s cousin.

They felt excluded from power after northern leader Milton Obote was overthrown in a military rebellion, and eventually replaced by current President Yoweri Museveni in 1986.

Ms Lakwena promised her followers immunity from the bullets of the Ugandan army, but Mr Museveni’s troops defeated her movement in 1988 and she fled to Kenya.

After this defeat, Mr Kony founded his own rebel group which over the next 20 years has gone on to abduct thousands of children to become fighters or sex slaves.

Mr Kony himself is thought to have at least 60 wives, as he and his senior commanders take the pick of the girls they capture.

He sees himself as a spirit medium.

“They will tell us what is going to happen. They say ‘you, Mr Joseph, tell your people that the enemy is planning to come and attack’,” he has explained.

Young abductees who have escaped from the LRA say Mr Kony would tell them he got his instructions from the Holy Spirit and would often preach in tongues.

“I will communicate with Museveni through the holy spirits and not through the telephone,” he once said.

He has created an aura of fear and mysticism around himself and his rebels follow strict rules and rituals.

“When you go to fight you make the sign of the cross first. If you fail to do this, you will be killed,” one young fighter who escaped from the LRA told US-based Human Rights Watch.

“You must also take oil and draw a cross on your chest, your forehead, and each shoulder, and you must make a cross in oil on your gun. They say that the oil is the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Mr Kony appears to believe that his role is to cleanse the Acholi people.

He uses biblical references to explain why it is necessary to kill his own people, since they have, in his view, failed to support his cause.

“If the Acholi don’t support us, they must be finished,” he told one abductee.

Christmas massacre

Six years ago, Mr Kony broke his silence and was interviewed on camera in his jungle base at the time in north-eastern DR Congo.

He was surrounded by some of what he estimated were his 3,000 heavily armed fighters, and insisted he was not the monster he was portrayed to be.

“Let me tell you clearly what happened in Uganda. Museveni went into the villages and cut off the ears of the people, telling the people that it was the work of the LRA. I cannot cut the ear of my brother; I cannot kill the eye of my brother.”

He gave the interview at the start of delicate peace process brokered by the authorities South Sudan.

But the negotiations saw splits in LRA ranks and Mr Kony’s deputy, Vincent Otti, who played a key role in the talks, died in mysterious circumstances.

It is believed he may have been murdered on the orders of Mr Kony, who refused to sign the deal.

The LRA later went on a major offensive, carrying out a massacre on Christmas Day 2008.

On that day and over the following three weeks, the LRA beat to death more than 800 people in north-eastern DR Congo and South Sudan, and abducted hundreds more.

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r-GARRY-MCCARTHY-CHICAGO-MUSLIM-SPYING-large570

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Garry McCarthy, Chicago Police Chief, Pledges No NYPD-Esque Spying On Muslims

Posted on 08 March 2012 by Emperor

(H/T: BBK)

Garry McCarthy, Chicago Police Chief, Pledges No NYPD-Esque Spying On Muslims

(The HuffingtonPost)

OAK BROOK TERRACE, Ill. — For the first time in public, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy promised his department will never conduct blanket surveillance of Muslims like the New York Police Department did in Newark, N.J., when he was chief there.

McCarthy addressed hundreds of Muslims on Saturday at the annual banquet of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Chicago, a civil rights organization. He said police would follow leads in criminal cases, but the department “does not and will not conduct blanket surveillance and profiling of any community in the city of Chicago.”

“We are deeply committed to respecting the civil rights of all Chicagoans,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy and Mayor Rahm Emanuel have tried to reassure Chicago-area Muslims since The Associated Press revealed the NYPD’s spying in Newark. The AP reported last month that in 2007, the NYPD’s secretive Demographics Unit fanned out across Newark, photographing mosques and eavesdropping on Muslim businesses. Earlier, the AP reported that the department was conducting similar surveillance in New York, building databases showing where Muslims live, shop and pray.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has vigorously defended the operations, saying police only follow up on allegations. But civil rights advocates and other critics say the NYPD’s 60-page report on the Newark operations showed Muslims were targeted solely because of their religion.

McCarthy, who was also a top officer in the NYPD at one point, told the AP that his former colleagues in New York notified him as a courtesy that they were sending plainclothes officers to Newark, but none of his officers participated in the operation. New York police say Newark leaders cooperated with the effort.

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended his department’s operations again Saturday in a speech at Fordham Law School, as about 60 protesters marched outside. Addressing New Jersey officials’ complaints that the NYPD overstepped its bounds by not fully informing them of officers’ activities, Kelly noted 746 Garden State residents were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

“If terrorists aren’t limited by borders and boundaries, we can’t be either,” Kelly said. “It is entirely legal for the Police Department to conduct investigations outside of city limits, and we maintain very close relationships with local authorities.”

McCarthy met privately last week with community leaders in Chicago to discuss the issue, but he hadn’t stated publicly whether he supported the NYPD’s tactics.

He was warmly received at Saturday’s banquet, held in a Chicago suburb. CAIR Executive Director Ahmed Rehab praised McCarthy for his “heartfelt” sincerity and taking the initiative to attend, and the audience applauded when the chief said police need to work with the city’s communities to prevent crime and terrorism.

“We are focused on our mission of making Chicago the safest city for every resident in every neighborhood, but we can’t do it alone,” McCarthy said. “We must have a positive relationship with the wonderfully diverse communities that comprise Chicago and that make this great country of America as strong as it is today.”

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Chicago Democrat and immigration advocate, also addressed the group, lashing out at the NYPD’s spying methods.

“It makes no sense and is not sensible law enforcement,” Gutierrez said.

McCarthy wrapped up his remarks by saying he is a 9/11 survivor, who was in a command post near the World Trade Center until the towers fell. He told the audience that 13 of the 23 officers lost by the NYPD were personal friends.

“And I want to tell you this,” he said. “In the 10-plus years since that horrific event, which has affected me to my core, I have never once thought ill of the religion of Islam.”

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AtheistBillboard

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‘The Jews have stopped the billboard’ – American Atheists’ Leader Complains that ‘God is a myth’ ad near Hasidic Neighbourhood has Been Blocked

Posted on 07 March 2012 by Emperor

Bob Pitt of Islamophobia-Watch rightly questions whether Islamophobes who allied themselves with American Atheists over the Zombie Muhammad issue will now cry that Jews are attacking freedom of speech and expression, as they surely would if Muslims had stopped the billboard:

(via. Islamophobia-Watch)

‘The Jews have stopped the billboard’ – American Atheists’ Leader Complains that ‘God is a myth’ ad near Hasidic Neighbourhood has Been Blocked

by Bob Pitt

This time atheists found themselves answering to a higher power – a picky landlord. A Southside loft owner refused to allow a billboard questioning Judaism to be installed atop his S. Fifth Street building on Tuesday amid outrage in Williamsburg’s Hasidic community.

National atheist leaders tried to take out a month-long ad adjacent to Williamsburg’s Orthodox Jewish stronghold with text in English and Hebrew reading: “You know it’s a myth … and you have a choice.” But at the last minute, landlord Kenny Stier refused to allow workers from the advertising company Clear Channel into his building, according to American Atheists president David Silverman.

Silverman claims powerful neighborhood rabbis convinced Stier to block the non-believing billboard and called the religious leaders and the landlord “anti-atheist bigots”. “The Jews have stopped the billboard,” said Silverman. “It’s really ugly bigotry. As a former Jew, it’s repugnant to see Jews act like this.”

Several Hasidic leaders said they had nothing to do with the landlord’s decision to block the billboard, and Stier declined to comment. “I don’t want to get involved in this,” he said.

Councilman Steve Levin (D–Williamsburg) said the billboard showed a “severe lack of sensitivity” at a time when Brooklyn should be striving to have open conversations about religion.

“Even if we were to ignore the antagonistic placement of this billboard near the Williamsburg Bridge, the content of the message is conveyed in a disrespectful manner,” said Levin. “This does not appear to be a genuine attempt to engage in a dialogue, but is here merely to insult the beliefs of this community.”

The Brooklyn Paper, 6 March 2012

We look forward to Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, who have been enthusiastically supporting American Atheists over the “Zombie Muhammad” controversy, joining Silverman in condemning this development as an outrageous attack on freedom of expression – as they undoubtedly would if it had occurred in a Muslim neighbourhood. But don’t hold your breath.

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TAPPS

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Texas Schools Association Discriminates against Muslims as Well as Jews

Posted on 07 March 2012 by Garibaldi

A really egregious story out of Texas:

Texas schools association discriminates against Muslims as well as Jews

A Houston Islamic academy was denied membership to the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools after being grilled about the Koran and the mosque located at Ground Zero.

Iman Academy applied for membership to TAPPS in 2010, but the association denied the school’s request. After being rejected two years ago, Principal Cindy Steffens did not go public with the story, but The New York Times uncovered the Houston academy’s name last week and ran an article about the controversy.

TAPPS represents more than 220 private schools in the state. The association drew national attention last week after refusing to reschedule a basketball game for a Jewish Orthodox day school Robert M. Beren Academy in Houston, which could not play at the time because the players observed the Sabbath. After the parents threatened legal action, Beren was allowed to play its semi-final game.

The Iman Academy received a questionnaire as part of their application to apply for the TAPPS. Steffens said the questionnaire had provocative and loaded questions, including how the school addresses Christmas. Among the questions sent to Iman Academy and the other Islamic schools that applied were:

  • Historically, there is nothing in the Koran that fully embraces Christianity or Judaism in the way a Christian and/or a Jew understands his religion. Why, then, are you interested in joining an association whose basic beliefs your religion condemns?
  • It is our understanding that the Koran tells you not to mix with (and even eliminate) the infidels. Christians and Jews fall into that category. Why do you wish to join an organization whose membership is in disagreement with your beliefs?
  • How does your school address certain Christian concepts? (i.e. celebrating Christmas)
  • Does your school teach that the Bible is corrupt? When was the  Bible allegedly polluted? Does the Koran actually  state that the Bible is polluted?
  • What is your attitude about the spread of Islam in America? What are the goals of your school in this regard?

In 2004, two other Islamic schools applied for membership and received a response letter that they perceived as hostile to their faith. They chose not to answer the questions, but Iman Academy did.

School officials were invited to an interview before the TAPPS board in November 2010, and Steffens said one board member said he wanted to discuss the “elephant in the room.” She said the board asked questions that seemed irrelevant to joining an association to play sports, such as asking her opinion about the mosque located near Ground Zero in New York City.

Steffens said another board member told her, “I know all Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.”

Houston Chronicle, 6 March 2012

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Zuhdi Jasser’s Astroturf Muslim Groups Behind Rally to Support NYPD Spying

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Zuhdi Jasser’s Astroturf Muslim Groups Behind Rally to Support NYPD Spying

Posted on 06 March 2012 by Danios

The American Islamic Leadership Coalition (AILC) and the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) recently held a joint rally to express support for the NYPD and the tactics it uses (including racial profiling and spying on American Muslims).  Media reports used the following sorts of headlines:

Muslim group rallies to support NYPD spying

Islamic leaders support NYPD

Islamic Leaders Plan Pro-NYPD Rally in Support of NYPD

Muslims Rally In Support Of NYPD Mosque Surveillance Program

etc.

The issue is now being portrayed as: Some American Muslims oppose the NYPD’s tactics but others approve of them.  Now that there is an equivalency, whose to say which side is right?  In spite of the embarrassingly low turnout for the pro-NYPD rally, some elements are even insinuating that this misguided handful of individuals somehow represents the “silent majority” of the American Muslim community.

In reality, American Muslims as a whole oppose the NYPD’s tactics of racial profiling and spying.  Finding a few token Muslims on the other side of the divide doesn’t change that.

In fact, these are astroturf Muslim groups, with absolutely no grassroots support in the American Muslim community itself, which explains why they had such a paltry showing at the rally.  The American Islamic Leadership Coalition (AILC) seems to consist of only twelve members; of these, most are inactive–they contribute nothing to the AILC and their only purpose seems to be to create some semblance of a “group.”  Three of the individuals in the list of twelve aren’t even American Muslims.

In reality, the AILC is really just one man, who is the group’s founder: Zuhdi Jasser, every right-winger’s favorite Muslim and the narrator of the anti-Muslim film, The Third Jihad.  The contribution from many of the other members in the group seems minimal to non-existent.  One of the exceptions might be Tarek Fatah, who is not even an American Muslim to begin with.

What of the second group, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD)?  If you click on their “leadership” tab, only one man’s name comes up: you guessed it, it’s Zuhdi Jasser, who “is the Founder and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD).”  Who else is a part of this astoturf group is a mystery.

The AILC site claims that it is “representative of the overwhelming ‘silent majority’ of Muslims in America.”  Yet, the group itself revolves primarily around one individual with no grassroots support, evidenced by the lack of turnout to their scheduled rally: only about twenty-something people showed up for it.  Is that what they mean by the “silent majority” of Muslims in America?  How is it that Zuhdi Jasser, Tarek Fatah (who is not even an American Muslim), and a small group of nobodies decide to call themselves the “leadership” of the “silent majority” of American Muslims?  They in fact lead nothing but astroturf groups with no real membership or support in the community they claim to represent.

Zuhdi Jasser and his astroturf groups are fake in another way too: they claim to be “liberal and progressive Muslims”, and yet they “pal around” with far right-wing elements.  Just a few days ago, for instance, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy–which is, of course, little more than Zuhdi Jasser–issued their/his undying love for and praise of the far-right wing extremist Andrew Breitbart.

I have nothing against dissenting voices in any faith community critically challenging tradition, especially if this is done to further liberalism, tolerance, and peace.  But, don’t be fooled by the AILC, AIFD, and whatever other acronym/astroturf group they create next.  Their central figure is a man who doesn’t have a liberal or progressive bone in his body.  He’s as right-wing as they come.  And he certainly doesn’t speak for American Muslims.

Zuhdi Jasser is just a token Muslim figure who the far right-wing anti-Muslim bigots can prance around to say all the things they believe with the only difference being that he proudly carries around his official “Muslim card”; this “I’m a Muslim” routine gives these loony, bigoted, and simplistic ideas a modicum of credibility.  The operative logic is: if a Muslim himsef says it, it must be true!

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

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BNP EDL Burnley Crown Court

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BNP and EDL Hold Joint Protest in Burnley

Posted on 06 March 2012 by Emperor

Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller‘s buddies from across the pond.

Remember when BNP leader Nick Griffin exposed his strategy,

The one quote from Nick Griffin which sums up the whole strategy – and which reveals Griffin’s true feelings towards Jews – appeared in 2006 in a report for The Forward concerning an American Renaissance conference:

Nick Griffin has been credited with trying to root out antisemitism from the British National Party, which he leads. But in answer to a question at the recent conference, he said: “The proper enemy to any political movement isn’t necessarily the most evil and the worst. The proper enemy is the one we can most easily defeat.”

By swapping open anti-Semitism for Muslim-baiting, the BNP has managed (to) appear more attractive to some – it has also enjoyed some PR assistance from the “libertarian” right.

The so-called “Counter-Jihadism” movement is just a euphemism for the new fascism (via. Islamophobia-watch).:

BNP and EDL hold joint protest in Burnley

British National Party and English Defence League supporters held a protest outside Burnley crown court on Friday. More than 25 protesters gathered as Judge Beverley Lunt prepared to set a date for a child sex offence case.

Holding Union and St George’s flags and banners reading “protect children, fight grooming gangs”, protesters were monitored by around 20 police officers in and around the Hammerton Street court. Members of the BNP played music and speeches for more than two hours in front of TV news cameras and newspaper photographers.

Lancashire Telegraph, 5 March 2012

BNP leader Nick Griffin recently announced that the party hadlifted its ban on co-operation with the EDL, while prominent EDL member Hel Gower has joined a Facebook group advocating unity with the BNP, so it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

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Israeli settlers attack Palestinians daily

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Nour Samaha: Revenge of the Settlers

Posted on 06 March 2012 by Emperor

Israeli settlers attack Palestinians daily

Israeli settlers attack Palestinians daily

Revenge of the settlers

Nour Samaha (AlJazeera English)

Fadi Quran is little different from any other Palestinian living in the West Bank, where violence from Israeli settlers is part of daily life. Hailing from the town of Al-Bireh, less than one kilometre from the settlement of Psagot, the 23-year-old Master’s degree student has been forced to deal with attacks and harassment for years.

“Settler violence is a daily occurrence,” he told Al Jazeera. On one occasion, he was playing football with friends when they came under fire from settlers with machine guns. In another altercation, settlers threw stones at him while he was driving. Their guns discouraged him from stopping. “I’m telling you my story, but there are literally hundreds of thousands of other cases that are much worse.”

Last week, Quran was arrested after attending a non-violent protest in Hebron which demanded the re-opening of a street in the centre of the city. The Israeli army had made it a settler-only road 11 years previously, despite the presence of Palestinian families still living there.

Following a verbal dispute, Israeli soldiers pepper-sprayed him, beat him, arrested him, blindfolded him and took him to an interrogation centre at a nearby settlement. Once there, he discovered the arresting soldiers were actually from one of the area’s settlements.

“I asked where they were from and they told me: ‘Kiryat Arba’,” he said. “One of them then asked me if I knew Baruch Goldstein [an Israeli settler who, in 1994, opened fire inside a mosque in the West Bank, killing 29 and wounding over 125 others]. They said he was a hero and they would do the same thing.”

Quran was charged with attacking ten soldiers. In court a few days later, the judge stated there was no proof that Quran did not attack them. The hearing was postponed until the following day, by which point a video capturing the events leading up to Quran’s arrest had gone viral. After the video was presented to the judge (which clearly showed Quran had not attacked troops), he was released on bail.

Settler violence has been forcing people to significantly change their lives, Quran said: “There are communities who don’t use main roads because they are afraid they will be murdered. Many farmers can’t farm anymore because their lands are being burned or vandalised, so they have to find another job.”

report published in January by the Washington-based Palestine Center revealed a 39 per cent increase in the number of settler attacks – from stone-throwing to arson and shootings – between 2010 and 2011.

Furthermore, in the five-year period between 2007 and 2011, the occupied West Bank has witnessed a 315 per cent increase in settler attacks – while, over the same period, there has been a 95 per cent decrease in Palestinian violence against Israeli settlements and settlers.

The report found ”over 90 per cent of all the Palestinian villages which have experienced multiple instances of Israeli settler violence are in areas which fall under Israeli security jurisdiction”.

The report revealed a geographical shift in violent acts; previously settler violence was concentrated in the southern West Bank city of Hebron and its environs. Over the past few years, the Nablus governorate, in the northern West Bank, has also been on the receiving end of a large proportion of the documented settler violence.

This shift to the north, “where rural villages are predominantly targets, suggested that settlers are exploiting unfettered access to isolated Palestinian villages to perpetrate violence more than ever before”.

‘Open hunting season’

“What we have here is a complete failure to enforce the law and uphold the obligations to protect Palestinians,” Yousef Mounayer, director of the Palestine Center, told Al Jazeera.

“The Israelis really need to uphold their own obligations, otherwise we will continue to see violence and it will be open hunting season for settlers to attack Palestinians.”

International law states that occupying powers have a duty to protect local populations, while maintaining security and ensuring public order.

Issa Amro, a Palestinian from Hebron who heads the Youth Against Settlements activist movement, was forced with his family to leave his home – now designated a “closed military area” – after years of attacks from settlers.

“Every time settlers attack a Palestinian house, they are escorted by the army who protect them,” he explained. “I have filed dozens of cases and complaints, and not one time has anyone gone to court.”

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 90 per cent of monitored complaints filed by Palestinians have been closed without indictment.

“I have death threats against me, and I’ve been attacked many times by settlers,” said Amro. “[The settlers] say to me ‘I hope God erases your name’, and they say this to me in front of the army and the police, who stand by and do nothing.”

‘They are there to protect the settlers’

Ezra Nawi, an Israeli activist who has been working with Palestinians against settler violence for the past decade, said the Israeli military in the West Bank was complicit through inaction.

“Settlers attack Palestinians, but the army has orders preventing them from arresting or stopping them,” he said. “They are simply there to protect the settlers.”

Nawi is no stranger to settler violence, with his work frequently making him a target. He said the attacks “serve the state’s interests”.

“The violence scares the Palestinians into not moving around or using their land for farming and agriculture,” he said.

Further OCHA statistics also state approximately 10,000 Palestinian-owned trees were damaged or destroyed by settlers in 2011, while 139 Palestinians were displaced due to settler attacks.

The UN group also found that “80 communities with a combined population of nearly 250,000 Palestinians are vulnerable to settler violence, including 76,000 who are at high-risk”.

“Every day there are attacks by settlers,” said Amro. “What is new is that they have started burning mosques.”

Sarit Michaeli, spokesperson for B’Tselem, an Israeli group which documents violence in the West Bank, told Al Jazeera that increasing violence was a result of a lack of law enforcement.

“The Israeli authorities have an obligation under international law to protect both settlers and Palestinians,” she said. “While they fulfill their obligation to protect the settlers, with the Palestinians, we see a systematic failure to protect them from attacks.”

“It is worth noting that Palestinians who are arrested by the Israeli army are prosecuted and charged through the military court system, which is very low in terms of protection of their rights, while settlers, if they get arrested, are held and tried in the civilian court system, which offers greater protection of their rights,” she added.

‘It’s actually calmer now’

Yet not everyone agrees with the assertions made. David Ha’ivri, spokesperson for the settlement council covering the northern West Bank region, told Al Jazeera he felt the area “is over-exposed in the media in comparison to other areas in the world”.

“I’ve lived here for many years and we have experienced violence, but that is not the situation currently,” he said. “It is strange that someone is saying that there is an increase, while we’ve experienced a decrease in the violence. It’s actually calmer now than in the past.”

Dani Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council, reiterated Ha’ivri’s assertion, saying the levels of violence had decreased in the past two years, and that media had a tendency to “inflate and exaggerate things like the price-tag attacks“.

“Life in Judea and Samaria [the Biblical term for the West Bank] is normal,” he told Al Jazeera. “I don’t think violence during the last year has been a crucial problem, not for Jews and not for Arabs.

“Let’s not forget that the numbers provided are actually the other way around,” he added. “There have been at least 12 settlers who were murdered by Arabs in the last 24 months.”

According to B’Tselem statistics 13 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians in the West Bank over the past two years, while four Palestinians were killed by Israeli civilians, and a further 22 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army. In Gaza, 173 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military during the past two years.

Both Ha’ivri and Dayan state the Israeli authorities were doing what was required of them in terms of protecting civilians and arresting perpetrators.

“I don’t think there is less accountability, the state and the police are very serious about enforcing the law on both sides,” said Ha’ivri. “For example, there are individuals in some communities in Samaria who have been arrested, or banished from living in this area.”

“If the Arabs feel there is less accountability then they are not aware of the facts.”

While Dayan agreed the authorities were performing their duties, he acknowledged flaws in the judicial system.

“There are very few indictments, if at all, presented to the courts,” he said. “I do not have an explanation as to why there are so few indictments, and it is not my place to provide an explanation, but it does create problems, leading some to believe one side has a sense of immunity and can get off without punishment.”

“I do know the government and police have a high interest in the public opinion, so I don’t think they lack the motivation,” said Dayan. “It’s not a question of leniency, but maybe one of capability.”

‘They want Palestine’

The analysis of the Palestine Center’s Mounayer focused on causes of settler violence and whether it was responsorial (a reaction to either Palestinian violence and/or Israeli government actions), or structural (a product of demographics and security arrangements).

“What we found actually is that instances of Palestinian violence trigger a decrease in settler violence,” said Mounayer. “Palestinian violence tends to receive an official response from the Israeli army, so in these instances the settlers don’t intervene.

“We also found that some of it is motivated by Israeli government actions, but … it doesn’t necessarily have to be provoked by anything. As settlers can get away with it at any given time, they will continue.

“The message the settlers are receiving is that ‘this is okay, and the state is not going to stop them’.”

B’Tselem’s Michaeli, however, was keen to emphasise that violence was not something the majority of the settler community participated in. “The mainstream leaders in settler politics have denounced these attacks,” she said, adding that settler violence and clashes with local Palestinians dated back to the 1970s.

“Having said that, the settlement community as a whole in an occupied area is violent,” she said, referring to the illegal nature of the expanding settlements in the West Bank, frequently condemned by the international community.

Ha’ivri said that in most cases, when there is violence, it happens as a response to attacks on settlers. “I don’t think it happens on a daily basis. All acts of violence that have occurred are isolated on both sides,” he said. “I don’t think either side is going out and actively looking for targets.”

For Israeli activist Nawi, the motivations of settlers are much more straightforward.

“Most of the settlers are motivated by religious ideas; that the Arabs are unwelcome people and they need to leave,” he said. “It is not an argument you can reason with.”

“They want Palestine.”

Follow Nour Samaha on Twitter: @samahanour

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Pamela Geller: Obama’s Gay Transgender Prostitute Nanny Led to Sandra Fluke’s Rampant Promiscuity

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Pamela Geller: Obama’s Gay Transgender Prostitute Nanny Led to Sandra Fluke’s Rampant Promiscuity

Posted on 06 March 2012 by Emperor

Breivik's inspiration: Pamela Geller

I think we captured it when we said that Pamela Geller: Looniest Blogger Ever:

Pamela Geller: Obama’s Gay Transgender Prostitute Nanny Led to Sandra Fluke’s Rampant Promiscuity

by Charles Johnson (LGF)

Tonight, right wing heroine Pamela Geller continues spewing twisted sexual hatred at Sandra Fluke, in yet another BOMBSHELL post about a ridiculously lurid article in British tabloid The Daily Mail: BOMBSHELL: PRESIDENT OBAMA’S GAY TRANSGENDER PROSTITUTE NANNY!!!!! – Atlas Shrugs.

I don’t even know what to say about this one. It’s so far into the Tinfoil Zone, you’ll only hurt your brain if you try to make sense of her weird attempt at “connecting the dots.”

Is it any wonder that Obama is calling Sandra Fluke to congratulate her on her rampant promiscuity?

This, too, shaped the worldview of the post-American president.

And as usual, Pamela Geller’s commenters take the prize for the Most Disgusting Troglodytes on the Internet:

I can just picture Evie busting a nut in little ObaMao’s high chair tray and watching him dip a cookie in it.

Keith Mahone (aka Charles Martel)

Posted by: Keith Mahone (aka Charles Martel) | Monday, March 05, 2012 at 02:42 PM

Comments (20)

Pamela Geller Spews Hatred at Sandra Fluke: ‘Banging it Five Times a Day’

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Pamela Geller Spews Hatred at Sandra Fluke: ‘Banging it Five Times a Day’

Posted on 05 March 2012 by Emperor

Pamela Geller

Pamela Geller

Another day in being Pamela Geller. Spewing hateful invective at Sandra Fluke, saying that calling her a “slut” was a “softball,” that she is a “prostitute,” etc. Geller also somehow brings Islam into it with the “five times a day” remark which her commenters picked up on. I have a feeling Geller is sexually repressed.

She also calls Obama a “pimp,” and not in the cool, hip urban dictionary sense of the word.

Pamela Geller Spews Hatred at Sandra Fluke: ‘Banging It Five Times a Day’

by Charles Johnson (LGF)

Rush Limbaugh may have “apologized” (disclaimer: not a real apology) for his caveman comments about Sandra Fluke, but the right wing blogosphere continues to spew torrents of venom at her.

Tonight’s case in point is hate group leader Pamela Geller, parroting the latest talking point that Ed Schultz is somehow equivalent to Rush Limbaugh, and calling Sandra Fluke a “prostitute” who is “banging it five times a day:” SLUTGATE: CONTACT CARBONITE – DROP ED SCHULTZ!!!!! – Atlas Shrugs.

A 30-year-old poses as a 23-year-old, chooses a Catholic University to attend at $65,000 per year and can not afford ALL the birth control pills she needs… so she wants the US taxpayers to pay for her rampant sexual activity. By all accounts she is banging it five times a day. She sounds more like a prostituteto me. She must have an gyno bill to choke a horse (pun intended). Slut was a softball.

Obama calls her and tells Sandra Slut Fluke that her parents should be so proud of her.
He’s a pimp.
Did he call the sole survivor of the Fogel family massacre?
He is morally bankrupt.

As for Rush calling a spade a spade, or in this case, a slut a slut, advertiser Carbonite is playing selective outrage. Contact Carbonite here and demand that they drop their ads from Ed Schultz’s program.

UPDATE at 3/4/12 8:20:42 pm

Pamela Geller’s audience comments:

you know what.. I hope fluke gets circumcised totally..

she supports muslims wholeheartedly..

may her clit be sliced to the root..

fuck fluke

Posted by: vangrungy | Sunday, March 04, 2012 at 10:48 PM

Comments (31)

U.S. Special Forces in Southern Philippines

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Deadly Drones Come to the Muslims of the Philippines

Posted on 05 March 2012 by Emperor

Deadly drones come to the Muslims of the Philippines

by Akbar Ahmed and Frankie Martin (AlJazeera English)

Washington, DC - Early last month, Tausug villagers on the Southern Philippine island of Jolo heard a buzzing sound not heard before. It is a sound familiar to the people of Waziristan who live along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, where the United States fights the Taliban. It was the dreaded drone, which arrives from distant and unknown destinations to cause death and destruction. Within minutes, 15 people lay dead and a community plunged into despair, fear and mourning.

The US drone strike, targeting accused leaders in the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah organisations, marked the first time the weapon has been used in Southeast Asia. The drone has so far been used against Muslim groups and the Tausug are the latest on the list.

Just as in Pakistan and other theatres of the “war on terror”, the strike has provoked controversy, with a Filipino lawmaker condemning the attack as a violation of national sovereignty. This controversy could increase with the recent American announcement that it plans to boost its drone fleet in the Philippines by 30 per cent. The US already has hundreds of troops stationed on Jolo Island, but until now, the Americans have maintained a non-combat “advisory” role.

The expansion of US’ drone war has the potential to further enflame a volatile conflict involving the southern Muslim areas and Manila, which has killed around 120,000 people over the past four decades. To understand what is happening in the Philippines and the US’ role in the conflict, we need to look at the Tausug, among the most populous and dominant of the 13 groups of Muslims in the South Philippines known as “Moro”, a pejorative name given by Spanish colonisers centuries ago.

Sulu Sultanate

For hundreds of years, the Tausug had their own independent kingdom, the Sulu Sultanate, which was established in 1457 and centered in Jolo. The Sultanate became the largest and most influential political power in the Philippines with highly developed trade links across the region. From this base among the Tausug, Islam took root in neighbouring Mindanao Island among the Maguindanao and other groups.

The antagonistic relationship between the Moro periphery and the centre in Manila developed during the Spanish colonial era. The Spanish had arrived not long after expelling the Muslims from Spain and, intoxicated by that historical victory, were determined to exterminate Islam in the region and unite the Philippines under Christian rule.

In the instructions given by the Spanish governor on the eve of the first campaign against the southern Muslims in 1578, he ordered that “there be not among them anymore preachers of the doctrines of Mahoma since it is evil and false” and called for all mosques to be destroyed. The governor’s instructions set the tone for centuries of continuous warfare. The idea of a predatory central authority is deeply embedded in Tausug mythology and psychology.

Of all the Moro groups, the Tausug has been considered the most independent and difficult to conquer, with not a single generation of Tausug experiencing life without war over the past 450 years.

As any anthropologist will testify, the Tausug have survived half a millennium of persecution and attempts at conversion because of their highly developed code and clan structure. It is the classic tribe: egalitarian and feuding clans that unite in the face of the outside enemy and a code which emphasizes honor, revenge, loyalty and hospitality.

It was only in the late 19th century that Spain succeeded in incorporating the Sulu Sultanate as a protectorate and established a military presence on Jolo. The Spanish were followed by American colonisers who could be as brutal as their predecessors. In a 1906 battle, US troops killed as many as 1,000 Tausug men, women and children, and between 500 and 2,000 in a 1913 engagement.

Despite the Moro resistance to US colonial rule, they advocated for either continued American administration or their own country, rather than be incorporated into an independent Philippines, which they believed would continue the policies of the Spanish against their religion and culture. The request, however, was rejected.

‘Special provinces’

Following independence in 1946, the Muslim regions were ruled as “special provinces” with most of the important government posts reserved for Christian Filipinos. Despite being granted electoral representation in the 1950s, the majority of Moro had little interest in dealing with the central government. Manila, for its part, largely neglected the region.

The Tausug areas remained impoverished and, in the absence of jobs, young men turned to looting and piracy. In response, Manila opted for heavy-handed military tactics and based its largest command of security forces in the nation among the Tausug.

Central government actions to subdue the Tausug areas in the 1950s resulted in the deaths of almost all fighting age men in certain regions. The society was torn apart, with the young generation growing up without traditional leadership.

The current conflict began in 1968 with what became known as the Jabidah Massacre, when around 60 mainly Tausug recruits in the Philippine Army were summarily executed after they refused a mission to attack the Malaysian region of Sabah, where a population of Tausug also resides.

In 1971, the Moro, incensed by Jabidah and accusing the central government of conducting “genocide”, began an open war against the state. A Tausug-dominated independence movement soon developed called the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).  In 1976, the government reached an agreement with the MNLF to grant the Moro areas autonomy, which was further developed in a 1996 treaty that is still being negotiated.

For many Moro living on Mindanao, however, the deal was unsatisfactory because of the presence of so many Christian settlers, who they complained were taking more and more of their land under what seemed like government policy.

Indeed, the population had dramatically changed from 76 per cent Muslim in 1903 to 72.5 per cent Christian by 2000. The government was arming Christian settlers to attack Muslims. In 1971, the most notorious Christian militia, the Ilaga, killed 70 Moro in a mosque. Muslim militias lashed back, leading to a cycle of violence.

A new group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), based in Mindanao’s Maguindanao ethnic group, soon split from the MNLF and vowed to push for secession.

‘Abu Sayyaf’ label

Following the 9/11 attacks, the United States became involved in the region in pursuit of the elusive Abu Sayyaf, which it accused of having links with al-Qaeda. The group was formed by a charismatic Tausug preacher in the late 1980s, whose speeches attracted angry young men from a community rife with orphans due to the previous decades of war.

Abu Sayyaf has been blamed for kidnappings, bombings and beheadings, gripping the Philippines with sensational media reports. Manila has been accused of applying the “Abu Sayyaf” label to any conflict in the region, including those involving small armed Tausug groups, many of them kinship based, which have existed for centuries.

Aid workers kidnapped in 2009, for example, reported that their “Abu Sayyaf” captor told them “I can be ASG (Abu Sayyaf Group), I can be MILF, I can be [MILF or MNLF breakaway group] Lost Command”.

Manila was discovering, like many other nations after 9/11, that by associating its restless communities on the periphery with al-Qaeda, it could garner easy American support.

To resolve the conflict between the Moro and Manila, President Benigno Aquino must demonstrate that the centuries of conflict and forced assimilation into a monolithic Filipino culture are over. The government needs to promote pluralism and build trust with the periphery.

With the recent declarations by President Aquino’s government that the state is fully invested in implementing the 1996 autonomy agreement with the MNLF and hopes to have a peace treaty in place with the MILF by 2013, the various parties have a unique opportunity to work for a longstanding solution.

Development projects to help the suffering Tausug must be conducted urgently as the situation for ordinary people is dire. Amidst the frequent barrages of artillery and bombs and the displacement of hundreds of thousands over the past decade, a 2005 study found that 92 per cent of water sources in Sulu Province, where the majority of Tausug live, were contaminated, while the malnutrition rate for children under five is 50 per cent. Education and employment are constant challenges.

The sad state of affairs does not only result from a lack of funds, as the Philippines government, the United States and others have poured millions into the region, but rather how funds are spent. The association of development with the military among the population has been an impediment to implementing necessary projects.

Mediation needed

Between inefficient aid funding and the ongoing military campaigns, Manila has been drained of desperately needed resources and diverted from fulfilling its ambitions to become an economic powerhouse.

Development solutions can only work if they have the full support of the clans that decide local politics, which is no easy task, considering the tenacity with which clans can fight over resources. Yet with a holistic plan of engagement in the context of true autonomy, it is possible to bring them together.

Mediation, involving local religious leaders and international bodies like the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, which has taken the lead in peace talks between the Moro factions and the government, can play a key role in this regard.

Major General Reuben Rafael, the Philippine commander formerly in charge of military operations in Sulu Province, gave us an example of how to proceed. In 2007, he staged a public apology for transgressions against the population. The assembled people began to cry, including the Tausug mayor of the town, who stated that never in the history of Sulu had a military general apologized to them in such a manner. This is the way to the heart of the Tausug, and we salute the general for showing us the path to peace.

By unleashing the drones, the US has pushed the conflict between centre and periphery in the Philippines in a dangerous direction. If there is one lesson we can learn from half a millennium of history it is this: weapons destroy flesh and blood, but cannot break the spirit of a people motivated by ideas of honour and justice.

Instead, the US and Manila should work with the Muslims of the Philippines to ensure full rights of identity, development, dignity, human rights and self-determination. Only then will the security situation improve and the Moro permitted to live the prosperous and secure lives they have been denied for so long; and only then will the Philippines be able to become the Asian Tiger it aspires to be.

Professor Akbar Ahmed is Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington DC and the former Pakistani High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

Frankie Martin is an Ibn Khaldun Chair Research Fellow at American University’s School of International Service and is assisting Professor Ahmed on Ahmed’s forthcoming study, Journey into Tribal Islam: America and the Conflict between Center and Periphery in the Muslim World, to be published by Brookings Press.

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EDL protest in Luton

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Far-right Supporters Agree with Armed Attacks

Posted on 04 March 2012 by Emperor

Far-right supporters agree with armed attacks

 and  (The Guardian)

Significant numbers of far-right supporters in the UK consider violence and “armed conflict” a legitimate form of political expression, experts will warn this week.

The first audit into the attitudes and beliefs of Britain’s rightwing extremists, collated in a report by the thinktank Chatham House, will reveal that there is a “significant level of support” for planned violent attacks.

Next month the trial will begin of Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right extremist who has confessed to the murder of 77 people in Norway last July. Breivik, an Islamophobe, said he carried out the attacks on Utoya Island and Oslo to help protect Europe from a “Muslim takeover”.

The report, which polled 2,152 far-right supporters, raises concerns that the path of extremism followed by Breivik, from membership of a mainstream rightwing party to far-right terrorist, should be recognised as a possibility for UK counterparts.

Matthew Goodwin, an associate fellow of Chatham House and the University of Nottingham, said there was a danger that supporters of theEnglish Defence League (EDL), which had links to Breivik, could be tempted to become more militant. “Perhaps some might feel that more direct, more violent strategies are the way forward.”

On 31 March the EDL will stage an international demonstration in Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city. The “counter-jihad” summit will discuss the formation of a European Defence League. Representatives from defence leagues in Italy, Poland, the United States, Finland, Sweden and Norway are expected to attend, along with the anti-Muslim group, Stop Islamisation of Europe.

The ramifications of a well-organised, European-wide far-right movement, able to share violent ideologies and pool resources, has triggered concern from anti-fascist campaigners. Last week the Czech government warned that extreme rightwing groups were becoming more sophisticated and that neo-Nazis might resort to terrorism.

Goodwin said: “If the EDL links up with similar organisations in Germany and central and eastern Europe, that is quite worrying. Many of the grassroots groups in Germany are often called ‘autonomous nationalists’, but are very, very closely networked with neo-Nazi groups and organisations that engage quite openly in violence.”

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Bigots Resume Offensive against Murfreesboro Islamic Center

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Bigots Resume Offensive against Murfreesboro Islamic Center

Posted on 04 March 2012 by Emperor

Islamic Center of Murfreesboro

Islamic Center of Murfreesboro

Bigots resume offensive against Murfreesboro Islamic Center 

MURFREESBORO — With an April 25 court hearing drawing near in the fight over mosque construction here, foes of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro’s plans are taking the battle regional.

But while the court issue next month will focus on whether Rutherford County provided ample public notice for the 2010 meeting in which county planners approved the mosque site plan, opponents remain focused on a religious conflict, sounding a warning about the perceived spread of Islam and the damage they believe it will do to American society.

“This is not a Muslim-bashing deal. I don’t have any problem with Muslims. It’s Islam that’s causing it,” Kingdom Ministries pastor Darrel Whaley told a crowd of about 70 people last Tuesday at the Cannon County Senior Citizen Center.

Whaley warned the group that Woodbury and Cannon County are part of the area the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro plans to cover, based on a 2010 posting on the ICM’s website. It’s one of several counties surrounding Rutherford where Whaley said he hopes to deliver the message.

The minister told the crowd he was glad some Muslims felt free enough to attend the event and noted that when he preaches each Sunday at his Walter Hill church, not everyone is going to agree. “They’ve got that right,” he said.

Yet when the former president of the ICM tried to address the crowd to refute “misconceptions” later in the event following presentations by attorneys Joe Brandon and Tom Smith, Whaley refused to let him speak.

“I came here to say open our hearts to each other,” Ahmed Elsayed said, turning to the audience and pleading for the opportunity to speak. “We want to have mutual respect.”

One man in the audience argued that he had served in the military to help maintain the right to free speech and that Elsayed should be allowed to speak.

Whaley’s presentation in Woodbury Tuesday quickly shifted into a Sunday sermon, in which he told the audience, “There are no other gods with the offer of heaven. It is his will that everyone be saved. God so loved the world that he gave his son – for Muslims … for atheists. To deny his truth is to be willfully ignorant or intellectually dishonest.”

But moments after saying, “God loves Muslims just as much as anyone in the room,” the minister outlined a seven-step plan by Islam to dominate the world, starting with the 9/11 attack, followed by the destabilization of secular Muslim governments, the toppling of moderate Muslim regimes, a pending confrontation with the West and a declaration of total domination by 2020. “Their goal is to turn our nation into an Islamic republic,” he said.

Daily News Journal, 3 March 2012

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Tennessee Freedom Coalition Hosts, “The Dangers of Islam” Event

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Tennessee Freedom Coalition Hosts, “The Dangers of Islam” Event

Posted on 02 March 2012 by Emperor

I hate to see all these folks being indocrinated into the “Islamization” myth. The misinformation and hate that is being pumped here can only lead to negative results (H/T: JD):

Click here to read more about the Tennessee Freedom Coalition.

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gaffneygeller

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Bloodthirsty ‘Anti-Jihad’ Bloggers Rant Crazily About Apologies for Koran-Burning

Posted on 29 February 2012 by Garibaldi

(H/T: BBoyBlue)

Bloodthirsty ‘Anti-Jihad’ Bloggers Rant Crazily About Apologies for Koran-Burning

by Charles Johnson (LGF)

Here’s an astonishingly paranoid article in the Washington Times by anti-Muslim crusader Frank Gaffney, warning right wingers yet again that shariah law is about to take over America, and arguing that people who criticize Gaffney and his conspiracy theories are “precisely the same” as the Ku Klux Klan. In this persecution fantasy, Gaffney plays the part of the civil rights activist.

In short, we find ourselves in what is, properly understood, the civil rights struggle of our time. Those who stand up for freedom against Shariah are quite literally protecting the rights of women, children, people of faith and other minorities sure to be abused by its misogynistic, intolerant and domineering doctrine. That means protecting, as well, Muslim-Americans who have come to this country to escape the long arm of Shariah law. In due course, though, Shariah’s repressive strictures would not simply be a threat to these communities. They would be a toxic blight upon all of us.

Ironically, today, it is defenders of our freedoms who are being denounced as “racists,” “bigots” and “Islamophobes.” Such terms are, in truth, being used in much the same way and for precisely the same purpose as the Ku Klux Klan’s members reviled an earlier generation of civil rights activists for loving blacks: to defame, threaten and isolate their opponents. We cannot, and certainly must not, tolerate the Islamists’ intolerance.

This latest crazy rant was triggered by President Obama’s apology to the Afghan people for US troops mistakenly burning Korans. In fact, that apology has triggered crazy rants from all over the bigoted anti-Muslim blogosphere, including, of course, the always insane Pamela Geller — who wants to see wholesale slaughter of Muslims, not apologies: PAMELA GELLER, WND COLUMN: STOP APOLOGIZING AND START CARPET-BOMBING!!!!! – Atlas Shrugs

The fish stinks from the head down, and this is Obama’s foreign policy. Is it any wonder that jihadist attempts in this country have skyrocketed under this president?

And what is he on his belly for? Why would civilized men apologize for destroying materials that were being used to send jihadist messages to kill our soldiers and our citizens? This is madness. Where are Muslim apologies for 1,400 years of jihadi wars, land appropriations, cultural annihilations and enslavements? Where are their apologies for the relentless jihad warfare against the Jews, the Hindus, Christians and all non-Muslims? Where are the apologies for 9/11, 7/7, 3/11, the U.S.S. Cole, the Khobar Towers, Beslan and Bosnia?

America does not apologize to savages and cannibals and ghouls.

Stop apologizing and start carpet-bombing. Defeat jihad. What’s it going to take?

Stop apologizing to these savages and start fighting. As an American, I do not apologize. I withdraw Obama’s apology. I withdraw Gen. Allen’s apology. I condemn their apology. I do not submit to a culture that suffocates ideas, critical thinking, women, non-Muslims. I do not apologize that the United States of America is “the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.”

The incoherent, hate-obsessed Pamela Geller now has the temerity to place herself above the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen. But then, she’s never lacked for self-esteem.

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This February 25, 2011 video image shows the image of an African American man behind a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) robe on exibit as part of the 'American I AM: The African Imprint' at the National Geographic in Washington, DC.

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The Ku Klux Klan: One of America’s Oldest Terrorist Organizations Boasts Booming Membership

Posted on 29 February 2012 by Amago

This February 25, 2011 video image shows the image of an African American man behind a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) robe on exibit as part of the 'American I AM: The African Imprint' at the National Geographic in Washington, DC.

This February 25, 2011 video image shows the image of an African American man behind a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) robe on exibit as part of the 'American I AM: The African Imprint' at the National Geographic in Washington, DC.

One of America’s oldest terrorist organization’s, the KKK is boasting about their increasing numbers. Whenever there is mention about such groups the Islamophobes and their supporters like to claim that they are insignificant and extinct.

Facts prove otherwise:

Increase Of Ku Klux Klan Membership In Colorado Tracks National Rise Of Hate Crimes

The KKK says their membership is “booming” in Colorado, with 12 white supremacist groups active in the state, according to a report by The Durango Herald.

Herald staff writer Chase Olivarius-McAllister reported earlier this week that Cole Thornton, Imperial Grand Wizard of Colorado’s United Northern and Southern Knights Ku Klux Klan group, claims that membership has grown steadily in the past few years.

“I’m really pleased with the kind of people we’re getting in – college-educated, professionals, teachers – even a couple congressmen. People would be amazed to know who I’ve talked with at midnight in isolated areas – it’s almost comical,” Thornton said to the Durango Herald.

A study by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a nonprofit civil rights organization based in Montgomery, found that the number of “radical right groups” in America — including hate groups, “Patriot” groups and nativist groups — increased in 2010 for the second year in a row.

In Durango, Colorado, racially motivated hate crimes rose from just three crimes between the years of 2006 and 2009, to four in 2010, and 19 in 2011, according to the Herald’s report. According to FBI data, hate crimes fell 30 percent between 2009 and 2010 in the state of Colorado.

Thornton attributed the KKK’s growing membership in Colorado in part to “whites’ low birthrate” in the country.

“We’re losing them to white homosexual relationships – they don’t reproduce – and interracial marriage – and to abortions on demand. Plus, immigration’s astronomical with Hispanics,” Thornton said in an interview with the Durango Herald.

According to U.S. Census data, Colorado’s Latino population grew by more than 40 percent between 2000 and 2010. And Denver, the state’s largest city, is now more than 30 percent Latino.

As the Latino population surged nationally in recent years, so did anti-Latino hate crimes.

The preliminary findings by the National Institute of Justice suggests that anti-Latino hate crimes rose disproportionally to other hate crimes between 2004 and 2008. Data collected by the FBI also indicates a steady rise in anti-Latino hate crimes across the country from 2003 to 2007.

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European “Counter-Jihad” Meeting: A dangerous New phase in extremist politics

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European “Counter-Jihad” Meeting: A dangerous New phase in extremist politics

Posted on 28 February 2012 by Ilisha

Crusader

The English Defense League (EDL) is a far-right anti-immigration, anti-Muslim organization comprised overwhelmingly of young white men deeply pessimistic about the future.

Since its founding in 2009, the group has held a series of street demonstrations deliberately targeting neighborhoods with significant Muslim populations. The protests have often been marred by violence, racism, virulant Islamophobia, and frequest arrests.

Outreach is increasingly sophisticated, and their mission is global in scope. Next month’s meeting in Denmark may usher in a dangerous new phase in their quest for a fascist, worldwide “counter-jihad.”

 

by Kevin Rawlinson & Paul Cahalan, The Independent

They achieve notoriety through a mix of combustible characters and often ugly protests, yet are kept on the political margins due to infighting and ill thought-out policies. But, next month, at a meeting in Denmark, some of Europe’s most notorious right-wing groups will meet for the European Counter-Jihad Meeting.

Those attending could witness the birth of a right-wing movement, the European Defence League – and the beginning of a dangerous new phase in extremist politics.

Representatives from defence leagues in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the USA, Italy, Poland and Finland are due to attend, along with the anti-Muslim groups Stop Islamisation of Europe, Stop Islamisation of the World and the far-right European Freedom Initiative. It is feared the new umbrella organisation could co-ordinate right-wing activities across Europe while politicising and unifying disparate groups. The idea, which is being championed by the English Defence League (EDL), could be modelled on the European Union – with delegates from participating countries meeting regularly.

Weyman Bennett, spokesman for pressure group Unite Against Fascism, said the meeting in Denmark’s second city, Aarhus, was the first meaningful meeting of such groups – which were looking at the EDL model and to mimic successful right-wing political parties in Eastern Europe, some of which have made it to government. He said:

The Euro-leagues are a new danger. We should not forget that it was the Norwegian Defence League that gave us Anders Breivik. The growth of a Euro-league in a time of economic crisis threatens to resurrect fascist street armies such as those that destroyed European democracies in the 1930s. The development of this network allows fascists and right-wing populists to share ideas, finance and experience in a way that should worry us all.

Mr Bennett added the groups would be using the euro crisis as a way to pull in new members, particularly from the middle classes.

He added: “We used to have a number of disparate groups. Now we are moving to a stage where we have fewer groups but they are more organised and sophisticated.”

Some 50 EDL leaders – whose members have been involved in violent clashes with anti-fascist groups in the past – will travel to the meeting. “This is the first proper European Defence League meet. We have been building bridges for the last two years and this is going to be the launch pad,” said Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the leader of the EDL, who is also known as Tommy Robinson.

He added the leader of each national defence league would sit on a panel and would meet “every three to four months”. He said: “We will discuss tactics. Each country’s delegates will get time to describe the problems they have. We will try to pool resources. For example, if another defence league wants to run a demonstration in their own country, they are unlikely to get as much media interest as if we were involved, so we would go over there and lend some support.”

Dr Matthew Goodwin, an expert on the far-right at Nottingham University, said a Continent-wide far-right alliance would help extremist groups organise demonstrations, which carry the possibility of violence and provide access to better-resourced and organised groups in eastern and central Europe.

He said:

The strategy is to organise large marches for the media attention and to provoke anti-fascist and Muslim groups, as well as the local population. Wherever these movements go, there is a possibility of violent clashes. With the EDL, there are question marks over where the movement is heading, if not towards elections. This would be an indication of where it sees itself going.

Dr Goodwin added that, historically, the far-right has often tried to build alliances on the Continent. “If there is anything the Breivik experience taught us, it is that the European-level movements, which share ideas and resources, are very dangerous.”

Farooq Murad, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said the move was “worrying”. He added the MCB was trying to bring together Muslim groups to counter an increase in Islamophobia.

Last year, Mr Yaxley-Lennon announced that negotiations to set up a political wing of the EDL were at an advanced stage. An alliance with the far-right British Freedom Party was discussed and Mr Yaxley-Lennon said he hoped to stand candidates in the next round of local elections. That deal has not yet been concluded and it is thought that it has met with some resistance among the EDL’s grassroots.

Yesterday, about 600 people travelled to Hyde, Greater Manchester, to take part in an EDL protest against an alleged attack by Asian youths on two white teenagers in the town. Eleven were arrested for minor public order offences.

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2333458045

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John McAndrew Banned from Mosques after EDL Attack in Dagenham

Posted on 28 February 2012 by Emperor

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer‘s favorite UK anti-Muslim organization:

Thug Banned from Mosques after EDL Attack in Dagenham

(London2)

A thug who attacked two men at a rally against a Muslim place of worship has been banned from going near London mosques for five years.

John McAndrew, 29, was jailed for 14 months after throwing large stones onto a busy road and then the following month assaulting two men at an English Defence League demo against a mosque and cultural centre in Green Lane, Dagenham.

Last week, McAndrew was given an Asbo stopping him from going near Muslim schools and places of worship until 2017 and taking part in any EDL demos in England for life.

In a statement released by the Met Police last week, Barking and Dagenham Pc Mark Gellard said: “John McAndrew is an individual whose often violent behaviour is linked with his attendance at demonstrations and protests, particularly surrounding the English Defence League.

“This behaviour affects those who live, work and frequent the areas where some of these demonstrations have taken place.”

McAndrew, of Grange Road, Plaistow, was given a conviction related Asbo at Woolwich Crown Court on February 20.

The Asbo will stop him from attending Islamic festivals for five years and from publicising and attending any rally run by, or in conjunction with, the EDL in England and Wales for the rest of his life.

McAndrew was jailed at Woolwich Crown Court on December 7. He was given four months after admitting common assault against the two men at an EDL rally in Dagenham on June 18, 2011.

He received another four months for affray after admitting throwing large stones onto the A4 dual carriageway during rush hour traffic at another EDL protest at the Hammersmith Flyover on May 11, 2011, police added.

McAndrew was given six months for breaching a suspended sentence for affray at a Poundmart store in Woolwich on September 10, 2009.

He was also sentenced to four weeks, to run concurrently, for two counts of failing to surrender to police.

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Newcastle mosque attack

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Australia: Man Arrested Over Mosque Attack

Posted on 28 February 2012 by Emperor

Looks like they found one of the men who attacked the mosque in Newcastle:

Australia: man arrested over mosque attack

Newcastle police say a two-month long investigation combined with information from the community has led to a 25-year-old man being charged over an attack on a local mosque.

Early last month several men tried to kick in the door of the Wallsend mosque after childrens’ scripture classes. A Maryland man will face court in April after being charged with intimidation, causing malicious damage and entering enclosed lands.

Newcastle Crime Manager, Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Humphrey says the investigation is ongoing. “It’s just another example of the public doing the right thing and giving the information to police. The actions of the person are now subject to Court so I can’t comment on those but a lot of crimes are solved by the information from the public being accurate and timely, and in this case it’s been very successful.”

Detective Chief Inspector Humphrey says the incident was caught on CCTV and police used the footage as well information from the public to make an arrest.

“There’ve been enquiries ongoing and as a result of some good information from the public at least one of the persons has been identified and spoken to by police and he’s been issued future court attendance notices,” he said. “We anticipate that another gentleman who could assist us with our inquiries will be spoken to in the coming weeks when he returns from interstate.”

ABC Online, 28 February 2012

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Hillary Clinton Muncif Marzouk Tunisia

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Anti-Muslim Rhetoric in the USA is Noticed in the Middle East

Posted on 27 February 2012 by Emperor

Hillary Clinton Muncif Marzouk Tunisia

The Right-Wing will add this to there lists of grievances and examples of “appeasement” to the Muslamic-overlord-beast-monster, when in reality it is a face saving statement by Clinton downplaying the very real and viral Islamophobia infecting the USA:

Clinton tells Muslims to disregard campaign talk

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton advised an audience in Tunisia on Saturday to “not pay attention” to the comments made by candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination, saying the often overheatedrhetoric of the campaign doesn’t reflect U.S. policy.

Speaking at a town-hall style event in Tunisia, the North African nation that sparked the “Arab Spring” revolts, Clinton said the partisan remarks made during campaign events “certainly don’t reflect the United States, don’t reflect our foreign policy, don’t reflect who we are as a people.”

Clinton’s remarks came in response to a question from a member of her audience who said he was troubled by some of the comments, which he considered anti-Muslim, made by candidates running for president.

“If you go to the United States, you see mosques everywhere, you see Muslim-Americans everywhere. That’s the fact. So I would not pay attention to the rhetoric,” she said.

Instead, she advised people to listen instead to President Barack Obama.

“I think that will be a very clear signal to the entire world as to what our values are,” Clinton said.

She added that she is sometimes surprised that people around the world pay more attention to what’s said in U.S. political campaigns than do most Americans.

“I think you have to shut out some of the rhetoric and just focus on what we’re doing and what we stand for and particularly what our president represents,” Clinton said.

Obama has come under fierce criticism from Republicans for apologizing for the burning of Qurans at a military base in Afghanistan.

GOP hopeful Newt Gingrich said while campaigning that the apology was “astonishing” and that Obama “has gone so far at appeasing radical Islamists that he is failing in his duty as commander in chief,”

American military officials say the burning of the Muslim holy books was a mistake, but it has sparked days of violent protests across Afghanistan.

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Escaudain mosque graffiti

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Another Mosque Desecrated in France: Mosque Escaudain: Nazi inscriptions on the facade

Posted on 27 February 2012 by Emperor

The attacks on visible images of Muslim presence continues in France (H/T: AlKanz)

Mosque Escaudain: Nazi inscriptions on the facade

(AL-Kanz via. Google Translate)

Escaudain Mosque, in northern France, was desecrated. Children have found Nazi symbols, a swastika and a sticker on Islamophobic that read “Stop Islamisation”.

The information was mailed in early evening on what appears to be the Facebook account of a faithful Escaudain Mosque , accompanied by the following message:

“The mosque was tagged with Nazi symbols and a sticker” Stop Islamisation “was plastered on the front.
Islamophobic discourse of our policies has allowed this kind of cowardice and weakness subservient to the CFCM system does not allow us to count on them to defend ourselves. ”

For more see: Fascist Grafitti and ‘Stop Islamisation’ Sticker on French Mosque

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She’s a Witch: Parents charged for ‘exorcizing’ teen girl

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She’s a Witch: Parents charged for ‘exorcizing’ teen girl

Posted on 26 February 2012 by Ilisha

Cross

 
What if they were Muslim?

Parents held for ‘forcing demons’ from daughter

Cross-posted from The Local

( H/T: Benjamin Taghiov)

The father and step-mother of a 14-year-old girl from western Sweden were charged on Friday with repeatedly beating and burning the girl because they “thought she was a witch”, according to the prosecutor.

“According to the girl’s version of events she has been subjected to being locked up, has had her feet tied together, assault through being burned with a red-hot knife in a torture-like manner and other violent rites and exorcisms,” prosecutor Daniel Larsson wrote in a statement.

Along with the parents, a pastor from a small religious community in Malmö has been charged.

“There is a pastor in Malmö who is under suspicion but is currently abroad,” Larson wrote.

According to local paper Borås Tidning (BT), suspicions first surfaced in 2004 when an anonymous report to the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) claimed all was not right, but the agency opted not to pursue the matter at the time.

Six years later, in 2010, the agency received new reports that the child was being abused, as well as information indicating that her father had taken her to Skåne to force the evil demons out of her.

The 37-year-old father denies all allegations saying he has done everything in his power to help his daughter who has been feeling “mentally unsettled”.

“He says he knows of no violence against her at all,” said defence lawyer Jan Elgmark to news agency TT.

Instead, the man claims to have sought medical advice, and help from his church, in dealing with the girl’s problems.

The 33-year-old step-mum is under suspicion for systematically abusing the girl over a long period of time.

“She denies these allegations,” her defence lawyer Torkel Stenbäcken told TT.

The prosecutor claims that the parents have shaved off the girl’s hair and locked her up so that she couldn’t infect her younger siblings with her “inherent evil”.

“My client hasn’t been privy to anything like that. But there are others who are under suspicion and it is possible that they have. However, it isn’t a criminal act to give someone a haircut,” Stenbäcken told TT.

He also denied that the step-mother had burned the girl with a red hot knife.

“There is no substance to those claims,” her lawyer said.

The woman has, however, admitted to some form of exorcism being performed.

“Yes, you could say that but that isn’t a crime. That’s religion and you’re allowed to practice that,” said Stenbäcken.

He added that it wasn’t the step-mother who had performed the rites, but other people. Prayers had been said in order to exorcize the demons from the girl or make her feel better.

“This is done in a religious context and I guess they thought it might help,” Stenbäcken told TT.

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Move Over Zagat: The NYPD Guide to Newark’s Best Muslim Restaurants

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Move Over Zagat: The NYPD Guide to Newark’s Best Muslim Restaurants

Posted on 26 February 2012 by Ilisha

Restaurant Jihad

Tasty Eats or Stealth Jihad?

Lots of tasty stakeouts…and there’s even a Dunkin Donuts!

The NYPD Zagat Guide to Newark’s Best (and Most Threatening) Muslim Restaurants

Cross-posted from Gawker

Last night, the AP broke the news that the New York Police Department had spent months spying on Muslims in Newark, N.J. “The result was a 60-page report,” AP reporter Adam Goldman writes, “containing brief summaries of businesses and their clientele.” But was it a surveillance file… or just a guide to Newark’s best Muslim restaurants?

“Such surveillance has become commonplace in New York City in the decade since the 2001 terrorist attacks,” Goldman rightly points out. “The documents obtained by the AP show, for the first time in any detail, how those efforts stretched outside the NYPD’s jurisdiction.”

But as he himself acknowledges, “[t]he report cited no evidence of terrorism or criminal behavior.” Indeed, it’s just “a guide to Newark’s Muslims.” Nothing creepy about NYPD spending months monitoring Muslims outside their jurisdiction, at all. And what could be more helpful to the aspiring gourmand than a handbook of the best Halal joints in Newark? With that in mind, we’ve re-arranged some of the dry NYPD “notes,” Zagat-style, to bring you: The NYPD Guide to Newark’s Best Muslim Restaurants.

Newark Fried Chicken
942 Broad St., (973) 824-1780
Yelp Rating: No rating.

NYPD says: A “medium size fast food restaurant” with “fried chicken, pizza and cold drinks” on its menu, Newark Fried Chicken is said to be “in good condition,” with “seating for 10 to 15 customers.”

*****

Kansas Fried Chicken
183 Market St., (973) 242-8844
Yelp Rating: No rating.

NYPD says: This “medium size takeout restaurant” is known for its “fried chicken, pizza and cold drinks.” “Location is owned by persons of Afghani descent,” notes one reviewer.

*****

Mecca’s Halal Restaurant
4 Branford Pl., (973) 824-5600
Yelp Rating: Four stars. (“Shockingly good,” writes Andrew B. of Evanston, Ill.)

NYPD says: A “small restaurant” “in close proximity of Islamic Cultural center” “owned and operated by African-Americans,” Mecca’s Halal Restaurant gets another thumbs-up from our reviewers. It “has seating for 10-15 customers” and “serves Halal food.”

*****

Amin’s Halal Restaurant
57 William St., (973) 621-1111
Yelp Rating: Three and a half stars. (“Very clean,” says Jeff M. of Jersey City, N.J.)

NYPD says: Our reviewers say Amin’s Halal Restaurant, “location below the former Muhammads Mosque” (now closed), is “medium sized” and “owned and operated by Muslims of Chinese descent.” “During visit 3 African Muslim males and an Egyptian male customer were observed dining within,” writes one reviewer. Wild!

*****

Dunkin Donuts
806 South Orange Ave., no phone number
Yelp Rating: No rating. (Average rating of Newark Dunkin Donuts: Three and a half stars.)

NYPD says: “Good condition,” observes one reviewer, who notes that the “store… has a capacity for 15 to 20 customers.”

*****

Utah Fried Chicken
653 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., (973) 792-1993
Yelp Rating: No rating.

NYPD says: Convenience is the name of the game at Utah Fried Chicken, which our reviewers note is “in close proximity of Masjid Rahman.” One drawback: the restaurant is “small.”

*****

Detroit Fried Chicken and Pizza
685 Springfield Ave., (931) 375-0013
Yelp Rating: No rating.

NYPD says: Come to Detroit Fried Chicken and you might be welcomed by its owner, “Egyptian male,” who’s set up “seating for approximately ten customers” right “next door to Masjid Al-Haqq.” “Fast food restaurant,” writes one reviewer, with what we imagine to be enthusiasm.

*****

West Indian American Halal Restaurant
347 Sandford Ave., (973) 373-7333
Yelp Rating: No rating.

NYPD says: “Poor condition” at this restaurant “owned and operated by persons of West Indian descent,” lament our reviewers. Nevertheless, it “has seating for 8-10 customers” and “is in close proximity of Masjid Fallahee… and Al Muslimaat academy.”

*****

Jordan Halal Restaurant
1008 South Orange Ave., (973) 399-7980
Yelp Rating: Four and a half stars. (“Great breakfasts,” writes Karol R. “OMG I would come here everyday if I could!!!!” adds Candy B. of Newark.)

NYPD says: Options for “takeout and dining in” at this “small restaurant” “owned and operated by persons of Jordanian descent.” But be aware that it is “small.”

*****

Chicken Holiday
1036 South Orange Ave., (973) 373-2009
Yelp Rating: No rating.

NYPD says: Reviewers didn’t have much to say about this “small size takeout location” “owned and operated by persons of Pakistani descent” “that serves Halal food” — but their affection was clear nonetheless.

*****

Crown Fried Chicken and Deli
231 Lyons Ave., (973) 923-4466
Yelp Rating: No rating.

NYPD says: Watch out at this “small fast food restaurant” serving “fried chicken and deli sandwiches”: “Location does not have any chairs or tables inside for customers.” Hope you like standing!

*****

Amin’s Halal Restaurant
430 Chancellor Ave., (973) 926-6150
Yelp Rating: No rating.

NYPD says: Get ready for some food after prayers at this “medium sized Chinese Halal restaurant” “located across the street from Masjid Ibrahim”! “Owned and operated by Muslims of Chinese descent,” Amin’s “has approximately three tables.”

*****

Kings Family Restaurant Inc.
327 Lyons Ave., (973) 926-2177
Yelp Rating: Three and a half stars. (“Sizeable portions,” says Ron B. of Denver.)

NYPD says: How about a party at Kings Family Restaurant Inc., “a large restaurant with seating for 45-50 customers”? This “traditional Halal diner” is “owned by persons of Turkish descent” — and don’t forget to bring some extra change: “location has a donation box inside for unknown Masjid.”

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Nonie Darwish Hatefest: Peaceful Protesters Attacked

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Nonie Darwish Hatefest: Peaceful Protesters Attacked

Posted on 26 February 2012 by Ilisha

Noni Darwish

Hatemonger for hire Nonie Darwish is an Egyptian-American anti-Muslim, anti-Arab “activist” of the “ex-Muslim” variety. She claims to be a champion of human rights, but her real mission is to peddle outrage, fear and hatred:

Islam is a poison to a society. It’s divisive. It’s hateful. Look what Islam is doing on our college campuses. It’s full of anti-Semitism. It’s going to turn us against one another. It’s going to produce chaos in society. Because Islam should be feared, and should be fought, and should be conquered, and defeated, and annihilated, and it’s going to happen. Ladies and gentlemen, Islam is going to be brought down. . .Because Islam is based on lies and it’s not based on the truth. I have no doubt whatsoever that Islam is going to be destroyed. ~ Nonie Darwish, at a Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA)Rally

Her outrageous statements have generated widespread controversy, and not surprisingly, her public appearances often draw protests. This time, peaceful protesters were met with aggression.

Video: Protesters are attacked at an ‘Israel Alliance’ event at U of New Mexico

by , Mondweiss

Violence broke out at the University of New Mexico campus during a peaceful protest on February 23rd of a lecture by Nonie Darwish, sponsored by UNM Israel Alliance, an affiliate of StandWithUs.

As you can see, members of the audience assaulted a number of UNM students when they began their ‘mic-checking’ action.

The public lecture, “The Arab Spring: Why it’s Failing and How Israel is Involved,” began at 7PM in the Anthropology lecture hall. UNM students protested against the Islamophobic rhetoric put forward by Darwish, an author and founder of Arabs For Israel. When the students raised their voices, a number of audience members got out of their seats and used force against the students.

Jordan Whelchel, a UNM student:

The response to this non-violent protest was a violent assault by parts of the crowd. The mic-check was shouted down by a few of the pro-Israel audience members who began physically forcing the protestors out of the auditorium. One of the pro-Palestine activists, a young woman who studies at UNM, had her face scratched and her hair pulled. A young man was forcibly pulled over a row of seats. One was nearly punched in the face, though another protestor intervened to stop the assailant by putting himself in the way. A phone was destroyed, and a camera only narrowly avoided the same fate.

This reaction came as a shock to the protestors. They desired to use words to shake people out of their comfort and complacency , they anticipated words in return, but were met with fists and shoulders. The only people who protected protestors from physical assault were other protestors. In the hallway, the ones who used a protest tactic widely endorsed by Arab Spring activists were called anti-democratic, pro-terrorist, and so on.

A student caught much of the event on film before another audience member pushed down her camera. The students were then forced out of the auditorium and called the UNM police, who arrived and filed a report on the incident.

These students were assaulted on UNM campus for simply trying to make their voices heard. It is a shock that a non-violent action was met with such aggression.

**********

UNM Students being attacked at an Israel Alliance event on campus

In this video, Note the man lunge into the protesters at 17 seconds:

It’s going to be interesting to compare what happens here to what happened with the Irvine 11.

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Germany holds state ceremony for Muslims murdered by neo-Nazis

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Germany holds state ceremony for Muslims murdered by neo-Nazis

Posted on 24 February 2012 by Ilisha

German Neo-Nazi

A neo Nazi carrying a German imperial flag. (AP)

According to the German intelligence services, up to 30,000 Germans are believed to hold far-right beliefs — and among those, one-third are bent on violence. Critics claim authorities preoccupied with Muslim extremists have overlooked this growing problem.

Germany holds state ceremony for Muslims murdered by neo-Nazis

by David Crossland, The National

BERLIN // Germany held a state ceremony and observed a nationwide minute of silence yesterday in honour of the 10 people, most of them Muslim shopkeepers, who were shot dead by neo-Nazis during a seven-year killing spree.

Angela Merkel, the chancellor, said the murders, uncovered by chance last November, had brought shame on the nation. She apologised to the families for police errors that critics have blamed on institutional racism.

“The murders were an assault on our country. They are a disgrace to our country,” she told a memorial service in Berlin attended by 1,200 people, including relatives of the victims.

The shootings started in 2000 and continued until 2007, targeting small businessmen including a flower seller, a grocer, a kiosk owner and two doner kebab shop managers.

They happened in cities across Germany, from Munich in the south to Rostock on the north coast, and the same handgun was used each time. A German policewoman was also killed.

Police failed to investigate a possible racist motive, instead suspecting that the families might be involved or that the victims had been caught up in illegal activities.

Authorities found out by accident last November that the murders were committed by a terrorist group calling itself the National Socialist Underground and made up of three neo-Nazis who had been on the run for more than a decade.

Two of them, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, committed suicide after a botched bank robbery. A DVD claiming responsibility for all the killings was found in an apartment they had used with the third member, Beate Zschäpe, who was arrested.

The discovery of the trio was a major embarrassment for German security authorities. It exposed them to accusations of having been blind to the threat of far-right violence and preoccupied with Islamist militants since the September 11 attacks.

A parliamentary inquiry has been set up and steps are underway to improve coordination among national and regional intelligence authorities. But critics say deeper change is needed, not only in the organisation of the security services but in the mindset of the police.

“Some of the relatives were themselves under suspicion for years. That is terrible. I ask your forgiveness for that,” said Mrs Merkel. “These years must have been a never-ending nightmare for you,” she said.

For years, the murders were dismissively referred to by the media and the police as the “Doner Killings” because of the stereotype of Turks running kebab shops. The relatives were given little attention.

“Indifference has a creeping but disastrous effect,” said Mrs Merkel. “It drives rifts into our society.”

Turkish immigrants and their descendants make up most of Germany’s almost four million Muslims. Even though the community dates back more than half a century, they are still labelled as “foreigners” by many Germans, and live in parallel communities.

For some, the memorial ceremony was overshadowed by criticism from immigrant groups that the government is not doing enough to fight racism, and by warnings from police that there are further potential terrorists in the country’s far-right, which contains 10,000 people categorised by law enforcement as potentially violent.

“The danger of racism shouldn’t be seen as a peripheral problem or just being linked to neo-Nazi violence,” said Aiman Mazyek, the chairman of the Council of Muslims in Germany.

“Racism, anti-Semitism and hostility to Islam can keep on advancing into the centre of society if we don’t resist that more decisively with all democratic means at our disposal.”

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<<enter caption here>> on December 13, 2009 in Harrow, England.

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Foreign Policy: Mosquebusters

Posted on 23 February 2012 by Emperor

Excellent piece by Spike Johnson exposing the “Mosquebusters.” Their strategy is to stop the building of all mosques using zoning laws, etc. Looks like the Islamophobic argument about “taqiyya” in reverse:

Mosquebusters

by Spike Johnson

LONDON — It is winter, the middle of December, and I find myself making an odd phone call. Pacing around my living room, I kick at the carpet as I dial the number.

“Hello?” I say.

“There’s no time,” the man on the other end of the line answers immediately. His name is Gavin Boby. We have e-mailed before, but I introduce myself again, explaining my background: education, photography and video experience, that sort of thing.

Boby’s tone is measured and businesslike. “It sounds like you have skills that could be of use. Muslims are very bad losers,” he says matter-of-factly. He’d like me to act as a witness, he tells me, videotaping his court appearances and searching the Internet for “targets.” The conversation is taking me into uncomfortable territory; my voice wavers, and I begin to flounder. Boby doesn’t notice. “I’ll send you instructions on how we work,” he says and hangs up. I have just become a Mosquebuster.

The Mosquebusters, or the Law and Freedom Foundation as they’re officially known, are part of a new wave of anti-Islamic campaigners in England with links to more established anti-immigrant groups such as England Is Ours and Stop Islamisation of Europe. Like many of these groups, the Mosquebusters fear that traditional British culture, laws, and values will disappear with the changing face of Britain and worry that extremist interpretations of sections of the Koran urge Muslims to kill non-believers and take slaves.

Until mid-February, the Mosquebusters advertised for volunteers, under a campaign called “No More Mosques,” on the website of the ultra-nationalist English Defence League (EDL), a group that organizes anti-Islamic street marches that often decend into brawls, riots, and arrests. The EDL and other anti-Islamic groups have no problem convincing their members to parade in public yelling insults like “Muslim bombers off our streets!” and “Allah is a pedophile!,” but the Mosquebusters have a quieter, perhaps more insidious approach: In offices and city halls, they are crafting legal cases against mosque construction applications across the country. It’s a war against Islam, but one that often resembles a bureaucratic turf battle more than a clash of civilizations.

Mosquebusters leader Boby, known as The Lawman, is careful to draw the distinction between religion and race. “It is primarily about the division between Islamic and non-Islamic society, and the lawless violence at the heart of Islamic doctrine and practice,” he says in his manifesto. Boby dressesconservatively, with a black suit, white button-down shirt, and pastel neck tie, done up tight. He is clean shaven, his brown hair cropped close, and his small eyes squint behind wire-framed glasses. He has the look of a typical middle-aged businessman. And most of the time, he is.

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., he runs a planning application company in Bristol, in western of England. He is a qualified barrister with undergraduate and graduate law degrees. But what Boby really wants is “an army of people, about 500 across the country,” as he says in one of his online motivational videos. As I watched the recording from my flat in East London, while digesting one of his instructional e-mails on bureaucratic mosque-busting, Boby leaned closer to the camera, maintaining eye contact: “It is very important that mosques are stopped.” (Read the rest)

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tucker

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Tucker Carlson: “Iran Deserves to be Annihilated”

Posted on 23 February 2012 by Garibaldi

The war-mongering calls for the invasion and destruction of Iran are multiplying at a horrific pace.

We saw this in the lead up to the decimation of Iraq, now we have Conservative pundits such as Tucker Carlson blatantly calling for “annihilation” as well as oddly claiming that the USA is the only country that has “moral authority” to engage in “pre-emptive war.”

Eli Clifton has some excellent analysis of all this (H/T: BA):

Tucker Carlson: ‘Iran Deserves To Be Annihilated

by Eli Clifton (ThinkProgress)

As the “drumbeat to war” with Iran, as Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) warns of, grows louder, a number of journalists have begun to compare the hawkish rhetoric from pundits with the calls for military action against Iraq in 2002. Scott Shane, writing on the frontpage of today’s New York Times, observed, “Echoes of the period leading up to the Iraq war in 2003 are unmistakable, igniting a familiar debate over whether journalists are overstating Iran’s progress toward a bomb.” Indeed, the ombudsman of The Washington Post and the public editor of The New York Times criticized their own journalists for overstating the evidence of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

Over the past week, journalists have raised the alarm about the increasing carelessness of the mainstream media in hyping the calls for war with Iran. But Fox News commentator and The Daily Caller editor-in-chief Tucker Carlson openly called for war against Iran and argued for the full-scale annihilation of the Islamic Republic during an appearance on Fox News’s late-night show Red Eye. Carlson responded to a question about U.S. military action:

CARLSON: I think we are the only country with the moral authority [...] sufficient to do that. [The U.S. is] the only country that doesn’t seek hegemony in the world. I do think, I’m sure I’m the lone voice in saying this, that Iran deserves to be annihilated. I think they’re lunatics. I think they’re evil.

Carlson, having called for the annihilation of Iran — a country with a population of over 74 million people — went on to acknowledge that “we should assess what will happen to the price of energy were we to do that.” Watch the clip:

arlson doesn’t bother to make a case for why the U.S. should destroy Iran. But presumably he’s referring to the crisis over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. However, neither the IAEA norU.S. intelligence reports conclude that Iran has restarted its nuclear weapons program. The IAEA and U.S. intelligence have expressed concerns about possible military aspects to Iran’s nuclear program and suspicions about Iran’s program intensified after Tehran refused IAEA inspectors access to facilities thought to be used for tests on how to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran also refused to agree to a process by which it would address IAEA concerns about “possible military dimensions” to its nuclear program.

But, much as in the case of the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, many journalists and politicians areignoring the facts on the ground and pushing forward with calls for increasingly aggressive actions. Carlson, however, may stand alone in publicly calling for Iran’s outright annihilation.

Update: Tucker emails Glenn Greenwald:

It’s my fault that I got tongue tied and didn’t explain myself well last night. I’m actually on the opposite side on the Iran question from many people I otherwise agree with. I think attacking could be a disaster for the US and am worried that Obama will do it, for fear of seeming weak before an election. Of course the Iranian government is awful and deserves to be crushed. But I’m not persuaded we or Israel could do it in a way that doesn’t cause even greater problems. That’s the main lesson of Iraq it seems to me.

That’s my sincere view, but I’d rather take some lumps and be misunderstood than seem like I’m reversing myself due to pressure from Twitter.

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aabu-dhabi-maps

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Buddhist Killer Pardoned by Muslim Victim’s Family

Posted on 22 February 2012 by Garibaldi

This is a story you wont see on JihadWatch:

Buddhist Killers Pardoned by Muslim Victim’s Family

Relatives of a Muslim Sri Lankan worker murdered by his Buddhist colleague in Abu Dhabi told court they have decided to pardon the killer, prompting the judge to bring forward hearings for sentence.

An official from the Sri Lankan embassy in Abu Dhabi handed the pardon document from the victim’s relatives to court on Tuesday, the semi official Arabic language daily Alittihad said.

“They just pardoned the Buddhist killer without demanding any diya (blood money) taking into consideration that the killer’s family is poor,” it said.

It said the pardon prompted the judge to bring forward hearings to February 27 to issue a sentence after they were scheduled for June.

Imagine if the Buddhist killer had been Muslim and the Muslim victim been Buddhist, who doubts Spencer would link the killing to Islam, relating it to jihad or some other convoluted made up theology that only exists in the feverish mind of Sheikh Spencer?

Instead, Spencer chooses to focus on another story reported in the same article, about a man who murdered a European woman he was paying for sex. The man murdered her and then went to pray, which certainly is odd (and proves more about his lack of conscious than any link to religion), but the fact that Spencer would try to relate it to Islam is just plain sick yet not surprising.

For Spencer this is another opportunity to denigrate Muslims and Islam while also trying to link the killing to “honor killings” and “jihad.”

Spencer writes in a post titled, Dubai: Muslim murders woman, then goes to mosque to pray,

We have seen this phenomenon in the past with some honor murderers and jihadists: they apparently believe that they have done something pleasing to Allah, and so are almost serene after the murders.

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Sean Stone Sean Stone

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Hollywood Hates on a Muslim Sean Stone

Posted on 22 February 2012 by Emperor

Sean Stone Sean Stone

Sean Ali Stone

Twitter and the general looniverse was abuzz with the angry reactions of Islamophobes to  Sean Stone’s conversion to Islam, we covered the episode in our post, Oliver Stone’s Son Converts to Islam: The “Islamization” of Hollywood Continues?

In the most recent update to the story Stone discusses the reaction he has received both in the film industry and at large:

“I’ve already experienced the reverse of anti-Semitism, having people within the film industry express a reluctance to work with me now that I have said a simple prayer, ‘There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his messenger.’ I am sure I have [bleeped] off some powerful people.”

…..

“I didn’t realize I would be so vilified. It is almost like I am a criminal for having accepted Islam. I didn’t realize Islamophobia was that deep. People have speculated that I have done this because I am from a spoiled family or that I am lost and trying to find myself. That is ridiculous.

“I don’t care if I get criticized. If I can open up a debate about religion and create some understanding, then it is worth it.”

The below report is from the NY Post, not our favorite news source, but if you get a chance you will see that the majority of the comments are exceptionally Islamophobic and anti-Muslim in tone.

H’wood snubs Muslim Stone

(NY Post)

Sean Stone, son of controversial director Oliver Stone, converted to Islam in Iran last week and says he’s already experiencing a Hollywood backlash.

The ceremony was held in Isfahan, where he is researching a documentary. He now goes by the name of Sean Christopher Ali Stone.

He told Page Six: “I’ve already experienced the reverse of anti-Semitism, having people within the film industry express a reluctance to work with me now that I have said a simple prayer, ‘There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his messenger.’ I am sure I have [bleeped] off some powerful people.” Speaking over dinner at Barrio 47, Sean told us, “Having read the Koran and having been around the Islamic culture, especially in Iran, I do believe that Mohammed is a prophet of the same god worshipped by other religions.

“I am of a Jewish bloodline, a baptized Christian who accepts Christ’s teachings, the Jewish Old Testament and the Holy Koran. I believe there is one God, whether called Allah or Jehovah or whatever you wish to name him. He creates all peoples and religions. I consider myself a Jewish Christian Muslim.

“What I am trying to do is open up a dialogue about religion. There is such Islamophobia in the West. Islam is not a religion of violence any more than Judaism or Christianity is.”

He said his dad welcomed the move.

“My dad said, ‘Allah be with you.’ My father understands that I am trying to bridge certain gaps and bring about peace.”

But he has been shocked by the reaction from others. Sean, about to release his horror movie “Graystone,” said, “I didn’t realize I would be so vilified. It is almost like I am a criminal for having accepted Islam. I didn’t realize Islamophobia was that deep. People have speculated that I have done this because I am from a spoiled family or that I am lost and trying to find myself. That is ridiculous.

“I don’t care if I get criticized. If I can open up a debate about religion and create some understanding, then it is worth it.”

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NYPD_mosque_AP120215145349_620x350

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Surprise, Surprise: NYPD Spied on Muslims in Newark

Posted on 22 February 2012 by Emperor

The NYPD’s secret surveillance and profiling of Muslims continues to be exposed. The most recent example is their quixotic foray into Newark. Mayor Cory Booker of Newark denies any knowledge of the “operation.”

NYPD built secret files on Newark mosques

(CBS/AP)

NEWARK, N.J. – Americans living and working in New Jersey’s largest city were subjected to surveillance as part of the New York Police Department’s effort to build databases of where Muslims work, shop and pray. The operation in Newark was so secretive even the city’s mayor says he was kept in the dark.

For months in mid-2007, plainclothes officers from the NYPD’s Demographics Units fanned out across Newark, taking pictures and eavesdropping on conversations inside businesses owned or frequented by Muslims.

The result was a 60-page report, obtained by The Associated Press, containing brief summaries of businesses and their clientele. Police also photographed and mapped 16 mosques, listing them as “Islamic Religious Institutions.”

Read the document obtained by the AP (pdf)

The report cited no evidence of terrorism or criminal behavior. It was a guide to Newark’s Muslims.

According to the report, the operation was carried out in collaboration with the Newark Police Department, which at the time was run by a former high-ranking NYPD official. But Newark’s mayor, Cory Booker, said he never authorized the spying and was never told about it.

“Wow,” he said as the AP laid out the details of the report. “This raises a number of concerns. It’s just very, very sobering.”

Police conducted similar operations outside their jurisdiction in New York’s Suffolk and Nassau counties on suburban Long Island, according to police records.

Such surveillance has become commonplace in New York City in the decade since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Police have built databases showing where Muslims live, where they buy groceries, even what Internet cafes they use and where they watch sports. Dozens of mosques and student groups have been infiltrated and police have built detailed profiles of ethnic communities, from Moroccans to Egyptians to Albanians.

NYPD under fire for monitoring Muslim students
NYPD defends watching Muslim student associations
NYPD’s spying programs produce mixed results

The documents obtained by the AP show, for the first time in any detail, how those efforts stretched outside the NYPD’s jurisdiction. New Jersey and Long Island residents had no reason to suspect the NYPD was watching them. And since the NYPD isn’t accountable to their votes or tax dollars, those non-New Yorkers had little recourse to stop it.

“All of these are innocent people,” Nagiba el-Sioufi of Newark said while her husband, Mohammed, flipped through the NYPD report, looking at photos of mosques and storefronts frequented by their friends.

Egyptian immigrants and American citizens, the couple raised two daughters in the United States. Mohammed works as an accountant and is vice president of the Islamic Culture Center, a mosque a few blocks from Newark City Hall.

“If you have an accusation on us, then spend the money on doing this to us,” Nagiba said. “But you have no accusation.”

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne did not return a message seeking comment about the report. Former Newark Police Chief Garry McCarthy, who is now in charge of the Chicago Police Department, also did not return messages left on his cellphone and with a press aide.

The goal of the report, like others the Demographics Unit compiled, was to give police at-their-fingertips access to information about Muslim neighborhoods. If police got a tip about an Egyptian terrorist in the area, for instance, they wanted to immediately know where he was likely to find a cheap room to rent, where he might buy his lunch and at what mosque he probably would attend Friday prayers.

“These locations provide the maximum ability to assess the general opinions and general activity of these communities,” the Newark report said.

The effect of the program was that hundreds of American citizens were cataloged — sometimes by name, sometimes simply by their businesses and their ethnicity — in secret police files that spanned hundreds of pages:

— “A Black Muslim male named Mussa was working in the rear of store,” an NYPD detective wrote after a clandestine visit to a dollar store in Shirley, N.Y., on Long Island.

— “The manager of this restaurant is an Indian Muslim male named Vicky Amin” was the report back from an Indian restaurant in Lindenhurst, N.Y., also on Long Island.

— “Owned and operated by an African Muslim (possibly Sudanese) male named Abdullah Ddita” was the summary from another dollar store in Shirley, N.Y., just off the highway on the way to the Hamptons, the wealthy Long Island getaway.

In one report, an officer describes how he put people at ease by speaking in Punjabi and Urdu, languages commonly spoken in Pakistan.

Last summer, when the AP first began reporting about the NYPD’s surveillance efforts, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said his police do not consider religion in their policing.

On Tuesday, following an AP story that showed the NYPD monitored Muslim student groups around the Northeast, school leaders including Yale president Richard Levin expressed outrage over the tactics. Bloomberg fired back in what was the most vigorous defense yet of his department.

“The police department goes where there are allegations. And they look to see whether those allegations are true,” he told reporters. “That’s what you’d expect them to do. That’s what you’d want them to do. Remind yourself when you turn out the light tonight.”

The Muslim Students Association said the police department “overstepped its boundaries when it began spying on average American Muslim college students.”

There are no allegations of terrorism in the Demographics Unit reports and the documents make clear that police were only interested in locations frequented by Muslims. The canvas of businesses in Newark mentions Islam and Muslims 27 times. In one section of the report, police wrote that the largest immigrant groups in Newark were from Portugal and Brazil. But they did not photograph businesses or churches for those groups.

“No Muslim component within these communities was identified,” police wrote, except for one business owned by a Brazilian Muslim of Palestinian descent.

Polls show that most New Yorkers strongly support the NYPD’s counterterrorism efforts and don’t believe police unfairly target Muslims. The Muslim community, however, has called for Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s resignation over the spying and the department’s screening of a video that portrays Muslims as wanting to dominate the United States.

In Newark, the report was met with a mixture of bemusement and anger.

“Come, look at yourself on film,” Abdul Kareem Abdullah called to his wife as he flipped through the NYPD files at the lunch counter of their restaurant, Hamidah’s Cafe.

An American-born citizen who converted to Islam decades ago, Abdullah said he understands why, after the 9/11 terror attacks, people are afraid of Muslims. But he said he wishes the police would stop by, say hello, meet him and his customers and get to know them. The documents show police have no interest in that, he said.

“They just want to keep tabs on us,” he said. “If they really wanted to understand, they’d come talk to us.”

After the AP approached Booker, he said the mayor’s office had launched an investigation.

“We’re going to get to the bottom of this,” he said.

Booker met with Islamic leaders while campaigning for mayor. Those interviewed by the AP said they wanted to believe he didn’t authorize the spying but wanted to hear from him directly.

“I have to look in his eyes,” Mohammed el-Sioufi said at his mosque. “I know him. I met him. He was here.”

Ironically, because officers conducted the operation covertly, the reports contains mistakes that could have been easily corrected had the officers talked to store owners or imams. If police ever had to rely on the database during an unfolding terrorism emergency as they had planned, those errors would have hindered their efforts.

For instance, locals said several businesses identified as belonging to African-American Muslims actually were owned by Afghans or Pakistanis. El-Sioufi’s mosque is listed as an African-American mosque, but he said the imam is from Egypt and the congregation is a roughly even mix of black converts and people of foreign ancestries.

“We’re not trying to hide anything. We are out in the open,” said Abdul A. Muhammad, the imam of the Masjid Ali Muslim mosque in Newark. “You want to come in? We have an open door policy.”

By choosing instead to conduct such widespread surveillance, Mohammed el-Sioufi said, police send the message that the whole community is suspect.

“When you spy on someone, you are kind of accusing them. You are not accepting them for choosing Islam,” Nagiba el-Sioufi said. “This doesn’t say, `This guy did something wrong.’ This says, `Everyone here is a Muslim.”‘

“It makes you feel uncomfortable, like this is not your country,” she added. “This is our country.”

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Franklin Graham Unsure of Obama’s Christian Bonafides, Speculates on Obama’s Scary “Muslimness”

Posted on 21 February 2012 by Amago

Graham still up to his old lies and fearmongering:

Franklin Graham Calls Obama’s Religious Beliefs Into Question

Evangelist Franklin Graham called President Barack Obama’s religious views into question on Tuesday, stating that he does not know for sure if Obama is a Christian.

Graham, who is the son of Billy Graham and the CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Obama “has said he’s a Christian, so I just have to assume that he is.”

“All I know is I’m a sinner, and God has forgiven me of my sins… you have to ask every person,” he said about whether he could say for sure that Obama is indeed of the Christian faith.

However, when asked about GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s religion, Graham gave a much more concrete answer.

“I think so,” Graham said when asked if he believes Santorum is a Christian. “His values are so clear on moral issues. No question about it… I think he’s a man of faith.”

MSNBC’s panelists questioned the reverend’s double standard, but Graham continued to draw distinctions between the candidates on the issue of faith. On Mitt Romney, Graham was again evasive, stating that “most Christians would not recognize Mormonism as part of the Christian faith.”

But Graham was more willing to label Newt Gingrich’s faith. “Newt’s been married several times… but he could make a good candidate,” Graham said. “I think Newt is a Christian. At least he told me he is.”

Later in the segment, Graham also said he could not be sure that Obama was not a Muslim.

“All I know is under Obama, President Obama, the Muslims of the world, he seems to be more concerned about them than the Christians that are being murdered in the Muslim countries,” he said.

He continued, ”Islam sees him as a son of Islam… I can’t say categorically that [Obama is not Muslim] because Islam has gotten a free pass under Obama.”

Graham drew the criticism of the White House last spring when he suggested in an interview with ABC that Obama had not been born in the United States.

During that same interview, Graham also questioned whether Obama’s actions and values matched up with his identification as a Christian.

“Now he has told me that he is a Christian. But the debate comes, what is a Christian?” Graham said of Obama. “For him, going to church means he’s a Christian. For me, the definition of a Christian is whether we have given our life to Christ and are following him in faith and we have trusted him as our lord and savior.”

Watch Graham’s full interview on MSNBC:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Daniel Tutt

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Four Myths that Led to the NYPD’s Attack on Muslim Civil Liberties

Posted on 21 February 2012 by Amago

Daniel Tutt

Daniel Tutt

(Via IslamophobiaToday)

Four Myths that Led to the NYPD’s Attack on Muslim Civil Liberties

by Daniel Tutt, Bio

Over the last month, multiple scandals have leaked that show the extent to which the NYPD has violated the civil liberties of thousands of New York Muslims under the banner of counterterrorism efforts. Protecting the homeland must remain central in all of our policing and intelligence-gathering efforts, but it should not, and does not have to result in the alienation of hundreds of thousands of New York Muslims. Equally important, counterterrorism efforts must operate on sound and factual analysis of the threat posed by the Muslim community, and collaboration with Muslim community leaders and citizens should be a top priority.

The damage that these scandals have caused in severing the lines of trust between law enforcement and the Muslim community may be irreparable in the short term, but it is not too late for the NYPD to begin assessing the policies that led us to where we are today.

In a recently exposed white paper published by the NYPD entitled, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” we find the basis of an entire philosophy of counterterrorism that operates on several myths that must be addressed.

Let’s examine each of these myths in turn.

1. Extremist Muslims have permeated New York Muslim communities. The white paper states:

“New York City has a diverse Muslim population of between 600,000 and 750,000 within a population of about 8 ½ million–about 40% of whom are foreign-born. Unfortunately, extremists who have and continue to sow the seeds of radicalization have permeated the City’s Muslim communities.”

To suggest that the Muslim community of New York is being overran with violent extremism is far from the truth. The New York Muslim community makes up an estimated 1 million people throughout the entire state. The community has incredible racial, socioeconomic, and ethnic diversity, and is very well integrated into the larger society.

The threat this community poses is similar to the threat that American Muslims pose nationwide: very little to none. Since 9/11, over 40% of the cases where criminal charges were brought upon an American Muslim for suspicion in a terrorism related case, the Muslim community was responsible for turning that individual, or individuals, over to the authorities. Muslims see counterterrorism as their duty according to recent public opinion polls, and they are more concerned about preventing terrorism then are the rest of the non-Muslim American public per capita. Don’t we want to increase this trend of Muslims serving on the front line of counterterrorism efforts? Increasing it has the dual benefit of making Muslims an integral part of the solution, and making them feel like a valued collaborator in the war on terrorism.

According to the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s comprehensive terrorism database, of the 49 Muslim domestic and foreign based plots against the U.S. since 9/11 – there were over 105 terrorist plots from non-Muslim groups and individuals – nearly 1 in 3 of these plots were turned over to the authorities by the American Muslim community.

2. A Muslim’s level of religiosity is a sign of radicalization and support for terrorism. The second myth that the document supports is the so called “conveyor belt theory” of terrorism, which argues that terrorism is based on a continuum of religiosity, where the more religious a Muslim gets, the greater likeliness they may adopt violent extremism. This is a major misnomer that has unfortunately been taught to hundreds of thousands of police and intelligence agents nationwide as exposed in a recent investigative report by Political Research Associates entitled Manufacturing the Muslim Menace.

The white paper describes the ideology that supports terrorism as “jihadi-Salafi Islam” but never defines these terms, especially what they mean for Muslims. Instead, they exaggerate what a “Salafi Muslim” is, and neglect to point out that the majority of Salafi Muslims in western Europe and in America are not in favor of using violence and are generally peaceful. It also refuses to look at competing studies of radicalization. For example, Quintan Wiktorowicz, National Security Agency Director learned in anextensive empirical research project he headed up on radicalization of Muslim youth, that there is no correlation between religiosity and a willingness to become radicalized. In other words, the more religious Muslims became, the less likely they would be to join radical movements.

Wiktorowicz insight supports what Policy Analyst Alejandro Beutel has recently discovered in his careful analysis of Osama bin-Laden’s recruitment rhetoric. In a careful analysis of the content of each lecture that bin-Laden gave, MPAC discovered that al-Qaeda’s recruiting “pitch” was overwhelmingly political/policy-oriented, not religious.

Let’s be realistic. The threat from al-Qaeda is concerning. Despite the controversial nature of his assassination, Anwar Awlaki’s death and disappearance from the scene is a welcoming sign in the ongoing recruitment that Al-Qaeda is attempting, mainly online, to American Muslims. The fact that we no longer have a charismatic, English speaking figurehead of al-Qaeda to brainwash American Muslims to commit acts of violence is a great thing. Awlaki’s model seemed to be fairly effective in turning about two-dozen American Muslims towards a commitment to violent radicalization against the west andAmerica in particular. Importantly, this was happening in anonymous chat rooms online, not in mosques, or mainstream religious institutions in America.

3. Profiling Muslims is possible and necessary. The third myth that the white paper supports is that Muslims must be profiled; suggesting not only is it necessary, but that it is possible. Here is an excerpt from the paper:

“Radicalization makes little noise. It borders on areas protected by the First and Fourth Amendments. It takes place over a long period of time. It therefore does not lend itself to a traditional criminal investigations approach.”

When we analyze the homegrown cases of Muslim terrorists since 9/11, we find vastly different ethnic origin, age, ideological affiliation, and motivations. While the policy grievance remains consistent in each case, the idea of profiling based on religiosity or the outward expression of religiosity is just plain wrong and nonsensical. Like we saw from Wiktorowicz’s research, religious Muslims should be seen as allies, as there is no empirical relationship between religiosity and support for terrorism.

4. Muslim community leaders and citizens do not need to be consulted in counterterrorism efforts. Nowhere in the 90 plus page report do we find details or best practices for policymakers and intelligence officers in building partnerships with New York Muslims.

In an ironic way, the controversies coming out of the NYPD, while they hurt the relationship between Muslims and law enforcement, they help engage Muslims in the political process and in speaking up for their rights. The New York Muslim community is fed up, and many point to the rising trend of Islamophobia as the cause for this wanton disregard for Muslim civil liberties.

One of the key recommendations that Charles Kurzman, a leading expert on Muslim radicalization of the Triangle Center for Terrorism Research proposes is that Muslim Americans be given the means to express themselves politically in American society. The fight against Islamophobia as a healthy way for Muslim Americans to stand up for their rights and in the process demand equal respect. Like the civil rights movement for Black Americans, many politically engaged Muslims feel that the fight against bigotry and misunderstanding of their faith will result in a greater level of integration into the American experience.

From 2005 to 2011 we have witnessed an increase in the so-called “lone wolf” phenomenon of extremism – an isolated individual becomes indoctrinated by a charismatic pseudo religious leader and seeks to act out violence against the American populace. Thankfully, this threat is relatively minor, and unfortunately often caused by FBI entrapment.

What we have not yet seen is the climate of growing Islamophobia serving as the cause for a lone wolf attack on America, or even the turn to radicalization itself. Since it is always best to be ahead of the storm, we must encourage large-scale movements against Islamophobia because they help to further a healthy civic alternative to American Muslims that are somewhat prone to lunatic false prophets on YouTube like Anwar Awlaki. It is through fighting Islamophobia and standing up for civil rights that we can create a vehicle whereby Muslims can vent their anger and develop a new language that ties the values of Islam to a unique American and democratic narrative. This sort of action has already begun, and when scandals emerge like these, Muslim Americans should be vocal and demand justice.

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Someone Called the FBI on NYPD Officers Pretending to Be Muslim Students

Posted on 21 February 2012 by Amago

Someone Called the FBI on NYPD Officers Pretending to Be Muslim Students

When the New York Police Department was doing some spying on Muslim students outside the city (that’s a thing it does, we learned from the Associated Press on Monday), an apartment officers used to spy on Rutgers students got a visit from the FBI on a report that it was a terrorist cell itself. This is the kind of reporting that won the AP a Polk award Monday for its series on the NYPD spying on Muslims. Not only did the department go well outside its jurisdiction to “get a better handle on what was occurring at” Muslim Student Associations, as spokesman Paul Browne told the AP, it did so in a pretty Keystone Kops manner at times:

Police also were interested in the Muslim student group at Rutgers, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 2009, undercover NYPD officers had a safe house in an apartment not far from campus. The operation was blown when the building superintendent stumbled upon the safe house and, thinking it was some sort of a terrorist cell, called the police emerency dispatcher.

The FBI responded and determined that monitoring Rutgers students was one of the operation’s objectives, current and former federal officials said.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author atamartin@theatlantic.com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

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Weasel Zippers: Take the People Who do Loonwatch.com and Shoot Them

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Weasel Zippers: Take the People Who do Loonwatch.com and Shoot Them

Posted on 21 February 2012 by Ilisha

Liberal Hunting License

by Ilisha

Ever since Eric Allen Bell launched his smear campaign against Loonwatch, he’s become a poster child for far right anti-Muslim bigots impressed by his sad, sad tale of woe. Portrayed as a leftist-turned-”Islamorealist” martyr, he’s been making rounds all across the looniverse.

Bell’s been featured several times on David Horowitz‘s Frontpage Magazine and his interviews have appeared on The Jamie Glazov Show.  He’s also been palling around with Robert Spencer, and has  updated his Facebook page with photos of  loon luminaries such as Aayan Hirsi Ali, Geert Wilders, and the late Pim Fortuyn.

Just for good measure, he included the infamous “cartoon” of the Prophet Muhammad in a bomb-studded turban.

As a newly minted zealot, he’s vowed to continue his crusade against Loonwatch, and he imagines Loonwatch is equally fervent in opposing him. In fact, we don’t really care. He wrote a few articles smearing us, and we wrote a few articles refuting him here, here, and here.

End of story. Or at least it should have been.

The ever paranoid haters are keeping the ball rolling, this time by spreading a completely baseless, sensational rumor:

Ex-Daily Kos writer Eric Allen Bell had written a piece on a 53,000 square foot mosque in the Bible Belt. In response, the Daily Kos banned Bell. Another liberal site, LoonWatch.com, posted Bell’s photograph and information on Islamic websites all over the world.

Are they serious? All over the world!?! Evidence, please!

In a refreshing display of rational skepticism, someone in the Islamophobesphere actually bothered to do a fact check:

Sandcrawler PSA: I’ve Removed the Eric Allen Bell Post

Because I’ve requested some sort of links to the posts that allegedly were given by Loonwatch to Islamist boards.

I’ve also searched Loonwatch and found that Eric uses his Facebook profile in comments there?

So until that is cleared up, I’m just going with the Kos fired/banned him for having an opinion of Islam that did not sit well with the Kossacks. That seems to be true to me.

If anyone has info showing the original “personal information” posts on Loonwatch and the subsequent post on any Islamist board, by golly I’ll be first in line to post that. Until then I can’t report anything other than Eric being banned from Kos for speaking his mind.

I just feel that incitement to murder is a fairly strong charge to make without supporting images and links. [emphasis mine]

Yes, “incitement to murder” is a fairly strong charge, and the reason there’s no evidence is because it never happened.

Apparently unconcerned with facts, anti-Muslim hate site Weasel Zippers published the rumor, prompting a volley hateful–and sometimes threatening–comments from visitors:

a former dem says:

LOL

they’re just getting rid of anyone now who even has a shred of sanity.

Ahhh, yes…vee haf our vays:

Pendog says:

Shine up them jackboots facists, and don’t you dare get out of step and tell the truth, vee haf our vays of punishink you.

This is news to us:

Another ByStander says:

LoonWatch is an extension of the Moslem Brotherhood, CAIR, and all the rest…. They want him dead…….

Some of his new friends aren’t very forgiving. Once a leftist-Muzlamic shill, always a leftist-Muzlamic shill?

buzzsawmonkey says:

The guy is confessing there that he was a knowing shill for radical Islam, trying to make the Muslims out to be a put-upon minority, even though he shows that he is well aware of what happens, or could happen, if one should dare to express a non-laudatory view of Islam.

He was banned from Daily Kos, not for refusing to be a shill for radical Islam, but for attempting to balance his shill behavior so that it appeared to be somewhat objective.

Loonwatch has apparently pioneered the cowardly fatwa-by-proxy. Bell, by the way, was never “our own.”

Sniffy Pop Tuna Scented Popcorn says:

This is a very vindictive group of people. This is their way of discreetly issuing a Fatwah and not getting your hands dirty.

They know that 99% of the people who view their information and home addresses will never do one ounce of research on who these people are.

Just another enemy in their minds.

To eat their own.

My personal favorite:

cabrerski says:

Better yet, if any harm falls to Mr. Bell…any…take the people who do Loonwatch.com and shoot them…no questions asked.

Like in the Dirty Harry movie, “The Dead Pool” the head mobster started to protect Harry Calahan so they would not be killed inside the prision.

Make the punishment fit the crime. [emphasis mine]

Are we leftist liberal pinko commies or are we “Moslems”?

JoeThePimpernel says:

Islam is a religion of peace, and Moslems reserve the right to kill anyone who says otherwise.

LOL is right:

Ed says:

The Loon Watch site seems REALLY obsessed with this guy. LoL

Is he referring to cabrerski’s suggestion to shoot us?

JB says:

February 20, 2012 at 1:43 pm

Isn’t that conspiracy to commit murder?

What loon rant is complete without a reference to Sharia?

west_rhino says:

The left’s appeasement strategy will fail as fewer folks remain to be thrown under the bus and the “tolerance” of sharia becomes evident to the amoral…

…but stupid leftist is redundant.

What a pleasant image:

I.M. Realist says:

Libs don’t get the fact that their free spirited ways of life will be the first on the block. Islam is on the march and they will destroy all in their path. Let’s see one of those OWS fleabagging idiots go take a dump in a mosque or near one. Wake up libs. It’s us or them. Pick a side because this is for keeps.

“Lib boy,” are you feeling the love?

halodoc says:

Uh oh. Someone has escaped the plantation. I wonder if Lib boy will consider the price of his life to be worth opening his eyes. Now that they’ve put a hit out on him hopefully he’ll start to see and question everything differently. Now maybe he can use his writing for good.

An “accessory to murder”? Muslim hit men? Such drama!

deez says:

This just shows the violent nature of the Left. They really would like to kill everyone who disagrees with them, though they are loathe to do it themselves.

The Left rails against Islamophobia, but what it really is doing is merely getting Muslim votes. Deep down, they know Islam’s true nature; when they post this guy’s picture and address all over Islamic websites, they know that many among their Muslim colleagues would be more than happy to do the dirty work and kill off their own apostate. The Left is basically playing accessory to murder, hiring out Muslim hitmen. If the Left didn’t also believe in the violent nature of Islam, why post his picture and info as a means of “punishment”?

We’re full of lunatics?!?

Debbie says:

His story is interesting but not surprising.
Liberals are the most self – righteous,indulgent,violent,intolerant group in the US.
He worked for Daily KOS = Kill on Sight ,and is confused by their firing of him and threats for telling the truth ?

Loonwatch is full of viruses,adware,cowards and lunatics.

…and so on.

The nice thing about Eric Allen Bell is that he took a spectacular plunge into the darkness, leaving no doubt that he is indeed a loon. This is preferable to spawning a new Irshad Manji or Asra Nomani, stealth loons who front as progressives and actually dupe the gullible.

Bell’s campaign will appeal almost exclusively to the far-right paranoid bottom feeders, though he’ll probably have to move a few more notches to the right to take his place on that already crowded stage. It will be interesting to see what happens when the novelty wears off.

We doubt Bell has been threatened by anyone, let alone a Muslim, but in any case, we’d like to make it clear we’re not threatening nor have we ever threatened Mr. Bell, directly or by proxy. In fact, we’d like to thank Bell for the free publicity, and wish him good luck with his “charming” new friends. 

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Price_Tag_Arab_Racism_Judaism

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Haaretz: Jerusalem Christians are Latest Targets in Recent Spate of ‘Price Tag’ Attacks

Posted on 21 February 2012 by Emperor

Some more analysis of the ongoing “price tag” attacks against Muslims and Christians in Israel:

Jerusalem Christians are latest targets in recent spate of ‘price tag’ attacks

“Price tag” graffiti was spray-painted in Jerusalem again Sunday night, with vandals this time targeting a downtown church.

The attack on the Narkis Street Baptist Congregation marks the latest in a series of price tag attacks that have targeted Muslim, Christian and leftist institutions in the capital over the last two months. But police believe most of the vandalism is not the work of an organized group; rather, they say, the spray-painted slogans are largely copycat actions carried out by lone individuals.

The original price tag attacks, in contrast, were thought to be the work of a group of settlers seeking to set a “price tag” on house demolitions in the settlements via retaliatory attacks on Palestinians and/or Israeli soldiers.

The attacks during the past two months have included the torching of cars belonging to Arab residents of Jerusalem’s Kiryat Moshe neighborhood; spray-painting slogans on a Christian cemetery on Mount Zion; spray-painting slogans on Peace Now’s office in the capital, as well as the house of Peace Now activist Hagit Ofran; threats against Peace Now secretary general Yariv Oppenheimer; and an arson attack on an ancient mosque in the city’s Geula neighborhood. Over the last week alone, a bilingual school and two churches have been vandalized, including the Baptist church vandalized Sunday.

In both church attacks, the vandals spray-painted slogans denouncing Christianity, Jesus and Mary, such as “Jesus is dead,” “Death to Christianity” and “Mary was a prostitute.” They also included the by-now customary “price tag” slogan.

The Jerusalem police said they have arrested several suspects in this spate of attacks, including one for the attacks on Peace Now and one for the vandalism of the bilingual school. The latter suspect, arrested last week, said he vandalized the school to avenge the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team’s loss to two Arab teams two weeks ago, according to police. Police believe that many of the other attacks are similarly motivated by ordinary hooliganism, rather than ideology.

“It’s intolerably easy,” one senior Jerusalem police officer said. “Any child can take a spray can and spray it, and people know it will be broadcast. Not every case is really nationalistic.”

But to victims, the motive is irrelevant. Jerusalem’s Christian community increasingly feels under assault, and that is especially true for Christians living in Jewish neighborhoods. Priests in the Old City, especially Armenian priests who must often transit the Jewish Quarter, say they are spat on almost daily.

“It’s almost impossible to pass through Jaffa Gate without this happening,” said a senior priest at one Jerusalem church.

The spitting has become so prevalent that some priests have simply stopped going to certain parts of the Old City.

The Baptist church has been attacked twice before: It was torched in 1982 and again in 2007. “We mainly feel sad” about the attacks, said the church’s pastor, Charles Kopp. “It hurts us that anyone could even think we deserve such treatment. They don’t know us, but they apparently oppose anyone who doesn’t identity with them. I wish them well; I have no desire for revenge.”

Baptist priests don’t normally walk around in priestly garb, but Kopp said he would be afraid to walk through the Old City if he did.

Jacob Avrahami, the mayor’s advisor on the Christian community, visited the Baptist church on Monday to condemn the attacks. “They feel besieged; you can see it on them,” he said.

Dr. Gadi Gevaryahu, whose Banish the Darkness organization works to combat racism, said his big fear is that “one day, they’ll attack a mosque or a church with people inside and there will be a terrible conflagration here.”

“Over the last two years, 10 mosques have been torched here, and today it’s clear that it’s not just aimed at Palestinians or Muslims, but at foreigners in general,” he said.

Gevaryahu also offered a practical suggestion: Security cameras, he said, should be installed on every sensitive building in the city.

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Rose Monday carnival float

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Anti-’Islamisation’ Float on German Carnival Parade

Posted on 21 February 2012 by Emperor

In the German city of Düsseldorf:

Anti-’Islamisation’ float on German carnival parade

A papier-mache frog with the text “Islamisation” on its tongue and a butterfly with “Arab Spring” – a float on the traditional Rose Monday carnival parade in the western German city of Düsseldorf on 20 February.

Evidently there is something of a tradition of Islamophobic carnival floats in Germany.

 

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Jewish Extremists Target Palestinian Church, Spray Paint “Death to Christians”

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Jewish Extremists Target Palestinian Church, Spray Paint “Death to Christians”

Posted on 20 February 2012 by Emperor

What if they were Muslim?

Jerusalem Church Vandalised with Graffiti Inciting Hatred Against Christians

(IMEMC)

Racist graffiti has been sprayed on a church in Jerusalem on Monday in the third such incident in the past month in the city.

The graffiti included “Death to Christians” and the phrase “price tag” was found on the walls of the Baptist Narkis Street Congregation according to reports from Ma’an News Agency.

Furthermore residents of the area found their car tyres slashed.

This attack follows a similar such incidents, occurring on the same day in early February, where the bilingual school Hand In Hand and the Monastery of the Cross where vandalised, also promoting violence against Christians.

Attacks under this monicker of price tag refer to actions by Israel’s settler population who respond to moves by the State of Israel against illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank.

Despite the dismantling of outposts that Israel deems illegal being carried out by the state, price tag attacks are almost universally against Palestinians, including numerous acts of arson against mosques in the West Bank.

Under the 4th Geneva Conventions, which Israel is a signatory, all construction of civilian property and the transfer of a civilian population by an occupying power is illegal, as is the displacement of the local population. Despite this, Israel distinguishes between it’s settlement activity, with the majority of settlements gaining construction approval by the state, who also provide funding for construction and subsidised loans for Israelis moving to settlements.

In addition to pre-approved settlement construction, many outposts that are constructed in violation of Israeli national law are given retroactive planning permission.

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belgium-mosque

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Mosque in Belgium Targeted for Second Time

Posted on 20 February 2012 by Emperor

Mosque in Belgium targeted for second time

(World Bulletin)

A mosque in Belgium affiliated with Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs has been the target of a racially-motivated attack for the second time in the past year.

Last July, an image of a pig attached to a wooden cross was left in the grounds of the Alaaddin Mosque in the Marchienne-au-Pont neighborhood of Charleroi and the Turkish flag outside the building was torn.

Now, less than a year later, a similar attack has taken place at the same mosque, where a number of racial and İslamophobic slurs, including “Go home foreigners,” have been sprayed on the walls of the building and grounds. Those involved in the attack have not been identified.

A spokesman for the mosque said the local Muslim community felt deeply aggrieved by the attack and the slurs directed towards them and their religion. Further, disappointment was expressed by the DİB that authorities made no effort to follow up on the last attack or bring the perpetrators to account for their actions.

The incident is part of a growing trend of Islamophobic attacks, which have become increasingly common in Belgium over the past decade.

Cihan

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Paul Weston

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Brigitte Gabriel’s ACT! for America Meets with British “Freedom” Party

Posted on 19 February 2012 by Emperor

Looks like Brigitte Gabriel‘s loony ACT! for America is seeking to cement ties with Islamophobes from across the pond, the trans-Atlantic Islamophobic Axis continues:

British Freedom Party links up with Brigitte Gabriel

On Thursday night, the Chairman of the newly formed British Freedom Party, Paul Weston, spoke to a group of New Yorkers at a meeting sponsored by Brigitte Gabriel’s Act For America organization. Weston also said he came to warn America that what is happening in Britain today could happen in America in the not too distant future.

This meeting is going to be preceded by a joint event between BFP chairman Paul Weston and the Jewish Defense League (JDL).

British Freedom Party leader to speak at Jewish Defense League meeting in Toronto

Security will be tight on Monday as a controversial leader of a far-right British Freedom Party (BFP) talks to supporters in Toronto about his tough stand against immigration and spread of radical Islam. Toronto Police officers will be on hand as Paul Weston is expected to draw a large crowd at the Toronto Zionist Centre, on Marlee Ave.

The BFP was formed in Oct. 2010 and features a 20-point platform with a priority to “stop immigration to Britain from countries that promote the Muslim brotherhood.” Other points of the platform include abolition of the human rights of foreign criminals and terrorists; deport dual nationality Islamists and illegal immigrants and stop or turn back all aspects of the Islamisation of Britain.

“We have witnessed the spread of fundamentalist Islam across Europe and are witnessing the same trend in North America,” Weston stated in party literature.

Meir Weinstein, of the Jewish Defense League, an organizer of the event, said security will be high when Weston takes to the stage to bash immigration and Muslims. “We are very excited to have him (Weston) here,” Weinstein said on Thursday. “His party wants more stringent rules for people coming from countries that promote the Muslim brotherhood.”

He said police have been notified of the event and private security will be on hand to prevent possible disruptions by protestors. “There has been some chatter on the Internet about protests,” Weinstein said. “We are not taking any chances.”

He said Weston is following in the footsteps of powerful anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders, of the Freedom Party of the Netherlands, who holds similar views. “There has to be a change to our immigration policy,” Weinstein said on Thursday. “One of our goals is to stop the spread of Muslim fundamentalism.”

Officials of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said Weston has no criminal convictions to bar him from entering the country.

Toronto Sun, 17 February 2012

Last year the JDL organised a meeting in solidarity with the English Defence League which was addressed by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) by video link.

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Gov. Rick Perry’s Friend Bryan Fischer Doubles Down, Demands Muslim Immigrants Convert to Christianity

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Gov. Rick Perry’s Friend Bryan Fischer Doubles Down, Demands Muslim Immigrants Convert to Christianity

Posted on 17 February 2012 by Emperor

(H/T: BA)

Fischer Doubles Down, Demands Muslim Immigrants Convert to Christianity

Early last year American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer posted a column arguing that a “sensible and sane immigration policy” would model “ancient Israel” and require every immigrant to “convert to Christianity.” Muslim immigrants in particular would be required to “drop his Islam and his Qur’an at Ellis Island.” But in what has becoming a frequent occurrence, Fischer later deleted both of the sentences, among other sentences, and altered the article to make it a tad less inflammatory.

But today on Focal Point, Fischer repeated his claim that Muslims should “convert to Christianity” in order to become American citizens, saying that immigrants must “got to embrace your God, they’ve got to embrace your faith.”

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Law-and-Freedom-Foundation-logo

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‘Mosque-busters’ Leaflet Delivered by EDL Activist in Purley

Posted on 17 February 2012 by Emperor

‘Mosque-busters’ leaflet delivered by EDL activist in Purley

The man attempting to stir up fears over plans to build a mosque in Purley is a far-right activist and avid supporter of the woman accused of racially abusing people on a tram.

English Defence League member Frank Day proudly claims to have put leaflets through the doors of 600 homes in the area.

His “Does Croydon need a mosque here?” leaflet contains information about a proposal to build an Islamic centre at 5 Russell Hill Place.

It urges residents to fight the application in the belief it will cause traffic issues. But despite his apparent concerns over parking issues in Purley, Mr Day lives six miles away on the New Addington estate – and freely admits he would object to a mosque being built anywhere.

Resident and Purley and Woodcote Residents’ Association member Andrew Frazer was one of those to have received a letter. He said:

“He (Mr Day) dropped a leaflet through the door and came back later after delivering some through other doors. He said, ‘we don’t agree with it, we are dead against it, we want as many people to complain to Croydon Council as possible’. He visited twice and when he came back after the first time he said ‘if you want to find out more go to Mosque Busters by typing it into Google’.”

We tracked Mr Day to his home in Arnhem Drive, which he shares with his 86-year-old mother. Here he told us that the information contained in his leaflets came directly from “Mosquebuster” Gavin Boby. Mr Boby is a professional planning consultant who has posted videos on the internet advising people how to defeat applications for Islamic places of worship.

Mr Day, who was arrested at an EDL rally in November, told the Advertiser that “they” (Muslims) were “taking over” and that “one mosque is too many”. The 64-year-old added he had attended a court appearance of Emma West, who is accused of racially abusing people on a tram, to show his support.

Purley councillor Badsha Quadir has said he believes the leaflets are “racially motivated” and is seeking advice from police. He told theAdvertiser:

“My colleagues and I are concerned about this extremist leafleting. I understand residents are concerned. It is not for people to come from New Addington and say what should happen in Purley. I would not go to New Addington and comment on their amenities. The leaflet appears racially motivated and I will speak to the borough commander about this issue and see what he can do.”

Police advised anyone concerned by the leaflets or the manner in which they were being given out to contact their local safer neighbourhood team on 020 8721 2467.

Croydon Advertiser, 14 February 2012

For background on Gavin Boby’s Law and Freedom Foundation (“Mosquebusters”) see here.

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Murfreesboro: Law Enforcement Being Taught that an Islamic Insurgency Underway in the USA

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Murfreesboro: Law Enforcement Being Taught that an Islamic Insurgency Underway in the USA

Posted on 16 February 2012 by Emperor

Looks like the Tennessee kookiness is on an upswing, expect the disgraced Eric Allen Bell to support these efforts.

The Tennessee Freedom Coalition, (a group’s whose rampant Islamophobia we have discussed before), is now holding a training seminar for law enforcement led by the Strategic Engagement Group the same group that believes there is an “Islamic insurgency” about to take off in the USA (H/T: JD):

Company Claims Islamic Insurgency Underway in U.S.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn.  (WMOT)  –  More than 100 Tennessee law enforcement officers, including deputies with the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office, are being trained this week in Murfreesboro by an organization that believes an Islamic insurgency is underway in the United States.

The training sessions are being held each day through Wednesday at the World Outreach Church on New Salem Highway. The Tennessee Freedom Coalition (TFC) is scheduled to host a one-time seminar beginning this evening at 6:30 p.m. featuring the same training group at the same location.

The TFC and its Director, Lou Ann Zelenik, have been outspoken opponents of plans by the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro to build a new Mosque in Rutherford County.

The Strategic Engagement Group (SEG) is conducting the training. According to the company’s website, its purpose is to defeat efforts to “subjugate the American people.” SEG did not follow up on email requests for an interview and doesn’t list a phone number or physical address on its webpage.

SEG conducted a similar training seminar for the Columbus, Ohio, Police Department in 2010. That seminar reportedly dissolved into a shouting match when a SEG trainer allegedly made unsubstantiated accusations against a state employee who is Muslim.

Columbus Police Department Deputy Chief Jeffrey Blackwell says he was shocked at how quickly the officers in attendance became polarized, with some officers defending the Muslim employee and others siding with the SEG trainer. In a phone interview with WMOT, Blackwell commented,

“I would only caution agencies to be mindful of the content that’s going to be covered and the method with which that material is going to be delivered. The last thing you want in your community, in any community, is for training that is supposed to help agencies to become better equipped to deal with people, actually inflame people and create fences.”

The new mosque currently under construction by the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro is located in an area patrolled by Rutherford County Sheriff’s deputies. The department is also responsible for investigating as-yet unsolved 2010 cases of vandalism at the construction site.

Rutherford County Sheriff Robert F. Arnold declined to be interviewed for this story, but did provide a written statement that reads in part, “We actually need to be on the cutting edge of all terrorist training.”

A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office tells WMOT News that the seminar will make up more than half of the department’s yearly requirement for ongoing professional training and that SEG is approved by the State of Tennessee to conduct such training.

However, a state spokesperson says that Tennessee approves private organizations like SEG to provide training if that instruction is conducted by a local police department.

Tennessee Law Enforcement Training Director Brian Grisham declined to be interviewed for this story, but a written statement from his department notes that the state takes the local police department “at its word that the training it is sponsoring is credible.”

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Honor Killing and Even More Proof You REALLY Shouldn’t Trust Robert Spencer’s “Scholarship”

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Honor Killing and Even More Proof You REALLY Shouldn’t Trust Robert Spencer’s “Scholarship”

Posted on 16 February 2012 by Ilisha

Coran and Spencer

Michael Coren and Robert Spencer

by Ilisha

It was a trial that captured headlines across Canada—the so-called “honor killing” of three teenage sisters and their father’s first wife in a quadruple murder staged to look like an accident.

On January 27, the girls’ brother, Hamed, 21, and their parents, Mohammad Shafia, 58, and Tooba Yahya, 42, were each found guilty on four counts of first-degree murder. All received the maximum sentence of life in prison.

On police wiretaps captured in the days following the murders, a remorseless Mohammad Shafia referred to his slain daughters as treacherous whores who had “betrayed Islam.”  The family is originally from Afghanistan, and sweeping statements about their cultural and religious background have put Canada’s Muslims on the defensive.

Imams across Canada and the US responded by issuing a fatwa declaring honor killing, domestic violence, and misogyny as “un-Islamic.” Nevertheless, the murders have prompted a fresh wave of anti-Islamic sentiment, and the usual assortment of crackpots have seized this tantalizing opportunity to vilify Islam.

Pseudo-scholar Robert Spencer recently discussed the case on Sun TV with English-Canadian talk show host and fascist sympathizer, Michael Coren. The 13-minute segment appears at the end of this article.

Spencer’s Five Big Lies about honor killings are refuted in this article, in order of appearance.

1. A Bogus Statistic

Spencer began with the baseless assertion that, “91% of honor killings worldwide take place among Muslims.” What is the source of Spencer’s statistic?

He makes the same claim on his website, Jihad Watch, and links to an article on the Middle East Forum as the source. This is an anti-Muslim propaganda site founded by Daniel Pipes, and the article referenced is authored by Phyllis Chesler, who is yet another rabid Islamophobe. Chesler cites an ill-defined “study” as the ultimate source of this statistic:

This study analyzes 172 incidents and 230 honor-killing victims. The information was obtained from the English-language media around the world with one exception. There were 100 victims murdered for honor in the West, including 33 in North America and 67 in Europe. There were 130 additional victims in the Muslim world. Most of the perpetrators were Muslims, as were their victims, and most of the victims were women.

The “methodology” she describes is filled with weasel words, and it’s unclear who actually conducted the study or for what purpose. Culling 172 incidents from self-selected articles in the English-language media does not constitute a valid sample.

In the very same article, Chesler concedes, “Definitive or reliable worldwide estimates of honor killing incidence do not exist.” Then how has she managed to glean a precise statistic of 91%?

We have already covered this alleged “epidemic” of honor killings extensively in a previous article, Honor Killings: The Epidemic that Isn’t, where Chesler’s “logic” was exposed as absurd:

Taking her study at face value, do you think 33 honor killings constitutes an epidemic?  Stinging insects kill more than 40 people each year in the US, which is more than the number of honor killings Chesler reported over the course of her study for all of North America.  Chesler says, “to combat the epidemic [emphasis mine] of honor killings requires understanding what makes these murders unique.”

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the United Nations, have all said that honor killings cut across cultural and religious lines. No credible organization cites a statistic that supports Robert Spencer’s assertion, which Phyllis Chesler seems to have pulled out of her hat.

2. Misinterpretation and Misuse of The Reliance of the Traveller

Coren asked Spencer if it’s true that there is Qur’anic and Sharia support for honor killings, and Spencer said, “Absolutely, Michael,” and, ”Islamic Law stipulates there’s no penalty for a parent who kills a child.” As we have already established in a previous article, this is a blatant lie:

In a pathetic attempt to prove Islam sanctions honor killings, the loons have dredged up  ”Reliance of the Traveller,” a classical manual for the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence written over 600 years ago. A convoluted interpretation of select passages has gone viral, and is now routinely cited on the pages of hate sites and in comments on numerous articles related to honor killing.

Geller quotes a section of The Traveller on her website that says certain crimes, including the killing of one’s offspring, are not subject to retaliation, implying Muslim parents have a free pass to murder their children under Islamic Law, which is a bold faced LIE. Retaliation is a form of reciprocal justice, lex talionis, commonly known as “an eye for an eye.”

A crime that is not subject to retaliation can still be punished by other means. Restrictions on reciprocal justice in the Qur’an were meant to reduce blood feuds and the cycle of vengeance. The concept of retaliation is also found in Jewish and Christian scriptures, and like honor killing, traces back to the ancient Code of Hammurabi.

Even if The Traveller sanctioned honor killing (which it doesn’t), it would be the interpretation of one Islamic cleric who lived centuries ago, and not a formal part of Islamic Law. Sharia is drawn primarily from the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and neither sanctions honor killing.

Honor killing is a form of murder where the victim is denied a fair trial, which is contrary to Islamic law. Islam forbids acts of murder and vigilantism, and likens the killing of one human being to the killing of the entire human race (Qur’an 5:32, 6:151, 17:33).

Is Sharia exceptionally harsh or extremely lenient, even in the case of a serious crime like murder? Apparently it’s whatever suits Spencer’s agenda at the moment. In any case, a “renowned scholar” should certainly understand the ancient concept of reciprocal justice.

Is Spencer ignorant or deliberately deceptive?

3. The Case of Syria and Jordan

Spencer cites “relatively moderate” Muslim-majority Jordan and Syria in an effort to provide real-world examples of Sharia-sanctioned honor killing. His examples fall short in two major ways.

First, although a single honor killing is one too many, these murders are not epidemic. Jordan has around 15-20 honor killings each year, and Syria has about 200. Both of these Muslim-majority countries have low overall homicide rates, in contrast to many countries in the non-Muslim world, most notably in Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Central and Southern Africa.

Second, Syria and Jordan have mixed legal systems largely based on French Law, derived from the Napoleonic Code. In Syria, Articles 192, 242, and 548 have historically been invoked to reduce sentences in honor killing cases, and all are derived from the Napoleonic Code, not Sharia.

Syria’s Grand Mufti, Ahmad Badr al-Din Hassoun, has unequivocally condemned honor killing. Hassoun specifically condemned Article 548, which has since been amended as part of Syria’s ongoing effort to abolish honor killings.

In Jordan, Articles 340 and 98 have historically been invoked to reduce sentences in honor killing cases, and they also derive from the Napoleonic Code, not Sharia.

While Spencer was correct when he said some religious and cultural conservatives in Jordan have resisted legal reform, Queen Rania and King Abudllah II have been outspoken advocates. In a report released last November, the United Nations praised Jordan for amending Article 340 so that it no longer exonerates the perpetrators of honor killings.

Spencer’s examples fall short because neither Jordan nor Syria has a high rate of homicides of any kind, and the legal loopholes in question are primarily a legacy of French colonialism, not Sharia. However, Coren asks no questions of substance, so it’s on to the next lie.

4. Khidr in Chapter 18 of the Qur’an

Spencer tries to “prove” honor killings are supported in the Qur’an, citing the well known story of Khidr in the 18th chapter as a justification.  From Jihad Watch:

Blogging the Qur’an: Sura 18, “The Cave,” verses 60-82

Verses 60-82 of Sura 18 contain one of the strangest, most arresting stories in the entire Qur’an: that of the journey of Moses and Khidr, one of the great road-trip stories of all time…

In Islamic tradition this man is identified as Al-Khadir or Al-Khidr, or, more commonly, Khidr, “the Green Man.” Some identify him as one of the prophets, others as a wali, a Muslim saint….

…Khidr murders a young man in an apparently random act, and Moses criticizes him again (v. 74)…

…Khidr killed the young man because he would grieve his pious parents with his “rebellion and ingratitude” (v. 80), and Allah will give them a better son (v. 81)….

…Another point emerges in Islamic tradition: don’t kill children, unless you know they’re going to grow up to be unbelievers. “The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) used not to kill the children, so thou shouldst not kill them unless you could know what Khadir had known about the child he killed, or you could distinguish between a child who would grow up to he a believer (and a child who would grow up to be a non-believer), so that you killed the (prospective) non-believer and left the (prospective) believer aside.” The assumption thus enunciated may help explain the persistence of the phenomenon of honor-killing in Islamic countries and even among Muslims in the West…

Notice the child was not related to Khidr, and there was no honor motive. This “apparently random act” doesn’t fit the profile of a so-called “honor killing.”

The story is meant to convey the message that believers should have faith in God’s wisdom. Events may seem harsh and inexplicable, but when the veil is lifted and the broader truth is exposed, the believer will see that what has happened is ultimately for the best.

Spencer provided no examples of any Muslim citing the story of Khidr as a justification for honor killing, nor did he mention any scholars who have adopted his interpretation. In fact, the story of Khidr has historically been associated with charity and good works in the Islamic world.  

As for the Hadith Spencer quoted (Sahih Muslim Book 019, Number 4457), Muslims are instructed not to kill children, “…unless you could know what Khadir had known.  Khidr was granted eternal life and bestowed with direct knowledge of God’s will, which no ordinary Muslim can claim. It is simply not possible to know whether a child will grow up to be a believer, so it makes no sense to use this as a justification for murder.

In fact, it is widely known that Islam has always condemned infanticide, a common practice in pre-Islamic Arabia. The Qur’an  forbids the killing of children, expressly in 6:151 and 60:12, and implicitly in 2:49, 7:127, 7:141, 14:6, 28:4, and 40:25. Why would a “renowned scholar” of Islam be unaware of the many verses in the Qur’an that directly contradict his claims?

Is Spencer ignorant or deliberately deceptive? 

5. Islam and the Judeo-Christian Tradition

Spencer also claims that the Judeo-Christian tradition sends the “opposite message” with respect to killing children, specifically citing Genesis 22:1-13 as an example.  In this Old Testament story, the Prophet Abraham was poised to sacrifice his son Isaac to the Lord, but just as he placed a knife to the boy’s neck, God sent an angel to intercede, and Isaac was spared.

The same story exists in the Qur’an and carries the same moral message. The major difference is that Isaac is replaced by Abraham’s other son, Ishmael. A “renowned scholar” of Islam should surely be aware of the corresponding story in the Qur’an (The Rank Makers 37:100-109).

In fact, numerous verses in the Bible recount the killing of children, and stipulate harsh punishments, including the death penalty. The following is not a comprehensive list:

Exodus 21:17

17 Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.

Leviticus Chapters 20 and 21 also stipulate harsh punishments for dishonoring parents and committing adultery:

Leviticus 20:9-13

9 If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.

10 If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife–with the wife of his neighbor–both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.

Leviticus 21:9

9 If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire.

Deuteronommy (13:6-10) says if your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” … You must stone him or her to death. Death by stoning is also the punishment stipulated for a “stubborn and rebellious” son in 21:18-21.

In Judges (11:30-40), Jephthah killed his young daughter (and only child) by burning her alive to fulfill his vow to God, in exchange for a victory in battle.

In 2 Kings (2:23-25), when youngsters made fun of the Prophet Elisha’s bald head, he called down a curse “in the name of the Lord,”and two bears came out of the woods and tore 42 of the youths to pieces.

As a Catholic and self-proclaimed religious scholar, it seems reasonable to assume Spencer has read the Bible, so what explains this glaring double standard?

Is Spencer ignorant or deliberately deceptive? 

The bottom line is that honor killings are not Islamic. Spencer’s lies, no matter how often they’re repeated, can’t change that fundamental truth.

 

*********************************

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Newsweek Trumpets Hirsi’s War Against Muslims

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Newsweek Trumpets Hirsi’s War Against Muslims

Posted on 16 February 2012 by Ilisha

War on Christians

February 12 Cover

Newsweek has apparently abandoned any pretense of actual reporting in favor of tabloid-style sensationalism. Career hatemonger Aayan Hirsi Ali‘s alarmist screed in the February 12 issue is a jumble of half truths culled together with the obvious purpose of demonizing Muslims, at the expense of Christian minorities she pretends to defend.

Hirsi ignores US-led invasions–actual wars–against one Islamic country after another, and the impact on Christians, especially in Iraq. In fact, according to her apocalyptic vision, the West must destroy Islam, by any means necessary–in the name of peace and civilization, of course.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s War

by Anthony Alessandrini, Jadaliyya

For a couple of centuries now, we have had to make due with Samuel Johnson’s famous phrase: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Thanks to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, we can now revise this phrase for the twenty-first century. Tthe last last refuge of a scoundrel, it appears, lies in taking up the battle against something called “Christophobia.”

Hirsi Ali coins this term as part of her alarmist and deeply hateful cover story for Newsweek. “The War on Christians” is splashed across the cover, but the actual target of Hirsi Ali’s piece becomes more clear in the title provided for the online version of the piece: “The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World.”

The terms of Hirsi Ali’s argument, such as it is, are all set out in her opening paragraph:

We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.

The criminally careless tossing out of the term “genocide” gives us a clue about what is to come. So too does the style, which is a classic version of her usual mode, that of the lone brave voice crying out about injustice in the wilderness, surrounded by dupes who are too busy portraying Muslims as “victims or heroes.” Fortunately, Hirsi Ali is prepared to offer us “a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends,” leading to what she sees as her inevitable conclusion and allowing her to coin her useful new term: “the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other.”

Having already reached her inevitable conclusion in her opening, Hirsi Ali appears to feel little need to support it with anything so mundane as actual facts. Instead he offers a loosely-connected cherry picking tour that ties together incidents of violence against Christians and other religious minorities in Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, and Indonesia. All the instances she references are real and terrible acts of violence. And all of them are symptoms of complex political and social situations that need to be analyzed and addressed. This makes it all the more horrible that Hirsi Ali treats them as mere data to be added to her deeply simplistic argument. Indeed, she raises the same two points in each case: first, that Muslims are killing Christians; second, that the world (by which she means “the West”)—apparently distracted by its uncritical admiration for the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring and its obsession with stamping out Islamophobia—stands idly by and watches. So Hirsi Ali is forced to beg her readers to help break what she refers to as a “conspiracy of silence.”

Were the consequences of such an argument not so grave—and I will come to those consequences shortly—it would be possible to simply dismiss this article as the nonsense that it is. To reduce the complexity of the political violence in Nigeria and Sudan to instances of “Christophobia,” for example, is simply ludicrous, as is the suggestion that somehow Western political and media figures have been “reticent” or “silent” when it comes to Darfur. This is in no way to downplay the full horror of these situations; indeed, what is most disturbing here is Hirsi Ali’s cursory citing of them—Nigeria merits just two paragraphs of her article, Sudan just one—in the service of her hateful argument.

In other cases, what is striking is the utter thinness of the arguments she tries to marshal. When, for example, she tries to make the case that “not even Indonesia…has been immune to the fevers of Christophobia,” she cites data complied by the Christian Post suggesting an increase in violent incidents against religious minorities of nearly forty percent between 2010 and 2011. Again, this is certainly a cause for concern, but it would be interesting to ask Hirsi Ali how she would compare this increase to the more than fifty percent increase in hate crimes against Muslims in the United States between 2009 and 2010, as reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She might also have turned to data on Indonesia produced by Human Rights Watch rather than that of an obscure Christian website, which would have confirmed her point about an increase in attacks on religious minorities (including Ahmadis) in Indonesia—except that rather than attributing this increase to the rise of “Christophobia,” HRW’s conclusion about this key US ally is quite different: “The common thread is the failure of the Indonesian government to protect the rights of all its citizens.”

Of course, these sorts of fact-free claims about the “Muslim world” by conservative commentators are nothing new. What is more worthy of note, however, are those claims by Hirsi Ali that suggest a number of moves taken out of the contemporary neo-conservative playbook. Hirsi Ali’s connections to the neo-con movement—she is, among other things, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute—have been widely noted. For example, Hamid Dabashi lists her prominently among the “comprador intellectuals” who have helped sell the neo-con agenda in the United States and Europe. (Indeed, it is clear that the title of her article is meant to resonate in this election season with the claims being made by conservatives about an alleged “war on Christians” here in the United States.)

One strand of this neo-conservative reasoning as it can be read out of Hirsi Ali’s article has to do with her references to Egypt. She only devotes one paragraph to Egypt, but the print version of the article includes four images (including the cover image), some quite graphic, of violence against Copts in Egypt. Hirsi Ali preludes her point by noting that the alleged rise of Christophobia in Egypt comes “in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.” Her key example is the attack by security forces on pro-Coptic protesters outside Maspero on 9 October 2011, which killed at least twenty-four people and wounded more than three hundred. From this example, Hirsi Ali moves forward with her relentlessly superficial line of argument: “By the end of the year more than two-hundred thousand Copts had fled their homes in anticipation of more attacks. With Islamists poised to gain much greater power in the wake of recent elections, their fears appear to be justified.”

The first and most obvious problem here, of course, is Hirsi Ali’s attempt to transform an attack by security forces against protesters—the sort of attack that has marked the bloody fule of the Supreme Council of Armed Force (SCAF)—into yet another example of “Muslims attacking Christians,” driven solely by the relentless power of Christophobia. The deeper problem, and the one that betrays the mark of neo-con logic, is her implication that the source of this violence springs from, not the US-supported and armed military junta currently ruling Egypt, but the forces supposedly unleashed by the Arab Spring. This becomes clear in the final sentence, which resonates with the neo-con mantra that has been constant since the beginnings of the popular uprisings: if they get their democracy, we’ll wind up with the Islamists.

This disdain for the forces of democracy in Egypt (as contrasted to the neo-cons’ own preferred model of “democracy promotion” through military intervention) becomes even clearer in the admiring take on Hirsi Ali’s article posted on the blog of the National Review by Nina Shea. Concurring with Hirsi Ali’s thesis regarding the rise of Christophobia in the region, Shea adds, “Unfortunately, Arab democracy in Iraq and Egypt, the ancient homelands of two of the three largest Middle Eastern Christian communities, seems to be exacerbating the religious persecution.” (“Arab democracy,” we are thus invited to conclude, must be quite different from, say, “Western-style democracy.”)

As Shea notes, Hirsi Ali also uses the example of violence against Christians in Iraq, which is again awarded a full paragraph of attention. “Egypt is not the only Arab country that seems bent on wiping out its Christian minority,” she writes, continuing her “fair-minded assessment.” She goes on to note the rise in violence against Iraqi Christians since 2003, and the fact that thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled the country—“as the result of violence directed specifically against them”—leading to what she calls “an incipient genocide or ethnic cleansing of Assyrians in Iraq.”

And then, she moves on. The fact that 2003 is hardly an arbitrary date is not so much as acknowledged. Here we find yet another example of the almost unbelievable gall exhibited by neo-cons, as part of the larger forgetting of the war on Iraq in the United States. That Hirsi Ali—who was, like her neo-con colleagues, a vocal supporter of the war—can avoid not only accepting responsibility for the shattering of Iraqi society, but can actually use this shattering to advance her own hideous Islamophobic arguments, is simply obscene. Just as she fails to acknowledge that the attacks on pro-Coptic protesters in Egypt need to be understood within the larger framework of SCAF’s systematic attacks on all protesters, so she refuses to acknowledge that the thousands of Christians who have fled from Iraq are part of the one and a half million Iraqis who have been made refugees by the war she supported.

This forgetting of the carnage unleashed by the criminal war against Iraq is especially important today, as some of the same neo-con forces have not ceased to bang the drums for a new war against Iran. Hirsi Ali, not surprisingly, whole-heartedly endorses an attack on Iran. This is one of the clear dangers presented by her article in the current moment. I had decided not to mention another, more intimate connection between Hirsi Ali and neo-con ideology, represented by her marriage to the dean of neo-imperialists, Niall Ferguson. But it becomes impossible not to mention this connection when, in the very same issue of Newsweek—in fact, only four pages away from her article—we find an article by Ferguson, arguing vigorously for supporting an Israeli attack on Iran, using logic that could have been lifted straight out of the pro-war op-eds of 2002 (“Sometimes a preventive war can be a lesser evil than a policy of appeasement.”) Hirsi Ali only manages to work Iran into her argument regarding “Christophobia” in an indirect way, but given her long-standing views—she has, for example, argued that the Bush administration should have attacked Iraq and Iran after 9/11—her larger framework is clearly intended to support this march towards a new war.

But this is still not the most insidious aspect of Hirsi Ali’s argument. This becomes apparent only as she reaches her conclusion, which begins with a reiteration of her two theses: “It should be clear from this catalog of atrocities that anti-Christian violence is a major and underreported problem.” Helpfully, she goes on to offer an explanation for both aspects of the problem. This “global war on Christians” is not, she suggests, the result of coordination by “some international Islamist agency.” “In that sense,” she goes on, “the global war on Christians isn’t a traditional war at all. It is, rather, a spontaneous expression of anti-Christian animus by Muslims that transcends cultures, regions, and ethnicities.”

In a word: Muslims are killing Christians because Muslims hate Christians. And if this global war remains “underreported,” Muslims are to blame for this as well: part of the reason for “the media’s reticence on the subject,” she suggests, “may be the fear of provoking additional violence,” but the “most likely” explanation is “the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.” Such groups, she concludes, “have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called ‘Islamophobia’—a term that is meant to elicit the same moral disapproval as xenophobia or homophobia.”

We discover a few important things here. The first is that the seeming disconnectedness of Hirsi Ali’s argument is in fact intentional. There is no need to draw logical or factual connections between the various incidents she raises because the logic can be found in the very structure of her thesis: what she cites are simply examples of Muslims attacking Christians, and Muslims attack Christians because Muslims hate Christians. When Egyptian security forces attack Coptic protesters, it is not the army attacking protesters; it is Muslims attacking Christians. When Iraqi Christians flee the violence of a country destroyed by a US-led war and occupation, it is not Iraqis fleeing from carnage; it is Christians fleeing from Muslims. Hirsi Ali has developed the perfect machine for circulating and defending Islamophobia, since it directly implicates every individual Muslim in the actions of every other individual Muslim—not to mention the actions of any government of any Muslim-majority state. And, as an added bonus, it even manages to implicate the imputing of Islamophobia itself as part of the problem, since she sees this as part of the sinister “conspiracy of silence” that allows this global Christophobia to flourish.

Hirsi Ali’s “war,” in other words, guarantees the continuing stigmatization of Muslims in North America and Europe. This is what allows her to speak of a “global war on Christians in the Muslim world.” In addition to resonating with the US’s “global war on terror,” what this phrase signifies is that the Islamic “threat” is a global one. So what might appear to be a minority community under siege in the United States, Hirsi Ali suggests, is in fact part of a threatening wave of genocide; the “spontaneous expression of anti-Christian animus by Muslims that transcends cultures, regions, and ethnicities” exists, in inchoate form, everywhere. No one (Christian) is safe.

Allow me to state the obvious, which is that Hirsi Ali’s argument has an immediately recognizable pedigree. The attempt to justify the oppression of minority groups by producing them as threats to “our way of life”—including the assertion that the same groups have the mysterious power to bewitch, dupe, and silence the unwary through conspiratorial means and shadowy organizations—has been a standard practice of racism and fascism, those precursors of Islamophobia; Hirsi Ali is a connoisseur of all three. Her supposed defense of an embattled minority is a thinly disguised attempt to extend and expand the ongoing repression of Muslim minority communities. The logic of her argument is precisely the same as that which has underwritten the violent policing of Muslim communities in the name of fighting “homegrown terrorism,” which has had such horrific consequences for these communities (not to mention for civil liberties more generally).

Hirsi Ali, like Ferguson and the rest of the neo-con forces, is eager to wrap herself in the mantle of “Western” virtues such as skepticism and secularism, against the forces of sectarianism and fundamentalism that they see as constitutive of the “Muslim world.” But what could possibly be more sectarian and fundamentalist than Hirsi Ali’s vision of the world, with its terrifying simplifications and generalizations, and its reduction of genuine situations of violence and suffering to data whose only purpose is to power her relentless Islamophobia machine?

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Israelis Celebrate Death of Palestinian Children Killed in Accident

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Israelis Celebrate Death of Palestinian Children Killed in Accident

Posted on 16 February 2012 by Garibaldi

If these revelers of the death of children were Palestinian or Muslim you can rest assured that Islam would be blamed!

If one were to employ the cynical and faulty methodology of Islamophobes one could easily find verses in the Bible justifying their happiness with the tragic deaths of the Palestinian Children, “happy is he who dashes children on the stones.”

Israelis celebrate death of Palestinian children killed in accident

(Al-Akhbar English)

Ten Palestinian children were killed and at least 20 were wounded on Thursday morning after an Israeli truck carrying a fuel tank crashed into the school bus transporting the kindergarten children near the Qalandia checkpoint in Ramallah.

Israelis on Facebook were celebrating the deaths of the Palestinian children, writing derogatory statements on a wall of a news post regarding the accident.

The bus carrying the children collided with the truck at an intersection in Jaba’a, overturned, and caught on fire.

The children immediately died, while a further eight remain in a critical condition, according to medical officials with the Palestinian Red Cross.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has declared three days of mourning.

Ramallah-based journalist Diana Alzeer said the collision was likely an accident due to wet weather, and not politically motivated.

In Bethlehem, a 15-year-old boy died this morning after a truck skidded on a slippery road and ran the boy over.

A statement released by the police said they have opened an investigation and confirmed that the boy died on the spot. Emergency crews arrived to the scene and transferred the boy’s body to a hospital in Beit Jala.

The Israeli comments have gone viral on Twitter, shocking users into disbelief at the level of racism and hatred directed towards the deceased Palestinian children.

Israel maintains a military occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem, imposing harsh restrictions on indigenous Palestinians while providing privileges to illegal Jewish settlers.

Palestinians are frequently attacked and harassed by settlers as well as the Israeli military, often with impunity.

(Al-Akhbar, Wafa)

Update: (H/T: Dan15) It must be pointed out that many Jews and Israelis were disgusted by the pro-death statements of their fellow Jews:

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Oliver Stone’s Son Converts to Islam: The “Islamization” of Hollywood Continues?

Posted on 15 February 2012 by Emperor

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Sean Stone

Islamophobes are all upset that Oliver Stone’s son Sean Stone converted to Islam.

For some reason the Islamophobes are hurt by this, perhaps they believe that Hollywood is about to be overtaken by Muslims or that it is a symbol of the Leftist-Muslamic axis of evil. First it was Liam Neeson and now Oliver Stone’s director son!:

Oliver Stone’s Son Converts to Islam in Iran

Tehran, Iran (CNN) – The son of Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone converted to Islam in a ceremony in central Iran, a national news agency reported.

Sean Stone became a Shiite Muslim in the city of Esfahan Tuesday and chose Ali as his new Islamic name, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.

“The conversion to Islam is not abandoning Christianity or Judaism, which I was born with,” Stone told Fars News Agency. “It means I have accepted Mohammad and other prophets.”

He did not say why he converted.

Stone, 27, is also a filmmaker and has collaborated on his father’s projects. His father is Jewish and his mother, Christian.

Oliver Stone directed “Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July” and “JFK.”

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Murfreesboro: Right-Wing Islamophobe Trains Deputies

Posted on 15 February 2012 by Amago

I’m sure the loon Eric Allen Bell will either join or support this group at some point and further extend his stay in the JihadWatch Twilight Zone:

Murfreesboro: Right-Wing Islamophobe Trains Deputies

MURFREESBORO, TN — A group that states on their website that the “Islamic Movement” is a “threat to our civil liberties” is training deputies in Rutherford County this week.

Deputies from the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department are getting three days of training from Strategic Engagement Group, a Washington-based nonprofit that says its purpose is to counter the Unified Islamic movement in the United States.

The debate concerning construction of an Islamic Center in Rutherford County has been the subject of much debate over the last few years. The project’s faced a court fight, vandalism and arson. Tennessee Freedom Coalition, which openly opposed the new mosque, hired the Washington-based nonprofit.

On Monday, Strategic Engagement Group held a free seminar for the community, but Channel 4′s cameras were not welcome. John Guandolo, the vice president of the Strategic Engagement Group, spoke at the event and pushed a Channel 4 camera that attempted to record the seminar.

Channel 4 was allowed to listen to him speak but could not record it. Guandolo talked about Hamas and its plan to destroy Western civilization from within, and spoke of Islamic centers as potential military compounds.

The local sheriff’s department would not talk on camera about its decision to train deputies using this company. Deputies are able to use the training toward their Post Commission required annual training.

Monday’s event was held at the World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, which has been a vocal opponent of the new Islamic Center being built in Rutherford County.

Channel 4 checked with the Post Commission, which develops and enforces training and standards for all police officers in Tennessee. According to the Post, they allow individual law enforcement agencies to determine what training can count for the yearly minimums required of every officer.

WSMV, 14 Februrary 2012

See also “Company claims Islamic insurgency underway in U.S.”,WMOT, 14 February 2012

And “Rutherford sheriff hires mosque foe to train deputies”, The Tennessean, 14 February 2012

Guandolo takes the view that in the US ”the major threat does not come from terrorist attacks. It comes from the Muslim Brotherhood”.

Update:  See “CAIR asks Tenn. to drop anti-Muslim law enforcement trainer”, CAIR press release, 14 February 2012

Update 2:  See Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, 15 February 2012

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Dearborn Islamic Center Vandalized

Posted on 15 February 2012 by Emperor

Chaldean_Mafia_Islamophobia

Dearborn: Mosque Vandalized

Police Investigating Vandalism of Dearborn Mosque

By Jessica Carreras

The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is urging houses of worship in metro Detroit to take extra precautions following several cases of vandalism.

Dearborn police are investigating several incidents of possible anti-Muslim vandalism in the city, according to a press release sent out Tuesday by the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

According to CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid, the American Moslem Bekaa Center, located on Chase Road north of Ford Road, was targeted in the spray-painting, as well as a building nearby on Chase that is soon to be opened as a restaurant.

Both buildings were tagged with the words “Chaldean Mob” or “MB.”

Walid said the names are related to the Chaldean Mafia, a group that was notorious for drug trafficking in the Detroit area in the 1980s and ’90s. However, any specific ties to that group have not been established in this case.

Also still undetermined is whether the vandalism was motivated by ethnic or racial bias. However, said Walid, “It should be investigated with the potential to be a hate crime.”

The incidents in Dearborn follow a case of vandalism of a Sikh house of worship earlier this month in Sterling Heights.

Though there’s no indication that the cases are related, Walid said it’s enough to cause worry.

“We’re asking all mosques to take extra security precautions,” he said. “It’s a sad commentary on our society that there are (people) who would desecrate houses of worship. It seems that nothing is sacred these days.”

CAIR-MI put out a request to community members to call police with any information on the incidents.

“There’s a lot of traffic in that area, so someone must’ve seen something. I’m hoping that if someone saw any individuals they would immediately call the Dearborn police.”

Walid said that he had spoken with Dearborn Chief of Police Ronald Haddad, who confirmed that the department is investigating the vandalism.

Chief Haddad was not immediately available for comment on the case.

Anyone with information on the vandalism is asked to contact the Dearborn Police Tip Line at 313-943-3030.

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The Mazal Holocaust Library: Features Fake Ex-Terrorist/Anti-Muslim Speaker Walid Shoebat

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The Mazal Holocaust Library: Features Fake Ex-Terrorist/Anti-Muslim Speaker Walid Shoebat

Posted on 14 February 2012 by Garibaldi

Walid_Shoebat

Walid Shoebat

Sadly Walid Shoebat is still duping and conning crowds across the USA while at the same time lining his pockets with their money.

There is no reason why organizations, churches, synagogues and Holocaust Museums should be inviting characters such as Walid Shoebat as “featured” speakers. Ignorance of the special kind of liar Shoebat is, is no longer a valid excuse as there has been a plethora of exposes on Shoebat, both in the blogosphere and  in the mainstream media. Even Islamophobes are repulsed by the snake-oil salesman technique Shoebat has been using to his advantage.

Now it seems the Mazal Holocaust Library has either willfully or ignorantly fallen for the “ex-Terrorist” bait:

Walid_Shoebat_Holocaust_Museum_Texas

Walid Shoebat to speak at Holocaust Museum

It is our duty as loonwatchers to make sure that people who are supposed to safeguard the memory of one of the most evil atrocities ever committed by man against man are not steered into the abyss of Islamophobia, xenophobia and hate represented by the likes of a Walid Shoebat.

I encourage you all to contact the Holocaust library and inform them of the grave mistake they are making.

Here I will reproduce JD’s comment which first alerted us to this travesty:

I think we all should Phone and email them and let them know what they did was a disgrace to the memory of the people who died in the Holocaust since Shoebat has said stuff like…

“many parallels between the Antichrist and Islam” and “Islam is not the religion of God — Islam is the devil”

According to an official who attended a similar Shoebat lecture at a conference in Las Vegas, the solution he offered for the threat of “militant Muslims” was to “Kill them…including the children.”

Sounds little bit like what they said 1930′s about another group right Texas Holocaust Library?

Please email them at :aimee@mazal-library.org
Phone:
Number on Flyer: (210)-392-5452
Mazal Holocaust Library -(210) 377-2742

Also see: Walid Shoebat Exposed.

Comments (88)

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Afghanistan: Seven Children and One 18 Year Old Murdered by French Troops

Posted on 13 February 2012 by Amago

These 8 civilians were herding sheep until their life ended by a misled report that they were armed and ready to attack the government.

Informer Misled NATO in Airstrike That Killed 8 Civilians, Afghans Say

By  and JAWAD SUKHANYAR

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan government officials who traveled to the snowbound village where seven children and a young adult reportedly were killed in a NATO airstrike this week said that the bombing was based on incorrect information.

The officials said that after talking to local residents and seeing the area, they concluded that an informer had misled the French troops who control the area.

The airstrike took place on Wednesday in the village of Geyaba in the eastern Afghan province of Kapisa. Seven boys under 14 and an 18-year-old were killed in the attack, according to Abdul Mubin Safi, the administrative director of Kapisa Province. They were herding sheep less than half a mile from their homes when the bombing happened.

NATO representatives and Afghan officials traveled to the area by helicopter to investigate and returned Friday, said Maj. Jason Waggoner, a NATO spokesman. He said there was no word yet from NATO officials on the findings of the joint Afghan-NATO team.

One member of the team, Mohammad Hussain Khan Sanjani, the chairman of the provincial council who was reached by telephone in Kapisa, said that after talking with people in the village, it seemed that misinformation had been passed to NATO forces.

“These people are involved in animal husbandry, they own sheep and goats, and their children went out to feed the animals behind their village under some oak trees,” Mr. Sanjani said.

“The French troops had a secret report from one of their agents who told them that in that area there were armed men preparing to attack the government and the French soldiers in Kapisa,” he said. “We talked to locals and found that the intelligence was wrong and they targeted civilians.”

The French soldiers, who are largely responsible for Kapisa Province, have faced stiff resistance from the insurgents there and in the Sarobi district of neighboring Kabul Province. Eighty-two French soldiers have been killed in combat since 2001, mostly in those two areas.

France’s military high command did not respond to requests for comment on the airstrike in Kapisa.

The province is divided ethnically, with some areas heavily Tajik and others Pashtun. The Pashtun areas have had a strong insurgent presence that includes both Taliban fighters and fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an insurgent leader.

The Najrab district, where the airstrike occurred, is mixed with Tajiks, Pashtuns and Pashai, and while local officials said it was not held by insurgents, their presence could not be ruled out since Najrab is adjacent to less stable districts.

“The area is not influenced by the Taliban, but there was some sort of illegal weapon smuggling,” said Abdul Saboor Wafa, the Kapisa governor’s chief of staff.

Civilian casualties have caused serious tensions between the United States-led military coalition and the Afghan government. Civilian deaths caused by NATO and Afghan forces dropped last year, although the number of civilians killed by airstrikes that were intended to hit insurgents rose, to 187, the United Nations has reported.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the loss of life in Kapisa and blamed a NATO airstrike in a statement on Thursday.

Scott Sayare contributed reporting from Paris.

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Anti Muslim graffiti insulting Allah scrawled on Kensington insurance shop.

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Anti Muslim Graffiti Scrawled on Kensington Insurance Shop

Posted on 13 February 2012 by Amago

Anti Muslim graffiti insulting Allah scrawled on Kensington insurance shop.

Anti Muslim graffiti insulting Allah scrawled on Kensington insurance shop.

Anti Muslim graffiti insulting Allah scrawled on Kensington insurance shop

By Simone Weichselbaum / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Bangladeshis in Kensington said they are living in fear after Muslim hate graffiti was found on a storefront in the neighborhood’s bustling shopping strip.

The manager of TDS Insurance on Beverly Road near McDonald Avenue, came to work Monday and spotted a nauseating sight:

“It was written on the outside – ‘Allah is s–t,’” said Abu Chowdhury, 51, who immediately called the cops.

“I have no enemies,” he said. “We are not a religious business.”

Although the hateful message was erased hours later, Bangladeshis said the sight left them emotionally scarred.

“It is just shocking,” said Mamnunul Haq, a Bangladeshi community leader. “No one wants to see anything like that.”

“We are a very peaceful people,” Haq added.

Kensington is one of the most diverse areas in the city – home to a Muslim stronghold mainly comprised of Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, living among Mexican families and Orthodox Jews.

Bangladeshis joined their Hasidic neighbors in July during the search for Leiby Kletzky, the 8-year-old boy who went missing in Borough Park and was later found dead.

They also blasted the vandal or vandals who painted a half dozen swastikas around Midwood last month.

“It happened in the Jewish community. And now it is happening in ours,” Haq said.

Hoping to quell the growing anxiety, Councilman Brad Lander (D-Kensington) held a meeting Wednesday night with Bangladeshi, Jewish, and Latino residents discussing ideas about how to prevent future hate crimes in their hood.

Lander wants to put a set of trees and benches in front of TDS Insurance, calling it “Kensington Plaza,” serving as a mixed race meeting spot.

“In the face of hatred, this community is coming together,” Lander said. “When these things happen, you have to stand up.”

simonew@nydailynews.com

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Inscription 'Muhammad is a pig' painted on a Jerusalem mosque, Dec. 14, 2011.

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IDF Soldier Linked to ‘Price Tag’ Attack in West Bank Palestinian village

Posted on 13 February 2012 by Amago

Inscription 'Muhammad is a pig' painted on a Jerusalem mosque, Dec. 14, 2011.

Inscription 'Muhammad is a pig' painted on a Jerusalem mosque, Dec. 14, 2011.

These attacks continue. When will it come to an end?

IDF soldier linked to ‘price tag’ attack in West Bank Palestinian village 

An Israel Defense Forces soldier is suspected of perpetrating a so-called “price tag” attack in a Palestinian West Bank village, Haaretz learned on Friday, following recently intercepted security camera footage.

The Golani Brigade soldier and resident of the Itamar settlement was arrested along with two young women after footage indicated the three vandalizing the Palestinian village of Luban al-Sharqiya near Nablus.

According to a preliminary investigation, the three are suspected of entering the West Bank village on 1:30 A.M. Tuesday, where they sprayed the caption “Muhammad is a pig” on one of the walls and sabotaged a construction materials shop.

Security camera footage provided by Israeli NGO B’Tselem shows one of the young women stabbing sacks of building material piled up near the shop.

Later, a confrontation ensued between the three and local residents who woke up following the ruckus, during which the IDF soldier threatened the Palestinians with his rifle, causing them to flee the scene.

Suspects linked to the case were arrested on Thursday, with their arrest remanded until Monday.

The solder admitted to the act and is scheduled to be detained until Monday.

In addition, Orien Nizri from Jerusalem, known for her West Bank activism, and Sarah Goldberg from the settlement of Tapuach were arrested over suspicion that they were the young women in the car.

The young women are to be detained until Tuesday following a remand hearing in a Jerusalem magistrate’s court.

Haaretz, 10 February 2012

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Shaul Spitzer, Hasidic Man Admits Burning Neighbor In New York Religious Dispute

Posted on 12 February 2012 by Emperor

Shaul_Spitzer_Hasidic

Shaul Spitzer

What if he were Muslim?

Shaul Spitzer, Hasidic Man Admits Burning Neighbor In New York Religious Dispute

NEW CITY, NY, Feb 7 (Reuters) – A Hasidic Jewish man from New York state pleaded guilty to assault on Tuesday for setting a neighbor on fire because he wasn’t praying with the rest of the community, leaving the man badly burned.

Shaul Spitzer, 18, of New Square, New York, admitted to lighting Aron Rottenberg ablaze after learning that he had disobeyed a prayer order by the Grand Rebbe of the Hasidic enclave about 35 miles north of New York City.

He pleaded guilty to assault in a New York court and faces up to 10 years in prison, although Judge William Kelly said he would likely receive a 5-year sentence.

Spitzer, who worked for Grand Rebbe David Twersky, admitted in court that he used a heavy duty propane lighter to set Rottenberg on fire in May 2011.

He lit him on fire when Rottenberg confronted him after Spitzer had stuffed gasoline-soaked shirts into a bag, lit it on fire and threw it onto the porch of Rottenberg’s home, he admitted. The family was sleeping inside, court documents said.

Prosecutor Stephen Moore said Rottenberg spent more than a month in the hospital for severe burns.

Under the plea deal, charges of attempted murder and arson were dismissed. Spitzer could have faced a 25-year prison sentence for those charges. Outside court, Spitzer’s attorney Kenneth Gribetz said his client had been trying to cause mischief, not to kill anyone.

“This is a young boy who has no criminal intent,” he said. “He’s not a criminal … He should be given a chance to get back on the right track.”

Spitzer, who will be sentenced in April, entered his plea on the day jury selection was set to begin in the case. Rottenberg was in court and told the judge he consented to the plea deal.

Court documents said Rottenberg’s family had received several threats and had their property vandalized for not praying in the community’s main synagogue.

Rottenburg has a pending civil lawsuit against Spitzer and Twersky stemming from the incident. Gribetz said in court a settlement in the $2 million range was under discussion. (Editing By Ellen Wulfhorst and Cynthia Johnston

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At Geller-Spencer’s CPAC Panel, Anti-Muslim Activist Says He’s Proud of Attacks on Mosques

Posted on 11 February 2012 by Mooneye

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James Lafferty

(H/T: JD, Perceiver)

At Geller-Spencer’s CPAC Panel, Anti-Muslim Activist Says He’s Proud of Attacks on Mosques

by Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs)

Speaking today at the unofficial CPAC panel “Islamic Law in America: How the Obama Justice Department Is Selling Us Out,” sponsored by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, James Lafferty of the Virginia Anti-Sharia Task Force was “proud to say” that most of the mosques attacked in the US were in the South: CPAC: Anti-Muslim Activist James Lafferty Says He’s ‘Proud’ of Attacks Against Mosques.

Well with what the gentleman was saying about the Justice Department, I went to the briefing, the hate crimes summit, and I went there and it was all Muslim officials speaking and they had all these pictures of some mosque somewhere, and it was usually in the South I’m proud to say where a guy would drive a pickup truck right into the mosque. They had I bet 20—it looked like the same picture after a while because they just kept showing these same pictures, and each Muslim speaker got up, and remember this is a Justice Department meeting, and really ragged on two groups: the FBI and the NYPD. So whatever they’re doing they’re doing something good.

This is far from the first example; Geller and Spencer are usually too cunning to express this kind of open support for anti-Muslim violence, but their associates … not so much: Pamela Geller Associate John Jay Openly Calls for Mass Murder.

Meanwhile, after ranting earlier this week that no one reads LGF or takes me seriously, and that I was a “boil on the ass of the blogosphere,” Geller blocked me on Twitter, then proceeded to tweet the following to me today — even though, since she blocked me, I was unlikely to even see it. (I only saw it because one of her followers retweeted it.)

Pamela Geller@Atlasshrugs
Breitbart, Geller, Spencer – we’re coming to get you, Chuckie! twitpic.com/8i1kz8 @AndrewBreitbart @jihadwatchRS @Lizardoid
10 Feb 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite

This is the picture Geller posted:

It’s nice to know that Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, and Andrew Breitbart all have a little internalized version of me living inside their heads, making them miserable.

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US Officials Confirm: Israel Financing, Training and Arming MEK Terrorists to Murder Iranian Scientists

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US Officials Confirm: Israel Financing, Training and Arming MEK Terrorists to Murder Iranian Scientists

Posted on 10 February 2012 by Garibaldi

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Iranian scientists car blown up by MEK terrorist

This past July I wrote a piece on the collaboration between, and support for the MEK (Mujahideen-e-Khalq) from US congressmen, as well as the intense effort to delist the group from the US State Department’s “designated terrorist” list.

Congressmen (including Democrats) and former government officials have met with the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an organization that was designated a terrorist group in 1997 when the list was first compiled, and is STILL ON THE LIST–for now.

MEK has a very aggressive and organized lobby effort in Washington D.C. According to one House staffer, the MEK is “the most mobilized grassroots advocacy effort in the country — AIPAC included.” Their mission is to be delisted as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), push the USA to foment war with Iran, i.e. “regime change,” and have themselves installed into power. Sound familiar?

This exposed several issues which I touched upon in my July article:

1.) It is a felony to provide a designated terrorist organization with “material support,” which many elected officials it can be argued have been doing!

2.) “Numerous Muslims inside the U.S. have been prosecuted for providing ‘material support for Terrorism’ for doing far less than these American politicians are publicly doing on behalf of a designated Terrorist group.” Read Glenn Greenwald’s piece for a far from comprehensive list of Muslims who have been charged for doing far less than what these politicians did! (H/T: Believing Atheist)

Danios has written several pieces on the “Greater Islamophobia,” i.e. “bombing, invading, and occupying Muslim lands.” His and Glenn Greenwald’s analysis of the uptick in war propaganda, covert operations by both the USA and Israel are must reads. It is clear that we are reaching a crucial point from which we will be unable to return: are the wheels turning irreversibly towards war?

According to the Iranian American Islamic scholar Reza Aslan, the fact that there is so much public discussion of “war” against Iran is indicative of a private aversion to confrontation, he told us:

Nobody is going to war with Iran, neither the United States or Israel. I can tell you for a fact that Israel is not going to war with Iran because Israel keeps talking about it. If anybody who has studied Israeli politics at all can tell you anything is if Israel talks about bombing Iran then that means it has no intentions of doing it. When the Israelis want you dead you just die, OK.

Reza’s logic is pretty sound and lets hope he continues to be right, but sometimes, even when no one wants war you get war. History is replete with such a fact.

In the meantime we have the Israeli effort at sabotaging the Iranian nuclear program by targeting and killing Iranian scientists. It has been a not-so-well-hidden-secret that Israel has been using the MEK as a proxy in this war, a claim leveled by Iran for quite some time.

Now we have US officials confirming this fact. Of course, if true, this is nothing less than government sponsored terrorism!

All of these mysteries received substantial clarity from an NBC News report by Richard Engel and Robert Windrem yesterday. Citing two anonymous “senior U.S. officials,” that report makes two amazing claims: (1) that it was MEK which perpetrated the string of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and (2) the Terrorist group “is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service.” These senior officials also admitted that “the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign” but claims it “has no direct involvement.” Iran has long insisted the Israel and the U.S. are using MEK to carry out Terrorist attacks on its soil, including the murder of its scientists, and NBC notes that these acknowledgments “confirm charges leveled by Iran’s leaders” (MEK issued a statement denying the report).

The ramifications for this are disturbing to say the least. The hypocrisy and double standards it exposes once again are evident. Greenwald summarizes the questions and conclusions reached from the NBC report far more eloquently than I could, so I repeat them:

If these senior U.S. officials are telling the truth, there are a number of vital questions and conclusions raised by this. First, it would mean that the assurances by MEK’s paid American shills such as Howard Dean that “they are unarmed” are totally false: whoever murdered these scientists is obviously well-armed. Second, this should completely gut the effort to remove MEK from the list of designated Terrorist groups; after all, murdering Iran’s scientists through the use of bombs and guns is a defining act of a Terror group, at least as U.S. law attempts to define the term. Third, this should forever resolve the debate in which I was involved last month about whether the attack on these Iranian scientists constitutes Terrorism; as Daniel Larson put it yesterday: “If true, the murders of Iranian nuclear scientists with bombs have been committed by a recognized terrorist group. Can everyone acknowledge at this point that these attacks were acts of terrorism?”

Fourth, and most important: if this report is true, is this not definitive proof that Israel is, by definition, a so-called state sponsor of Terrorism? Leaving everything else aside, if Israel, as NBC reports, has “financed, trained and armed” a group officially designated by the U.S. Government as a Terrorist organization, isn’t that the definitive act of how one becomes an official “state sponsor of Terrorism”? Amazingly, as Daniel Larison notes, one of the people who most vocally attacked me for labeling the murder of Iranian scientists as “Terrorism” and for generally arguing that Terrorism is a meaningless, cynically applied term — Commentary‘s Jonathan Tobinyesterday issued a justification for why Israel should be working with Terrorist groups like MEK. As Larison wrote about Tobin’s article:

In other words, Israeli state sponsorship of a terrorist group is acceptable because it’s in a good cause. . . . Because Israel is overreacting to a perceived threat from Iran, Tobin believes it is entirely defensible for Israel to partner with a recognized terrorist group. In other words, Tobin believes that terrorism is “entirely defensible” so long as it is committed by the right people and directed at the right targets. It’s as if he is going out of his way to vindicate Glenn Greenwald.

Of course, as I documented in my last book, those who are politically and financially well-connected are free to commit even the most egregious crimes; for that reason, the very idea of prosecuting Giuliani, Rendell, Ridge, Townsend, Dean and friends for their paid labor on behalf of a Terrorist group is unthinkable, a suggestion not fit for decent company, even though powerless Muslims have been viciously prosecuted for far less egregious connections to such groups. But this incident also underscores the specific point that the term Terrorism is so completely meaningless, manipulated and mischievous: it’s just a cynical term designed to delegitimize violence and even political acts undertaken by America’s enemies while shielding from criticism the actual Terrorism undertaken by itself and its allies. The spectacle whereby a designated Terrorist group can pay top American politicians to advocate for them even as they engage in violent Terrorist acts, all while being trained, funded and aided by America’s top client state, should forever end the controversy over that glaringly obvious proposition.

Here is the original NBC Report:

By Richard Engel and Robert Windrem (NBC NEWS)

Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders.

The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980.

The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement.

The Iranians have no doubt who is responsible – Israel and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, known by various acronyms, including MEK, MKO and PMI.

“The relation is very intricate and close,” said Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, speaking of the MEK and Israel.  “They (Israelis) are paying … the Mujahedin. Some of their (MEK) agents … (are) providing Israel with information.  And they recruit and also manage logistical support.”


Moreover, he said, the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, is training MEK members in Israel on the use of motorcycles and small bombs.  In one case, he said, Mossad agents built a replica of the home of an Iranian nuclear scientist so that the assassins could familiarize themselves with the layout prior to the attack.

Much of what the Iranian government knows of the attacks and the links between Israel and MEK  comes from interrogation of an assassin who failed to carry out an attack in late 2010 and the materials found on him, Larijani said. (Click here to see a video report of the interrogation shown on Iranian televsion.)

The U.S.-educated Larijani, whose two younger brothers run the legislative and judicial branches of the Iranian government, said the Israelis’ rationale is simple. “Israel does not have direct access to our society. Mujahedin, being Iranian and being part of Iranian society, they have … a good number of … places to get into the touch with people. So I think they are working hand-to-hand very close.  And we do have very concrete documents.”

Two senior U.S. officials confirmed for NBC News  the MEK’s role in the assassinations, with one senior official saying, “All your inclinations are correct.” A third official would not confirm or deny the relationship, saying only, “It hasn’t been clearly confirmed yet.”  All the officials denied any U.S. involvement in the assassinations.

As it has in the past, Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined comment. Said a spokesman, “As long as we can’t see all the evidence being claimed by NBC, the Foreign Ministry won’t react to every gossip and report being published worldwide.”

For its part, the MEK pointed to a statement calling the allegations “absolutely false.”

Ali Safavi, a long-time representative of the MEK, underscored the denial after publication of this article,

“There has never been and there is no MEK member in Israel, period,” he said. “The MEK has categorically denied any involvement. The idea that Israel is training MEK members on its soil borders on perversity. It is absolutely and completely false.”

The sophistication of the attacks supports the Iranian claims that an experienced intelligence service is involved, experts say.

In the most recent attack, on Jan. 11, 2012, Mostafa Ahamdi Roshan died in a blast in Tehran moments after two assailants on a motorcycle placed a small magnetic bomb on his vehicle. Roshan was a deputy director at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and was reportedly involved in procurement for the nuclear program, which Iran insists is not a weapons program.

Previous attacks include the assassination of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, killed by a bomb outside his Tehran home in January 2010, and an explosion in November of that year that took the life of Majid Shahriari and wounded Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, who is now the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.

In the case of Roshan, the bomb appears to have been a shaped charge that directed all the explosive power inside the vehicle, killing him and his bodyguard driver but leaving nearby traffic unaffected.

Although Roshan was directly involved in the nuclear program, working at the huge centrifuge facility between Tehran and Qom, Iran’s religious center, at least one other scientist who was killed wasn’t linked to the Iranian nuclear program, according to Larijani.

Speaking of bombing victim Ali-Mohammadi, whom he described as a friend, Larijani told NBC News, “In fact this guy who was assassinated was not involved in the nitty-gritty of the situation.  He was a scientist, a physicist, working on the theoretically parts of nuclear energy, which you can teach it in every university. You can find it in every text.”

“This is an Israeli plot.  A dirty plot,” Larijani added angrily. He also claimed the assassinations are not having an effect on the program and have only made scientists more resolute in carrying out their mission.

Not so, said Ronen Bergman, an Israeli commentator and author of “Israel’s Secret War with Iran” and an upcoming book tentatively titled, “Mossad and the Art of Assassination. (Read the rest)

************************************************************************

I will end by saying that this hypocrisy and double standards are nothing new to us. We reported back in July on the collaboration between US politicians and the material support they were clearly lending to a “designated terrorist organization.” Muslims and Islamic groups who have far less power than these hypocritical politicians are tarnished with the “unindicted terrorist” label and hence marginalized while the politicians roam free and actually put money into their pocket books from these terror groups.

Israel’s lies, distortions and terror are also well known to us. This is not the first time Israel has delved into “government sponsored terror” and it likely won’t be the last! On a daily basis Israel is terrorizing the Palestinians, a point many seem to miss! The question is when will we wake up and hold our political class to account for the hypocrisy, the double standards, the erosion of our civil liberties or are we willing to give it away for the false mirage of “security?”

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Marines_Nazi_Flag_Afghanistan

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US Marines Pose with Nazi Symbol: To Them All Afghans are “Sand N*****s”

Posted on 10 February 2012 by Emperor

Marines_Nazi_Flag_Afghanistan

Marines pose with the "SS" flag in Afghanistan

To these Marines all Afghans are probably “Sand N*****s” and so they have no issue with posing with a Nazi symbol.

The story below highlights that many Jewish organizations and others are outraged by the photo and are demanding an investigation. My question is how are the above soldiers going to be investigated or held accountable when you have soldiers who have clearly committed war crimes and perpetrated massacres getting off for free or a slap of the wrist?

Groups outraged by Marines posing with logo resembling Nazi SS want new probe, troops punished

(Washinton Post)

SAN DIEGO — A leading Jewish organization and others outraged by a photo showing Marine snipers in Afghanistan posing with a logo resembling a notorious Nazi symbol are demanding President Barack Obama order an investigation and hold the troops accountable.

The Marine Corps has said it does not plan any discipline because there was no malicious intent. The Marines mistakenly believed the “SS” in the shape of white lightning bolts on the blue flag were a nod to sniper scouts — not members of Adolf Hitler’s special unit that murdered millions of Jews, gypsies and others, said Maj. Gabrielle Chapin, a spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

The Marines are no longer with Charlie Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, out of the base north of San Diego, and Chapin said she did not know if they had left the Corps.

Military officials learned of the photograph in November and investigated immediately. It later surfaced on a blog of a military weapons company.

In the September 2010 photo taken in the Sangin district of Helmand province, 10 Marines pose with sniper rifles in front of an American flag above a dark blue flag with the “SS” letters.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of Los Angeles’ Simon Wiesenthal Center, said he does not believe it was an innocent mistake and insisted the American public has a right to know what happened.

His organization — one of the largest international Jewish human rights groups with more than 400,000 members — is demanding Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta launch another investigation and discipline those involved.

“That 70 years after the United States Armed Forces helped liberate Europe from Nazi Germany, to learn that a unit of the United States Marine Corps serving in Afghanistan adopted the SS insignia alongside the Stars and Stripes, desecrates the memory of some 200,000 Americans who gave up their lives to defend freedom against that infamous symbol,” he said in a statement.

The Corps has used the incident as a training tool to talk to troops about what symbols are acceptable, Chapin said.

“I don’t believe that the Marines involved would have ever used any type of symbol associated with the Nazi Germany military criminal organization that committed mass atrocities in WWII,” Chapin said. “It’s not within who we are as Marines.”

Hier said it clearly shows more training about the Holocaust and the SS unit is needed.

It was the second time this year that images have surfaced showing Marines acting improperly and forcing the Corps to deal with the fallout. Last month, the Pentagon scrambled to contain the damage after an Internet video purportedly showed Marines urinating on Taliban corpses — an act that appears to violate international laws of warfare and further strains U.S.-Afghan relations. Panetta called Afghan President Hamid Karzai to offer assurances of an investigation, and the top Marine general promised an internal probe as well as a criminal one.

Those Marines, like the ones in front of the flag, fought in former Taliban strongholds in Helmand province. They are based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

 

 

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Samuel Aranda: Arab Spring Shot Wins Photo of the Year

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Samuel Aranda: Arab Spring Shot Wins Photo of the Year

Posted on 10 February 2012 by Emperor

Samuel_Aranda_World_Press_Photo_Arab_Spring

Samuel Aranda's Award Winning Photo

An amazing, moving, deep photo. (via. Huffington-Post)

Samuel Aranda Wins World Press Photo Of The Year Award For Arab Spring Shot

By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press

AMSTERDAM — Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda won the 2011 World Press Photo of the Year award Friday for an image of a veiled woman holding a wounded relative in her arms after a demonstration in Yemen.

Jurors said Aranda’s photo, taken for The New York Times, encapsulated many facets of the uprisings across the Middle East known as the Arab Spring, one of the major news events of the year.

The photo was taken Oct. 15 in a mosque in Sanaa, Yemen, that was being used as field hospital after demonstrators protesting the rule of Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh clashed with government forces.

“The winning photo shows a poignant, compassionate moment, the human consequence of an enormous event, an event that is still going on,” said chairman Aidan Sullivan. “We might never know who this woman is, cradling an injured relative, but together they become a living image of the courage of ordinary people that helped create an important chapter in the history of the Middle East.”

The woman is almost completely concealed under black robes as she clasps her relative, a thin man whose torso is bare, grimacing in pain.

Sullivan said Aranda thought the man might have been the woman’s husband, but he was not sure. He said the image has religious “almost Biblical” overtones and noted its resemblance in composition to Michelangelo’s Pieta – but in a Muslim setting.

“It stands for Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, for all that happened in the Arab Spring,” said juror Koyo Kouoh. “But it shows a private, intimate side of what went on, and it shows the role that women played, not only as caregivers but as active people in the movement.”

 

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Andrew Ryan2

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EDL Member who Burned Qur’an Part of Racist Gang that Threatened and Abused Turkish Takeaway Workers

Posted on 09 February 2012 by Emperor

I don’t think this hooligan should have been jailed for burning the Koran, though in his case he probably meant to send the same message that the KKK sends when “burning crosses.” Either way his actions since being released confirm that he is an unhinged and violent character.

Bob Pitt at Islamophobia-Watch writes:

EDL member who burned Qur’an part of racist gang that threatened and abused Turkish takeaway workers

(Islamophobia-Watch)

A former Carlisle soldier just released from jail for publicly burning the Koran was among nearly a dozen people who racially abused two takeaway workers.

The city’s crown court heard that Andrew Ryan, 33, and his brother Matthew Ryan, 27, were part of a group who threatened and racially abused two Turkish men at Manhattan Pizza in Botchergate last year.

The Ryan brothers, along with three other men and four women, pleaded guilty to two charges of using racially aggravated threatening behaviour. All admitted that their abuse of the two takeaway workers had been inspired by their mistaken belief that the men were Pakistani.

Before the group are sentenced on Thursday, Judge Paul Batty QC will be shown a video of the ugly incident in which they were involved on May 20 last year.

The CCTV shows the group massing in a threatening manner outside the takeaway shop shortly before 8pm. They are seen angrily remonstrating with the two Turkish workers, some of the group ranting and repeatedly jabbing their fingers as they spill into the shop.

One of the men in the group flicked a lighted cigarette into the shop, and a drinks can is also tossed inside. At one stage, the video shows one of the defendants striding into the shop and throwing a chair.

The terrifying incident came shortly after Andrew Ryan was released from a 70-day jail term for burning the Koran in Carlisle city centre. He claimed he committed that offence with the aim of causing offence to only Islamic extremists.

News & Star, 7 February 2012

After he was convicted of burning the Qur’an in April last year Andrew Ryan was treated as a hero by the EDL, who organised a demonstration in solidarity with him before he was sentenced. As the News & Star reported:

“He arrived at the city magistrates’ court flanked by men waving the St George’s Cross and shouting nationalist chants. The English Defence League Carlisle Division had put out a call for members to support Ryan. A group gathered to parade through the city centre with him, carrying a flag with ‘EDL’ written on it. It also bore the scrawled message: ‘It’s our country, we are taking it back’.”

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Charles Johnson: Pamela Geller’s Ghoulish Obsession with Honor Killing’s Takes an Ugly Turn

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Charles Johnson: Pamela Geller’s Ghoulish Obsession with Honor Killing’s Takes an Ugly Turn

Posted on 09 February 2012 by Emperor

Pamela Geller

Pamela Geller

Charles Johnson has for quite some time been a consistent and stalwart opponent of the hatemongers: Spencer, Geller, Wilders, etc. For this he has been on the receiving end of threats and attacks from the hate propagandists.

I just want to point out the difference between Charles Johnson and someone like Eric Allen Bell.

Charles Johnson saw the turn toward fascism and the clear hate of Muslims amongst Spencer, Geller and their alliess across the Atlantic and he called them out on it. Eric Allen Bell on the other hand went from documenting bigotry and hate revolving around the Murfreesboro Mosque community to defecting to the JihadWatch twilight-zone.

What a difference! Here is Johnson’s article:

Pamela Geller’s Ghoulish Obsession With ‘Honor Killings’ Takes an Ugly Turn

by Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs)

Anti-Muslim hate group leader Pamela Geller has seized on the murder of a 20-year old Muslim woman in Michigan, labeled it an “honor killing,” and is now planning to hold a “conference” using the murdered woman’s name — against the wishes of the woman’s family, and even though both the family and the prosecutor in the case say it was the act of an abusive stepfather, not an “honor killing” at all. And to make it even more disgusting, Geller is calling her hatefest a “human rights conference.”

It’s hard to imagine someone so twisted and dysfunctional that they’d intrude on a family’s grief over a murdered child, and use the victim’s name against the family’s wishes. But Geller is defiantly determined to exploit this murder for all the bigoted hatred she can wring out of it: Slain Woman’s Name on ‘Human Rights’ Conference Upsets Her Family.

Jessica’s murder made international headlines. She left Minnesota to escape an allegedly physically and mentally abusive stepfather, but in April of 2011, her stepfather, Rahim Alfatlawi, drove from Minnesota to her grandmother’s Warren home and shot her in the head.

Her family calls it an awful tragedy, but others are calling it an honor killing.

“We know that this is a practice under Islamic law. The honor killing is the final act. People know very little of the terror … that these girls live under,” said Pamela Geller.

She is the head of Stop the Islamization of America. Geller is hosting a conference on the anniversary of Jessica’s death in Dearborn. It’s called the Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference.

“We cannot sanction this gendercide. We cannot sanction the diminishment and dehumanization of women. We must speak up,” Geller said.

We asked Jessica’s stepmother, Cassandra Mokdad, whether her murder was an honor killing. “Absolutely it was not,” she said. She told us this disgusting act had nothing to do with Islam, a religion she said Jessica practiced proudly.

“It was nothing about religion or anything. It was just about a sick human being,” Mohammed Mokdad said.

“He wanted to have a relationship with Jessica as more than her stepfather. He wanted to have a more romantic relationship with her,” Cassandra Mokdad explained.

“She’s using Jessica as her poster child for anti-Islam.” Even the Macomb County Prosecutor on the case said Alfatlawi murdered Jessica because he was obsessed with her, not the religion, and Jessica’s family wants her name taken off the conference.

“She’s using Jessica as her poster child for anti-Islam,” said Cassandra Mokdad.

“What gulls me is that there is this prohibition on discussing it and the ideology that inspires honor killings,” Geller explained.

She said this conference will happen and the name won’t be changed.

“We’re definitely going to have this conference and it will not be stopped. Their directing their barbs at me. I didn’t kill Jessica. I’m trying to save the next girl. They should be helping me save the next girl,” said Geller.

“Absolutely I’ll go. I won’t let her sit there and misuse Jessica’s name, and I will let her know exactly how I feel,” Cassandra Mokdad told us.

But wait — the story gets even more repellent, because Geller and her followers bullied and harassed the management of the Hyatt Regency in Dearborn, Michigan into giving her a conference room for free to hold this ugly hatefest, after they canceled a previous Geller hatefest. Unbelievable.

Here’s a page with contact info for the Dearborn Hyatt, if you’d like to let the management know how you feel about this disgusting event: Detroit Metro Hotel – Detroit Michigan Hotels – Hyatt Regency Dearborn. They backed down and tried to appease Geller, and as a result she’s now using their facilities to exploit a murdered woman’s name to spread hatred.

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Brigitte Gabriel: Liberals and Muslims Doing “Exactly What Hitler Did”

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Brigitte Gabriel: Liberals and Muslims Doing “Exactly What Hitler Did”

Posted on 09 February 2012 by Emperor

Brigitte Gabriel

Right-wing Christianity’s favorite self-hating racist, Hanan Tudor, a.k.a Brigitte Gabriel has been making a killing through her anti-Islam organization “ACT! For America,” also better known as Hate! for America.

Not too long ago she was at the Cornerstone Church in Nashville, Tennessee, (yes, the same church that hosted European fascist Geert Wilders) participating in the “anti-Shariah Conference.” You can watch the video yourself here.

As you can see Gabriel is up to her usual gimmick, fear-mongering about the deadly and dire “Islamization of the USA,” which is supposedly happening right under the patriotic noses of: good, wholesome, real Americans! According to her the Muslims are being aided in this anti-American endeavor by the liberals who wish nothing more than to see America destroyed!

She says at the 6:00 minute mark about the “Liberal-Islamic axis of evil”:

They’re doing exactly what Hitler did. What did Hitler say, what did Hitler do? “Give me the children and I’ll change society in ten years.”

Really? The Hitler card? Isn’t that played out by now?

Cornerstone Church has a history of giving a platform to this sort of anti-Islam and anti-Muslim propaganda. I won’t be surprised if one of its congregants believes he/she has to take out the Muslims before they take over, or perhaps a la cultural-Christian-Templar-Knight-Terrorist Anders Breivik, take out the liberals who are facilitating the so-called “demise of the USA.”

*********************

While Brigitte Gabriel’s reputation has been severely discredited and she is unable to get the kind of access that she was accustomed to in the past she is still able to weasel her way at times into the mainstream.

Such was the case recently in an article written by Frida Ghatis for McClatchy Newspapers and which was picked up by the Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee and several other papers. Ghatis’ article was titled, Truly Revolutionary: Arabs Speaking Well of Israel.

The piece is pro-Israel propaganda through-and-through and while maintaining a veneer of objectivity it degrades the successes of the Arab Spring and revolves around the not-so-hidden thesis that a real revolution in the Arab world would be one in which Arabs “speak well of Israel.” No explanation is given of why many Arabs are anti-Israel (i.e. occupation, apartheid, discrimination, war crimes, the bombing of Arab countries, etc.).

Instead the focus is: will Arabs finally love Israel and say nice things about it. All pretense to objectivity is dropped when we come to this sentence:

Pro-Israel Arabs, Muslims, and former Muslims who use their real names are usually people living safely in the West, such as Lebanon’s Brigitte Gabriel, Somalia’s Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Egypt’s Tawfik Hamid, or Canada’s Irshad Manji.

We have covered all of the loons mentioned above by Ghatis. If Ghatis was willing to do a basic search on Gabriel she would realize that Gabriel doesn’t even consider herself an Arab! In fact, Gabriel believes Arabs have no soul!:

The difference, my friends, between Israel and the Arab world is the difference between civilization and barbarism. It’s the difference between good and evil [applause]…. this is what we’re witnessing in the Arabic world, They have no SOUL!, they are dead set on killing and destruction. And in the name of something they call “Allah” which is very different from the God we believe….[applause] because our God is the God of love.

One can see why Ghatis would be so enthusiastic about Gabriel, she really speaks so “well” of Israel.

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Images of the vandalism at the Sterling Heights Sikh temple

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Sikh Temple Vandalized–but were Muslims the Intended Target?

Posted on 08 February 2012 by Amago

Images of the vandalism at the Sterling Heights Sikh temple

Images of the vandalism at the Sterling Heights Sikh temple

Sikh Temple Vandalized–but were Muslims the Intended Target?

By 

Vandals targeted a Sikh house of worship in suburban Detroit this week. But there are signs they intended to target Muslims.

According to the Sikh Society of Michigan, the Sikh temple (known as a Gurdwara) in Sterling Heights has been under construction for several years, without any incidents or controversy.

That changed when someone vandalized the building sometime on Sunday night.

The vandals spray painted “don’t builed” [sic] on an outside wall. They also left images of a cross, a gun, and a misspelled version of the name “Mohammed.”

Muslims revere Mohammed as a prophet, but it has nothing to do with the Sikh religion. The word leads many to believe to believe the vandals thought they were targeting Muslims.

Dawud Walid, executive director for the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), calls the vandalism a hate crime.

“We joined the Sikh community in calling for local and federal law enforcement to use their full resources to investigate this recent hate crime,” Walid said.

The US Justice Department in Detroit says the incident is on their radar. They’ve met with members of the Sikh community about it.

But a DOJ spokeswoman says it’s yet how they’ll be involved in the investigation, or any potential prosecution. Anyone with information about the incident should contact Sterling Heights Police.

Walid also suggests the incident could stem from politicians’ “fanning the flames” of xenophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment in an election year.

“We hope that they will be a little more responsible,” Walid said. “They should understand that their statements and ads may push people over the edge, and they do have consequences.”

The US Sikh community has fallen victim to anti-Muslim sentiment before. A Sikh man was murdered in Arizona soon after the September 11th attacks. The killer thought he was Arab or Muslim.

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Arvinder Singh, who has been attending Des Moines mosques over the past seven years, was revealed to be an FBI informant.

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FBI Betrayed Us: Iowa Muslims

Posted on 07 February 2012 by Amago

Arvinder Singh, who has been attending Des Moines mosques over the past seven years, was revealed to be an FBI informant.

Arvinder Singh, who has been attending Des Moines mosques over the past seven years, was revealed to be an FBI informant.

FBI Betrayed Us: Iowa Muslims

IOWA – The Muslim community in Iowa is frustrated and angry over FBI’s sending informants into mosques to spy on worshippers, seething with a sense of betrayal that has undermined trust between American Muslims and security agencies.

“That was really surprising, very sad that somebody would come or the FBI or Homeland Security would send somebody here to pretend to be Muslim and try to find out what goes on here,” Dr. Hamed Baig, president of the Islamic Center of Des Moines, told CNN on Friday, February 3.

“I feel there is no need for that.”

In Des Moines, Iowa, a small yet diverse Muslim community is divided into four mosques from Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, among other nations.

Frustration among members of the Muslim community began after 42 year-old Arvinder Singh, who has been attending their mosques over the past seven years, was revealed to be an FBI informant.

Charged with “selling or transferring precursor substances for an unlawful purpose” in March of 2002, Singh said he was approached by FBI officers who told him, “‘You look Middle Eastern, and we need your help for the war against terror.’”

Singh, currently in Hardin County Jail in Iowa, where he’s been awaiting deportation, said the FBI came to him with a simple tradeoff:  We’ll help you get your citizenship if you help us get some terrorists.

Having no information about Islam, Indian-born Singh was surprised to be approached by FBI agents.

“I was surprised. I said, ‘Me? I have no idea about this’ And they said ‘We’ll train you. You’ll get used to it. We’ll make you go and do some work for us.’”

Later on, he assumed a Muslim identity, Rafik Alvi, and went into the mosques pretending to be interested in converting.

He says sometimes the FBI gave him pictures of persons of interest and he would confirm that they were at the mosque.  On a few occasions, Singh says he taped his conversations with congregants.

“They wanted me to go investigate some people in the area,” Singh told CNN in a jailhouse interview.

“See what they’re doing, who they’re meeting. Who’s their family member, who’s attending them, what they are talking about. That kind of work.”

Anger 

The mosque infiltration has angered Iowa Muslim community, saying that the FBI just took a step backwards in building trust with the Muslims in his community.

“To know that somebody made an intrusive entry into the masjid for purpose other than prayer, or other than socializing or taking care of anybody who is in need makes me very much nervous and embarrassed, too, that I belong to a community where we have a member who has come for some other purpose,” Anis Rehman, executive board treasurer of the Islamic Center of Des Moines and a college professor, told CNN.

“But later when we saw that he was not actually a member but a pretender then it made me more angry,” Rehman said.

Rehman says the idea of a FBI informant in their tiny mosque is not only offensive but baffling.

“I find that to send an impostor into our community which is so small where not only we know each other but (where) the law enforcement agents can perhaps pick each one of us by name and by family, I don’t think that the incident [on] 9/11 could warrant such action in a small community like ours.”

Since 9/11, Muslims, estimated between six to seven million, have become sensitized to an erosion of their civil rights, with a prevailing belief that America was stigmatizing their faith.

FBI tactic of sending informants into mosques have deteriorated relations with the US Muslim community over the past few years.

In 2009, Muslim groups threatened to suspend all contacts with the FBI over sending informants into mosques.

US Muslims are particularly wary of the FBI’s history of targeting members of their community.

Basim Bakri, another Iowa Muslim, noted that if Singh’s claims are true, the FBI has just destroyed any chances of building trust with the Muslims in his community.

“I think the FBI owe[s] us an apology because they did violate our civil rights,” Bakri said.

“It wasn’t right at all, it wasn’t right from the beginning and they have no right to do that.”

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ALeqM5juY7DiMf7SnMGQTH0BffBJeAguoA

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‘Blow Away’ Text Lands Muslim in Canada Jail

Posted on 07 February 2012 by Amago

‘Blow Away’ Text Lands Muslim in Canada Jail 

MONTREAL — A Muslim businessman in Canada became a terror suspect for telling his sales staff in a text message to “blow away” the competition at a New York City trade show, a religious association said Friday.

Moroccan-born Saad Allami, who works as a telecommunications company sales manager, was arrested three days after he sent the message in January 2011 and detained while police searched his home, said the Muslim Council of Montreal.

“The whole time, the officers kept repeating to the plaintiff’s wife that her husband was a terrorist,” said court filings in a lawsuit filed by Allami, cited by local media. Allami was released after four hours of questioning.

Some of his colleagues reportedly claimed they were also held for hours at the Canada-US border on account of the accusations made against their boss.

“Mr Allami’s statements, when considered in the context of which they were given, were nothing to draw such alarm or suspicion,” said Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal.

“It is clear that his arrest was the result of racial profiling and a knee-jerk reaction to label him as a terror suspect simply due to his religious background.”

Allami is seeking Can$100,000 ($100,603) from Quebec’s provincial police, a police sergeant and the justice department for unlawful detention, unlawful arrest, loss of income and damage to his reputation.

The Quebec Superior Court is to hear the case on March 5.

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Jewish Extremists Deface Monastery with “Death to Christians” Slogan

Posted on 07 February 2012 by Emperor

Death_To_Christians_Jewish_Extremists

Jewish Extremists deface monastery

Recently, Ayaan Hirsi Ali published an article in the Daily Beast titled, Global War on Christians in the Muslim World. I wonder if she will be brave enough to take on the Jewish extremists below who have been targeting Muslims and Christians.

If they were Muslim you can rest assure that the attack would be considered part and parcel of Islamic teaching.

(H/T: Z. Ahmad)

‘Death to Christians’: Suspected Jewish extremists deface monastery

JERUSALEM — A Jerusalem monastery, built on the spot where tradition holds the tree from which Jesus’ cross was made, was defaced with graffiti bearing the hallmarks of militant Jewish settlers, police said on Tuesday.

“Death to Christians” was daubed in Hebrew on the outer walls of the Monastery of the Cross, an 11th-century fortress-like holy site situated in a valley overlooked by Israel’s parliament.


Army Radio reported that “Maccabees of Migron” was painted on the monastery, too, The Associated Press reported. Maccabees were ancient Jewish heroes, and Migron is an unauthorized settlement facing a court-ordered evacuation. 

Such acts originally targeted West Bank mosques but have recently expanded to include a mosque inside Israel, Israeli military bases, and now, a Christian holy site.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the words “Price Tag” were also painted overnight by the vandals, who damaged two cars parked outside the monastery in the attack, according to Reuters.

The slogan, used by Jewish settlers in vandalism attacks on mosques and Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank, refers to the retribution they say they will exact for any attempt by the Israeli government to curb settlement in the territory.

Israeli settlement building up 20 percent, watchdog says

“I am a priest and I forgive,” Father Claudio of the monastery, which is administered by the Greek Orthodox church, told Reuters.

Rosenfeld said police had opened an investigation.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Melbourne: Man Goes on Rampage in Mosque Attack, Ripping Qurans and Flushing Them Down the Toilet

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Melbourne: Man Goes on Rampage in Mosque Attack, Ripping Qurans and Flushing Them Down the Toilet

Posted on 06 February 2012 by Emperor

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The mosque that was attacked

It wasn’t too long ago that Robert Spencer went on a speaking tour in Australia. Did he inspire the Aussie “gentleman” below? What we do know is that this guy is a creep who hates Islam and Muslims and is willing to use violence to make his point, including intimidating elderly women. Of course, in the feverish minds of the Islamophobes this man was just practicing “free speech.”(H/T: Nasser AlK):

Bosnian Mosque in Melbourne under attack, 04.02.2012

(TalkBosnia.net)

VIC Melbourne, 04.02.2012: The Bosnian mosque in Deer Park has been attacked, a man went on a rampage ripping the Qur’ans (around 50) and flushing them down the toilet.

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Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who confessed to a bombing and mass shooting that killed 77 people on July 22, 2011, arrives for a detention hearing at a court in Oslo, Norway, Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. About 100 survivors and relatives of the victims of the July 22 massacre attended the hearing in Oslo's district court - expected to decide to keep Breivik in jail until his trial begins in April. (AP Photo/Heiko Junge, Scanpix Norway) NORWAY OUT

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Norway Mass Killer Decries “Cultural Destruction”

Posted on 06 February 2012 by Amago

Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who confessed to a bombing and mass shooting that killed 77 people on July 22, 2011, arrives for a detention hearing at a court in Oslo, Norway, Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. About 100 survivors and relatives of the victims of the July 22 massacre attended the hearing in Oslo's district court - expected to decide to keep Breivik in jail until his trial begins in April. (AP Photo/Heiko Junge, Scanpix Norway) NORWAY OUT

Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who confessed to a bombing and mass shooting that killed 77 people on July 22, 2011.

Anders Behring Breivik claims that he was “saving” Norway from leftists and Muslims, sort of like the “saving” that Breivick’s hero, Robert Spencer  and his boss, David Horowitz do from time to time.

Norway Mass Killer Decries “Cultural Destruction”

(Reuters) – Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway, said Monday his massacre was necessary to prevent his country’s cultural destruction.

“We in the Norwegian movement will not sit and see that we are made a minority in our own country,” the anti-Islam fanatic told a packed courtroom in only his second public comments since the attack in July.

“The attacks on the government headquarters were preventive attacks on people committing cultural destruction of Norwegian culture and Norwegian ethnicity,” he said and demanded to be released immediately.

The 32-year-old has admitted detonating a fertilizer bomb that killed eight people at a government building in Oslo in July and hours later committing a shooting spree at an island camp for the Labor Party youths, killing 69.

“I acknowledge the acts but I plead not guilty,” said Breivik, whose attacks were the worst outburst of violence in Norway since World War Two.

The custody hearing, required periodically to keep a suspect detained, was Breivik’s fifth and the second one open to the public as Norway prepares for his trial, set to begin on April 16.

He entered the courtroom with a faint smile, wearing a black suit with a silvery tie, and raised his arms to show off his cuffed hands.

In a manifesto posted online before the attacks, Breivik wrote that he was targeting “traitors” whose leftist views and softness on immigration had brought the country low.

“The ethnic Norwegians will be a minority in Oslo in the next 10 years. It is a fact. I represent Norwegian resistance,” he told the court.

(Writing by Walter Gibbs; reporting by Gwladys Fouche)

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An-Sofie_DeWinter_Burka_Bikini

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Daily Mail Trumps Up Non-Existent Muslim Backlash to Unprovocative Photo

Posted on 04 February 2012 by Emperor

An-Sofie_DeWinter_Burka_Bikini

An-Sofie DeWinter Being Used by Her Father Filip DeWinter

 

This story comes to us via. Bob Pitt at Islamophobia-Watch who writes:

“You can see why the Mail is so keen on this story. It offers the opportunity to scaremonger about a (so far non-existent) “Muslim backlash” while at the same time publishing a picture of a woman in a bikini.”

Belgian politician risks Muslim backlash after using teenage daughter dressed in burka and bikini for campaign against Islam

by Rick Dewsbury (DailyMail)

A Belgian politician has risked causing uproar among Muslims after starting a ‘Women Against Islamization’ campaign featuring his 19-year-old daughter wearing a burka and a bikini.

Filip Dewinter, leader of the far-right Vlaams Belang party, uses a shot of his daughter An-Sofie Dewinter in the dark blue bikini for the political campaign.

The glamorous teenager dons a burka that covers her head and face, while the rest of the Muslim garment is draped over her back.

The provocative image is likely to inflame tensions among Islamic groups and nationalists in the racially-divided country.

The poster shows the words ‘Freedom or Islam?’ written on a red bar across Ms Dewinter’s breasts.

Further down the poster a black panel with the words ‘You choose!’ is seen covering the teenager’s crotch.

The extremist Vlaams Belang party claims that it wants to convince women to take a stand against Islam.

Ms Dewinter told the Belgian press she does not feel used by the party.

She said: ‘I’ve suggested (the poster) myself, I have learned to live with it but I have had everything up to death threats made at me.’

She said that she ‘ wanted to make this statement.’

She added: ‘What is the greatest contrast with a niqab? Nude.

‘The campaign fits in perfectly with how I feel about the whole issue . As women, we must choose: freedom or Islam.’

The teenager claimed that she had been threatened by Muslim groups

She added: ‘Death threats and criticism no longer scare me off.’

Her father, the party’s leader, said: ‘Women are always the first victims of Islam. We want to make clear that they have a choice.’

The potentially incendiary poster comes after The Islamic fundamentalist group Shariah4Belgium was slammed for its aggressive stance.

The group opened the country’s first Sharia court, a putting it on a collision course with the country’s nationalists.

 

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101122_Michael_Wagnon

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Michael Wagnon: Army Drops Charges Against Last Soldier in Afghan Murder Case

Posted on 04 February 2012 by Emperor

This speaks for itself (h/t: JD):

Army drops charges against last soldier in Afghan murder case

By Laura L. Myers | Reuters

SEATTLE (Reuters) – The U.S. Army has dismissed all charges against the last of five soldiers to face a court-martial in the slaying of unarmed Afghan civilians, officials from their home base near Tacoma, Washington, said on Friday.

Army Specialist Michael Wagnon, who was released from military detention and placed under home confinement in April, had been charged with premeditated murder in the death of a villager in Afghanistan during a tour of duty in February 2010.

“As of right now, he’s pretty much a free man,” said Lieutenant Colonel Gary Dangerfield, a spokesman for Joint Base Lewis-McChord. “He is still in the Army but a free man.”

The dismissal of the case against Wagnon, 31, brought to an abrupt end the Army’s prosecution of the most egregious atrocities that U.S. military personnel have been convicted of committing during a decade of war in Afghanistan.

Wagnon’s initial reaction to news of the dismissal was stunned disbelief, his defense attorney Colby Vokey told Reuters late on Friday. He then became “ecstatic” and “really relieved.”

Vokey, based in Dallas, called the dismissal “fantastic news.” He said the “Army did the right thing. We maintained all along his innocence and the government said it was the right thing to do.”

Five members of the infantry unit formerly known as the 5th Stryker Brigade were charged with killing Afghan civilians in cold blood in random attacks staged to look like legitimate combat engagements. Seven other GIs were charged with lesser offenses in a case that began as an investigation into rampant hashish abuse within the unit.

Pentagon officials have said that misconduct exposed by the case had damaged the image of the United States abroad.

Photographs entered as evidence showed the accused ringleader of the group, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, and other soldiers casually posing with bloodied Afghan corpses, drawing comparisons to the to the inflammatory Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq in 2004.

Gibbs was convicted by court-martial in November of murdering three unarmed civilians, drawing an automatic life prison sentence, but he will be eligible for parole in 8 1/2 years.

His chief accuser and onetime right-hand man, Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, was sentenced in March of last year to 24 years in prison after pleading guilty to the same three murders. As part of his plea deal, Morlock had agreed to testify against the remaining witnesses, including Wagnon.

A third soldier charged with murder, Adam Winfield, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to three years in prison. A fourth, Andrew Holmes, was sentenced to seven years after pleading guilty to a single count of murder.

Wagnon was the last to face court-martial.

Dangerfield would not say why the charges were dropped, and a statement from the base said only that the move was “in the interest of justice.”

The dismissal of charges comes less than two weeks after a U.S. Marine sergeant accused of leading a 2005 massacre of 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha pleaded guilty to one count of dereliction of duty. As part of his plea deal, the Marine, Frank Wuterich he was spared jail time and instead faces a maximum penalty of demotion to the rank of private.

Wuterich initially was charged with murder in connection with the Haditha killings. Six of the seven other Marines originally accused in that case previously had their charges dismissed by military judges, while another was cleared of criminal wrongdoing.

(Additional reporting and writing by Mary Slosson; Editing by Steve Gorman, Peter Bohan and Tim Gaynor)

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Jessica_Mokdad

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The Jessica Mokdad Story: Family of Deceased Girl Doesn’t Want Pamela Geller Pimpin’ Their Daughter’s Name For Islamophobic Agenda

Posted on 03 February 2012 by Mooneye

Jessica_Mokdad

Jessica Mokdad "loved Islam" according to her parents.

Shameless Pamela Geller is stooping to the lowest of the low. Using the name of Jessica Mokdad, a girl murdered by her “obsessed” and “monstrous” stepfather to line her pocket book and further the mass hysterical drive against Islam and Muslims.

This article while doing an O.K. job of reporting on the story gives Geller a free pass on her lunacy. What the hell is wrong with news outlets? Can’t they do a basic Google search? This woman, Geller, is a moonbat whose positions are consistently against human rights and basic freedoms, why is she not being called out for it below?

Geller also has a track record of inventing and attributing unrelated crimes to Islam and Muslims! You would think that FACT would make it into the story.

Listen Fox News Detroit: Just because someone declares themselves to be a defender of human rights does not make them one. Investigate their BACKGROUND!! Quit amplifying the voices of loons and bigots who have done nothing to help the cause of human rights and instead work only to add insult to injury by demeaning grieving families.

Enough of my rant, here is the article:

Slain Woman’s Name on anti-Muslim Conference Upsets Her Family

(Fox News Detroit)

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WJBK) — It’s been almost ten months since Jessica Mokdad’s murder. She was just 20 years old.

“It’s like still in disbelief,” said Mohammed Mokdad, her father.

Jessica’s murder made international headlines. She left Minnesota to escape an allegedly physically and mentally abusive stepfather, but in April of 2011, her stepfather, Rahim Alfatlawi, drove from Minnesota to her grandmother’s Warren home and shot her in the head.

Her family calls it an awful tragedy, but others are calling it an honor killing.

“We know that this is a practice under Islamic law. The honor killing is the final act. People know very little of the terror … that these girls live under,” said Pamela Geller.

She is the head of Stop the Islamization of America. Geller is hosting a conference on the anniversary of Jessica’s death in Dearborn. It’s called the Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference.

“We cannot sanction this gendercide. We cannot sanction the diminishment and dehumanization of women. We must speak up,” Geller said.

We asked Jessica’s stepmother, Cassandra Mokdad, whether her murder was an honor killing.

“Absolutely it was not,” she said.

She told us this disgusting act had nothing to do with Islam, a religion she said Jessica practiced proudly.

“It was nothing about religion or anything. It was just about a sick human being,” Mohammed Mokdad said.

“He wanted to have a relationship with Jessica as more than her stepfather. He wanted to have a more romantic relationship with her,” Cassandra Mokdad explained.

Even the Macomb County Prosecutor on the case said Alfatlawi murdered Jessica because he was obsessed with her, not the religion, and Jessica’s family wants her name taken off the conference.

“She’s using Jessica as her poster child for anti-Islam,” said Cassandra Mokdad.

“What gulls me is that there is this prohibition on discussing it and the ideology that inspires honor killings,” Geller explained.

She said this conference will happen and the name won’t be changed.

“We’re definitely going to have this conference and it will not be stopped. Their directing their barbs at me. I didn’t kill Jessica. I’m trying to save the next girl. They should be helping me save the next girl,” said Geller.

“Absolutely I’ll go. I won’t let her sit there and misuse Jessica’s name, and I will let her know exactly how I feel,” Cassandra Mokdad told us.

The conference will be held at the Hyatt in Dearborn at the end of April.

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Le Mans mosque graffiti1

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Two More French Mosques Daubed with Racist Graffiti

Posted on 02 February 2012 by Emperor

The hate continues in France:

Two more French mosques daubed with racist graffiti

(via. Islamophobia-Watch)

“It seems that not a week goes by without a new mosque desecration”, the Collectif Contre l’Islamophobie en France observes.

Yesterday a mosque in the Glonnières district of Le Mans was found covered with graffiti reading “Islam out of Europe”, ”No Islam” and “France for the French”.

On Saturday a mosque in Miramas was also daubed with Islamophobic slogans along with the name of Front National presidential candidate Marine Le Pen. It was the second time in four months that the mosque had experienced such an attack.

Last month we reported that fascist graffiti were painted on the wall of a mosque that is under construction in Montigny-en-Ostrevent, and two pig’s heads were left at the site where another mosque is being built in Nanterre.

Update:  Cf. “Anti-Muslim attacks rose 34% in France in 2011″, LoonWatch, 1 February 2012

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Anti-Muslim Attacks Rose 34% in France in 2011

Posted on 01 February 2012 by Garibaldi

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Anti-Muslim Attacks Increased by 34% in France in 2011

These numbers are very conservative, however they are still quite alarming. If anyone has a better translation please forward it to us, this is my quick translation via. Google:

Anti-Muslim Attacks Rose 34% in France in 2011

(Le Monde)

On Wednesday, the 1st of February, the National Observatory against Islamophobia said that Anti-Muslim acts and threats listed on French soil in 2011 increased 34% over the previous year.

According to Abdallah Zekri, president of the observatory attached to the French Muslim Council, these figures are from Statistics compiled by the Sub-Directorate of General Information (SDIG), reported the AFP.

“The actions and threats that have been the subject of formal complaints to the police and gendarmerie have increased from 116 in 2010 to 155 in 2011, an increase of 33.9%,” says Zekri. Only for actions, SDIG statistics for 2011, concerning in particular the violence and assault, fire and damage, the number increased from 22 to 38 a year to the next.

“I wish that President Sarkozy, to whom I sent a letter in December, make a statement. It denounces these unspeakable acts. In short, he seeks to allay the concerns of Muslims who are citizens just as Christians or Jews, “said Mr. Zekri.

The original French:

Les actes anti-musulmans ont augmenté de 34 % en 2011

(Le Monde)

Les actes et menaces anti-musulmans répertoriés sur le territoire français en 2011 ont augmenté de 34 % par rapport à l’année précédente, a annoncé mercredi 1er février l’Observatoire national contre l’islamophobie.

Selon Abdallah Zekri, président de cet observatoire rattaché au Conseil français du culte musulman, ces chiffres proviennent de statistiques de la sous-direction de l’information générale (SDIG), communiquées à l’AFP.

“Les actions et les menaces qui ont fait l’objet de plaintes déposées officiellement auprès des services de police et de gendarmerie sont passées de 116 en 2010 à 155 en 2011, soit une augmentation de 33,9 %”, précise M. Zekri. Pour les seules actions, les statistiques de la SDIG pour 2011, qui concernent notamment les violences et voies de faits, les incendies et les dégradations, leur nombre passe de 22 à 38 d’une année sur l’autre.

“J’aurais aimé que le président Sarkozy, à qui j’ai adressé une lettre en décembre, fasse une déclaration. Qu’il dénonce ces actes inqualifiables. Bref, qu’il cherche à apaiser les inquiétudes des musulmans, qui sont des citoyens au même titre que les chrétiens ou les juifs”, a déclaré M. Zekri.

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A mosque in Fairfax County suffered thousands of dollars in damage. News4's Megan McGrath has the story.

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Mosque in Fairfax County Vandalized

Posted on 01 February 2012 by Amago

A mosque in Fairfax County suffered thousands of dollars in damage. News4's Megan McGrath has the story.

A mosque in Fairfax County suffered thousands of dollars in damage. News4's Megan McGrath has the story.

$60,000 in damage! An attack on any religious establishment is an attack on all religious establishments.

Mosque in Fairfax County Vandalized

View more videos at: http://nbcwashington.com.

By Megan McGrath

Construction crews should be putting the finishing touches on the Mubarak Blessed Mosque in Chantilly. Instead, they are repairing the work of vandals.

Sometime between Sunday evening and 6 a.m. Monday morning, the mosque was pelted with stones and masonry blocks. Nearly all the custom made windows and glass doors on the first floor were shattered.  Damage has been estimated at $60,000.

Investigators found beer and liquor bottles in the woods behind the mosque, and they believe teenagers may be responsible.

“It is very sad,” said the mosque’s general secretary, Usman Ghumman.  “But at the same time, our community is very resilient.  We have asked our community members to fervently pray that we are able to overcome this hurdle.”

Mubarak Blessed Mosque has been under construction for a year, and was scheduled to open in just weeks.

Jerrold Foltz, pastor at the Wellspring United Church of Christ, said acts like this are an affront to area’s entire religious community.  “Its an insult to the whole religious establishment,” Foltz said, “whether its a church or a mosque or a synagogue.”

Investigators say there is no evidence that it is a hate crime – nothing was taken and no graffiti was left behind.  However, because of the extent of the damage, those responsible face felony charges.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has asked the FBI to investigate the possibility of a bias motive in the incident.

 

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Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin has spoken out against Islam.

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NYT: General Withdraws From West Point Talk

Posted on 31 January 2012 by Emperor

Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin has spoken out against Islam.

Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin has said "there should be no mosques" in the USA

MRFF deserves a lot of credit for exposing to West Point the fact that General Boykin should not be speaking at West Point’s National Prayer Breakfast.

General Withdraws From West Point Talk

By 

Plans for a talk at West Point by a retired general known for his harshly anti-Muslim remarks were abruptly canceled on Monday after a growing list of liberal veterans’ groups, civil liberties advocates and Muslim organizations called on the Military Academy to rescind the invitation.

Lt. Gen William G. Boykin “has decided to withdraw speaking at West Point’s National Prayer Breakfast” on Feb. 8, said a statement issued Monday by the academy’s office of public affairs. “In fulfilling its commitment to the community, the United States Military Academy will feature another speaker for the event.”

General Boykin, a longtime commander of Special Operations forces, first caused controversy after the Sept. 11 attacks when, as a senior Pentagon official, he described the fight against terrorism as a Christian battle against Satan. His remarks, made in numerous speeches to church groups, were publicly repudiated by President George W. Bush, who argued that America’s war was not with Islam but with violent fanatics.

Since his retirement in 2007 and a new career as a popular conservative Christian speaker, General Boykin has described Islam as “a totalitarian way of life” and said thatIslam should not be protected under the First Amendment.

Last week, after learning that General Boykin would be speaking at the prayer breakfast, a liberal veterans’ group,VoteVets.org, demanded that the invitation be revoked. In a letter to West Point’s superintendent, the group said General Boykin’s “incendiary rhetoric regarding Islam” was “incompatible with Army values” and would “put our troops in danger.”

Lt. Col. Sherri Reed, West Point’s director of public affairs, defended the invitation on Friday, saying that “cadets are purposefully exposed to different perspectives” and that the breakfast “will be pluralistic with Christians, Jewish and Muslim cadets participating.”

But by Monday, several other groups had condemned the invitation and concern was also reportedly being voiced by some faculty members and cadets. The Forum on the Military Chaplaincy (a liberal group of retired military chaplains), the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and the Council on American-Islamic Relations made public appeals to the Pentagon to cancel General Boykin’s appearance.

A fourth-year cadet at West Point, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals for breaking military discipline, said in a telephone interview before the cancellation was announced that “people are definitely talking about it here.”

“They’re inviting someone who’s openly criticizing a religion that is practiced on campus,” he said. “I know Muslim cadets here, and they are great, outstanding citizens, and this ex-general is saying they shouldn’t enjoy the same rights.”

The cadet asked, “Are we supposed to take leadership qualities and experience from this guy, to follow in his footsteps?”

A similar controversy erupted last week, in the days before General Boykin spoke at the mayor’s annual prayer breakfast in Ocean City, Md. The general made no inflammatory statements about Islam, instead describing how prayer had helped him through dangerous military operations.

But Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, said the West Point invitation was a mistake. West Point, Mr. Montgomery said, would have given “a platform to someone who is publicly identified with offensive comments about Muslims and about the commander in chief.”

General Boykin is a leader of an evangelical group called Kingdom Warriors and a visiting professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. He did not respond to telephone and e-mail requests seeking comment.

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The home of Mohamed Soltan and Ahmed Mahmoud was set on fire on the morning of Martin King Jr. Day. Soltan said the crime was hate oriented.

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Ohio: ‘Suspicious’ Arson Leaves Students in Cold

Posted on 31 January 2012 by Amago

The home of Mohamed Soltan and Ahmed Mahmoud was set on fire on the morning of Martin King Jr. Day. Soltan said the crime was hate oriented.

The home of Mohamed Soltan and Ahmed Mahmoud was set on fire on the morning of Martin King Jr. Day. Soltan said the crime was hate oriented.

We reported on this story almost two weeks ago, and now the facts are out:  it was an arson attack.

‘Suspicious’ arson leaves students in cold

“One second I’m comfortable in bed, and the next second I’m running out of the house in the freezing cold, running for my life,” recalls Mohamed Soltan.

Soltan, a sixth-year in economics at Ohio State, and his roommate Ahmed Mahmoud, a third-year in finance, were victims of arson in their Hilliard home on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The FBI, along with the Hilliard Division of Police, have yet to identify the culprit of the arson that caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs.

On Jan. 16, Norwich Township Fire Department responded to a 911 call made by Soltan at about 5:30 a.m.

Mahmoud, the first of the two to discover the fire, said although he did hear what he described as a “loud banging noise,” it was not until the smoke detectors went off that he realized the house was on fire.

“I immediately ran into Mohamed’s room and woke him up. That’s when we realized the situation and what’s going on, and we got out of the house,” Mahmoud said. “At first, I figured it was Mohamed moving around. I was laying in bed and all of a sudden the smoke detectors went off.”

Soltan said he was in a deep sleep, and it wasn’t until Mahmoud woke him up that he became aware of his surroundings.

“I’m a very heavy sleeper, and I remember Ahmed coming into my room shouting ‘Soltan, Soltan, there’s a fire’,” Soltansaid.

Both men said they did not actually see the fire, but they were surrounded by thick clouds of smoke as they made their way out of the burning house.

Soltan calls the arson a hate crime, saying there was no way the fire was an accident.

“We don’t use the fireplace; I make sure that (when) I cook, I turn everything off, so there is no way this could’ve been anything else but a hate crime,” Soltan said. “So for someone to purposefully set the house on fire while people are sleeping at five in the morning, there is no other explanation for it that these people are attempting to kill my friend and I.”

Doug Francis, chief of police for the city of Hilliard, said the origins of the fire seemed “suspicious,” due to the lack of burn patterns, the fire’s point of origin and the use of flammable materials.

“Our investigations show that there was in fact an accelerant utilized in the home, and they ruled out any natural cause of the fire, and so with utilizing their tools, they determined it was an arson,” Francis said.

Francis said the FBI and the Norwich Township Fire Department are also involved in the investigation.

Francis contacted the FBI because there have been previous reports of Soltan’s home and car being painted with anti-Arab and anti-Muslim slurs.

“We immediately brought in the FBI simply because if we did determine it was in fact an arson, we also wanted to look at it as a potential hate crime,” Francis said.

Francis also said in order to determine the arson as a hate crime, the individual responsible for the fire must be captured.

Despite media reports saying the motive behind the arson was to target the 24-year-old’s father, Salah Soltan, who is said to be a controversial Muslim scholar, Mohamed Soltan said his father’s opinions and views are “irrelevant.”

“My father’s views are 4,000 miles away,” Mohamed Soltan said.

Eric Manske, fire marshal at Norwich Township Fire Department, said the fire originated at the “back half of the house.”

Francis called the arson a form of “ethnic intimidation,” and said the case is “very unique” because Hilliard has never experienced cases of hate crime in the past.

“Not only has it destroyed a home, but it has provided a lot of fear in the victim and that’s what happens with these ethnic intimidation and hate crime issues,” Francis said.

Jennifer Nimer, legal director for the Ohio chapter of The Council on American-Islamic Relations, said she has called the FBI to report the arson as a hate crime.

Nimer also said there is only one hate crime incident she’s come across in her seven years with CAIR that was as “drastic” as Mahmoud and Mohamed Soltan’s case.

“A couple of years ago a woman that was sprayed in the face with pepper spray, that’s probably the most egregious incident other than this one that I’ve come across since I’ve been working here,” Nimer said.

>> Continue reading: ‘Suspicious’ arson leaves students in cold

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immigrants

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Dansk Folkeparti wants End to Muslim Immigration

Posted on 31 January 2012 by Amago

Dansk Folkeparti wants end to Muslim immigration

The Danish People’s Party (DPP) wants to put a stop to immigration from Muslim countries, according to a new press release by the party. The party says Muslims don’t integrate and cause big problems with shariah zones, parallel societies and social control.

The announcement followed the release of marriage figures for immigrant groups. According to the new figures, just 20% of non-Western 2nd generation immigrants marry Danes. Among Pakistanis and Turks the figures are less than 10%.

“We must work towards bringing down the immigration from Muslim countries to zero. There can naturally be some exceptions, but there’s a need for political ambition to bring Muslim immigration close to zero,” says the party’s integration spokesperson Martin Henriksen.

“The 24-year old rule is now no longer enough. We have to deal with people who consciously decide to opt out of marrying Danes. It’s problematic. If we are to hope these families will be integrated in the future, we must introduce new and significant restrictions on immigration from Muslim countries,” says Henriksen.

Islam in Europe, 30 January 2012

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Ali Sina vs. Sheila Musaji: Will the Real “Savage” Please Stand Up?

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Ali Sina vs. Sheila Musaji: Will the Real “Savage” Please Stand Up?

Posted on 30 January 2012 by Danios

Sheila Musaji

Ali Sina has really been saber-rattling against The American Muslim’s Sheila Musaji.  As Musaji documents, Sina has received the support and blessing in this regard from the King and Queen of Islamophobia, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs.

For those of you who don’t know, Sina is one of the oldest and most nefarious Islamophobes to troll the internet–if Spencer is the King, Ali Sina is the Last Emperor of Islamophobia.  It makes sense then that Sina, Spencer, and Geller would find themselves in bed together.  They are truly a hateful trio.

Ali Sina has defended his view that “Muslims are savages”.  Sheila Musaji, after carefully documenting her exchange with him, quips:

I leave it to the reader to decide who is civilized and who is savage in this discussion.

This was the thought that went through my mind when I read the exchange between the two: not only does the foaming-at-the-mouth, hateful, and maniacal Ali Sina look completely loony compared to the thoughtful, tolerant, and intelligent Sheila Musaji, but the exchange between the two also typifies the difference between “their side” (loons) and ours (anti-loons and loon-watchers).

To be clear, when I make this dichotomy between “their side” and “our side”, it doesn’t have anything at all to do with “Muslims” and “non-Muslims”.  “Our side” includes people of all faiths (or no faith at all) dedicated to spreading peace, tolerance, and mutual coexistence, whereas “their side” includes, well, loons.

Read Sheila Musaji’s record of the exchange and decide for yourself which side you are on:

Ali Sina Launches Sharpened Olive Branch of Hate – updated 1/29/12

by Sheila Musaji

Today I received this email from Ali Sina with the heading “Sending you an olive branch”:

Dear Ms. Sheila Musaji

I read s [sic] few of your articles and see you have dedicated your efforts in [sic] maligning apostates, those who are fed up with Islam and want to protect the non-Muslim world from its onslaught. Of course you don’t see it that way. That’s okay. Maybe one day you will.

I have an offer for you. How about I send you a copy of my book, Understanding Muhammad? You read it. I promise by the time you are done you will no longer want to be a Muslim.

Now you may think this is ridiculous because nothing in the world can change your views about Islam. That is okay. Read it anyway. Read it, not with an open mind but with hatred in your heart against me. Read it with close mind and strive hard to deny all the evidences I present and try to find errors in it. Resist all my claims. By the time you are done reading the book you’ll lose your faith.

And what if you don’t? I promise you will. I have sent my book to hundreds of Muslims. They all promised to read it and get back to me showing my errors. I told them that I will publish their rebuttal. A percentage of them wrote back to thank me for opening their eyes. They are now fighting alongside me helping other Muslims leave Islam. Another group wrote to say I have a diabolic ability to induce doubt in Muslims and hence they stopped reading further. But most of them never replied. Not a single person has wrote [sic] back to do what they promised they’d do, i.e. refute me and show my errors. Not one person! Isn’t that something? Are you willing to take this challenge?

Should you agree to read the book I promise and refute it, I will publish your rebuttal and if you are correct I will withdraw my book from circulation, my membership from SION, and will stop my sites faithfreedom.org and alisina.org. There is also a financial reward of $50 K that I would give to you so you can donate to the charity of your choice.

If you are sincere you’d admit that by doing that you’d achieve a lot more than writing against me, Wafa Sultan (who is by the way my spiritual daughter) and other people in anti-Islam movement. After all these years I have gained some “notoriety.” If you refute my book I will stop my anti-Islam activity and people will notice. I’ve led thousands of Muslims out of Islam. Maybe many of them will want to take another look at Islam. Don’t say I am insignificant. Maybe in real life I am, but in the anti-Islam movement I have a name and a reputation. You’ll lose two days reading a book that you hate. In exchange you may eliminate a “notorious” enemy of Islam and in fact may even win him to your side. You know the story of Islam. Many of its great supporters were originally its staunch enemies. I could be one of them. Why not!  Don’t you believe in Allah’s power? All you’ve to do is read my book, which I will send to you in hard copy or in PDF, whatever is your choice. You can get help from your Muslim husband or imam or anyone you wish.

I am not going to publish this email, unless you ignore it. If you ignore it, will be evidence of your lack of sincerity. My offer to you is sincere and generous. I’ve dedicated 14 years of my life fighting Islam. I am ready to stop and even apologize publicly, should you read my book and prove it wrong. Your investment is only two days of your time. You have nothing to lose except your faith in a lie. That is not bad at all.

If you ignore my offer, I will publish this email. Since you’ve dedicated your life to malign SION and its members I want the world to know you are not a sincere person. But if you reply and read my book, we’ve opened the line of dialogue. You’ll either leave Islam as I predict, or you’ll refute it and I will join Islam. I will also publish your rebuttal, which will help others to see the truth.

I am sending you an olive branch. The ball is now in your court.

Kind regards, Ali Sina

Dear Ali Sina (whoever that might be),

The book that you are offering to send to me has been in print since 2008 (4 years) and is published by your own Faith & Freedom Publishing company.  It is sold at Amazon.com, and it is listed as selling for $157.71.  Another of your books Understanding Islam & Muslims is listed as having only one new copy available for $999.99 although it was published in November of 2011.

If you are such an effective voice speaking against Islam that you can GUARANTEE that any Muslim reading your book will leave Islam, it would seem that you would want your books to be widely disseminated.  At these prices, that isn’t likely.  Perhaps this one on one method of soliciting readership from particular individuals is how the book was meant to be distributed.

I think that this offer is just a ploy.  I would not provide you with my mailing address, any more than you would provide me with yours.  Why would any sane person provide their mailing address to a total stranger who hides behind a pseudonym?

Ali Sina is a pseudonym, and not your real name.  I have no idea who you are.  I only know you by your writings, and in your own words I find evidence that you are an individual I would be wise to fear, not because of your ideas, but because of your hatred.  Here are a few of your own statements:

—  “We strive for the unity of Mankind through the elimination of Islam, the most insidious doctrine of hate. Islam can’t be reformed, but it can be eradicated. It can’t be molded, but it can be smashed. It is rigid but brittle. That is why Muslims do not tolerate criticism of it. To eradicate Islam, all we have to do is tell the truth. It’s that simple. The truth about Islam is out. It’s all here in this site. Now it is up to you to spread it. With truth, the decent Muslims will leave Islam and with each Muslim that leaves, we gain a new soldier in our fight against terrorism. We are growing exponentially. The days of Islam are numbered and world peace is around the corner. Many of us will see that day. We might have to go through very tough times meanwhile. The storm is approaching.

— “We do not want to reform Islam. We want to eradicate it. Just as cancer cannot be reformed and the only way to cure the patient is to eradicate it, Islam cant be reformed either and it must be eradicated for the world to be saved.”

— “Islam, like fascism, appeals to people with low self esteem and low intelligence. Both these ideologies are irrational. They disdain reason, and hail devotion and submission to a higher authority. Like fascists, Muslims are triumphalists. They seek power, domination and control. They pride themselves in their strength of number, in their mindless heroism, in their disdain for life and in their willingness to kill and die for their cause. Islam is political and political Islam is fascism.”

— “Tarek Fatah proves my point that there is no such thing as moderate Muslim … Every “moderate” Muslim is a potential terrorist. The belief in Islam is like a tank of gasoline. It looks innocuous, until it meets the fire. For a “moderate” Muslim to become a murderous jihadist, all it takes is a spark of faith.”

— “I promise that if we continue this campaign of discrediting Islam and Muslim scholars, in no more than a quarter of century, Islam will be defeated. Islam will fall, like communism fell. Mark my words today, even if you think I am nuts. If we all work together, especially the ex-Muslims, we can get rid of Islam sooner than anyone can imagine. Iran is already anti Islamic. More than half of Iranians do not call themselves Muslims anymore. We are demolishing Islam from its foundation. The edifice seems to be intact. But don’t let appearances deceive you. This high tower of lies will come down at once.

— “If any city in the West is nuked I am 100% for nuking tens of cities in Islamic countries. I don’t see Muslims as innocent people. They are all guilty as sin. It is not necessary to be part of al Qaida to be guilty. If you are a Muslim you agree with Muhammad and that is enough evidence against you.”

— “We love you Muslims because you are humans like us. We are all related to each other. We are all limbs of the body of mankind. But you are diseased. You are infected by a deadly cult that threatens our lives. Your humanity is destroyed. Like a limb infected by flesh eating disease, now you are a threat to the rest of mankind. We will do everything to save you, to make you see your folly, and to make you understand that you are victims of a gigantic lie, so you leave this lie, stop hating mankind and plotting for its destruction and it domination. But if all efforts fail and if you become a threat to our lives and the lives of our children, we must amputate you. This will happen, not because I say so, but I say so because this is human response. We humans are dictated by our survival instinct. If you threaten me and my survival depends on killing you, I must kill you. Please come to your senses. Muhammad was not a prophet of God. He was an instrument of Satan to divide mankind so we destroy each other. It is a demonic plot to end humanity. Muhammad lied. He brought hate. Wake up please. You are putting the world, including your own lives in danger for a lie. Read my book and learn the truth about Muhammad. … Islam is disease. What does moderate Muslim mean anyway? Does it mean you are moderately diseased? This makes as much sense as saying, I am a moderate Nazi, or I am culturally a fascist. I only participate in their rallies. Let us call you by your name. You are a hypocrite. You are a useful idiot. You are part of the problem. In fact you are THE problem. If it were not for you, we would easily recognize our enemy and eliminating it, would be easy. But you shield the enemy. You muddy the waters. You confuse us to hide the beast among you. You do not fool me, even though you may fool the non-Muslims. I know your hypocrisy. I know how you hide and support the terrorists secretly but publicly you denounce him and portray yourself as our friend.

If these words were not enough for me to form a judgement about whether or not I would want to interact with you, your email is filled with statements that make my decision very clear.

You open with a false accusation that I “malign apostates”.  I don’t malign people that you call apostates and that I call people who have chosen another faith than that they were born into. Actually, I strongly uphold freedom of faith, and am a signatory to a statement initiated by Muslims declaring our commitment to that freedom.

I have no problem with anyone, including yourself, choosing whatever religious path (or no path) for themselves that they find meaningful.  I am puzzled by the fact that some converts from one belief system to another find it necessary to disparage the faith that they have left.  Forty years ago, I chose Islam.  That was a very personal and private decision, and I feel no need to defend that choice by in any way disparaging my former faith.  In fact, to behave in such a manner would cheapen my choice.  There are different paths that are suitable for different people.  God will judge, not any human being.

I do respond, and respond strongly to those individuals who malign the faith of others whether through anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-Mormonism, anti-Hinduism, or any other form of religious bigotry.  I respond particularly to Islamophobes because I believe that the poison that they spread directly endangers the safety and security of American Muslims including my own children.  Islamophobia is real and dangerous.  You can repeat “Islamophobia is a fallacy” as often as you want, and that won’t make it a fact.

You make an offer that you call “sending an olive branch” that includes a veiled threat “If you ignore my offer, I will publish this email … I want the world to know you are not a sincere person”.

Your patronizing statement You can get help from your Muslim husband or imam or anyone you wishshows your contempt for women and their ability to make their own choices and decisions.  I don’t need someone else to help me make my choices.

Your assumption that I might be motivated either by some need to gain notoriety by engaging in a polemical debate with a person who has attained “some notoriety” or by greed in considering the possibility of financial gain as an incentive is offensive.

I decline your offer. I have no time or interest in writing a rebuttal of your book. I am not interested in convincing people to leave whatever faith they have. I don’t need your help to distribute my writings on any topic that I choose to write about.  I don’t care what faith you hold.  I don’t care if your site is online or not, in fact it is good it is there so that people can judge for themselves what sort of poison you are spreading.

I don’t believe that declining your “challenge” proves my insincerity, but the challenge itself provides even more evidence of your own insecurity.  There is something wrong with a worldview that promotes the idea that demonizing others somehow increases your own stature.

I am ignoring your veiled threat and publishing your email myself.  Others can judge for themselves the meaning of your offer and of my rejection of that offer.

“If it had been the will of your Lord that all the people of the world should be believers, all the people of the earth would have believed! Would you then compel mankind against their will to believe?”  [Qur’an 10:99]

“There shall be no compulsion in religion: the right way is now distinct from the wrong way. Anyone who denounces the devil and believes in GOD has grasped the strongest bond; one that never breaks. GOD is Hearer, Omniscient.”  [Qur’an 2:256]

”(O Prophet Muhammad) proclaim: ‘This is the Truth from your Lord. Now let him who will, believe in it, and him who will, deny it.’”  [Qur’an 18:29]

“Say, O Muhammad.  I worship not that which you worship, nor will you worship that which I worship.  And I shall not worship that which you are worshipping, nor will you worship that which I worship.  To you be your religion, and to me my religion.”  [Qur’an 109:1-6]

UPDATE 1/25/2012

I was just sent a link to an article that Ali Sina posted about a twitter argument he participated in with someone calling themselves @Rabbi.Shaul.  Sina is an atheist and they debated whether or not reason can prove that God exists.  Sina attempted to provoke the Rabbi into debating with him in a more formal format that would be published, and ultimately another Rabbi responded to Sina in a Youtube video saying that such a debate will not take place, and calling Sina on the carpet for his ego.

The whole thing is extremely lengthy, but Sina shows much about himself in his response.  He repeats his claims about Prophet Muhammad, and then says

But there was another element in shaping his character: The influence of Rabbis.

Judaism and Islam have a lot in common. They have basically the same eschatology and very similar teachings. For example few people know that stoning adulterers that is widely practiced in Islam originates from the Bible. Muhammad did practice stoning but he did not insert it in his Quran. But he said when a law is not clearly stated, Muslims should look into the Bible for guidance.

These are all secondary influences of Judaism on Islam. The main common feature between these two faiths is their intolerance. This intolerance in Judaic texts gave the narcissist Muhammad the power to do as he pleased. He could make his claim without needing to prove it and expect others to believe without questioning him. If they didn’t, he would threaten them with hellfire.

How could he get away with that? Why would people believed in his unproven and often irrational claims? The answer to this question is in Judaism. The Rabbis in Arabia had laid the psychological foundation for Islam among the tolerant pagans. For 2000 years they had preached that Yahweh, their god, is beyond reason, i.e. he is irrational, that his ways are different and they may appear unjust and even evil. But it is not up to humans to question God’s wisdom.

That kind of authority and power is a narcissist’s wet dream. By claiming to be the messenger of God, the same intolerant god of the Jews, Muhammad did not have to prove any of his claims. The reason Arabs fell into his trap was because of the groundwork laid by the Rabbis in Arabia.

Sounds as if he is not only Islamophobic, but also anti-Semitic.  And, a little later in this article this gem appears which shows that at the very least, he is a racist: We Persians are of the same genetic stock as Germans and we had a far superior civilization than Arabs.

It is both surprising and not surprising that Ali Sina has now been named to the Board of Directors of the newly formed Stop the Islamization of Nations SION which is a coalition SIOA, SIOE, and other hate groups, and which will be led by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.  It is not surprising because of the animosity towards Islam that he shares with Geller and Spencer.  It is surprising because of the fact that Geller herself is Jewish, and Ali Sina seems to have as much animosity towards Judaism as he does against Islam.

The Southern Poverty Law Center published a report citing Geller for hate speech.  The AFDI has been named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  The American Freedom Defense Initiative is the parent group of the SIOA.  Spencer, Geller, and Yerushalmi are featured in the SPLC reports Jihad Against Islam and The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle.

Pay Pal at least temporarily suspended Geller’s site Atlas Shrugs for being a hate site.

Spencer and Geller attempted to patent the SIOA trademark, but were refused by the U.S. patent office The government response, posted on the site, states, “The applied-for mark refers to Muslims in a disparaging manner because by definition it implies that conversion or conformity to Islam is something that needs to be stopped or caused to cease.  “The proposed mark further disparages Muslims because, taking into account the nature of the services (‘providing information regarding understanding and preventing terrorism’), it implies that Islam is associated with violence and threats,” the government agency said.  Again, Loonwatch has more here which include a number of hateful screen grabs from the SIOA facebook page.  Geller says that I engaged David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center to pursue this matter legally. Once again, these legal warriors did not hesitate to take the case pro-bono.

The Center for American Progress released a groundbreaking report Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.  The key researchers for this report were Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz Shakir.  The report itself is the result of a six month investigative project, and is 132 pages in length.  Geller is cited as part of this network.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) notes in a backgrounder about the SIOA “Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), created in 2009, promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy “American” values. The organization warns of the encroachment of shari’a, or Islamic law, and encourages Muslims to leave what it describes as the “falsity of Islam.”

Abraham H. Foxman of the ADL wrote an article The new shape of anti-Muslim hatred in which he calls out Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller (the co-founders of SIOA) by name as purveyors of this hatred.

Geller is featured in the People for the American Way Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism, and the NYCLU report Religious Freedom Under Attack:  The Rise of Anti-Mosque Activities in New York State, and the Political Research Associates report Manufacturing the Muslim menace: Private firms, public servants, and the threat to rights and security.
UPDATE 1/26/2012

Ali Sina posted a response to this article rejecting his demand that that I engage in a debate with him.

There are only a few points in his response that I consider to be worth discussing, because they are about me personally.

He says

I read a few of your articles. You write exclusively about people in the anti-jihad movement. You don’t refute them. You vilify them. You engage in ad hominem. All your articles are personal attacks. I haven’t seen once you refute what we say. You are a Muslim and this is how the brain of a Muslim works. Muslims ignore the criticism made against Islam. Instead they focus on the person criticizing Islam and try to discredit them. This is a pattern.

Obviously he has read very few of my articles or he would know that I do not write exclusively about Islamophobes.  Here is a link to a list of articles that I have written.  This is not difficult to find as I refer to this list of my articles right on the main page of TAM.  It would be impossible for anyone to simply read through the titles of my articles and still make the claim with a straight face that I “write exclusively” about Islamophobes.

He says

You have written many articles maligning the critics of Islam. Show us one where you have condemned your own brethren for disparaging other faiths. Show us where you have stood for the rights of the victims of Islam. Did you write any article sending it to an Egyptian media denouncing the Muslims for killing the Coptic Christians? Did you write anything for Pakistanis denouncing them for their blasphemy law? Of course not! Your goal is not to stop the barbarity of Islam. Your goal is to bambuzzle your own people so they lower their guards and not see Islam as a threat. There have been many fools and traitors like you in history. We Persians had the Salman.

Yes you have written articles claiming Islam allows freedom of religion. Those articles are for the consumption of non-Muslims and to deceive them. You never call upon Muslims to be tolerant. You know that they will laugh at you if you do. First of all you are a convert and secondly you are a woman. Will Muslims listen to you and ignore their own scholars, and ignore the Quran and the hadith? They tolerate you for now. You serve their purpose. To borrow a term from Lenin, you are a useful idiot for them. They let you say what you want and pull the wool over the eyes of their targeted victims. You are a deceived woman and the best person to deceive the westerners.

Again, reading my articles would show that this statement is very simply not only wrong, but a lie.

Here on The American Muslim, I have published thousands of articles, many of them discussing issues such as:

— speaking out against the repulsive customs of - child marriage  including discussion ofparticular cases, – and punishments for victims of rape, – and female genital mutilation, etc.
—against the views of extremist clerics like Anjem Choudary, or Sheikh Abdullah El-Faisal, orAnwar Al AwlakiAyman Zawahiri, etc.
— against the views of extremist groups like Hizb-ut-TahrirMajlis, South Africa, etc.
— against particular actions of Islamic organizations like the Canadian Shia Muslim Organization (CASMO) publishing an article by David Duke, or some British Muslims threatening Imam Usama Hasan because of his views on the compatibility of the theory of evolution with Quranic teachings regarding God’s creation of the world and human beings, or the Arab European League (AEL) publishing an offensive cartoon against the Jewish people on their website
— against extremist interpretations or translations of particular Qur’anic verses, e.g. Qur’an 4:34 or the Hilali-Khan or translation of the Qur’an, or the Saudi’s “revised” edition of Yusuf Ali’s translation
— against individuals or organizations promoting extremist views about various issues like – Salwa Al Mutairi suggesting that sex-slaves are allowed in Islam, – or the Malaysian Catholic Herald being told that it could no longer use the word “Allah” to mean God, – or Dr. Zakir Naiksaying that Muslims can’t wish Christians a Merry Christmas, – or the Darul Uloom Deoband’sdivorce by phone fatwa, , – or the Saudi forced divorce case, etc.
— about particular individuals or organizations accused of particular crimes,  – like the Florida Imams arrested for aiding the Pakistani Taliban, etc.
— publishing condemnations of particular acts of extremism and violence such as – the attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt, – or the killing of U.N. workers in Afghanistan, – or attacks on Christians in Muslim countries, – or the Fort Hood massacre, – or the deaths of 15 Saudi schoolgirls in a fire because they weren’t “properly dressed” etc.
— or publishing condemnations of extreme reactions to various current issues like the South Park cartoonMolly Norris and “Draw Muhammad Day”, Opus cartoon
—publishing statements and articles advocating for   - protection of religious minorities and houses of worship, – and guardianship reform in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia pertaining to male control or ‘guardianship’ over women, – and confronting online radicalization of Muslim youth, – and freedom of faith and right to change one’s faith, – and freedom of speech, – and a spiritual jihad against terrorism, – and welcoming LGBT Muslims in mosques, – and a moratorium on all corporal punishment, including the death penalty, – and responsibility of Muslims to defend the Constitution of the U.S., – and condemning holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, – and promoting the value of being faithful Muslims and loyal Americans, – and against any laws for blasphemy - including Pakistan’s blasphemy law,  etc.
— publishing and regularly updating Muslim condemnations in statements, fatwas, articles, etc. of every form of extremism and terrorism as a major part of the work of The American Muslim

On TAM, we regularly call out those within the Muslim community that I identify as the “lunatic fringe”, discuss various interpretations of aspects of Sharia, condemn any interpretations that violate human rights.  The list above is a very short list of the thousands of articles on such subjects that we have published, many of which I have written myself.

He says

This is the truth about “no compulsion in religion.” You converted 40 years ago when you were young and inexperienced. We all did stupid things when we were young. Most of us gained wisdom as we aged. But once one converts to Islam the brain becomes numbed. Although others recover from their youthful follies a Muslim is trapped. But there is no reason to despair. My book can help. Whether you are old or young, when you learn the truth, you can no longer cling to lies.

This is simply a nasty, speculative, and meaningless attack on me as an individual that deserves nothing but contempt.

He closes his article with

Will you also publish my response to you?  Or if not, will you provide a link to this page in your site letting your readers see my response?  That would prove your sincerity.

In case anyone is in doubt about the sort of person attracted to and in agreement with Islamophobes like Ali Sina, here are a few comments at the bottom of his response article

— Sundried Atheist Why this maniacal obsession about Islam. Christianity and Judaism are just as dangerous and poisonous as Islam is. Their actions are just as diabolic.  In fact Islam owes its existance to the founders of Christianity and Judaism. So really, it is the Jews we should be taking it out on. All the silly rituals and barbaric rules, human/animal rights abuse all stem from Jewish laws. Jews are suibhuman, less evolved primates who should be eliminated in a peaceful manner. Such as by spraying them with mega toxic pesticides like you try to eliminate locusts and other field posts.
— Enlightened 25 “You’re not a racist, you’re a critique. You criticize those ideologies.” I am not talking about ideologies obviously it is absurd to hate the Koran, it is just a book (though a vile one). I am talking about the people that believe in those ideologies. Do you hate Nazis and communists? If you don’t then you should. If I am asked do I hate Muslims? Then my honest answer is yes. I cannot say I hate everything you believe in, everything you value, everything you stand for, but I don’t hate you personally, that would be a lie as well as self-deception on my part. Once I had a Muslim saying I should be put to death. Should I love that beast? Hell no, that person is my mortal enemy and I should hate him and if I was given the chance and was able to do it, I would destroy him. I say openly to the Muslims if you don’t hate me then you should, because I am out to destroy everything that is sacred to you.
— Ali Sina If your son becomes a Monster (or a good Muslims) you still don’t hate him. But you will allow him to be locked up for the protection of others. Your duty as a parent is to love your children. This does not mean you have to condone their evilness. Let the socity deal with your son according to the law. You don’t hide or protect him, but also you don’t have to hate him.  We humans are all sons and daughters, brothers and sisters in a large scale. Yes we have to stop the monsters among us, and if necessary eliminate them so they can no longer harm others. This does not mean we should hate them.

I have now responded to his attacks on me personally, and provided a link to his response which he says would show my sincerity.

UPDATE 1/28/2012

Today, Ali Sina wrote wrote a response to my comments of yesterday.  He objects to my saying that some of his previous statements seem to show that he is not only Islamophobic but also anti-Semitic and racist – and his response just makes his attitudes more clear.  This is part of what he said:

It seems that Ms. Musaji has some difficulty in comprehension. Or maybe she just pretends it, hoping she may confound her readers. I am against Islam. That does not make me Islamophobe. Islamophobia is a fallacy. You can say Islam-hater. That I agree. But one can’t be “phobic” of a belief. This is a deception. But as Hitler said, if a lie is repeated often it will be believed as truth eventually.

A good example is the word homophobia. This is also a deception. I believe homosexuality is a disorder no different from eating disorder or a personality disorder. Homosexuality is a sexual disorder, like sadomasochism, fetishism, zoophilia and pedophilia. Now these disorders are not all the same and have different implications, but they are all disorders. I am not a homophobe for considering homosexuality a disorder. Homo means same. I don’t have an irrational fear of men. But this lie was repeated so much that today most people have fallen for it. The idea was to stifle any criticism about this disorder and they succeeded. Now they even have gay pride parades, as if there is something to be proud of a disorder. This is how masses are manipulated through propaganda. They even shame you into silence. Few people dare to say homosexuality is not normal. They even gave it a chichi name “gay”, meaning happy. This is also a lie. Homosexuals are not happy.

Muslims are using the same deceptive tactic.  They want to stifle the legitimate discussion about Islam.  So they invented this lie and with the help of their leftist lackeys who gave us the fallacy of homophobia and they will repeat it until it is seen as truth.  But Islam is an ideology. No one can have an irrational fear of an ideology. You can strongly disagree with an ideology and you can even hate it, but you can’t be phobic of it.  Ideologies don’t have fangs. It is their believers who may have fangs. Now, it would be more logical to say Muslimphobia.  Muslims can hurt you. If you see a group of Muslims coming out of a mosque, you would be wise to run as fast as you can.

…  All cultures are not equal. Cultural relativism is another fallacy. We Persians had a much more superior culture that the Arabs. But after the invasion of Islam we were reduced into barbarians. We became like them. Now we are all barbarians. The first charter of human rights was written in Persia more than 2500 years ago.

…  It is not racist to say Muslims are savages any more than to say Nazis were savages. Islam is an ideology. It is not hacked into our genes. We can give it up and regain our civility. That is the whole purpose of what I do. Muslims are drowning in the cesspool of Islam. Just look at the pictures of Muslims when protesting in the streets. They are savages. I want to pull them out of Islam and restore their humanity.

Most Jews have given up their belief in the nonsense of their religion a long time ago. Most of them don’t believe in religion anymore. Those who do are like those rabbis, filled with bigotry and hate.  But they are the minority. Even when Jews go to synagogues it is for ceremonies. Religion can be a cohesive force. It brings out the spirit of fraternity and builds community.

The emphasis is mine.  Here is the gist of his argument:  I hate Islam, but that is not Islamophobia. I believe that “Muslims are savages”, but I am not a bigot.  I believe that “Homosexuality is a sexual disorder, like sadomasochism” but I am not homophobic.  I believe that Judaism is a religion of “nonsense”, those who believe in it are “filled with bigotry and hate”, but I am not an anti-Semite.  I believe that my culture is superior to others, but I am not a racist.  Terms like Islamophobia or homophobia are lies, there is no such thing.  I am sorry, but there is such a thing as anti-Semitism, there is such a thing as Islamophobia, there is such a thing as homophobia, there is such a thing as racism.  You can object to the use of one or all of those words, but the bottom line is that no matter what you call this ideology, it is hateful bigotry.

He also objected to my pointing out that the SPLC, ADL, PFAW, CAP, etc. have characterized SION and its leaders Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer as promoting an anti-Muslim agenda.  He refers to all of these organizations as “moon-bats”, “traitorous leftist organizations”, “lackeys”, who hate “the Judeo-Christian western values”, and “minions” of Muslims, that “are either run by Muslims or are sympathetic to Islam”.  He says that Paypal was “duped” and the U.S. government has been “misled” into believing that Islam is a religion.

Sina says that Pamela Geller “should be awarded the Nobel Prize for her humanitarianism and for her compassion.  Alas the Nobel Prize committee is so politicized that they think charlatans like Arafat, Obama and Al Gore are more deserving for that prize than good humans who truly serve mankind.”

He closes with “More on this subject tomorrow!”

Pamela Geller posted an article today titled Takedown which is a short introduction to Sina’s article by Geller.

I urge all Atlas readers, twitter followers, and facebook friends to go over to Dr. Ali Sina’s site and read this takedown of the nasty, libelous shill, Sheila Musaji of The American Muslim.

,,,  I have not fisked this liar and dissembler, because everything she has written about me, pages and pages, are lies, defamation and smear. All of it.  She serves the fourth reich, and she serves them well. And frankly, I was loathe to give her the notoriety and the traffic she so desperately craves. But Sina has been battling her lies (there is more here, Sheila Musaji and Fear of Freedom).

A minor point, but Paypal never suspended me. They sent me notice that complaints were lodged (by vicious trolls like Musaji no doubt), but they never did. Just another Islamic lie.

Dr.Sina honors me in his defense of my work.

Actually, Geller has written about me in the past, and shown herself in that case as in so many others to be confused about the meaning of truth-telling, and ready to attempt to conceal evidence of outright lies.

On April 30, 2008 Geller posted an article titled “Attacking Chesler: American Muslim Female Takes on Chesler”.  As could be expected she didn’t understand how I could possibly say anything negative about Chesler’s anti-Muslim writings.  Geller called me a “tool of jihad” who is tearing a “truthteller apart” while “doing nothing for my sisters”.  However, she did not directly address any of the specific points that I made in my article.  (Note:  Geller’s article still comes up on a Google search, and in a search of my name on her site, but if you click on the link you will only get an error message.  The article has been pulled).  My response to Geller’s claims in her article was the first item in a collection of information on Geller, who along with her partner Robert Spencer seem to be the most prolific Islamophobes. Please see my article   Pamela Geller Attempts to Make a Point, Muslims Shrug (SIOA/AFDI/Atlas Shrugs) for a complete background on this.

On May 2, 2008 Geller published an article titled Blah, blah, blah in which she accuses me of“deception, taqiyya- the deliberate dissimulation about religious matters that may be undertaken to protect Islam. And while this kind of double talk has the left doing the Islamists bidding, many of us know exactly what this shiz is. You can fool some of the infidels some of the times, but you can’t fool all of the kufirs all of the time.”

She opens this article with “Musaji over at American Muslim didn’t like my defending Phyllis Chesler.”  And she has included this link ( http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/04/attacking-chesl.html ) embedded in the words “defending Phyllis Chesler”.  This is a link to the now removed article that was written by Geller on April 30th.  Geller herself is sayng that she had written an article to which I responded, but the article is not there?  Why was the article removed?

As to my reference to PayPal, on June 12, 2010 Geller posted an article which she titled Paypal Cuts Off Atlas: Truth is the New Hate Speech in which she posts a copy of the email from Paypal which includes the statement However, after a recent review of your account, it has been determined that you are currently in violation of PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy.  Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance or the financial exploitation of a crime.  In Geller’s article and in PayPals email there is nothing about complaints being lodged, simply this statement that she is in violation of their acceptable use policy.  Geller’s own title says that PayPal had cut off Atlas Shrugs.  Although Geller and Ali Sina seem to want to blame me for some involvement with this PayPal incident, I had nothing to do with it.  So, if there was any confusion about exactly what happened with PayPal, that confusion came from Geller’s own statement.

And, of course Robert Spencer has to jump in and also post Ali Sina’s article with a short introduction by Spencer which doesn’t really add much to this saga.  Spencer does add one more insult by calling me an established liar and linking to a previous article of his attacking me by making this false claim.  Actually, if you read my article that Spencer is referring to Hutaree Christian Militia, Not an Isolated Phenomena you can make your own decision about this charge.  Spencer, like Geller has shown himself in that case as in so many others to be confused about the meaning of truth-telling, and ready toattempt to conceal evidence of outright lies.

I have just checked the comments on the article that I mentioned in my update of 1/26, and they are still there.  Calling Christianity, Islam, and Judaism “diabolic”, calling Jews “suibhuman [sic], less evolved primates who should be eliminated in a peaceful manner. Such as by spraying them with mega toxic pesticides like you try to eliminate locusts and other field posts”, saying “I hate Muslims”, suggesting that you “will allow him (i.e. Muslims) to be locked up for the protection of others” — these are comments that go beyond the pale of any sort of civilized discussion.  This goes beyond bigotry into the realm of hatred.  Allowing such statements to remain on his site is a choice that Ali Sina has made, and that choice does reflect on him.  I am most concerned about the comments clearly calling for a genocide against Jews, and for locking up Muslims…

Goebbels would be proud, and Ali Sina and the other Islamophobes’ tactics show all to clearly theremarkable similarities between Islamophobic and anti-Semitic propaganda.  Geller’s baseless claim that I “serve the fourth reich”, must be projection.
UPDATE 1/29/2012

Sina is still carrying on a debate with himself on his site.  He is still demanding that I answer his questions about the interpretation of some particular Qur’anic verse, or what some Muslim scholar has said, or some hadith, or (the list goes on and on).  This is nonsense.  I have no obligation to discuss any of these issues with him.  And, I have provided him with links to all of my writings over the past many years, many of which have already discussed many of these issues.

Just as Muslims have given lengthy explanations for example of why particular verses of the Qur’an have been taken out of context to “prove” false points – Jewish scholars have had the need to explain particular aspects of their religion that have been misunderstood – for example what the Talmud says about the permissibility of killing non-Jews.   Rabbi David Eidensohn has a site devoted to defending the Talmud against various accusations.   The fact that there are verses in the Qur’an that can be interpreted variously is also not unique -  that there are verses that be seen as cruel and violent in the Bible (Old and New Testaments) cannot really be disputed.   What can be done is to attempt to marginalize those who continue to promote extremist interpretations of religious texts, and to promote false worldviews like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or the Protocols of the Elders of Islam.

You might want to read Hussein Ibish’s article Religion and violence: another look at Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, and the 2003 ADL report on The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics  and ask yourself if you don’t see how closely Ali Sina’s tactics mirror classic anti-Semitic tactics.

There is a site that maintains an archive of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda.  It is depressing reading, but over and over again I found examples of claims and statements that mirrored claims now being made by people like you Ali Sina against Muslims and Islam.  Here are a few examples:

- Nazi propaganda maintained that all Jews were responsible for the act of any Jew “The murder of Ernst vom Rath did not slow legal measures aimed at solving the Jewish Problem, but rather sped them up. The Jews living in Germany had to pay a fine of a billion marks to discourage them from repeating the cowardly murder.”http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/imbild1.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained that Judaism was not a religion. “Argument 1: “You say that religion is a private matter. But you fight against the Jewish religion!” Counterargument: “Actually, the Jewish religion is nothing other than a doctrine to preserve the Jewish race.” (Adolf Hitler). “In resisting all government attempts to nationalize them, the Jews build a state within the state (Count Helmuth von Moltke). “To call this state a ‘religion’ was one of the cleverest tricks ever invented.” (Adolf Hitler). “From this first lie that Jewry is a religion, not a race, further lies inevitably follow.” (Adolf Hitler).” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/responses.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained that the Jews hated all non-Jews and they wanted to destroy the Gentiles and dominate the world http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds15.htm  Further “Whether or not there is an organized Jewish government recognized by all the Jews is less important that the fact that there is a unified and conscious Jewish desire for world power. This is proved by a variety of political events that are taking place in plain sight today.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/aufkla01.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained that a war against Judaism was a war against the devilhttp://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds15.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained by distortions of the Torah and Talmud that Judaism teaches hatred http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds3.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained that “The goal of the Jew is to make himself the ruler of humanity. Wherever he comes, he destroys works of culture. He is not a creative spirit, rather a destructive spirit.”  http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/catech.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained that “Nearly all major inventions were made by Aryans.”  The Jews had no real creativity http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/catech.htm  Further “Wherever Jewry has appeared, it has never built anything. It has always and everywhere destroyed or torn down, sucking others dry to fill itself. From the days of the Romans to our day, Jewry in every century, in every people, was and remained a foreign body, a destroyer of real and ideal values, a denier of any upward progress, a plague for body and soul. It sneaks in through deceit and treachery, trickery and slyness, murder and assault, understanding how to establish itself.”  http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/esser.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained that A GOOD JEW COULD NOT BE A GOOD GERMAN, that it was impossible for a Jew to honestly say “I am a “good German” and a “decent Jew”! Only a Jew has the insolence to make such a claim. I answer it only to reach the public and finally dispatch the absurd notion of the “decent Jew.” The fable of the “decent Jew” is not a German fable that has been handed down by our people and therefore something with educational value, but rather it is a shameless lie designed to lull the host people to sleep and appeal to hysterical weaklings.”  http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/oberlindober1.htm  And further “And you think you can be a “good German”! True, you do speak German, just as your racial comrades in other countries speak English, French, Spanish, and Polish, but you are no more a German than they are Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards, or Poles, since Jews are a foreign body in every people.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/oberlindober1.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained “Each Jew individually, and Jewry as a whole, is without a home. Jewry undermines every people and every state that it infiltrates. It feeds as a parasite and a culture-killing worm in the host people. It grows and grows like weeds in the state, the community, and the family and infests the blood of humanity everywhere.  In brief, that is the pestilential nature of Jewry, against which every people, every state, every nation must, should, and wants to defend itself if it does not want to be the victim of this bloody plague.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/esser.htm

It is not possible for any decent human being not to see the incredible similarities between this Nazi propaganda and the propaganda of the Islamophobes.  In fact, many passages from Ali Sina’s work read as if he has simply taken one of these statements and changed “Jew” with “Muslim” or “Judaism” with “Islam”.

The Islamophobic echo chamber is reproducing Ali Sina’s articles and claiming that he has totally crushed me with his rapier wit.  Let the bigots continue discussing this among themselves, andcontinue stirring up a hornets nest of bigotry, and engaging in their what everyone “knows” distortions about Islam and Muslims, and following Baron Bodissey/Edward May’s Islamophobia manifesto and Nazi propaganda as their guide.

I leave it to the reader to decide who is civilized and who is savage in this discussion.  I will get back to reading the Qur’an.

“If your Lord had so willed, He could have made mankind one people: but they will not cease to dispute.” [Qur’an 11:118]

“And do thou be patient, for thy patience is but from God; nor grieve over them: and distress not thyself because of their plots. For Allah is with those who restrain themselves, and those who do good.” [Qur’an 16:127-128]

Oh mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (Not that you may despise each other). [Qur’an 49;13]

NOTE:  I do thank Ali Sina for correcting my spelling of pseudonym.
SEE ALSO

A Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industryhttp://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/a_whos_who_of_the_anti-muslimanti-arabislamophobia_industry

Islamophobia:  Real or Imaginedhttp://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/islamophobia_real_or_imagined

Ali Sina and Faith Freedom International, Sheila Musajihttp://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/ali_sina

SION:  Hate Groups Unite to Form an International Hate Coalition, Sheila Musajihttp://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/sion

Comments (79)

Lee_Preston_EDL

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Lee Preston: EDL Thug Jailed in Racist and anti-Muslim Attack on Cabdriver

Posted on 30 January 2012 by Emperor

Lee_Preston_EDL

EDL Thug: Lee Preston

These violent attacks have been occurring with some frequency, just a few days ago we reported on an EDL supporter who attacked a family with knives and threatened to kill them. Now we have another incident in which an EDL yob attacks a Muslim. Remember the EDL is Horowitz tool Robert Spencer’s favorite UK group, he once termed them, “freedom fighters.”

Jail for racist thug who shouted ‘EDL’ when he attacked a taxi driver

A racist thug who punched a taxi driver and dragged him along a street, has been jailed for 18 months.

Lee Preston, 22, targeted cabbie Mohammed Rashid, leaving him with two black eyes, a bruised face and grazes to his shoulders caused when he was dragged to the ground.

Mr John Hallisey, prosecuting, said the cabbie received a call at 9pm on April 16 to collect five men from Chaddesden. He noticed they were carrying cans of lager and told them these could not be drunk in his vehicle. But after a few minutes, the men started drinking.

“Mr Rashid told them to stop and the response was to start hurling abuse. The defendant was saying ‘we are EDL,’ referring to the English Defence League,” said Mr Hallisey.

Preston, of Walbrook Road, Derby, began to throw beer cans out of the taxi until Mr Rashid closed the windows – a move which angered the passengers. Mr Rashid stopped his cab and told the five to leave. One said: “Get out and we’ll sort you out.”

When they eventually left, they failed to close the rear doors but Mr Rashid waited until he thought they had walked away before getting out of the cab. But he was then grabbed and prevented from getting back into the vehicle before being attacked.

During this, he heard chants of “EDL” and one man said: “I’m going to kill you.” When a second taxi driver stopped to help, he was also assaulted and had his vehicle kicked.

Police were called and Preston was found hiding under a bush.

He admitted affray and racially aggravated assault causing actual bodily harm.

Derby Telegraph, 30 January 2012

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A Lavish Feast: Hatemongers, Hypocrites, and the Hate Du Jour

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A Lavish Feast: Hatemongers, Hypocrites, and the Hate Du Jour

Posted on 30 January 2012 by Ilisha

Bart Simpson

In a daring display of “investigative journalism,” Loonwatch was recently “outed” as a site, “pretty much exclusively concerned with exposing the perceived enemies of Islam…” This jealously guarded secret was previously known only to tech-savvy visitors clever enough to click the link to our About page:

Loonwatch.com is a blogzine run by a motley group of hate-allergic bloggers to monitor and expose the web’s plethora of anti-Muslim loons, wackos, and conspiracy theorists…..

Isn’t that a fancy way of saying pretty much the same thing?

Throughout the screed ”exposing” our “super secret mission,” there are numerous ludicrous and fact-less assertions, which have been refuted here and here. A garden variety bigot isn’t of much interest to us here, but amid the baseless accusations, fuzzy logic, and shameless self-promotion, there is a question that warrants a response:

Does Loonwatch really shun all criticism of Islam and immediately silence our critics by branding them as loons?

Similar accusations have been made repeatedly, against Loonwatch and other sites devoted to fighting Islamophobia. The short and simple answer is “no.” As American Muslim civil rights activist Ahmed Rehab has said:

One thing we must never allow is for the bad amongst us – terrorists, extremists, ideologues of exclusion and hate – to succeed in turning the rest of us against each other. We must condemn them, ostracize them, and disempower them. The way to do that is to strengthen our relations, and stand with one another. That is the only way to spell defeat for the agents of hate.

We must emerge from our comfort zones and stand together as one against all forms of violence, ignorance, and intolerance….

Islam should be subjected to its fair share of constructive criticism and we have said as much in a significant number of articles. In fact several of our writers have severely criticized the theological premises of certain violent and regressive trends within the worldwide Muslim community. The problem is that there’s nothing fair or constructive about the ocean of half truths and outright lies that are routinely spread about Islam and Muslims by a well-funded network of pseudo scholars, grassroots activists, media amplifiers, serial fabricators, and other assorted anti-Muslim crackpots.

Legitimate criticism is truthful, proportionate, and in accordance with fair standards.

One of our most popular recent articles, Fake Nigerian Christians Burnt Alive Photo Resurfaces on Facebook, exposes anti-Muslim bigot and serial fabricator Pamela Geller trying to pass off a photo from a tragic accident as an incident of Muslims burning Christians alive.

Legitimate criticism is truthful. 

There is a constant barrage of  propaganda that says “Islamic terrorism” is the world’s greatest threat. Hate sites far and wide trumpet brash and baseless claims, which we routinely expose as lies: 17,000 “Islamic terrorist” Attacks Exist in Fevered Islamophobic Brains.

Yet meticulously documented statistics on the website Unknown News put the figures in proper context:

About 303 times as many people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq than in the ghastly attacks of September 11, 2001.

More than 130 times as many people have been killed in these wars and occupations than in all terrorist attacks in the world from 1993-2004, according to data compiled by the US State Department.

Every life is sacred and precious, and reducing individuals to statistics is a grisly calculus. However, we must make the point that war consistently kills far more innocent civilians than terrorism. What justifies the myopic focus on the latter?

Legitimate criticism is proportionate.

Another favorite trick of anti-Muslim bigots is to cherry pick violent and intolerant passages from Islamic scripture and juxtapose them next to relatively peaceful passages from Jewish or Christian scripture. Loonwatch has a whole series of articles addressing this inconsistency: The Understanding Jihad Series: Is Islam More Likely Than Other Religions to Encourage Violence?

The most recent additions are here and here. We repeatedly expose this unfair tactic and insist that all religions be measured by the same set of standards.

Legitimate criticism is in accordance with fair standards.

Our mission is to expose the lies, exaggerations and double standards employed by anti-Muslim bigots, and our articles do exactly that. We advocate universal human rights, and refuse to give anyone a free pass.

We condemn all acts of terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians, no matter who is responsible.

No matter how many times we condemn terrorism, “critics” insist we haven’t condemned terrorism, and have even had the audacity to smear us a terrorist spin control network. It’s become almost laughable and reminiscent of a famous scene from the 1979 British comedy film, Monty Python’s Life of Brian:

Brian: …Will you please listen? I’m not the Messiah! Do you understand? Honestly!

Woman: Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!

Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right, I am the Messiah!

Crowd: He is! He is the Messiah!

Will you please listen? We do condemn terrorism! Do you understand? Honestly! …

It’s time to resort to a more potent weapon: common sense. When some halfwit sets his underwear on fire in a failed terrorist attack, anyone with the slightest stake in the Muslim community instantly thinks, “Please, please…don’t let it be a Muslim!”

If it turns out the perpetrator is a Muslim, it is an unmitigated disaster for Muslims everywhere. Besides being morally repugnant, terrorism is self-defeating.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks paved the way for the US to bomb, invade, and occupy one Muslim country after another, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Syria and Iran may be next.  The Islamophobia that germinated in the aftermath of the attacks has rooted itself in the public imagination and continues to deepen and expand, despite the loons’ absurd claims it doesn’t exist.

The blatantly obvious, self-evident truth is that terrorism hurts Muslims and damages the fight against bigotry.

In fact, it’s hard to imagine anything that sets back the cause of fighting anti-Muslim bigotry more than a terrorist attack that is in any way associated with Muslims. The loons delight in reporting terrorist attacks because their interests are served, not ours. In fact, anti-Muslim hatemongers and outrage peddlers are so eager to publish news of “Islamic” terrorist attacks, they don’t even care if there are no Muslims involved, as we’ve reported here and here.

We condemn all acts of terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians, no matter who is responsible. 

Our question to critics: Do you? 

As Danios said in his recent article, We’re at War!” — And We Have Been Since 1776: 214 Years of American War-Making:

The objects of American aggression have certainly changed with time, but the primary motivating factor behind U.S. wars of aggression have always been the same: expansion of U.S. hegemony.  The Muslim world is being bombed, invaded, and occupied by the United States not because of radical Islam or any inherent flaw in themselves.  Rather, it is being so attacked because it is in the path of the American juggernaut, which is always in need of war.

The evidence that radical Islam is the justification, but not the catalyst, for US invasions is simply historical precedent. Decades before the War on Terror, the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke out against the war in Vietnam, and his words are no less relevant today:

As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through non-violent action; but they ask and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They ask if our nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems…and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without first having spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government…

This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death…

The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins…

Even as we commemorate Dr. King’s eloquent and timeless truths, it seems we’ve missed his essential message.

The US dominates the world through military power, maintaining over 700 bases in more than 130 countries, and is still bombing and invading nations with impunity. How is it that we view Muslims as the ones who are exceptionally violent and hellbent on taking over the world?

pro·jec·tion

: the attribution of one’s own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects; especially : the externalization of blame, guilt, or responsibility as a defense against anxiety.

The US has been variously bombing and starving Iraqis for more than two decades, which begs the question:  What did the nation of Iraq ever do to the United States? The answer: nothing.

How is it possible to fixate on acts of terrorism while simultaneously ignoring the colossal crimes the US has visited on the once prosperous nation of Iraq?

dou·ble stan·dard

: a set of principles that applies differently and usually more rigorously to one group of people or circumstances than to another.

de·ni·al

: negation in logic

: a psychological defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality.

Iran hasn’t attacked another country in over 200 years. Even as the US threatens to launch a war against this relatively peaceful nation, many Americans continue to view their country as peace-loving  and standing firmly on the moral high ground.

What accounts for this resilient sense of self-righteousness?

pro·pa·gan·da

: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person

: ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect

ra·tio·nal·ization

: to attribute (one’s actions) to rational and creditable motives without analysis of true and especially unconscious motives.

de·lu·sion

: a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary; also : the abnormal state marked by such beliefs.

How can our critics remain virtually silent on the Western violence and simultaneously assert, ”Loonwatch is protecting Jihadists and terrorists through lies of omission.”

hy·poc·ri·sy

: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion.

Defense mechanisms and relentless propaganda are the “psychological cataracts” that embolden us to criticize others and remain blind to our own faults. Refusal to take a good look in the mirror is also a lie of omission.

We condemn all acts of terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians, no matter who is responsible.

Again, our question to critics: Do you? 

Of course, the so-called “counter-jihadists” could reasonably argue that they too have a limited focus, and are, “pretty much exclusively concerned with exposing the truth about Islam…” That’s fine, as long as their criticism is truthful, proportionate, and in accordance with fair standards.

Read the following excerpts and decide if they constitute hate speech or merely tell the unvarnished truth about Islam:

The cultured peoples, both today and in the past, create and build, proving their worth as the creators and advancers of culture. Islam was and remains only the corrupter and destroyer of culture… Islam can never be great, can never create culture, for it is not a people, but rather only a corrupt mixture of inferior desert tribes with no national life or longing, with no proud and famous past.

And:

In this war for the very existence of the American people, we must daily remind ourselves that Muslims unleashed this war against us….

There is nothing cruder than the Muslim religious books: the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the Hadith…The whole is a collection of ghost hunting and mysticism, blind cursing and the crassest egotism, an unimaginable superiority complex, sick perversity, the overturning of all natural laws, lust for murder, terror, and horror.

The Crusades, with their enormous sacrifices in the blood of northern peoples, were the result of Muslim insanity.

And:

One feels horror at the unique depravity of the Muslims, at the crimes they have committed, at the devilish hate they have from the beginning directed against all those who did not want to bow to the yoke of Islam! This horror becomes terror when one reads the Qur’anic writings and reads such outbursts of Muslim rage as one finds in the Sunnah and Hadith…..

The term “kafir” expresses the deep antipathy Muslims feel toward infidels. Despite its inferiority, Islam was able to survive over the millennia because of its satanic hatred against infidels.

Muslim hatred today is as strong as it ever was. He who does not submit is their enemy. The Muslim hates the enemy with all his heart and with all the strength of his satanic soul….

Deep and boundless hatred is an essential characteristic of Islam.

Now there is war! The Muslims forced us into a struggle for life and death. The war has forced us to give up much we formerly thought was necessary. It has also forced us to give up the “politeness” that in reality is a weakness. A boxer in the ring must use his fists to defend himself against his opponent. A fencer can only win when he uses his sword. We as a people will survive this war only if we eliminate weakness and “politeness” and respond to the Muslims with an equal hatred. We must always keep in mind what the Muslim wants today, and what he plans to do with us. If we do not oppose the Muslims with the entire energy of our people, we are lost. But if we can use the full force of our soul that has been released by the new crusade, we need not fear the future. The devilish hatred of the Muslims plunged the world into war, need and misery. Our holy hate will bring us victory and save all of mankind.

Common themes include the cultural inferiority of “desert tribes,” crude scriptures, boundless hate for infidels, unique depravity, a superiority complex, sick perversity, and lust for murder, terror, and horror. Muslims pose an existential threat, and their collective insanity is even responsible for the Crusades.

This is pretty standard fare for hate sites like Jihad Watch, Atlas Shrugs, and Frontpage Magazine. Can you guess the source?

It’s a trick question because none of these excerpts came from contemporary hate sites. All are from articles published decades ago by Nazis. Every word in bold has been modified so the passages appear to refer to Muslims instead of Jews.

You can view the original versions here, here and here. We previously published an article comparing specific statements from pre-Nazi era Antisemitic propagandist Julius Streicher and Robert Spencer, here.

That brings us to the next part of the Loonwatch mission statement:

While we find the sheer stupidity and outrageousness of the loons to be a source of invaluable comedy, we also recognize the seriousness of the danger they represent as dedicated hatemongers…

Muslims have not (yet) been subjected to pogroms or rounded up en mass and herded into internment camps, and the point is to make sure that doesn’t happen. We have learned the lessons of history.

During the Nazi era, Antisemitic propaganda resonated with many “good Germans,” just as many “good Americans” once accepted slavery and thought of Native Americans as “savages.”  Everyone outside the lunatic fringe recognizes the monstrous injustices of the past, but far fewer have the moral fortitude to recognize and speak out against the socially sanctioned injustices of the present day.

Islamophobia is the hate du jour, and hatemongers and hypocrites are enjoying a lavish feast.

 

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More Proof Why You REALLY Shouldn’t Trust Robert Spencer’s “Scholarship”

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More Proof Why You REALLY Shouldn’t Trust Robert Spencer’s “Scholarship”

Posted on 29 January 2012 by Danios

Robert Spencer, pseudo-scholar, once again gets Arabic 101 lessons from LoonWatch

A few days ago, I published an article entitled Why You Shouldn’t Trust Robert Spencer’s Biography of the Prophet Muhammad (I).

I took issue with Robert Spencer’s opening sentences of his biography of Muhammad (p.5 of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam), in which he wrote:

Muhammad already had experience as a warrior before he assumed the role of the prophet.  He had participated in two local wars between his Quraysh tribe and their neighboring rivals Banu Hawazin.

I wrote a response as follows:

What Spencer leaves out from this talking point–“Muhammad already had experience as warrior before he assumed the role of prophet”!–is quite telling.

He is referring to what is known in Islamic history as Harb al-Fijar (the Sacrilegious War), a series of conflicts that took place when Muhammad was a teenager. The spark that ignited the war was the unsettled murder of a member of one tribe, which lead to a blood feud. Due to “entangling alliances,” many different tribes in the area found themselves at war with each other.

Like most of Muhammad’s life, the details of this event are contested. This dispute is not simply one between modern-day Muslim apologists and Islamophobes, but rather one that traces its way back to the earliest biographers of the Prophet.

In specific, Muhammad’s level of participation in these wars is disputed. On the one hand, some Shia biographers reject the idea that Muhammad partook in them at all. Meanwhile, Sunni biographers write that Muhammad simply accompanied his uncle but did not directly fight in these wars. He only took on a very limited support role: picking up enemy arrows from the battlefield. At the most, he fired off a few arrows, but did not kill anyone.

Not only was Muhammad’s role severely limited, but even this he would later express regret over. Muhammad later recounted: “I had witnessed that war with my uncle and shot a few arrows therein. How I wish I had never done so!” [1] Spencer conveniently omits this very important fact, one that mitigates Muhammad’s participation in the war, especially in regards to his views about war and peace.

Spencer replied:

In 2006 I wrote the book on the right, The Truth About Muhammad, a biography of the prophet of Islam based on the earliest Muslim accounts of his life, in order to illustrate what Muslims generally believe that Muhammad said and did. In my forthcoming book, Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam’s Obscure Origins, which will be published April 23 by ISI, I examine the historical value of those early Muslim accounts. It is an attempt to determine whether what Muslims believe Muhammad said and did, as recounted in The Truth About Muhammad, actually corresponds to historical reality.

There are numerous reasons to question the historicity of the early Muslim accounts of Muhammad’s life. Take, for example, an incident I refer to briefly in yet another book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades):

Muhammad already had experience as a warrior before he assumed the role of prophet. He had participated in two local wars between his Quraysh tribe and their neighboring rivals Banu Hawazin.

That he participated in these wars, known collectively as the Fijar War, or Sacrilegious War, is generally agreed upon, but there is no agreement about what he thought later about his role in them. The Egyptian writer Muhammad Hussein Haykal, in his 1933 biography, Hayat Muhammad (translated into English as The Life of Muhammad), quotes Muhammad expressing regret for his participation in this war:

“I had witnessed that war with my uncle and shot a few arrows therein. How I wish I had never done so!” (Pp. 52-3)

However, the ninth-century Muslim historian Ibn Sa’d, in one of the earliest and most important sources for biographical information on Muhammad, Kitab Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir, directly contradicts Haykal by quoting Muhammad saying this about the Fijar War:

I attended it with my uncles and shot arrows there and I do not repent it. (I.143)So which is it?

Is Haykal right that he really did express regret, or is Ibn Sa’d right that he explicitly ruled out doing so? Haykal doesn’t give his source, but it is possible that he had access to a hadith or some Islamic tradition that flatly contradicted the one Ibn Sa’d recorded eleven centuries earlier — although this is unlikely, since Ibn Sa’d often records variant and contradictory reports and discusses how they can be harmonized, or why one should be accepted and the other rejected. In this case Ibn Sa’d gives no hint of any variants. Haykal may simply have altered this tradition for apologetic purposes. Those who cite him as their source on this, or try to build an argument upon his quotation, do so at their own risk.

Nonetheless, such contradictions abound in the hadith reports. Muhammad can quite often be found saying contradictory things, as I show in Did Muhammad Exist?. In that book also I discuss how this odd situation came about: opposing factions both invoked Muhammad as an authority, and invented traditions to support their point of view.

Spencer is hawking his new book, which he is pushing as a “scholarly work” about how Muhammad didn’t exist.  His home page boasts that Robert Spencer is “[t]he acclaimed scholar of Islam”, “[a] serious scholar”, and “a brilliant scholar.”

I have pointed out in the past that Spencer is not a scholar of any sort–especially not on anything related to Islam.  He simply does not have the academic qualifications to claim this.  What other “scholar” do you know of that doesn’t even have a master’s or PhD degree on the subject he claims to be a “scholar” of?  He only has a one-year master’s degree in “the field of early Christianity”.  How does that make him an “acclaimed scholar of Islam”?

Another major problem with Spencer’s claim to scholarship is that he simply does not speak or understand Arabic.  This much has been apparent in the past, and it becomes painstakingly obvious in his latest response to me (as I shall show below).  I don’t think Spencer needs to know Arabic to criticize Islam (as some Muslim apologists insist), but I do think he needs to know it in order to be considered a “scholar of Islam” (a title he claims)–let alone “[t]he acclaimed scholar of Islam.”

Combine (1) not having any academic qualifications whatsoever with (2) not knowing Arabic and you have a situation like this: imagine some random blogger claiming to be “a world renowned physician” without ever having (1) gone to medical school and (2) without ever having studied or learned anatomy.  Such a blogger might be able to bring up good points about the field of medicine, but nobody in their right mind would consider him a “world renowned physician”–and if he claimed any such thing, his credibility would be shattered.

The need to understand Arabic in order to be a “scholar of Islam” cannot become more apparent than it is now with Spencer’s latest reply.  And here’s why:  Spencer argues (see quote above) that the hadith (saying of the Prophet Muhammad) found in Haykal’s Hayat Muhammad contradicts the one in Ibn Sa’d's Kitab Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir.  He argues that Haykal may have reproduced another hadith that contradicts the one found in Ibn Sa’d's book, or even that Haykal may have engaged in academic deceit (i.e. “altered this tradition for apologetic purposes”).  That’s a serious and bold claim to make against Haykal.

Yet, had Spencer simply been able to read Arabic, he would have realized that the hadith in Haykal’s Hayat Muhammad and Ibn Sa’d's Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir are the exact same!  They are word-for-word identical.  In other words, Haykal took the hadith from Ibn Sa’d's book.  That Spencer couldn’t see this speaks volumes about his “scholarship.”  So, Spencer’s blathering on about Haykal finding another contradictory hadith or of manipulating the text is indicative of his sophomoric “scholarship.”

How could Haykal have reproduced another hadith or have manipulated the text when in fact the wording in both Haykal’s book and Ibn Sa’d's is the exact same?  Here is what is found in Haykal’s book:

Source: Haykal, Muhammad Husayn, Hayat Muhammad [The Life of Muhammad], 14th ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Ma’arif, n.d.): 134

And here’s the exact same found in Ibn Sa’d's book, which Spencer quoted to “trump” Haykal’s hadith (stupidly not realizing they are the exact same!):

Source: Ibn Sa’d,  Tabaqat al-Kabir, edited by Ali Muhammad Umar (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khaniji, 2001) 1:106

To Robert Spencer, who doesn’t read or understand Arabic, that looks like a whole lot of jibberish.  One can imagine Spencer saying: “That’s Greek Arabic to me!”  But, if we help Spencer out by underlining as we did above, even he should be able to verify that they are the exact same–word-for-word.

So, if the two quotes are the exact same, why does Spencer’s quote seem to say the exact opposite as what I quoted?  Why did I translate it as such:

I had witnessed that war with my uncle and shot a few arrows therein. How I wish I had never done so!

Whereas Spencer used the following:

I attended it with my uncles and shot arrows there and I do not repent it.

Why the difference?

Being the “acclaimed scholar of Islam” that he is, Spencer relied on Google search to find this English translation of Ibn Sa’d's book and/or was forced to rely on an English translation of the book (due to his inability to read the source text).  In doing so, Spencer didn’t realize that the sentence he reproduced was a faulty translation.

In Arabic, the underlined part is:

وما أحب أني لم أكن فعلت

In transliteration (for Spencer’s sake), it would be:

wa ma uhibb anni lam akun fa’alt

It translates to:

and what I wish is that I had not done it!

Breaking it down, we have:

وما (wa ma) – and what

أحب (uhibb) – I love/wish (See Hans Wehr for the meaning of this verb)

 أني (anni) – is that I

لم أكن (lam akun) – had not

فعلت (fa’alt) – done [it]

The translator Spencer used made a mistake with the word ما (ma), which is a participle in Arabic that is modified by the words surrounding it.  Hans Wehr lists nine different uses of the word ما (ma), one of which is indeed negation.  However, from a linguistic standpoint, the “negative ma” cannot be used in this particular sentence.  Indeed, it would render the sentence into a nonsensical “double negative”:

And I do not love that I had not done it.

Huh?  If you translated it like so, that would actually mean that Muhammad did not participate in the war.  So, even still, this would actually be proof against Spencer’s claim that Muhammad took part in it.

The translator Spencer relied upon saw two negatives and just tried to “simplify” the text to read: “and I do not repent it.”  This, even though the word “repent” does not appear anywhere in the text.  It is completely imagined.  It should be noted that the translator’s native language was neither Arabic nor English. He didn’t know what to do with the nonsensical double-negative–a sentence that would actually mean that Muhammad did not love the fact that he did not participate in the war.

In reality, the word  ما (ma) was being used as a “relative ma“:

Source: Ryding, Karin C., A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005): 326

The translator can be forgiven for making a mistake, but Robert Spencer, being “[t]he acclaimed scholar of Islam” should have known better.  The only correct translation of this text would support the translation I used, namely that Muhammad regretted his participation in the war, which was the point of my article.  It was this fact that Spencer failed to include in his book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).  Instead, he tried to give the exact opposite (and false) impression, i.e. that Muhammad was already a “warrior” before he became a prophet.

Watch how this hadith from Ibn Sa’d's book–which Spencer is currently using as his strongest proof–will be quickly tossed away by Spencer now that it doesn’t support his argument any more.  This is, after all, his methodology for “finding the historical Muhammad”: any hadiths that paint Muhammad in a positive light are jettisoned, whereas those that do the opposite are trumpeted and used as a club to hit Muslims over the head with.  With such a biased “methodology”, do you really want to trust Robert Spencer as a source for Muhammad’s biography or for anything related to Islam?

*  *  *  *  *

The bottom line is that Spencer relied on an incorrect translation to write a response to my article.  This has two implications:

1)  Our entire discussion underscores how important it is for a “scholar of Islam” to read, understand and have mastery of the Arabic language.  This is what is expected of a scholar at any credible university, and this is what must be expected of Robert Spencer if he wishes to don the mantle of a scholar of Islam.  It is exactly because of situations like these where knowing how to read Arabic can make or break the argument.

2) Specifically with the Prophet Muhammad, Spencer’s biography is misleading because it portrays Muhammad as “already [having] had experience as a warrior”, which is meant to purposefully mislead the reader.  It is intended to paint a portrait of Muhammad as a fierce warrior–hence, Spencer’s choice of title, “Muhammad: Prophet of War”.

What Spencer leaves out is the fact that, at most, Muhammad’s involvement in the war was menial–mostly just in a support capacity.  This is a far cry from the “fierce warrior” image that Spencer is trying to portray.

Muhammad not only expressed regret for participation in the war, but more importantly, after hostilities ceased he supported the League of the Virtuous (Hilf al-Fudul), which was similar to the League of Nations formed after World War I.  The goal of the League of the Virtuous was to bring an end to bloodshed, violence, and war.  Muhammad’s participation in this–and his ringing endorsement of the League even in his later years of life–tells us a lot about how he viewed the war (and warfare in general).  Under the entry of Hilf al-Fudul, Thomas Patrick Hughes’ A Dictionary of Islam says:

A confederacy formed…for the suppression of violence and injustice at the restoration of peace after the Sacrilegious war. Muhammad was then a youth, and Sir William Muir says this confederacy ”aroused an enthusiasm in the mind of Mahomet [Muhammad], which the exploits of the Sacrilegious war failed to kindle.”

The war Muhammad was not too keen of.  But, the body designed to bring peace on earth was something he was deeply inspired by.

These are facts that Spencer wouldn’t have the reader know.  Yet, whereas there was disagreement among biographers about Muhammad’s participation in the war, there was–as far as I know–no difference of opinion about his participation in and support for the League of the Virtuous.  Why is it that Spencer’s biography focuses on contested facts but stays clear from a more accepted occurrence? It is only because one event helps build his case against Muhammad, and the other does the opposite.  So, he includes what helps and ignores what doesn’t.  Should you really trust Spencer’s biography then?

*  *  *  *  *

Spencer also writes in the same article:

Nonetheless, such contradictions abound in the hadith reports. Muhammad can quite often be found saying contradictory things, as I show in Did Muhammad Exist?. In that book also I discuss how this odd situation came about: opposing factions both invoked Muhammad as an authority, and invented traditions to support their point of view.

Robert Spencer has recently argued that Muhammad didn’t in fact exist.  The desire to negate Muhammad’s existence altogether is born out of his strongly pro-Catholic, anti-Muslim views.

Yet, Spencer should know that historians have doubted the historicity of Moses and Jesus as well.  Almost all of the arguments used against the historicity of Muhammad can be applied to Moses and Jesus.  Some scholars have doubted Moses and Jesus’ existences altogether, just as Spencer doubts the existence of Muhammad.  Once again, what is good for the goose is good for the gander, but try arguing this point and Spencer will cry “tu quoque, tu quoque!”  How dare you apply the same standards to Spencer’s religion and beliefs that he does on a routine basis to others!

However, most scholars don’t believe Muhammad didn’t exist, just as most don’t deny the existence of Jesus.  But, the details of Muhammad’s life are far more controversial and up for debate, just as is the case with Jesus.  Finding the historical Muhammad is, like finding the historical Moses or Jesus, an important endeavor.

Yes, contradictory hadiths abound, but that’s no different than is the case in Christianity: Bible scholars argue that the Gospels, for example, are highly contradictory to each other, especially with regard to Jesus.  I can hear it now already: tu quoque, tu quoque!

The fact that contradictory reports exist just means that scholars need to exert energy to determine what’s more reliable and what’s not–and there will always be a level of guesswork and doubt about it.  But the correct way to find the historical Muhammad is not the way Spencer does it: agree with whatever casts Muhammad in a bad light, and dump everything that doesn’t.

Finding the historical Muhammad is an important endeavor that modern scholarship will need to undertake, and you won’t find me disagreeing with that.  Yes, it might call into question stories that many Muslims take for granted, but it will also cast doubt on events that Islamophobes like Robert Spencer rely on to bash Muslims over the head with.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  For the writing of this article, Dawood (guest contributor) was consulted.

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Victoria Road in Thornhill Lees

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EDL Supporter Attacked Family with Knives, Threatened to Kill Them

Posted on 27 January 2012 by Garibaldi

Victoria Road in Thornhill Lees

Victoria Road in Thornhill Lees

Robert Spencer’s favorite UK anti-Muslim brigade.

EDL supporter attacked family with knives, threatened to kill them

A family barricaded themselves in their home as a neighbour armed with knives threatened to kill them, a court heard. Daniel Smith is said to have shouted racist abuse and English Defence League slogans as he smashed his way into the Thornhill Lees home.

Yesterday, victim Waaqas Ahmed said: “He was like a vicious animal against his prey, lunging. It’s a miracle I didn’t get hurt.”

Leeds Crown Court heard the attack on August 26, 2011, was the culmination of a long-running dispute between Smith’s girlfriend and their neighbours in Victoria Road.

Prosecutor Christopher Tehrani said Smith started a fight in the street with two of his neighbour’s brothers at around 7.30pm. When the fight was broken up, the brothers went into their sister’s house and locked the front door.

Soon after, Smith, 38, arrived armed with two knives and a screwdriver. Jurors saw mobile phone footage of him banging at the door and making threats.

Zubair Yasin said: “Everyone was on their phones calling the police. My little niece was screaming, my sister was crying. We could not imagine how this could be happening in our own home.”

Mr Tehrani said the family wedged an ironing board against the door, but Smith forced his way in. He threatened family members one-by-one with a knife.

Junaid Azad’s arm was cut when he tried to protect his sister. “It was pandemonium,” he said. Mr Azad said he defended himself and his family with a broom handle and exercise bar, and threw a milkshake at Smith.

Smith denies assault by beating and aggravated burglary.

Dewsbury Reporter, 27 January 2012

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Sanjiv_Bhatt

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India: Substantial Evidence Showing Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi Was Complicit in anti-Muslim Pogrom

Posted on 26 January 2012 by Mooneye

Sanjiv_Bhatt

Sanjiv Bhatt

“Substantial evidence” to prosecute Modi: Sanjiv Bhatt to SIT

(The Hindu)

The suspended Gujarat cadre IPS officer, Sanjiv Bhatt, has strongly urged the head of the Special Investigation Team, R.K. Raghavan, to proceed with the prosecution of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as there was “substantial direct evidence as well as overwhelming circumstantial evidence” to establish his alleged complicity in the anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002.

Mr. Bhatt, who shot off yet another letter to Mr. Raghavan on Tuesday (his fourth this month), said he was writing in response to reports that the SIT had sought legal opinion on whether or not to prosecute Mr. Modi for the post-Godhra violence. Drawing on his depositions before the SIT, Mr. Bhatt said he had personally met and alerted Mr. Modi to the deteriorating law and order situation on February 28, 2002, focusing especially on “the imminent carnage at Gulberg Society.”

He said he met Mr. Modi twice that day and “by the time of the second meeting… the carnage at Gulberg Society had begun in full view of the police personnel who were deployed there… The Chief Minister was accordingly briefed about the complete police inaction and complicity. The Chief Minister was also explicitly informed about the imminent threat to the lives of ex-MP Ehsan Jafri and his family members.”

Mr. Bhatt also drew the SIT’s attention to the “numerous Situation Reports and Alert Messages” sent “contemporaneously to the Office of the Chief Minister,” especially concerning the “developing violent situation and imminent carnage at Gulberg Society.”

He said Mr. Modi was also kept informed on telephone about the developments. A fax alert dated February 28, 2002 attached to the letter to Mr. Raghavan said: “As informed telephonically to the Hon’ble CM, ex-MP Ehsan Jafri and his family members residing at Gulmarg Society [Mr. Bhatt told The Hindu the alert had erroneously referred to Gulberg as Gulmarg because that is the first time he had heard of the housing society], Chamanpura, Meghaninagar have been summoned and are being attacked by a Hindu mob in the presence of policebundobust [deployment]. The lives of Ehsan Jafri and other family members are in imminent danger…” The alert was addressed to the Personal Secretary to the Chief Minister and the Personal Secretary to the Minister of State (Home) with copies to the Home Secretary and the Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad.

Mr. Bhatt said that instead of reacting to the alerts, Mr. Modi instructed him (Mr. Bhatt) to dig out details of “past instances wherein Mr. Jafri had supposedly opened fire on Hindus during earlier communal riots in Ahmedabad.” Mr. Bhatt said that as he emerged from the meeting, he got the information that Mr. Modi was “independently getting real-time information updates on the developments that were taking place at Gulberg Society.”

Mr. Bhatt said the Chief Minister’s conduct made it “unambiguously and absolutely clear” that he was not interested in discharging his “constitutionally mandated legal obligation of directing the police force to act with all firmness in order to protect the life and property of helpless citizens.” Instead, he wanted to collect information that could be used to build a case that the Gulberg carnage was triggered by Mr. Jafri himself.

The police officer argued further that these “acts of commission and omission” by the Chief Minister amounted to “facilitation and abetment of the gruesome carnage at Gulberg Society” and he was liable to be charged for abetment under Sections 109, 112, 115, and 117 of the Indian Penal Code and for concealing design to commit an offence under Sections 118 and 119.

Later, Mr. Bhatt told The Hindu that he had repeatedly made two requests to the SIT: to allow his statement to be recorded before a magistrate under Section 164 of the Cr.PC. and to examine control room inspectors and other officers who were in a position to testify on the developments of February 27 and 28, 2002, and who could, by their statements, support or negate Mr. Bhatt’s claim that he attended a late night meeting held at Mr. Modi’s residence.

The police officer said: “My depositions to the SIT have been under Section 161 of the Cr.PC which does not even require my signature. However, a statement under 164 of the Cr.PC cuts both ways. It is legally binding, but if I have lied, it also allows my prosecution for perjury. Is that too much to ask?”

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Liam_Neeson

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Is “Creeping Shariah” Coming to Hollywood? Liam Neeson Moved by “Mosques” and the “Call to Prayer”

Posted on 26 January 2012 by Emperor

Liam_Neeson

Liam Neeson in "The Clash of the Titans"

Islamophobes and anti-Muslim haters are all in a tizzy about some kind words that Liam Neeson had to say about Islam and the “beautiful mosques” he encountered in Turkey. The Sun magazine, a British tabloid ran the sensational headline, Liam Neeson: I May Become a Muslim.

Apparently this is the statement they are basing his consideration of Islam on:

“The Call to Prayer happens five times a day and for the first week it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit and it’s the most beautiful, beautiful thing.

“There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim.”

To me it sounds like Liam is being nice and appreciating the beauty that he most likely is able to find in various cultures and traditions. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think his words are just hollow sentiment, I think he probably was truly impressed and perhaps he is considering Islam, but of course those who take perpetual offense cannot concede that anyone, let alone a “celebrity,” could see anything beautiful within Islam or Muslim countries.

The ever hysterical Debbie Schlussel for instance thinks Neeson should change his name to Al-Moron. Failed comic book writer Bosch Fawstin is also offended, as are are a plethora of other Islamophobes.

Perhaps they will chalk it up to the secret-Muslamic-creeping-Shariah take over of Hollywood?:

Liam Neeson: I may become a Muslim

(The Sun)

HOLLYWOOD star Liam Neeson is considering giving up his Catholic belief and becoming a Muslim.

The actor, 59, admitted Islamic prayer “got into his spirit” while filming in Turkish city Istanbul.

He said: “The Call to Prayer happens five times a day and for the first week it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit and it’s the most beautiful, beautiful thing.

“There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim.”

Liam was raised in Northern Ireland as a devout Catholic and altar boy and was named after the local priest.

But the star — whose wife Natasha Richardson died aged 45 in a skiing accident in 2009 — has spoken about challenges to his faith.

He said: “I was reared a Catholic but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What’s it all about?

“I’m constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism.”

Liam was criticised in 2010 after claiming Narnia lion Aslan — voiced by him in the movies — is not based on Christ as CS Lewis had claimed but in fact all spiritual leaders including Mohammed.

His latest film The Grey, about an oil drilling team who crash in freezing Alaska, is released in the UK on Friday.

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90% of Anti-Semitic Crimes in Germany Committed by Right-Wing Extremists

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90% of Anti-Semitic Crimes in Germany Committed by Right-Wing Extremists

Posted on 25 January 2012 by Emperor

Berlin_Germany

Berlin, Germany

Horowitz tool Robert Spencer and his right-wing buddies, Bat Yeor, Geert Wilders, Pamela Geller, etc. have attempted to create a narrative that Muslim immigrants and their children are responsible for most, if not all “anti-Semitic crimes” in Europe. We have shown in the past that this is false, and the below article asserts that it is actually “right-wing extremists” who commit most anti-Semitic crimes–upwards to 90%.

The article also reveals that about 20% of Germans harbor some form of anti-Semitism:

(via. YNetNews)

Study: 20% of Germans harbor anti-Semitism

Sarah Bauder and AP

A new study by a Parliament-appointed commission shows 20% of Germans harbor “latent” anti-Semitism, but anti-Jewish crimes are almost exclusively committed by the far right.

The 188-page report – which draws on several different surveys and other research – puts Germans in the middle of the pack in Europe, with a German university survey showing more latent anti-Semitism in countries such as Poland, Hungary and Portugal, and less in Italy, Britain, the Netherlands and France.

The study released Monday said the surveys show that about one-fifth of Germans agree with anti-Semitic statements, such as “Jews have too much power in business.”

The study also showed that 90% of anti-Semitic crimes are committed by right-wing extremists, who number about 26,000 according to official estimates.

It recommends better coordination of local, state and federal strategies to combat anti-Semitism.

The report makes reference to “a wider acceptance in mainstream society of day-to-day anti-Jewish tirades and actions”.

“Anti-Semitism in our society is based on widespread prejudices, deeply rooted clichés and on sheer ignorance about Jews and Judaism,” stated one of the report’s authors, Dr. Peter Longerich of the University of London, Holocaust Research Center.

The report cites the Internet as a contributing factor to the spread of anti-Semitic thought.

“With regard to modern forms of communication – we point to the Internet in particular – it is virtually impossible to prevent the spread of such thinking,” Longerich continued.

Reprinted with permission from Shalom Life

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Footage of an interview with the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, is used in the movie.

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In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims

Posted on 24 January 2012 by Amago

An Islamic flag atop the White House in “The Third Jihad.”

An Islamic flag atop the White House in “The Third Jihad.”

In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims

By MICHAEL POWELL

Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House.

“This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America,” a narrator intones. “A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America. … This is the war you don’t know about.”

This is the feature-length film titled “The Third Jihad,” paid for by a nonprofit group, which was shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the New York Police Department.

In January 2011, when news broke that the department had used the film in training, a top police official denied it, then said it had been mistakenly screened “a couple of times” for a few officers.

A year later, police documents obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Law reveal a different reality: “The Third Jihad,” which includes an interview with Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, was shown, according to internal police reports, “on a continuous loop” for between three months and one year of training.

During that time, at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film.

News that police trainers showed this film so extensively comes as the department wrestles with its relationship with the city’s large Muslim community. The Police Department offers no apology for aggressively spying on Muslim groups and says it has ferreted out terror plots.

But members of the City Council, civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders say the department, in its zeal, has trampled on civil rights, blurred lines between foreign and domestic spying and sown fear among Muslims.

“The department’s response was to deny it and to fight our request for information,” said Faiza Patel, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, which obtained the release of the documents through a Freedom of Information request. “The police have shown an explosive documentary to its officers and simply stonewalled us.”

Tom Robbins, a former columnist with The Village Voice, first revealed that the police had screened the film. The Brennan Center then filed its request.

The 72-minute film was financed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group whose board includes a former Central Intelligence Agency official and a deputy defense secretary for President Ronald Reagan. Its previous documentary attacking Muslims’ “war on the West” attracted support from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a major supporter of Israel who has helped reshape the Republican presidential primary by pouring millions of dollars into a so-called super PAC that backs Newt Gingrich.

Commissioner Kelly is listed on the “Third Jihad” Web site as a “featured interviewee.” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that filmmakers had lifted the clip from an old interview. The commissioner, Mr. Browne said, has not asked the filmmakers to remove him from its Web site, or to clarify that he had not cooperated with them.

None of the documents turned over to the Brennan Center make clear which police officials approved the showing of this film during training. Department lawyers blacked out large swaths of these internal memorandums.

Repeated calls over the past several days to the Clarion Fund, which is based in New York, were not answered. The nonprofit group shares officials with Aish HaTorah, an Israeli organization that opposes any territorial concessions on the West Bank. The producer of “The Third Jihad,” Raphael Shore, also works with Aish HaTorah.

Clarion’s financing is a puzzle. Its federal income tax forms show contributions, grants and revenues typically hover around $1 million annually — except in 2008, when it booked contributions of $18.3 million. That same year, Clarion produced “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” The Clarion Fund used its surge in contributions to pay to distribute tens of millions of copies of this DVD in swing electoral states across the country in September 2008.

“The Third Jihad” is quite similar, in style and content, to that earlier film. Narrated by Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim doctor and former American military officer in Arizona, “The Third Jihad” casts a broad shadow over American Muslims. Few Muslim leaders, it states, can be trusted.

“Americans are being told that many of the mainstream Muslim groups are also moderate,” Mr. Jasser states. “When in fact if you look a little closer, you’ll see a very different reality. One of their primary tactics is deception.”

Footage of an interview with the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, is used in the movie.

Footage of an interview with the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, is used in the movie.

The film posits that there were three jihads: One at the time of Muhammad, a second in the Middle Ages and a third that is under way covertly throughout the West today.

This is, the film claims, “the 1,400-year war.”

How the film came to be used in police training, and even for how long, was not clear. An undated memorandum from the department’s commanding officer for specialized training noted that an employee of the federal Department of Homeland Security handed the DVD to the New York police in January 2010. Since then, this officer said, the video was shown continuously “during the sign-in, medical and administrative orientation process.” A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said it was never used in its curriculum, and might have come from a contractor.

As it turned out, it was police officers who blew the whistle after watching the film. Late in 2010, Mr. Robbins contacted an officer who spoke of his unease with the film; another officer, said Zead Ramadan, the New York president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, talked of seeing it during a training session the previous summer. “The officer was completely offended by it as a Muslim,” Mr. Ramadan said. “It defiled our faith and misrepresented everything we stood for.”

When the news broke about the movie last year, Mr. Browne called it a “wacky film” that had been shown “only a couple of times when officers were filling out paperwork before the actual course work began.”

He made no more public comments. Privately, two days later, he asked the Police Academy to determine whether a terrorism awareness training program had used the video, according to the documents.

The academy’s commander reported back on March 23, 2011, that the film had been viewed by 68 lieutenants, 159 sergeants, 31 detectives and 1,231 patrol officers. The department never made those findings public.

And just one week later, the Brennan Center officially requested the same information, starting what turned out to be a nine-month legal battle to obtain it.

“It suggests a broader problem that they refuse to divulge this information much less to discuss it,” Ms. Patel of the Brennan Center said. “The training of the world’s largest city police force is an important question.”

Mr. Browne said he had been unaware of the higher viewership of the film until asked about it by The New York Times last week.

There is the question of the officers who viewed the movie during training. Mr. Browne said the Police Department had no plans to correct any false impressions the movie might have left behind.

“There’s no plan to contact officers who saw it,” he said, or to “add other programming as a result.”

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Sheila Musaji: Rational and Legitimate Concerns are not the Same as Bigoted Stereotypes

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Sheila Musaji: Rational and Legitimate Concerns are not the Same as Bigoted Stereotypes

Posted on 24 January 2012 by Amago

Rational and Legitimate Concerns are not the Same as Bigoted Stereotypes

by Sheila Musaji

In a recent article Eric Allen Bell Chooses to Retain “Ridiculous Prejudice”, I discussed an article this individual posted on Daily Kos claiming that the Loonwatch site was “in fact a terrorist spin control network.”  I discussed his arguments and the reasons that I believe them to be Islamophobic.  In about a week, he has posted a total of three such articles, and been joined in his rantings by Robert Spencer.  You can see all of the updates with links at the bottom of my article about this saga.

In his second article Eric Allen Bell says:

But what about the rational and legitimate concerns that people, such as myself, voice about the theology of Islam and some of the ways it is practiced, in certain parts of the world, which violate human rights? Is the expression of such concerns something that should be dismissed and branded as yet more “Islamophobia”?

According to Loonwatch.com – a well known Islamophoiba [sic] watchdog site – there is no distinction. Loonwatch unconditionally attacks criticism of Islam but they refuse to criticize the many, many Islamic clerics and terrorists who are hurting people in the name of Islam. Should a person have something to say publicly questioning the funneling of monies from Islamic charities to Islamic terrorist networks, Loonwatch is there to call them a “Loon” for even raising the question. That’s quite a clever system – a form of radical Islamic McCarthyism it seems – with the first line of defense being a blogoshere of misinformed infidels who will blurt out the word “Islamophobe” at the slightest mention that within Islam there might be a problem brewing. What a clever design.

Should an article be written about forced marriages of Muslim child brides overseas or the stoning to death of a Muslim woman as punishment for being raped, or the many young boys who are brainwashed in Islamic madrasas only to become radicalized Islamic militants, or the Muslim men who were arrested in the UK for distributing fliers to Londoners saying that Homosexuals should be punished by hanging because their lifestyle is against Islam – any article written to express concern about these developments will likely lead the writer of such article to be branded a “Loon” by Looonwatch.com and have his name put out on the street.

Bell also said “But for LoonWatch.com any criticism of the Koran or of violent Jihad – even those criticisms that might have some legitimacy to them – even of radical Islam, are branded as Islamophobia and anyone who dares to raise questions about the nearly constant acts of Jihad going on increasingly around the world today is labeled a ‘Loon’ – thus the title of their blog, LoonWatch.com.”

And, his new friend Robert Spencer found this statement to be “entirely true observation”.

This particular claim is often made by Islamophobes, and it is becoming tiresome.  Voicing legitimate concerns is not a problem, bigotry is a problem.

In this case, a claim was made first about Loonwatch whose sole purpose is narrowly focused on discussions of anti-Muslim bigotry.  However, by Bell’s third article, and in the course of Spencer’s entire career, it is obvious that the claims are actually being made against the entire Muslim community and all of Islam.

However, even though Loonwatch is not in the business of themselves publishing anything other than information on Islamophobia, is it true that they would not tolerate criticism of Muslims?

Would writing or publishing articles raising any criticism of extremism or terrorism within the Muslim community lead to being labeled a “loon”?  Would any criticism of extremist interpretations of Islam lead to being labeled a “loon”?

Here on The American Muslim, we have published thousands of articles, many of them discussing issues such as:

— speaking out against the repulsive customs of - child marriage  including discussion ofparticular cases, – and punishments for victims of rape, – and female genital mutilation, etc.
—against the views of extremist clerics like Anjem Choudary, or Sheikh Abdullah El-Faisal, orAnwar Al AwlakiAyman Zawahiri, etc.
— against the views of extremist groups like Hizb-ut-TahrirMajlis, South Africa, etc.
— against particular actions of Islamic organizations like the Canadian Shia Muslim Organization (CASMO) publishing an article by David Duke, or some British Muslims threatening Imam Usama Hasan because of his views on the compatibility of the theory of evolution with Quranic teachings regarding God’s creation of the world and human beings, or the Arab European League (AEL) publishing an offensive cartoon against the Jewish people on their website
— against individuals or organizations promoting extremist views about various issues like – Salwa Al Mutairi suggesting that sex-slaves are allowed in Islam, – or the Malaysian Catholic Herald being told that it could no longer use the word “Allah” to mean God, – or Dr. Zakir Naiksaying that Muslims can’t wish Christians a Merry Christmas, – or the Darul Uloom Deoband’sdivorce by phone fatwa, , – or the Saudi forced divorce case, etc.
— about particular individuals or organizations accused of particular crimes,  – like the Florida Imams arrested for aiding the Pakistani Taliban, etc.
— publishing condemnations of particular acts of extremism and violence such as – the attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt, – or the killing of U.N. workers in Afghanistan, – or attacks on Christians in Muslim countries, – or the Fort Hood massacre, – or the deaths of 15 Saudi schoolgirls in a fire because they weren’t “properly dressed” etc.
— or publishing condemnations of extreme reactions to various current issues like the South Park cartoonMolly Norris and “Draw Muhammad Day”, Opus cartoon
—publishing statements and articles advocating for   - protection of religious minorities and houses of worship, – and guardianship reform in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia pertaining to male control or ‘guardianship’ over women, – and [http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/confronting_online_radicalization_of_muslim_youth]confronting online radicalization[/url] of Muslim youth, – and freedom of faith and right to change one’s faith, – and freedom of speech, – and a spiritual jihad against terrorism, – and welcoming LGBT Muslims in mosques, – and a moratorium on all corporal punishment, including the death penalty, – and responsibility of Muslims to defend the Constitution of the U.S., – and condemning holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, – and promoting the value of being faithful Muslims and loyal Americans etc.
— publishing and regularly updating Muslim condemnations in statements, fatwas, articles, etc. of every form of extremism and terrorism as a major part of the work of The American Muslim

On TAM, we regularly call out those within the Muslim community that I identify as the “lunatic fringe”, discuss various interpretations of aspects of Sharia, condemn any interpretations that violate human rights.  The list above is a very short list of the thousands of articles on such subjects that we have published, many of which I have written myself.

According to Bell any article written to express concern about these developments will likely lead the writer of such article to be branded a “Loon” by Looonwatch.com and have his name put out on the street.

And yet, what has been the result of my discussion of all of these concerns on TAM been?  Loonwatch named me one of the “Anti-Loons of 2011”.

Muslims themselves discuss all of these issues and are more than happy to align with others who are concerned about a particular human or civil rights issue to work cooperatively to solve the problem.  As one example among many, Muslims are working actively with representatives of other faith groups as part of an Interfaith Coalition against domestic violence.  We are not interested in giving any credence to those who are not really concerned about a particular issue, but only in using it to further their bigoted Islamophobic agenda.

We have seen this sort of devious tactic too many times.  Just one example was that two years after American Muslims had initiated a statement Apostasy and Freedom of Faith in Islam initially signed by 100 Islamic scholars and activists, a group called “Former Muslims United” produced their own pledgeand demanded that Muslims sign it.  And, as I said at that time “This FMU pledge is simply another attempt to create propoganda (planting the idea that American Muslims have not taken a position against punishments for apostasy) and to attempt to make it seem as if only former Muslims can stand for what is right, and frankly to attempt to increase the visibility of the FMU at the expense of the Muslim community.  This is shameful behavior (although typical of members of this group who go beyond denouncing Islamic radicalism to denouncing all of Islam) and is simply another example of attempting to marginalize the Muslim community and bolster the false claim that Muslims don’t speak up against injustices, extremism, etc.”

There is a reason that many outside of the Muslim community see such behavior as Islamophobic.  There is a reason that the ADL (A Jewish anti-defamation group) has said that Pamela Geller & Robert Spencer’s Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA) is a “group that promote an extreme anti-Muslim agenda”.  There is a reason that The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated SIOA as a hate group, and that they are featured in the SPLC reports Jihad Against Islam and The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle.  There is a reason that Geller and Spencer are featured prominently in the Center for American Progress “Fear Inc.” report on the Islamophobia network in America.  There is a reason that Geller is featured in the People for the American Way Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism.  There is a reason that Geller is featured in the NYCLU report Religious Freedom Under Attack:  The Rise of Anti-Mosque Activities in New York State.  There is a reason that Geller is featured in the Political Research Associates report Manufacturing the Muslim menace: Private firms, public servants, and the threat to rights and security.  There is a reason that the SIOA’s trademark patent was denied by the U.S. government due to its anti-Muslim nature.  There is a reason that they are featured in our TAMWho’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industry.  There is a reason that Geller is featured in just about every legitimate report on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred.

These people consistently promote what I call the what everyone “knows” lies about Islam and Muslims.  They generalize specific incidents to reflect on all Muslims or all of Islam.  When they are caught in the act of making up or distorting claims they engage in devious methods to attempt to conceal the evidence.

This particular claim that “truth tellers” are being accused of Islamophobia for no reason other than their legitimate concerns about real issues and that in fact there is not even such a thing as Islamophobia is nonsense.  The further claim that the fact that there are fewer hate crimes against Muslims than against Jews also proves that Islamophobia doesn’t exist is more nonsense.

The reason that this is so obvious to so many is that rational people can tell the difference between legitimate concerns and bigoted stereotypes.  The Islamophobia of these folks is very real.

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united-pendleton-states-arraignment.n

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Marine Gets Three Months in Jail for Massacring Two Dozen Civilians

Posted on 24 January 2012 by Emperor

This man is responsible for a war crime, and it is totally sick that he is getting away with massacring innocent civilians:

Marine gets three months in jail for massacring two dozen civilians

(RT)

More than six years after Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich led a squad of Marines into two Haditha, Iraq homes and massacred two dozen civilians, the American serviceman in charge has reached a plea deal.

For nine counts of manslaughter, Wuterich will get three months of confinement.

Wuterich is the last of eight men tied to the November 2005 killing that left 24 Iraqis dead, including women, children and the elderly. It was announced on Monday this week that he had reached a plea with prosecutors during his military tribunal and is now expected to be sentenced as early as Tuesday. According to the Associated Press, Wuterich will face a maximum of three months of confinement, the forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay and a rank demotion.

Of the other seven Marines charged with the now-notorious massacre, one was acquitted and six had their charges dismissed. Wuterich’s attorneys have been confident throughout the ordeal that he would see a similar outcome. “He’s going to be glad to have it over because he knows that he’ll be exonerated,” lawyer Neal Puckett told National Public Radio earlier this month.

On November 19, 2005, Wuterich led a squad of men into two separate homes in the town of Haditha and opened fire on everyone in sight. Prosecutors say that a roadside bomb exploded moments before the Marines stormed the home, and were brought into hysterics by seeing a fellow soldier die in the attack. In response, they went on a rampage and for 45 minutes raided the two homes and were never faced with gunfire. Wuterich later said he instructed his team to “shoot first and ask questions later.”

“My Marines responded to the threats they faced in the manner that we all had been trained,” he explained to CBS’ 60 Minutes in 2007. After the roadside bomb was detonated, Wuterich said that, “My responsibility as a squad leader is to make sure that none of the rest of my guys died. And at that point, we were still on the assault.”

Lt. Col. Joseph Kloppel, spokesman of the Camp Pendleton marine Corps base near San Diego, California, told the media on Monday that “By pleading guilty to this charge, Staff Sergeant Wuterich has accepted responsibility for his actions.”

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Eric Allen Bell Defects to JihadWatch Twilight Zone: Islamophobic Diarist Dumped by Daily Kos

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Eric Allen Bell Defects to JihadWatch Twilight Zone: Islamophobic Diarist Dumped by Daily Kos

Posted on 23 January 2012 by Emperor

Eric Allen Bell, the loon, has been dumped by Daily Kos for being a bigot.  Good riddance.

What many have suspected seems to have happened, birds of a feather flock together.

If you sound like a bigot, write like a bigot, argue like a bigot, then you’re a bigot… he started sounding more and more like Robert Spencer and sure enough now they’re reposting each other for validation.

Damn you Kossacks, Eric Allen Bell is miffed

by LaFeminista

After three diaries of mounting Islamophobia Eric was finally dumped, what a shame I here you all cry.

Now I hardly feel the need to friend him on  facebook but I might as well copy his whine here

Eric Allen Bell
Daily Kos has removed me as a writer. Apparently appealing to people’s humanity and asking if we can take a stand on human rights is not a value that DKOS holds as dear as compromise and commercialization. The liberal class in America IS NOT an effective voice of dissent. Either you are radical or you just don’t care. The middle ground is a waiting room for cowards.

Sorry Eric, you were not removed as a writer, but because you sounded just like Pamela Geller.

You mount a typical defense used by bigots everywhere, “I’m just telling the truth”.

You then proceed to lump every Muslim under a violent, bloodthirsty and bigoted banner, you even stooped to the “they are mere savages” argument.

You were not banned for speaking the truth.

You were banned because you are a bigot, sorry but it really is as simple as that.

Good riddance I say.

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Obama_Jews

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What If He Were Muslim?: Jewish American Newspaper Publisher Suggests Israel Assassinate Barack Obama

Posted on 21 January 2012 by Garibaldi

To date Obama has been one of the most pro-Israel presidents ever.

Andrew Adler wrote that he thinks Benjamin Netanyahu should assassinate President Barack Obama because he is not pro-Israel enough. Obama has been one of the most pro-Israel presidents out there and still you got the nutbags on the Right who want him dead.

Imagine if an American Muslim publisher had wrote this? He would be getting water-boarded in Guantanamo as we speak. Also, you could bet that the condemnations from Muslim leaders would barely be recognized, unlike in this case, where the outrage at Adler’s statements from within the Jewish community is highlighted very well.

Uproar after Jewish American newspaper publisher suggests Israel assassinate Barack Obama

(Haaretz)

NEW YORK – The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, Andrew Adler, has suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu consider ordering a Mossad hit team to assassinate U.S. President Barack Obama so that his successor will defend Israel against Iran.

Adler, who has since apologized for his article, listed three options for Israel to counter Iran’s nuclear weapons in an article published in his newspaper last Friday. The first is to launch a pre-emptive strike against Hamas and Hezbollah, the second is to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and the third is to “give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.”

Adler goes on to write: “Yes, you read “three correctly.” Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If have thought of this Tom-Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?”

Adler apologized yesterday for the article, saying “I very much regret it; I wish I hadn’t made reference to it at all,” Adler told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. And in an interview with Gawker.com, Adler denied that he was advocating an assassination of Obama.

Op-ed in Atlanta Jewish Times - January 21 2012 The op-ed in Atlanta Jewish Times.

The American Jewish Committee in Atlanta last night issued a harsh condemnation of Adler’s article, saying that his proposals are “shocking beyond belief.”

“While we acknowledge Mr. Adler’s apology, we are flabbergasted that he could ever say such a thing in the first place. How could he even conceive of such a twisted idea?” said Dov Wilker, director of AJC Atlanta. “Mr. Adler surely owes immediate apologies to President Obama, as well as to the State of Israel and his readership, the Atlanta Jewish community.”

Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, also blasted Adler on Friday, saying “There is absolutely no excuse, no justification, no rationalization for this kind of rhetoric. It doesn’t even belong in fiction. These are irresponsible and extremist words. It is outrageous and beyond the pale. An apology cannot possibly repair the damage. Irresponsible rhetoric metastasizes into more dangerous rhetoric. The ideas expressed in Mr. Adler’s column reflect some of the extremist rhetoric that unfortunately exists — even in some segments of our community — that maliciously labels President Obama as an ‘enemy of the Jewish people.’ Mr. Adler’s lack of judgment as a publisher, editor and columnist raises serious questions as to whether he’s fit to run a newspaper.”

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Robert Spencer Runs Away from  Debating Danios – Again – in ABN Getaway Car

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Robert Spencer Runs Away from Debating Danios – Again – in ABN Getaway Car

Posted on 20 January 2012 by Danios

Robert Spencer has complained for several years that “Muslims and Leftists” refuse to debate him on his ideas.  He issued an open challenge to debate.  I accepted this challenge and agreed to a radio debate over a year and a half ago, yet Spencer has been running away from me ever since.  To see the chronology behind Spencer’s debate-dodging with me, check out Sheila Musaji’s article Danios vs Spencer: 18 months and Spencer still avoiding a debate.

Initially, Spencer had used my anonymity as an excuse to get out of debating me.  After over a year and a half, he seemed to finally put this condition aside and agreed to debate me.  I offered Salon Radio as a possible choice for venue and moderator, to which Spencer initially agreed.  Shortly thereafter, however, Spencer chickened out of this, claiming that Salon Radio was not a neutral venue.  He then insisted upon ABN Sat, a loony right-wing Christian channel with anti-Muslim shows on it like Jihad Exposed.

Remember: Spencer rejected Salon Radio because it was not neutral enough, but meanwhile he has debated Muslims on ABN, which is the last thing on earth that could be called “neutral”.  Anyone see the double standard?

I agreed to ABN, just to get the debate moving along.  After this, Spencer emailed ABN saying: “It will be interesting in any case to see his face on camera.”  When did I ever agree to that?  Remember: I’ve always said that I am willing to engage in a radio (audio) debate with Spencer, so why the insistence that I do video?  After prolonged negotiations (designed to waste my time?), ABN finally refused to host the debate if I would be “audio-only” (as was my condition from the very beginning).

ABN claimed that it was against their policy to have one of the debaters be “audio-only” and that each debater must be on Skype (with video).  This seems to be nothing but a boldfaced lie made by ABN, since here is a debate they hosted just within this last year in which one of the debaters used Skype (video) and the other used the phone (audio only).  It seems that Spencer and ABN are colluding with each other in order to find an excuse to get out of the debate, because Spencer knows that he cannot defend his ideas.

So, the reality is that nothing has changed, and Spencer continues to use my anonymity to dodge the debate with me.

*  *  *  *  *

Moment of truth time for Robert Spencer: instead of wasting everyone’s time negotiating over venue and moderator (all of which seems to be designed to dodge the debate), I challenge you, Robert Spencer of JihadWatch, to a head-to-head debate using a format similar to bloggingheads.tv (no moderator needed) and audio only (like this debate or the one Spencer just did with “Spengler”–readers will note Spencer’s own words there: “Yes, it’s a video, but it’s audio only”).

We can make this debate happen right away.  Nothing fancy is required, no gimmicks, no third party needs to be negotiated with.  All we need is a recorded telephone conversation between you (Spencer) and I (Danios).  Then, we can put the recording of the debate on our respective websites (on LoonWatch and if Spencer wants, on JihadWatch).

As for the topic, we can debate the contents of Spencer’s book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).  I argue that this book is completely misleading, whereas Spencer argues that nobody has been able to refute the substance of it but just smear him instead.  We’ll go through the book chapter by chapter and see where the truth lies.  Spencer, if you can’t defend the contents of your book, what are you but a fraud?

A generous time limit can be set for the debate so that we can have a real substantive discussion.  I say we stick with what we both found reasonable initially: three hours.

Spencer, I’m trying to make this debate actually happen, whereas you keep trying to find ways out of it.  The ball is in your court now.

This is the moment of truth to see if Spencer wants to debate or just wants to flee from me.  I think the question most of us have is: what excuse will Robert Spencer come up with next to chicken out of the debate?  Is Spencer too scared to pick up a phone and debate with me?  I think so.

Update I:

Robert Spencer just went on a tweet splurge, attempting to do damage control in order to hide the fact that he is dodging the debate with me.  He argues: “Every debate [on ABN] has same format.”  This is clearly a lie that both ABN and Spencer are sticking to, despite the fact that we have clear evidence to the contrary: as I already pointed out above (a point Spencer ignored), here is an ABN debate in which one of the two debaters was “audio only”, just as I requested.  Their insistence that all debaters must appear on video is something new that they invented for me, just as a way to give Spencer an out.

Like I said, there’s nothing new here: Spencer has chickened out of the debate with me as usual, using my anonymity as a cheap excuse.  He has rejected my new debate offer above, saying about me: “He wants uneven playing field.”  How would that be an “uneven playing field” to have no moderator and just go head-to-head?  Here Spencer is guilty of projection: he is the one who insisted on ABN, a loony anti-Muslim Christian channel, that would be completely in his favor.  Meanwhile, I accepted this “uneven playing field”–to Spencer’s advantage!  This is yet another case of Spencer putting reality on its head.

Lastly, Spencer gets out of my new debate offer by arguing that he will only accept it if I accept a “university invitation.”  He knows that I won’t accept because it would require compromising my anonymity, something I am unwilling to do at this point in time.  Therefore, we’re once again back where we were, with Robert Spencer dodging me in debate, using my anonymity as his ultimate fall back excuse and cop-out.  Why, Spencer, did you waste all of our time by making us think a few days ago that you were ready to stop running?  Please don’t keep wasting everybody’s time.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

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PamelaGellerUndead-e1277488194648-1

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Pam Geller Announces New International Anti-Muslim Effort

Posted on 20 January 2012 by Amago

Pamela Geller delves deeper into her insanity.

Pam Geller Announces New International Anti-Muslim Effort

by Heidi Beirich

Anti-Muslim zealot Pam Geller announced this week the formation of a new international organization, Stop the Islamization of Nations (SION), for which she will serve as executive director. This “new global force” will merge the work of the two major anti-Muslim groups in the U.S. and Europe – Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), run by Geller and co-founded by another anti-Muslim fanatic, Robert Spencer, and Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE), run by Anders Gravers out of Denmark. Spencer will serve as SION’s vice president.

This is not the first time these organizations have worked together. In the past, they have tried to hold events in Europe to protest what they see as a coming “Eurabia.”

Geller has a long track record of anti-Muslim activities. Most recently, Geller, whose blog Atlas Shrugs once suggested that President Obama is the “love child” of Malcolm X, celebrated a video that appears to show U.S. soldiers urinating on dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. “CAIR has whipped itself up into an Islamic frenzy because a video surfaced that appears to show US Marines [in] combat gear urinating on several dead jihadis,” Geller’s website said last week, referring to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group. “Would anyone have CAIRed if Marines urinated on dead Nazi soldiers during WWII? (Anyone besides CAIR and Nazis, that is)?”

Gravers’ organization, which inspired SIOA, was cited byNorwegian terrorist Anders Breivik in his manifesto as an organization that people should support and that should have far more members than it has. Breivik blamed the lack of support for SIOA on multiculturalism and political correctness. Spencer was a particular favorite of Breivik. His manifesto cited Spencer and his work dozens of times.

The new group intends to create a “common American/European coalition of free people” to “oppose the advance of Islamic law,” which it describes as in contradiction with “Western laws and principles.” It plans to publicize the names of politicians, activists and others “that promote the Islamization of Western policy and culture.”

SION’s board includes notable anti-Muslim activists, including Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-American psychologist who has called Islam a “brainwashing machine,” and Hindu nationalist Babu Suseelan, who is published on Spencer’s hate site, Jihadwatch. Gravers will also serve on the board. SION plans soon to hold a worldwide summit to further its efforts.

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Muslim College Student Reports Sexual Harassment, Gets Reported To FBI For Terrorism And Expelled

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Muslim College Student Reports Sexual Harassment, Gets Reported To FBI For Terrorism And Expelled

Posted on 20 January 2012 by Ilisha

University of Bridgeport

(H/T: Believing Atheist)

Muslim College Student Reports Sexual Harassment, Gets Reported To FBI For Terrorism And Expelled

By Tanya Somanader (ThinkProgress)

In 2008, African-American Muslim student Balayla Ahmad enrolled in Connecticut’s University of Bridgeport with hopes of becoming a chiropractor. Instead, she became of a victim of sexual harassment. Distressed by the repeated sexual advances and “graphic offensive comments” of a male student, Ahmad reported the harassment and “fears for her safety” to multiple teachers, who urged her to say nothing, and finally the university’s president and dean. The dean told Ahmad, “My hands are tied. What do you suggest I do?”

Rather than having her claims addressed, Ahmad received allegations of her own. Learning of her report, Ahmad’s harasser decided to falsely accuse her of terrorism to the FBI. And rather than fully investigate what was happening, the University of Bridgeport just expelled Ahmad altogether:

After reporting the sexual harassment in April 2009, Ahmad said she was approached by two university security directors who told her someone had made allegations against her and they threatened to call the FBI and have her arrested.

Later, two FBI agents knocked on Ahmad’s apartment door, questioned her and left a business card, according to the lawsuit. She said she learned that her harasser or his associates had fabricated a story falsely accusing her of being a terrorist in apparent retaliation for having made a sexual harassment complaint against him.

“Ahmad was racially profiled and discriminated against because of her race, color and ethnic identity as an African American Muslim and labeled a terrorist based on false accusations provided by the harasser and adopted without adequate investigation by the university,” the lawsuit states.

Ahmad asked that the university provide her with an off-site proctor for her exams, but she said the university told her in April 2009 that her sexual harassment complaint had been closed and that she was being referred to a disciplinary committee. In June, she said the university dismissed her.

Ahmad filed a lawsuit against the university last week for failing to investigate her claims, instead showing “deliberate indifference” to her plight. The lawsuit claims that the college even “recklessly disseminated false accusations by the harasser that they had good reason to believe were unreliable and threatened her with arrest by the FBI.”

Ahmad’s lawyer, Bradford Conover noted that because Ahmad regularly wears the hijab, she was easily targeted for her religion. “[B]ecause of that, she ended up getting targeted based on some reckless accusations against her,” Conover said. “They never investigated it. Had they done so, they would have discovered the accusations against her were false and she had been subject to sexual harassment.”

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Fox News GOP Primary Debate: “1400% Increase in Murder Rate of Women in Turkey” Due to “Islamist Oriented” Government

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Fox News GOP Primary Debate: “1400% Increase in Murder Rate of Women in Turkey” Due to “Islamist Oriented” Government

Posted on 19 January 2012 by Garibaldi

Women_Murdered_Turkey

It is an understatement to say that violence against women is a serious issue today, as I wrote in a previous article titled, Rampant Sexual Harassment of Women…in the West, “women are mistreated across the globe, across cultures, races, and religions at unfortunately high and gross levels.” This was proven with empirical evidence and scholarly analysis from various studies.

In the intro of the article I reminded readers that Islamphobes,

love to trot out the talking point that Muslims (due to Islam of course) are unique in harassing and oppressing women. According to them, anytime a Muslim man harasses or otherwise assaults a woman it is considered a result of Islam or somehow encouraged by “Islamic behavior.”

This belief, however, is not limited to anti-Muslim bigots but has also crept into the popular imagination and perception of the mainstream.

It is within that context that we review another recent manifestation of this “anti-Muslim talking point” creeping into the mainstream. As many of those who watched the recent South Carolina GOP Presidential Primary debate are aware, Fox News’s Brett Baier asked Gov. Rick Perry about Turkey’s “Islamist oriented” government, and what our relationship should be towards them (Turkey is one of our oldest allies). He set up the question this way,

“Since the Islamist oriented party took over in Turkey the murder rate of women has increased 1400% there…”

My jaw dropped when I heard that, what an astronomical and frankly unbelievable number! The clear implication was that the “increase in violence” was related to the rule of the so-called “Islamist oriented” AKP party. Once again something “Islam” or “Islam” related was being cast as the source and cause of violence.

Imagine the effect this had on those watching the debate? It either reinforced or created the perception that Islam and Muslims are incredibly violent towards women, and that any “Islam” oriented political party will result in a degradation of women’s rights.

Brett Baier’s question was extremely misleading to say the least. It provided no context or evidence linking the AKP party to the “increase” in murders. To say that the AKP is “Islamist oriented” is misleading as well, a more appropriate analogy may have been to the “Christian Democratic” parties in Europe.

I have found conflicting origins on the source of the “1400% increase” statistic. On some news outlets we learn that the figures were released by Women’s Rights lawyer Aydeniz Alisbah Tuskan,

The figures are based on data issued by lawyer Aydeniz Alisbah Tuskan, Co-ordinator of the Istanbul Bar Association Centre for Women’s Rights.

while others claim it was the Ministry of Justice,

According to the data of the Ministry of Justice, the number of women murders increased by factor 14 between 2002 and 2009. While 66 women were killed in 2002, this figure raised to 953 women murders in 2009. The development of the increase was documented as follows: 83 women murders in 2003; 128 in 2004; this figure more than doubled in 2005 with 317 women killings; again a sharp increase with 663 in 2006; a peak of 1011 women murders in 2007 and a small decrease in numbers in 2008 with 806 women murders.

Regardless of the source there seems to be agreement on the numbers. Tuskan in her report also added another startling fact regarding violence towards women,

The data revealed an additional startling dimension of the problem: 85 percent of about 2000 annually registered divorce applications in Istanbul are based on violence.

According to Tuskan the reason for this explosion in the number of divorce applications stemming from violence is, “based on the fact that women do not endure violence as they used to do in the past.”

This however does not address the increase in the number of murders. As Elif Shafak asks in her Guardian article, Turkey Opens it’s Eyes to Domestic Violence,

Are violent incidents against women on the rise in Turkey? Or is it just that we are finally getting a clearer picture of something that has been happening at the heart of Turkish society for some time?

If one were to listen to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it has been his government that has started compiling these statistics, whereas before his administration statistics on the issue were not even “calculated,”

While numerous sources argued over the last week that violence against women increased by 1,400 percent in the past seven years, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said earlier this week that the issue was presented as if violence against women was on the rise. Highlighting that they would not ignore a single act of violence, Erdoğan said: “Before we started keeping track of this, statistics on the issue were not even calculated and no one was aware of these incidents. … I expect a responsible approach from both the opposition and the media over the matter and I say that, with solidarity and responsibility, we can decrease violence to the lowest level.”

I don’t see any reason to doubt Erdoğan’s assertion, however it would be vital to verify.

Either way, the statement from Erdoğan clearly contradicts Brett Baier’s misleading assertion that the so-called “Islamist-oriented” AKP which Erdoğan heads is the cause or root of the violence.

Erdoğan also went on to say,

“Violence against women is remorselessness, ruthlessness and, I say this without hesitation, contemptible”

Not really the evil, misogynist Islamic terrorist that Baier and Rick Perry thought ruled Turkey, aye?

Since the stats came out on the number of murders and incidences of violence directed against women there has been an intense debate on the subject in Turkey. It is no longer a taboo subject locked behind closed doors. There have also been massive grassroots campaigns and new legislation countering the violent trend,

In recent months, both print and visual media in Turkey have been running story after story about domestic violence: ex-husbands who shoot their ex-wives in front of their children, abusive husbands who come back to kill, boyfriends or fiancés who cannot forgive being dumped and seek revenge.

As disheartening as the situation is, there is also a growing reaction and a grassroots movement to stop it. Nowadays it is widely acknowledged that violence against women is not only confined to a few uneducated families in remote undeveloped regions. More importantly, until today, it was mainly assumed that such cases were a “family affair”. If a husband was beating his wife, this was their problem. Now this assumption is fully debunked. More and more public figures are coming out to say that domestic violence is everyone’s business and we should, as a society, interfere.

Family and social policies minister Fatma Sahin has announced that abusive husbands will be kept away from their homes with the help of electronic handcuffs. A group of men in the eastern province of Van have organised a significant march to protest at male violence. The group’s speaker proclaimed: “We are ashamed of men who attack women and do so in the name of manhood.”

University students are marching on the streets, women’s organisations are collecting signatures. Through blogs, websites, magazines, fanzines, panels and conferences activists are raising their voices, singers give concerts to honour women who have been victims of killings, writers and poets condemn the violence openly and contest it with their words. And yet, all this is not enough. Unless we change the way we raise our sons and discard our belief that they are superior to our daughters, unless we mothers stop treating our sons as the sultans in the house, nothing will be enough.

Lastly, it should be highlighted that Brett Baier’s misleading question is damaging most of all because it obfuscates the true issue of violence directed at women. It deflects from the root causes (cultural norms, cultural traditions, patriarchy) in exchange for the easy Orientalist scapegoat–Islam.

As Ilisha pointed out in her article on Honor Killing, by focusing on Islam, anti-Muslim Islamophobes are actually doing a disservice to those who are truly challenging violence towards women. Brett Baier’s question had the added effect of dehumanizing a whole nation, and I echo Ilisha’s call that Islamophobes, “give up their vicious campaign against Islam and join us in the struggle to end violence against women from all cultural and religious backgrounds.”

UPDATE I:

For further information on this topic I suggest reading The Journal of Turkish Weekly, which conducted an exclusive interview with Dilek Karal, a specialist at USAK Center for Social Studies regarding violence against women. According to Karal, there is no way to solidly identify whether murders against women have increased or decreased,

How should we read violence against women in Turkey? How accurate is it to say that violence has drastically increased in recent years?

D. Karal: There are a lot of factors which can trigger violence such as sociocultural factors, economic factors, and psychological factors in the environment where people grow up. We need to look at what conditions they become prominent under. The efforts shall target eliminating the roots of these factors. However this is not limited to the motto which is liberally used in Turkey—“education is a must”. Educated people also beat their spouses or commit different kinds of violence against them. Education is just one dimension. The issue should be tackled with integrated multi-agency policies. It is compulsory to operate family and child services efficiently, and formalize different environments where boys and girls grow up to not normalize the violence. All in all, violence as a phenomenon needs to leave our lives altogether.

For instance, Turkish Ministry of Justice 2010 data shows violence against women has increased 1400% during the last seven years. This is a very big number. According to some other data during the first seven months of 2010; 226 women were murdered while 478 women were raped and 722 women sexually abused. There are a lot of similar cases. Over 100,000 women suffered from sexual attacks. Although the numbers are as such, they cannot present us solid data regarding whether the violence has increased or decreased. This is because there are certain problems in evaluating statistical data in Turkey. The fact that they are being presented in a systematic fashion in recent years can be interpreted as the invisible tip of the iceberg slowly surfacing.

In other words, violence against women existed before as well but can now be better measured with in-depth research, which has made the issue more apparent. Without longitudinal studies it is very difficult to understand if the violence has increased or not. However, we need to underline that the existing circumstances in the context of this issue are already too tragic. According to Hacettepe University’s research, 39% of the women in this country (more than a third) are victims of physical violence and 15% are victims of sexual violence. 42% of women say that they have experienced a form of one or the other. The interesting part is the women who experienced violence did not make appeals to official units or to non-governmental organizations. More than half of them shared the situation with just close relatives. Only 8% of the women requested help from official units. This rate is very low. In a society where violence is skyrocketing, this low rate points to ignorance. Women either do not see themselves sufficient socioeconomically or they normalize violence in a sociocultural sense.

UPDATE II:
I also came across figures on murders of women since 2009 in the article, “This is a Civil War…” There is a large discrepancy between 2009 (1,126 murders) and 2010 (217 murders). If one were to be disingenuous regarding the issue, one could claim a massive decrease in murders!:

Here is the number of women murdered by year:

2002 – 66

2003 – 83

2004 – 164

2005 – 317

2006 – 663

2007 – 1,011

2008 – 806

2009 – 1,126

2010 – 217

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Ohio: Arson at Islamic Scholar’s Former Home & Muslim Inmates Settle Meal Preparation Suit

Posted on 19 January 2012 by Amago

Two stories coming out of Ohio related to Islamophobia. The first is still being investigated for a possible hate crime, and the second story shows that even within the prison system there is a double standard when it comes to Muslims.

Authorities investigate arson at Islamic scholar’s former home

By  Randy Ludlow

A deliberately set fire at the Hilliard home of the son of a controversial Islamic scholar is being investigated as a possible hate crime.

The arson fire heavily damaged a house at 4907 Britton Farms Dr. once occupied by Salah Soltan, but now the home of his 24-year-old son, Mohamed, authorities said.

The younger Soltan and a friend escaped the fire without injury after it was reported to Norwich Township firefighters at 5:24 a.m. Monday.

Firefighters arrived to find flames coming from the rear of the $290,000 house, which sustained extensive damage, said Fire Chief Dave Long.

The house was painted with anti-Islamic slurs a couple of months ago, authorities said.

The elder Soltan, who now lives abroad, is a native of Egypt and formerly was a professor at Cairo University and president of Islamic American University in suburban Detroit.

Some conservative critics have accused Soltan of being sympathetic to terrorist causes. He has said while he supports Palestinian rights, he condemns terrorism as a violation of Islamic law.

The Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations yesterday called on the FBI to assist in the investigation of the motive behind the fire.

The FBI is working with Hilliard police in investigating the circumstances of the fire, said Special Agent Harry Trombitas, spokesman for the Columbus field office.

Hilliard police called in state fire marshal investigators yesterday to assist in the probe and determined it was arson.

*******************************************************************

Ohio Muslim inmates settle meal preparation suit

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, AP Legal Affairs Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A Muslim death row inmate has settled a lawsuit that accused the Ohio prison system of denying him meals prepared according to Islamic law while providing kosher meals to Jewish prisoners.

Ohio had previously decided to remove all pork products from prison menus in response to the lawsuit, though inmates weren’t seeking a ban on pork.

Details of the settlement announced Wednesday afternoon weren’t released. Neither the inmate’s lawyer or the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction would comment.

The state argued as recently as last month that providing the meals, known as halal, could bankrupt the state’s food service system because thousands of inmates have declared themselves Muslim.

Attorneys for Abdul Awkal (ab-DUHL’ AW’-kuhl) and a second inmate argued that the state was exaggerating the cost.

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Eric Allen Bell

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Eric Allen Bell Chooses to Retain “Ridiculous Prejudice”

Posted on 19 January 2012 by Amago

Eric Allen Bell

Eric Allen Bell

Also see: Eric Allen Bell Defects to JihadWatch Twilight Zone.

Eric Allen Bell Chooses to Retain “Ridiculous Prejudice”

by Sheila Musaji

This past week Eric Allen Bell posted an article on Daily Kos attacking the Loonwatch site

I was startled when I read the article, and sent an email “heads up” to Danios at Loonwatch in case he hadn’t seen the article yet.  He replied that he had not seen it, and he was equally surprised at the content and at the venue in which the article was printed.

I had previously heard the name Eric Allen Bell only in relation to a documentary he had made One Mosque Too Many on the Murfreesboro Mosque.  That documentary was well received in the American Muslim community, and in the interfaith community.  Bell said himself about this documentary and why he made it

It was on this past 4th of July that I decided to make a documentary about the backlash against the building of a new Islamic Center here in Mufreesboro, TN. At that time I had no idea that a chilling wave of anti-Islamic hysteria was about to sweep over the country, strengthen the far right and send the civil rights movement several decades backwards all in the matter of just a few short weeks.

The documentary is titled “Not Welcome” and chronicles events in Murfreesboro concerning the backlash against the Mosque from the 4th of July to 9/11 of 2010. I have interviewed nearly everyone on all sides of this issue here. And along the way I have been threatened repeatedly but I have also made many new friends. I have learned a lot about how my own ridiculous prejudices about the South have distorted my point of view. I have been surprised repeatedly at how often the most unlikely of people can defy their stereotype with acts of kindness, courage and compassion. I have come to know many members of the Islamic community here, known them as friends, broken bread with them and watched as they faced persecution without striking back, without getting consumed with anger, watched as they prayed for those who oppose them, asked for God’s mercy on them and trusted that, in the end, whatever happens will be God’s will.

Because of that background, this current article of Bell’s was particularly puzzling. How could the person who said I have learned a lot about how my own ridiculous prejudices about the South have distorted my point of view. also be the person who showed ridiculous prejudice against the same American Muslim community he seemed to respect?  I thought that perhaps there are two different individuals with the same name – one opposed to bigotry, and one encouraging it, and so I did a little research.

There is only one Eric Allen Bell.  He has a website, and one of the sections of that site is Freedom From Religion.  Scrolling through the posts in that section, it became obvious that this individual is not fond of religion.  Bell’s posted comments are not just anti-Islam, but anti-all religion.  One of his posts is titled “God” is part of the 1 percent, and seems to sum up Bell’s position:

Once upon a time a very, very angry man named “god” created the world, got pissed off at everybody and killed them all with a flood, except for his buddy Noah and his 2 live crew. Later God decided everyone is so lame that he chose his “chosen people” to give a plot of real estate to while telling everyone else to f*ck off, ordered some ethnic cleansings to clear out the area and so forth. Still finding nearly all people to be unbearable (and who can blame him, really?) this god person decided, out of the kindness of his heart, to send his only son to be brutally tortured and savagely murdered so that he won’t have to send us all into a lake of hell fire for all eternity, because he loves us.

About 600 years later, god met this slave owner named Mohammed who also hated most people and the two of them really hit it off. God told Mohammed to wipe out the Jews, the Christians, basically everyone who did not see the the world the way that he did, and together they decided to call this new way of thinking, “the religion of peace”. But now the religion of peace wants to wipe god’s chosen people off of their plot of real estate and the followers of god’s poor brutalized son – whom the chosen people killed (oops, epic fail there guys) see this as a good thing because it will bring about the end of the world, and god’s son will appear in the clouds while the rest of us can go to hell. What does this all mean? It means god must be stopped and his followers need to give us back our planet before they blow the whole damned thing up in one big rapturous apocalyptic orgasm of self fulfilling prophecy. In other words GOD IS PART OF THE 1 PERCENT. “He” must be stopped.

On his site he promotes films like “Islam, What the West Needs to Know” about which he says “I cannot say that I am in 100% agreement with everything said in this documentary. However, having read the Koran, visited a few mosques and produced a documentary on Islamophobia in the Bible Belt, it is my feeling that fundamentally what is being put forth here in “Islam – What the West Needs to Know” is correct.”

As Colm O’Broin has pointed out about this particular “documentary”

The documentary Islam: What the West needs to know, which features many of the most influential anti-jihad writers, makes this point clear. A short TV ad is shown of ordinary Muslim Americans describing their backgrounds and finishes with the statement that “Muslims are part of the fabric of this great country and are working to build a better America.” The contributors to the documentary warn ominously however that the Koran allows Muslims to deceive non-believers in the service of Islam.

This is possibly the most reprehensible claim made by the anti-Muslim writers. If you accepted what they say it would mean that you can’t trust your friends, relatives, neighbours or work colleagues if they happen to be Muslim. In fact, all Muslims are suspect according to this poisonous allegation.

Bell’s admiration for films like this, and for individuals like Robert Spencer of the hate group SIOA makes some sense after scrolling through Bell’s site.  Although Spencer is a devout Catholic, and Bell would have no more respect for his religious beliefs than he would have for my religious beliefs, in Bell’s war against religion, it seems that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is his philosophy.

I had been working on a detailed response, but Devon Moore, also on Daily Kos posted an article yesterday Daily Kos Being Used to Further Classic Right-Wing Propaganda Against Loonwatch which does an excellent job of refuting the nonsense in Bell’s original article.

Bell begins his article by saying that,

The newly coined term Islamophobia describes an irrational fear of Islam.  But for LoonWatch.com any criticism of the Koran or of violent Jihad – even those criticisms that might have some legitimacy to them – even of radical Islam, are branded as Islamophobia and anyone who dares to raise questions about the nearly constant acts of Jihad going on increasingly around the world today is labeled a €œLoon.

What does Bell provide as way of evidence for the claim that Loonwatch opposes “any criticism of the Koran or of violent Jihad?” Does he provide quotes or statements from Loonwatch articles or writers? You know, facts?

The answer is a glaring and resounding, NO.

Instead, Eric relies on guesswork. According to him Loonwatch doesn’t speak out against “Islamic Terrorism,” that, to him, is enough to declare that it is “in fact a terrorist spin control network.”

A pretty bold and probably libelous claim when measured next to the absence of facts Bell provides.

When one takes a look at the mission statement of Loonwatch, it becomes clear that their focus is on challenging bigotry against Muslims,

Loonwatch.com is a blogzine run by a motley group of hate-allergic bloggers to monitor and expose the web€™s plethora of anti-Muslim loons, wackos, and conspiracy theorists.

What’s wrong with that? As many commenters pointed out to Bell there are “thousands” of sites tracking “terrorism” and “jihad.” In fact there is a whole “Terrorism Industry” that is in existence feeding off of the fear of “Islamic Terrorism,” to make sure that Americans have a new “green” menace to replace the old “red” menace. Prof. Charles Kurzman, who has actually done empirical evidence on this topic gives us some perspective on this exaggerated threat,

As it turns out, there just aren€™t that many Muslims determined to kill us. Backed by a veritable army of fact, figures, and anecdotes, Kurzman makes a compelling case. He calculates, for example, that global Islamist terrorists have succeeded in recruiting fewer than 1 in 15,000 Muslims over the past 25 years, and fewer than 1 in 100,000 since 2001. And according to a top counterterrorism official, Al Qaeda originally planned to hit a West Coast target, too, on 9/11 but lacked the manpower to do so.

Bell seems to have a schizophrenic personality, on the one hand he defends religious liberty (such as in the case of Murfreesboro Mosque) but on the other hand he agrees with many of the irrational attacks leveled at Islam and Muslims:

1.) He conflates Radical Islam and Islamic Fundamentalism with Islam. In the comment section he made clear that he believes “Islam IS Islamic Fundamentalism.”

2.) He believes that“Islam is still in the dark ages” and that most Muslim countries are“barbaric” His evidence for this? Youtube videos and Wikipedia.

3.) He believes Muslims who are peaceful are so not because of “Islam” but in spite of Islam, as he says “Lets not confuse Muslims with Islam.” That is similar to the statement of Robert Spencer that “The only good Muslim is a bad Muslim.”

4.) He cherry picks verses, quotes them out of context, and when it is pointed out that the same could be done with other scriptures he resorts to a popular argument amongst Islamophobes; stating that while it may be true that other scriptures hold violent passages they “are rarely carried out” in contrast to Islam. There is nothing further from the truth as the website, WhatIfTheyWere Muslim.com? details quite vividly. All the crimes that are considered uniquely “Islamic” are still committed by Christians, Jews, Hindus, etc.

5.) He also casts SPLC designated hate group leader Robert Spencer in a positive light writing,

Spencer, whom I don’t see eye to eye with either entirely, presents himself in a rather rational, sober and scholarly fashion and I might add that neither he nor the other “Loons” have bombs strapped to them – only words.

Either Bell is very ignorant or he is disingenuous. Robert Spencer is not a rational person. Someone who joins a group wanting to annihilate Anatolia, who denies the genocide of Bosnians, who thinks “Obama may be a Muslim,” is neither a scholar or a rational individual.

Also where is Eric Allen Bell’s outrage when polling shows that Americans and Israelis are more likely to support the killing of innocent civilians than Muslims in every Islamic nation:

Percentage of people who said it is sometimes justifiable to target and kill civilians:

Mormon-Americans 64%
Christian-Americans 58%
Jewish-Americans 52%
Israeli Jews 52%
Palestinians* 51%
No religion/Atheists/Agnostics (U.S.A.) 43%
Nigerians* 43%
Lebanese* 38%
Spanish Muslims 31%
Muslim-Americans 21%
German Muslims 17%
French Muslims 16%
British Muslims 16%
Egyptians* 15%
Indonesians* 13%
Jordanians* 12%
Pakistanis* 5%
Turks* 4%

Now, should we likewise, per the logic of Mr. Bell, be afraid of the scary Christian Americans, and make broad sweeping generalities about Christianity? Or Jewish Americans? Or Israeli Jews?

This is just a slither of what I found wrong with Eric Allen Bell’s article. It was reliant on not only a highly dubious methodology of critique, sourced poorly, but also filled with Orientalist and prejudiced tropes that ironically were the same ones used by the anti-Mosque opponents Bell documented in Murfreesboro, TN.

Danios of Loonwatch has also posted the following response

In 2009, the Daily Kos published a positive review of our website.  So imagine my surprise whenThe American Muslim emails me a link to a recently published article on Daily Kos which is nothing short of a hatchet job against LoonWatch.  This article was authored by Eric Allen Bell and is entitled Loonwatch.com and Radical Islam.  Bell had the temerity to accuse LoonWatch of being “a radical Islamic front, covering up for terrorism”; he writes: “Loonwatch.com is in fact a terrorist spin control network.”

We would hardly bat an eye at this loony stream-of-consciousness article–Islamophobes have been accusing us of this since our site launched–except that this screed was published on the Daily Kos.  Why would a fellow progressive website take a swipe at us out of the blue?

This mystery solves itself when you look into who wrote the article.  His name is Eric Allen Bell, and he professes a soft spot for Robert Spencer, a man who was ranked by FAIR as the #2 leading Islamophobe in the country (losing out the number 1 spot to his boss, David Horowitz).  Spencer is the leader of the SIOA group, deemed by the SPLC to be a hate group.  Spencer’s organization has links to Neo-Nazi and skinhead groups in Europe.  Among other things, Robert Spencer joined a genocidal Facebook group and posted a genocidal video on his website.  This is the man that Eric Allen Bell calls “rational, sober and scholarly.”  Bell imagines some difference between  Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller even though they are close friends and colleagues-in-crime:

That explains why Bell’s article looks like something out of a loony anti-Muslim blog likeBareNakedIslamAtlasShrugs, or JihadWatch.  Bell uses the exact same talking points against us.  His main gripe seems to be why our site “ignores” the violent acts of terrorism committed by Islamic terrorists.  The answer to that is painstakingly obvious: our website’s mission statement is to document and expose Islamophobia.  To ask us why we don’t document Islamic terrorism would not be very different from asking us: why doesn’t your site talk about world hunger?  Whereas this might be a worthy topic to bring attention to, it is simply not part of our mission statement.  Surely, Bell understands that websites oftentimes specialize in one particular topic and simply do not have the resources to dedicate to every noble cause.

Bell’s accusation itself is steeped in his Islamophobia.  Imagine, for instance, if some white guy accused the NAACP of being “a black supremacist group” because they only fought racism against blacks instead of documenting violence and crime committed by blacks.  What would anyone call such a person but racist?

Eric Allen Bell tries to shield himself from accusations of bigotry by pointing out that he made some documentary about a mosque in Murfreesboro.  Yet, this would be like someone being opposed to segregated schools for black people on the one hand but on the other hand becoming absolutely livid against anyone who dared to deny that blacks are more violent than white people.  Readers can go to the racist website Stromfront to find plenty of people compiling lists of black violence and criminality just like Bell reproduced his list of Muslim violence and terrorism.

Bell argues that Muslims are more violent than people of other religions, which is in fact the exact same argument raised by–you guessed it–Robert Spencer.  My response to this is two-fold:

1) The threat of Muslim terrorism has been extremely exaggerated (in order to justify our wars in the Muslim world).  According to the FBI’s own database (available from 1980-2005), of the terrorist attacks in America less than 6% were committed by Muslims.  Readers should also refer to my May 2010 article which noted that since 9/11, there have been zero U.S. civilians killed from Islamic terrorism.  The situation is the same in Europe.  For the past several years, Europol has released an annual terrorism report, which showed that Islamic terrorism accounts for less than 1% of terrorism in Europe and has resulted in zero deaths.  In the half decade documented in these reports, the only injuries sustained from Islamic terrorism were to a security guard who “was slightly wounded.”

For the past several years, zero civilians in America and Europe have been killed by Islamic terrorism.  Yet, we are indoctrinated into thinking that Islamic terrorism represents some existential threat: you should be scared out of your wits and be losing sleep over Islamic terrorism.  This is war propaganda at its finest.  The reality is that you have a far greater chance of dying from being struck by lightning (about 67 Americans die of lightning every year) than being killed by an Islamic extremist (a whopping average of zero).

When confronted by this reality check, Islamophobes are quick to shift gears and insist that they are talking about Islamic terrorism in the “rest of the world.”  Yet, almost all of this Islamic terrorism takes place in countries that have been bombed, invaded, and occupied by the United States or its proxy Israel.  (India is the notable exception, although it should be noted that India has sustained a brutal occupation of Kashmir for many decades.)  Iraq currently leads the list.  If you look at Iraq before we started dropping bombs on it, Islamic terrorism was virtually non-existent in that country.  Is it Islam then that is to blame for this terrorism or our bombing, invasion, and occupation?

2) The type of terrorism that is included in such comparisons is what I call Amateur Terrorism (strapping a bomb on yourself to injure a security guard and kill yourself); it excludes the greater form of terrorism: Professional Terrorism (carpet-bombing an entire civilian population).  This is the violence committed by nation-states.  The United States and Israel are guilty of committing, in the words of the Nuremberg trial, “the supreme international crime”: waging wars of aggression.  When this form of violence is factored in, then the argument that Muslims are more violent seems untenable.  As Prof. Steven Walt noted, Americans have killed anywhere from 30 to 100 times as many Muslims as Muslims have killed Americans.  

I find it difficult to lecture Muslims about how violent they are when my own government, with the backing of its people, have killed so many Muslims (and continue to do so on a daily basis).

In a way, our violence is worse than theirs, because ours is sanctioned by us: our duly elected members of government are the ones who launch these wars, with our blessing and support.  It is our uniformed soldiers who kill those Muslims.  Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda and such groups operate without governmental authority, without any sanction or permission from the Muslim population.  In fact, the Muslim population is often the victim of such terrorist groups.

Since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years, or 91% of her existence. Meanwhile, the country in the Muslim world we vilify the most, Iran, has not initiated a war since 1795, over 200 years ago.  (It was, however, attacked by its neighbor with the aid and encouragement of the United States.) Who is the more violent one again?

Here is a map of the Greater Middle East, showing countries that the U.S. has bombed or has bases in:

Meanwhile, the modern state of Iran has never attacked any of its neighbors or any other country in the region (or world).  But, Eric Allen Bell wants us to say that Islam and Muslims are the violent ones?

These two points constitute my argument, and if Eric Allen Bell wants to produce something more than a screed that belongs on Pamela Geller’s AtlasShrugs, that’s what he needs to refute.

One should also recognize that I am making a radically different claim than the Islamophobes when I point to American aggression.  There is nothing intrinsically different between the United States and the rest of the world that makes it more violent–or, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”–other than the fact that it has the power to do so.  I truly believe that absolute power corrupts absolutely: those vested with great power almost invariably abuse it, and it is for this reason that they must be held to account the most.

Compared to the United States, the forces of Radical Islam have virtually no power.  Since 9/11–more than a decade ago–the collective strength and resources of the “worldwide jihad” have been unable to kill a single civilian on American soil.  That’s how powerful they are.  In the grand scheme of things, Islamic terrorism is a nuisance of modern day existence, a threat akin to that of gang violence or drug cartels–it is not an existential military threat as it is made out to be.

There is no doubt that Radical Islam is repugnant to the senses and must be intellectually fought.  But attacking all of Islam and Muslims in general–targeting their religion and labeling Islam as uniquely violent–is the most counter-productive way of doing so.  More than that, it’s intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt.

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BBC: Talks Over Hate Attack on Schoolgirl Wearing Hijab

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BBC: Talks Over Hate Attack on Schoolgirl Wearing Hijab

Posted on 19 January 2012 by Emperor

Talks over Sunbury-on-Thames schoolgirl race attack

(BBC)

The girl was attacked by older white girls who kicked her, pushed her to the ground and drew on her face.

Surrey Police said it seemed the girl had been targeted on 11 January because she was wearing a headscarf.

Spelthorne councillor Colin Strong said the incident was being raised at a meeting with neighbourhood police as an issue that affected the community.

‘On busy road’

Detectives said they were treating the incident in Vicarage Road as a racially-aggravated assault.

Det Con Simon Egan said the girl had been targeted as she waited for a bus.

He said the suspects had kicked the victim in the leg, pulled her rucksack from her, pushed her to the floor, used make-up to draw on her face and racially abused her.

After the incident, the girl picked up her bag and ran away.

Det Con Egan said: “This was an appalling assault where a young victim has been targeted in a completely unprovoked attack.

“It would seem that suspects targeted the victim for no reason other than because she was wearing a headscarf.”

In an appeal for witnesses, he said the assault had taken place at the side of a busy road in daylight and urged any pedestrians or drivers who saw the attack to come forward.

The issue will be discussed at a neighbourhood policing meeting at the Sunbury Youth Centre, in Bryony Way, on Thursday evening.

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Veils: Who are We to Judge?

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Veils: Who are We to Judge?

Posted on 18 January 2012 by Ilisha

Niqab

Veils: who are we to judge?

by Anne Kingston (Macleans)

No item of female apparel summons more attention, animosity, debate or censure in Western society than the veil covering Muslim women. That’s saying something in a culture inured to the sight of sweatpants with “Juicy” on the backside, Abercrombie & Fitch’s padded “push-up” swimsuit tops for eight-year-old girls, and women teetering on skyscraper porno heels as hobbling as the “chopines” worn by 16th-century Venetian prostitutes.

Governments are racing to restrict the veil in its various declensions: hijab, chador, abaya, niqab, burka. France and Belgium banned face-and-body concealing burkas and niqabs last year; similar legislation is in the works in other European countries, echoing campaigns to rid cityscapes of minarets. Last June, Muslim women were singled out by FIFA, the world soccer body, which banned players from wearing Islamic headdresses on the grounds they could cause a “choking injury.” The Canadian federal government drew its first line in the sand last month when Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced a ban on face veils during the swearing-in of the citizenship oath. Quebec’s Bill 94, which would deny essential public services to women in niqabs in the name of “public security, communication and identification,” is wending through the legislature.

So what’s really going on here? Why are women many see as subjugated the ones being censured? Part of what’s driving this is the visceral response a veiled face summons in the West: it’s a mystery and a threat. Unless you’re a surgeon, a goalie, a bride or a belly dancer, masking one’s face is anti-social, a prelude to robbing a bank or attending a Ku Klux Klan meeting. Faces confer identity, legally and socially. Covering them can signal Darth Vader menace. It’s dehumanizing.

 

A covered or veiled woman summons more complex associations, given that female emancipation in the West focused on bodily autonomy and was mirrored in fashion trends—beginning with Coco Chanel, who believed women should share the same liberties as men and replaced restrictive corsets and long skirts with jersey dresses, knits and pants. Instructing a woman to cover up to preserve sexual modesty and prevent lustful thoughts is viewed as archaic and misogynistic—harking back to the Victorians hiding curvy table legs or the kind of dystopian theocracy depicted in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The “liberated” woman eschews modesty; any instructive to preserve it is code for oppression, as seen in global “SlutWalks” protesting “victim-blaming” after a Toronto police officer suggested women could avoid sexual assault if they stopped dressing “like sluts.”

Western women may be shackled by clothing and customs—six-inch stilettos, Brazilian waxing, cosmetic surgery, the imperative to be thin—but that’s seen to be their choice, their self-expression within a culture that often conflates female empowerment with female sexuality. A veiled Muslim woman is therefore even more freighted, thought to represent a second-class citizen deprived of identity and isolated from public life, a trapped victim of “gender apartheid,” as witnessed by the horrific acid attack on Afghani schoolgirls who abjured the offensive burka.

Yet we didn’t always see it that way. In the 1990s, the niqab, the veil that leaves only eyes exposed, was exotic, a marketing ploy: Loblaw put a photograph of a woman wearing one on the box for its “Memories of Marrakech” couscous. The “otherness” of a veiled Muslim could occasionally inflame bigotry, as seen in 1994 when female high school students in Montreal were expelled for wearing the hijab; the head scarf worn to preserve modesty was deemed an “ostentatious symbol.” But the burka was off the political radar, with the exception of feminist groups that protested the repression of women in fundamentalist Islamic nations, particularly Afghanistan, where Taliban rule in 1994 torched advances made by women.

Then came 9/11, and the burka was hijacked as a handy accessory for the emerging “war on terror.” The week after the twin towers fell, The Economist sent out a “free trial offer” mailer recycling a February 2000 cover of a woman in a niqab below the line: “Can Islam and Democracy Mix?” The image was sultry, destined to boost subscriptions, even if linking a veiled woman with all of Islam was below the magazine’s usual intellectual rigour. Not all Muslim women wear face-covering veils; many Muslims oppose the practice. The Quran, an enlightened text regarding gender equality, enforces no dress code; “hijab,” or cover, refers to the curtain that separates man and the world from God, not to clothing. Men and women are only called to “lower their gaze and guard their modesty.” Nor are Muslim nations in sync on veiling, which has come to represent an oppression-meter of sorts—from Afghanistan, where women faced a mandatory burka law punishable by death, to Tunisia and Turkey, where burkas are banned in schools and government buildings.

Turkish-born sociologist Necla Kelek dismisses the idea that the burka has anything to do with religion or religious freedoms, but rather represents an ideology whereby “women in public don’t have the right to be human.” France’s Fadéla Amara views the garment as a form of religious obscurantism, “a kind of tomb for women.” In her 2004 book, The Trouble with Islam, Irshad Manji rejects any notion of “spiritual submission” to the veil, calling adherence “closer to cultural capitulation”: “To cover my face because ‘that’s what I’m supposed to do’ is nothing short of brand victory for desert Arabs, whose style has become the most trusted symbol of how to package yourself as a Muslim woman.”

Yet as a symbol, the “desert Arab” packaging of women offered powerful visual shorthand for the indeterminate “war on terror.” It was harnessed to garner support for the invasion of Afghanistan, where the road to female freedom was measured in media reports in terms of women’s access to lipstick and beauty salons. Then the burka was tied to Islamic terrorism itself, linking the “war on terror” with a “war on Islam”: video footage that appeared to show one of the failed July 2005 London bombers wearing a niqab implanted fear that the garment posed a national security threat. That risk migrated to Muslim immigrants’ seeming unwillingness to conform to European and American mores. Even global cultural juggernaut Disney, whose 1992 Aladdin came under fire for promoting racist Arabic stereotypes, joined the hijab jihad last year, telling more than one Magic Kingdom employee that they were “not part of the Disney look.”

We can only await the Disneyfication of the burka, which has acquired near magical powers in its ability to turn right-wing politicians into situational feminists. French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the garment “a debasement” of women that rendered them “prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social contact, deprived of all identity,” ignoring the fact that his ban would closet these women in their homes. As British writer Myriam Francois-Cerrah, a Muslim, puts it: “[Governments] have a funny idea of liberation: criminalizing women in order to free them.”

Sheema Khan, author of Of Hockey and Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman, likens the paranoia over female veiling to another trumped-up distraction: “These new WMDs (women in Muslim dress) seem to evoke the same fear as those other WMDs (weapons of mass destruction),” she writes. Khan, who wears the hijab, sees a cultural disconnect over the female body and its display: “Muslim women value their bodies, they simply don’t believe in flashing skin.”

In their covering and attempt to disappear from the public sphere, veiled women have acquired paradoxical power in a society that pays attention to women for what they’re not wearing: as the most visible of visible minorities, they’re a measure of multiculturalism’s limits. And as a graphic reminder of the world’s fastest-growing religion, they test how much religious observation and cultural defiance we’re willing to accommodate—and accept.

Jason Kenney described a covered face as “un-Canadian” when announcing the new citizenship ruling: “Allowing a group to hide their faces while they are becoming members of our community is counter to Canada’s commitment to openness, equality and social cohesion,” he said. The minister admitted he found it “frankly, bizarre” that women had been allowed to veil their faces. Some 81 per cent of Canadians agreed with the veto, according to a Forum Research poll, which raises questions as to whether we’ll see similar rulings in other public spaces; Muslim women’s right to veil their faces while giving testimony is currently being challenged.

Canadian political scientist and Middle East scholar Katherine Bullock predicted that Muslim women would become “the visible link between Western power politics and an anti-veil discourse in the West,” in her 2002 book, Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil. The University of Toronto professor, a convert to Islam since 1994, wears the hijab. She was prescient: Sarkozy’s targeting of the Muslim minority is viewed by many as a pander to voters on the extreme right.

Bullock challenges the common view that the veil is oppressive and degrading. While she acknowledges the horrific violation of women’s rights in Islamic states, she writes that these must be addressed by the courts, and that a woman’s right to wear the veil should be separate from other human rights issues. That argument is a hard sell in the West, where high-profile murders of Muslim girls and women are associated with their rejection of the veil in “honour killings,” the odious term that segregates extreme domestic violence: Aqsa Parvez, the 16-year-old Mississauga, Ont., girl who was murdered in 2007 by her father and brother for refusing to wear the veil, and the ongoing Shafia trial in Kingston, Ont., in which a husband, wife and son are accused of murdering three teenage girls and a first wife. At that trial an expert prosecution witness overtly raised the connection when speaking of Muslim mores: “A woman’s body is considered to be the repository of family honour,” he said.

That any woman would willingly wear an “ambulatory prison,” as Christine St-Pierre, Quebec’s minister for the status of women, has called the niqab, is a mystery in a culture focused on the exposed female body and the distorted “body image” resulting from artificial Photoshopped standards. Amid “Does this burka make me look fat?” jokes, female Western journalists took the garments out for test drives, reporting back that they were confining, isolating and even elicited hostility, which is predictable. Veiled Muslim women have become doubly dehumanized in the West—by the veil itself and incendiary responses to what it’s seen to represent—which makes them vulnerable to the kind of violent Islamophobic attacks seen in France.

Yet the defiance expressed by hijab and burka wearers confounds the stereotype that they are submissive and lack will. Disney’s hijab ban has been successfully challenged. Last September, Hind Ahmas and Najate Nait Ali made headlines when they were fined for disobeying the French burka ban.

Inscrutable and complex, the veil is a code that can’t readily be cracked. Many women are veiled against their will, it is true, yet many others choose it. The idea that the veil could represent an assertion of identity, defined by daily connection and devotion to God, is alien for many in a secular culture. Liberal ideas of equality and liberty, which distinguish want from need, trump other ways of looking at the topic, says Middle Eastern historian Christina Michelmore, a professor at Chatham College in Pittsburgh, Pa.: “A lot of women want to wear it because they have to,” she told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2001. “It was a commandment, and I would obey,” Bullock writes. That’s a mindset alien in the West, Michelmore observes: “For many Americans, cultural restraints on individual behaviour automatically look like oppression. I think that’s a very American look at the world. For lots of cultures, communal standards aren’t seen as inhibiting individual freedoms.”

Women wear the veil as a rejection of Western values, Michelmore notes: “They see it as part of their identity, as separate from this globalized McDonald’s world.” Many of the veil’s most vocal proponents, ironically, are Western women who’ve converted to Islam, among them Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, Lauren Booth, German broadcaster Kristiane Backer, author of the 2009 book From MTV To Mecca, and Yvonne Ridley, of Islam Channel TV. Ridley extols the veil as offering freedom from Western sexism—the male gaze that renders a woman “invisible” after a certain age and undue judgment of women based on their appearance: “What is more liberating: being judged on the length of your skirt and the size of your surgically enhanced breasts, or being judged on your character and intelligence?” she asks. Yet to frame the debate as an either-or duality between two cultures is to ignore the continuity that exists. There’s synchronicity in the burka being stigmatized at the same time female display in the West has geared into cartoonish, hyper-sexualization—the mainstreaming of the stripper aesthetic, the creepy Toddlers and Tiaras commodification of girls, and billboards like Estée Lauder’s: “Beautiful gives her daughter something to look forward to.” A new study from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism reveals women are increasingly under-represented and overly sexualized in top movies: they’re far more likely to be seen in “sexy” clothing (25.8 per cent, compared to men at 4.7 per cent) and to be partially naked (23.6 per cent compared to 7.4 per cent). Yet the barbaric repression of women in fundamentalist Islamic nations—stoning for adultery, being denied the vote and access to education—renders complaints about continuing gender inequities in the West trivial by comparison, when, in fact, they are all extremes on a vast continuum.

Legislating what women wear under the guise of freedom is a worrisome portent, one Human Rights Watch calls a “lose-lose situation”: “[Burka bans] violate the rights of those who choose to wear the veil and do nothing to help those who are compelled to do so,” Judith Sunderland, a senior researcher with the group, said last April.

Art allows an exploration of the ambiguities that politics cannot. Canadian photographer Lana Slezic captured a fearful complexity in her famous portrait of Lt.-Col. Malali Kakar, Afghanistan’s most senior female police officer, who was murdered by the Taliban in 2008. Taken in profile, the image shows Kakar shrouded in a half burka, holding a handgun, her fingernails painted bright red. The image of the Afghan police officer working to emancipate Afghan women wearing a symbol of oppression upends the assumption that an unseen woman can’t yield power. Last week, Michelle Risinger, an NGO worker, blogged on GenderAcrossBorders.com about a successful uprising in Kabul by women disguised by their burkas; it forced her to redefine the garment “from a symbol of repression to a means of protection, and even the sustainment of women’s empowerment activities.”

Parisian guerrilla artist “Princess Hijab” explores the power of the veil in her work, using a black marker to “hijabize” and “niqabize” billboards to subvert consumer imagery and push cultural boundaries. “The niqab is very powerful, not just religiously,” the artist told Al Jazeera in 2010: “It has been used in fairy tales, it’s part of the collective memory, a symbol of religious observance, mourning and death.” The veil doesn’t belong to a single religious or ethnic group, she points out: “It’s an empowering piece of clothing but it also can be frightening.”

Exiled Iranian artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat, known for her “Women of Allah” series, similarly creates haunting, powerful images of veiled women, some with guns, their bodies superimposed with Farsi poetry. “Western culture generally tends to mystify women behind a veil,” Neshat told hEyOkA magazine: “It seems ironic but true that the more a female body is covered, the more desirable it becomes. Therefore much of the credit goes to the phenomena behind Islamic culture that by controlling female sexuality, it ironically heightens the notions of temptation, desire and eroticism.”

That would explain the bizarre spectre of the increasing sexual fetishization of the burka in the West. In 2003, rapper Lil’ Kim appeared in a half-burka, naked below, on a magazine cover. In 2009, Mattel endorsed a “Burka Barbie.” The pneumatic plastic doll, once banned in Iran as a threat to “morality,” was outfitted in lime-green and Day-Glo orange “burkas” and auctioned off at Sotheby’s for Save the Children. A few months ago, Kim Kardashian, of sex tape infamy, pranced around in a burka in Dubai. Paparazzi swarmed. It was defiant, outrageous, more shocking than nudity. And anyone who sees it as cultural progress hasn’t been paying attention.

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Daily Kos and Glenn Greenwald on LoonWatch

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Daily Kos and Glenn Greenwald on LoonWatch

Posted on 18 January 2012 by Danios

Eric Allen Bell

Eric Allen Bell

In 2009, the Daily Kos published a positive review of our website.  So imagine my surprise when The American Muslim emails me a link to a recently published article on Daily Kos which is nothing short of a hatchet job against LoonWatch.  This article was authored by Eric Allen Bell and is entitled Loonwatch.com and Radical Islam.  Bell had the temerity to accuse LoonWatch of being “a radical Islamic front, covering up for terrorism”; he writes: “Loonwatch.com is in fact a terrorist spin control network.”

We would hardly bat an eye at this loony stream-of-consciousness article–Islamophobes have been accusing us of this since our site launched–except that this screed was published on the Daily Kos.  Why would a fellow progressive website take a swipe at us out of the blue?

This mystery solves itself when you look into who wrote the article.  His name is Eric Allen Bell, and he professes a soft spot for Robert Spencer, a man who was ranked by FAIR as the #2 leading Islamophobe in the country (losing out the number 1 spot to his boss, David Horowitz).  Spencer is the leader of the SIOA group, deemed by the SPLC to be a hate group.  Spencer’s organization has links to Neo-Nazi and skinhead groups in Europe.  Among other things, Robert Spencer joined a genocidal Facebook group and posted a genocidal video on his website.  This is the man that Eric Allen Bell calls “rational, sober and scholarly.”  Bell imagines some difference between  Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller even though they are close friends and colleagues-in-crime:

Robert Spencer with loon Pamela Geller

That explains why Bell’s article looks like something out of a loony anti-Muslim blog like BareNakedIslam, AtlasShrugs, or JihadWatch.  Bell uses the exact same talking points against us.  His main gripe seems to be why our site “ignores” the violent acts of terrorism committed by Islamic terrorists.  The answer to that is painstakingly obvious: our website’s mission statement is to document and expose Islamophobia.  To ask us why we don’t document Islamic terrorism would not be very different from asking us: why doesn’t your site talk about world hunger?  Whereas this might be a worthy topic to bring attention to, it is simply not part of our mission statement.  Surely, Bell understands that websites oftentimes specialize in one particular topic and simply do not have the resources to dedicate to every noble cause.

Bell’s accusation itself is steeped in his Islamophobia.  Imagine, for instance, if some white guy accused the NAACP of being “a black supremacist group” because they only fought racism against blacks instead of documenting violence and crime committed by blacks.  What would anyone call such a person but racist?

Eric Allen Bell tries to shield himself from accusations of bigotry by pointing out that he made some documentary about a mosque in Murfreesboro.  Yet, this would be like someone being opposed to segregated schools for black people on the one hand but on the other hand becoming absolutely livid against anyone who dared to deny that blacks are more violent than white people.  Readers can go to the racist website Stromfront to find plenty of people compiling lists of black violence and criminality just like Bell reproduced his list of Muslim violence and terrorism.

Bell argues that Muslims are more violent than people of other religions, which is in fact the exact same argument raised by–you guessed it–Robert Spencer.  My response to this is two-fold:

1) The threat of Muslim terrorism has been extremely exaggerated (in order to justify our wars in the Muslim world).  According to the FBI’s own database (available from 1980-2005), of the terrorist attacks in America less than 6% were committed by Muslims.  Readers should also refer to my May 2010 article which noted that since 9/11, there have been zero U.S. civilians killed from Islamic terrorism.  The situation is the same in Europe.  For the past several years, Europol has released an annual terrorism report, which showed that Islamic terrorism accounts for less than 1% of terrorism in Europe and has resulted in zero deaths.  In the half decade documented in these reports, the only injuries sustained from Islamic terrorism were to a security guard who “was slightly wounded.”

For the past several years, zero civilians in America and Europe have been killed by Islamic terrorism.  Yet, we are indoctrinated into thinking that Islamic terrorism represents some existential threat: you should be scared out of your wits and be losing sleep over Islamic terrorism.  This is war propaganda at its finest.  The reality is that you have a far greater chance of dying from being struck by lightning (about 67 Americans die of lightning every year) than being killed by an Islamic extremist (a whopping average of zero).

When confronted by this reality check, Islamophobes are quick to shift gears and insist that they are talking about Islamic terrorism in the “rest of the world.”  Yet, almost all of this Islamic terrorism takes place in countries that have been bombed, invaded, and occupied by the United States or its proxy Israel.  (India is the notable exception, although it should be noted that India has sustained a brutal occupation of Kashmir for many decades.)  Iraq currently leads the list.  If you look at Iraq before we started dropping bombs on it, Islamic terrorism was virtually non-existent in that country.  Is it Islam then that is to blame for this terrorism or our bombing, invasion, and occupation?

2) The type of terrorism that is included in such comparisons is what I call Amateur Terrorism (strapping a bomb on yourself to injure a security guard and kill yourself); it excludes the greater form of terrorism: Professional Terrorism (carpet-bombing an entire civilian population).  This is the violence committed by nation-states.  The United States and Israel are guilty of committing, in the words of the Nuremberg trial, “the supreme international crime”: waging wars of aggression.  When this form of violence is factored in, then the argument that Muslims are more violent seems untenable.  As Prof. Steven Walt noted, Americans have killed anywhere from 30 to 100 times as many Muslims as Muslims have killed Americans.  

I find it difficult to lecture Muslims about how violent they are when my own government, with the backing of the American people, has killed so many Muslims (and continues to do so on a daily basis).

In a way, our violence is worse than theirs, because ours is sanctioned by us: our duly elected members of government are the ones who launch these wars, with our blessing and support.  It is our uniformed soldiers who kill those Muslims.  Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda and such groups operate without governmental authority, without any sanction or permission from the Muslim population.  In fact, the Muslim population is often the victim of such terrorist groups.

Since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years, or 91% of her existence. Meanwhile, the country in the Muslim world we vilify the most, Iran, has not initiated a war since 1795, over 200 years ago.  (It was, however, attacked by its neighbor with the aid and encouragement of the United States.) Who is the more violent one again?

Here is a map of the Greater Middle East, showing countries that the U.S. has bombed or has bases in:

Meanwhile, the modern state of Iran has never attacked any of its neighbors or any other country in the region (or world).  But, Eric Allen Bell wants us to say that Islam and Muslims are the violent ones?

These two points constitute my argument, and if Eric Allen Bell wants to produce something more than a screed that belongs on Pamela Geller’s AtlasShrugs, that’s what he needs to refute.

One should also recognize that I am making a radically different claim than the Islamophobes when I point to American aggression.  There is nothing intrinsically different between the United States and the rest of the world that makes it more violent–or, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”–other than the fact that it has the power to do so.  I truly believe that absolute power corrupts absolutely: those vested with great power almost invariably abuse it, and it is for this reason that they must be held to account the most.

Compared to the United States, the forces of Radical Islam have virtually no power.  Since 9/11–more than a decade ago–the collective strength and resources of the “worldwide jihad” have been unable to kill a single civilian on American soil.  That’s how powerful they are.  In the grand scheme of things, Islamic terrorism is a nuisance of modern day existence, a threat akin to that of gang violence or drug cartels–it is not an existential military threat as it is made out to be.

There is no doubt that Radical Islam is repugnant to the senses and must be intellectually fought.  But attacking all of Islam and Muslims in general–targeting their religion and labeling Islam as uniquely violent–is the most counter-productive way of doing so.  More than that, it’s intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt.

*  *  *  *  *

There was some silver lining to Eric Allen Bell’s article.  Glenn Greenwald emailed me with the following response to Bell’s post (reproduced with his permission):

Danios- That post is disgusting, but it’s important to distinguish between what “Daily Kos” has written (which is basically the front-page writers) and what a diarist has written (which is basically the equivalent of a blog comment, since anyone can write one, and is not at all attributable to the site itself).

This post is by a diarist – he has no affiliation with Daily Kos, except that he’s posting there – and my guess is that it won’t be promoted to the front page through recommendations and most commenters will be critical.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge GG fan.  I wake up every day to read his column with my breakfast and check his blog for updates throughout the day.  There is no writer or political thinker I respect more than him.  So when Glenn sent me a follow-up email saying “you guys are doing great work”, you can imagine how elated I was.

Who the heck cares what some Eric Allen Bell-nobody thinks when the intellectual giant known as Glenn Greenwald has such positive words to say about us?

In any case, Glenn was absolutely right about Bell not being representative of the Daily Kos: another Daily Kos diarist, Devon Moore, posted an article against Bell and in support of LoonWatch, entitled Daily Kos Being Used to Further Classic Right-Wing Propaganda Against Loonwatch.

It’s good to see another Daily Kos diarist respond to Eric Allen Bell, but the question remains: what is such a hate-mongering bigot doing on a site like the Daily Kos?  I think it’s time to clean house, just like former AIPAC operative Josh Block was cleansed from the progressive system: if Block was given the boot for libeling others as “anti-Semites”, shouldn’t Bell be dropped for wrongfully calling others “jihadists”?  Send the Daily Kos a message to dump this anti-Muslim bigot by clicking here.

*  *  *  *  *

In other news, it seems we are closer than ever to seeing the debate between Robert Spencer and myself actually come to fruition.  I’ll keep you posted.

Update I:

The American Muslim’s Sheila Musaji posted a good article on the subject.  She notes that Eric Allen Bell is an atheist who dislikes all religion, not just Islam.  However, it’s important to point out that he has a special hatred for Islam and Muslims, who he believes are uniquely violent and intolerant compared to all the other peoples of the world.  This is why he would still be categorized as an Islamophobe in my book.  On the other hand, I don’t have any problem with atheists who dislike all religions; I do, however, have a problem with atheists who specifically target one religious community over others, especially if that community happens to be the most vulnerable in this country.  This of course was my problem with Christopher Hitchens.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

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Danios of LoonWatch Accepts Robert Spencer’s Choice of Venue and Moderator: Will Spencer Keep Chickening Out?

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Danios of LoonWatch Accepts Robert Spencer’s Choice of Venue and Moderator: Will Spencer Keep Chickening Out?

Posted on 15 January 2012 by Danios

 

A few days ago, it looked like Robert Spencer of JihadWatch had stopped running away from me and finally agreed to debate me.

But then (surprise, surprise), Spencer tried weaseling out of the debate.

One of Spencer’s sticking points was the issue of venue and moderator.  I had recommended Salon Radio, whereas he suggested ABN Sat (a loony anti-Muslim Christian channel with shows like Jihad Exposed).  In our email exchanges, Spencer kept insisting that ABN is “neutral” (ha!).

The funny thing is that in my initial email to Spencer I pointed out that he always tends to only debate on Christian or conservative channels.  This observation angered Spencer to no end, who insisted that he would “debate anywhere.”  He even seemed to accept Salon as the venue for the debate.

Spencer then had an about-face, rejecting Salon, and once again bringing up ABN, reinforcing what I said earlier: Spencer’s M.O. has been to debate Muslim floozies on Christian or conservative channels, only to then thump his chest when he wins.  The fact that I suggested Salon (a respectable and award-winning site) and Spencer kept insisting on ABN Sat (a loony anti-Muslim Christian channel) speaks volumes about what company we prefer: I like the legendary Glenn Greenwald, whereas he likes loony Christian bigots.

The choice of ABN was designed to stack the cards in his favor.  That’s fine.  I am so utterly confident in the searing truth of my argument–and the absolute falsity of his–that I accept ABN as the venue and moderator of the debate.  

[Naturally, I would insist that they give me equal time to speak, reproduce the debate in its full, unedited form, and give our website (and any other website) the right to reproduce our own recording of the debate.  (Spencer has already agreed to a 2-3 hour long debate; if this is too long for ABN to air on their show, they can do what the Daily Show does by airing the first part of the debate and then putting the rest of it online.)]

Readers should understand this decision of mine (i.e. accepting such a hostile venue and moderator) as a reflection of my low regard for Robert Spencer’s arguments and views.  This is especially bold of me, considering the fact that he has engaged in numerous debates whereas I am a novice in this field: I prefer written medium.  Even so, I have absolutely no doubt that I will trounce him in debate.

Now that I have accepted Robert Spencer’s own choice of venue and moderator–one that is heavily slanted in his favor–what excuse will Spencer come up with to avoid debating me?

*  *  *  *  *

I must, however, insist on the following thesis:

Islam is more violent than other religions, specifically Judaism and Christianity.

As I stated before, this is not just the main theme in his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), but it is even the title of one of his books: Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t.  More than this, it reflects the fundamental difference between he and I: whereas I accept the violent and intolerant aspect inherent in all religious traditions, Spencer specifically targets Islam.

Under this thesis, I will individually debate the following sub-points:

1. The Islamic prophet was more violent and warlike than the Judeo-Christian prophets.  This is the main argument in chapter 1 of Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), entitled “Muhammad: Prophet of War”. On p.4, Spencer compares Muhammad to Jesus and to all other prophets in order “to emphasize the fallacy of those who claim that Islam and Christianity–and all other religious traditions, for that matter–are basically equal in their ability to inspire good or evil…[T]hrough the words of Muhammad and Jesus, we can draw a distinction between the core principles that guide the faithful Muslim and Christian.”  In fact, throughout his book Spencer has sidebars that compare Muhammad to Jesus.  (Yet, somehow when you refute this, it’s a “tu quoque fallacy!”)

2. The Quran is more violent and warlike than the Bible.  This is the focus of chapter 2, which he entitles “The Qur’an: Book of War”.  On the very first page of this chapter (p.19), Spencer states unequivocally: “There is nothing in the Bible that rivals the Qur’an’s exhortations to violence.”  (When I want to refute this claim, then “tu quoque, tu quoque!”)  He says on the same page: “The Qu’ran is unique among the sacred writings of the world in counseling its adherents to make war against unbelievers.”  On pp.26-31, Spencer explains why the Quran is far more violent and warlike than the Bible.  (But refute this claim and you are guilty of committing a “tu quoque fallacy.”)

3. The Islamic religious tradition was more violent and warlike than the Jewish and Christian traditions.  This is what chapter 3 of his book is about, entitled “Islam: Religion of War”.  This argument is also spread throughout his book and blog.  For example, on p.31, Spencer argues that in Judaism and Christianity there have been “centuries of interpretive traditions” that have moved away from violent and warlike understandings, whereas “[i]n Islam, there is no comparable interpretative tradition.” Chapter 14 of his book is entitled “Islam and Christianity: Equivalent Traditions?”  (But if you question this point by showing that yes indeed the two traditions are at least equally violent, then get ready to be accused of committing “tu quoque!”)

4. Contemporary Muslims interpret their religion in a much more violent and warlike way than Jews and Christians. Again, this claim is found throughout his book and blog; on p.31, for example, he argues that, unlike Muslims, “modern-day Jews and Christians…simply don’t interpret [their scripture] as exhorting them to violent actions against unbelievers.”

5. Jews had it much better in Christian Europe than the Muslim world. This is addressed in chapter 4 of Spencer’s book, in which he talks about “dhimmitude.”  On the very first page of this chapter, he states: “The idea that Jews fared better in Islamic lands than in Christian Europe is false.”  (OK, so are you ready to defend this statement of yours, Spencer?  Or do you cry “tu quoque, tu quoque” when asked to do so?)  Spencer quotes “[h]istorian Paul Johnson” (a conservative Christian ideologue–surprise, surprise) who says: “the Jewish dhimmi under Moslem rule was worse than under the Christians,” and Spencer himself says that “the Muslim laws were much harsher for Jews than those of Christendom.”  (But ask Spencer to defend that statement and see how it’s automatically a “tu quoque fallacy” to do so.)

6. Islamic law, unlike Judaism and Christianity, permits lying and deception against unbelievers. This is the import of chapter 6 of Spencer’s book, entitled ”Islamic Law: Lie, Steal, and Kill”.  On the very first page of this chapter, Spencer argues that “Islam doesn’t have a moral code analogous to the [Judeo-Christian] Ten Commandments” and that “the idea that Islam shares the general moral outlook of Judaism and Christianity is another PC myth.”  On p.84, he writes that Islam is alone among religions and civilizations in that it fails to espouse “[u]niversal moral values.” On the very next page, Spencer bellows: “This is what sets Islam sharply apart from other religious traditions.”  (Try to disagree and suddenly you will hear chants of “tu quoque, tu quoque!”)

7. Islamic history was more violent and warlike than Jewish and Christian history. This argument is found in chapter 9 of Spencer’s book, entitled “Islam–Spread by the Sword? You Bet”.  On the first page of this chapter, Spencer writes: “The early spread of Islam and that of Christianity sharply contrast in that Islam spread by force and Christianity didn’t.”  On p.116, Spencer rejects the “myth” that “Christianity and Islam spread in pretty much the same way.”  (Reject that claim–and yep, you got it: “tu quoque, tu quoque!”)

8. In the modern day (twentieth and twenty-first century), Muslims are more violent and warlike than Jews and Christians.  This is of course the general theme found not only throughout Spencer’s book but also on his blog.  This is the ultimate fall-back argument of Islamophobes, who routinely ask: “why are there no Jewish or Christian suicide bombers?”

Spencer claims these are “tu quoque fallacies” (his favorite phrase), but in fact he himself is the one making these comparisons.  He makes such comparisons, and then shields himself from all counter-attack by invoking “tu quoque, tu quoque!”  How very convenient.

There is a very important reason that Robert Spencer refuses to debate me on this topic and thesis–he knows that he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.  Even when I let him choose the venue and moderator (one that slants the debate in his favor), he still cannot–at all costs–debate me on the central theme of his book and ideology.  That’s why Spencer is not a real scholar: he has never been forced to defend his thesis, nor had his work peer-reviewed, challenged, and intellectually critiqued.  I’m merely asking Spencer to defend the substance of his book.  This refusal in and of itself is a very powerful reminder of how his ideology is fraudulent, how he himself is nothing more than a hateful ideologue and huckster, and how he is so scared that I will expose him.

The fact that I want to debate him–and that he wants to run away from me–is now self-evident: I have removed any possible barrier by agreeing to his venue and moderator.  So, what excuse will Robert Spencer come up with now to chicken out of this debate?  Will he continue to run away from me on the one hand and on the other hand continue to lament why no liberal or Muslim will debate him?

Don’t hold your breath for a debate: Spencer can’t debate me.  It would be the end of him.  So, he will continue to run.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

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Israel_Assassination_Scientists

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The Assassination of Iranian Scientists Continues

Posted on 13 January 2012 by Emperor

Israel_Assassination_Scientists

Benjamin Netanyahu

Do we even have to spell out a “what if…” scenario here?

MJ Rosenberg has a great piece on the assassination campaign against Iranian scientists and its implications.

Assassination in Tehran: An act of war?

by MJ Rosenberg (AlJazeera English)

Washington, DC - I rarely learn anything meaningful from reading The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg. In my opinion, his tight relationship with the Israeli government and its lobby here greatly influences his take on both foreign and domestic events. Although he occasionally deviates from the Israeli line, he not only appears very uncomfortable doing so, he tends to correct course fairly rapidly.

Nonetheless, in a Goldberg column about Iran this week, there was one paragraph that was dead-on and which he will have a hard time taking back (should he be so inclined).

Writing about a piece in the current edition of Foreign Affairs that endorses bombing Iran as a neat and cost-free way to address its nuclear programme, Goldberg explains why he thinks the author, Council on Foreign Relations fellow Matthew Kroenig, is wrong. Goldberg says he now believes:

 …that advocates of an attack on Iran today would be exchanging a theoretical nightmare – an Iran with nukes – for an actual nightmare: A potentially out-of-control conventional war raging across the Middle East that could cost the lives of thousands Iranians, Israelis, Gulf Arabs and even American servicemen.

Think about that for a minute. Uber-hawk Jeffrey Goldberg is saying that the threat posed by Iran is a “theoretical nightmare” while a war ostensibly to neutralise that threat would present an “actual nightmare”.

No critic of US policy toward Iran could say it better or would say it differently. And why would we?

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has not yet made the decision to go nuclear. Speaking to CBS’ Face the Nation last Sunday, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta made the same point. Iran is not working on the bomb.

We do know, as Goldberg says, that a “potentially out-of-control conventional war raging across the Middle East” could “cost the lives of thousands of Iranians, Israelis, Gulf Arabs and even American servicemen”.

And that makes the decision against war a no-brainer. As Goldberg puts it:

Now that sanctions seem to be biting – in other words, now that Iran’s leaders understand the President’s seriousness on the issue – the Iranians just might be willing to pay more attention to proposals about an alternative course.

That alternative course would be an attempt “to try one more time to reach out to the Iranian leadership in order to avoid a military confrontation over Tehran’s nuclear programme”.

In short, dialogue.

The US, to this day, has never attempted a true dialogue with Tehran. Even under President Obama, all we have done is issue demands about its nuclear programme and offer to meet to discuss precisely how they comply with those demands.

That is not dialogue and it’s not negotiation; it’s an ultimatum.

The one attempt at dialogue (i.e., a discussion that involves give and take by both sides) was initiated by the Iranian government in 2003. That was when it proposed, according to the Washington Post, “a broad dialogue with the United States,” in which “everything was on the table – including full co-operation on nuclear programmes, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups”. In exchange, Iran wanted normalisation of relations with the United States.

As is well known, the United States did not respond. In fact, we chastised the Swiss intermediary who delivered the offer for having the temerity to do so.

It was us, not Iran, that spurned a process that would have led to improved relations.

Rather than diplomacy, we’ve pursued a policy of sanctions, which we escalate every time the war lobby demands them.

But sanctions will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapon capability, nor will “regime change”, considering that Iranians across the political spectrum support the Iranian nuclear programme. The only effect sanctions have is to please AIPAC, which has made confronting Iran central to its mission. AIPAC writes the sanctions bills, Congress passes them, the president signs them, and the Iranian people (not the regime) bear the brunt of the effects. (The politicians who endorse such measures, however, quite often are well rewarded.)

Goldberg deserves some credit for calling for dialogue. But his seriousness is undermined when he explains that the US offer must be our final one. Although real dialogue is a process, Goldberg’s suggestion is to try to talk just “one more time”. And then: war.

Nonetheless, Goldberg does not seem to be on the same page as the Israeli government or its neoconservative backers here, who reject any dialogue at all.

Any doubt on that score came today when an Iranian civilian nuclear scientist was assassinated in his car on a Tehran street. This was the fifth Iranian scientist killed in such an attack in the last two years.

The attack today certainly looks like an Israeli hit, especially when top Israelis themselves have warned that “unnatural” events were about to befall Iran. At this point, circumstantial evidence is all we can go on.

“For those hell-bent on getting the US engaged in a war that even Jeff Goldberg views as a ‘nightmare’ for both the US and Israel, this is a very good day indeed.”

That, and the answer to the ancient Latin question: Cui bono? Who benefits? (Check out Commentary, the neocon website that iscelebrating the murder.)

In theory, at least, the Netanyahu government benefits. A 32-year-old Iranian nuclear scientist is dead. The opportunities for dialogue or successful multilateral negotiations diminishes. And, if Iran responds in any way, US neocons (including Congress, which will recite its AIPAC talking points) will intensify calls for war.

On the other hand, actions like these against civilians in one country endanger civilians in others. Imagine how the United States or Israel would react if Iran or even Canada started bumping off nuclear scientists (or anyone else) in Washington.

Innocents in Israel, the US, Europe or elsewhere will pay a price for this criminal act of colossal stupidity. And from a security standpoint, such clear acts of aggression can only convince the mullahs that they need to develop a nuclear deterrent.

Here is Jeff Goldberg again in a column subsequent to the one I already cited:

If I were a member of the Iranian regime (and I’m not), I would take this assassination program to mean that the West is entirely uninterested in any form of negotiation (not that I, the regime official, has ever been much interested in dialogue with the West) and that I should double-down and cross the nuclear threshold as fast as humanly possible. Once I do that, I’m North Korea, or Pakistan: An untouchable country.

In short, for those hell-bent on getting the US engaged in a war that even Jeff Goldberg views as a “nightmare” for both the US and Israel, this is a very good day indeed.

Congratulations. Or something like that.

MJ Rosenberg is a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. The above article first appeared in Foreign Policy Matters, a part of the Media Matters Action Network.

You can follow MJ on twitter @MJayRosenberg

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Surprise, Surprise: Robert Spencer of JihadWatch is Weaseling Out of Debate with Danios of LoonWatch

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Surprise, Surprise: Robert Spencer of JihadWatch is Weaseling Out of Debate with Danios of LoonWatch

Posted on 12 January 2012 by Danios

When I first read Robert Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) a couple years ago, I knew I could not just refute it but (proverbially speaking) blow it out of the water.  After I penned my first few articles against it, I also knew that Spencer could not issue any substantive reply.  Soon, I began to detect fear in Spencer’s eyes.  It is no wonder then that he has refused to debate me for so long.  I have documented Spencer’s evasion here.

Yet, Robert Spencer is also keenly aware of the fact that his refusal to debate the one site that is dedicated to refuting him–and was voted by his “target population” to be the number #1 non-Muslim blog with the number #1 writer–makes his fear obvious to the world.  When his fear of debating me was pointed out in a recent Twitter war, Spencer finally agreed to debate me.  (Of course, in true Spencer fashion, he accused us of “lying” when we said that he had been refusing to debate us for almost two years.)

Even so, I had predicted–as had many others–that Spencer would try to weasel his way out of the debate.  Lo and behold, this now seems to be the case.

Initially, Spencer sent me an email saying “[t]here needs to be a thesis…So propose one.”  I proposed the following thesis:  Islam is more violent than other religions, specifically Judaism and Christianity.  This is not only the central argument in Robert Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) but is also the title of another book of his: Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t.

Yet, Spencer emailed me back and said:

Actually, I am not interested in debating about Judaism and Christianity. I am only interested in debating regarding Islam and Jihad.

Spencer, the title of your book is a comparison between Christianity and Islam.  So, are you saying that you can’t defend the central tenet and title of your book!?

He goes on:

Your tu quoque arguments are silly and have had abundant airing already. Propose another.

When you write a book titled “Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t”, then to you that’s a valid comparison, but when someone refutes that comparison by pointing out how Christianity, by the very same standards you apply to Islam, couldn’t be considered a “religion of peace,” then you cry “tu quoque”!

If my arguments “are silly,” then why don’t you debate me on them and show me how silly they are?  Do you accept my counter-argument that “Judaism and Christianity are just as violent as Islam, if not more so”?  If yes, then please state it openly so that we can declare victory and move on; otherwise, if you disagree with it, then refute it in debate with me.

The entire premise of Spencer’s book, the one I have been refuting all along, is the thesis I have proposed.  It represents the fundamental difference of opinion I have with Robert Spencer and JihadWatch, so why should we debate something else?  Does Spencer think we should debate on just any topic?  Maybe we can debate the following thesis then: Arrested Development should never have been canceled because it is the single best comedy show ever.

I have never said or believed that the Islamic tradition does not have its violent aspects to it.  I have only argued that Islam is not alone in this and that the religious tradition of the dominant group (the Judeo-Christian tradition) is just as bad in this regard, if not worse.  That is my central argument, so why should we debate something else?

To be clear: I will only debate this thesis (Islam is more violent than other religions, specifically Judaism and Christianity) and no other, since (1) it is the central tenet of Robert Spencer’s book and (2) it represents the fundamental difference I have with him.  The fact that Robert Spencer cannot defend his central tenet (and the fundamental difference between us) indicates that he knows he doesn’t stand a chance in defending the thesis.  That’s why he must insist on “propos[ing] another.”

*  *  *  *  *

Additionally, there is an issue regarding “venue.”  He has suggested we debate on ABN SAT–a Christian channel.  Ludicrously, he calls them “neutral,” even though the channel airs a show (the one Spencer debated on) called Jihad Exposed, with the email address jihadexposed@abnsat.com. Yeah, real “neutral.”

I had earlier complained that Spencer tends to debate only on Christian or conservative channels, to which Spencer accused me of “lying.”  In any case, he asked that I propose another venue other than ABN and in the same email adamantly stated: “I will debate anywhere.”  OK, if that is the case, how about we debate on Salon?

Initially, Spencer responded (bold is mine):

I have no problem with Salon but I guess you mean a print debate, in that case.

I actually had meant Salon Radio, so it would be a recorded audio debate that they could reproduce on the Salon site.  In any case, I emailed somebody at Salon, only to later get this follow-up email from Spencer (bold is mine):

Also, Salon in print is not what I had in mind. If you have a radio show in mind, I wasnt aware that Salon had one, but in that case Salon is not a neutral forum with a neutral moderator.

ABN — they offer a completely neutral forum. Let’s do it there.

Initially, he will “debate anywhere” and he has “no problem with Salon,” only to follow-up with an email rejecting Salon as a venue.  And then he goes back to the same silly Christian channel as an option.

Whether or not Salon will agree to host the debate is still up in the air, but if they accept will Spencer stick by his word that he will “debate anywhere” and that he has “no problem with Salon”?  Spencer?

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

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Yehuda Bauer

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Yehuda Bauer: Israel’s Genocidal Nationalists

Posted on 12 January 2012 by Amago

Yehuda Bauer

Yehuda Bauer

An important insight into Israeli society.

Yehuda Bauer: Israel’s genocidal nationalists

(AlJazeera English)

As tensions grow between ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Israeli state, the scholar discusses Jewish identity and extremism.

When ultra-Orthodox Jewish protesters recently clashed with Israeli government officials over gender segregation in public places, many of the demonstrators played on a link between Israel and Nazism by dressing up as Nazi concentration camp inmates.

Such clashes have become more frequent in recent years, as ultra-Orthodox Jews, who make up 10 per cent of the country’s population, are said to be growing increasingly aggressive in their attempts to impose their conservative ways on others. So is the religious divide in Israel growing? And is there a link between the Holocaust and the existence of the state of Israel?

Earlier last year, before the recent demonstrations, Talk to Al Jazeera met Yehuda Bauer, a prominent Holocaust scholar at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who says that the foundation of the state of Israel and its link to the Holocaust is weak. In fact, he says, the Holocaust almost prevented the establishment of the state by destroying much of the population the Zionist movement had expected to move to Israel.

On the question of how to achieve peace with the Palestinians as Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, stands firm on his demand that the Palestinians must recognise Israel as a Jewish state, Bauer says: “I think that is proof of his [Netanyahu's] internal insecurity. If you are secure in your Jewish identity you do not need Abu Mazen or Saeb Erekat to tell you that you are a Jew. Do they need me to fortify their belief that they are Palestinian?”

Bauer believes Palestinians and all other minorities living on Israeli soil should be given equal rights to Israelis, because a national state “should grant absolutely equal rights, not just formal rights, to the minorities that are within it”.

On this episode of Talk to Al Jazeera, Yehuda Bauer talks to Teymoor Nabili about being a historian in a region where there are as many versions of history as there are people telling them, Jewish identity and extremism and navigating between conservative Jews and Palestinians.

“There is a certain closeness in attitudes, in outlooks, in social psychology …. We are cousins. Cousins very often quarrel in a very unpleasant way, but I think that we could arrive at an arrangement where live and let live could become a viable option – it is not now, obviously, but it could become that. There is a danger of a violent Jewish radical, genocidal nationalism with a minority of Israeli Jews. There is such a minority, it’s very dangerous, I think we have to exert great pressure on these people to limit that, and finally to conquer it. This group of radical Jewish nationalists, genocidal radical Jewish nationalists, are a mirror image of radical Islam that wants to annihilate all the Jews in the world. But on both sides there is a danger. Here it is a minority, but that could change ….”

Yehuda Bauer

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799px-Taake_Hellfest_2009_1_NB

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Norwegian Black Metal Band Nominated for Music Prize Despite anti-Muslim Lyrics

Posted on 12 January 2012 by Amago

Norwegian Black Metal Band Nominated for Music Prize Despite anti-Muslim Lyrics

A black metal band nominated for Norway’s top music prize has rejected claims that lyrics on its latest album go too far in their criticism of Islam.

Taake’s nomination for the Spellemann Prize in the Best Metal Album category has sparked a strong reaction from listeners who find some of the band’s lyrics objectionable, newspaperAftenposten reports. In the song Orkan (“Hurricane”) on its latest album, Noregs Vaapen, the band sings: “To hell with Muhammad and the Mohammedans” and their “unforgivable customs”. It ends with the line: “Norway will soon awaken”.

Marte Thorsby, chairman of the prize committee’s board, denied any assertion that the jury must not have listened to the album properly before announcing the nomination. “We enjoy full freedom of expression in Norway and a Spellemann jury is not going to censor content in any way,” she told Aftenposten.

Søderlind said the lyrics were presumably written prior to last summer’s terror attacks in Norway, “and in the aftermath of July 22nd they’re completely over the edge”. “I’d imagine Taake aren’t particularly proud of these lyrics after Utøya,” he said, referring to the massacre of 69 young people at a summer camp by anti-Islam extremist Anders Behring Breivik.

In a written response to the newspaper, Taake front-man Ørjan Stedjeberg said his sole intention with the contentious lyrics was to criticize religion. “Our view, in the name of freedom of expression, is that it is shameful to adhere to Christianity or Islam. Incidentally, Christianity is mentioned in the same lyrics, but that doesn’t seem to have been given any emphasis,” he wrote. “Taake has never been a political band, and we do not encourage either violence or racism.”

Stedjeberg previously landed himself in hot water in 2007 when he appeared onstage with a swastika painted on his chest in Essen, Germany, where any use of the former Nazi symbol is strictly prohibited. In a statement released after the incident, Stedjeberg said: “Taake is not a political Nazi band, etc. We certainly didn’t expect the current threat reactions, as everyone should know by now that our whole concept is built upon provocation and anything evil- and death-related.”

The Spellemann Prize winners will be announced at a ceremony on January 14th.

The Local, 6 January 2011

Via Islam in Europe

According to the Wikipedia entry on Taake, after subsequent concerts on the band’s German tour were cancelled due to the Essen incident Stedjeberg posted a statement on the Taake website in which he wrote: “we truly apologize to all of our collaborators who might get problems because of the Essen swastika scandal (except for the Untermensch owner of that club; you can go suck a Muslim).”

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Nigeria_Muslim_Christian_Unity4

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Nigerians Want to Transcend Sectarian and Ethnic Violence

Posted on 11 January 2012 by Garibaldi

There are those who look at violence between Muslims and Christians with glee, such as Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. For them, when Muslims act criminally or hatefully it is more fodder to smear Islam, while dismissing the same logic for Christian attacks on Muslims.

What boggles their mind however is when Muslims and Christians come together and oppose sectarianism and actively seek peace and reconciliation.

This is the case in Nigeria, where many want to transcend sectarian and ethnic violence (h/t: SK).

Here for example are pictures of recent protests in Nigeria showing solidarity and unity between Nigerians and Muslims:

Muslim and Christian Nigerians holding up their respective symbols

An Imam and a Pastor in a show of unity

Christians protesters protecting praying Muslim protesters (something we also saw in Egypt):

Muslims are also protecting Christian centers of worship. This needs to become a movement within Nigeria (h/t: Thomas Miles):

Protest: Muslim Youths Guard Churches

Some youths, mainly Muslim faithful, organised themselves into groups yesterday to guard worshippers in some churches in parts of Minna, Niger State capital, as part of a solidarity gesture against the removal of oil subsidy.

LEADERSHIP observed in Kpakungu area of Minna that some of the youths earlier dispersed by the Police on Friday from protesting at the Polo Field, Minna, had regrouped to protect some of the churches.

It was observed that the youths mounted the gates of the churches as their Christian counterparts were worshipping, and conducted themselves peacefully in order not to cause any apprehensions.

The youths, under the umbrella of Concerned Minna Residents, were last Friday dispersed by the police for lack of identity, with the Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Mohammed Maishanu,  saying they could not be granted a permit to hold protest.

The leader of the group, Awaal Gata, told LEADERSHIP in an interview at St Mary’s Catholic Church, Kpakungu, said, “we are protecting our fellow Christian brothers and sisters to show the people that our leaders cannot use religion to divide us.

“In this struggle, we are determined to make sure that the removal of fuel subsidy will not stay; we want to send a signal – by coming here to protect our Christians friends and to show that we are one and our Christian brothers will do same on Friday,” he added.

Asked whether they got police permit to do what they were doing, he said: “We are peaceful; we are here to protect ourselves and to emphasize that security is not only in the hands of the police -  security is the responsibility of every citizen.”

These are the forces and the voices who should be promoted. Yet extremists on both sides want to see violence in a push for power.

 

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Price tag graffiti

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The ‘Price Tag’ Attacks Continue in the West Bank

Posted on 11 January 2012 by Emperor

If Muslims were attacking synagogues or churches at this rate, we would not hear the end of it from right-wing nuts like Spencer and Geller.

Another ‘price tag’ attack in West Bank

Three cars were torched and a mosque wall was spray painted with the sentence “price tag Gal Arye Yosef” in the village of Dir Istiya near Ariel in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The sentence refers to the name of an illegal outpost that was evacuated in the last few days.

The head of the Dir Istiya local council, Nazmi Salaman, told Ynet that at 1:40 am residents noticed a car with three passengers and an Israeli license plate driving at high speed on the village’s main street towards the exit. “Immediately after that the residents noticed that three cars parked cars were on fire near the mosque and one of the fences that surround the mosque had the ‘price tag’ graffiti.”

Salaman added that at first the residents called the Palestinian DCO to report the incident, later Israeli police along with IDF troops arrived due to the fact that Dir Istiya is in Area C. “This is a continuation of attacks against Palestinians and mosques in the West Bank,” he said.

He noted that this was the second time that village property was vandalized. “The first time was in September when the Palestinian Authority launched their UN bid, and then settlers came and unsuccessfully tried to set the mosque on fire.”

Ynetnews, 11 January 2012

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Why Can’t Robert Spencer Debate Danios of LoonWatch (Again)?

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Why Can’t Robert Spencer Debate Danios of LoonWatch (Again)?

Posted on 10 January 2012 by Danios

For several years, pseudo-scholar Robert Spencer of JihadWatch has claimed that he would be willing to debate any “Leftist or Muslim” to defend his arguments.  For example, on the 13th of June 2010, Spencer bellowed:

The list of the Leftist and Muslim academics and apologists who have refused my challenge to debate is very long; they know they can’t refute what I say on the basis of evidence, so they resort to broad-based smears and personal attacks — and haughty refusals to debate.

Just a few days later on June 17th, I responded by accepting Spencer’s debate challenge:

Danios of LoonWatch Accepts Robert Spencer’s Challenge to a Debate

I accept your challenge, Spencer. I agree to a radio debate with you on the topic of jihad and “dhimmitude”, namely chapters 1-4 of your book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). It will then be seen if you can defend your own writing, which I argue is a load of sensationalist crock.

Will you accept my challenge to debate or cower in fear? My guess is that you “know [you] can’t refute what I say” and will “resort to…haughty refusals to debate.”

I predict that the JW minions will give excuses to explain away why their master Robert Spencer will refuse to debate me, instead of urging him to enter into a debate as they always do with other people who challenge his ideas. They already know that Spencer does not stand a chance in a debate with me, which is why they will continue to generate excuses to exonerate him from his intellectual cowardice. This is because deep down inside they know–as does everyone else who has followed his and my writings–what the outcome would be.

Spencer backing down from a debate with me would be curious, considering that he has already conceded that my writings are “rare occasions when the opposition does offer a substantive response.” Spencer, are you saying that you can debate with people so long as they don’t give you a substantive response, in which case you flee?

As most readers are aware, LoonWatch has become the most popular anti-Islamophobia website, giving birth to a sister site called SpencerWatch.  In fact, LoonWatch won the Brass Crescent Award in 2010 and I (Danios) won the Brass Crescent Award for Best Writer in 2011.  The people have spoken, and they clearly want to see a debate between Spencer and I.

To this effect, Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago, asked Robert Spencer in October of 2010 why he was dodging the debate with me.  A few days later, Spencer issued a furious response, in which he said:

Debating such a compromised and dishonest individual would be a waste of time

I responded to this saying:

Isn’t that the exact same reasoning that Rehab gave for refusing to debate you, Spencer? The same reasoning you were so opposed to and called cowardice?

Spencer needs another excuse to weasel out of a debate with me. What will it be? Aha! It will be my anonymity! As many of you know, I write anonymously under a pseudonym. Spencer and his fellow fans desperately want to know who I am. Some of them are convinced I am XYZ, and others that I am ABCD. Some have even engaged in textual analysis, trying extremely hard to find out who this cursed Danios is. My question is: who cares? Deal with my arguments, not who I am. Spencer says:

…Since Rehab invokes [Danios] and others have referred to his site [LoonWatch] recently, I am willing: if “Danios of Loonwatch” reveals his real name…

Spencer places this condition on me, knowing full well that I will refuse to reveal my name, since he knows that I like writing anonymously.

On November 1st, 2010, I posted another response:

JihadWatch, a vitriolic hate site run by pretend scholar Robert Spencer, has propelled itself to the forefront of the Islamophobic movement in the United States.  The fear-mongering Spencer has used his hate site to demonize Islam and Muslims.  To bolster his credibility, Robert Spencer had long ago issued an open challenge to “Muslims and leftists” to debate his ideas.

I accepted Spencer’s challenge to a debate on June 17th, 2010.  Since then, several influential Muslim-American spokesmen have expressed their interest in such a debate between Spencer and I.  This includesAhmed Rehab (Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago), who issued a scathing statement against Spencer.  However, it has now been over 135 days since I accepted Robert Spencer’s challenge.  JihadWatch has generated excuse after excuse as to why this radio debate cannot take place.

The latest set of excuses was that I must reveal who I am before a debate can take place.  Spencer issued this pre-condition knowing full well that I value my anonymity too much to do that.  He naturally thought that this was a creative way to get out of a debate with me while at the same time saving face.  Said Spencer:

Sorry, I don’t debate fictional characters or pseudonyms. “Danios of Loonwatch” can go debate Scot Harvath or Harold Robbins.

This is of course strange since Hugh Fitzgerald, the Vice President of JihadWatch since 2004, himself operates under an anonymous pseudonym.  Fitzgerald is a co-administrator of the site, alongside Spencer.  Is Fitzgerald then a “fictional character” who is only worthy of debate with Scot Harvath or Harold Robbins?

If that is the case, I challenge Hugh Fitzgerald–co-administer and Vice President of JihadWatch–to a radio debate.  The topic will be Jihad, “Dhimmitude”, and Taqiyya (Stealth Jihad), namely chapters 1-4 of Robert Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).

Hugh Fitzgerald of JihadWatch uses a pseudonym like myself, and he remains completely anonymous like myself.  Surely two “fictional characters” are worthy of debating each other, right?

Now what excuse will be generated by JihadWatch to avoid this debate with LoonWatch?  I can just see Robert Spencer’s brain churning in order to generate a reason to get out of this one.  The truth is that JihadWatch is a bully, and as soon as someone steps up to a bully and delivers a solid punch to the mouth, the bully backs down like the coward he is.

That was where we last left off, with Robert Spencer coming up with the excuse of my anonymity to dodge a radio debate with me.  In other words, it has been 572 days since I issued my radio debate challenge–and Spencer has never manned up.

Until now?

Just yesterday, Robert Spencer posted an article with the title of “Why can’t Muslims debate? (Again)”, saying:

For example, an Islamic supremacist hate site that defames me and lies about what I say regularly charged that I was refusing to debate them:

I responded by repeating yet again something I had reiterated several times in the preceding weeks, when other Muslims had thrown up this site to me:

No response to that at all.

A simple Google search will reveal how this is a great big lie.  Spencer has adamantly refused to engage in a radio debate with LoonWatch and me in particular, using my anonymity as a face-saving excuse.

Do his recent tweets reflect a change in attitude or is he still cowering in fear of me?  Spencer, are you willing to back your words with action and “debate [me] anytime”?  I will debate the accuracy of your book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), with regard to the topics of jihad, “dhimmitude”, and taqiyya.  Are you ready to defend your arguments or not?

I think most of us anticipate “no response to that at all.”

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

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Mosque Vandalized in Gatineau, Quebec: The Worst Society Has to Offer

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Mosque Vandalized in Gatineau, Quebec: The Worst Society Has to Offer

Posted on 09 January 2012 by Ilisha

Quebec Mosque

A Star of David and anti-Arab slurs were spray-painted at a mosque in Quebec

Harper condemns ‘heinous attacks’ on Gatineau mosque

Prime Minister Stephen Harper took time this week to condemn an attack by vandals at a mosque in Gatineau, Que., across the river from Ottawa.

“Our government strongly condemns these heinous attacks that have been terrorizing the whole community,” the Prime Minister said in a statement in French.

Bernie Farber, former CEO of Canadian Jewish Congress, wrote an Op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen about the importance of protecting those who face such despicable acts of racism as the vandalism of the Gatineau Mosque. 

Op-ed: The worst society has to offer

It’s difficult for those who have never experienced unbridled hatred to feel the pain that congregants of a Gatineau Mosque must be feeling today. Over the last two weeks hateful vandals have smashed windows, tried to torch cars in their parking lot and spray-painted anti-Islamic graffiti including of all things “Stars of David,” on the Mosque’s doors and windows.

Five hours west of Gatineau in the sleepy GTA bedroom community of Newmarket, Rita Brown and her partner Seun Oyinsan awoke Christmas morning to find that racist vandals had scratched an ugly epithet on the hood of their car. You see Rita and Seun are a mixedrace couple and it seems that there are at least a bigoted few in Newmarket who have yet to enter the 21st century.

Incredibly this was not the first such racist attack on this couple. In early September they were the victims of two other attacks. Swastikas and that despicable “N”-word were spray painted and scratched on the couple’s garage and van. The van also was defaced with acid and sharp nails embedded into small pieces of wood were placed under the tires. Ominously all this was followed by a warning that Rita and Seun were “not wanted in Newmarket” with a threat of violence.

In Newmarket there has been an outpouring of support. Local community newspapers have editorialized and condemned the actions. Neighbours and friends have rallied to the side of the beleaguered couple. In Gatineau condemnation came from the very top; Prime Minister Stephen Harper spoke out strongly, as has mainstream Jewish leadership all too familiar with such faith-based attacks.

Sadly some used newspaper online comments to remind us that there still remain a small number of bigotry’s fellow travellers.

Regarding the Newmarket attack one poster wrote: “I will bet a loonie or toonie that they did it themselves, they over paid for their house, couldn’t sell it and are using ‘racism’ to gain sympathy. They know some braindead liberal with White Guilt will swoop in and save the day.”

Sadly similar comments were also found online pertaining to the Gatineau incident: “This appears to be an inside job by one of the congregation trying to put the blame on Jews by spray painting the Star of David on the door …”

Thankfully, here in Canada, like most of the western world, we have created anti-hate laws as a fence of protection from the very worst society has to offer. Laws prohibiting the vilest of racist expression make it a criminal offence punishable by up to two years in jail. Acts of violence and property destruction motivated by hatred can add months and even years to a sentence.

Recently there has been a debate raging here in Canada regarding the necessity of antihate laws. There are those who believe that any restriction on speech whatsoever is an infringement on our valued right to free-speech. In 1990 the Supreme Court of Canada upheld our anti-hate laws by a slim margin. While it found that such laws were a limitation on speech, given the serious need to ensure protection of vulnerable minorities such an infringement, it argued, was justified.

I agree. We are a democracy based on justice and law. We understand that human beings are far from perfect, hence we created laws to protect society. Anti-hate laws are a kind of insurance for the future. Such laws help define us as a tolerant society. To be sure we must find the correct balance between freedom of expression and the right to equality that we all share.

Rita Brown, her partner Seun Oyinsan and congregants of the Gatineau Mosque have the right, as do we all, to live in safety, free from hatred and vilification. We have the responsibility as a nation to protect identifiable groups as defined in law from the contemptible few who find hatred their oxygen of life.

As we enter a New Year let us join hands with Rita, Seun and the Islamic community of Gatineau and wish them strength for a better 2012. Let us also hope that those who committed these despicable crimes are apprehended and face the full force of Canada’s anti-hate laws.

Bernie Farber is the former CEO of Canadian Jewish Congress. He writes often on human and civil rights issues.

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China_Mosque

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Islamophobia in China: Violence Breaks Out in Xinjiang

Posted on 08 January 2012 by Emperor

China_Mosque

Islamophobia in China: Violence Breaks Out in Xinjiang

by Chally Kacelnik (Global Comment)

Western China is far from the happiest place in which to be Muslim right now. At the end of December, police killed seven people in Xinjiang, an area traditionally dominated by the Uighur Muslim ethnic group, using some very sketchy justifications. Days later, the government destroyed a mosque in Ningxia that was just set to reopen after refurbishment, prompting a fight in which at least two more people were killed. The details available on these events have been sparse and often in stark contradiction. It might seem as though we have wandered back in time to the Cultural Revolution, but we’re looking at a very twenty-first century brand of Islamophobia, infused with a legacy of ethnic tensions.

What happened in Xinjiang? The state claimed that police officers confronted a group of fifteen men who had kidnapped two people, and the kidnappers were Muslim extremists or terrorists off to “jihadist training” across the border. Government media sources and spokespeople refuse to specify the ethnic origins of the fifteen. One police officer was also killed.

Non-state media sources are reporting that this group was all Uighur, included children, and was attempting to escape Chinese repression. Other members of the group were taken into custody, and their fates are unknown. It’s far from the first time state information on violence involving Muslims has been questionable, as Edward Wong catalogues at the New York Times. There’s a lot that’s disturbing about this story, from implying that killing a group of people for supposedly kidnapping would somehow justify the killings, that they were killed in front of children, and that these people weren’t welcome in China, but weren’t allowed to leave, either.

As for Ningxia? Taoshan villagers raised USD $127 000 to renovate their mosque. After Friday prayers, the day before the opening ceremony, one hundred villagers faced one thousand soldiers and police officers. Three guesses how that went. The two confirmed dead are reported to have been elderly. This was so unexpected and unprecedented in this area that it sends a message of the state cracking down hard. That’s particularly so given that the soldiers and officers weren’t sent out until the mosque was completed, and all the more so following on immediately from the Uighur deaths.

A major difference between what happened here and what happened in Xinjiang is that the Taoshan Muslims, who say they’ve never experienced religious persecution before, are Hui. China’s biggest Muslim ethnicity, the Chinese-speaking Hui have been far better treated and tolerated by the state than any other Muslim group as they have been considered more properly Chinese – or at least they have been since the mid-twentieth century state classification of ethnic groups. (This is not at all to endorse the sentiment in the piece linked at the start of the last paragraph that Hui “are practically indistinguishable from the Han”. One wonders to whom they are practically indistinguishable.)

Read the rest: http://globalcomment.com/2012/islamophobia-in-china-violence-breaks-out-in-xinjang/

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Santorum wants to impose ‘Judeo-Christian Sharia’

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Santorum wants to impose ‘Judeo-Christian Sharia’

Posted on 07 January 2012 by Ilisha

Santorum

Rick Santorum bows his head in prayer during a campaign rally in Iowa this week.

(H/T: Ali5)

Santorum wants to impose ‘Judeo-Christian Sharia’

By Dean Obeidallah, Special to CNN

CNN Editor’s note: Dean Obeidallah is a comedian who has appeared on Comedy Central’s “Axis of Evil” special, ABC’s “The View,” CNN’s “What the Week” and HLN’s “The Joy Behar Show.” He is executive producer of the annual New York Arab-American Comedy Festival and the Amman Stand Up Comedy Festival. Follow him on Twitter.

(CNN) – There are two Rick Santorums: The first one I might not agree with, but the second one truly scares me.

“Santorum One” pushes for less government regulation for corporations and shrinking the federal government. You may or may not agree with these positions, but they are both mainstream conservative fare.

Then there’s “Santorum Two.” This Santorum wants to impose conservative Christian law upon America. Am I being hyperbolic or overly dramatic with this statement? I wish I were, but I’m not.

Plainly put, Rick Santorum wants to convert our current legal system into one that requires our laws to be in agreement with religious law, not unlike what the Taliban want to do in Afghanistan.

Santorum is not hiding this. The only reason you may not be aware of it is because up until his recent surge in the polls, the media were ignoring him. However, “Santorum Two” was out there telling anyone who would listen.

He told a crowd at a November campaign stop in Iowa in no uncertain terms, “our civil laws have to comport with a higher law: God’s law.”

On Thanksgiving Day at an Iowa candidates’ forum, he reiterated: “We have civil laws, but our civil laws have to comport with the higher law.”

Yes, that means exactly what you think it does: Santorum believes that each and every one of our government’s laws must match God’s law, warning that “as long as there is a discordance between the two, there will be agitation.” I’m not exactly sure what “agitation” means in this context, but I think it’s a code word for something much worse than acid reflux.

And as an aside, when Santorum says “God,” he means “not any god (but) the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” So, if your god differs from Rick’s, your god’s views will be ignored, just like the father is on “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”

Some of you might be asking: How far will “Santorum Two” take this? It’s not like he’s going to base public policy decisions on Bible passages, right?

Well, here’s what Santorum had to say just last week when asked about his opposition to gay marriage: “We have Judeo-Christian values that are based on biblical truth. … And those truths don’t change just because people’s attitudes may change.”

Santorum could not be more unambiguous: His policy decisions will be based on “biblical truths,” and as he noted, these “truths” will not change regardless of whether public opinion has evolved since the time the Bible was written thousands of years ago.

Imagine if either of the two Muslim members of Congress declared their support for a proposed American law based on verses from the Quran. The outcry would be deafening, especially from people like Santorum.

One of the great ironies is that Santorum has been a leader in sounding alarm bells that Muslims want to impose Islamic law — called Sharia law — upon non-Muslims in America. While Santorum fails to offer even a scintilla of credible evidence to support this claim, he continually warns about the “creeping” influence of Muslim law.

Santorum’s fundamental problem with Sharia law is that it’s “not just a religious code. It is also a governmental code. It happens to be both religious in nature and origin, but it is a civil code.”

Consequently, under the Sharia system, the civil laws of the land must comport with God’s law. Now, where did I hear about someone wanting to impose only laws that agree with God’s law in America?

So, what type of nation might the United States be under Rick Santorum’s Sharia law?

1. Rape victims would be forced to give birth to the rapist’s child. Santorum has stated that his religious beliefs dictate that life begins at conception, and as a result, rape victims would be sentenced to carrying the child of the rapist for nine months.

2. Gay marriages would be annulled. Santorum recently declaredthat not only does he oppose gay marriages, but he supports a federal constitutional amendment that would ban them, invalidating all previous gay marriages that have legally been sanctioned by states and thus callously destroying marriages and thrusting families into chaos.

3. Santorum would ban all federal funding for birth control and would not oppose any state that wanted to pass laws making birth control illegal.

4. No porn! I’m not kidding. Santorum signed “The Marriage Vow”pledge (PDF) authored by the Family Leader organization, under which he swears to oppose pornography. I think many would agree that alone should disqualify him from being president.

To me, “Santorum Two” truly poses an existential threat to the separation of church and state, one of the bedrock principles of our nation since its inception. Not only did Thomas Jefferson speak of the need to create “a wall of separation between church and state,” so did Santorum’s idol, Ronald Reagan, who succinctly stated, “church and state are, and must remain, separate.”

While there may be millions of Americans who in their heart agree with the views of “Santorum Two,” it is my hope they will reject any attempts to move America closer to a becoming the Afghanistan of the Western Hemisphere.

 

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Kristy_Bamu

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Kristy Bamu Murdered Over Witch Claim

Posted on 07 January 2012 by Emperor

Kristy_Bamu

Eric Bikubi and Magalie Bamu

The “witchcraft” imbecility rears its ugly head again. If this were a report coming from Saudi Arabia you could be sure that Islam would be blamed.

 Kristy Bamu ‘murdered over witch claim’ in Newham

A 15-year-old boy was tortured and drowned by his sister and her boyfriend because they believed he was a witch, the Old Bailey has heard.

Kristy Bamu, from Paris, was found dead in Newham, east London, on Christmas Day in 2010.

The boy had 101 injuries and died from being beaten with a metal bar and drowning, the court heard.

His sister Magalie Bamu and her boyfriend, Eric Bikubi, both Congolese and aged 28, of Newham, deny murder.

Prosecutors told jurors of acts they described as “depraved”, “wicked” and “cruel”.

Kristy Bamu and his siblings were visiting London from Paris during the Christmas holidays Kristy Bamu and his siblings were visiting London from Paris during the Christmas holidays

Mr Bikubi admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, a plea not accepted by the prosecution.

‘Armoury of weapons’

Kristy and his siblings were visiting the couple for Christmas, but Mr Bikubi had accused the boy and two of his siblings of witchcraft, the court heard.

All three were beaten and other children were forced to join in the attacks. But it was Kristy who became the focus of Mr Bikubi’s attention, the prosecution said.

The teenager was said to be in such pain after days of being hit with an “armoury of weapons” including sticks, pliers, a metal bar, hammer and chisel that he begged to die.

Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, said: “Eventually Bikubi took him into the bathroom, put him in the bath and started to run the water.

“Kristy was just too badly injured and exhausted to resist or to keep his head above the water.

“It was only when he [Mr Bikubi] realised that Kristy was not moving that he stopped what he was doing and pulled him from the water.”

He added: “By then it was too late.”

The youngsters were forced to lie to their parents about what was happening when they phoned home, the jury heard.

Mr Altman said of Kristy’s father: “He had sent his children on holiday, not to a torture chamber.”

When police arrived they found Kristy and his siblings – brother Yves, 22, and and sister Kelly, 20, and other children.

Mr Altman said: “All were standing in the living room, hysterical, terrified and soaking wet.

‘Sorcerers’

“None of them spoke any English.”

Kelly Bamu said Mr Bikubi and Ms Bamu accused Kristy, herself and a third child of “being witches or sorcerers – practising witchcraft” which adversely influenced another child.

“Despite her own siblings’ denials that they were sorcerers, Magalie Bamu joined her boyfriend in repeating these fantastic claims and participating in the assaults,” Mr Altman said.

The three were beaten and refused food, drink and sleep and eventually, to stop the torture, they admitted being sorcerers, the jury was told.

Mr Altman said Mr Bikubi’s admission of manslaughter was rejected by the prosecution, which argues the couple carried out “the very deliberate murder” of Kristy.

‘Feral and evil’

Ms Bamu also denies two charges of causing actual bodily harm to her other siblings.

The defendants are originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The jury heard that witchcraft or sorcery – called kindoki – is practised in Congolese Christian churches.

Mr Altman said that taken out of the church’s control “it may take on a feral and indeed evil character, as we suggest it did here”.

The court heard that in 2008 Mr Bikubi had accused a family friend of being involved in witchcraft and had forced her to cut her hair short to purge herself.

The trial continues.

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Police say the Outaouais Islamic Centre has been the target of vandalism four times in the last six months. (CBC)

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Gatineau Mosque again Hit by Vandals

Posted on 06 January 2012 by Amago

Police say the Outaouais Islamic Centre has been the target of vandalism four times in the last six months. (CBC)

Police say the Outaouais Islamic Centre has been the target of vandalism four times in the last six months. (CBC)

Gatineau mosque again hit by vandals

WARNING: This article contains images with offensive language

A mosque in Gatineau, Que., that has been a target of vandalism was spray-painted with graffiti overnight.

Workers at the Outaouais Islamic Centre awoke Thursday to discover swear words and derogatory references to Arabs and Allah spray-painted in white.

The vandals painted messages on the front doors, across the building’s side and on two other entrances to the building.

The mosque had earlier been vandalized Monday morning when windows were damaged and someone attempted to set fire to two cars in the parking lot.

4th incident in 6 months

Gatineau police were investigating a number of incidents of vandalism at the mosque over the last few months. Police said it was the fourth incident in the last six months.

Mosque secretary general Amadou Thiam said the vandalism was a “provocation” and called on members of the mosque to remain calm.

Thiam urged police to do their utmost to find the perpetrators. The mosque has turned over security video footage to police.

Thiam also urged Gatineau city officials to show their support for the mosque.

Graffiti was spray-painted on the front door and two back doors of the mosque. (CBC)

Graffiti was spray-painted on the front door and two back doors of the mosque. (CBC)

Muslim, Jewish groups condemn attack

The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN) condemned the vandalism Thursday and said authorities should investigate the incident as a hate crime.

“The repeated vandalism, within days of the previous attack, of this specific mosque is deeply troubling. Attacks on all our nation’s houses of worship must be condemned by all Canadians and should be investigated and prosecuted using all available law enforcement resources,” said Ihsaan Gardee, CAIR-CAN executive director.

Jewish Stars of David were also spray painted on the walls.

Shimon Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, also condemned the attacks.

“We unequivocally condemn all acts of vandalism committed against any place of worship,” Fogel said in a statement.

National Muslim and Jewish groups have condemned the vandalism. (CBC)

National Muslim and Jewish groups have condemned the vandalism. (CBC)

Mosque member says he isn’t taking attack personally

The mosque, located off Saint Joseph Boulevard just north of St. Jean-Bosco Park, draws about 500 people for Friday prayers and serves a community estimated at close to 5,000 people.

Mosque member Walid Ali said he didn’t think the incident was a hate crime.

“Maybe someone was drunk or something, I don’t think he deeply means it,” said Ali.

“I’ve been here more than three years and this has never happened,” he said.

Original post: Gatineau mosque again hit by vandals

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Anders Behring Breivik, Norway Killer, Insanity Ruling Debated

Posted on 05 January 2012 by Amago

Anders Behring Breivik, Norway Killer, Insanity Ruling Debated

OSLO, Norway — Prison psychiatrists monitoring confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik say he is not psychotic and he has not been put on medication, a prosecutor said in a court filing Wednesday, adding fuel to calls to reassess whether he is legally insane.

The original finding by two court-appointed psychiatrists has been fiercely debated by mental health experts and several lawyers representing the victims of the massacre that rocked Norway over the summer have demanded the Oslo District Court order a second evaluation.

But, prosecutor Svein Holden said Wednesday in a letter to the court that despite the new information he would not seek another evaluation. Breivik has recently been given access to media in prison and could try to manipulate new experts in ways that would be favorable to him, he said.

Prosecutors say they would rather let experts testify at the upcoming trial.

Breivik, 32, has confessed to setting off a bomb that ripped through Oslo’s government district on July 22, killing eight people, then opening fire at the summer camp of the governing Labor Party’s youth wing, killing another sixty-nine.

The Nov. 29 finding by two psychiatrists said Breivik was insane during the bomb-and-shooting rampage. In that report, the psychiatrists, who spent 36 hours talking to Breivik, described him as a man living in a “delusional universe” – a paranoid schizophrenic who had lost touch with reality.

However, in his letter to the court, Holden says four psychiatrists at Ila prison in Oslo, where Breivik is held in pretrial detention, informed him they have not observed any signs that he is psychotic.

The prison has not started medication of Breivik or seen any need to move him to another facility, Holden added.

The deadline for parties to file their demands is on Friday and the court will decide some time next week whether a new evaluation should be made, court spokesman Geir Engebretsen said.

Breivik’s defense attorney Geir Lippestad didn’t return calls seeking comment.

The trial is set to begin April 16. If declared mentally fit and convicted of terrorism, Breivik would face up to 21 years in prison or an alternative custody arrangement that could keep him behind bars indefinitely.

If the courts declare him insane, he would be given three-year terms of psychiatric care that can be extended for as long as necessary.

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Alleged Queens Firebomber Wanted to Massacre Muslims in Mosque, Prosecutors Say

Posted on 05 January 2012 by Emperor

Ray Lazier Lengend

Ray Lazier Lengend

Another update to the story. The man did want to kill as many Muslims and Arabs as possible.

Alleged Queens firebomber wanted to massacre Muslims in mosque, prosecutors say

By Rocco Parascandola, Matt Mcnulty, Kerry Burke AND Kevin Deutsch

(NYDailyNews)
THE UNHINGED Queens pyromaniac who unleashed a scary New Year’s Day firebombing spree had planned to take out “as many Muslims and Arabs as possible” by lobbing Molotov cocktails at worshipers inside a mosque, prosecutors said.

Ray Lazier Lengend, 40, allegedly told cops he had planned to inflict “as much damage as possible” by hurling all five of his firebombs from the balcony of Imam Al-Khoei Islamic Center onto the crowd below.

The hateful bomb-hurler, who is under psychiatric observation at Bellevue Hospital center, flat-out told detectives he did not like Muslims or Arabs, prosecutors said.

“This is a message to anyone who does this in the future,” said Imam Maan Al-Sahlani, leader of Imam Al-Khoei Islamic Center, where Lengend planned to inflict major casualties. “It’s a good message that justice will come for you, the police will come for you.”

The imam applauded prosecutors’ use of the hate crime statute and hoped it would deter further anti-Muslim crimes.

“Obviously there is something wrong with him,” Al-Sahlani said.
Lengend, an unemployed truck driver from Queens Village, will face a judge via video arraignment Thursday from his bed at Bellevue.

He faces 18 charges including arson as a hate crime and weapon possession for throwing Starbucks Frappuccino bottles filled with gasoline at four occupied Jamaica buildings — two of them places of worship.

Lengend’s brother-in-law, Bejai Rai, 73, said his Elmont, L.I., house was also firebombed because he evicted Lengend for not paying rent.

“He had a vendetta against us,” Rai told the Daily News. “He tried to kill my wife, my two sons and my sister. I’m glad they got him otherwise he’d be back to firebomb us again.”

Rai said his family could not sleep until Lengend was caught.

“This is the first night we’ve been able to rest since the bombing.”
Lengend carried out his spree in a silver Buick Regal, which had been stolen from a rental car business at Kennedy Airport.

He first drove to to a gas station off the Van Wyck Expressway at Hillside Ave. and bought five glass Frappuccino bottles, before heading to another gas station and filling them with fuel.

His first target was Hillside Deli on 179th St., where Lengend threw a flaming glass bottle that ignited upon hitting the floor.

He burned four other targets, including the mosque and a Hindu place of worship on 170th St., but did not inflict the massive damage he hoped for, prosecutors said.

Lengend confessed to three earlier attacks as well, sources said. He claimed ongoing beefs were his motive for all eight crimes.

With Thomas Zambito
kdeutsch@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/alleged-queens-firebomber-wanted-massacre-muslims-mosque-prosecutors-article-1.1001193#ixzz1ibr8d9Z8

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Newcastle, Australia: Mosque Attacked by Several Men, One with a Cross Tattooed on His Neck

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Newcastle, Australia: Mosque Attacked by Several Men, One with a Cross Tattooed on His Neck

Posted on 05 January 2012 by Garibaldi

Mosque_Attack

Mosque Attack

The Newcastle mosque in Australia has been attacked several times. “Srebrenica,” a reference to the slaughter of thousands of Muslims during the genocide against Bosnian Muslims was spray painted on the mosque just a month ago.

Now, a few thugs forced worshippers into locking themselves in the mosque so as to avoid confrontation and violence with them. I don’t believe there is a correlation between Spencer’s recent visit to Australia and this attack on the mosque, however, such attacks are the Islamophobes’ wet dream.

Many Islamophobes love violence against Muslims. Violent rhetoric against Muslims is what sites like BareNakedIslam regularly indulge in, such sites are defended by Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, whose own sites have approved of violence and intimidation directed at Muslims.

(Visit the original site for video of the attack):

Wallsend mosque attack: worshippers fear escalating violence

BY JANEK SPEIGHT (The Herald)

AN attack on a Newcastle mosque, trapping seven worshippers inside, has been caught on security camera.The attack happened only minutes after a group of children had finished a scripture class and is the latest in a series of incidents that have left the city’s Muslim community feeling ‘‘vulnerable and scared’’.In the security footage, which has been provided to police, two tattooed men are seen to approach the Wallsend mosque about 9.30pm on Monday.One man, with a large tattoo of a cross on his neck, kicks through the fence gate and hurls an object at the mosque’s front door.

Then he runs and smashes a flying kick into the door.

More objects are thrown at the building and one of the men is seen to shout what appears to be abuse.

Newcastle Muslim Association vice-president Diana Rah said seven worshippers were inside the mosque at the time and managed to lock the main entrance on the side of the building.

The two men tried to kick through this entrance but were unsuccessful, she said.

Ms Rah said a group of children left the mosque after an evening scripture class only minutes before the men arrived.

Newcastle police Chief Inspector Dean Olsen said the attack was being investigated. He called for anyone with information to come forward.

Click below to see images taken from the CCTV footage.

Ms Rah said incidents against the mosque had increased in the past three months.

Garbage had been thrown across the mosque’s front lawn and the fence had been broken down on another occasion.

In April, an envelope containing photographs of three slaughtered pigs was left at the mosque’s doorstep. The pigs had been half-buried on land where a new mosque was to be built.

Last month the word ‘‘Srebrenica’’ was sprayed in graffiti across a neighbour’s car parked outside the mosque.

Srebrenica is the name of the town where 8000 Muslims were massacred in July 1995 during the Bosnian war.

The association had also received abusive emails and threats.

Ms Rah said that in the past 20 years there had been only a handful of isolated incidents directed at the Wallsend mosque.

But since the association had made plans to establish its mosque at Elermore Vale, the incidents had increased and were ‘‘starting to become a pattern’’.

Ms Rah said the Newcastle Muslim Association had ‘‘a lot of faith in the wider Newcastle community’’ and knew the majority were not responsible for the ‘‘unacceptable’’ acts.

The association had installed a high-tech security camera system.

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Shopper Hit by Stun Gun possibly a Hate Crime Victim

Posted on 04 January 2012 by Amago

Shopper hit by stun gun possibly a hate crime victim

By HOWARD ALTMAN

TAMPA –

A stun gun apparently was used on a woman at a New Tampa Walmart on New Year’s Day, and police are investigating whether she was the victim of a hate crime.

The victim, a Muslim who was wearing a traditional ethnic dress known as a salwar, told investigators she was hit by a stun gun fired by another shopper shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday at the store at 19910 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.

A video of the incident does not show the victim being hit by the stun gun, said McElroy. But she did have marks “consistent” with being hit by a stun gun, McElroy said.

“She has two marks on her back,” McElroy said. “We have no reason to doubt what she is saying.”

The video shows the suspect and another woman following the victim through the store as if she were being targeted, McElroy said. The video does not show an exchange between the women, the stun gun incident or the victim being hit, but that may have occurred off-camera, said McElroy.

Before police can determine if the incident rises to the level of a hate crime, they must first find the suspect, described as a heavy-set white female, about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and between ages 30 and 49, said McElroy.

Investigators, she said, will have to determine if the offense “was based on prejudice against victim’s race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation.”

McElroy said the victim’s daughters raised the issue of whether she was being targeted because of her religion.

Another possibility, said McElroy, is that the victim may have been targeted because of the big purse she had in her shopping cart.

Efforts to reach the victim by phone were not immediately successful.

Hassan Shibly, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, said, “If indeed this was a hate crime it is a clear sign that anti-Muslim rhetoric is not cost free and may unfortunately lead to senseless attacks against law abiding American Muslims.”

Shibly said via email that regardless of the motive, he hopes the suspect is caught.

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Update: Raylazir Legend Faces Hate Crime Charges Due to “Anti-Muslim Statements” in Attack on Mosque

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Update: Raylazir Legend Faces Hate Crime Charges Due to “Anti-Muslim Statements” in Attack on Mosque

Posted on 03 January 2012 by Emperor

The man had a personal vendetta against his targets, but also confessed anti-Muslim sentiments. (Thanks for all the hat tips)

Suspect confesses in Queens, L.I. firebomb attacks: cops 

A Queens man confessed Tuesday to a firebombings spree on New Year’s Day — claiming a personal vendetta drove him to tossing the Molotov cocktails, police said.

The firebug — identified by sources as Raylazir Legend, 40 — told detectives that each of the five attacks in Queens and Elmont, L.I. — including an attempt to torch a Jamaica mosque — stemmed from ongoing beefs.

“The suspect made statements incriminating himself in each of the five firebombings, citing a personal grievance or dispute in each instance,” said Paul Browne, top spokesman for the NYPD.

Legend, an unemployed towtruck driver, was still waiting to be charged Tuesday, but a law enforcement official said he faces arson and hate-crime charges because of “broad anti-Muslim statements” he made during his confession.

Legend was cuffed about 8 a.m. Tuesday, after Detectives Richard Johnson and Charles LoPresti of the 103rd Precinct saw him get into a stolen car linked to the first attack: a Hillside Ave. bodega.

Legend was caught by workers at the bodega on Dec. 27 trying to steal a carton of milk and a Starbucks Frappuccino.

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The Muslim Comedian and the Islamophobe: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Interview

Posted on 03 January 2012 by Amago

The Muslim comedian and the Islamophobe:  A funny thing happened on the way to the interview

by Sheila Musaji

Robert Spencer and his fellow Islamophobes are fond of asking Muslims impossible questions, demanding that Muslims “admit” to something or another, and developing tests for Muslims to “prove” that they are “one of us”.  Daniel Pipes had a test, David Horowitz had a petition he wanted Muslims to sign, Former Muslims United had a pledge against punishment for apostasy (created two years after an actual Muslim statement on this topic was issued) , the list goes on and on.  None of these are serious attempts at understanding anything.  They simply demand simple answers to complicated questions, or include some bigoted assumption within the question that no Muslim would agree with and demand a yes or no answer.

This is the infamous legal tactic exemplified by the question “Have you stopped beating your wife?  Answer yes or no!”

The most recent prove to me you’re not a radical Muslim test came out of a simple reqest for an interview with Robert Spencer by the Muslim comedian Dean Obeidallah.  Loonwatch lays out the background of this incident very well

Dean Obeidallah is working on an Islamophobia documentary and asked Robert Spencer if he could interview him. A simple request one would think? Spencer of course is chicken (as we have shown before), he doesn’t want to be exposed for the buffoon he is, and so he responded to Obeidallah with an inquisition-like (pun intended), 1,000+ worded questionnaire.

Isn’t this extremely odd? Spencer attempted to pass off his fear of this interview by claiming that Obeidallah was “running” from his questions. When Obeidallah called him out on not presenting the truth, Spencer begrudgingly published Obeidallah’s response:

Robert – I dont have the time to answer all ur questions in the midst of editing a film and all the other projects Im working on – in fact I didnt even finish reading all of them.

You dont know me but Im a rather direct person so so let me make this easy: If you are interested in being interviewed for our film, I can assure you that we will not quote u out of context or play any games with you- we will ask u straightforward questions – most of which Im sure u have been asked before.

If ur interested then lets please lock in a date when u will be in NYC and conduct the interview. If you’re not interested then lets not waste any more of each other’s time-I know we are both busy people.

Thanks, Dean

That’s pretty direct in my opinion. What is Spencer so scared of? Isn’t he the “champion of freedom,” defending the West against the Muslim hordes?

Here is an opportunity Spencer for you to put your cape on and be the champion of the “counter-Jihad” world!

Here is the 1,000 word plus questionnaire required by Spencer in order to consider being interviewed by Obeidallah, and I have taken the liberty of responding to the questions myself.

1. True or false: No comedy show, no matter how clever or winning, is going to eradicate the suspicion that many Americans have of Muslims. This is because Americans are concerned about Islam not because of the work of greasy Islamophobes, but because of Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; and Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; and Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; and Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; and Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; and Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; and Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh, who hatched a jihad plot to blow up a Manhattan synagogue; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; and many others like them who have plotted and/or committed mass murder in the name of Islam and motivated by its texts and teachings — all in the U.S. in the last couple of years

The only Americans who are concerned only about Muslims who have carried out or plotted terrorist actions are those who have fallen for Robert Spencer and other “greasy Islamophobe’s” big lie about the actual terrorism threat coming primarily from Muslims.  All of us need to be concerned about all such actions, including those by non-Muslims such as — Ray H. Adams, Jim Adkisson, Alabama Free Militia, Chad Altman, Animal Liberation Front, Army of God, Samuel Arrington, Jonathan Avery, Sergio Baca, Daniel Barefoot, Philip Bay, John Patrick Bedell, Kody Brittingham, Seung-Hui Cho, Demetrius Van Crocker, Daniel Cowart, Samuel J. Crump, James Cummings, Matthew Derosia, Jeremy Donahoe, John Earl,  Earth Liberation Front, Paul Ross Evans, David Anthony Fuselier, Matt Hale, Jeffrey Harbin, Kevin William Hardham, Lucas John Helder, Patricia Hughes, David Hull, Hutaree Christian militia, Idaho Mountain Boys Militia, Vadim Ignatov, Bruce Ivins, JDL, Jerry and Joe Kane, KKK, Joseph Konopka, William Krar, John F. Lechner, James Lee, Ryan Daniel Lewis, Thomas Hayward Lewis, Jared Lee Loughner, Davvie Love, Keith Luke, Dennies & Daniel Mahon, Alberto Martinez, David McMenemy, Jonathan Maynard, Justin Carl Moose, Donny Eugene Mower, Patriot Movement, Robert Pickett, Richard Andrew Poplawski, Project 7, Charles Carl Roberts, Daniel & Timothy Robinson, Dan Roberts, Scott Roeder, Daniel James Schertz, Paul Schlesselman,  Kyle Shaw, Joseph Stack, Rossie L. Strickland, Roger Stockham, Texas Militia, Frederick Thomas, Bruce & Joshua Turnidge, omar Falu Vives, James von Brunn, Lonnie Vernon, Clayton Waagner, Jeffrey Weise, Byron Williams, Alexander Robert Youshock..

2. True or false: The fact that there are other Muslims not fighting jihad is just great, but it doesn’t mean that the jihad isn’t happening. This comedy show simply doesn’t address the problem of jihad terrorism and Islamic supremacism.

This is not a true or false question.  The question contains more than one element, and requires a more complex answer than is possible with a simple true or false.

3. What do you make of the fact that Islamic supremacists from the Muslim Brotherhood invented the term “Islamophobia” in order to deflect attention away from jihad violence and Islamic supremacism, and intimidate opponents thereof?

Spencer believes that he knows who coined the term “Islamophobia”.  There are certainly a number of different theories about when the term was first used.  It really doesn’t matter who used the term first.  The term itself has come to be used to describe a particular form of bigotry against Muslims and Islam, just as anti-Semitism has come to be used to describe a particular form of bigotry against Jews and Judaism.  It’s primary use is to direct attention towards outright bigotry.

4. What do you have to say about the fact that FBI statistics show that there is no “Islamophobia”?

Actually, FBI statistics do not show that there is no “Islamophobia”.  What the most recent “hate crime statistics” do show is that there have been fewer hate crimes committed against Muslims in the U.S. than there were against Jews.  Whether this might also reflect a reticence to report such crimes on the part of members of some refugee communities particularly has been discussed.  And, the same report documents the fact that the actual hate crimes against Muslims, while still lower than those against Jews, have increased by 50% over the last year.  Hate crimes statistics are only one of many possible indicators of prejudice and bigotry.

Other possible indicators of Islamophobia including EEOC complaints about work related discrimination, and a trend towards an increase of anti-Muslim, anti-Islam rhetoric from public figures, Christian andJewish clergy, and even elected representatives would appear to show that this is a word describing a real phenomenon.

5. What do you have to say about the fact that many “anti-Muslim hate crimes” have been faked by Muslims, and that Jews are eight times more likely than Muslims to be the victims of hate attacks.

For every category of hate crime there have been people who have taken advantage of an opportunity to further their own agenda and claim a hate crime where none existed.

There are hundreds of such cases.  Here are just a few:

— In Florida LB Williams, a 50-year-old black man, his wife of nearly seven years Donna Williams, who is white, and their bi-racial daughter found a cross burning in their driveway.  This was reported and investigated as a hate crime, but it turned out that Mr. Williams faked the whole thing in an attempt to stave off a divorce.
— In Anderson, California, a black high school student staged a fake hate crime because she was angry with her father for not picking her up on time.
— A Jewish student at George Washington University faked an anti-Semitic hate crime

The issue is not that there are some despicable individuals who will lie about hate crimes, but that there are far too many legitimate hate crimes against minorities.

6. True or false? Since the Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated in its own words to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within,” one easy way to do that would be to guilt-trip non-Muslims into being ashamed of resisting jihad activity and Islamic supremacism, for fear of being accused of “Islamophobia.”

Another impossible true or false question.  To think that every American Muslim is somehow privy to internal Muslim Brotherhood plots, or has ever even met a member of the Muslim Brotherhood for that matter is nonsense.  The Muslim Brotherhood document that Spencer refers to has had a lot of questions raised about its authenticity.

7. True or false: Negin Farsad, with her “eye-catching mini dresses,” etc., has more to worry about from observant Muslims than she does from “Islamophobes.”

Negin Farsad is a competent Muslim woman who can speak for herself.  Ask her the question.  My guess (as a Muslim woman myself) would be that she would say that Muslim women have as much to worry about from Muslims holding extremist interpretations of Islam, as from Islamophobes.  Being an extremist and being observant are not the same thing.

8. What do you think of this: When you call Geller (and by implication, me) a “Muslim hater,” I believe that you are ascribing people’s legitimate concerns about jihad and Islamic supremacism to “hate,” and that the only effect of this will be to make people who have those legitimate concerns to be even more suspicious of Muslims, which will only lead to more of what you call “Islamophobia.”

Geller is called a “Muslim hater” because of the hateful things she herself is documentedas saying.  — ”Devout Muslims should be prohibited from military service. Would Patton have recruited Nazis into his army?”  — I would like to feel all warm and fuzzy and embrace the moderate Muslim/ meme but they show no evidence of their existence – not in any real number anyway. The only voices of reason in the Muslim world are lapsed Muslims or apostates. — We can pretend or we can strategize on how to defeat our mortal enemy. — Muslims have no right to invoke Moses and Abraham. — Muslims have no right to invoke Moses and Abraham. — There are no moderates. There are no extremists. Only Muslims. — Islam is not a race. This is an ideology. This is an extreme ideology, the most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the earth.

And, here are a few of your own quotes, Mr. Spencer — Islam itself is an incomplete, misleading, and often downright false revelation which, in many ways, directly contradicts what God has revealed through the prophets of the Old Testament and through his Son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh… For several reasons… Islam constitutes a threat to the world at large. — no American official should be taking an oath on the Qur’an, since—as we have been pointing out here for over three years now—there are so many elements of traditional and mainstream Islam that are at variance with our system of government, our Constitution, and our entire way of life. — there is no reliable way to distinguish a “moderate” Muslim who rejects the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism from a “radical” Muslim who holds such ideas, even if he isn’t acting upon them at the moment. — The misbegotten term “Islamo-fascism” is wholly redundant: Islam itself is a kind of fascism that achieves its full and proper form only when it assumes the powers of the state. — there has been no widespread, sustained, or sincere Muslim outcry against the jihad terrorist enterprise in general. — there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists.

Geller and Spencer’s hateful rhetoric could fill a book.  Refusing to acknowledge this sort of speech as hatred will only make Muslims not only suspicious of those who engaged in such speech, but proves to us that Islamophobia really does exist.

9. Is there a plan behind your demonizing and smearing of all anti-jihadists? Do you want to create “Islamophobia” in order to claim privileged victim status for Muslims and exempt them from reasonable law enforcement scrutiny?

Actually, no we would like to shine a bright spotlight on Islamophobia and it’s purveyors so that decent people can see it for what it is and reject it as bigotry pure and simple, so that we can stop wasting time responding to bigotry against all Muslims and use that time to work together to fight against actual Muslim and non-Muslim extremists.

10. What kind of work have you done to raise awareness about the escalating persecution of non-Muslim minorities in Muslim societies, which is far worse in Egypt, Pakistan and elsewhere than Muslims have it here? Why not?

Dean Obeidallah is an American Muslim comedian.  He is not responsible for solving all of the problems of the world, even those directly involving Muslims anymore than every Christian is responsible for solving all of the problems of the world directly involving Christians.  Spencer, you are Catholic, what have you done to raise awareness about the pedophilia crisis in the Catholic Church, or about the genocide of Muslims by Christians in Bosnia, or about brutality and slaughter by the Christian Lord’s Resistance Army in Africa, or about numerous other crimes involving Christians?  It’s ludicrous to believe that every individual member of any religious group is personally responsible for every injustice committed anywhere in the world by anyone who shares the same religion.

11. On what basis do you imply that those who are defending freedom against jihad are “exhibiting behavior which is less than consistent with the values of this nation”? What have you done to resist the Muslim Brotherhood’s stated agenda of “sabotaging” this nation “from within”?

You are not defending freedom against jihad, you are consistently demonizing Muslims.  And, it is not only Muslims who are openly stating that this is bigotry.  There is a reason that the ADL (A Jewish anti-defamation group) has said that Pamela Geller & Robert Spencer’s Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA) is a “group that promote an extreme anti-Muslim agenda”.  There is a reason that The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated SIOA as a hate group, and that they are featured in the SPLC reports Jihad Against Islam and The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle.  There is a reason that Geller and Spencer are featured prominently in the Center for American Progress “Fear Inc.” report on the Islamophobia network in America.  There is a reason that Geller is featured in the People for the American Way Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism.  There is a reason that Geller is featured in the NYCLU report Religious Freedom Under Attack:  The Rise of Anti-Mosque Activities in New York State.  There is a reason that Geller is featured in the Political Research Associates reportManufacturing the Muslim menace: Private firms, public servants, and the threat to rights and security.  There is a reason that the SIOA’s trademark patent was denied by the U.S. government due to its anti-Muslim nature.  There is a reason that they are featured in our TAM Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industry.  There is a reason that Gellerand Spencer are featured in just about every legitimate report on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred.

12. Aside from the murder of a Sikh by an idiot shortly after 9/11, what evidence do you have of any backlash against Muslims to which you refer so off-handedly in the WaPo? Where are Muslims suffering violence, discrimination, harassment of any kind? Even you expected far worse than you got when you went to the South — and the level of harassment you did get was no worse than what I get in my email every day. So why the overblown claims about it?

You need to do a little research yourself, and might start with the following collections of resources:

ALARMING STATEMENTS Note, previously divided by year and now consolidated into one collection
Alarming statements by elected officials and political organizations
Answers to Peter King’s Claims About the American Muslim Community
Claim That All Terrorists are Muslims Ignores History (sections on Christian extremism and terrorismand Jewish extremism and terrorism were divided 4/08)
Existing reports and studies on radicalization and the American Muslim Community
- INCIDENTS OF ISLAMOPHOBIA - Prejudice, Racist, or Violent Incidents at MOSQUES Incidents, hate crimes -  Tariq Ramadan incident – and Khalil Gibran Academy incident and Obsession film incidentIslamo-Fascism Awareness Week incident
Islamo-Fascism?:  Deceptive Labels & Propaganda are Counterproductive
Islamophobia: Real or imagined
MEDIA, Propaganda & Perception
Polls, statistics, and surveys relating to Islam and Muslims
A Long History of Injustice Ignored
A Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industry
What everyone “knows” about Islam and Muslims

13. And yes, what do you think about these recommendations?

Do Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah really want to eradicate “Islamophobia”? As long as Islamic jihad and supremacism continue, a comedy tour will never do the trick. But here is an easy way. They can call on Muslims in the U.S. to do these things:

1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively, sincerely, honestly, and in deeds, not just in comforting words, not just “terrorism,” but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. In line with this, clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by stating unequivocally that American and Israeli civilians are innocent people, teaching accordingly in mosques and Islamic schools, and behaving in accord with these new teachings.
3. Teach, again sincerely and honestly, in transparent and verifiable ways in mosques and Islamic schools, the imperative of Muslims coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis, and act accordingly.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach sincerely against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively and honestly work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities

1 and 2.  Please see the thousands of fatwas, statements, articles, etc. by Muslims denouncing extremists committing violent acts in the name of Islam in our TAM collection Muslim Voices Against Extremism and Terrorism.  Type “lunatic fringe” into the search engine of TAM for numerous articles denouncing particular extremists and extremist groups.  See my article American Muslims must defend the Constitution of the United States in which I said America is a secular and democratic nation with a clearly marked wall between church and state (thank God!).  One of the reasons America has been a beacon to the world is the freedom that all Americans have to practice any (or no) religion.  As an American Muslim I don’t believe that America can be defined as anything but a secular democracy (secular meaning neutral towards religion, not devoid of religion or hostile to religion) in which all religions are free to worship.  I don’t want to see Shariah, or Biblical law, or any other religious law replace the Constitution, and I don’t want to see any kind of a theocracy in place based on any religion.  I agree with Rabbi Arthur Waskow that “When those who claim their path alone bespeaks God’s Will control the State to enforce their will as God’s, it is God Who suffers.” All civilians are innocent including Americans, Israelis, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Iranians, etc.

3.  There are numerous existing studies, polls, and statements about radicalization in the Muslim community and how the community is working to counter attempts by extremists to radicalize individuals here.  The efforts within the Muslim community are numerous.  MPAC alone has many ongoing efforts including the NATIONAL GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN TO FIGHT TERRORISM and BUILDING BRIDGES TO STRENGTHEN AMERICA: BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE COUNTERTERRORISM ENTERPRISE BETWEEN MUSLIM AMERICANS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT.  Also type “radicalization” into the TAM search engine for numerous articles, etc.

4.  Why would American Muslims be responsible for building comprehensive programs in other countries.  We are Americans.

5.  Muslims have already done this.  And, in fact, many of the actual arrests made of individuals plotting some terrorist act were made because of tips from American Muslims.

To sum up, yes you are an Islamophobe.  The fact that you and your partner Pamela Geller have shown time and time again that you have a tenuous grasp of the concept of “truth telling”, and haveattempted to conceal evidence when you’ve been caught in lies and distortions is shameful.  The fact that you have also shown time and time again that you have no qualms about exploiting a tragedy to further your own agenda is shameful.  The Belgian shooting tragedy, and the Hollywood shooting tragedy are just two of the most recent examples.

The fact that you are a middle aged man whose primary means of earning a living comes from being paid to churn out anti-Muslim propoganda is shameful.

A little comedy, preferably satirical about Islamophobes and their tactics wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Update Robert Spencer and David Horowitz jointly published another version of these 5 questions on Front Page Magazine.

Comments (19)

Kite_runner

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School Board Considers Ban of ‘The Kite Runner’ UPDATE

Posted on 03 January 2012 by Amago

School Board considers ban of ‘The Kite Runner’ UPDATE

The book banners never sleep. I’ve received a note that the Valley View School Board in Jonesboro will meet at 5:30 p.m. today while others watch football games to consider two complaints from school district residents about the teaching of “The Kite Runner” to honors English classes. As you might know, “good Christians” do not countenance literature that presents Muslim people in anything but an unflattering light.

We reported on this controversy earlier. The ACLU is keeping watch. Some School Board members had taken a “middle ground.” Let the book be read, but not aloud.

UPDATE: A Jonesboro correspondent reports that the board met to hear the complaints, but took no action, thus leaving the curriculum including the book in place. The public was invited to speak but only supporters of the book spoke. A round of applause followed the board’s decision to take no action, I was told.

A note before the meeting from ASU professor Norm Stafford and ACLU Board member about tonight’s meeting. There’s still time to join the throng on the side of free expression:

I am writing to urge you to attend a special meeting of the Valley View School Board tonight, Monday, January 2nd at 5:30 pm, at the office of the superintendent on the Valley View campus.The Board will decide on the complaints of two patrons opposing the teaching of Khaled Hosseneini’s The Kite Runner to senior English classes. The book has won numerous awards and is a novel recounting the redemption of a man, who as a young boy witnessed his male friend being sexually assaulted and out of fear did nothing. The novel provides insight into modern Afghanistan and the effects of war on the area and its people as well as into the brutal Taliban.

Although the central goal of those complaining is to eliminate this single text from the curriculum, they have support of strong religious forces in the area and want a homogenized curriculum. In a story in the Jonesboro Sun , one of those complaining said that students’ belief that America is one country under God would be undermined by reading the novel.

The teacher, whose abilities I know and respect, has taught the novel in the past, and now her job is at stake.

The announcement for this called meeting appeared on page 7 of the Sun on December 31st. It appears that the Valley View Board and those opposing the teaching of the novel want the issue addressed with as little publicity as possible.

Those opposing the teaching of the novel will be out in force. Those wishing to prevent this censorship need to be present as well. Please let others know of this meeting and its time and place.

Sincerely,

Norman Stafford

 

Comments (5)

Lisa-Abdelsalam

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Muslim Mom, Author Nixes School Appearance

Posted on 03 January 2012 by Amago

(Hat Tip: opperationapple)

Muslim mom, author nixes school appearance

FREDA R. SAVANA, Bucks County Courier Times

HATFIELD, Pa. (AP) — Lisa Abdelsalam said she feels “like she swallowed poison” in the days since the threat of parental protests caused the Muslim mother and author to cancel a talk with students at A.M. Kulp Elementary School in Hatfield.

“I have a such a sick feeling in my stomach,” said Abdelsalam, 48, who lives in Colmar with her husband and children, all of whom were or are North Penn students.

Born in Lansdale, the 1981 North Penn High School graduate converted to Islam at 19, when she married her husband, who is from Egypt.

As she has many times at many North Penn schools, she was scheduled to meet with several Kulp classes over four days earlier this month to discuss how she wrote and published her book, “A Song for Me, A Muslim Holiday Story,” based on her son Yoseph’s experiences at York Avenue Elementary in the 1990s.

“A Song for Me, A Muslim Holiday Story,” has illustrations based on pictures of the York Avenue school and details a Muslim boy’s efforts to fit into the holiday spirit at Christmastime.

A few days before her appearance at Kulp was to take place, Principal Erik Huebner called her.

The principal, according to Abdelsalam, told her a few parents had complained about the program and threatened to bring in an outside group to protest if the classes went forward.

“They did not want a Muslim or a Muslim book read in their classrooms,” she was told. Huebner could not be reached for comment.

Abdelsalam, a longtime volunteer at Kulp where she previously served as president of the Home and School Association, and a current member of the district’s diversity committee, was taken aback. “I was serving pizza with these people last year,” she said.

Huebner was supportive, said the author, and said she was welcome to come regardless of the protests. However, both she and the principal decided it was best to cancel, for the sake of the young students.

“I didn’t feel it would be right; it wasn’t one day, it was four days over two weeks,” she explained. “It’s not a battle that should be fought in an elementary school parking lot.”

Christine Liberaski, a spokeswoman for the North Penn School District, said she hopes the program can be rescheduled in the spring.

“I can’t speak to why some people objected,” said Liberaski, who noted that Abdelsalam previously received praise for her book and her presentation on publishing.

The idea for the book came when a music teacher approached Abdelsalam years ago when Yoseph, now 21, was in elementary school. She was asked if she could find a Muslim holiday song for the school’s annual concert. Finding none, she wrote one herself and also wrote the story. She now has two CDs of music she sells online with her book.

“It’s about inclusivity and the child being happy he’s in a school where everyone is accepted,” said Abdelsalam. “I don’t go and talk about religion.”

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Why Eric Dondero, Former Aid, is Smearing Ron Paul: He is a Rabid Islamophobe and Sharia Conspiracy Theory Nut

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Why Eric Dondero, Former Aid, is Smearing Ron Paul: He is a Rabid Islamophobe and Sharia Conspiracy Theory Nut

Posted on 03 January 2012 by Danios

DISCLAIMER: LoonWatch has not endorsed any candidate for President of the United States.  This article should not be seen as such.

Yesterday, I wrote an article about why Islamophobes hate Ron Paul.

In that same article, I explained some of my own grievances with Dr. Paul, not the least of which were the racist newsletters that were written in his  name.  As they say: Where there is smoke, there is fire.

But there is a disgruntled former aid to Ron Paul named Eric Dondero who is trying to artificially fan the flames by spreading stories about–and against–Ron Paul.

I was first alerted to the story by The Young Turks.  Dondero blogged and tweeted about Ron Paul implying that he was racist, homophobic, anti-Israel, and a 9/11 truther.

The Atlantic reported it this way:

Ex-Aide: Ron Paul’s Foreign Policy is ‘Sheer Lunacy’

A disillusioned former aide publishes scathing allegations, saying that Paul harbors anti-Israel views and is a 9/11 truther.

…[F]ormer Paul staffer Eric Dondero purporting to describe the ins and outs of Paul’s positions on everything from Israel (it shouldn’t exist) to Hitler (we shouldn’t have fought him) to 9/11 (U.S. authorities may have known about the attacks) to Afghanistan (we shouldn’t have invaded). He calls Paul’s foreign policy “sheer lunacy.”

Or, as the conservative Weekly Standard summarized in its headline: “Ex-Aide Says Ron Paul Is a 9/11 Truther & Isolationist Who Thinks U.S. Shouldn’t Have Fought Hitler.”

Eric Dondero’s statements were conveyed in a misleading way, such that many in the media portrayed them to be in defense of Ron Paul.  In fact, as Mediaite has pointed out, Dondero’s message is mixed: Ron Paul is no child molester; he just likes to fondle little boys.

What nobody in the media is doing, however, is critically examining the spurious source of these allegations: Eric Dondero.

A few users on a discussion forum (one I’m unfamiliar with, but a tip of the hat to them for unearthing this) did a bit of digging and found out that Eric Dondero’s blog is full of Islamophobic screeds.

Indeed, Dondero is a rabid Islamophobe and Sharia conspiracy theory nut.  He runs a blog LibertarianRepublican, which is replete with anti-Muslim postings.  For example, Dondero’s blog “is full of Muslims are raping blue eye blond hair Aryan women stories.”  This is not dissimilar to the white nationalist forum Stormfront where one routinely finds threads like this one: “Why do black men rape white women?”

Eric Dondero supports Pamela Geller, the looniest anti-Muslim blogger ever.  She’s the same one behind the so-called Ground Zero Mosque controversy.  Geller posted an article on her blog claiming that Barack Obama was the illegitimate love child of Malcolm X.  She has said that Obama is a Muslim, Jihadist, Pimp, and anti-Semite.  Geller has supported nuclear annihilation of Muslim holy cities and posted a genocidal video on her website.  She has posted a video claiming that Muslims commit bestiality, etc. etc.  The list goes on endlessly.

What does Eric Dondero have to say about Pamela Geller?  He writes of her:

Geller is becomming [sic] the greatest champion of liberty in our time.

Dondero supported Peter King’s McCarthy Hearings Muslim Hearings.  He has sided with the burn a Koran pastor (Terry Jones).  He also buys into the Sharia law is coming to the U.S. conspiracy theory and advocates deportation of Muslims.

On his site, Dondero cites the vitriolic hate site Faith Freedom, which was founded by Ali Sina, a man who openly declares that he hates Islam.  Dondero also relies on the extreme right-wing website World Net Daily, a conspiracy site that promoted the “Obama, show us your birth certificate” nonsense.

As one user on that discussion forum pointed out, this is just the tip of the iceberg: Eric Dondero’s numerous blog posts against Muslims make his site a lot like Jihad Watch and other nutty anti-Muslim sites, such as the one run by the Norwegian anti-Muslim terrorist Anders Behring Breivik.

Dondero opposes Muslim immigration to Western countries; here is one lovely quote from the mouth of Eric Dondero:

NO YOU STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLE. MUSLIM IMMIGRANTS ARE THE PROBLEM.

Are you an American or some fucking Communist/Fascist piece of shit sent to destroy us from within?

Why do you defend the very people who KILLED 3,000 AMERICANS AND CHEERED ALL ACROSS THE MUSLIM WORLD AS IT HAPPENED?

In the same thread, he argues to deport Muslims as “his solution” to “the problem.”

Here is what Dondero says about Muslims and Islam:

This is about an alien culture, coming into our AMERICA AND WESTERN EUROPE and invading us from within.

Why on earth is anyone taking what this guy says seriously?  As a rabid Islamophobe, Eric Dondero has every reason to hate Ron Paul, who fired him long time ago (even before the 2008 election).  Dondero hates Ron Paul for the reasons that every Islamophobe does: (1) Ron Paul opposes Islamophobia against American Muslims; (2) he opposes the Bush-Obama curtailments of civil liberties that specifically target Muslims; and (3) he opposes America’s many wars in the Muslim world.

As I said in my article yesterday, there are plenty of reasons to have deep reservations about Ron Paul, but these recent claims by Eric Dondero should be ignored, because the source is not credible whatsoever.

In the words of Eric Dondero himself:

Call me a dickhead if you wish. But I’m a DICKHEAD FOR LIBERTY.

Well, if you insist.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

DISCLAIMER: LoonWatch has not endorsed any candidate for President of the United States.  This article should not be seen as such.

Update I:

A LW reader named Capauncha, who says he has been reading our website for a long time, seems to be the one who first shed light on Eric Dondero’s Islamophobia.  Capauncha just posted another link to Dondero’s blog in which Dondero reproduces an article from the Philadelphia Weekly:

“My fellow Jews need to buck up,” says Eric Dondero, editor of Libertarian Republican.net, over the phone from Houston. “The big problem right now is Islam and Islamism invading our country. And if they want to continue to move in, we need to fight back. Their culture is coming here.”

Dondero, a former staffer for Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, has blogged extensively about what he calls “creeping Sharia Law” over the past several years. He says if you want to know what Sharia looks like in the United States, all you have to do is look at Europe, where he claims Muslim Europeans have “invaded” the countryside.

“They’re invading Switzerland and a Swedish island called Malmo, where the Muslims are raping all the European and Swedish women,” he says, recalling that city’s reports of lawlessness between the Jewish, Muslim and Neo-Nazi populations. And he fears that if Sharia Law isn’t banned in all states the way it was banned in his, the U.S. is next.

In the words of Antoine Dodson: Hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your husband, because they rapin’ everybody!

Comments (30)

aptopix-los-angeles-arson2-460×307

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Samuel Arrington: Urban Terrorist Wreaks Havoc in Los Angeles

Posted on 02 January 2012 by Emperor

There is no indication that Arrington and his accomplice are Muslim, their motivations are still unclear. Already the hatemongerers at FreeRepublic are casting Arrington as a Muslim youth.

Police detain person of interest in Los Angeles arson attack

(Reuters) – A “person of interest” was being questioned in connection with as many as 55 arson fires, most started in cars, in a spree that began on Thursday, Los Angeles Fire Department said on Monday.

Early Monday, several fires broke out in cars and structures in Hollywood and the surrounding areas, said an alert posted on the fire department’s website.

An unidentified person of interest was detained hours after Los Angeles police released video of a man who they said witnesses and security video footage placed at several locations where the fires started.

“It is too early to speculate if this person is responsible for the spree of arson fires,” the LAFD alert said.

The security camera video distributed by police at a news conference showed a white male in his late twenties to early thirties, dressed in black, with receding hair held in a ponytail.

Since the attacks began, a total of 55 “fires of concern” broke out, including 45 in the Los Angeles area, nine in West Hollywood and one in Burbank, the fire department said on its website.

Most of the fires started in cars and some spread to carports and homes.

Police spokesman Cleon Joseph urged residents to be on the lookout for anyone acting suspiciously.

“Keep your lights on, be diligent, watch your surroundings. If you see anything, call 911,” Joseph said.

Los Angeles Police Department Commander Andrew Smith said dozens of detectives had worked through the night to gather evidence and sift through clues.

“We’ve reassigned dozens of detectives,” Smith said. “Those detectives are now working together around the clock… We’ve got hundreds of clues, dozens of witnesses, and countless pieces of evidence,” he added.

So far, no one has been seriously hurt, but a firefighter was treated and released for injuries suffered at the site of one blaze over the weekend and another person suffered minor injuries on New Year’s Eve.

One of the fires damaged a house in the Hollywood Hills, where The Doors lead singer Jim Morrison was inspired to write the 1968 song “Love Street” about his girlfriend Pam Courson and what was then a hippie hangout.

Fire chiefs declined to say how the blazes were started.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Greg McCune)

Corrects attribution in paragraph four to LAFD.

Comments (2)

Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus

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Bishop Against Greek Parliament’s Mosque Building Bill

Posted on 02 January 2012 by Garibaldi

According tot he Bishop Seraphim of Piraeus, it is anti-Christian to build a mosque. (via. Islamophobia-Watch)

Bishop against Greek parliament’s mosque building bill

According to the Greek press, Greek Orthodox Bishop Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus appealed to the Council of State to withdraw a Greek bill that would allow the building of a mosque in the capital city, Athens.

Known for his far-right views, Seraphim described the bill as an anti-Christian move and a disrespect to Christian martyrs, although it is billed as democratic move.

In the previous years, there were talks of building a mosque in Athens. However, no steps were taken as the previous governments’ ministers were mainly right-wingers.

This year a bill which asked for an old building in the Votanikos region of Athens to be converted into a place of worship for Muslims passed through the Greek parliament.

Today’s Zaman, 29 December 2011

Comments (34)

New York Times: Muslims Targeted in Wave of Firebombing

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New York Times: Muslims Targeted in Wave of Firebombing

Posted on 02 January 2012 by Garibaldi

All the facts on this are not clear yet, but it is being reported as a bias crime in many reports. If this holds true then it will be another manifestation of the all too real threat to Muslim communities from radical hatemongers.

Four Attacks in Queens With Homemade Firebombs

By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS (NYTimes)

A wave of arson attacks spread across eastern Queens on Sunday night, and the police said the firebombings were being investigated as bias crimes — with Muslims as the targets.

No one was hurt in the four attacks, in which homemade firebombs were apparently used. In three of the four attacks, the police said, Molotov cocktails were made with Starbucks bottles.

The first attack occurred just before 8 p.m. at a bodega at 179-40 Hillside Avenue.

Ten minutes later, another crude firebomb was thrown, this time at a private home at 146-62 107th Avenue, and the house caught fire.

Half an hour after that, an Islamic center at 89-89 Van Wyck Expressway was the target. The last attack occurred at a house at 88-20 170th Street, the police said.

The Islamic center, the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation, houses one of the most prominent Shiite mosques in New York. According to its Web site it offers funeral services, counseling and free SAT classes. It lists branches in several cities, including Montreal and Islamabad, Pakistan. Calls to the foundation were not returned Sunday night.

The firebomb, made with a glass Starbucks bottle, was thrown at the door of the center, possibly from a van as it drove it by, the police said. The door was blackened, but the building did not catch fire.

A similar weapon was found at the bodega, the site of the first attack, according to the police. The bomb might have been thrown from inside the store, because the counter sustained some damage, the police said.

It was the second attack, on 107th Avenue, police and fire officials said, that caused the most damage.

Shortly after 8 p.m., someone called 911, saying that a Molotov cocktail had been thrown at their home. The house caught fire, and it took more than 60 firefighters about 40 minutes to bring it under control.

In the fourth attack, two bottles were thrown at the house on 170th Street. A spokesman for the Fire Department said that the person who called 911 said they saw a vehicle drive by as the bottles were hurled toward their home. But the flames quickly fizzled.

Comments (16)

Illinois: Joshua Scaggs Stabs Man to “Save This Country”

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Illinois: Joshua Scaggs Stabs Man to “Save This Country”

Posted on 01 January 2012 by Emperor

Joshua Scaggs

Joshua Scaggs

A reader of BareNakedIslam or JihadWatch perhaps?

(Hat tip: JD)

CAIR believes Champaign stabbing was hate crime

(Muslim News)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called for federal civil rights charges to be filed against a man seeking to “save his country” by allegedly stabbing a faculty member of the University of Illinois College of Law who he thought was Middle Eastern.

The non-Muslim victim of Sri Lankan origin was stabbed December 7 on the second floor of the Illinois Terminal Building in Champaign, Ill. The victim was singled out due to his perceived ethnicity and the attacker allegedly committed the offense to, in his words, save his country. The victim underwent surgery for a stab wound to his neck.

His alleged attacker, 23-year-old Joshua Scaggs, was charged with attempted murder and a hate crime.

We thank local law enforcement authorities for their swift and professional actions in this case and urge the US Department of Justice to consider what federal civil rights charges could be filed in the case, said a CAIR spokesman.

Adding, Our society must begin to address the rising level of anti-Muslim sentiment that can lead to such disturbing incidents.

CAIR contacted the FBI and local police to seek the investigation of a possible bias motive for the stabbing of a Sikh man at Fresno Yosemite International Airport in California.

Comments (27)

450px-Moskee_Den_Haag_Oostduinlaan

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Dutch Mosques Defaced 117 Times

Posted on 30 December 2011 by Amago

Dutch mosques defaced 117 times

Between 2005 and 2010 mosques in the Netherlands were defaced 117 times, according to research by social researcher Ineke van der Valk. The acts of vandalism were motivated by a hatred of Islam, the researcher is quoted as saying on VPRO radio programme Argos.

In 43 cases, the mosques were daubed with offensive symbols or slogans. In 37 instances, the mosques sustained material damage. In 99 of the incidents the police failed to find any of the culprits. In the United States there were 42 similar incidents during the same period. Most of the vandalised mosques in the Netherlands are located outside the major cities.

There are some 450 mosques in The Netherlands, which has a population of more than 16.5 million. Some five percent of the population is believed to be Muslim, some 44 percent Christian and over 41 percent agnostic. As a percentage of the population, the Netherlands has Europe’s second-largest Muslim community, inferior only to France, which has a Muslim community of more than nine percent.

(cl)

© Radio Netherlands Worldwide

 

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LGF: Anti-Muslim Bloggers Invent Another ‘Honor Killing’

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LGF: Anti-Muslim Bloggers Invent Another ‘Honor Killing’

Posted on 28 December 2011 by Garibaldi

Robert "police blotter" Spencer Inventing "Islamic" Crimes

Inventing “Islamic” crimes has been one part of the hatemongers consistent methodology of smearing Islam and Muslims.

For instance, in the past month Spencer and Geller falsely accused Islam and Muslims as the perpetrators of invented Jihad attacks at least twice to our count:

*Recently Spencer tried to tie a Belgian shooter to Islam: Belgium, Islam and the Boomerang of Loon Idiocy

*Pamela Geller Turns Hollywood Shooting Tragedy into Islamophobic Hate-Fest

And now we can add a third:

Anti-Muslim Bloggers Invent Another ‘Honor Killing’

by Charles Johnson (LGF)

The so-called “counter-jihad” bloggers are covering themselves in glory again, slobbering and ranting and trying to take advantage of a terrible crime to advance their un-American agenda.

Same bigotry, different day.

This time they’ve seized on a story about a man in Texas who killed six members of his own family on Christmas morning while dressed in a Santa suit, then committed suicide. The man’s wife had left him, his home had been foreclosed upon, his business was failing, and he had filed for bankruptcy; with anyone else, these things would be considered strong motives for committing this massacre.

But because the man’s name was Aziz Yazdanpanah, and he was apparently unhappy about who his daughter was dating, these bloggers have decided it had to be an “Islamic honor killing.” And now they’re letting their bigotry run free again.

Hate group leaders Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are out in front, as always.

Geller: ISLAMIC HONOR KILLING IN TEXAS: “SANTA KILLER” WAS MUSLIM WHO HATED DAUGHTER DATING A NON-MUSLIM!!!!! – Atlas Shrugs

The mainstream media has reported this as the “Santa killer.” No mention that it was an Islamic honor killing until this Dallas Morning News story. Our daughters and granddaughters are going to be the ones who will suffer because of for this obfuscation and excusal of barbarism.

This has been going on for years. When Amina and Sarah Said were brutally murdered by their father, also in Texas, on New Year’s Day 2008 for the same reason — having non-Muslim boyfriends — I thought, this is it. This is going to break the dam wide open. America would not, could not possibly, ignore this horror caused by and sanctioned by Islamic beliefs, assumptions, and attitudes.

And yet America continues to ignore this horror. And more and more people are victimized every day.

Spencer: Islamic honor killing in Texas: ‘Santa’ who murdered family on Christmas morning was Muslim who didn’t like his daughter dating a non-Muslim – Jihad Watch

Again and again we have seen honor killings in which fathers kill daughters who are dating non-Muslims or have supposedly besmirched the family honor by some sexual indiscretion. Lt. Todd Dearing says that motive isn’t important — which is generally only the case when Islam is involved.

To recap: Yazdanpanah killed his family members while they were all celebrating Christmas and then committed suicide. He was wearing a Santa suit. His life was falling apart in just about every possible way.

But to these vile bigots, it had to be an “honor killing” — for no other reason than the man’s nominal Muslim faith. It’s almost unbelievably disgusting.

And the posts by these bloggers are just the tip of the iceberg; their followers have no restraint whatsoever. Some of the comments posted at “counter-jihad” blogs about this tragedy:

Satan and muzzies are two of a kind…..

[…]

savages

[…]

We can’t offend muslims with Christmas but a muslim can kill his whole family on Christmas day and the media won’t even go near the fact they were all muslims.
We only find out on the crazy right-wing internet.

Once again we have the media filtering out information they don’t think we need to know.

[…]

2 miles from my house, a stinkin’ Muslim is committing honor killings. Islam, the Koran, and all true followers need to burn.

[…]

Islam. Satan’s church.

[…]

We live in the same neck of the woods. My Granny lived there for a year, was a nice complex, but over the last few years has had more and more muzzies moving into it. The entire metroplex has had a huge upspike in moozlim population. But still the Media and the masses are lulled to sleep with the peaceful moozlim rhetoric.

[…]

These men who are Muslim and believe in this should never have children or be castrated.

[…]

Americans may wish to consider how safe it is to have Muslims in their neighborhoods, but that would make us bigots wouldn’t it.

Islam is a deathcult

[…]

Here’s an example of the double bladed sword of ” PC “. This piece of camel crap doesn’t deserve to be buried in the ground!!!! They should kill a pig and bury it with him!!!!

[…]

I AM surprised that this being a raghead, he didn’t rape his daughters first.

[…]

As sad as this event is it nonetheless points out the truth that a muslime can not be anything but a brutal, murdering, control freaking, inbred son of a muslime sex slave who-e.
No matter their public persona their heart and mind is convuluted and warped to commit atrocities.

[…]

Go figure, a sheethead dressed as santa kills everyone, and then himself.

[…]

Perhaps Mr. Yazdanpanah was suffering from the terrible disease known as “SUDDEN JIHAD SYNDROME” though I doubt an autopsy will be be of any help. If he was a faithful muslim the demons probably summoned him to butcher his family for rebelling against Allah.

[…]

What a waste of life. Islam = hate and murder. Islam offers NOTHING to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Absolutely nothing.

[…]

The satanic cult of death REQUIRES BLOOD SACRIFICE for any number of offenses: being non-muslim, apostasy, misbehavior, disobedience, insulting the pedophile prophet of death, drawing the pedophile prophet of death, dating, etc.

These are only pious demon worshipers practicing their demonic cult, fully protected, by an army of feds and prosecutors all of whom report to comrade holder, as a *religion*.

There are thousands of similar comments about this story, all over the right wing blogs. These people aren’t even trying to pretend they’re not hateful bigots any more — they’ve embraced their sickness.

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Muslim Leaders Condemn Christmas Day Bombings

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Muslim Leaders Condemn Christmas Day Bombings

Posted on 27 December 2011 by Ilisha

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We at Loonwatch unequivocally condemn the Christmas Day bombings in Nigeria. We condemn all acts of terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians, no matter who is responsible.

Today whenever Muslims anywhere commit an act of violence, it seems that all Muslims are indicted and considered guilty until proven innocent. If each and every act is not expressly condemned, the assumption is that Muslims are giving their tacit approval.

When Muslims do expressly condemn terrorism, either carte blanche or in response to a specific incident, they are still asked by many, “Why don’t you condemn terrorism?” Muslim voices condemning terrorism seem to be drowned out in the major media by more sensational headlines.

Terrorism committed by Muslims is not only morally reprehensible and horrifying, but a disaster for the entire Muslim community. In the current climate, Muslims who mourn the innocent victims of violence must also face a backlash.

When non-Muslims commit acts of violence, it seems a different set of standards is applied. In the case of Nigeria, sectarian violence cuts both ways. Last August, Christian youth in Nigeria attacked and killed innocent Muslims gathering to celebrate Ramadan. The incident received relatively light media coverage, and there were few demands for Christians worldwide voice their condemnation.

Portraying only one side of a conflict is misleading and counterproductive. All Nigerians, and all people everywhere, deserve to live in peace and security, and to celebrate their holidays without the threat of violence.

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Christmas Day Bombings

(This Day Live)

The umbrella Islamic body for Muslims in the North, the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), yesterday condemned the bombing of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla, Niger State and another church in Jos, Plateau State, saying it is not in a religious war against Christians. Both incidents claimed the lives of over 40 persons.

But the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the 19 Northern states and FCT warned yesterday that the attacks may spark a religious war.

Secretary General of JNI, Dr. Khalid Abubakar Aliyu, while reacting to the bombings in a telephone interview with THISDAY, said Islam, as a religion, respects human lives and would do everything to preserve it.

“Human lives must be preserved and protected by all including security agencies; it is rather unfortunate that Nigerians are losing their lives to bomb blasts,” Aliyu said.

The Islamic body also tasked security agencies to fish out the perpetrators and bring them to justice, stressing that it is only when the culprits are fished out and punitive measures taken against them that it would serve as deterrent to others planning to carry out such nefarious activities.

In his reaction, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, who joined other Muslims in voicing condemnation against Boko Haram, said taking of human lives in the name of religion was strange in Islam.

The sultan, at the formal opening of Islamic Vacation Course (IVC) organised by Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria (MSSN), B-Zone, said dispute could only be resolved through dialogue and not by violence or bloodbath.

He said Islam abhorred violence and called for unity among Muslims to address the challenges facing them.

“Violence is not part of the tenets of Islam and would never be allowed to tarnish the image of the religion,” the sultan said.

Chastising Boko Haram, another Islamic group, Muslim Public Affairs Centre (MPAC), said “cold blooded murder of innocent worshippers” was “horrifying and sickening.”

In a statement by its Director of Media and Communications, Disu Kamor, MPAC described the perpetrators of the dastardly act as “criminal and devilish hate cultists bent on imposing their evil ideology on us”.

“On this occasion and in similar incidents, Nigerian Muslims and Muslims everywhere stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our Christian brothers and sisters and we are determined to continue to work together to remove the mischief of those seeking to destroy peaceful co-existence and harmony. We feel the sorrow and share the grief of all that were affected by this tragedy – this evil attack is a crime committed against mankind,” MPAC added.

Also, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) said it is “shocked and petrified by this development”.
MURIC in a statement by Dr. Ishaq Akintola disagreed with Boko Haram, which had said it carried out the attack to avenge the killing of Muslims during the last Sallah.

He said: “The attackers cannot claim that they were revenging the attack on Muslims in Jos during the last Eid el-Fitr on August 30, 2011 which left many Muslims dead because Christians celebrating Christmas earlier on December 25, 2010 were the first to be killed in bomb explosions.

“Nothing in the scriptures of Islam justifies this kind of attack. We therefore assert clearly, unequivocally and unambiguously that Boko Haram is not fighting for Nigerian Muslims.”

Similarly, the Chairman of the Sokoto State chapter of Izalat Bida’a Waikamtul Sunnah (JIBWIS), Sheikh Abubakar Usman Mabera, said the killing of innocent citizens, under any guise, is a case of murder and in contrast to Islamic teachings.

“Whoever takes the life of a fellow human being has committed evil irrespective of his religion – whether Christian or Muslim – and will pay for his sins.  So, this is an act of terrorism which is against Islamic teachings,” he said.

Mabera, who frowned on the act, said: “Almighty Allah forbids the killing of a fellow human being. Whoever thinks that he is carrying out Jihad by destroying places of worship and killing innocent citizens is ignorant of Islam because the religion forbids that.”

The Muslim Congress frowned on the Madalla blast and said the continued killing of innocent Nigerians by the activities of Boko Haram is uncalled for and should be condemned by all Nigerians.

The Amir of the Congress, Mallam Abdulraheem Lukman, said in a statement that:

“The endemic killings can best be described as inhuman, wicked, condemnable and totally unacceptable in civilised societies….

The action is even more repulsive during the periods of celebrations and this is highly condemnable.”

CAN in the 19 Northern states and Abuja has warned that attacks on churches by Boko Haram are capable of igniting a religious war in the country.

But labour unions in the country have urged Christians not to retaliate the Christmas attacks on churches in Niger, Plateau and Yobe States which left scores of people dead.

The pan-Northern Nigeria group, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), also condemned the attacks yesterday, warning that they serve no good in the prevailing circumstances.

At a news conference in Kaduna yesterday, Secretary-General of Northern CAN, Elder Saidu Dogo, said the bombing of churches and killing of Christians was an invitation to religious war in Nigeria.
Dogo urged Islamic leaders to call the perpetrators of the dastardly act to order to avert confrontation, saying that no group should push the other to the wall to fan the ember of religious war.

He said if the authorities fail to track down those behind the killings of innocent Nigerians, “we shall henceforth in the midst of these provocations and wanton destruction of innocent lives and property be compelled to make our own efforts and arrangements to protect the lives of innocent Christians and peace-loving citizens of this country”.

While calling on Christians to be law abiding, he expressed the need for them to defend themselves whenever the need arises.
He called on the Muslim Umma and Ulamas in Nigeria “to live up to their responsibilities by calling to order, all Islamic sects in the country to have respect for human lives and stop these killings. For we fear that the situation may degenerate to a religious war and Nigeria may not be able to survive as one. Once again, enough is enough”.

“We appreciate the efforts of the Federal Government and its security agents in trying to curtail these attacks. However, we are piqued that the efforts of government are being undermined by the sponsors of the Islamic fundamentalists in the North.

“We are particularly disturbed that the perpetrators of these dastardly acts and their sponsors are well known to government and no serious or decisive actions have been taken to stem their nefarious activities.

“The Federal and state  Governments of Niger, Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna, Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and such other areas that these wanton destruction of lives and property have been or are being perpetrated, should arrest and bring to book all the perpetrators and their sponsors.

“Government at all levels should provide 24 hours security services to all churches, Christian religious institutions and organisations in the county, especially in the North.

“We are also calling on the federal and state governments to urgently stem these massacres of Christians and the destruction of their churches and property in the North. The attacks so far have proved that some Islamic fundamentalists want to exterminate Christianity in the Northern states. We are assuring all Christians that the church will not allow that to happen,” Dogo said.

The ACF, on its part, condemned the frequent explosions, saying the Christmas attacks were capable of diverting attention to religious crises that would serve no one good.

The forum, in a statement emailed to THISDAY by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Anthony Sani, urged Boko Haram to embrace dialogue in pursuit of the resolution of whatever grievances it had with the authorities, stressing that the bombings and killing of innocent Nigerians and destruction of property were misguided.

“The spate of bomb blasts on Christmas day, which were directed at places of worship across some parts of the North, is a serious source of concern to Arewa Consultative Forum, to Northern Leaders and to the good people of the North, indeed, to patriotic Nigerians.

“Source of concern not because past bombings were less serious but because those on the Christmas day are capable of diverting attention to religious crises that would serve no one, including the perpetrators, any good now and for a long time to come.
“Consequently, ACF calls on the perpetrators of violence to stop forthwith and avail themselves to due process of addressing perceived grievances that are in place.

“ACF also wishes to say killing of innocent Nigerians is not correct and offends God and many people’s sense of justice. This is because a good number of those who go to places of worship are not lettered in either Western or Islamic education.
“More so that Western education is not necessarily the cause of the collapse of national ideals, moral values and cause of indiscipline in the polity, since there are examples of Muslim countries and Christian countries with western education that are morally sound. Turkey belongs to the former and Nordic country of Norway belongs to the later.

“Nigerians of all faiths must therefore come together and confront corruption in all ramifications by inspiring cultural renaissance for collective good. Corruption in Nigeria is not an exclusive preserve of Western education but a national malaise that should be confronted by all, and not government alone. Enough of the bombings and killing of innocent Nigerians,” the ACF said.
The Trade Union Congress (TUC) warned that there are certain disgruntled elements in the polity who want to divide Nigeria along sectarian lines.

President General of the TUC, Comrade Peter Esele, in a telephone conversation with THISDAY in Abuja yesterday, appealed to Nigerians, especially Christians, to be calm and avoid being incited to reprisal.

He added that it was necessary for Nigerians to stay united at these critical moments and not to allow any plot that is aimed at dividing the country along religious or ethnic lines to succeed.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) called on the Federal Government to make the fight against crime and terrorism its priority rather than diverting the attention of Nigerians with its debate on the need to remove fuel subsidy.

It added that it is necessary that the root causes of insecurity – poverty and unemployment – be addressed as budgeting huge sums of money for security would not solve the problem.

In a statement yesterday, the Acting General Secretary of the NLC, Comrade Owei Lakemfa, condemned the attacks in strongest terms, describing the perpetrators as “terrorists whose minds are as blurred as their vision”.

He called on Nigerians not to be deterred by the terrorists or give up on building a peaceful and united country where the will of the people would prevail.

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France: Muslim War Graves Attacked

Posted on 27 December 2011 by Amago

France: Muslim War Graves Attacked

Thirty war graves of Muslim soldiers who fought in World War I have been attacked and defaced in the southern city of Carcassonne.

Racist insults and swastikas were painted on the graves, which are identified by the Islamic symbols of the star and crescent.

Slogans including “France for the French” and “Arabs out” were painted on some of the gravestones, reported daily newspaper Le Figaro.

The graves of Muslim soldiers in the same graveyard were attacked earlier this year in September.

Abdallah Zekri, president of a body that monitors Islamophobia, condemned the attacks on the graves of soldiers who “died for France.”

He pointed to a “significant and very worrying increase in Islamophobia in France.”

He said such attacks are up by 34 percent in 2011. In November alone, these included six fires at mosques in the country.

The graves were cleaned and a religious ceremony to honour the dead is planned for Tuesday morning.

twitter.com/matthew_warren

Matthew Warren (news@thelocal.fr)

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Victoria Jackson: Muslim Brotherhood Taking Over America, Six Hour FBI Meeting

Posted on 27 December 2011 by Amago

Victoria Jackson: Muslim Brotherhood Taking Over America, Six Hour FBI Meeting

Former “Saturday Night Live” actress Victoria Jackson, working on confidential information she as a web talk show host has special clearance to obtain, has claimed that the United States is being overtaken by radical Muslims bent on bringing the nation under Sharia law.

“I just went to a briefing in Washington DC, across the street from the Capitol, at the Longworth building at 8:30 am two days ago and it changed my life,” Jackson said last week on her web show, “Politichicks.” “For six hours, I saw pictures and names and dates and facts and Islamic law books and Korans, Surahs for six hours and they proved to me… that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated our highest positions in government and this is serious.”

Jackson also detailed the meeting in an earlier blog post this December. In that post, she details testimony given by John Guandolo, a former FBI agent who worked on the case against former Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson. Guandolo resigned from the FBI in 2008 after he was caught trying to score a $75,000 donation for an anti-terrorism group from a wealthy Jefferson case witness with whom he was having an affair. Guandolo now gives speeches on the existential threat of Islam, claiming that Muslim groups are using political correctness and political insurgency to stop FBI and police officers from stopping their spread of Sharia law.

The actress-turned-pundit also reported testimony from Maj. Stephen Coughlin, who in 2008 was effectively fired from his post at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because, many conservatives believe, he was a staunch anti-Islamic extremist advocate. Wired reports that his contract was not renewed after a staffer for Gordon England, then the deputy secretary of defense, raised questions about his work. Last January, Coughlin gave a maligned speech during an FBI presentation on Muslim extremism.

Claiming that it was strongly hinted that President Obama was a Muslim — his policies all favor Muslims and are against Israel, she claims to have been told — Jackson says in the video that the ultimatum pushed by terrorist groups in America is “You have to convert or be killed.”

While she says that the meeting forever changed her, Jackson has already long claimed that Muslims — led by secret Muslim and terrorist sympathizer President Obama — are quietly taking over the United States government. She also has famously taken umbrage with gays and “Glee,”including a highly publicized string of attacks last March.

“This new al-Qaida magazine for women has beauty tips and suicide-bomber tips! Gimme a break!” she wrote in a blog post for World Net Daily. “That is as ridiculous as two men kissing on the mouth! And I don’t care what is politically correct. Everyone knows that two men on a wedding cake is a comedy skit, not an ‘alternate lifestyle’! There I said it! Ridiculous!”

This fall, Jackson visited the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park to challenge protestors, though it did not work out so well for her.

“Michelle [sic] Bachmann and Rick Santorum are the only GOP candidates so far to acknowledge the above facts and warn against the present threat of Islamic Law replacing our Constitution,” Jackson concluded in her blog post on the ex-FBI briefing. In a Fox News appearance early in December, she called Bachmann “my girl” and said, “Very few people in America are informed and educated as I am.”

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Gianluca Casseri: The Dracula of Florence? Making Sense of Racism and Muslimphobia that Kills

Posted on 26 December 2011 by Emperor

Deep seated racism and anti-Muslim sentiment based on the Islamophobia Industry’s conspiracy theories coupled with a neo-fascist ideology can lead to deadly results.

Gianluca Casseri: the Dracula of Florence? Making sense of racism and Muslim-phobia that kills

by Gabriele Marranci (Islam, Muslims and an Anthropologist)

On the 13th of December, in my birthplace Florence, an Italian gunman killed two street vendors from Senegal, wounded another three, and committed suicide when the police reached him. The killing was racially-motivated and Gianluca Casseri, 50, was a writer for and member of CasaPound, a neo-fascist group. The Senegalese street vendors he killed (Samb Modou, 40yrs old, and Diop Mor, 54yrs old) lived in Italy for a considerable time and leave behind their wives and children in Senegal. The life of migrants in Italy, in particular for Muslims such as the Senegalese, is known. The xenophobic Lega Nord has built its political reputation on the exploitation of Italians’ frustration with a badly managed migration policy and an increase of refugees. Furthermore, Italians often know very little about Islam and Muslim culture, despite the centuries of, for the most part peaceful, cultural and scientific exchanges. The ‘Mamma li Turchi’ attitude, facilitated by local newspapers and Italian neo-fascist websites, has reached its epitome. The former Berlusconi government and its rhetoric has also played a part in cultivating such atmosphere. The difficulties that Muslims in Italy face to build a proper mosque often seem insurmountable.

This killing in Italy did not catch me by surprise. During my visits in Italy I became aware of how a certain anti-Muslim rhetoric, which Fallaci powerfully expressed, has found not only sympathizers and fervent believers, but also the attention of a general public for which anti-Muslim attitudes posses a cathartic function within a country condemned to a populist political and economic decline. Among the millions screaming in forums, in newspapers and on blogs against the immigrants, Muslims and the now fully implemented (it appears) Shari’a in Italy, there will always be some who dream of being a ‘hero’.

Such people, in the name of the Italic supreme race, or in the name of Jesus, or both (as is often the case), will fantasize about taking matters into their own hands and spilling the hated blood of the ‘Saladin’ in order to bring Europe back to Christendom.  Some will depart from fantasy and take a step further and plan actions. On the 13th of December, Gianluca Casseri succeeded in what was planned as a ‘suicide’ terrorist action.

Although many are the differences between Breivik and the more mysterious Casseri, many are also the similarities. The isolated lonely life, the love of fantasy literature (Casseri published some books), the Celtic imaginary tradition (so dear to the Lega Nord), and the reference to heroic resistance to Islam through more or less mythological heroes. In the case of Casseri, this ‘hero’ was the cruel Dracula whom historically in 1461 killed every Turk and Muslim he could find in southern Walachi.

Analyzing some of the messages left by members of radical far-right forums, we encounter again the Nazi imagination which is full of a mix of pagan symbolism and empty Christian rhetoric and the need of an enemy other, in this case the Muslim rather than the Jew. The similarity, in those forums, of the rhetoric praising Breivik and Casseri is impressive. Both them have been mythologized in a similar way to how suicide bombers or jihadi fighters are.  Perhaps most striking is the evident hate of the ‘different’ and an impressive lack of empathy. Empathy is indeed the key to understanding these incompressible acts of hatred.

Racism, or attitudes of hatred towards the so called ‘out-group’, which often is the main cause of radicalism, as I have suggested in my last book, is better explained through processes of identity and emotions. Recent psychological, neurological and even endocrinological behavioral studies (to which anthropologists have paid too little, if any, attention) have shown what I call a ‘natural‘ bias that we have for the ‘other‘, in particular when phenotypical traits are involved (such as skin colour for instance).

Just to mention some of these studies, Matteo Forgiarini et.al (2011) have investigated ‘the existence of a racial bias in the emotional reaction to other people’s pain and its link with implicit racist biases.’  The study confirmed, while testing Caucasian people, ‘a reduced reaction to the pain of African individuals was also correlated with the observers’ individual implicit race bias’.  Alessio Avenanti et all (2010) studied the empathic sensorimotor resonance with other-races as far as pain was concerned, and again this study found that  although ‘human beings react empathically to the pain of stranger individuals [...] racial bias and stereotypes may change this reactivity into a group-specific lack of sensorimotor resonance’.

More recent studies, interestingly, have even challenged that the famous Oxytocin is a bit more sinister than the ‘hug hormone’ we knew, and found, as Carsten K. W. De Dreu et al’s study (2011) has shown, that it may have a role in the emergence of intergroup conflict and violence. Yet this seems not enough to explain the actions of Gianluca Casseri. Indeed, there is another element that we have to consider: dehumanization. Now, for a long time social science, and in particular anthropology, has discussed the dehumanization of certain groups as merely a cultural process.

Yet the reality again becomes more dramatic when we combine what we know from interviews with what neuroscience, through fMRI studies, can tell us. Lasana Harris and Susan Fiske (2006) have shown that dehumanization is not just an attitude, but rather something that is clearly identifiable within brain functions – such as the absence of the typical neural signature for social cognition, as well as exaggerated amygdala and insula reactions (consistent with disgust) and the disgust ratings they elicit.

I could provide other evidence of the fact that all of us, as human beings, have these ‘natural’ biases, yet the difference is that the majority of us is able to control them, to see them as stereotypes which we have been educated to reject or at least challenge. Yet the above ‘natural’ characteristics, as they can be controlled, they can also be reinforced and transformed into a cognitive lens through which to make sense of the world. Paranoia is surely the result and it is clear that both Casseri and Breivik were and are paranoid, but not crazy. Indeed, they are the result of certain rhetoric, ideology and culture – what in other words is becoming, to use Dan Sperber’s epidemiological model, a robust replication system.

Casseri needed his victims’ blood to become the mythical hero of those Italians (but also Europeans, Americans and Australians) whom have decided to live in the darkness of their ignorance and believe that they are fighting a civilizational war; a belief marked by an explosive mix of mythology, religion and fantasy. Casseri is at the same time the extreme product of such robust replication system and another ‘infectious’ agent. Like in the case of terrorism perpetrated by Muslim fanatics, Cessari’s fantasy can only be the nightmare of the too often silent moderate majority; the only force that can stop the system from replicating beyond return.

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What If They Were Muslim?: 300 Ultra-Orthodox Clash With Police Over “Gender Segregation Sign”

Posted on 26 December 2011 by Garibaldi

Ultra_Orthodox_Police

300 Ultra Orthodox Clash with Police Over Sign

Ultra-Orthodox, Israel Police clash in Beit Shemesh; officer wounded

(Haaretz)

A police officer was wounded as clashes erupted between ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israel police on Monday in two separate neighborhoods in Beit Shemesh.
Two residents were also arrested in the clashes.

Approximately 300 ultra-Orthodox Jews began chasing police officers, hurled rocks at them, and burned trashcans after police were called to remove a sign on a main street that orders the separation of men and women in the neighborhood. The sign has been removed and re-instated several times over the past two days.

Confrontations also occurred in another of the city’s neighborhood after a Channel 10 news crew attempted to film a news piece in the neighborhood. The crew was surrounded by ultra-Orthodox residents who began harassing the crew, who immediately called for police reinforcement.

Officers arrived on the scene, and clashed with residents who laid on the ground in order to protect those which the police sought to apprehend for questioning.

On Sunday, a Channel 2 news team was attacked and beaten by 200 ultra-Orthodox men at the same location on the street where the sign that was removed had been hanging.

After the assault on the Channel 2 news team earlier Sunday, one resident living nearby said that the sign in question has existed for six years already. He added that it does not order women not pass in the street, but to abstain from gathering on the sidewalk.

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Lisa Abdelsalam

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Pennsylvania: Muslim Author Cancels School Visit after Parents Threaten Protest

Posted on 23 December 2011 by Amago

Lisa Abdelsalam

Lisa Abdelsalam

Pennsylvania: Muslim author cancels school visit after parents threaten protest

By Freda R. Savana Staff Writer for Phily Burbs

Lisa Abdelsalam said she feels “like she swallowed poison” in the days since the threat of parental protests caused the Muslim mother and author to cancel a talk with students at A.M. Kulp Elementary School in Hatfield.

“I have a such a sick feeling in my stomach,” said Abdelsalam, 48, who lives in Colmar with her husband and children, all of whom were or are North Penn students.

Born in Lansdale, the 1981 North Penn High School graduate converted to Islam at 19, when she married her husband, who is from Egypt.

As she has many times at many North Penn schools, she was scheduled to meet with several Kulp classes over four days earlier this month to discuss how she wrote and published her book, “A Song for Me, A Muslim Holiday Story,” based on her son Yoseph’s experiences at York Avenue Elementary in the 1990s.

“A Song for Me, A Muslim Holiday Story,” has illustrations based on pictures of the York Avenue school and details a Muslim boy’s efforts to fit into the holiday spirit at Christmastime.

A few days before her appearance at Kulp was to take place, Principal Erik Huebner called her.

The principal, according to Abdelsalam, told her a few parents had complained about the program and threatened to bring in an outside group to protest if the classes went forward.

“They did not want a Muslim or a Muslim book read in their classrooms,” she was told. Huebner could not be reached for comment.

Abdelsalam, a longtime volunteer at Kulp where she previously served as president of the Home and School Association, and a current member of the district’s diversity committee, was taken aback. “I was serving pizza with these people last year,” she said.

Huebner was supportive, said the author, and said she was welcome to come regardless of the protests. However, both she and the principal decided it was best to cancel, for the sake of the young students.

“I didn’t feel it would be right; it wasn’t one day, it was four days over two weeks,” she explained. “It’s not a battle that should be fought in an elementary school parking lot.”

Christine Liberaski, a spokeswoman for the North Penn School District, said she hopes the program can be rescheduled in the spring.

“I can’t speak to why some people objected,” said Liberaski, who noted that Abdelsalam previously received praise for her book and her presentation on publishing.

The idea for the book came when a music teacher approached Abdelsalam years ago when Yoseph, now 21, was in elementary school. She was asked if she could find a Muslim holiday song for the school’s annual concert. Finding none, she wrote one herself and also wrote the story. She now has two CDs of music she sells online with her book.

“It’s about inclusivity and the child being happy he’s in a school where everyone is accepted,” said Abdelsalam. “I don’t go and talk about religion.”

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inayat

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Resist a Burglary and You’re a Hero to the Mail – Unless You’re a Muslim, That Is

Posted on 22 December 2011 by Emperor

Sounds like something Robert Spencer would do. (via. Islamophobia-Watch)

Resist a burglary and you’re a hero to the Mail – unless you’re a Muslim, that is

The Daily Mail reports: ”A courageous housewife stabbed a machete-wielding burglar when he threatened to cut off her son’s finger, a court was told yesterday. Gillian Wilson, 55, was praised by a judge after she rushed at violent burglar Nigel Greenwood, 29, and plunged a knife into his arm, causing him and his accomplices to flee.”

What a sharp contrast this report presents to the Mail‘s coverage of Inayat Bunglawala’s resistance to a violent intruder at his own home in 2009 (see here and here), for which the paper was subsequently obliged to issue an apology and pay damages.

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David Nienberg is being held in a Harris County Jail on $30,000 bail. / HCSO

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Hate Crime: US Army Veteran Tortures a Pakistani Muslim

Posted on 21 December 2011 by Amago

David Nienberg is being held in a Harris County Jail on $30,000 bail. / HCSO

David Nienberg is being held in a Harris County Jail on $30,000 bail. / HCSO

Family says attack on Muslim man in Tomball should be hate crime

By LINDSAY WISE, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Yaqub Bham’s visit to a residence in Tomball on Wednesday was supposed to be routine for the 61-year-old ADT salesman, who had come to inspect a client’s property before installing a home security system.

Instead, the homeowner, David L. Nienberg, allegedly tried to stab Bham with a fork, bit off part of his ear, and beat him so badly that he broke 10 ribs.

Nienberg, 42, of Tomball, is charged with aggravated assault. If convicted, he could serve from two to 20 years in prison.

Bham’s distraught family members want the incident investigated as a possible hate crime against Bham, a Muslim native of Pakistan who became an American citizen in 2007.They say an agitated Nienberg became violent after asking Bham about the origin of his name and where he was from.

Harris County sheriff’s deputies who responded to a 911 call from Nienberg’s family about 5:50 p.m. on Wednesday did not mention the questions about Bham’s name and origins in their report, said Deputy Thomas Gilliland, spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office.

Gilliland said Nienberg apparently became angry while reviewing the contract for a security system in his four-bedroom home on Everhart Pointe Drive. When Bham offered to make another contract, or change it, “the defendant took the backpack that Mr. Bham had and wouldn’t give him the backpack, which contained the keys to his vehicle,” Gilliland said.

The two men’s verbal disagreement then became physical, the deputy said.

Nienberg lunged at Bham with a fork, Gilliland said he was told. Relatives took the implement away, but Nienberg allegedly managed to get Bham in a choke hold, beat him, and bite him while muttering about military operations.

When deputies arrived, Nienberg refused to let go of Bham until they “secured the perimeter” and “secured women personnel,” Gilliland said.

It took three deputies to pull Nienberg off Bham, he said. They deployed Tasers on Nienberg twice, and even then, the furious man continued to kick and spit after they wrestled him into a patrol car, said Gilliland.

Victim hospitalized

Bham, who was recovering Friday in a local hospital, immigrated to Houston in 1997 and is the married father of three adult children. He and his family proudly became U.S. citizens four years ago, said his daughter, Shazdeh Bham, 23.

“When we moved to the States, it was for educational opportunities and just a better living, a better life,” she said.

Every once in a while, the Bham family hears negative comments like, “Go back to your country where you belong,” Shazdeh Bham said, “but it’s never bothered us. It never made us think twice about anything.”

The attack on her father was different, though, and frightening.

“I’m just really angry, and I’m extremely confused because I still don’t understand why this happened, and what triggered this … and why this person caused this much harm and this much hurt to my father,” she said. “Now I just want to see justice. I want to see this person punished for what he did.”

Shazdeh Bham said her father is a hardworking citizen who would never say anything negative about anyone.

“He is a patient and positive person,” she added. “He is very easy to work with. His family is his entire life, which is his only priority.”

Nienberg’s questions about Bham’s name and background suggest that the attack might have been motivated by racial or religious bias, said Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The group on Friday joined Bham’s family in calling on local law enforcement and the FBI to investigate the incident as a possible hate crime.

“It’s because of what precipitated the attack that makes us think it has all the elements of a hate crime: ‘What does your name mean? Where are you from?’ And then boom, he jumped on him,” Carroll said.

“The level of hate speech and rhetoric that we hear on a fairly regular basis in society – the baseless accusations that Muslims are trying to take over America, or they’re trying to bring Sharia law, or they’re trying to subvert the government – this baseless rhetoric keeps the environment heated for something like this to happen, for the possibility of violence,” he said. “When you say that stuff over and over and over, it begins to play on your psychology toward a certain group of people.”

Motives a mystery

Nienberg has no prior criminal history in Harris County.

After hearing about his use of military terms, deputies asked Nienberg’s relatives if he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, Gilliland said. They were told that Nienberg is a veteran but that he had never served in any type of conflict, nor had he ever been deployed overseas.

Neither Bham nor Nienberg’s family members offered a clue as to what went wrong, Gilliland said.

He said deputies are looking into whether Nienberg was under the influence of narcotics or alcohol or had suffered a mental break, “because it was just incoherent, the things that he was saying.”

It will be up to prosecutors to decide whether to upgrade the charges to a hate crime, Gilliland said.

As it is, Nienberg is charged with a second-degree felony.

He is being held in a Harris County Jail on $30,000 bail.

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Faux Progressive and Self-Hating Loon Asra Nomani Sides with Lowe’s, How Predictable

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Faux Progressive and Self-Hating Loon Asra Nomani Sides with Lowe’s, How Predictable

Posted on 21 December 2011 by Danios

Not all anti-Muslim loons are non-Muslims.  Indeed, there are a handful of loons that are in fact self-hating Muslims.  Case in point: Asra Nomani.

(I’ve written about her before, so I’ll skip introducing her.)

Nomani dons the mantle of a “moderate, progressive, and liberal” Muslim, yet she consistently takes the side of right-wing, uber-conservative loons against Muslims.  It is faux progressives like her who have tarnished the image of progressivism in much of the Muslim world.

Over the years, Asra Nomani has sided with extreme right-wingers and Islamophobes against Muslims time and time again.  At first, her absurd views had a lot of shock value.  Now, they’re just plain predictable.  So, it’s no surprise that Ms. Nomani has taken the side of Lowe’s, which pulled its advertisements from TLC’s All-American Muslim after Islamophobes sent them letters of protest.  The Islamophobes complained that the show only showed regular Muslims instead of Terrorist Muslims (since of course all Muslims are Terrorists).

Asra Nomani’s article, like her other work, is intellectually bereft.  The blurb to her article says:

Another advertiser pulled out of TLC’s All-American Muslim—but it’s not because the company is ‘Islamophobic.’ It’s simply a terrible program, writes Asra Q. Nomani.

The only problem with this, the entire premise of her article, is that neither Lowe’s or Kayak pulled out because the show is “a terrible program.”

Nomani writes (emphasis is mine):

Lowe’s, the national chain, did the right thing in pulling its advertising from the series. The company said it killed advertising from the show because it had become too controversial, but there is another legitimate reason the company could have given for yanking its advertising: it’s bad TV.

It “could have given” this “legitimate reason” to yank its advertisement, but it didn’t.  It pulled the advertisement because Islamophobes emailed them to do so.  Even their cover-excuse wasn’t that the show was “bad TV” but that “it had become too controversial” as Nomani’s own words attest to.

How did Lowe’s do “the right thing” if they pulled the show for the wrong reason, i.e. cowing to anti-Muslim bigotry?  To understand this point, imagine for instance if Lowe’s pulled its ads from CNN’s Black in America not because it was “bad TV” but because a bunch of white racists emailed them complaining that the show portrayed blacks too sympathetically?  That it only showed regular black people instead of murderers and rapists?  If Lowe’s succumbed to this bigotry by yanking its ads from Black in America, would Asra Nomani applaud this action (regardless of the show’s quality)?

The quality of All-American Muslim is irrelevant, because the reason advertisers pulled out had nothing to do with that, but everything to do with the fact that Islamophobes lost their minds that a show would show normal Muslims on television.

Asra Nomani’s whole argument is based on three words she slipped into her writing: “could have given.”  Except it didn’t.

True, Nomani was more likely referring to Kayak’s lame excuse for pulling its advertisement (see my earlier article about Kayak’s “apology”); she writes:

Now, Kayak, an Internet travel company, announced that it too is pulling its advertising. Robert Birge, chief marketing officer at Kayak, put it as plain as it gets: “…I watched the first two episodes,” he wrote in a letter to customers, titled “We Handled This Poorly.” “Mostly, I just thought the show sucked.”

But here again, Asra Nomani misleads the reader.  Robert Birge, the Kayak executive, does mention that he thought the show sucks, but the bulk of his explanation is about how the show became a “lightning rod” and how TLC supposedly didn’t inform Kayak about this.  Birge wrote:

When we decided to give our money to TLC for this program, we deemed the show a worthy topic. When we received angry emails regarding our decision to advertise, I looked into the show more thoroughly.

The first thing I discovered was that TLC was not upfront with us about the nature of this show. As I said, it’s a worthy topic, but any reasonable person would know that this topic is a particular lightning rod. We believe TLC went out of their way to pick a fight on this, and they didn’t let us know their intentions. That’s not a business practice that generally gets repeat business from us. I also believe that it did this subject a grave disservice. Sadly, TLC is now enjoying the attention from this controversy.

So, after the show received “angry emails” from Islamophobes, they then looked into the show and pulled it because TLC supposedly hadn’t informed them that the show would be controversial.  In other words, their explanation is very similar to that given by Lowe’s.

In the concluding sentence of the “apology”, Birge writes:

Based on our dealings with TLC and the simple assessment of the show, I decided we should put our money elsewhere.

Even if we say the decision was partially due to the “controversy” issue and party due to the show “sucking”, does Asra Nomani not see the problem that the show was pulled only after Kayak received “angry emails” from Islamophobes?  Again, how would we feel about Kayak if it pulled its ads from Black in America after receiving “hate mail” from Neo-Nazi groups?  Any lame excuses such as the show was “too controversial” or that “it sucked” would not be taken seriously.

Asra Nomani goes on:

To me, the issue of Islam-bashing has become a straw man in this debate. This isn’t a referendum on whether a person hates on Islam or not. It’s about TV—and what makes for good TV and what doesn’t. For example, I made it through only two episodes of TLC’s Toddlers and Tiaras, because how many times can we watch Princess Penelope throw a temper tantrum? If Lowe’s or Kayak didn’t advertise there, would we argue that they were trashing prissy little girls and their mom? No, we’d say that they don’t want to spend their ad dollars on bad TV.

TLC’s Toddlers and Tiaras does receive advertisements, even if you and I agree “it sucks.”  Has Nomani never flipped through channels on television and watched a reality show?  The vast majority of them suck, but even still they are able to garner advertisements.  Also, since when did companies restrict advertisements to shows they themselves personally watch?

The problem is that All-American Muslim is being singled out and unable to hold some advertisers because the show is about Muslims.  Had these companies pulled out from the show on their own volition due to ratings–and not immediately after Islamophobes demanded them to–nobody would be crying foul.  So, in reality, it is Asra Nomani who is raising a straw man argument: again, if it had really been about the show sucking and its ratings tanking, then nary a Muslim or liberal would protest.

Asra Nomani’s article blares:

To me, the issue of Islam-bashing has become a straw man in this debate. It’s about TV.

This assessment reflects how vacuous Asra Nomani truly is (I see absolutely nothing intellectually stimulating ever coming from this woman): it’s not about T.V. at all–it is all about Islam-bashing.  The show was pulled because Islamophobes protested it and not because the show “sucks.”  This is exactly the reason why in my earlier article about Kayak’s “apology” and this one, I have not even tried to defend the show’s quality, because that subjective opinion is simply irrelevant.  But if you want to go down that path, I can safely say that there exists no dearth of sucky programs on the boob tube, all of which seem to attract and hold advertisers just fine.

*  *  *  *  *

In my previous article about Asra Nomani, written almost exactly one year ago, I mentioned how she always feels compelled to inject herself into all of her articles:

Notice how she prefaces her statement with “I am Muslim.” Well then, you must automatically be a spokesperson for Muslims everywhere, and whatever you say about Islam and Muslims must be true. You are, after all, a real life Muslim! In fact, Asra Nomani can hardly ever write an article or argue a point without injecting herself into it, such is her self-absorbed nature.

Lo and behold, the very first words of her article about All-American Muslim:

As a real-life American Muslim…

And elsewhere:

As an American Muslim consumer…

And still elsewhere:

…I’m Muslim…

We get it!  You are a real life, living, breathing Muslim!  Well then, you must be an expert on everything about Islam and Muslims.

Asra Nomani keeps mentioning that she’s a real life Muslim because the only reason she has obtained some level of fame is because (1) she voices right-wing views against Muslims and Islam, and (2) she is a Muslim herself.  If she were simply a right-winger, she’d just be another run-of-the-mill Islamophobe trolling the internet.  On the other hand, if she were just Muslim, well then so what?  But it’s the combination of #1 and #2 that sustains her notoriety, because certain right-wing elements like to promote a self-hating Muslim who says all the things they themselves say: if even a Muslim says it about Islam and Muslims, then it must be true!

Meanwhile, Nomani remains very hungry and desperate for attention, which is why she added this absolutely unnecessary bit to her article:

As an American Muslim consumer, I can say that I’ll likely buy the lumber for my son’s treehouse at Lowe’s, and I’ll switch from Expedia to Kayak. I like the company’s common sense

Asra Nomani is like the black kid who hung a Confederate flag in his dorm room; he wouldn’t have garnered national attention had he been a white kid.  And likewise, Nomani’s writing would whither into oblivion if she didn’t constantly invoke her “I’m a Muslim” card.  That’s because aside from this fact, there is nothing at all interesting to learn from Asra Nomani’s uninspired writing.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

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AhGgVDnCAAAug5x

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Another Mosque in France Vandalized by Neo-Nazis

Posted on 20 December 2011 by Garibaldi

Masjid Ar-Rahman was defaced with Nazi graffiti yesterday. How’s that French tolerance?

Via. Jay Haywood.

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Mosque graffiti Israel

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Hate Slogans Sprayed on Mosque Near Hebron

Posted on 20 December 2011 by Emperor

Hate slogans sprayed on mosque near Hebron

Attackers sprayed a West Bank mosque with anti-Islamic and pro-settler graffiti on Monday, a Palestinian official said, in an assault that bore the hallmarks of another raid by Jewish extremists.

The mayor of Bani Naim south of Hebron said that slogans in Hebrew sprayed on walls surrounding the village’s Sahaba mosque included “curses against the Prophet Mohammed” as well as “price tag” and “Yitzhar youth,” a reference to a hardline settlement and nearby outpost in the northern West Bank.

Mayor Radwan Manasra said that the mosque was on the village’s southern edge, facing the settlement of Pnei Haver, about 3.5 kilometres (two miles) away.

It was the seventh suspected attack in as many days by ultra-nationalist Jews fighting government plans to dismantle wildcat settlement outposts by vandalising mainly Palestinian property, although they have recently struck at Israeli army bases and the homes and offices of leftwing Israelis.

It was the third mosque attack since Wednesday, one of which coincided with the demolition by troops of the Mitzpe Yitzhar outpost.

AFP, 19 December 2011

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Ana Kasparian Calls Robert Spencer a Loser and a Sad Sack of …

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Ana Kasparian Calls Robert Spencer a Loser and a Sad Sack of …

Posted on 20 December 2011 by Danios

The whole All-American Muslim controversy had the upside of giving birth to this video by The Young Turks.  Ana Kasparian basically calls JihadWatch’s Robert Spencer a loser and a sad sack of …

Cenk Uygur calls Robert Spencer a “clown-o-ramo” and his site to be “full of morons.” Ana Kasparian delivers the elbow from the sky when she asks: “How depressing is it that you dedicate any time at all to creating a website called JihadWatch?”

Ana, believe it or not but this portly man named Robert Spencer has dedicated his entire life to blogging about jihad.  This grown man is nearing the age of 50 and this is how he not only spends his time but it’s his career.

Whenever I visit Neo-Nazi websites like Stormfront (which I do from time to time in order to marvel at the sheer insanity found there), I cannot help but marvel at how these people are obsessing over how much they hate “the blacks”.  Don’t these grown men have anything else to worry about?  Families, mortgages, actual careers?  What could be sadder than a group of old white men meeting in uniform to talk about how much they love Hitler?

It’s the same hate and level of obsession on JihadWatch.  Robert Spencer is their Grand Wizard, and they are all absolute, 100% total losers.  Their unhealthy level of obsessional hatred scares away friends and makes it impossible for them to ever get dates from normal women.  So, most of them hide this hatred in real life and just spend hours trolling the net in their basement.

As for Robert Spencer, one has to wonder what set him off: maybe some Muslim girl broke his heart long time ago by getting with some Muslim dude.  Now, Spencer is getting his revenge out on all Muslims.

That’s very similar to the founder of the Florida Family Association, the man behind the whole All-American Muslim controversy: his reason for dedicating his whole life to hatred has something to do with how he hates himself for being a frustrated porn addict:

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b-nospitting-110711

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ADL Urges Chief Rabbis to Denounce Spitting at Christians

Posted on 17 December 2011 by Emperor

If Muslims were committing this disgusting practice you can be sure that the hatemongers would be up in arms declaring Islam a “vile and intolerant” religion. They would also claim that this is the “pure Islam, etc.”

ADL urges chief rabbis to denounce spitting at Christians

The Anti-Defamation league (ADL) called on the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to publicly denounce “the repulsive decades-old practice by ultra-Orthodox Jews of spitting at Christian clergymen they encounter in the street.”

“This repulsive practice is a hateful act of persecution against another faith group and a desecration of God’s name according to Jewish law,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. “This display of hate and bigotry has no place in Israel and is inimical to Jewish values of treating all people with respect and kindness.”

The ADL sent Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger a letter, urging them to meet with Haredi leaders to put a stop to this practice and to cooperate to educate their community about respect for other faiths and coexistence.

Spitting Jews Ultraorthodox

 

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Jeff Sparrow: The Long, Long Road to Utoya

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Jeff Sparrow: The Long, Long Road to Utoya

Posted on 16 December 2011 by Garibaldi

Robert Spencer and his biggest fan: Anders Behring Breivik

Robert Spencer and his biggest fan: Anders Behring Breivik

Jeff Sparrow, one of the authors of the book On Utoya puts to rest the feeble attempts by Geller and Spencer to separate themselves from Anders Breivik.

He also links to us quite a few times:

The long, long road to Utoya

by Jeff Sparrow (ABC)

On the Drum last week, Chris Berg attacked the book On Utoya (to which I’m a contributor) for suggesting a link between Islamophobic rhetoric and Anders Breivik’s anti-Muslim rampage.

“There is,” Berg said, “an enormous moral leap between believing multiculturalism is a bad policy and systematically slaughtering 77 members of the Norwegian Labour Party, some as young as 14 years old. To suggest they are on the same continuum is to obscure how anybody could make that leap.”

I wonder if Berg actually read the book.

On Utoya’s not about people who believe “multiculturalism is a bad policy”. Rather, it discusses rightwing commentators who, like Breivik, see multiculturalism as a cover for what they generally call “Islamicisation”.

As it happens, one of the more extreme and repellent of these Islamophobic pundits was just in Australia.

A few weeks ago, the Q Society hosted an Australian tour by the American writer Robert Spencer.

Spencer runs a website called Jihad Watch, in which he publicises whatever slurs about Muslims that Google sends his way. Recently, he launched an “Action Alert” over a nefarious plot to force halal birds upon innocent Americans. Butterball turkeys represent, you see, the latest gobbling incarnation of the “stealth jihad” by which Islam enslaves the West and its people. He also helped initiate an ad-boycott against a reality TV-show All American Muslim: the Florida Family Association, with whom Spencer has allied himself, claims the show about average Muslim families is actually “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values”.

Spencer works closely with the blogger Pamela (‘Barack Obama is Malcolm X’s Son’) Geller, another big name in the so-called “counter jihadi” milieu. Together, they run the group Stop the Islamization of America, an outfit described by the Anti-Defamation League as “consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy ‘American’ values.”

Both featured repeatedly in Breivik’s manifesto.

“About Islam,” he wrote, “I recommend essentially everything written by Robert Spencer.”

As you would expect, in the aftermath of the Oslo massacre, Geller and Spencer hastily condemned their Norwegian admirer (though Geller couldn’t resist pointing out that the teenagers he murdered were “future leaders of the party responsible for flooding Norway with Muslims who refuse to assimilate”, nor posting a picture with a caption about how the camp attendees had “faces which are more MIddle [sic] Eastern or mixed than pure Norwegian”).

For his part, Spencer noted that Breivik had explicitly criticized the non-violent orientation of Jihad Watch, a criticism that meant, he said, any connection between his work and Breivik’s actions was ludicrous.

It’s true that Spencer and Breivik disagree about how to fight Islamicisation.

But they don’t disagree that its happening. Spencer’s Melbourne talk concluded like this:

“This is an unconventional war. We are in a war, we are in a clash of civilisations. The thing I want to leave with you in closing is that we are the soldiers. The soldiers are not in uniform. There are no armies on the field. The armies on the field are there, they’re doing noble work but that’s only one small part. The main struggle is right here. And we are it. This is a battle for the soul of Australia, for the soul of Europe, for the soul of America, for the soul of the west. And it’s outcome is not at all decided, as dire as it may look, because we have not yet begun to fight. It is up to us.”

Breivik, too, thinks a war with Islam is already underway.

His disagreement with Spencer and Geller, then, isn’t about the diagnosis. It’s just about the nature of the cure.

That’s the real jump – from accepting rhetoric about war, to taking up the gun to fight it.

Naturally, the vast majority of those who attended Spencer’s lectures won’t embrace violence (and nor did he urge them to).

In that sense, the debate about Breivik’s sanity is moot. By definition, if you commit mass murder, you’re not normal, simply because normal people aren’t mass murderers.

On the same tautological level, Berg’s correct to say no-one’s responsible for Breivik’s actions except Breivik. He’s the one who pulled the trigger – not Spencer, not Geller, and not anyone else.

Yet Berg refuses to acknowledge what Breivik himself was perfectly clear about – ideas and actions are related.

Spend some time on the big anti-Islam websites, and you’ll read over and over and over again that Muslims are violent, dangerous and determined to destroy everything the West holds dear. On Spencer’s page, for instance, commenters refer to Muslims as “subhuman barbarians”, “parasites”, “savages”, “people infected with the musloid faith”, “vermin” and so on.

LoonWatch noted one thread that contained

thirty-five comments by JihadWatch readers, and not a single one who opposed the idea of ethnic cleansing of Germany (or the entire non-Muslim world) and the nuking of Mecca on ethical grounds (with the notable exception of Ronald who thought that it would mean losing the oil reserves and another user who thought there are more creative ways to deliver “pure insult and humiliation” upon Muslims).  Not a single commentator on the thread opposed either of these two ideas on moral grounds.

Geller’s blog is the same: almost every post descends into overt eliminationism.

Oh, of course, Spencer says he’s not responsible for his readers and their desires for racial murder. He doesn’t, his blog says, necessarily endorse their comments. But where, we might ask, do they get these ideas? Why do advocates of mass slaughter feel so comfortable around him?

Spencer and Geller also work together on another hate group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative. One of its original board members is a certain John Joseph Jay. Back in 2008, Jay explained on Pamela Geller’s blog how this war against Muslims should be conducted:

“We should declare war on iran, syria, egypt and saudi arabia, as well as libya and the sudan and somalia, and we should kill people by the scores. no science. no precision bombing. no shock and awe designed to ‘impress’ and send ‘signals’, but old fashioned war with wholesale slaughter including indiscriminate death of innocents and babes. down to the last muslim, if necessary.”

“Old fashioned war with wholesale slaughter including indiscriminate death of innocents”: that’s pretty much what Breivik provided a few years later.

Like Breivik, Jay’s enthusiasm for murder extends beyond Muslims to a Left that he says facilitates “stealth jihad”. That’s why, on his own blog, he urges readers to

buy guns. buy ammo. be jealous of your liberties. and, understand, you are going to have to kill folks, your uncles, your sons and daughters, to preserve those liberties.

Yes, there’s a difference between Spencer denouncing liberals as traitors and Jay declaring they should be exterminated, just as there’s a gap between Jay preaching mass murder and Breivik actually carrying it out.

But it shouldn’t be difficult to understand how the constant shared rhetoric about existential war breaks down Berg’s “enormous moral leap” and makes it far more likely that a keyboard warrior will creep out from behind his PC, believing, as he lifts his rifle, that he’s saving Christian civilization, that he’s finally doing what all his friends just talk about.

Chris Berg says that Breivik was a “shocking outlier”, indicative of nothing.

It’s a ludicrous argument.

With their epic struggle against the Mooslamic turkeys, Geller and Spencer might seem like fringe nutters. But they’re not. They’re both widely published (two of Spencer’s books have been New York Times best-sellers); they appear regularly on the circuit of right-wing radio and Fox News.

Together, they wrote the 2010 book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America, in which they argued a line almost identical to Breivik’s manifesto:

Transformational issues facing this nation and the world at large—the world at war, creeping Sharia, the perversion of the rights of free men—hang in the balance during the Obama administration as never before. The stakes could not be higher. On foreign policy, Europe has lain down. The political elites have capitulated to Islamists and to multiculturalists. Europe is committing slow cultural and demographic suicide. It seems unclear that they could hold up their end even if America did the heavy lifting.

That book appeared with a glowing foreword by former ambassador to the UN John Bolton – a man who Newt Gingrich has recently announced will be Secretary of State under a Gingrich presidency. Indeed, Gingrich himself seems on-side in this lunatic crusade. The frontrunner for the Republican nomination recently announced that “sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and the world as we know it”.

Meanwhile, in Europe, far-right groups, many with histories stretching back to the fascist era, are re-orienting to exploit anti-Muslim sentiment – and, as a result, they’re growing.

Mattias Gardell, a Swedish expert on the far right, provides the following list of what he calls “redesigned brown [ie fascist] parties”:

Fremskrittspartiet, (Progress Party, Norway), Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats), Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s Party), Sannfinländarna (True Finns), Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom, Netherlands), Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest), Front National (Belgium), Front National (France), Mouvement pour la France, British National Party, Lega Nord (Northern League, Italy), Futuro e Libertá (Italy), Schweizerische Volkspartei (Swiss People’s Party), Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Germany), Pro Nordrhein-Westfalen (Germany), Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Freedom Party of Austria), Bündnis Zukunft Österreich (Alliance for the Future of Austria) and Laikós Orthódoxos Synagermós (People’s Orthodox Rally, Greece).

Gardell notes:

Some of these have been remarkably successful. Dansk Folkeparti gained nearly 14 per cent of the votes in Denmark’s 2007 election; Fremskrittspartiet – of which Breivik was once a member – received 23 per cent of the vote in Norway’s 2009 election; and Partij voor de Vrijheid – whose leader Geert Wilders seeks to ban the Koran – became the third largest party in parliament, with 17 per cent in the 2010 election. In Sweden, Sverigedemokraterna – whose ideologue Kent Ekeroth believes that Sweden and Europe are cast in an apocalyptic war with Islam and Muslims, and who co-funds the anti-Muslim network out of which Breivik emerged – became the first brown party in the country’s history to enter parliament, with close to 6 per cent in the 2010 election. In Finland, True Finns – whose ideologue Jussi Halla-aho says that Europeans have but two options when confronted with Muslim immigration: war or surrender – gained 19 per cent in the 2011 election, just 1 per cent away from becoming the largest party.

There are no adequate statistics on hate crimes in Europe, since few countries collect information about violence against Muslims. Nonetheless, the latest OIC Islamophobia Observatory report documents disturbing incidents from May 2010 through April 2011.

In one instance in Norway, where the massacre also took place, vandals desecrated a mosque in August, 2010, with spray-paint writings saying “oink” and “Allah is a [picture of a pig]“. In another 2010 Mosque attack, this time in the Netherlands, a dead sheep was found hanging in the place where a mosque was to be built. In a similar incident in Normandy, France, inscriptions reading “Islam get out of Europe”, “No to Islam and to burkas”, along with swastikas, were discovered on 15 July, 2010, which the report suggests might be encouraged by a law banning women from wearing the full-face Islamic veils in public, since the timing of the events coincide.

A few months ago, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned: “A dangerous trend is emerging, a new politics of polarization. Some play on people’s fears. They accuse immigrants of violating European values. Europe’s darkest chapters have been written in language such as this. Today the primary targets are immigrants of the Muslim faith.”

Most of the rebadged far-right organisations have retained their old-school anti-Semitism even as they choose, for strategic reasons, to campaign against Islam (and, often, support Israel). Indeed, the tropes of traditional anti-Semitism generally reappear in the new discourse of anti-Islam bigotry. Gardell explains how:

anti-Muslim conspiracy theory comes complete with its own version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Evoking a Manichean vision of a struggle between the forces of light and darkness, it tell us that for 1300 years the Western world has been locked in an apocalyptic conflict with ‘Islam’, which is depicted as an animated being with a sinister agency, which tirelessly seeks the eradication of Christian Europe, the last outpost of freedom.

The journalist Colm Ó Broin has produced a neat demonstration of the relationship between the old hate and the new hate, with a close comparison of Spencer’s writing on Muslims next to the propaganda of Julius Streicher, the editor of the notorious anti-Semitic magazine from the Nazi era, Der Stuermer.

Here are the first nine of his parallels.

Muslims/Jews have a religious duty to conquer the world.
Islam understands its earthly mission to extend the law of Allah over the world by force.” Robert Spencer.
Do you not know that the God of the Old Testament orders the Jews to consume and enslave the peoples of the earth?” Julius Streicher.

The Left enables Muslims/Jews.

The principal organs of the Left…has consistently been warm and welcoming toward Islamic supremacism.” Robert Spencer.
The communists pave the way for him (the Jew).” Julius Streicher.

Governments do nothing to stop Muslims/Jews.

“FDI* acts against the treason being committed by national, state, and local government officials…in their capitulation to the global jihad and Islamic supremacism.” (Freedom Defense Initiative, Robert Spencer/Pamela Geller organisation).
The government allows the Jew to do as he pleases. The people expect action to be taken.” Julius Streicher.

Muslims/Jews cannot be trusted.

“When one is under pressure, one may lie in order to protect the religion, this is taught in the Qur’an.” Robert Spencer.

“We may lie and cheat Gentiles. In the Talmud it says: It is permitted for Jews to cheat Gentiles.” From The Toadstool, children’s book published by Julius Streicher.

Recognizing the true nature of Muslims/Jews can be difficult.

There is no reliable way for American authorities to distinguish jihadists and potential jihadists from peaceful Muslims.” Robert Spencer.
Just as it is often hard to tell a toadstool from an edible mushroom, so too it is often very hard to recognize the Jew as a swindler and criminal.” From The Toadstool, children’s book published by Julius Streicher.

The evidence against Muslims/Jews is in their holy books.

What exactly is ‘hate speech’ about quoting Qur’an verses and then showing Muslim preachers using those verses to exhort people to commit acts of violence, as well as violent acts committed by Muslims inspired by those verses and others?” Robert Spencer.

“In Der Stuermer no editorial appeared, written by me or written by anyone of my main co-workers, in which I did not include quotations from the ancient history of the Jews, from the Old Testament, or from Jewish historical works of recent times.” Julius Streicher.

Islamic/Jewish texts encourage violence against non-believers.

“And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter… — 2:191.” Koranic verse quoted by Robert Spencer on Jihadwatch.org.

“And when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally: men and women and children, even the animals. (Deuteronomy 7:2.).” Biblical verse quoted by Julius Streicher in Der Stuermer.

Christianity is peaceful while Islam/Judaism is violent.

There is no Muslim version of ‘love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you’ or ‘if anyone strikes you on the right cheek turn to him the other also’.” Robert Spencer.

“The Jew is not being taught, like we are, such texts as, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’, or ‘If you are smitten on the left cheek, offer then your right one’.” Julius Streicher.

 

Muslims/Jews are uniquely violent.

(Islam) is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers.” Robert Spencer.

“o other people in the world has such prophecies. No other people would dare to say that it was chosen to murder and destroy the other peoples and steal their possessions.” Julius Streicher.

It’s pretty remarkable stuff. But then we come to the tenth point, and it’s the real kicker.

The final parallel is a shared insistence that such criticism has no relationship to violence.

“There is nothing in anything that I have ever written that could be reasonably construed as an incitement to violence against anyone,” says Robert Spencer.

In a strict sense, that’s probably true. Spencer himself, unlike his associates, knows to watch his mouth. In Orwell’s terms, he’s the kind of person always somewhere else when the trigger gets pulled.

Then again, so was Streicher.

For that was his defence at Nuremberg – he’d never personally incited violence.

“The contents,” Streicher argued, “of Der Stuermer as such were not [an incitement to violence]. During the whole 20 years, I never wrote in this connection, ‘Burn Jewish houses down; beat them to death’. Never once did such an incitement appear in Der Stuermer.”

Streicher didn’t burn houses down himself. Nor, he claimed, did he encourage others to do so.

But if you publish article after article claiming that a particular minority group is a deadly menace, a violent, existential threat to the nation and its citizens, can you really claim surprise if others take you seriously?

Which brings us back to Berg and the IPA.

If someone toured Australia peddling Streicher-style slurs against Judaism, the Jewish community would be rightly outraged, precisely because of the relationship between talk about war against a minority and actual physical violence against them.

Would Australian conservative thank tanks argue they had nothing to worry about? Would they tell them that rhetoric about “war against Jews” was merely a suggestion that multiculturalism was a bad policy? Would he reassure them that past examples of deadly violence were the result of an apolitical lunacy for which no-one other than the direct perpetrators were responsible?

If not, wherein lies the difference. During his Australian sojourn, Robert Spencer was invited onto ABC Queensland to discuss his theories. Would a peddler of hatred against any other minority have been treated that way?

That’s the thesis of On Utoya: that bigotry against Muslims has been consistently downplayed in the mainstream, thus creating an environment in which violence becomes more likely.

Unfortunately, the argument seems more relevant than ever.

Jeff Sparrow is the editor of Overland literary journal and the author of Killing: Misadventures in Violence. He Tweets @Jeff_Sparrow.

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Burqa mosque arson2

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Another Mosque Torched in West Bank: Hebrew Word for “War” Painted on Wall

Posted on 16 December 2011 by Emperor

More price-tag operations.

Another mosque torched in West Bank

Vandals set fire to another mosque in the West Bank on Thursday and defaced it with Hebrew graffiti.

The governor of Ramallah, Laila Ghanam, said arsonists doused the mosque in the village of Burqa with gasoline, then set it afire. The Hebrew words for “war” and “Mitzpe Yitzhar” were painted in red on a wall, and the Israeli military said carpets and chairs were burned.

Mitzpe Yitzhar is an unauthorized Jewish settlement outpost in the West Bank where Israeli security forces demolished two structures early Thursday.

In recent years, settlers have attacked Palestinian and Israeli military targets in retaliation for Israeli government operations they see as overly sympathetic to Palestinians. The increasing frequency of the attacks, the sparse number of arrests and paucity of indictments have generated allegations that the Israeli government isn’t acting forcefully enough against extremists after two years of violence.

On Wednesday, following an assault on an Israeli military base, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved measures to clamp down on extremists, including giving soldiers the authority to make arrests and to ban extremists from contentious areas.

Associated Press, 15 December 2011

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Muslims and Jews Unite to Oppose EDL

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Muslims and Jews Unite to Oppose EDL

Posted on 16 December 2011 by Ilisha

EDL

Last summer, Pamela Geller was outraged when she discovered some of her fellow far-right haters in the English Defense League are—gasp!—anti-Semitic:  Blog Wars: Pamela Geller vs. Gates of Vienna and the EDL?

The EDL has tried to court Jewish groups with little success. Now they face concerted opposition from Jewish and Muslim communities.

(cross post from Islamophobia  Watch)

Muslims and Jews unite to oppose EDL

The Home Office has written to an umbrella group representing a range of Jewish communal and religious groups in response to statements distancing themselves from the methods and aims of the English Defence League.

Earlier this year the leaders of the United Synagogue, Reform, Liberal and Masorti communities, as well as the Board of Deputies and the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ congregation, highlighted their opposition to the EDL’s tactics and called on the far right organisation to refrain from using Jewish and Israeli symbols in its campaigns.

Under the umbrella of the Council of Imams and Rabbis of the Joseph Interfaith Foundation, they rejected in particular the EDL’s “efforts to incite hatred and antagonism in our society”, its attempts to “foment violence” and “drive a wedge between the Jewish community and our Muslim neighbours”.

They attempted to draw a line under the EDL’s efforts to attract Jewish membership, which reached a peak with a rally “to oppose Islamic fascism” outside the Israeli embassy last year where EDL members waved Israeli flags. The EDL has a “Jewish Division”, but it has been beset by infighting and is understood to have only a handful of Jewish members.

James Brokenshire, the Home Office Minister responsible for policy regarding the EDL, has now sent a letter of response to Mehri Niknam, director of the Council of Imams and Rabbis.

“We welcome your positive action to counter the divisive influence and minimise the impact of EDL activity,” he said. “As a government our position is clear, we will not tolerate groups like the EDL who spread hate, seek to divide us and deliberately raise community fears and tensions.”

He said the government would continue to condemn the EDL’s views and actions when necessary and work with police and local agencies. Mr Brokenshire added that the government trusted local agencies to “put in place suitable local measures to counter the influence and minimise the impact of EDL activity. We stand ready to provide advice and support where it is requested.”

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Fact check: GOP candidates err on FBI policy

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Fact check: GOP candidates err on FBI policy

Posted on 15 December 2011 by Ilisha

Michelle Backmann

Rep. Michele Bachmann paved the way on Oct. 28, when she told 75 Republican faithful in Iowa that "Obama is allowing terror suspect groups to write the FBI's terror training manual."

(cross post from Salon)

Fact check: GOP candidates err on FBI policy

By PETE YOST, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published 08:11 p.m., Wednesday, December 14, 2011

WASHINGTON – Republican presidential candidates have claimed the Obama administration is cleansing government files of references to radical Islam, an assertion so juicy that politicians keep repeating it – even though it’s a wild exaggeration.

The latest to run with the story is former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who told a crowd in Des Moines that the president “actually ordered all references to Islam and Muslim sanitized out of our national security documents.”

And over the weekend, Newt Gingrich told a veterans’ forum in Des Moines that the administration has “issued instructions, for example, that in developing training papers on terrorism that no mention should be made of radical Islam.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann paved the way on Oct. 28, when she told 75 Republican faithful in Iowa that “Obama is allowing terror suspect groups to write the FBI’s terror training manual.”

So where is this coming from? Last September, the online publication Wired.com broke a story that an FBI analyst had given a lecture to bureau trainees that was critical of Islam. The publication followed up, disclosing that the same analyst had given a similar lecture to an FBI-sponsored event in New York City. The FBI immediately ordered a comprehensive review of all the materials it uses to train its agents.

A small percentage

It would be hard to overstate the importance the FBI attaches to assistance from the Muslim community in the bureau’s terrorism investigations in the United States – a point that FBI Director Robert Mueller drove home in an appearance Wednesday at the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“We have met with various representatives of the Muslim community” in the aftermath of the inappropriate FBI training to convey just how seriously the bureau takes the matter, said Mueller.

In an effort to ensure that all of its training materials are appropriate, Mueller said, the bureau assembled a five-member panel of experts on Islam – two people from inside the FBI and three outside scholars – from Yale, Princeton and Johns Hopkins University.

The review found a very small percentage of material that was either inappropriate or inaccurate or both, and the bureau immediately got rid of it, said a bureau official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A few snippets of the former FBI analyst’s assertions reflect the kind of information the bureau regards as inappropriate.

The analyst no longer teaches training classes.

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One Man’s Passion Births Islamic Museum

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One Man’s Passion Births Islamic Museum

Posted on 15 December 2011 by Ilisha

Islamic Heritage

America’s Islamic Heritage Museum and Cultural Center

Voice of America isn’t our favorite place to cross-post from, but this piece highlights some interesting facts.

(cross post from Voice of America)

One Man’s Passion Births Islamic Museum

Washington D.C.’s Mall is the home of many of the city’s finest museums, housing works of the masters at the National Museum of Art, historic aircraft at the Air and Space Museum and America’s Native heritage at the American Indian Museum.

But one man saw that something was missing: Amir Muhammad couldn’t find a museum that showed Islam’s history in America.  So he started digging.  His results – including photos, artifacts, and displays – have become America’s Islamic Heritage Museum and Cultural Center in Southeast Washington, DC.

Beginnings

A native of Connecticut, Amir Muhammad was raised Baptist. His first experience with Islam was in 1973, under the former Nation of Islam leader Elijah P. Muhammad. He also studied the writings of the late Malcolm X.

But it was some genealogical research that transformed his faith: he found Muslim names in his family tree. He began to search libraries and town records.  He talked to his mother, who gave him vital family information. He began to visit Georgia, where his mother was from trying to get any information he could find.

His search became more focused when he moved from Richmond, Virginia to Washington, DC.

“I felt that if I was living in the DC area, with the National Archives here, if I ever moved, I would feel bad that I didn’t take advantage of it,” said Muhammad.

Through his research, Muhammad came across several Muslim names especially amongst the Gullah people in the lowlands of South Carolina and Georgia. He found stories of Muslim slave managers who helped defend the Sea Islands of South Carolina during the War of 1812.  He found several tombstones with Muslim names, sometimes having to go deep into the woods – and into areas where he did not feel welcome – to find them.

Digging in Earnest

He also found tombstones with the one-finger bas relief, a Muslim symbol meant to signify the oneness of God. He explored the ruins of Gullah slave quarters – called “Tabby Ruins” – and found modern people who carry on the Gullah traditions – like weaving intricate baskets from sea grass.

Muhammad came across Muslim Africans who fought in the Civil War, including Muhammad Ali Ibn Said, who spoke seven languages, fought for the Union in the 55th Massachusetts Regiment and later became a teacher. He found Muslims like Hadji Ali, an Ottoman of Jordanian parents known as “Hi Jolly” who was one of the first camel drivers ever hired by the U.S. Army for its experimental Camel Corps.

Amir Muhammad’s search continued through census records, where he found Muslim names in several documents. His search also led him to sports heroes like Muhammad Ali.  He found Muslim educators, scholars, judges, lawyers, doctors, businessmen and members of the U.S. military – some of whom were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Amir says American Muslims need to know their history to feel part of the country.
“Another thing we talk about is the forgotten roots, because it’s something that’s forgotten,” he said. “People don’t understand that it’s the roots and the core of America,” said Muhammad.

Traveling show

His research was first displayed in 1996 as a traveling exhibit by a non-profit organization called the “Collections and Stories of American Muslims,” or CSAM.

Muhammad and his wife Habeebah – a PhD and Registrar at the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture – took the exhibit to several countries. In Qatar, it was featured in the State Department’s cultural exchange program.

The exhibit also traveled to Nigeria, and made stops in Abuja, Abeokuta, and Kano, where Muhammad personally led tours through the exhibit for visiting dignitaries.

Permanent Home

This year, the Exhibit found a home at the former Clara Muhammad School on Martin Luther King Avenue in Washington’s Anacostia neighborhood. A former carriage and paint shop the building was upgraded to a school and then revamped to accommodate the museum.

The development and cost of the current space was more than $40,000.  The cost for keeping the museum open for the first year is expected to be around $150,000. The facility also hosted four iftars this year – including one sponsored by the Ambassador of the Embassy of Qatar.

Amir Muhammad’s eyes light up when he talks about his work.  He calls finding Muslims in American history “like a blessing from God.”  But he added that his hope is to one day to join other museums in a prominent place on the Washington Mall.

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All-American Muslim: Kayak Executive Robert Birge Issues World’s Worst “Apology” Ever

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All-American Muslim: Kayak Executive Robert Birge Issues World’s Worst “Apology” Ever

Posted on 14 December 2011 by Danios

Lowes has been at the center of the All-American Muslim controversy for having caved to anti-Muslim bigotry and pulling its advertisements from the show.  But there is another company that is also just as guilty: Kayak.

So far, Kayak has been flying under the radar, with Lowes absorbing much of the heat.  That may change after Kayak’s Chief Marketing Officer Robert Birge issued what can only be called the world’s worst “apology” ever.  It was not only dishonest and rude, but it was also simply a “non-apology,” shifting most of the blame to TLC and the show itself!

The “apology” begins with this gem:

Our team includes people who are descended from early Europeans who came here escaping religious intolerance, and newer Americans who include many religions. We get what America is about.

So basically, his team consists mostly of white people.  Oh, it also has some non-white people, who Robert Birge considers “newer Americans.”  Does his “150-person team” not have a single black, American Indian, or Hispanic person?  Apparently, Mr. Birge does not realize that black people are as old as this country (they were brought here in chains and the country was built on their backs), that American Indians were here long before Birge’s ancestors were, or that Mexicans lived on the land long before Europeans invaded their country.  Does his company not have any Japanese-Americans, who have been in this country for generations?  Even many Arab-Americans in Dearborn itself have been in the U.S. for three generations.  To Robert Birge, I suppose these are all “newer Americans.”

Then, Mr. Birge issues his non-apology:

When we decided to give our money to TLC for this program, we deemed the show a worthy topic. When we received angry emails regarding our decision to advertise, I looked into the show more thoroughly.

The first thing I discovered was that TLC was not upfront with us about the nature of this show. As I said, it’s a worthy topic, but any reasonable person would know that this topic is a particular lightning rod. We believe TLC went out of their way to pick a fight on this, and they didn’t let us know their intentions. That’s not a business practice that generally gets repeat business from us. I also believe that it did this subject a grave disservice. Sadly, TLC is now enjoying the attention from this controversy.

What exactly didn’t TLC disclose “about the nature of this show”?  A New York Times article counters this lame excuse:

A reporter who received an e-mail from Kayak with Mr. Birge’s blog post was puzzled because there was considerable publicity about “All-American Muslim” before its debut. Articles outlined the contents of the show and its focus on the Muslim-American community of Dearborn, Mich., a Detroit suburb.

Exactly.  Contrary to what Mr. Birge insinuates, there was nothing mysterious about the show or its intent: it was clear to everyone, even the Islamophobic bigots themselves, that it was about showing how American Muslims are regular people just like you and me: they have jobs, mortgages, children, dreams, etc.  What was unclear about this?

Read between the lines and it is clear what Robert Birge is saying: he is arguing, just like the anti-Muslim bigots, that this show about American Muslims had an ulterior motive and a secret agenda.  You know those swarthy and stealthy Muslims always have some secret Islamic agenda and can’t be trusted!

The NYT article goes on (bold is mine):

The reporter e-mailed Kayak to ask why Mr. Birge believed TLC kept information from the company. In an e-mail response, Mr. Birge replied: “When TLC pitched ‘All-American Muslim’ to advertisers, it was characterized as a fair-and-balanced look at the life of an American Muslim.”

“However,” he continued, “what was not disclosed was the pre-existing controversy surrounding race, religion and specifically the divide between the Muslim and Christian communities in Dearborn, Mich.”

Dearborn “has been a center of controversy for right or wrong,” he added. “However, that was omitted by TLC when it pitched the show.”

Here, the Kayak executive regurgitates the arguments raised by the Islamophobes.  For example, Florida Family Association argued that the show did not depict “a fair-and-balanced look at the life of an American Muslim” since it didn’t deal with certain issues, such as how Muslims (supposedly) want to impose Sharia on non-Muslims.  Mr. Birge says almost the exact same thing, arguing that the show fails to depict “a fair-and-balanced look at the life of an American Muslim” because “what was not discussed was the pre-existing controversy surrounding race, religion and specifically the divide between the Muslim and Christian communities in Dearborn, Mich.”  He stops just short of saying that the Muslims of Dearborn are subjecting the Christians of the city to Islamic values.  (Only Christians are allowed to impose their views on others in this country.)

Instead of denouncing the FFA, Robert Birge focuses his wrath on FFA’s target, TLC and the show.

Can you imagine if Kayak had pulled ads for a black reality show because of a controversy (created by Neo-Nazis) that it failed to depict “a fair-and-balanced look at the life of” black people–you know, all those “pre-existing controvers[ie]s surrounding” crime, drugs, and violence.

Just imagine if Kayak had treated Jewish-Americans this way.  What kind of apology do you think Kayak would be issuing then?

Furthermore, as the NYT article points out:

There seems to be nothing from TLC in the way of news releases or other material from the channel that would suggest it wanted to be inflammatory on the issue of Muslims in America or take advantage of the ensuing controversy over the advertising on the show.

Might I ask Mr. Birge: if Kayak had known that anti-Muslim bigots would protest the show for showing American Muslims as normal people, would they simply have not advertised on the show, using “controversy” as an out?  Isn’t that the very definition of “cav[ing] to hatred”?

Robert Birge concludes with this infuriating line:

Lastly, I watched the first two episodes. Mostly, I just thought the show sucked.

Mr. Birge, you are the Chief Marketing Officer of a major company and this is how you issue a formal apology when your company royally screws up?  Is this what you consider professional behavior?  Your company’s choices, which we see as the endorsement of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry, have seriously offended and hurt American Muslims and Arab-Americans.  And this is how you end your “apology”?  If I were in charge of you, sir, I would fire you, because you lack common sense.

Do you think it is wise for you to end your non-apology with your personal opinion that the show–the first reality show about American Muslims (the same group your company sided against along with anti-Muslim bigots)–sucks?  The truth is that you are only so flippant about this matter because the demographic you have insulted is currently the lowest on the social totem pole.  I doubt you’d be so callous about this topic if you had been accused of siding with anti-black racists or Anti-Semites.  You’d be grovelling to keep your job in that case.

More importantly, since when has your company pursued a policy of only advertising on shows that you, Robert Birge, specifically enjoy?

Kayak will hide behind the claim that they pulled their ads because of the “controversy” surrounding All-American Muslim, even though this “controversy” was all manufactured by anti-Muslim bigots.  There is absolutely no evidence that TLC or the show seeks to be controversial.  In fact, they depict the very mundane lives of regular American Muslims to show that they are not all that different from you and I.

The only “controversy” is that created by anti-Muslim bigots.  So by citing this as their reason to pull out, Kayak has sided with them.

As for me, I’m not going to give one cent to Kayak ever in the future and I encourage you all to do the same.  Not until they issue a real apology.  If they wanted to show sincere contrition (instead of an insincere non-apology), Kayak would back it up with action and renew their ad contract with the show.

Admit this much, Mr. Birge: if this controversy had been about a show called Black America or All-American Jews, can you honestly say that you wouldn’t be falling all over yourselves renewing your ad contract with the show?  But because it’s Muslims–the most discriminated segment of society right now–you could care less.

I doubt Kayak will do the right thing, but I can guarantee you this much: in one generation or two, American students will study about this time–just as today’s students study bigotry towards Japanese-Americans during World War II or racism against blacks in the 1950′s–and look back at amazement and utter disgust at those who sided with the forces of hatred.

Shame on you, Robert Birge.  And shame on you, Kayak.

Note to readers: I would recommend sending a strong but courteous email of disapproval to Kayak, which can be done here.  If anyone can find Robert Birge’s email address, please post it and I will update the article with that information.  Also, make sure to hyperlink to this article in your email.  I would also appreciate your help in spreading this article by linking it on your Facebook walls, so that we can let it be known to the world: Kayak, you suck.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

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Amnesty_International

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Amnesty International: Happy World Travel

Posted on 14 December 2011 by Amago

Amnesty International: Happy World Travel


Indefinite detention, torture, Islamophobia, Guantanamo, the “war on terror”. Ten years after 9/11 this remains the new normal that we live in, and there’s nothing funny about it.

But humor can be powerful — so we at Amnesty International USA invite you to check out our new short video “Happy World Travel”, featuring Dileep Rao (Avatar, Inception). What happens when a normal dude named Rob (or is it Raj?!) heads to a travel agency looking for a relaxing vacation? Will he be eligible for the “Not-so Geneva Package”? Could Rob’s story be yours if we continue to allow the US to flout the rule of law?

What can you do? Join us on January 11th in Washington, DC for a day of action to close Guantanamo. http://www.amnestyusa.org/jan11

And visit Amnesty International USA’s Security with Human Rights campaign to learn more about ending torture and indefinite detention, once and for all.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/security

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Jerusalem price tag attack, Dec. 14, 2011. Photo by: Jerusalem Fire Dept.

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The ‘Price Tag’ Terror Group Vandalizes a Jerusalem Mosque

Posted on 14 December 2011 by Amago

Jerusalem price tag attack, Dec. 14, 2011. Photo by: Jerusalem Fire Dept.

Jerusalem price tag attack, Dec. 14, 2011. Photo by: Jerusalem Fire Dept.

If Muslims were attacking synagogues or churches at the rate that these attackers are, the right-wing nuts would be having a feeding frenzy.

Jerusalem mosque set alight in suspected ‘price tag’ attack

Jerusalem Mayor denounces arsonists’ attack on burial site of noted Muslim figure, saying zero tolerance should be shown to violence of any kind, and that coexistence in the city must be kept.

By Oz Rosenberg and Nir Hasson

Arsonists set fire to a deserted mosque in central Jerusalem during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. There was no structural damage reported and the damage mainly consisted of the blackening of walls and graffiti reading “Price Tag,” and anti-Islamic phrases.

The Nebi Akasha mosque, apparently built under the Ayyubid dynasty in the 12th century with additions made under the Mamluk dynasty in the 13th century. It is believed that the mosque was founded on the burial site of combatants in Saladin’s army, though an ancient tradition designates the site as the place where Akasha, a friend of the Prophet Muhammad, was buried.

The mosque is uniquely located in central Jerusalem in the midst of a Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. It was abandoned in the Israeli War of Independence. Its was recently renovated and turned into a municipal storage facility.

Graffiti spray painted on the historical site included inscriptions such as “Muhammad is Dead,” “Muhammad is a Pig,” and “Price Tag.”

The Jerusalem municipality closed off the entrance to the mosque, and the police and Shin Bet began an investigation.

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Robert Spencer Attempts to Falsely Link Belgian Attacker to Islam, Based Solely on His Muslamic Sounding Name

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Robert Spencer Attempts to Falsely Link Belgian Attacker to Islam, Based Solely on His Muslamic Sounding Name

Posted on 13 December 2011 by Garibaldi

Robert Spencer

There is no denying the uptick in right-wing terrorism in Europe, Anders Breivik being the most glaring example of this violence. The ties between fanatical right-wingers in Europe and in the United States is well known, Robert Spencer being a prominent figure in such circles. Of course, right-wing Islamophobes are in denial about the resurgent xenophobia and anti-Muslim hysteria they have helped foster and which is now having deadly consequences.

Now, Robert “Police Blotter” Spencer is at it again, resorting to his well worn modus operandi of trying to link any possible crime “allegedly” committed by a Muslim to Islam.

He does this of course to dehumanize Muslims, inflate and exaggerate the stealth-Muslamic-Islamization threat and also to deflect from any negative news regarding the so-called “counter jihad” movement.

This is clear when we learn that just today a man with links to extreme right-wing groups in Italy murdered two Senegalese traders. This is the sort of violence that is usually applauded amongst the “internet counter jihadis,” including on Spencer’s own site as well as that of his friends.

Spencer quickly jumped on a Telegraph report about an attack in Liege, Belgium, in which four people were killed and dozens injured. According to the Telegraph report, the attacker was identified as Nordine Amrani citing (without a link) something called the “Karachi Post,” saying the attack was linked to an “honor killing.”

To say the least, this whet Spencer’s enormous anti-Muslim Islamophobic appetite. Spencer went on to write,

…the Telegraph notes a link to an honor killing case that could indicate that this was yet another act of violence by Misunderstanders of the Religion of Peace.

Spencer’s own fans took issue with his jumping the gun, cautioning him not to make a fool out of himself:

GnaeusNaevius | December 13, 2011 7:01 AM | Reply

Be careful before attributing this to Islamic terror. We don’t know for sure yet.If it transpires that it has nothing to do with Islam, it makes Jihad watch look bad.

Spencer responded by blaming others, as well as saying that “GnaeusNaevius” criticism sounds “like something out of the looniest Islamic supremacist foes of this site.”

Gnaeus goes on to have another exchange with Spencer,

GnaeusNaevius | December 13, 2011 7:15 AM | Reply

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your reply. Your point is well taken, but I would rather you had held back until we had CONCRETE evidence of the motivations of this attack. Otherwise, it does make you a bit too keen to pin things like this on Muslims. It’s happened before.

My advice is for your benefit, not mine.

Best Regards,

Will.

Gnaeus

Actually, I am not keen to “pin things like this on Muslims,” and whatever you think has “happened before,” in reality I have always done what I have done here: report available evidence.

If the Telegraph reports on the honor killing link, and the Flanders News gives the attacker’s name (the Telegraph has it as well now) why is it all right for them to report these things but wrong for me to do so?

Your assumptions are completely baseless.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Others also took issue with Spencer:

Vagn Henning | December 13, 2011 7:49 AM | Reply

I think Gnaeus’s advice is wise. Reproducing other peoples’ speculation harms JW’s credibility if they turn out to be baseless. No-one is questioning JW’s right to quote the Karachi Post, only the wisdom in doing so.

So what ended up happening? It blew up in Spencer’s face. He would have done well to listen to his brethren, but such is the condition of the fuzzy guru of Islamophobes; he cannot countenance any criticism or even advice.

It turns out the attack had nothing to with “honor killing,” as loonwatch commenter RDS put it:

“Update, 9:00 a.m. EST/3:00 p.m. CET:

Pakistani Twitter account Karachi Post claims the attack was linked to a sentence in an honor killing case. (Officials later said the case was in no way linked to the attack, and the Karachi Post admitted they used the attacks as efforts “highlighting the evil of honor killing.”)”

So the so-called Karachi Post is a twitter dude, and yet his statement supersedes statements by Belgian officials. Use of disingenuous links to bolster a non-credible claim? You don’t say…

bboyblue also updates us that Nordine Armani was actually a gun freak, drug peddler and a felon:

A convicted gun fanatic threw hand grenades and opened fire on a square bustling with Christmas shoppers in the centre of the Belgian city of Liège, killing at least six people, including himself, and wounding dozens, some critically.

Hours after failing to show up for police questions about his preoccupation with guns, the 33-year-old unleashed a lunchtime attack on Place Saint Lambert, which was hosting a Christmas market that attracts 1.5 million visitors a year.

Police said there were no indications that the dead assailant, a local man, had been involved with terrorism. Nor was there evidence of any ideological motivation for the murders.

The gunman was named as Nordine Amrani, a 33-year-old Liègeois who was known to be a “gun freak”, according to the police. He was given a jail term of almost five years after police officers raided his metal workshop three years ago and found a dozen firearms, including an AK-47 machine-gun, and 9,500 gun parts. He was also found guilty of drug dealing after cultivating 2,800 marijuana plants.

He has a North African sounding name so naturally he’s being framed as a jihadist by the Islamophobes. But this looks like the actions of a man who was desperate not to go back to jail, and would rather take his own life and as many others as possible than be incarcerated again. There don’t appear to be any political or religious motivation behind his actions. He’s obviously well known to the police, and they are satisfied that there are no links to a terrorist network. But, he’s from an Arabic background and possibly a Muslim one, and that’s all the right wingers need to know.

Put this down as example number 1,000,342,784,678 in the annals of #EpicRobertSpencerFail.

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italian_2083372c

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Extreme Right-Winger, Gianluca Casseri Kills Two Senegalese Men

Posted on 13 December 2011 by Emperor

Gianluca Casseri

Gianluca Casseri

Over 90% of Senegalese are Muslims, is it shocking that this fanatical right-winger from Florence targeted them? Don’t expect the likes of Robert Spencer to speak about some one such as Casseri who likely shares in his ideology, he’s too busy trying to link crimes committed by random Muslims to Islam.

Florence street vendors shot dead by lone gunman

Police said the gunman, Gianluca Casseri, 50, was known to have sympathies with Italy’s extreme Right.

He first opened fire on a group of Senegalese street traders at a market in Piazza Dalmazia, on the northern outskirts of the Tuscan city, killing two, seriously wounding a third and causing panic among shoppers and pedestrians.

He then jumped into a white car and drove off. Witnesses said the owner of a newspaper stall tried to block him but the gunman told him that unless he got out of the way he would be the next victim.

Casseri appeared a short time later at San Lorenzo market, in the centre of Florence, where he opened fire again with a .357 Magnum hand gun, wounding two more Senegalese hawkers.

He then turned the gun on himself, shooting himself in the chest.

“I heard the shots but I thought they were fireworks. Then I turned around and I saw three men on the ground surrounded by blood,” a vendor at the scene of the first shooting told the Italian news agency Ansa.

Senegalese traders were quoted as saying that they had worked in the city for years, had never had any trouble, and could not understand the motive for the attacks.

Florence and other large Italian cities host a shifting population of African street vendors who sell traditional handicrafts and fake designer handbags to tourists.

After the shootings, a group of West African traders staged a peaceful demonstration at the scene of the first shooting, shouting “Shame, shame”, before marching on the city centre.

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Daily Mail’s Bigoted and Inaccurate Reporting Provokes More Right-wing anti-Muslim Hysteria

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Daily Mail’s Bigoted and Inaccurate Reporting Provokes More Right-wing anti-Muslim Hysteria

Posted on 13 December 2011 by Ilisha

BNP

Right Wing British National Party

The recent case of an assault on a white woman by Somalis in Britain is being fully exploited by loons on both sides of the Atlantic. Islamophobia Watch investigated and exposed the distorted coverage, though as usual, the truth cannot wash away the residue such sensationalism invariably creates.

Daily Mail’s bigoted and inaccurate reporting provokes more right-wing anti-Muslim hysteria

Over the past week we have seen a wave of right-wing hysteria over the case of Rhea Page, a white woman from Leicester who was assaulted by four women of Somali heritage – or a “Muslim gang”, as they are invariably described.

The version of events that has gained currency on the racist right is that the women subjected Page to a “savage beating” while screaming “kill the white slag” but escaped a prison sentence because the judge accepted the defence’s argument in mitigation that the accused were Muslims who weren’t used to drinking alcohol. The case has been presented as an example of double standards in the British legal system, which supposedly discriminates against the white majority population and in favour of Muslims and other minorities.

Daily Express columnist Leo McKinstry produced a characteristically frothing-at-the-mouth comment piece on the case. Being a bit of a traditionalist, McKinstry couldn’t help adding a large dollop of good old-fashioned racism to his article (“Too many Somalians have become a burden on the British taxpayer, thanks to their welfare dependency…. Somalian gangs, most of them peddling drugs, have helped to create a climate of fear in parts of our cities through their enthusiasm for violence and contempt for the law”). But the main thrust of his argument was viciously Islamophobic:

The dogma of political correctness is dangerously weakening Britain’s traditional concept of justice. Our ruling elite are so deluded by the ideology of cultural diversity that they have lost the ability to protect the innocent and punish the guilty.

That is the only conclusion to be drawn from the outrageous leniency shown by a court this week towards a gang of Somalian Muslim women who savagely beat up a white woman in Leicster city centre. In a brutal, unprovoked assault, the thugs knocked Rhea Page to the ground, then repeatedly kicked in the head while calling her a “white bitch” and “white slag”….

Incredibly, despite the ferocity of the attack, the judge gave the girls only suspended sentences, even though he could have jailed them for up to five years. His bizarre decision came after the defence told him that the Muslim assailants had been drinking and were “not used to being drunk” because of their religion.

As a cause for mitigation, this is absurd. Why on earth should Muslims be treated any differently to other offenders, simply on the grounds of their faith? … The disgraceful message of this episode is that Muslims can get drunk and maim almost with impunity because the state is so craven about their creed….

The reluctance to imprison Ms Page’s attackers is so indicative of the supine, guilt-ridden mindset of our modern ruling class, where cowardice is dressed up as cultural sensitivity and self-loathing masquerades as tolerance. This mentality, which is tearing apart the moral bonds of our civilisation, can be seen all around us. This mentality, which is tearing apart the moral bonds of our civilisation, can be seen all around us….

Tremendous double standards are at work over race crime. Racial killings of whites are frequently downplayed or forgotten…. The British establishment is guilty of nothing less than reverse racism. Their members, from judges to politicians, think they are enlightened and compassionate. But in truth they are filled with prejudice. For often they refuse to expect the same standards of civilised behaviour from certain minorities that they demand of the indigenous population.

Forces further to the right have of course seized on the case. The British National Party reported it under the headline “‘Enough is enough’ – Rising anger over court bias as Muslim racists swagger free from Leicester court” and boasted that they were recruiting members off the back of the controversy. Paul Weston, the leader of the English Defence League’s new political ally the British Freedom Party, posted an article (“One rule for them, one rule for us”) on Ned May’s Gates of Vienna blog, one of the “counterjihadist” websites that provided the inspiration for Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik. The EDL itself organised a protest in Leicester yesterday and has announced that it will be holding a national demonstration there in February to oppose “anti-white racism and the 2 tier justice system”.

This entire furore derives from a report published in the Daily Mail last week, under the headline “Muslim gang who kicked woman in the head while yelling ‘kill the white slag’ FREED” (subsequently amended to “Girl gang who kicked woman in the head while yelling ‘kill the white slag’ freed after judge hears ‘they weren’t used to drinking because they’re Muslims’”). In the print edition the article was headlined “Somali girls thugs go free after judge is told ‘they were not used to being drunk’”, but the Mail evidently thought it necessary to beef up the shock-horror anti-Muslim message for the benefit its online readership.

The Mail‘s account provided the basis for further coverage in the Sun, the Telegraph and the Metro. The Sun added an editorial comment, headed “Return Left”:

How Britain cheered when judges doled out proper jail sentences to the looters who briefly ran amok in our cities. Four months on, the Left has regrouped to concoct its perverse excuses for evil. And courts have resumed their liberal agenda too. So while in the summer yobs were handed two years apiece, yesterday a girl gang who screamed racist abuse while kicking a care worker’s head in got six months. Suspended. The poor dears were Muslims and not used to drinking, you see.

Since then the Sun has kept the issue on the boil by running an interview with Rhea Page (“I daren’t go out since race attack”), which in turn provided the Mail with an opportunity to run the story a second time (“Muslim girl gang ‘sentence sends wrong message about street violence’”). Not to be outdone, the Express, apparently feeling that McKinstry’s extended rant was an inadequate response to the scandal, published another op ed by Nick Ferrari (“Whatever happened to the idea of everyone being equal in the eyes of the law? Are we really suggesting that Muslims can be seen to be beyond the law by virtue of being unused to drink? … If this wasn’t a race crime, what the hell is?”)

Where did the Mail get the information for the report that provoked such a frenzy? As is often the case, the paper lifted the basic facts from a local newspaper and then distorted them in order to support its own anti-Muslim agenda. (For another recent example, see the Mail‘s concocted story of “church leaders” expressing “fury” over a branch of McDonald’s opening on Christmas Day.) In this instance the Mail‘s piece was essentially a rewrite of a report published in the Leicester Mercury back on 24 November, combined with quotes from an interview with Rhea Page, who of course held her assailants entirely responsible for the violent confrontation and claimed that she and her partner Lewis Moore were blameless.

If you examine the Leicester Mercury report you can see how it has been manipulated by the Mail. It was the lawyer for just one of the defendants, Ambaro Maxamed, who raised the issue of their faith. He said: “Although Miss Page’s partner used violence, it doesn’t justify their behaviour. They’re Somalian Muslims and alcohol or drugs isn’t something they’re used to.” But there is no suggestion in the Mercury report that the religious affiliation of the accused had anything to do with the judge’s decision not to jail them:

Sentencing, Judge Robert Brown said: “This was ugly and reflects very badly on all four of you. Those who knock someone to the floor and kick them in the head can expect to go inside, but I’m going to suspend the sentence.” He said he accepted the women may have felt they were the victims of unreasonable force from the victim’s partner.

A researcher from Full Fact contacted the Judicial Office, who referred her to the Mercury report as accurately reflecting the facts of the case and pointed out that “the role of the victim’s boyfriend was the one which impacted on the judgement”. This was no doubt reinforced by the fact that the main object of Lewis Moore’s violence was Ifrah Nur, who it appears had initially intervened to try and stop the fight, only to be punched in the face by Moore.

The Mail was clearly aware of this hole in its story. Hence the weasel-worded sentence that opened its report: “A gang of Muslim women who attacked a passer-by in a city centre walked free from court after a judge heard they were ‘not used to being drunk’ because of their religion” (emphasis added). Chronologically speaking, this is of course strictly true. The Mail‘s objective, however, was to mislead its readers into concluding that the judge decided against jailing the women because they were Muslims.

The actual cause of the violent clash is itself obscure. The Mail quoted Page as saying:”I honestly think they attacked me just because I am white. I can’t think of any other reason.” She added: “We were just minding our own business but they kept shouting ‘white bitch’ and ‘white slag’ at me. When I turned around one of them grabbed my hair then threw me on the ground.” Page repeated this accusation in her Sun interview: “they all came from behind me shouting, ‘White bitch’ and ‘White slag’. I had done absolutely nothing to them, I hadn’t even looked at them.”

But the Mercury report states that the assault on Page followed a verbal altercation: “after words were exchanged, Ambaro Maxamed had grabbed Miss Page’s hair, causing her to fall on the ground” (emphasis added). Which obviously conflicts with Page’s account. The Mail has posted CCTV footage of the incident on its website, but this has been edited so that the events leading up to the attack have been omitted. Even on the basis of this truncated version, however, it looks as though Page was involved in a verbal exchange with two of the four women before they attacked her. Exactly what was said, and why it provoked a violent reaction, the Mail obviously had no interest in establishing. They preferred to whip up the anger and indignation of their readers with a tale of Muslim thugs attacking a random stranger solely because she was white.

The claim that the attack was racially motivated is also dubious. The Mercury reports that only one of the defendants was accused of using such language: “During the hearing, James Bide-Thomas, prosecuting, said Ambaro Maxamed, who started the violence, had called Miss Page a ‘white bitch’ during the incident.” But Page’s account has all four of the women calling her a “white bitch” and “white slag” before attacking her. If that was indeed the case, it is difficult to understand why the Crown Prosecution Service failed to charge the accused with a racially aggravated offence. The Islamophobic right of course have a ready explanation for that. It wasn’t because the police and CPS were unconvinced that the assault was racially motivated or felt there was insufficient evidence to prove this (just as they refused to accept the allegation by Ifrah Nur that Page’s partner Lewis Moore had himself been racially abusive towards her). It was because the state systematically discriminates against white citizens in favour of ethno-religious minorities. And that, we are told, was also why the defendants were not sent to prison.

Indeed, as we have seen, the central claim of the racist right in relation to this case is that the sentencing of the four women was part of a general pattern, with the legal system systematically giving preferential treatment to non-white minority communities and Muslims in particular. To quote Leo McKinstry’s diatribe: “We can be pretty sure that if a Somalian Muslim girl had been kicked to the ground by a group of white brutes, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Police would have taken a tougher approach.” This is the so-called “two-tier system” that the EDL endlessly bangs on about.

This myth was demolished in a recent Guardian report, based on an analysis of over a million court records, which found that:

black offenders were 44% more likely than white offenders to be sentenced to prison for driving offences, 38% more likely to be imprisoned for public disorder or possession of a weapon and 27% more likely for drugs possession. Asian offenders were 41% more likely to be sent to prison for drugs offences than their white counterparts and 19% more likely to go to jail for shoplifting.

One expert, who is working with the Magistrates’ Association on disparities in sentencing, told the Guardian that the “disproportionality appears to be getting worse”.

As for McKinstry’s views on the judicial system’s supposed bias in favour of Muslims and minorities, ENGAGE has posted an effective response:

His statement that had the race of the attacker and victim been reversed, the sentencing would have been harsher is highly dubious. Take, for example, the disproportionate effects of stop and search on ethnic minorities, or the harsh judgements handed down to young Muslims for public order offences committed during demonstrations against the Israeli offensive on Gaza in December 2009 – January 2010. Or to use examples more directly related to the question of inversing ethnic identities and comparing the judges’ decisions – take the case of the four men who were given suspended sentences for their drunken attack on a mosque in Scunthorpe last month, or the community service sentence given to a young white teenager who committed a religiously aggravated attack on a Muslim police officer. Did any of these cases merit a column from McKinstry on the justice system and its upholding equality under the law? The answer is, of course, no.

None of this justifies the violence to which Rhea Page was subjected, of course. It is even possible that Page was indeed attacked at random, purely because she was white, though that strikes me as unlikely. It might be argued that the assailants should have received heavier sentences. Or you could argue that Lewis Moore should have been charged with assault too, for that matter. But in order to make a judgement on these issues it would be neccessary to have much more reliable information about the case than we currently do. It is a shameful reflection on the state of journalism in the UK that the Mail, and the rest of the press that unquestioningly followed its lead, have shown not the slightest interest in uncovering that information and presenting us with an accurate account of the events.

In its analysis of the inaccurate press coverage of the case, Full Fact has suggested that “this handling of the story reflects inexperience in reporting legal issues on the part of the journalists concerned”. That is far too charitable. In reality, what we have here is the conscious manipulation and distortion of the facts by the Mail in order to produce a misleading story that has been uncritically repeated by other right-wing newspapers, with the aim of inciting their readers against Muslims.

This sort of irresponsible journalism has real consequences. Former Daily Star journalist Richard Peppiatt, who has explained to the Leveson inquiry how that paper takes its line directly from the Mailput it very well: ”The lies of a newspaper in London can get a bloke’s head caved-in down an alley in Bradford.” Already we are seeing increasingly violent expressions of anti-Muslim bigotry in the UK – only last week an EDL member and his friend were convicted of trying to blow up a mosque in Stoke. Nor is it accidental that Anders Breivik was influenced by the Mail – numerous anti-Muslim reports from the paper are cited in his manifesto and he even reproduced an article by Melanie Philips in its entirety. If the Islamophobic propaganda put out by the Mail and the rest of the right-wing press continues at its present pitch the emergence of a British Breivik cannot be ruled out.

Postscript:  This analysis has concentrated on the right-wing response to the case in the UK. However, it has also been taken up by US right, with predictably ignorant and bigoted coverage from the likes of Jihad Watch, Bare Naked Islam, Pamela Geller and FrontPage Magazine.

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TAM: Cucumber “Fatwa” Seems to Be Only Shoddy Reporting

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TAM: Cucumber “Fatwa” Seems to Be Only Shoddy Reporting

Posted on 12 December 2011 by Ilisha

Sexy Bananas

Sexy Bananas

The loons are having a field day spreading a ridiculous rumor about an Islamic cleric who supposedly issued a fatwa warning women not to get near bananas and cucumbers because long, slender fruits and vegetables might inspire “sexy thoughts.” Supposedly he also added carrots and zucchini to the list of forbidden foods for women.

Various anti-Muslim hate sites seized the opportunity to ridicule Muslims, including the infamous Jihad Watch and Atlas Shrugs. In No Cucumbers or Bananas for you, Slut!, Pamela Geller makes a nauseating attempt at humor at the expense of Muslims:

Obama say, “Respect it!” Jay Leno’s wife Mavis say, “The Qur’an is more liberal with women than the Bible.” Geller say, “One banana split, please, and a side of cukes, with extra whipped creme, thankyouverymuch.

Hell knows, whenever I am feeling lonely or blue, I head down to D’Agostinos and I perk right up again.

Seriously, this is a war on women, about women and ultimately to control women. Women are the ultimate booty, the spoils of war, chattel.

Sheila Musaji of The American Muslim investigated and concluded the rumor was unsubstantiated and a result of “shoddy reporting”:

Cucumber “fatwa” seems to be only shoddy reporting

by Sheila Musaji
There was supposedly a fatwa written which would deserve ridicule if it exists.  The original article about this was posted on Bikyamasr, an Egyptian news site, and the article was written by an individual named Manar Ammar.  Manar Ammar is identified as a Senior Reporter and Women’s Editor for Bikyamasr.com.

The article quotes an UNNAMED Islamic Cleric residing in Europe who “has banned women from touching bananas, cucumbers and other elongated fruit and vegetable due to their sexual resemblance”  The Bikyamasr article refers to the source as “The unnamed sheikh, who was featured in an article on el-Senousa news”.

I tried searching for el-Senousa news, but got nowhere.  There is no site for any such entity.  I can find nothing about them searching the net except for hundreds of articles reposting the article from Bikyamasr which mentions el-Senousa as its source.

Muna Khan at al Arabiya reports the same problems I had in finding the actual source of this story, and says “According to the Canadian news site Straight.com, it’s been difficult to find the El-Senousa site on which Bikya Masr based its article on. A simple search of the website takes you to a list of articles on the story being quoted but not to the main site itself.”  She points out that there have been enough of what I call “stupid fatwas” to make anything easy to believe, but, it is an irresponsible rush to judgement to just assume something is true and publish it without any fact checking.

I found the article from Straight here, and it says “That’s some pretty good flame-bait, but is it legit? According to the article in bikyamasr.com, the story originally appeared on something called “el-Senousa news”, but good luck finding it. In fact, a Google search for “el-Senousa news” only points back—many times over—to the article in bikyamasr.com.  Between that and the somewhat intangible location and identity of the “unnamed sheikh” in the article, the tale of the vegetable-fearing Mullah is starting to look a little short on authenticity. What’s more likely is that the independent news service bikyamasr.com is reacting to the troubling emergence of the hard-line Salafi Al-Nou party in Egypt’s (reportedly fraud-ridden) election—a story that, sadly, isn’t so cockamamie.

This article was immediately picked up and posted with appropriate anti-Muslim comments by just about every site in the Islamophobic echo chamber.

Robert Spencer posted the “story” from Bikyamasr on Jihad Watch and included in his lede “It’s all about controlling women, like so many aspects of Islamic law. Sharia Alert from Eurabia”.

The always ladylike Pamela Geller posted this on Atlas Shrugs under the heading No cucumbers or bananas for you, slut!  and included in the lede “Obama say, “Respect it!” Jay Leno’s wife Mavis say, “The Qur’an is more liberal with women than the Bible.” Geller say, “One banana split, please, and a side of cukes, with extra whipped creme, thankyouverymuch.”

Weazel Zippers simply posted the article with no lede, but the comments their readers posted in response are truly hateful.  For example: — ALL of Islam is a plague, a disease of the mind and soul.Folks there is going to be a war—-I mean a real war where winner takes all and these animals will gladly die for their cause so we better get ready to do the same…..and I don’t ever again want to hear the term moderate muslim….my reply to that is show me one—just one.

You get the idea about the response to this article, and that response is not to a particular unknown shaikh, but to all Muslims.  Perhaps the author of the article and the Egyptian site that posted it are unaware that there is a problem with Islamophobia out there.

Why would anyone post an article about an unnamed person residing somewhere in one of the 47 countries of Europe who had supposedly issued a stupid fatwa without any corroborating evidence that this was even true.  What is the point of raising this issue in such a thoughtless way?  This is not a satirical article making fun of the stupidity involved in such a fatwa.  This is not an article that provides concrete facts about the author of the fatwa, or that provides any counter arguments.  There are no facts here that others could use to counter the fatwa, or to make a judgement about the author.

Whatever the reason that Bikyamasr had for posting this bit of unsubstantiated nonsense, the only effect it has had was to give the Islamophobes yet another item to use for years to come to bash Muslims.  This article was not just irresponsible, it was as stupid as the supposed fatwa would be if it in fact exists.

I would like to see either a clarification of the article with actual information about the supposed fatwa and its supposed author (that can be verified), or an apology for engaging in reckless speculation and passing on of rumors.

It’s not as if we don’t have enough actual members of the Muslim lunatic fringe that need to be countered, that we need to make them up.

UPDATE 12/10/2011

I received an email from the Founder and Editor of Bikyamasr:

Thank you for your email. I am Joseph Mayton, the Editor and Founder of Bikyamasr.com. I would like to bring your attention to the corrected version of the article, which now has the appropriate name of the publication where the information first appeared in Arabic, with a link.

We take full responsibility for this error and have stated so on the article. It is unfortunate that it has been taken out of context, but we feel that by talking about the anger it initially sparked was properly done. At the end, these places are going to take any little bit of information for their own purposes. It is sad.

I hope you will understand that we do our utmost to source anything from a third party, as any other news website would.

If you have any other questions, or would like to interview me, or our staff, please let us know.

Thank you very much for the email, Joseph

The article now lists the source of this “fatwa” as el-Sawsana news and the link takes you to a site that is only in Arabic.  I don’t speak Arabic, so am unable to make out what the original article of this “news” item might have been.

I received a second email from Joseph Mayton asking me to check out a follow up article that they have now posted Cucumber sheikh “far from the truth,” says Egypt Islamic leader.  This new article quotes Sheikh Gaber Taye’ Youssef, identified as “An Islamic scholar and chairman at Egypt’s Religious Endowments Ministry said this sheikh could not be more “far from the truth.” …  He expressed serious doubts that the sheikh sourced is even qualified for his position.  “Nonesense and wrong, such talk is empty of any logic or sense and has no roots or relations with Islam or its belief system,” said Youssef when Bikyamasr.com interviewed him over the phone early on Saturday.

Sheikh Youssef’s opinion is exactly what any mainstream Muslim already knew.

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Lowe’s Pulls Ad from “All American Muslim” Due to Pressure From Islamophobes

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Lowe’s Pulls Ad from “All American Muslim” Due to Pressure From Islamophobes

Posted on 09 December 2011 by Garibaldi

It is interesting to note the strange things Islamophobes take umbrage at. For instance think about the google doodle they thought hid the ulterior motives of Islamic stealth jihad, don’t you see the crescent hiding under the US flag:

or who can forget the crusade launched by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer against Campbell’s Soup:

or casting Ms.USA Rima Fakih as Hezbollah’s secret Muslamic ray-gun weapon who would secretly spell the doom of the West:

then recently there were the calls to boycott Butterball Turkey for being certified as halal, according to Islamophobes the halal certification was evidence of the Islamization of America!

There are other instances of such stupidity, (just check out our archives) but one has reared its ugly head anew and this one can’t be so easily laughed off. Far right Christians and anti-Muslim bigots hate a new show on TLC called All American Muslim. According to them it humanizes Muslims, and we can’t have that! Robert Spencer for instance wanted to see a “terrorist Muslim family” included.

The hate brigade has been campaigning advertisers to withdraw their ads from the program. Now one company, Lowe’s has supposedly taken the bait (hat tip: H.). According to the campaigners, the “show riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values” and they are claiming success:

Supporters’ emails to advertisers make a difference.Florida Family Association sent out a third email alert on December 6th which reported The Learning Channel’s new program called All-American Muslim.  All-American Muslim is propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.  The email alert encouraged supporters to send emails to the companies (including Lowes) that advertised during the December 4th and 5th episodes.   

Lowes sent the following email to Florida Family Association stating that All-American Muslim “does not meet Lowe’s advertising guidelines.”  If you have not sent your email to All-American Muslim advertisers click here.

—– Original Message —– 
From:
 Andrew
To:
 davidcaton@floridafamily.org 
Sent:
 Tuesday, December 06, 2011 12:57 PM 
Subject:
 RE: Lowe’s Home Centers, Inc. advertised during All-American Muslim

Hello David,

Thank you for contacting Lowe’s.  We work hard to listen to our customers and respond to their concerns.  Lowe’s has strict guidelines that govern the placement of our advertising. Our company advertises primarily in national, network prime-time television programs and on a variety of cable outlets.  Lowe’s constantly reviews advertising buys to make certain they are consistent with its policy guidelines.

While we continue to advertise on various cable networks, including TLC, there are certain programs that do not meet Lowe’s advertising guidelines, including the show you brought to our attention.  Lowe’s will no longer be advertising on that program.

Our goal is to provide the best service, products and shopping environment in the home improvement industry.  We appreciate your feedback and will share your comments with our advertising department as they evaluate future advertising opportunities.

If I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to call 1-866-900-4650, or email execustservice@lowes.com.  You may also contact us by mailing your correspondence to Lowe’s Companies, Mail Code CON8, 1605 Curtis Bridge Rd., Wilkesboro, North Carolina 28697.

Thank you,

Andrew
Lowe’s Executive Support

Update (h/t JD):

Here is a list of companies that they claim to have succeeded in convincing to cancel their advertising based on this bigoted, hateful, anti-Muslim reasoning:

3M (Command, Scotchbrand tape),
Airborne Vitamin,
Amway,
Anheuser Busch Inbev (Select55),
Art Instruction Schools,
Bamboozles,
Bank of America (Cash Rewards),
Bare Escentuals,
Brother International (Ptouch),
Campbell’s Soup,
Capital One,
Church & Dwight (Oxi Clean, Arm & Hammer),
City Furniture,
Conagra (Hunt’s Diced Tomatoes),
Corinthian Colleges (Everst411),
Cotton, Inc.,
Cumberland Packing (Sweet’N Low),
Dell computers,
Diamond Foods (Kettlebrand Chips),
Estee Lauder (Clinique),
ET Browe (Palmer’s Cocoa butter),
Gap,
General Motors (Chevy Runs Deep),
Good Year,
Green Mountain Coffee,
Guthy Renker (Proactiv),
Hershey kisses,
Home Depot,
Honda North America,
HTC Phones,
Ikea,
JC Penney,
JP Morgan Chase (Chase Sapphire),
Kayak.com, Kellogg (Special K),
Koa Brands (John Frieda),
Leapfrog Enterprise (Leapster Explorer),
Lowe’s
Mars (Dove Chocolate),
McDonald’s,
Nationwide Insurance,
News Corp (We bought a zoo movie),
Nintendo (Mariokartz.com),
Novartis (Theraflu),
Old Navy,
Pernod Ricard (Kahlua),
Petsmart,
Pier One,
Pfizer (Centrum vitamin),
Procter & Gamble (Align Probiotic, Crest, Febreze, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, Pur, Tide),
Progressive Insurance,
Prudential Financial,
Radio Shack,
Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse,
SC Johnson (Drano, Glade, Scrubbing Bubbles),
Sears ,
Signet (Kay Jewelers),
Sonic Drive-ins,
Subaru, T
HQ (uDraw),
T-Mobil,
Toyota (Camry),
Volkswagen,
Vtech (Mobi Go, V Reader),
Wal-Mart
Whirlpool (Maytag)

Did this program not meet Lowe’s advertising guidelines because it showed a Muslim policeman who self-identifies as an American? Was it because Muslims and Arabs were not portrayed as evil villains who are not “real Americans” and have no right to act as if they are normal human beings with families, mortgages, jobs, etc. From here it looks like the MuslimPhobes are winning the undermine anything Islamic and Muslim as evil PR war.

Comments (85)

Joseph Ackerman

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Oh, Another Blow to the “All Terrorists are Muslims…” Myth: Bomb Sent to Chief of Deutsche Bank

Posted on 09 December 2011 by Garibaldi

Joseph Ackerman

Joseph Ackerman

In another seeming blow to the propaganda pushed by right-wing Islamophobes that all terrorism resides within Islam and is committed by Muslims, news of a letter bomb sent to the chief executive of Deutsche Bank (hat tip:JD):

Anarchist group may have sent letter bomb: German police

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – An Italian anarchist group has claimed responsibility for a letter bomb sent to Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, and may have sent two more packages, investigators said on Thursday.

The suspicious envelope, intercepted on Wednesday evening, has raised fears that a wave of protests against the failures and excesses of bankers could turn more violent, and prompted police across Europe to warn banks to be extra vigilant.

Ackermann, 63, a Swiss who is the first non-German to headGermany’s biggest bank, is one of the few senior managers in the country always surrounded by bodyguards.

A hidden, rolled-up letter written in Italian from the Federazione Anarchica Informale (the Informal Anarchist Group, or FAI) spoke of “three explosions against bankers, banks, fleas and bloodsuckers,” the German investigators said.

“So it must be deduced from this that two more letter bombs may have been sent,” the Criminal Investigations Office for the state of Hesse and Frankfurt prosecutors said in a statement.

Earlier they said initial tests had shown the letter bomb sent to Ackermann was operational.

The FAI previously claimed responsibility for a parcel bomb that injured two people in the offices of the Swiss nuclear lobby group in March, as well as for parcel bombs sent to the Swiss and Chilean embassies in Rome last year.

The group also claimed to be behind a letter bomb sent to theEuropean Central Bank, also based in Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt, in 2003.

A United States official told Reuters FBI agents in Germany were in touch with German authorities about the investigation, but that the FBI was not aware of any specific or related threat to New York.

Security has been stepped up at Deutsche Bank offices around the world, banking sources said. One insider said the number of threats against Ackermann had increased in recent months and his security would be tightened, though there were no plans to cancel public appearances.

SECURITY CHECKS

One banking source said that since 2006 every item of mail sent to members of Deutsche Bank’s executive committee was put through a security check.

“We are deeply affected by the violent assault on our CEO Josef Ackermann,” a spokesman for Deutsche Bank said. Employees heading to work, however, said they did not feel threatened.

“There are always people who think a solution would be to make someone pay, but as an employee, I do not feel threatened,” Stefan Popp told Reuters Television.

European leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday to try to agree on a way out of a sovereign debt crisis that has triggered a wave of government austerity measures and caused Germans to fret they may have to foot the bill.

Some experts said the euro zone debt crisis could have prompted the attempted attack.

A letter bomb sent to Chancellor Angela Merkel last year originated in Greece and is thought to have been linked to an anarchist group reacting to the extreme austerity measures.

Earlier, Frankfurt’s offshoot of the Occupy protest movement, which is critical of banks and has been staging protests in New York, Washington, London and many other cities, denied any connection with the attempted attack.

“We condemn any action that is linked to violence,” said Frank Stegmaier, an activist in the Occupy Frankfurt group, which has been camping outside the ECB since mid-October.

“Occupy has other ways of protesting,” he added.

“SYMBOLIC TARGET”

Before the FAI claim of responsibility, security experts had speculated about the possible involvement of the anti-capitalist movement in Germany which has been gaining momentum, as seen by a number of arson attacks on the Berlin rail network earlier this year.

“I don’t think a sustained campaign against business or even banking leaders is likely in Germany. Ackermann is a highly symbolic target, who has personal security wherever he goes,” said David Lea, a senior analyst for Europe at Control Risks.

Ackermann is the highest-paid chief executive of a German blue-chip company, earning 9 million euros ($12 million) in 2010. He is chairman of the Institute of International Finance, the bank lobbying group negotiating a private-sector contribution toward a multi-billion euro bailout of Greece.

Due to retire as chief executive in May after more than 10 years at the head of Deutsche, he is credited with transforming the bank into a “global champion,” and has become associated with Wall Street-style bonuses and a shareholder-driven management style.

A previous Deutsche Bank head, Alfred Herrhausen, was murdered in 1989 by leftist Red Army Faction guerrillas who blew up his car.

(Additional reporting by Sabine Wollrab, Edward Taylor, Philipp Halstrick, Reuters TV and Harry Papachristou in Athens, William Maclean in London; Writing by Madeline Chambers and Gareth Jones in Berlin, Editing by Rosalind Russell)

Comments (5)

Simon Beech

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Member of Robert Spencer’s Favorite UK anti-Muslim Organization Sentenced for Burning Mosque

Posted on 09 December 2011 by Garibaldi

Simon Beech

Simon Beech

Simon Beech sentenced to prison for ten years was a member of the EDL and the BNP, any surprise?

Hanley mosque arson accused’s links to far right parties

One of the men accused of setting fire to a Stoke-on-Trent mosque was a member of the British National Party (BNP) and English Defence League (EDL).

Simon Beech was a serving soldier with the 2nd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, based at Weeton Barracks near Preston, Lancashire, when he is alleged to have set fire to the City Central Mosque in Regent Road, Hanley, in the early hours of December 3 last year.

He is accused of entering the mosque, which was still under construction, with his co-accused Garreth Foster. The Crown Prosecution Service allege the pair were responsible for starting a blaze on the ground floor and feeding a gas pipe upstairs, from a neighbouring property.

Beech, of Hilton Road, Hartshill, and Foster, aged 28, of Hartshill Road, Stoke, deny arson.

Yesterday at their trial at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court the jury heard Beech, aged 23, subscribed to Facebook and the EDL.

Peter McMaster, an intelligence researcher with Staffordshire Police, said on November 10, less than a month before the arson, Beech posted comments including “Let’s start bashing skulls, dirty, rotten rodents, they breed like rats here, they need to die like rats” and “I say we need to start taking things into our own hands because they are running the place”.

The next day he posted “Get as many heads as we can, go and smash some skull and take over Shelton”.

And Beech said he “liked” a comment someone else posted – “Nuke all mosques”. He also posted comments including “Time we took things into our hands,” and “I say we put a stop to it before it’s too late.”

Also on November 11, Beech said: “The time has come we burn their place, burn the lot of them.”

The Sentinel, 7 December 2011

 

Click to read more …

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Robin Shepherd

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How the Henry Jackson Society promotes anti-Muslim bigotry

Posted on 09 December 2011 by Garibaldi

Robin Shepherd

Robin Shepherd

(via. Islamophobia-Watch)

We’ve taken on the issue of Honour Killings in the past and exposed the hypocrisy and double standards of the anti-Muslim brigades who seem to think it is a “Muslim only” problem. The piece below eviscerate a recent smear by the likes of Robert Spencer and his echo chamber in the Islamophobe-sphere that was making the rounds, claiming that there was an “alarming rise of ‘Muslim honour attacks in the UK.”

How the Henry Jackson Society promotes anti-Muslim bigotry

Media coverage of the police figures for so-called “honour” crimes in the UK, revealed by the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation in association with the Guardian, was generally fairly balanced, avoiding the Islamophobic stereotyping of the Muslim community that you might have anticipated. Even the Daily Star managed to report the issue without blaming Muslims.

The exception was the Daily Mail, which headlined its report “Alarming rise of Muslim ‘honour attacks’ in the UK”. This irresponsible accusation against British Muslims was predictably endorsed by Robert Spencer atJihad Watch (“The Daily Mail headline goes straight for the elephant in the room: this is largely a phenomenon within Muslim communities in Britain”), while his friend Pamela Geller of course agreed (“As Muslim immigration increases, so does sharia, misogyny and gendercide”).

The ignorance and bigotry underpinning such views hardly need underlining. As a Metropolitan Police spokesperson told the Mail: “Honour-based violence cuts across all cultures, nationalities and faith groups – it is a worldwide problem.” Honour attacks are a problem in Hindu-majority India, for example, but are not evident in the world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia. Even contributors to a discussion thread on the Mail‘s own website were able to make the obvious point that honour-based violence is a cultural rather than a religious phenomenon.

It was notable that the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation itself made no claim that Muslims were mainly or disproportionately responsible for honour crimes in the UK. This was by no means because IKWRO suffers from over-sensitivity towards Muslims and their faith. It is a hardline secularist organisation that lines up with the Islamophobic right on a number of issues – supporting the French ban on the veil, for example, andbacking the anti-sharia bill tabled by Geert Wilders’ ally Baroness Cox. But IKWRO is sufficiently familiar with the situation on the ground to know it makes no sense to depict honour attacks as a specifically Muslim problem.

There are no official figures for honour crimes in the UK broken down according to the faith of the victims and perpetrators. However, IKWRO director Diana Nammi has been quoted as saying that honour-based murders in the UK occur mostly in the Muslim, Hindu and Sikh communities, with Muslims responsible for around two-thirds of these crimes. Based on the last available census, the total Muslim-Hindu-Sikh population of the UK is 2,485,000, of whom 1,591,000 are Muslims – 64% of the total. Which would indicate that Muslims are no more likely to carry out such murders than Hindus or Sikhs are.

You might think that all of this was pretty obvious, and that nobody with half a brain or a shred of intellectual honesty would buy the Islamophobic myth that Muslim communities are inspired by their faith to commit acts of violence against young women. You should try reading a piece posted by Robin Shepherd on his website The Commentator. Entitled “BBC reveals huge scale of honour attacks in Britain, fails to mention the word ‘Islam’”, this poisonous article is worth quoting at length, in order to convey how deeply unpleasant it is:

The families giving the orders, as well as the victims, are in all, or almost all, cases Muslim. Surprised? No, of course you’re not. Honour attacks ranging in brutality from beatings to murder are commonplace in many parts of the Muslim world.

Since Britain, like many other European countries, has imported sizeable Muslim communities, which are to a significant degree unassimilated, the cultural practices of the old country have survived the transition to the new….

Enter the BBC, which reported on the matter in a lengthy, 700-plus word article and failed to mention the words “Muslim”, “Islamic” or “Islam” even once.

As I write this I am flicking back to the story itself so I can double check using the Find function. Could I be mistaken?

Here goes: “Islamic”? “No Matches”. “Muslim”? “No Matches”. “Islam”? “No Matches”.

This is how societies go down: when matters of the profoundest significance to their character, and potentially their very existence, have been rendered undiscussable by the people that set the terms of public debate.

Clearly the people who wrote and edited that story should be dismissed.

They won’t be of course because the mind-numbing, multiculturalist narrative that demanded censorship of the salient evidence is effectively institutionalised as the dominant narrative across the BBC as well as the wider liberal establishment.

So be it. Go ahead and have a conversation about deep-seated problems inside the fastest growing demographic group in Europe without mentioning what that group is. The quality of your discussion will be moronic. But you reap what you sow.

Shepherd goes on to berate Sky News and the Daily Telegraph, not generally known as warm supporters of the UK’s Muslim community, for following the BBC in its “politically correct” suppression of the supposed link between Islam and honour crimes.

This is the kind of foam-flecked rant you might expect to read on some extreme “counterjihadist” blog of the sort that inspired Anders Breivik. But Shepherd is Director of International Affairs at the Henry Jackson Society, which is advertised as a sponsor of The Commentator site. Nor is Shepherd the only raving anti-Muslim bigot to hold a prominent position in the HJS. Douglas Murray(“Why is it that time and again the liberal West is crumpling before the violence, intimidation and thuggery of Islam? … All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop…. Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board”) is anAssociate Director of the organisation.

Yet the Henry Jackson Society serves as the secretariat for two All-Party Parliamentary Groups – on Homeland Security andTransatlantic & International Security. The former’s objective is to “provide parliamentarians with up-to-date information and analysis on homeland security and national resilience issues”, while the latter provides the same service in connection with “international security issues, global defence concerns, international incidents and the efforts being made to comment and react to them in Britain and abroad”.

Do MPs and peers really think it appropriate that an organisation like the HJS should hold the position of secretariat to officially recognised parliamentary groups which seek to influence government policy on domestic and international security issues? Andrew Gilligan, Paul Goodman and the Jewish Chronicle waged a vicious campaign to remove ENGAGE as the secretariat to the APPG on Islamophobia, falsely accusing them of political extremism and antisemitism. But Gilligan, Goodman and the JChave nothing to say about the parliamentary role of an organisation headed by real extremist bigots like Robin Shepherd and Douglas Murray.

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When Being Mistaken for Muslim Can Get You Stabbed

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When Being Mistaken for Muslim Can Get You Stabbed

Posted on 08 December 2011 by Danios

(updated – below)

The Hindustan Times reports that a Sikh individual was stabbed in an unprovoked attack at Fresno Yosemite International Airport in California.  A hate crime is suspected.  It is very common for anti-Muslim bigots to confuse Sikhs, who wear conspicuous turbans, for Muslims–a confusion that is symbolically representative of the profound ignorance that underlies Islamophobia.

Sikh man stabbed at US airport, hate crime suspected
Associated Press
Fresno, California, December 07, 2011

A Sikh man waiting for a plane at Fresno Yosemite International Airport has been stabbed in a seemingly unprovoked attack, police said. The victim was treated at the airport and boarded his flight bound for India. Fresno police said Mitchell Dufur, 26, stabbed the Sikh man in his 50s in the upper torso Sunday evening in the security area. No words were exchanged before the attack. The man was standing with his translator when the attack occurred.

Dufur was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a knife in an airport.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Monday urged the FBI and police to investigate the incident as a possible hate crime.

“Sikh men who wear beards and turbans as part of their faith are often targeted by bigots who mistake them for Muslims,” said Sacramento CAIR executive director Basim Elkarra.

Gina Swankie in the Sacramento FBI office said her office was having “a dialogue with the group,” but would not confirm whether they had opened an investigation.

Police Lt Don Gross said investigators have not determined whether it was a hate crime because Dufur has refused to talk to police about his motive.

Two elderly men were earlier gunned down in Sacramento on March 4 while walking through a neighbourhood in Elk Grove.

Update I:

Ahmed Rehab tweeted about a second stabbing, another possible hate crime.  Rehab tweeted:

An Indian American Law professor at #UIUC (unconfirmed) stabbed at train station by a man yelling “This is MY country”

The story is still unfolding, but is being reported here:

University faculty member stabbed in alleged hate crime

A faculty member from the College of Law was stabbed Wednesday on the second floor of the Illinois Terminal Building at 5:44 a.m. Wednesday.

According to the report, officers found Joshua Scaggs, 23, and the 41-year-old victim, a professor at the University.

The suspect was lying on the floor face-down near a utility knife, and the victim was sitting in a chair bleeding profusely.

“One of our faculty members was involved in that incident,” said John Colombo, assistant dean at the College of Law. “I can’t confirm (the name) to anyone outside of the College of Law community.”

Police took Scaggs into custody. A witness said Scaggs and the victim were seated in the waiting area when Scaggs suddenly jumped up and shouted that this was his country. He then attacked the victim, who is a non-white male.

Scaggs grabbed the victim around the neck and appeared to be choking him. He then forced the victim to the floor. The witness then pulled the suspect off of the male.

Scaggs was issued a $500,000 bond Thursday, according to the Champaign County Clerk’s office.

The 41-year-old victim, of Champaign, was transported to the Carle Hospital emergency room. Scaggs was later arrested on charges of attempted murder and a hate crime and transported to the Champaign County Satellite Jail.

Can you imagine if two Christian or Jewish-Americans were stabbed by Muslims in separate incidents?  What do you think the reaction of the media would have been?

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Iran: Yet Another Case Study in Robert Spencer’s Hypocrisy and Double Standards

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Iran: Yet Another Case Study in Robert Spencer’s Hypocrisy and Double Standards

Posted on 07 December 2011 by Danios

JihadWatch’s Robert Spencer just posted an article with the following title:

How to Eliminate Israel from the Planet: Iran promotes genocidal book by Muslim seminarians, published by Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance

He’s taking exception to an anti-Israeli book supposedly written by some religious students in Iran, called “How to Eliminate Israel from the Planet.”  Spencer calls this a “genocidal book.”

This is why LoonWatch exists.  We’ve been documenting what loons like Robert Spencer say so that we can pull Jon Stewart moves like the one I am going to pull now…

The reader is referred to Robert Spencer’s post in March 2010 wherein he promoted a “genocidal video” calling for “wiping Pakistan off the map” and nuclear annihilation of Pakistan:

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer: Wipe Pakistan Off the Map

And my article on the topic back then:

Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller Promote Video by Militant and Genocidal Group

When Iranians/Muslims call to “wipe Israel off the map” or “eliminate Israel from the planet”, then it is a “genocidal book” and all freedom-loving people must be outraged by this.  When anti-Muslim extremists call for the same against Muslims, then that’s a “genocidal freedom-loving video” that all freedom-loving people must support.  As George Orwell put it: “Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them.”

(Image at the top of the page comes from an earlier article exposing Robert Spencer: LoonWatch Exclusive: Robert Spencer’s “f**kallah.com” & “f**kislam.com”)

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250px-SettlersSoldiersIraqBurin

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Qalqilyah: Another Attack on a West Bank Mosque

Posted on 07 December 2011 by Garibaldi

The so called price tag attacks against Mosques and Muslims continues unabated in Palestine.

Suspected hate crime at mosque near Qalqilyah

Anonymous vandals hurled a burning tire at the entrance of a mosque in Brukin, a village south-east of Qalqilyah. They also spray painted the walls and smashed the windshields of two nearby vehicles. The police have launched an investigation into the suspected hate crime.

The IDF said in response: “The IDF and Defense Ministry are working to locate those responsible and take incidents in which property is damaged very seriously, especially in the case of holy sites.” (Yoav Zitun and Omri Efraim)

So the IDF is “working to locate those responsible?” Well, maybe they should look at their own ranks, as three Israeli soldiers were recently arrested for partaking in “price tag” attacks.

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The Jacksonville community loves their team (and t-shirt cannons)

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NFL Team is on the Verge of Sharia Compliance!

Posted on 06 December 2011 by Amago

After people heard that the owner and coach were replaced by a Pakastini-born Muslim and an African American, there was an uproar of Islamophobic and racist comments. If we want this country to prosper once again, we need to grow up, but when we allow comments like this to filter in, my hope diminishes:

“I wonder if Khan has any friends who are terrorists?,” asks forgotten man on www.FreeRepublic.com. “Rush Limbaugh was not allowed to buy into the Rams, but a Muslim from Pakistan can buy the Jaguars. Go figure.”

Fanning The Flames: New Jacksonville Jaguars Owner’s Muslim Faith Stirs Stupidity

[Jacksonville, FL] Last week, it was announced that the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team had been sold to super-successful Illinois businessman Shahid Khan. The deal was reported to be worth $760 million and includes a somewhat controversial first for the league.

Khan is a Pakistani-born Muslim, and will be the first of his faith to own a National Football League team. NFL team ownership is considered to be the ultimate trophy for American billionaires.

The sale is not 100% final, however, it still has to get approval from the league and the other owners, but Khan has had an ongoing relationship with the league for ten years so it seems a sure thing.

The Muslim-American community, which has been under attack since 9-11, no doubt sees Khan’s ownership as a sign that America is moving in the right direction, despite a vocal minority hell bent on demonizing all Muslims.

“He is the first … shows how American Muslims are integrating,” said Hassan Shibly, executive director of the Tampa chapter of the Council on American Islam Relations.

The Jacksonville Jaguars press release talking up the sale didn’t mention the fact that Khan was Muslim. That was probably a good thing – on the same day the sale was announced, it was also revealed that long-time head coach Jack Del Rio had been fired and assistant coach Mel Tucker – an African-American – would be taking over.

This year, the Jacksonville Jaguars have made a bigger impact in the news than on the field

This year, the Jacksonville Jaguars have made a bigger impact in the news than on the field

For redneck racist types – and in North Florida there are more than a few – the fact that the white owner and white coach of their hometown NFL franchise were replaced by a Pakistani-born Muslim and a black guy was just too much to take, especially in ONE DAY.

This Jaguars ownership change could be the final straw that sends Confederate flag flyers fleeing pro football for the warm, white blanket of NASCAR.

Just last year, members of the Jacksonville City Council jumped on the Muslim hate train in what was described as a huge embarrassment for the region. Parvez Ahmed – a University of North Florida professor, Fulbright Scholar and Muslim – had his Human Rights Commission nomination sent back to the Rules Committee because of “constituent concerns.”

It had already been approved, mind you. But that was before the Islamophobes in the ACT! For America organization made a bunch of noise and the spineless jellyfish on the city council caved to their concerns.

Almost on cue, conservative news sites were rife with ugly comments about Khan’s big play.

“I wonder if Khan has any friends who are terrorists?,” asks forgotten man on www.FreeRepublic.com. “Rush Limbaugh was not allowed to buy into the Rams, but a Muslim from Pakistan can buy the Jaguars. Go figure.”

Forgotten man must have forgotten that Limbaugh has made multiple controversial racist remarks about black athletes over the years and that many players indicated that they would not play for Limbaugh’s team if he was even a part owner.

Khan just happens to have a religion in common with some people who have committed terrorist acts in the name of their god. The same could be said about any of the major religions.

When CNN ran the story, the comments sections was literally boiling over with stupidity, hate and a bit of Star Trek movie related humor (1982′s Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan features Captain Kirk famously yelling “KHAAANNNN!,” a familiar refrain in the comments section).

The awful stuff was counteracted by some progressive Jags/NFL fans protective of their city/league and of the new owner.

On CNN, Terri surmised, “That is how the Pakistani’s will get even with the United States. They plan to buy the NFL, one team at a time, and move it to Pakistan.”

Also on CNN, someone calling themselves Pakastani [sic] wrote, “The name of the new team will be the Jacksonville Jihadis. Expect the cheerleaders to show some ankle during games!”

DisgustedNY was concerned that, “Now you have some guy who grew up in Pakistan dictating what happens with an American tradition.”

But they weren’t all an embarrassment to America’s melting pot philosophy. JaxFan noted the political ramifications of Khan’s ownership, saying that, “The level of religious ignorance and intolerance represented in some of the city’s supposed leaders will make it absolutely hilarious to see those same anti-gay, anti-Muslim religious righties having to kiss the butt of a Muslim who now holds the keys to the Jaguars and their possible relocation.”

The Jacksonville community loves their team (and t-shirt cannons)

The Jacksonville community loves their team (and t-shirt cannons)

“I think any comments challenging the prospective buyer’s ‘credentials’ as an American are immature,” offered Jeremy. “The guy has been here 40+ years, went to school for engineering here (actually did a degree that is USEFUL), worked for an American company, started his own American company (notice from the link posted above, that ALL the factories for his company are in the US?), and finally has had a dream of buying an NFL team.”

“America was founded based on principles of freedom of religion,” continued Jeremy. “I say let him take the team and see what he can do with it!”

Things were about the same on Yahoo! News … Mac offered: “A new way to launder money to the terrorists. Wonderful.” And from John: “Sold to Islamic Terrorist from Pakistan.”

Jake was downright racist in saying that, “schweet! sell them to a Sand Monkey.” And from Thomas: “I think he got the money to buy the team by tipping off where Bin Laden was hiding.”

DEF appeared to be a buoy of reason in a sea of hate and stupidity, analyzing that, “As a 20-year resident of Jacksonville, I can say that this is the most conservative bible belt town I have ever lived in. It has a huge redneck/conservative Christian base not to mention that many of them have their predisposed prejudices against Muslims.”

“This new owner … has a great opportunity to change Jacksonville for the better,” he said.

Although DEF cautions Khan – and he makes a good point in doing so that if Khan moves the team from Jacksonville (as has been widely speculated) that he, “could certainly see many in Jacksonville reacting by building a much deeper hatred for Muslims. … It could get ugly.”

I think you mean uglier.

By: Mark Christopher/Sunshine Slate

 

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Muslim Woman Spat On, Hijab Pulled Off by Gang

Posted on 03 December 2011 by Emperor

The EDL?

Muslim woman, 52, racially abused by Telford gang

A Muslim woman was spat at and abused by a gang of six teenagers in Telford who pulled off her religious headdress in a racially motivated attack.

The gang, who were all male, surrounded the 52-year-old woman and started aggressively pushing and shoving her as she walked along a footpath by the skate park near William Reynolds Infant School in Woodside on Tuesday. Chris Ammonds, spokesman for Telford police, said the woman was abused between 6pm and 6.20pm.

“After circling the victim the youths then started to racially abuse her. At least one of the youths spat at the victim too.

“The youths then pulled the victim’s hijab – a traditional Muslim headdress – off her head and taunted her with it but she quickly managed to grab it back off them and flee.

“The victim has been left very shaken by this incident and also suffered a long scratch to her right cheek as a result of the assault.

“The youths that surrounded the victim are all described as being white, aged between 15 and 17 and as wearing tracksuits and hooded tops or caps.

“Officers are very keen to identify the youths that assaulted this woman.”

Anyone with information should call Telford police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

Read more: http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2011/12/01/muslim-woman-52-racially-abused-by-telford-gang/#ixzz1fVSMUVur

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ACT! For America Member: “Muslims Are Like Cockroaches”

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ACT! For America Member: “Muslims Are Like Cockroaches”

Posted on 03 December 2011 by Emperor

Brigitte Gabriel

ACT! For America is an extremist anti-Muslim organization that should be better known as ACT! For Hate. It is no surprise that they are fear-mongering across the nation and providing venues for the dehumanization of Muslims.

Is anti-Muslim sentiment at Crestwood venue an echo of Nazi Germany?

by Tim Townsend (STLToday)

This week, Bloomberg Businessweek said Crestwood was Missouri’s best community in which to raise children, citing the community’s great schools, low tax rates and excellent municipal services. One of those municipal services is the ability of any resident to use space in Crestwood City Hall as a meeting place.

All the group has to do is fill out a one-page form for a permit and agree to the city’s meeting-room guidelines. Those include leaving the room clean and orderly and refraining from “loud, boisterous, rude or other unacceptable conduct.”

The First Amendment dictates that the city can’t censor the content of any such meeting, however hateful or fictional its message.

And so it was on Wednesday, that about a dozen people attended an event in the Crestwood aldermanic chambers called “What America Must Learn from the Fort Hood Massacre.”

The St. Louis chapter of ACT! for America, a Florida-based, anti-Islam group that calls itself a National Security Organization, organized the meeting, which featured the screening of an hourlong DVD lecture by the organization’s executive director, Guy Rodgers.

The event was advertised in a weekly newspaper. Referring to the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in a rampage in Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, the ad copy said, “It is essential that Americans understand why homegrown Jihadists like Nidal Hasan do what they do.”

Political forces set on eliminating a particular religious or ethnic group often use propaganda to convince the masses of their righteousness. A key device of persuasion is the systematic dehumanization of those in the target group.

In Nazi Germany, Jews were often portrayed in anti-Semitic literature — most famously in Julius Streicher’s “Der Stürmer” — as vermin or cockroaches. By routinely referring to the hated Tutsis as inyezi, or cockroaches, broadcasters on Hutu-run radio goaded ordinary Rwandans into killing their neighbors with machetes during the 1994 genocide.

Genocide scholar James Waller writes that dehumanization occurs after the target group has been defined as what sociologists call the out-group. When the in-group exaggerates the differences between itself and an out-group, it creates a bias “toward information that enhances the differences” between the two groups, instead of the similarities, writes Waller.

In Rwanda, Hutu ideology defined Tutsis as alien to the country despite their long history as natives. The Nazis assigned an imaginary hereditary superiority to Aryanness, and defined Judaism as anathema to that superiority.

Nazi Germany is seen as a chapter in history. The massacre of nearly a million Tutsis over 100 days happened in Africa, far from suburban St. Louis.

The dehumanization of a religious group, an initial step toward the moral disengagement that leads to radical evil, couldn’t happen in 21st century America, right?

Unfortunately for American Muslims, we are about to enter a presidential election year, during which groups like ACT! for America and the Clarion Fund have historically spread anti-Islam messages that promote fear of “the other.” Both groups formed in the wake of the unprecedented attacks on the United States by Muslim terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001.

It’s a message that has been trumpeted from Crestwood City Hall before.

Last September, a group called the New Gravois Township Conservative Republican Party showed a film called “The Third Jihad” in a City Hall meeting room The film was produced by the Clarion Fund, an organization with historic ties to Aish HaTorah, an orthodox Jewish education network based in Jerusalem, and claims that terrorists have infiltrated the United States with the intent of “eliminating western civilization from within.”

After receiving complaints about the video, the city decreed a policy forbidding political and religious groups from using City Hall’s meeting rooms. The city’s aldermen suspended the ban two months later after strenuous opposition from members of the New Gravois Township Conservative Republican Party. Roy Robinson, Crestwood’s mayor at the time, apologized to the Republican committeeman for the ban.

The DVD lecture on Wednesday evening in Crestwood was a walk through the Quran’s violent passages, which Rodgers depicted as coming from the latter part of Muhammad’s life. He said that Islam’s prophet gained more followers with violence than he had with an earlier, more peaceful approach to spreading the faith.

The lecture soon moved on to the Obama administration’s failures to name the “threat” against the United States (jihad, according to Rodgers.) The DVD lecture finished with a swipe at the government, academia and the media for playing along with terrorists and failing to recognize that the U.S. Constitution is in danger of being replaced by sharia, or Islamic, law at the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood.

When the lights went up, the crowd wanted to talk. Use of the word “Muslim” was rare. Instead, the audience preferred the terms “they” and “them.”

“When they move to a new country, they don’t assimilate,” one man said.

“They don’t value education in the same way we do,” said Liz Trent, ACT! for America’s Southern Illinois chapter leader.

“We celebrate birthdays, and they celebrate death anniversaries,” Trent added. “They are the opposite of us. They celebrate death and we celebrate life.”

“I heard the Saudis are funding chairs in our universities,” a woman said.

“They have infiltrated our culture at every level,” said Trent.

“What do we need to do to stop it?” a woman asked.

Trent said that since a federal judge blocked Oklahoma’s decision to prohibit its courts from considering sharia law in its decisions, the new front was ‘specific laws.” Coming legislation, for instance, would “ban anyone from mutilating their child’s genitals,” Trent said. Someone asked if that wouldn’t be covered under existing law.

“No, no,” Trent said. “Slavery, murder, abuse of a child — all of that is legal under Islam, so it’s protected.”

When a target group is identified as a race or religion that the in-group sees as inferior or threatening, dehumanization follows, writes Waller. The target group is stigmatized as alien. The in-group uses language suggesting the target group deserves persecution.

In the civic heart of Missouri’s best child-rearing community, the executive director of an anti-Islam organization looked down from a white screen and told a dozen people that tolerance was the enemy in the fight against Muslims.

“They’re everywhere,” one woman in the audience whispered to her friend. “They’re like cockroaches.”

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FBI Illegally Using Community Outreach to Gather Intelligence, ACLU Alleges

Posted on 02 December 2011 by Amago

FBI illegally using community outreach to gather intelligence, ACLU alleges

By , Published: December 1

The FBI is using its extensive community outreach to Muslims and other groups to secretly gather intelligence in violation of federal law, the American Civil Liberties Union alleged Thursday.

Citing internal bureau documents, the ACLU said agents in California are attending meetings at mosques and other events and illegally recording information about the attendees’ political and religious affiliations. FBI officials denied the allegations. They said that records kept from outreach sessions are not used for investigations.

The documents reveal new details of the FBI’s efforts to build a more trusting relationship with Muslims and other communities — a major priority since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Federal officials have said that the effort is aimed at protecting Muslims’ civil rights and smoothing lingering resentment over the law-enforcement crackdown after the attacks, along with helping the government fight terrorism.

Some of the papers describe agents speaking at career days, briefing community members on FBI programs and helping them work with police to fight drug abuse. But the files also depict agents recording Social Security numbers and other identifying information after they meet people at the events and, in at least one instance, noting their political views. It appears that the agents are conducting follow-up investigations in some instances, but heavy redactions in the documents make it impossible to determine how far any examination might have gone.

In one case, an agent wrote that he checked California motor vehicle records on someone the agent encountered at a Ramadan dinner at a San Francisco Islamic association. An attendee is described as “very progressive.” Another is called “very Western in appearance and outlook.”

At another Ramadan dinner in San Francisco, an agent recorded the names of Muslim groups listed on pamphlets distributed at the event — and appeared to note that several people associated with one of the groups were under investigation.

The FBI turned the heavily redacted documents over to the ACLU as part of a lawsuit filed by the civil rights group and two other organizations to uncover what the groups consider to be inappropriate or illegal FBI tactics in the fight against terrorism.

Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s national security project, said some of the actions depicted in the documents violate the Privacy Act, a law that bars federal agencies from maintaining information about activities protected by the First Amendment, such as freedom of speech and association. FBI officials said the law allows agencies to keep information that is considered relevant and necessary to their mission, in certain circumstances.

A dangerous ‘guise’

“It’s one thing for the FBI to say to a community group, ‘We’re going to come and meet you to establish ties,’ ” Shamsi said. “But it’s a very dangerous way to proceed to collect intelligence under the guise of community outreach.”

FBI spokesman Michael P. Kortan said the bureau’s meetings with community leaders are not designed to gather intelligence but rather “to enhance public trust in the FBI in order to enlist the cooperation of the public to fight criminal activity.” He said that the practice provides “information to the public in support of crime prevention efforts, and opens lines of communication to help make the FBI more responsive to community concerns.”

Kortan said FBI policy requires that an “appropriate separation be maintained between outreach and operational activities” and that although “facts surrounding an outreach meeting or event may be documented,” that is only for internal purposes to ensure “that personnel time and resources are being used effectively and in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, policies and program requirements.”

Some Muslim groups reacted to the documents with anger. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said the FBI’s actions will have a “chilling effect” on Muslims’ constitutionally protected activities.

Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a San Francisco-based civil rights group, said the papers “confirm the worst fears of Muslim community members.”

The FBI, under intense pressure to prevent another attack on U.S. soil, has sought to strike a balance between civil liberties and law enforcement in the decade since the Sept. 11 strikes. Civil liberties groups have long accused agents of overreacting, but FBI and Justice Department officials say they have helped safeguard the nation from another attack.

The documents released Thursday show agents in a variety of settings in Muslim and other communities. In one 2009 memo, an agent in Sacramento appears to be monitoring the Saudi Student Association at California State University through the outreach effort.

The agent writes of meeting with someone at the student union building and records that person’s birth date, Social Security number, telephone number and address — all in the same sentence. The person is described as giving the agent detailed information about the association.

Yet some of the documents are more mundane, including a 2009 memo detailing FBI contacts with Assyrian organizations in San Jose, which notes how the Assyrian language is “very similar to ancient Aramaic.”

Another memo describes a 2007 meeting hosted by the FBI in San Jose for 27 Muslim organizations that featured FBI presentations, a question-and-answer session and lunch catered by a local kabob restaurant. The writer provides a detailed “demographics” breakdown of participants, including what percentage are Sunni Muslim versus Shiite, and lists all the organizations in attendance.

One group listed was the Oakland-based Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California. Sara Mostafavi, a board member, said she found that troubling.

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San Jose Man Punched, Called ‘Terrorist’ on Grocery Trip to Lucky

Posted on 02 December 2011 by Amago

San Jose man punched, called ‘terrorist’ on grocery trip to Lucky

By Lisa Fernandez

lfernandez@mercurynews.com

Just before Thanksgiving, a 32-year-old industrial designer was leaving a Lucky store in San Jose with some turkey broth and salt when he was assaulted by a group of men who broke his jaw and called him a “terrorist.”

This week, the man, who asked this his name not be used for fear of retaliation, underwent jaw surgery, and he is still in need of dental care for the six teeth that were knocked out about 9 p.m. Nov. 21 in the parking lot of the Lucky at 3270 S. White Road near Aborn Road.

“I believe they hit me with the tequila bottle,” he said. “Then they spit on me and called me a terrorist.”

None of the suspects, possibly three or four men, who were all wearing dark, hooded sweatshirts during the attack, have been arrested.

San Jose police confirmed the assault, but aren’t saying much more.

The victim’s family, originally from Calcutta, India, moved to Silicon Valley more than 30 years ago. They are Hindu, and the victim has no criminal record in Santa Clara County, according to a review of court records. He said he graduated from San Jose State with a degree in industrial design.

In 2010, FBI statistics show there were 24 hate crimes reported in San Jose, compared with about 140 hate crimes reported in Los Angeles, a city about four times the size.

A detective this week met the victim, police confirmed. The detective is trying to track down witnesses and find out whether the grocery store’s security camera documented.

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Toulouse School Defaced with Racist Graffiti

Posted on 01 December 2011 by Emperor

 

 

 

La Dépêche reports that racist graffiti and Nazi symbols were daubed in red paint on the walls of the Louis-Nicolas-Vauquelin secondary school in Toulouse last weekend. The slogans “Arabs out of France”, “Arabs sod off” and “Islam get out” were accompanied by swastikas and other Nazi signs such as 88 (i.e. Heil Hitler).

Via Islam in Europe

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Obama Orders Government to Clean Up Terror Training

Posted on 01 December 2011 by Emperor

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

Obama Orders Government to Clean Up Terror Training

by Spencer Ackerman (Wired.com)

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo: White House

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Anti-Muslim Bigot Robert Spencer Comes to the Defense of Genocidal Site “BareNakedIslam”

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Anti-Muslim Bigot Robert Spencer Comes to the Defense of Genocidal Site “BareNakedIslam”

Posted on 30 November 2011 by Garibaldi

Anders Breivik's choice for the "Noble Peace Prize," Robert Spencer

Extremist far right anti-Muslim, MEK-Terror linked, Terrorist Inspirer, and conservative Catholic apologist Robert Spencer‘s bigotry and hatred for Islam and Muslims is evident to most rational individuals. Just take a brief glance at our copious documentation of his words, statements and activities if you are unsure of what we mean. You can also see what others have said about Spencer.

Spencer is so stuck in his goofy 11th century Crusader mentality that he is once again defending open calls to genocide. I guess he didn’t learn anything from the Anders Breivik fiasco, you know, the “insane” terrorist who thought Robert Spencer deserved the “Noble Peace Prize.”

This time Spencer is going to bat for the loony-even-by-Geller-standards, BareNakedIslam (BNI) website, which was briefly shut down by WordPress for violating its terms and conditions.

A few days ago, Sheila Musaji of The American Muslim reported on the unanimous cacophony of sadistic joy displayed by the owners and commenters on BNI regarding repeated arson attacks on mosques in France,

An anti-Muslim site called Bare Naked Islam has posted an article celebrating this. The article is titled “WOO HOO! Yet ANOTHER anti-Muslim attack on a French mosque”.  Just in case they take it down, CAIR has saved the page here.  The headline of the article states Apparently, Hell hath no fury like a Frenchman scorned. It’s the third attack on a mosque just this month. Will the Muslims ever get a clue that they are not welcome in France?

Most of the comments below the Bare Naked Islam article are hateful.  Some examples:

The following six comments are from the same individual, Keith Mahone:

Musaji notes:

This last comment by Keith Mahone is the most extreme, and a particular concern since he says in his long rambling rant that he regularly drives past a mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, and that the sight of that mosque causes him distress.

I waded through a few articles on the site and the comments, and found that this sort of rabid hatred of Muslims and encouragement of not only limiting the civil rights of American Muslims, and encouragement of not only limiting the civil rights of American Muslims, but also actually murdering them is common.

Read Sheila Musaji’s complete piece, it details even more examples of the rabid and visceral genocide-calling on BNI.

Spencer has linked to BNI for years now and the two have a mutual admiration for one another. Spencer does not take issue with BNI’s anti-Muslim genocidal rants nor does he condemn them, rather he resorts to conspiracy theory and forwards the argument that BNI is a victim of “Islamic supremacist” warfare.

Instead of apologizing for associating with BNI he rushes full hog into their corner, lauding them as an “anti-Jihad website.” He gives the meager caveat that “he doesn’t agree with everything they write,” and that “he doesn’t condone threats” but then he puts on the apologist cap, saying they were just a few “unhinged comments.”

No, Spencer, they aren’t a few comments, they are a sample of the consistent violent anti-Muslim rhetoric pervasive in the Islamophobesphere, including your own blog (one example out of many):

Spencer oddly attempts to deflect by posting screen shots by commenters “Mosizzle” and “RefutingActs” from Spencerwatch.com which he interpreted as threats; however even some of Spencer’s own followers considered this a ludicrous stretch.

It is really a pathetic attempt at “deflection,” especially when anyone with half a brain knows that what is written on a daily basis on JihadWatch and BareNakedIslam cannot compare to our meticulous care in deleting hateful or bigoted remarks, and even allowing some vile Islamophobes such as “halal pork” to post.

At the end of the day, Spencer is so far down the rabbit hole he probably doesn’t understand what he is doing. More likely however is that this is how he truly feels, he wishes to see the end of Islam and Muslims and he is willing to realize that goal by any means.

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Fired from TSA, Mpls. Man gets Prison Term for Off-Duty Hate Crime against Somali

Posted on 30 November 2011 by Amago

Fired from TSA, Mpls. man gets prison term for off-duty hate crime against Somali

Article by: PAUL WALSH , Star Tribune 

A Minneapolis man who lost his job with the Transportation Security Administration for an off-duty assault of an elderly Somali man has been sentenced to six months in prison for the hate crime.

George Thompson, 64, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Minneapolis under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Thompson’s case was the first prosecuted under the act.

Signed into law in October 2009, the act was named after Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming teen who died after being kidnapped and beaten in 1998, and James Byrd, Jr., a black man who was dragged to death in Texas that same year.

“Physical violence motivated by racial or religious hatred exacerbates fear and tears at the fabric of our society,” B. Todd Jones, U.S. attorney for Minnesota, said in a statement issued after Thompson’s sentencing. “Here in Minnesota, we have vibrant and diverse communities and should be celebrating that fact, not assaulting people because of it.”

Thompson also was charged in state court about three months after the May 4, 2010, assault in another bias-inspired attack on the same street as the earlier incident, but that allegation was dropped once the federal case was filed.

According to the criminal complaint in the dismissed case:

Thompson approached a man and asked him whether he was Somali. The man said he was, prompting Thompson to chase and threaten to kill him. The man found refuge with police officers who were nearby.

Thompson then went into a neighborhood bar, where he was arrested. He was drunk and had two loaded firearms with him and a permit to carry them.

Both incidents cost Thompson his job with the Transportation Security Administration. He worked for eight years with the federal agency that provides security to the nation’s airports.

According to court documents in the federal case:

Thompson was leaving a bar in his Cedar-Riverside neighborhood and “punched or shoved” an 82-year-old Somali man without provocation. The man nearly fell.

“You Muslims, go back to your country,” witnesses reported Thompson as saying, along with, “You Somali, go back to your country.”

The defense acknowledged that Thompson was embarrassed and sorry for the assault, but also noted that the defendant was frustrated by trouble that Somali youth had been causing in his neighborhood.

The defense pointed out that Thompson and others were subjected to threats, assaults, robberies and indecent exposure from Somali youth.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482

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Norway Mass Murder Suspect is Insane, Police say

Posted on 30 November 2011 by Amago

In this undated file image obtained from the Twitter page of Anders Behring Breivik, 32, who was arrested in connection with the twin attacks on a youth camp and a government building in Oslo, Norway.

Let us not forget the influence that the Islamophobes like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller had on this man’s murderous rampage.

 Norway mass murder suspect is insane, police say

By the CNN Wire Staff

(CNN) – The man accused of killing 77 people in a terrorist rampage that shook Norway last summer is insane and cannot be sentenced to prison or preventive detention, but can be confined to a mental hospital for the rest of his life, police said Tuesday.

Anders Behring Breivik suffers “grandiose delusions” and “believes he is chosen to decide who is to live and who is to die,” Prosecutor Svein Holden announced.

Police said psychiatrists had determined that the 32-year-old man was psychotic at the time of the attacks and during 13 interviews experts conducted with him afterward. The doctors also found him to be paranoid and schizophrenic, police said.

The experts reached their conclusions after 36 hours of interviews with Breivik, police said.

The extension of Breivik’s confinement under a compulsory mental health care order will be reviewed by a court every three years, police said. The court will consider whether he still represents a danger to society.

Breivik had not been told of the psychiatrists’ findings, police said. His lawyers were expected to relay the news.

The decision underscores the difference between the justice system in the United States and that in Norway, said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston.

“In the United States, it is extremely difficult to establish successfully an insanity defense,” he told CNN in a telephone interview. “You can be paranoid, yet still able to control your behavior and be legally responsible.”

In cases like the mass killing in Norway, “there tends to be a tremendous amount of pressure from the public and maybe politicians as well to lock someone away for as long as possible, and bring justice to the victims,” Fox said.

Breivik is accused of killing eight people in Oslo and 69 who were among 700 mostly young people attending a Labour Party youth camp on nearby Utoya Island.

He has pleaded not guilty but admits carrying out the attacks, the judge handling his case has said.

Breivik is described by authorities as a right-wing Christian extremist. A 1,500-page manifesto attributed to Breivik posted on the Internet is critical of Muslim immigration and European liberalism, including the Labour Party.

The manifesto predicts that a “European civil war” will lead to the execution of “cultural Marxists” and the banishment of Muslims.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said in the aftermath of the attacks that his country had been fundamentally changed, but vowed that Norway would remain “an open society.”

Oslo Mayor Fabian Stang said Norwegians would respond to the violence with equally powerful weapons: “We’re going to punish him with democracy and love,” he told CNN shortly after the killings.

Still, memories of the slaughter on the island, where many of the campers survived by hiding behind rocks, remained acute on Tuesday.

“I will always have mixed feelings when I go back, of course,” Labour Party member Eskil Pedersen told a reporter. “I think about the 22nd of July and the dreadful things that happened that day, but I have been here every year and every summer since 2000. A lot of my time as a youth has been here on this island. I have very many good memories as well.”

He said a memorial will be built there. “Our aim is to reclaim Utoya, take it back as an island, have activities, have a summer camp here,” he said.

Relatives of some of the victims expressed disappointment at the decision on Breivik, a journalist from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corp. told CNN. “They have looked forward to seeing him getting a sentence for the rest of his life for the acts he has committed,” correspondent Tomm Kristiansen said.

Public reaction is mixed, said journalist Olav Mellingsaeter. Most people are surprised, not angered, by the findings, he said.

“We must trust that the psychiatrists have done a thorough job,” a 30-year-old student told the reporter.

A 36-year-old woman said, “As long as he does not escape, I do not care where he’s kept.”

At his trial in April, Breivik will have the opportunity to present evidence, police said.

He has been in custody since his arrest on Utoya Island on the day of the killings, which marked the deadliest attack in Norway since World War II.

 

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Islamofascist Cab Drivers Launch Shariah Double-Parking Attack

Posted on 30 November 2011 by Amago

If Muslims are double parking, beware!

Islamofascist Cab Drivers Launch Shariah Double-Parking Attack

In today’s Muslim threat news: Some New York cabbies are Muslims! And they pray, to their Muslim god! And when they do, they illegally double-part their taxicabs on the street, because Muslims “obey religious laws over parking rules.”

That salacious headline comes via DNAInfo, a normally reliable local New York news site. Apparently, a mosque on Manhattan’s Upper West Side is popular with cab drivers. During prayers, they “double- and triple-park outside the house of prayer, forcing northbound traffic…to veer into the oncoming traffic lane.” The mosque’s neighbors—including Donald Trump, who owns four nearby towers—don’t like that, so naturally they complain to the police about it: “311 records show at least nine complaints this year about illegal parking at that intersection.”

Nine complaints! In just one year? It’s a full-blown scandal.

If you live in New York, anywhere, you spend an average of 15 minutes per day mad about some asshole double-parking somewhere. The fact that some Muslim cab drivers double-park to pray doesn’t mean they “flout the rules of the road in order to observe the rules of their religion.” It means they flout the rules of the road because, like everyone else who drives an automobile in Manhattan, they are asshole drivers.

[Image via AP]

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700 Club Features Story Of Phony Ex-Terrorist

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700 Club Features Story Of Phony Ex-Terrorist

Posted on 29 November 2011 by Emperor

700 Club Features Story Of Phony Ex-Terrorist

(Right Wing News)

If Pat Robertson’s CBN News wants to be treated as a credible news source, it probably should stop elevating the story of Kamal Saleem.

Saleem, who was also prominently featured in The Call: Detroit – where he urged other Muslims to convert to Christianity – and told rally attendees that he is the descended of the “Grand Wazir of Islam.” However, the title is not found anywhere in Islam. While preparing for The Call:Detroit, Saleem said that President Obama planned “to break down Article 6” of the Constitution in order to enforce “Islamic law,” warning “if he breaks this, the Sharia law will be supreme in America.”

An investigation by CNN found that Saleem is one of a handful of “fundamentalist Christians posing as ex-terrorists,” and a Middle East studies professor at the conservative Calvin College said his story “is not verifiable and without it he’s no different from other fundamentalist preachers.” Howard even wrote a review of Saleem’s book, which he called “obsessively, sadistically violent,” highlighting Saleem’s many contradictions in his backstory and his blatant and bizarre misrepresentations of Islam, saying, “Suffice it to say that if the subject were Jews, this book could not have been published.” Howard even points out that Focus on the Family, a former employer of Saleem, even had doubts about Saleem’s conversion story.

Haroon Moghul of Religion Dispatches also points out inconsistencies in his story of working for rival Palestinian secular and Islamist groups simultaneously and his claim that as a Muslim he was “allergic to Jesus,” even though Muslims consider Jesus the Messiah.

Why would CBN News bolster such a clear fabricator?

CNN notes that “Saleem, whose real name is Khodor Shami, worked for Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network for sixteen years.”

On Friday, CBN’s The 700 Club featured a story on Saleem where he discussed how he tried “to wage Cultural Jihad” in the Bible Belt:

Kamal was seven when his parents sent him to Muslim training camps to learn to use weapons and engage and kill the enemy. The boys were also taught another, more subtle form of warfare…

“We were training for what’s called, ‘Culture Jihad,’ which is shifting cultures. Culture Jihad is unlike the sword, unlike the rifle. It is the Jihad that will come into your world.”

By his 20s, Kamal was chosen to wage Cultural Jihad on America.

“In Islam, liberty, freedom, monarchy, all these are idols and must be brought down. So the liberty that you have in United States of America is anti-Islam, so America must be changed. So I moved to the ‘Bible Belt’ specifically. The Bible Belt was the strongest of the strongest. That’s where the stout Christians are, and I want to take on the best of the best, because I considered myself as the sword of Islam. I thought, ‘I’m anointed. I’m unique. I’m selected. I’m coming to a country and a culture to change it. I have the power of Allah with me.’”

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li-veil-300×168

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GTA Woman has Niqab Pulled Off in Assault

Posted on 26 November 2011 by Garibaldi

How much do you want to bet that the woman who attacked Inas Kadri is a reader of AtlasShrugs or JihadWatch?

GTA woman has niqab pulled off in assault

(CBC News)

A Muslim woman from Mississauga, Ont., who had her niqab pulled from her face at a local mall, says her young children no longer feel secure with only her nearby.

Inas Kadri, whose assault at Sheridan Centre in Mississauga was caught on a security camera, spoke to CBC News on Tuesday as she awaits the sentencing of the woman who attacked her.

Kadri was shopping with her three-year-old son and two-year-old daughter when she was approached by two women. One of the women began swearing at her, about her religion and her veil, telling her, “Leave our country. Go back to your country,” Kadri said.

The woman can be seen in the video grabbing Kadri’s veil and pulling her off-camera. The attacker walked away while Kadri ran for help.

“Being attacked for no reason — for no reason — that’s something difficult,” she said.

Kadri’s victim impact statement reads, in part, that, “My kids don’t feel secure with me alone, and always prefer to have someone bigger in size than me to feel safe.”

The accused, Rosemarie Creswell, pleaded guilty after the video was played in court.

When CBC News spoke to Creswell on the phone, she admitted to pulling off the veil but insisted it was all just a misunderstanding, before hanging up mid-interview.

Kadri believes the attack was motivated by hate, which could bring a stiffer sentence.

York University law professor Faisal Kutty, who is Muslim, will watch for the judge’s sentencing Friday with interest.

“As Canadians in a multicultural, liberal, democratic society, I think we need to send a clear message and I hope the judge does so,” he said.

Kadri said she won’t stop wearing her face veil no matter what anyone else says or does.

“Not my father, not my husband, not no one at all,” she said. ” It’s me, and it’s my choice.”

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France Mosque Nazi Graffiti

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French Mosque is Target of Arson Attack and Nazi Graffiti

Posted on 22 November 2011 by Emperor

France Mosque Nazi Graffiti

This is like deja-vu, how many times have we ran such a headline?

French mosque is target of arson attack and Nazi graffiti

Sud Ouest reports that when a member of staff arrived at the mosque in Villeneuve-sur-Lot in south west France on Saturday morning they found that the slogan “Islam out of Europe” had been daubed on the walls in black paint along with swastikas and “88″ (Nazi code for “Heil Hitler”). A wooden pallet had been set on fire against the front door but had only caused minor damage. Police also discovered a bottle thought to contain a fire accelerant.

A report by Ajib (via Islam in Europe) points out that the graffiti and arson at Villeneuve-sur-Lot is the latest in a series of criminal attacks on French mosques. Earlier this month the mosque in Montbéliard was the target of an arson attack that caused serious damage. A few days before, on the day of Eid al-Adha, Muslims in Saint-Armand-les-Eaux in the département du Nord were shocked to discover racist graffiti on the door of their mosque.

In a statement condemning the attack in Villeneuve-sur-Lot the Conseil Francais du Culte Musulman reiterates its call for a parliamentary inquiry into the rise of anti-Muslim hatred in France.

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Herman Cain: Thank God My Arab Doctor Wasn’t Muslim!

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Herman Cain: Thank God My Arab Doctor Wasn’t Muslim!

Posted on 21 November 2011 by Danios

(cross-post from Gawker)

In case it wasn’t obvious already, Herman Cain’s brief outreach to the Muslim community to atone for his unending list of inflammatory statements is definitely over.

Visiting a Jesus-themed amusement park in Orlando, Cain gave a moving speech to visitors after the daily reenactment of the crucifixion about his experience battling colon cancer. But per Yahoo’s Chris Moody, things got awkward once the topic turned to his choice of physician:

He did have a slight worry at one point during the chemotherapy process when he discovered that one of the surgeon’s name was “Dr. Abdallah.”

“I said to his physician assistant, I said, ‘That sounds foreign-not that I had anything against foreign doctors-but it sounded too foreign,” Cain tells the audience. “She said, ‘He’s from Lebanon.’ Oh, Lebanon! My mind immediately started thinking, wait a minute, maybe his religious persuasion is different than mine! She could see the look on my face and she said, ‘Don’t worry, Mr. Cain, he’s a Christian from Lebanon.’”

“Hallelujah!” Cain says. “Thank God!”

The crowd laughs uneasily.

This isn’t a new story: Cain told it repeatedly this Spring, playing it up for Christian audiences especially. But since that time Cain made a brief - apparently abortive - attempt to apologize to Muslim leaders for his bigoted statements and refocus his campaign on the economy. Looks like that stretch is over.

* * * * *

Here’s video (go to 5:00 to hear the part about “Dr. Abdallah”):

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Roy-Egan1

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O’Hare TSA Employee Fired over Racist, Homphobic, Anti-Muslim Facebook Posts

Posted on 21 November 2011 by Amago

 

Roy Egan

Roy Egan was fired due to violating the TSA code of conduct.

O’Hare TSA Employee Fired Over Racist, Homphobic, Anti-Muslim Facebook Posts

Sun-Times Media Wire

Chicago – Roy Egan, an O’Hare Airport baggage handler who allegedly spewed racist and bigoted rants against Muslims, African Americans, Latinos and homosexuals on his Facebook page has been fired, according to the Chicago Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR said Egan had worked at the airport for nine years, was suspended in October and terminated this month.

Egan used his Facebook page, where he openly identified himself as a TSA officer, to post comments such as: “FILTHY MUSLIM,” Muslims “need to be exterminated”, “BURN ISLAM”, “Islam, a cult that glorifies death,” and ”Does anything at all make you smile more than a Muslim burning by his own hateful hand.”

He also posted remarks about President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Attorney General Eric Holder.

CAIR-Chicago representatives met with Transportation Security Administration leadership in Chicago three weeks ago to voice the concerns of the Muslim community about the incident and to ask that more be done to prevent future incidents from happening.

“We made it clear that Egan’s discourse was as much an embarrassment to the agency and the values it stands for, as it was an affront against Muslims and other minorities,”

“By the end of the meeting, we felt convinced that the TSA leadership takes such violations of its code of conduct very seriously and that they genuinely set out to do their utmost to ensure that all constituents are treated with fairness and respect.”

“The TSA works hard everyday to keep Americans safe,” Amina Sharif, TSA communications coordinator said in the release. “When such egregious behavior is flagged on the part of one of their agents, it breeds confidence in us as passengers that it is dealt with as swiftly and as seriously as it was in the case of Roy Egan.”

Egan was in violation of the TSA code of conduct which stipulates that its employees — on or off duty — behave in a manner that avoids causing the public to raise questions about their judgment and ability to enforce the mission of the agency, the release said.

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Yoga_Devil

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Pastor Says Yoga Is ‘Demonic’; Warns Christians To Reject It

Posted on 20 November 2011 by Emperor

Yoga_Devil

"Your Yoga Instructor For Eternity"

(via. What If they were Muslim?)

This story reminds us here at “What If” of the Malaysian Fatwa against yoga and the Islamophobes who rallied against it. Robert Spencer’s writers proclaimed:
“Why should we look for other alternatives to exercise and search for peace? Yoga could cause (Muslims) to stray from their faith because its movements are according to the style and traditions of Hinduism.”
Will Spencer and his cronies repeat the same thing in a Christian context?
In his blog, Pastor Mark Driscoll from the Mars Hill Church in Seattle, says that “yoga is a religious philosophy that is in direct opposition to Christianity”. Because of this, he believes that “yoga cannot be simply received by any Christian in good conscious”.

Say what?

Not that this is the first time we’ve heard such rubbish about the conflicts between yoga and religion, but for the last time, can someone please tell these people that yoga is not a religion?

But even if we did tell him this (and other people have), the good Pastor refuses to believe it. In fact, he says yoga is downright demonic and he compares it to being as bad as adultery–which is nothing but a huge stretch (pun intended):

There is nothing wrong with stretching, exercising, or regulating one’s stress through breathing. But when the tenets of yoga are included, it’s by definition a worship act to spirit beings other than the God of the Bible. By way of analogy, there is nothing inherently wrong with intimacy, sex, and pleasure. But when the tenets of adultery are included, it’s a sinfully idolatrous worship act. A faithful Christian can no more say they are practicing yoga for Jesus than they can say they are committing adultery for Jesus.

Pastor Mark goes on to say that we just don’t understand what yoga really is. To which I say, do you, Pastor? Have you ever tried it? Have you experienced the true goodness that can come to your mind, body and spirit when you start flowing in some of the awesome poses and vinyasas? Doubtful, because he believes that we simply cannot get down on our mats while “ignoring the religious aspects of the practice of yoga”.

Yes, some people choose to incorporate spirituality into their practice, which is completely fine. To each yogi, her own. But since when does spirituality equal religion? Can’t we just open our hearts and our minds to the possibility that we can express gratitude and thanks and creativity and acceptance without a particular religious belief being a part of that? I, for one, have never had a yoga teacher quote from the Bible or any other religious readings during class, but even if I did, I’m pretty sure I’d be OK with that.

Yet Pastor Mark still rejects the idea that we can grow spiritually without church. In fact, he says the only real way to do so is through Christianity.

Sigh.

I say we all get down on our mats today and send some hearty “OMs” to the good Pastor.

Photo: lululemonathletica.com

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Rick Womick: Muslims ‘Can Go Back To Where They Came From’

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Rick Womick: Muslims ‘Can Go Back To Where They Came From’

Posted on 19 November 2011 by Danios

(cross-posted from Think Progress, h/t JD)

By Eli Clifton on Nov 18, 2011 at 6:00 pm

Having drawn condemnation from both Muslim community organizations and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for his call to purge Muslims from the U.S. military, Tennessee State Rep. Rick Womick (R-Mufreesboro) decided to double-down on his anti-Muslim message in an interview with the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer.

Womick told Fischer that unless the Muslim community “gets its act together” on Shariah, “they can go back to where they came from.”

The comments, reported by RightWingWatch.org, would indicate that Womick is rejecting the ADL’s call to repudiate his “shameful, deeply disturbing” remarks.

Womick attempted to clarify the remarks he made to ThinkProgress on Veterans Day but only seemed to dig himself in deeper. He said:

WOMICK: My point is, this is my opinion, this is what they asked me, that day on Veterans Day. ‘What do you do about it?’ [I said] well, I can’t tell who the good Muslim is and who the bad Muslim is. And political correctness is not working. What choice do I have? My solution is, and I guarantee you this will work, you don’t let any Muslims serve in the military. You force the Muslim community to get its act together and clean its house and step up and speak out against Shariah law or they’re not a part of not only our military but since they want [inaudible] on our constitution, they can go back to where they came from.

Listen to it:

What exactly Womick means by calling on Muslim Americans to “clean their house” is unclear. A recent Gallup poll found that Muslim Americans are most likely (89%) to reject violent attacks by individuals or small groups on civilians versus any other U.S. religious group.

Perhaps more importantly, a January pew poll showed that 35.5% of Muslims in the U.S. are native born and by 2030, that percentage is projected to increase to 44.9%. Womick’s suggestion that Muslim Americans are all foreign born or can be sent “back to where they came from” ignores the over 200 hundred year history of Muslims in the U.S.

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Dennis Miller Says He Fantasized About Attacking A Muslim Man On His Plane

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Dennis Miller Says He Fantasized About Attacking A Muslim Man On His Plane

Posted on 19 November 2011 by Danios

(cross-posted from Think Progress)

By Zaid Jilani on Nov 18, 2011 at 10:20 am

On Wednesday night, comedian and right-wing pundit Dennis Miller appeared on Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor to talk about various political issues. At one point, Miller explained that on a flight from Los Angeles to New York, he was sitting next to a Muslim man. He told O’Reilly that he fantasized about assaulting the man if he stood up:

MILLER: Billy, I just flew five hours from L.A. to New York next to Islamic kid who was in his 30s. I couldn’t even watch the movie. I just fantasized [about] hitting him in the head with an elbow if he went up.

Watch it:

[click here to watch video]

“You’re doing the Juan Williams thing!” O’Reilly responded to Miller, apparently laughing off his remarks. Miller’s comments come at a time when Islamophobia continues to be pervasive on the far-right. Last week, Tennessee state Rep. Rick Womick (R-Murfreesboro) told ThinkProgress that he thinks Muslims should be banned from the military, earning a rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League.

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3515486_com_darlaston_mosque1

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Midlands Mosque Vandalised on Remembrance Day

Posted on 18 November 2011 by Emperor

“Burn this one.” (hat tip:B Boy Blue)

Midlands Mosque Vandalised on Remembrance Day

A Midlands mosque was vandalised on the morning of Armistice Day in what is suspected to be a hate crime

The Masjid-E-Umar in Darlaston, West Midlands was vandalised on the morning of Remembrance Day in what is suspected to be a hate crime in retaliation against the fifty Muslim individuals who took part in burning poppies on Remembrance Day 2010.

The attack occurred between the hours of 7:30am and 11:00am. The suspects were said to have jumped over the locked gates and spray-painted a graffiti image of a poppy on the mosque door with the text ‘‘Burn this one’’ to signal the mosque as a supporter of the poppy burning incident.

In 2010, to commemorate Remembrance Day, fifty individuals under a now banned extremist group, Muslim Against Crusades, took part in burning poppies near the Royal Albert Hall in London causing disruption. CCTV was in operation outside the mosque but no footage of the perpetrators had been captured.

Police arrived on the scene shortly after 12pm and patrolled the area for the remainder of the day. The graffiti was removed but the mosque door was damaged.

This isn’t the first time that the Darlaston mosque has been attacked. Two years ago, an attacker spray-painted racist words on the mosque but was caught on CCTV and received community service. And following the London 7/7 bombings, a brick was thrown at the mosque leaving permanent damage to the building.

A Darlaston community member said that the racists who attacked the mosque were ignorant as they ‘‘are over 2 million Muslims in the UK, how can they blame the actions of fifty people to be the beliefs of 2 million?’’ Another community member expressed her thoughts on the attackers, “they have no understanding or respect for any religion,” she said. “This is a place of worship. We live in a multicultural society. We have to respect each other. That’s what it means to be British.”

Other Attacks on Mosques

Similar attacks on mosques throughout the UK have been occurring, some even more violent than the one at Masjid-E-Umar. In July 2011, a Luton mosque was attacked in the early hours of the morning. The attackers broke the mosque windows and sprayed graffiti on the walls.

At the Redbridge Islamic Centre, an incident was reported where attackers shouted racial abuse and threw bricks at the building while worshippers were inside, injuring one man.

Following from the deadly hit-and-run of three Muslim men in Birmingham, in the wake of the 2011 riots, several mosques in Birmingham received a number of threats.

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Robert Spencer Loses His Mind Over Muslim Reality Show, Asks Why “All-American Muslim” Doesn’t Include Terrorist Family

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Robert Spencer Loses His Mind Over Muslim Reality Show, Asks Why “All-American Muslim” Doesn’t Include Terrorist Family

Posted on 17 November 2011 by Danios

Before I begin, I must disclose my general disdain for reality television.  I think this phenomenon is part of a generalized “dumbing down” of America.  I’ll even go so far as to say that I lose a bit of respect for those who watch Jersey ShoreKeeping Up With the Kardashians, etc.

But, when I heard about TLC’s All-American Muslim, I was naturally intrigued.  It was a clear violation of the rule that Muslims can only be portrayed in American media as terrorist villains or, occasionally, as the token Muslim helping “the good guys” against the Evil Muslim Terrorists.  The idea of depicting what real Muslims are like–instead of the caricature in the media–is something I support.

Indeed, there is probably nothing more important in the battle against Islamophobia than humanizing Muslims and making them relatable, which this television show just might do (or at least help in doing so).  Katie Couric argued that a “Muslim Cosby Show” would be a great idea: just as it helped many white Americans see that black Americans weren’t all that different from them, so too could a show about American Muslim families help other Americans realize that they aren’t all that different from each other.

JihadWatch’s Robert Spencer and other Islamophobes absolutely hate that idea.  That’s why Spencer grumbled that “[t]he point of the show is to depict Muslims as ordinary folks just like you and me who are subjected to unjust suspicion.”

How DARE the show depict Muslims as ordinary folks!  Doesn’t TLC know that Muslims are not ordinary at all, that they eat infidel babies for breakfast, shoot jihad laser beams from their eyes, and fart 100% pure radioactive Sharia?

Spencer bellowed:

TLC’s much-ballyhooed All-American Muslim reality show makes its agenda clear in its opening sequences: shots of a hijabbed girl roller-skating, Muslims dancing at a wedding, an American flag waving proudly in the breeze, and newspaper clippings proclaiming “4 in 10 Americans ‘suspicious’ of Muslims,” “Outrage at Ground Zero ‘Mosque,’” and “Muslims Brace for Backlash.” The point of the show is to depict Muslims as ordinary folks just like you and me who are subjected to unjust suspicion.

And so we meet one zaftig girl who loves to have fun and go to clubs, and who is in the process of getting married. Another young woman, provocatively dressed by Muslim standards, is trying to open up a club of her own. A young hijab-wearing wife shares the joy of her pregnancy with her loving husband. They’re balancing the demands of faith and family with life’s daily pressures, just like most Americans. So why—the show implies—are non-Muslim Americans so mean to them?

Yet it is noteworthy that both the woman who is getting married and the one who is trying to open a club acknowledge that they are not all that religious. And that is the problem at the heart of All-American Muslim. The Muslims it depicts are for the most part undoubtedly harmless, completely uninterested in jihad and Islamic supremacism…

But Americans aren’t suspicious of Muslims who are trying to get married, open clubs, and play football. Americans are suspicious of Muslims who are trying to blow up American buildings, subvert American freedoms, and assert the primacy of Islamic law over American law.

Robert Spencer is upset that All-American Muslim didn’t portray a family of terrorist Muslims–perhaps they could have named them the Al-Kablams.  Here is where Spencer lives in his Islamophobe fantasy: he imagines that American Muslim families are “jihadis” and Islamic supremacists who want to “blow up American buildings, subvert American freedoms, and assert the primacy of Islamic law over American law.”

If Jersey Shore were really about Italian-Americans (as some incorrectly thought it was), do you think it would be justified to demand that the show include a mafioso family in it?  Does a reality show about Catholic families in America need to include a family led by a child-molesting priest? Would a reality television show about Mexican-American families be “misleading” if it didn’t include at least one family of illegals?  Would a show about Russian or Chinese-Americans be incomplete if it didn’t include at least one family of radical communists?  Is a show about black Americans incomplete if it doesn’t include a family of ex-cons?

What utter nonsense.

This would be like arguing that the Cosby Show was misleading white America, since it showed “harmless blacks,” and not the ones “who are trying to rob, rape, and kill whites,” which was a prevailing stereotype of the time.  The entire purpose of the Cosby Show–and now All-American Muslim–is to counter stereotypes.  So why on earth would All-American Muslim include a terrorist family?  Why does anyone take Robert Spencer’s nonsense seriously?

The fact that All-American Muslim chose to include characters who were not very religious had Robert Spencer in quite the tizzy.  Interesting, some American Muslim viewers were also taken aback by this.  However, AltMuslim.com’s Tuqa Nusairat gave an appropriate response to this criticism, saying:

Let’s stop assuming that Muslims do not drink, have tattoos, or own clubs. If you were somehow shocked by the scenes on this episode, it simply indicates your lack of intermingling with a representative sample of American Muslims.

Only a very small percentage of American Muslims are observant.  (The exact percentage is hotly debated, but there is no question that they are in the minority.)  And only a fraction of those who are religious wear the headscarf (hijab).  Therefore, one could even say that the observant Muslim population is over-represented in All-American Muslim.

This is another reason, among the many, that Islamophobic fear-mongers are wildly off the mark when they portray the American Muslim population as a threat to American democracy.  If only a fraction of Muslim women even wear the headscarf in America, what percentage of American Muslims do you think want to overthrow American democracy to replace it with Taliban-style Sharia?  (Answer: 0.000000001%)

This is not to buy into Robert Spencer’s false dichotomy between Good, Nominal Muslims on the one hand, and Bad, Observant Muslims on the other.  Spencer writes:

[T]here are people who are very knowledgeable about its doctrines and serious about putting them into practice, and others who don’t know and don’t care about what their religion teaches but still identify themselves as members of it, and every gradation in between. It would never happen for obvious reasons, but All-American Muslim would be much more interesting if it tracked one of its secular, attractive nominal Muslims as he decided to get more serious about his faith, and ended up participating in jihad activity or Islamic supremacist efforts to demonize and marginalize those who resist that activity.

He assumes that religious observance would necessitate participation in terrorism and Islamic supremacism.  In fact, as I noted above, many of the actors are observant: they reconcile their faith with modernity–and set themselves to being productive citizens; there is no contradiction for them, and millions of others, between being religious and being a good citizen.  In fact, they see the two things going hand-in-hand.  And Robert Spencer et al. absolutely hate that.

*  *  *  *  *

Elsewhere in the same diatribe, Robert Spencer says:

All-American Muslim addresses nothing of that supremacist ideology, although at times it makes an appearance despite the producers’ best efforts. The woman who is getting married is marrying a Roman Catholic, who converts to Islam in order to marry her. Her father insists on the conversion as a condition of the wedding, and at one point we are told in passing that while a Muslim man may marry a non-Muslim woman, a Muslim woman is not free to marry a non-Muslim man.

There are two issues here: (1) an alleged double standard between Muslim men and women with regard to marrying non-Muslims, and (2) a supposed supremacist attitude that demands that Muslims can only marry fellow Muslims.

Despite the fact that it wasn’t discussed in the first episode of the show (perhaps it will be in future episodes), there exists an alternative opinion with regard to Muslim women marrying non-Muslims, a view grounded in the Quran no less.  This dissenting, reformist opinion is expressed by the Islamic intellectual Khaled Abou El Fadl, who allows Muslim men and women to marry non-Muslims.

The traditional opinion uses verse 2:221 of the Quran to completely prohibit Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims (see, for instance, this ultra-conservative Islamic website):

And do not give your women in marriage to idolaters until they believe: a believing slave is certainly better than an idolater, even though he may please you.   Such people call you to the Fire, while God calls you to the Garden and forgiveness by His leave.

Yet, the first half of the verse, addressed to the men, is conveniently left out (in bold):

Do not marry idolatresses until they believe: a believing slave woman is certainly better than an idolatress, even though she may please you. And do not give your women in marriage to idolaters until they believe: a believing slave is certainly better than an idolater, even though he may please you. Such people call you to the Fire, while God calls you to the Garden and forgiveness by His leave.

It’s the exact same restriction upon Muslim men.  The Quran says in another verse (5:5):

Today all good things have been made lawful for you. The food of the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) is lawful for you as your food is lawful for them. So are chaste, believing, women as well as chaste women of the people who were given the Scripture before you (Jews and Christians), as long as you have given them their bride-gifts and married them, not taking them as lovers or secret mistresses.

Clearly, the first verse (2:221) prohibits marriage to idolaters only, not to all non-Muslims.  In fact, throughout the Quran, the “People of the Book” (which includes Jews and Christians) are referred to separately from “idolaters,” an indication that these two groups are not simply interchangeable.

The other verse used to support the traditional view is 60:10, which says that “[believing women] are not lawful wives for [the disbelievers], nor are the disbelievers their lawful husbands.”  However, this verse was revealed regarding the women who fled persecution in Mecca (which at that time was ruled by idolaters) to find refuge in the city of Medina; these women were called The Emigrants.  They had previously been married to idolaters, not People of the Book.

More importantly, we see once again that the other half of the verse, addressed to the men, is conveniently omitted by proponents of the traditional view:

 …[Believing women] are not lawful wives for [the disbelievers], nor are the disbelievers their lawful husbands…and do not yourselves hold on to marriage ties with disbelieving women

The reformist view thus rejects the double standard, and argues that the verses used to prove that Muslim women aren’t allowed to marry non-Muslims have the exact same prohibition for Muslim men; therefore, the only logical way to reconcile this is to say that the Quran prohibits Muslims–men and women alike–from marrying idolaters, but does not prohibit marriage to all non-Muslims.  The prohibition certainly does not include Jews and Christians (such as Jeff).  Based on this understanding, Muslims are allowed to marry Muslims or non-Muslims, so long as they are chaste.

There are much wider implications to this discussion, including the way different ideological groups within the Islamic community…

1) …choose to emphasize or de-emphasize traditional views.

2) …choose to emphasize or de-emphasize ijma.

3) …view the religious texts: do they view the Quran with “fresh eyes” or do they only read the Quran “through” ancient commentaries?  Also, is it really true that the stricter, more conservative views are “more authentic” and are more closely grounded in Quranic evidence?

4) …view non-Muslims: are they all idolaters?  Or can non-Muslims enter Paradise?

5) …view women and patriarchy.

These and other issues I plan on discussing in greater detail in the future.  They are very important to comprehend if one truly wants to understand the American Muslim community and Islam in general.  This understanding and depth of knowledge is needed to tackle Islamophobia as well, and it is critical in order to counter the myths spread by Robert Spencer and co.

*  *  *  *  *

Robert Spencer then says:

Left unanswered in the show is the question of what might have happened if the couple had decided to get married in the Roman Catholic Church, or to leave Islam at some later date. No doubt this non-observant woman’s Muslim relatives would have been less solicitous in that event.

So too are many devout Catholic parents “less solicitous” when their children wish to marry outside the faith.  In fact, the Catholic Church blocks all marriages to non-Christians, calling it a “disparity of cult.”  One must seek a special exemption from a bishop to conduct such a marriage; the bishop’s job is to try to get the non-Christian partner to agree that the children will be raised Catholic.  Is this then a reflection of the supremacist attitude of Catholicism?

How would Robert Spencer himself react if his son or daughter wanted to marry a Muslim?  We all know how “solicitous” he’d be feeling.

Certainly, many Protestant Christian groups, especially Evangelicals, insist on only dating and marrying fellow believers.  Many outright forbid marriage outside the faith, citing the Biblical verse 2 Corinthians 6:14:

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

Two of the three major branches of Judaism (Orthodox and Conservative) similarly forbid Jews from marrying non-Jews.

But, remember, when Muslims say that they should only marry fellow believers, that’s a proof of inherent Islamic supremacism!

The lady–in this case, Robert Spencer–doth protest too much, methinks.

Also, it should be pointed out that there is no indication that Shadia is fearful for her life should she choose to marry a non-Muslim.  A reasonable assumption is that her father would be upset with her, stop speaking to her for some time, and/or not attend the wedding.  Only in Spencer’s mind would it be reasonable to assume that he is going to “honor kill” her.  Considering that the total number of Muslim honor killings in the United States can be counted on the hand, why should the show depict that as representative of the millions of American Muslim families?

In fact, Shadia’s father already knows that his daughter is dating Jeff; she even kisses Jeff in front of him.  Shadia’s father also knows that she has tattoos and drinks alcohol, among other “un-Islamic” things.  He hasn’t killed her yet.  In fact, he is loving towards her.

Even though the father’s demand–that Jeff convert to Islam if he wants to marry Shadia–is completely unreasonable, it should be noted that really the father is asking for Jeff to make a token, fake conversion–one that he probably knows is not considered valid in Islam.  Contrary to what was depicted on the show, conversion to Islam does not require just saying a simple sentence and presto!  Rather, Islam stresses that conversion starts in the heart; without conviction, the conversion meant nothing.

Similarly, Robert Spencer whines elsewhere:

There are many women in the show who are wearing hijabs and many who are not, but we are not allowed to see what might happen if one of the hijab-wearing women decides to take it off.  Such conflicts would not serve The Learning Channel’s agenda.

Here again he assumes that the women on the show are forced to wear hijab by their families.  This shows Spencer’s unfamiliarity with American Muslim community.  One can bet that there are other women in the same family who don’t don the hijab–and nothing happens to them.  In fact, it has been a phenomenon that younger American Muslim women don the hijab of their own accord, often against their parent’s wishes.  In any case, there is no reason at all to assume that anything at all would happen to them if they chose to take it off.  Such considerations would not serve JihadWatch’s agenda.

*  *  *  *  *

Robert Spencer concludes with a sentence that makes clear his views endorsing collective guilt and punishment:

[A]ll that All-American Muslim gives us is a denunciation of “Islamophobia” featuring Muslims who could never have conceivably inspired any suspicion of Islam in the first place.

Spencer seems to be of the opinion that Radical Muslims are the ones to blame, not Islamophobia, for the suspicion the Muslims in All-American Muslim must deal with.  Can you imagine how quickly a person would be dubbed a racist if they were to say something outlandish like “black criminals, not white racists, are responsible for racism against the black community”?

Insert any race or religion for “Muslims” and Spencer’s bigotry becomes clear.  His beef with All-American Muslim is an argument steeped in Islamophobia, which the show may help to counteract–and that’s why it is only natural that people like Robert Spencer would steadfastly oppose it.  The Islamophobes can’t stomach Americans viewing American Muslims as “ordinary folks just like you and me.”  And that’s reason enough to support the show, at least in my book.

*  *  *  *  *

Addendum I:

Aman Ali, co-creator of 30 Mosques in 30 Days, offered some legitimate criticism of All-American Muslim.  The show failed to show the ethnic diversity within the American Muslim community:  all the Muslims in the show are Arab-Americans.  This reinforces the myth that all Muslims are Arabs, and all Arabs are Muslims.  In fact, “[o]nly about 12 percent of Muslims worldwide are Arabs”, and in the United States only 1 in 4 Muslims is of Arab ethnicity.

All-American Muslim didn’t bother to include any characters from the Asian and black communities, even though these two groups make up a greater percentage of the American Muslim population.  Writes Ali:

Brilliant! What better way to show the mainstream public an insight into how multicultural and intellectually diverse Islam’s followers are… with a show focusing on just Arabs (20 percent of the world’s Muslim population) who follow the Shia sect of Islam (about 10 percent of the world’s Muslim population).

The show, which premiered over the weekend, presents itself as a glimpse into the American Muslim community but ignores an overwhelming majority of the cultures that comprise it. South Asians like my parents, who came from India, make up one of the largest group of Muslim immigrants in the United States.

That doesn’t bother me as much as the fact that the show makes no reference to African-American Muslims, another huge American Muslim group. Many of the black slaves that built the foundation of this country with blood, sweat and tears were Muslim.

And Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Dave Chappelle and Lupe Fiasco are all American Muslims, too. Hell, Detroit is right next to Dearborn. All the producers had to do was turn around and they’d find one of the most active African-American Muslim communities in the country.

AltMuslim.com’s Tuqa Nusairat countered by saying:

The “reality” is that “Jersey Shore” doesn’t represent Italians in NJ, “Sister Wives” doesn’t represent all Mormons, “Kate Plus Eight” doesn’t represent all families of multiples, so why would would we expect this show to represent all American Muslims?

The problem with Nusairat’s retort is that Italians did and do criticize Jersey Shore for not being representative of their community.  They were certainly justified in doing so, even though the show was not called All-American Italians.  Similarly, Mormons did and do criticize Sister Wives, because they feel that it is not representative of their faith community.  (And I’ll be honest: I’ve never heard of Kate Plus Eight so no comment there.)

Jersey Shore was a poor choice for Nusairat to have relied on to make her argument.  However, I agree with her article overall and share her optimistic opinion with regard to the show, which is a refreshing change from the same-old Muslim as Terrorist role that Robert Spencer insists upon.  Since people today don’t like reading, the best way to counter Islamophobia and reach the average Joe is not through the long and intricate articles I write, but through the boob tube.  All-American Muslim is a step in the right direction.

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Nutty Professor Maurice Moshe Eisenstein: Racism and Anti-Muslim Hate

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Nutty Professor Maurice Moshe Eisenstein: Racism and Anti-Muslim Hate

Posted on 16 November 2011 by Garibaldi

We did a piece on the despicable anti-Muslim bigotry spewed by Professor Maurice Moshe Eisenstein a few days ago. Sadly, it seems we did not capture the full breadth of his hate-mongering. While we were able to expose his linking and liking Pamela Geller’s genocidal anti-Muslim website Atlas Shrugs, we failed to show some more of the direct and insidious comments he has posted in the past, both on his blog and on his personal Facebook page.

In this screen shot, Eisenstein calls Muslims barbarians, and says there is no future in Arab countries run by Muslims:

Here Eisenstein curses Prophet Muhammad, and says Muslims look upon the Earth as flat:

Here Eisenstein reveals what he thinks about those Muslims at Purdue who are part of the MSA:

This is radical extremism. Period. Imagine if Eisenstein’s last name was Abdul, and replace Muslim with Jewish in the above comments, how long would such a professor last at the said institution? This is a serious breach of the integrity Purdue University by a faculty member and should not be condoned, as it has thus far by the university administration.

There is more to the hate filled banter of Eisenstein, just visit his ironically named blog, Speaking Truth to Power.

Here he sounds more like Halal Pork with all the talk of “snakes”:

The Arab Spring that was Always an Expected Winter

Spring and Arabs, i.e. Muslims, is like talking about friendly cobra snakes. There is no such thing.

Egypt is under the greatest influence of Islam as a terrorist religion than it has ever been, with no countervailing force.

Arabs are only friends of Arabs. (If you doubt that ask any Hindu.) There is no option in the Arab world of supporting so called human rights. The only place that it came close was in Turkey (I know it is not Arab; but, it is Muslim.)

If one thinks that this is relegated to Facebook, think again, he is spewing the same stuff in the CLASSROOM. He states below that Arabs and Muslims haven’t contributed anything to society in 2,000 years, is that what they want professors teaching at the university?:

According to one YouTube commenter this wasn’t recorded by students but was shamelessly put online by Eisenstein himself:

nasserorion Its not recored, he shares all the lectures on his online courses

Protests at the University have continued, and hopefully these brave students will continue to pressure the university to respond properly:

Anti-Muslim comments made by a PUC professor on his public Facebook page and during his class lectures have led to campus-wide outrage and student protests.

Energetic chants such as “No more Eisenstein, Eisenstein must go!” and “They say get back, we say fight back!” echoed throughout the courtyard between the Gyte and SUL buildings on Nov. 9 and 10. Students held signs and handed out transcripts of Eisenstein’s Facebook comments while expressing their opinions as others came and went between classes. Approximately 50 to 70 students took part in the protest.

PUC students Wala Issa, Jessica Tabor and alumni Chris Ramirez started the protests by organizing with other students in response to the anti-Muslim comments and alleged religious harassment from Eisenstein. During the exchange of comments on Facebook, Eisenstein called Issa a “Jew hater” after she posted a separate link in defense of Muslims and the Islamic religion. Issa said her intentions were to show that anyone can take an article and misinterpret it.

“He believes that we are targeting him as an orthodox Jew, [but] this has nothing to do with that. We are just offended about things that he said, which were calling Muslims terrorists and saying that the prophet Muhammad was an idiot,” said Issa.

Aside from the comments made on Facebook, Issa has previously filed two personal complaints to PUC officials against Eisenstein. The first complaint was filed on Aug. 31, to History and Political Science Department Head Richard Rupp, Dean of Liberal Arts and Social Science Ronald Corthell and Linda Knox, associate director of Affirmative Action at PUC. The second was filed with Corthell on Sept. 21.

The first incident involving Issa and Eisenstein occurred on Aug. 30, the first day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr. Issa said Eisenstein made comments during a classroom lecture where he allegedly stated “Muslims are corrupting the world and the only thing Muslims are good for is their food.”

Representatives of PUC’s Social Justice Club and the Muslim Student Association both said they plan to file separate complaints in the days to come.

Alshammari said he and the MSA joined the protests after they saw the comments made by Eisenstein on Facebook and said he believes Eisenstein should be fired over his remarks. He said that students came to the protest and told him Eisenstein has not only insulted Muslims, but Hispanics, blacks and other minorities as well.

Sociology Professor Alan Spector attended the protest on Nov. 10 and gave his opinion of Eisenstein’s comments.

“Professors have a right to their own opinion, but the question is whether or not it creates a situation in the classroom where students feel like they’re not going to be judged fairly or graded fairly,” Spector said.

Tabor, who described Eisenstein’s comments as “hateful,” said, “The university has policies on student academic honesty, yet it appears that faculty members are not held to the same standards. Clearly, Eisenstein believes his university protected “bully pulpit” gives him the freedom to promote his bigotry.”

Loonwatchers should continue to support the students with letters, emails and phone calls to the university. This sort of hate filled bigotry and racism is damaging not only to the school but most importantly to the students who deserve a real education.

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Pink Panther

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German Neo-Nazi Terror Cell Discovered, Targeted Muslims and Immigrants

Posted on 16 November 2011 by Garibaldi

Pink Panther

In this computer screen shot a Pink Panther figure stands next to a portrait showing murdered Turkish businessman Enver S. in a DVD reportedly produced by neo-Nazis Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boenhardt to document a series of murders they committed over several years on November 15, 2011 in Germany.

An interesting title. You never hear such language when Muslim nations take unequivocal stands against violence in their countries. What’s the last time you saw, “Shocked Saudi Arabia Vows to Fight Terrorists.”

The larger story is how little attention this has received outside of Germany. If these were Muslims you could bet that it would be world-wide news, threat levels and suspicions of terrorists sleeper cells would be dominating coverage.

The money quote from this piece:

The Central Council of Muslims in Germany lamented what it described as a chronically neglected chain of violence against Muslims in the last 20 years.

“Obviously right-wing terrorism was rife and went unchallenged because the authorities looked too much in the direction of religiously motivated criminals,” Council chairman Aiman Mazyek told the Osnabruecker Zeitung.

Shocked Germany vows to fight neo-Nazis after murders

(Reuters)

LEIPZIG/BERLIN – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives urged her on Tuesday to step up the fight against right-wing extremists following the chance discovery that a group of neo-Nazis had been murdering immigrants for years.

Merkel has described as a national disgrace the existence of a cell, called the National Socialist Underground, whose members are now suspected of killing between 2000 and 2007 at least nine immigrants, eight Turks and a Greek, and a police woman.

The cell only came to light by chance, raising fears the security services have underplayed the threat from the extreme right and may have been distracted by its use of unreliable informants from the right-wing scene.

Police are reopening all unsolved cases with a possible racist motive since 1998.

The case has topped the national news since the weekend and politicians from all parties have expressed shock, which has also fuelled calls for a renewed effort to ban the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD).

“You cannot help being left with the dreadful impression that the danger of right-wing extremist violence wasn’t taken seriously enough,” Thomas Oppermann, a member of the opposition Social Democrats (SPD), told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily.

Germany’s Nazi past makes right-wing militancy a particularly sensitive subject, yet experts have long warned of extremism among disenchanted young people in eastern regions of the country where unemployment is high and job prospects poor.

At least 3 million people of Turkish origin live in Germany. Many came to fill West Germany’s labour gap after World War Two and helped deliver its “economic miracle”. About 81 million people live in Germany.

“BRUTAL THREAT”

Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) voted unanimously at a congress in Leipzig on Tuesday to push for tough action against what the party called “a serious, brutal threat to our democratic life”.

The CDU urged the government to “intensify the fight against right-wing extremism” and to “find out whether the recent events provide grounds for a prohibition of the NPD”.

Conservative parliamentary leader Volker Kauder said he was in favour of exploring whether it would be possible to “root out this Brown weed” — referring to the brown shirts once worn by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Stormtroopers — by banning the NPD.

A previous attempt to ban the NPD in 2003 collapsed because informants were used as witnesses. Many politicians are wary of trying again, not least because of the fear of pushing NPD supporters underground.

Lorenz Caffier, the CDU’s leader in the northern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, one of the depressed former East German areas plagued by right-wing extremism and where the NPD enjoys support, told the congress “German society has to stand up to the extreme-right NPD with all our might, it is our democratic duty”.

With seats in two regional assemblies, the NPD received 1.06 million euros in taxpayers’ money last year.

The NPD is more radical than populist, anti-immigration parties in the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Sweden.

Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution describes the NPD as racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist and says its statements prove its inspiration comes from the Nazis. The party says the German constitution is a “diktat” imposed by victorious Western powers after World War Two.

Last weekend the NPD appointed Holger Apfel as their leader. He has tried to portray himself as the moderate face of the NPD and distanced himself from the newly-found terror cell, as well as condemning political terrorism and violence.

MISINFORMED

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency monitors far-right extremists but has in the last few years made little of the threat of violence from right-wing groups.

One of the main charges levelled at the agency is that in its efforts to infiltrate right wing groups, it used unreliable informants. Critics even say money paid to the informants went to fund criminal activities.

Top-selling Bild newspaper reported that a security agent had been very close to the scene of crime in six of the cases.

“There is much to indicate that the intelligence services did not fulfil their task of protecting society. They failed,” veteran Greens lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele said.

“Not only did they let huge risks develop but probably 10 or more people have been murdered. Post-war Germany has not known this kind of drama until now,” he told N-TV television.

Families of some of the victims have said they thought all along the murderers were right-wing radicals.

The Central Council of Muslims in Germany lamented what it described as a chronically neglected chain of violence against Muslims in the last 20 years.

“Obviously right-wing terrorism was rife and went unchallenged because the authorities looked too much in the direction of religiously motivated criminals,” Council chairman Aiman Mazyek told the Osnabruecker Zeitung.

Police discovered the neo-Nazi group, known to the Thuringia regional intelligence service in the 1990s but then forgotten, earlier this month when two of its members apparently committed suicide in a caravan in Eisenach in eastern Germany.

Weapons involved in the murders were later found at a burned out house nearby in Zwickau that had been used both by them and by a woman called Beate Zschaepe, who has given herself up. A male suspected accomplice was arrested on Sunday.

Other evidence uncovered included graphic DVDs prepared for sending to media and Islamic cultural organisations. They show a Pink Panther cartoon figure pointing out the scenes of the killings. Police say this indicates the group had inside knowledge of the attacks.

© Copyright (c) Reuters

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David Osama Haddad

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Teenager David Osama Haddad Bullied and Beaten because he’s Muslim

Posted on 16 November 2011 by Amago

David Osama Haddad

David Osama Haddad

No teen should go through this. This violent act goes well beyond bullying.

David Osama Haddad, Indiana Teen, Bullied, Beaten Over Middle Eastern Ethnicity: Lawsuit (VIDEO)

The parents of a 17-year-old Indiana high school student say the constant bullying their son suffered due to his Middle Eastern ethnicity culminated in a beating that injured his brain, and are suing the school district for failing to intervene as his physical and verbal abuse escalated.

David Osama Haddad, a junior at Lake Central of Jordanian descent, was attacked in the hallway of his high school on Nov. 8 after repeated incidents of bullying he had reported to district officials, his parents allege in their lawsuit, according to NBC Chicago. Haddad suffered a traumatic brain injury and was treated at Community Hospital in Munster. Photos released by the family’s attorney show his face severely bruised.

“The principal [Robert McDermott] turned a blind eye to the repeated bullying and harassment of this student,” the Haddad family’s attorney Kenneth Allen said in a press conference Monday. “The principal was notified on several occasions of the situation, but did nothing. Inaction by those in charge in the face of injustice cannot be tolerated.”

Haddad’s parents, Osama and Hind, say the bullying their son suffered was consistently tied into his Middle Eastern heritage, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. They say Haddad was often called a “terrorist,” that taunted him when Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi were killed, and spread rumors that Gaddafi was Haddad’s uncle.

In January, the teen’s parents say a group of boys showed up at the family’s home in St. John, Ind. and tried to lure Haddad outside to beat him up, prompting his parents to inform the school of their concerns, which they say only escalated the problem, NBC reports. Hind Haddad said her son quit the football and baseball teams in part due to harassment, but the bullying only intensified.

The district’s Superintendent Larry Veracco is named in the lawsuit, along with School Board President George Baranowski, Principal Robert McDermott, and Assistant Principal Sean Beasley Jr., according to the Sun-Times. Several students are also named in the assault.

The Haddad family is seeking monetary compensation for their son’s injuries and have accused the school of violating his civil rights and failing to intervene, the Northwest Indiana Times reports. They filed a temporary restraining order Monday to prevent the video surveillance of the beating and prior complaints they had filed from being tampered with or altered. The students accused are junior and senior football and baseball players, Allen told the Times.

The Haddad family say their son’s injuries were severe, but the school failed to provide him medical treatment or call the police. Allen told the Times that none of the students involved in the beating were disciplined, but that David Haddad was suspended for 10 days for throwing one defensive punch while trying to get off the floor.

Haddad’s mother Hind says she’s afraid to send her son back to school.

“This is a parent’s nightmare, when they call you to tell you your son has been beaten up,” Hind Haddad told the Times. “It’s unbelievable.”

 

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Another Anti-Muslim Rant from Dawkins

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Another Anti-Muslim Rant from Dawkins

Posted on 15 November 2011 by Amago

Dawkins is compiling a long list of loony comments, why do people even think he makes sense when he speaks about religion anymore:

May of 2011: Islam is an “unmitigated evil”?

Richard Dawkins, well known biologist and pop-atheist-guru (add goofball) recently brought up the question of whether or not atheists should support Christian missions in Africa. (hat tip: Rob)

He believes the answer is “still no,” (he doesn’t say why) but since Islam according to him is an “unmitigated evil” and atheism is not going to be making any inroads into Africa anytime soon it is a question worth “raising.”

July of 2011: Here’s the comment he left on a thread that discussed sexism. It isn’t cute, reasoned critique of religion anymore, just plain vile:

Dear Muslima

Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.

Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so . . .

And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.

Richard

Dawkins is at again. This time he cannot understand why young, white British women are converting to Islam, so the urge to comment on the article published in The Independent, “Women & Islam: The rise and rise of the convert”, was hard to resist:

“Whenever I read an article like this, I end up shaking my head in bafflement. Why would anyone want to CONVERT to Islam? I can see why, having been born into it, you might be reluctant to leave, perhaps when you reflect on the penalty for doing to. But for a woman (especially a woman) voluntarily to JOIN such a revolting and misogynistic institution when she doesn’t have to always suggests to me massive stupidity.”

In Dawkins’ asinine mind, he wonders why would anyone, especially women, join this “revolting and misogynistic institution.” Due to his lack of in depth research regarding women and Islam, it suggest to me massive stupidity on his end. Due to this orientalist outlook on Islam and it’s treatment of women as only being inclusive to the religion, you are moving up in ranks for your anti-Islamic rhetoric.

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w460

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Muslims protest at mosque attack in Switzerland

Posted on 14 November 2011 by Amago

Do they really have to use a dead pig,  four pig heads and 120 liters of pig’s blood to make a statement? Are there any other mediums to get your message across? Maybe having a meeting and discussing things over like fashionable citizens? Just a suggestion you know. Instead of the abuse and misuse of dead animals.

Muslims protest at mosque attack in Switzerland

A dead pig and four pig heads have been found buried on the site of a future mosque in an anonymous anti-Islam attack, police say.

The attackers sent anonymous letters to the media in the region near the mosque site in the town of Grenchen in canton Solothurn.

In the letter they said they had also poured 120 litres of pig’s blood on the ground, saying it was a test of Muslim faith whether the mosque would be built on the land afterwards.

The Islamic Central Council of Switzerland   said it “condemned the profanation of the site of a future mosque”, adding: “With this act, a line has been cross and Islamophobia has attained a new level.”

Grenchen mayor Boris Banga described the attack as “horrible and abominable”.

swissinfo.ch and agencies

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LGF: Pamela Geller-Robert Spencer Allies Arrested in London for Planning Attacks

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LGF: Pamela Geller-Robert Spencer Allies Arrested in London for Planning Attacks

Posted on 14 November 2011 by Amago

Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller have had a lot to say about the Occupy movement, except when a group they wholeheartedly support were planning to attack peaceful protesters.

Pamela Geller-Robert Spencer Allies Arrested in London for Planning Attacks

by Charles Johnson

Anti-Muslim demagogues Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have expressed their unqualified support for the fascist English Defence League on many occasions, despite the EDL’s frequently violent demonstrations and the presence of many outright neo-Nazis among their ranks.

Yesterday in Britain, police arrested nearly 200 members of the EDL for planning to attack Occupy protesters at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

This is the kind of thuggish, violent bigotry Geller and Spencer are working to bring to America.

Police arrested 179 members of the English Defence League after reports of repeated threats to attack Occupy protesters camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral on Armistice Day.

Scotland Yard said they believed a breach of the peace was about to take place after they got intelligence that the EDL were planning the Armistice Day attack. The law states officers can arrest if they believe the breach of the peace to be “imminent.” …

The English Defence League had issued statements and made threats on Facebook to burn down protesters tents if they were still outside St Paul’s on Remembrance Sunday, according to Phillips.

Some members of the EDL had also attempted to enter the encampment, most recently on Thursday night.

A statement by the EDL on Thursday was read to the Occupy LSX general assembly on Friday morning to make people aware that there was a threat being made. “They called us all sorts of names in the statement and said we should leave “their” church and stop violating their religion,” said Phillips.

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2603620365_a36376da69_o

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“Behead Those Who Convert” Says Hindu Leader Pravin Togadia

Posted on 13 November 2011 by Emperor

Can you imagine if a Muslim had said this?

Behead those who convert Hindus: Togadia

(Indian Express News)

VHP international general secretary Pravin Togadia on Monday called for a new Indian Constitution that allows for “anyone who converts Hindus to be beheaded”.

The fiery speech, seconded by right-wing leaders, came towards the conclusion of the three-day Akhil Bhartiya Dharmaprasar Karyakarta Sammelan-2011, held a few yards away from the controversial Pirana dargah on the city’s outskirts, where he stayed during the event.

Workers of the VHP from across the country had gathered here, many of them staying in the dargah premises for the three-day conference, causing a lot of anxiety for the police, Monday being Eid-ul-Azha.

Asaram Bapu’s son Narayan Sai, who also came for the concluding ceremony on Monday, said, “I would suggest that we Hindus should include Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains because their line of thinking is no different from Hindus, except for a few small habits.”

Meanwhile, the Saiyed families residing in Pirana village offered namaaz at Imamshah Bawa Dargah on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha amid tight police security.

Around 120 families belonging to the Saiyed community reside in Pirana village and consider themselves as descendents of Imamshah Bawa. There is a controversy surrounding the Imamshah Bawa Dargah, whose trust is run by seven members of Satpanthi group, who were originally Kutchhi Patels and converted to this sect, and three members from the Saiyed community.

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The Politics of Provocation: What the Firebombing of Charlie Hebdo Magazine Means

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The Politics of Provocation: What the Firebombing of Charlie Hebdo Magazine Means

Posted on 10 November 2011 by Garibaldi

We refrained from commenting on the controversy surrounding the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for several reasons. First, before the firebombing it was quite clear that the piece and the accompanying front cover cartoon of Prophet Muhammad saying “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing” while distasteful and stupid to many, was protected and legitimate under free speech.

The cartoon itself however did have elements of Islamophobia, just take a look at it:

You have the cartoonish hook-nosed-goofy-smirking-Ayrab-Mooslim with some weird looking turban on his head.

Charlie Hebdo knew what it was doing, they wished to provoke, they created a buzz and got world-wide media attention for their magazine which had little following outside of France.

A proper response by those offended or upset would have been to peacefully protest, or to satirize the Charlie Hebdo publication, or to do as most have done and simply ignore it.

Alas, some idiot firebombed the Charlie Hebdo offices. Who did it, we don’t know yet, but in the media the presumption is it’s a Muslim. According to reports,

A police official cited a witness saying that someone was seen throwing two firebombs at the building.

Muslims under the spotlight again because of some lone-wolf’s actions have universally condemned the firebombing.

No one has claimed responsibility but let’s assume this “someone” is a pissed off French Muslim for now, that would make it 1 guy out of 5 million French Muslims responding to the magazine with violence. Not really the expected conflagration of riots, embassy burnings, deadly protests, etc. that the Islamophobesphere hoped for.

Let’s be real, the Islamophobes want another Danish Cartoon controversy so they can gloat and further their ideology of excluding Muslims from Western society. That’s what they wished for after Geert Wilders released the movie Fitna, and they failed. It’s what they wished for during the tempest-in-a-teapot South Park controversy, and they failed.

It is also important to once again note the double standards involved. It isn’t as if Islam or Muslims have a monopoly over violence against perceived offenses to sacred subjects. The website What If They Were Muslim makes that much clear! It wasn’t hard to find this story, from France itself about Christians destroying a piece of artwork they found offensive:

April 20, 2011

ANDRES Serrano’s Piss Christ has been destroyed by Christians who broke into a French gallery and slashed the photograph after weeks of protests.

The New York photographer’s controversial work shows a small crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist’s urine.

It outraged the US religious right in 1987, when it was first shown. It was vandalised in Melbourne in 1997, and neo-Nazis ransacked a Swedish show by the artist in 2007.

Why wasn’t the above, as serious a story as the firebombing of Charlie Hebdo, treated the same way in the media? Why do we not hear about the incompatibility of Christianity and modernity? Why do we not hear cries for limiting the practice of Christianity in the West? Why do we not hear pundits and intellectuals pontificating about the unique inability of Christianity to take satire and ridicule? Because Christianity is not the “other.”

Lastly, the untold context in which this French saga must be viewed is the souring relations between the French establishment and their Muslim minority. Islam has been “otherized” in France and across Europe, just as it has in the States, but in France it is taken to the next level.

In the past few years, anti-Muslim bigotry has risen to epidemic proportions. The hijab was banned from public schools, the face veil has been banned altogether, and after a surge in popular support for Marine Le Pen’s anti-Muslim nationalist party, Sarkozy and co. instituted an unprecedented “national dialgoue” on Islam.

According to a recent report Islamophobia is rapidly on the increase in France as it is elsewhere in Europe, and just today we have news of another arson attack on a French Mosque by an anti-Muslim group called Lucky Escapes:

Paris – A mosque in eastern France was damaged after unknown attackers set fire to the building using a burning rubbish bin early Thursday, France 3 television reported.

The head of the mosque in Montbeliard, located about 170 kilometres south of Strasbourg, near the German border, discovered the fire when he arrived to open the building for morning prayers, the report said.

One wall was badly damaged. The attack on the mosque is the second in a month, according to France 3.

A group calling itself Les Echappees Belles (The Lucky Escapes) claimed responsibility for the incident in tracts left near the mosque. The group – believed to be a group of women loosely influenced by right-wing extremists, according to France 3 – had claimed responsibility for setting fire to the mosque’s van in October.

All this of course in no way justifies the bombing of Charlie Hebdo. However, it provides much needed perspective on the politics of provocation as well as to the deep double standards not only inherent in the biased Islamophobesphere but also in the uncritical media.

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Arson attack on mosque in eastern France

Posted on 10 November 2011 by Amago

The Collective Against Islamophobia in France recorded 188 Islamophobic acts in 2010, mostly against institutions such as mosques.

Arson attack on mosque in eastern France

Paris – A mosque in eastern France was damaged after unknown attackers set fire to the building using a burning rubbish bin early Thursday, France 3 television reported.

The head of the mosque in Montbeliard, located about 170 kilometres south of Strasbourg, near the German border, discovered the fire when he arrived to open the building for morning prayers, the report said.

One wall was badly damaged. The attack on the mosque is the second in a month, according to France 3.

A group calling itself Les Echappees Belles (The Lucky Escapes) claimed responsibility for the incident in tracts left near the mosque. The group – believed to be a group of women loosely influenced by right-wing extremists, according to France 3 – had claimed responsibility for setting fire to the mosque’s van in October.

Police were investigating the incident.

Muslim groups say the number of attacks on Muslims and Muslim institutions is on the increase.

The Collective Against Islamophobia in France recorded 188 Islamophobic acts in 2010, mostly against institutions such as mosques.

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The cemetery dates from the 12th century and is the resting place of several Sufi saints (AFP, Ahmad Gharabli)

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Muslim Graves Vandalized at Disputed Jerusalem Site

Posted on 10 November 2011 by Amago

The cemetery dates from the 12th century and is the resting place of several Sufi saints (AFP, Ahmad Gharabli)

The cemetery dates from the 12th century and is the resting place of several Sufi saints (AFP, Ahmad Gharabli)

The “Price Tag” vandals attack again.

Early in October they vandalized a mosque by setting it on fire. And also, last year around the same time, Safed, a small town in Israel had grafiti that the “Price Tag” vandals are known for:

In a city park next to a college building on a recent afternoon, “Death to Arabs” was scrawled on a gatepost. The park is a hangout for the Arab students, who were scattered on benches during a break between classes.

Let us imagine if these “Price Tag” vandals were Muslims. They would be considered a terrorist group threatening the state of Israel’s existence. Spencer and Geller would make claims that they are here in America terrorizing our citizens daily.

This time around, the vandals thought to ante up their game and vandalize a Muslim cemetery instead.

Muslim graves vandalised at disputed Jerusalem site

JERUSALEM — Racist slogans were sprayed over gravestones in an old Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, site of a dispute between Palestinians and supporters of a museum being built alongside, police said on Thursday.

An AFP photographer, who arrived at the cemetery in the city centre, said he saw graffiti on 15 tombs reading “price tag” and “death to the Arabs.”

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that “the slogans were painted several weeks ago” and had not yet been erased by municipal authorities.

Hardline Jewish settlers have adopted what they call a “price tag” policy — a euphemism for revenge attacks against Palestinians and their property following Israeli government measures against settlements.

In recent months, the scope of such attacks has broadened, with vandals targeting Israeli army vehicles, mosques and cemeteries inside Israel and Israeli anti-settlement activists.

On Wednesday, police said they had arrested a suspect in a graffiti attack and bomb hoax at the Jerusalem offices of Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now on Sunday, in which a wall was daubed with the words “price tag”.

In the Jerusalem cemetery dispute, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish human rights group, is building what is termed a “Museum of Tolerance” alongside the disused graveyard.

The project has sparked controversy because it is being built on land belonging to the Ma’man Allah cemetery, commonly called Mamilla, which dates from the 12th century and is the resting place of several Sufi saints.

Descendants of those interred in the west Jerusalem cemetery say it also houses the remains of soldiers and officials of legendary Muslim ruler Saladin.

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“Let’s Play Cowboys and IRANIANS!”

Posted on 09 November 2011 by Amago

Texas is on a roll these days. It wasn’t too long ago that the right-wing nut in Texas Crockett Keller, who is certified to teach people to obtain and use a concealed gun, said the following in an ad:

If you are a non-Christian Arab or Muslim, I will not teach you the class with no shame; I am Crockett Keller, thank you and God bless America.

Just recently, according to IslamophobiaToday:

The Texas Dept. of Public Safety will not revoke or suspend the license of a handgun instructor…

Now Texas creates this racist poster. Will Texas come down hard on the people who created the poster or in the end will they pretend like nothing happened?

Students From 42 Universities Issue Statement Against Racist Texas Poster

Press Release by Iranian Alliances Across Borders (IAAB)

New York, NY: IAAB’s 2011 Student Summit, held this past weekend in Washington, DC, included representatives from 42 universities nationwide and in Europe. Given the news on Friday afternoon of the “Let’s Play Cowboys and IRANIANS!” poster in a restaurant in Katy, Texas, the workshop on Media Representation focused on this issue. Summit participants discussed the history of such racist representations of communities of color in the United States. Students issued the following statement to condemn the poster’s display:

Iranian Alliances Across Borders’ (IAAB) 2011 Student Summit addressed the current state of the Iranian American diaspora community. Over 70 Iranian American student leaders from 42 universities around the nation and abroad expressed outrage over the bigoted content of the 1979 poster titled “Let’s play cowboys and IRANIANS!” displayed in John Nonmacher’s restaurant in Katy, Texas. This image displays a group of gun wielding cowboys under an American Flag, proudly encircling a lynched Iranian man. In Nonmacher’s words, this poster is purely a historical artifact; however, the image recalls a time of high xenophobic animosity towards Iranian immigrants within the United States.

The IAAB Summit participants condemn both the violent image portrayed in the poster and its bigotry towards Iranians, as well as indigenous groups. Fundamental American values of tolerance, diversity, and respect for all human beings are not in accordance with the offensive nature displayed by the poster. We believe that the ideas represented in this incident are detrimental to civil society, especially at a time when democratic dialogue is critical to mitigating political tensions. We stand in solidarity with communities of color that have and continue to experience this kind of demonization. We firmly believe that the propagation of such hostile ideas should not exist within any society.

Signed by students from the following 42 universities:
Bentley University, Boston College, Boston University, Bucknell University, College of William and Mary, Columbia University, Duke University, Emory University, Fairfield University, Fordham University- Lincoln Center, George Mason University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia State University, INSEAD, New York University, Northern Virginia Community College, Oxford University, San Jose State University, Stanford University, Syracuse University, The Commonwealth Medical College, The George Washington University, The New School, Tufts University, University of Baltimore, University of California Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles, University of Central Florida, University of Connecticut, University of Illinois Springfield, University of Iowa, University of Maryland – College Park, University of Maryland – Baltimore County, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Southern California, University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Washington University in St. Louis, Wellesley College, Westminster College, Yale University

About Iranian Alliances Across Borders (IAAB) – IAAB is a 501(c)(3) non-partisan, non-profit volunteer organization with a young, dedicated staff spread across the United States, Europe and Iran.  The mission of the organization is to address issues of the Iranian diaspora community while raising awareness of the Iranian community, promoting leadership, and connecting Iranians across borders. For more information about IAAB, please visit www.iranianalliances.org.

 

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Islamophobia: ‘Vanguard’ Trailer

Posted on 05 November 2011 by Amago

Islamophobia: ‘Vanguard’ Trailer

In “Islamophobia,” Vanguard correspondent Adam Yamaguchi examines the rising tide of Islamophobia on both sides of the Atlantic. Ten years after 9/11, the fear of future attacks paired with the growing number of Muslims across Europe and America has given birth to an aggressive new network of anti-Muslim alarmists.

Watch the premiere of Vanguard’s “Islamophobia” on Monday, November 7, at 9/8c.

“Vanguard” is Current TV’s no-limits documentary series whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show’s correspondents, Adam Yamaguchi, Christof Putzel and Mariana van Zeller, serve as trusted guides who take viewers on in-depth real life adventures in pursuit of some of the world’s most important stories.

For more, go to http://current.com/vanguard.

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Robert Spencer and Julius Streicher, Islamophobia and Anti-semitism: Same Message, Different Minority

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Robert Spencer and Julius Streicher, Islamophobia and Anti-semitism: Same Message, Different Minority

Posted on 03 November 2011 by Garibaldi

Robert Spencer and Julius Streicher

Robert Spencer and Julius Streicher's eerily similar rhetoric

An interesting piece by journalist COLM Ó BROIN comparing quotes from Robert Spencer and and Julius Streicher.

Julius Streicher was a pre-Nazi era anti-Semitic propagandist and his rhetoric eerily echoes that of Robert Spencer’s.

Islamophobia and Antisemitism: Same message, different minority

by Colm O Broin (Middle Class Dub)

Below are quotes which highlight the disturbing similarities between Islamophobic and Antisemitic messages.

Ten statements by ‘anti-jihad’ writer Robert Spencer and Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher are compared.

Julius Streicher was the editor of Der Stuermer, a Nazi paper that spread vicious Antisemitic propaganda from 1923-1945. As Nazi Party leader in Nuremburg he organized the destruction of synagogues in the city.

He was not directly involved in the Holocaust but was convicted of crimes against humanity after WWII. He was found guilty of inciting hatred against Jews in Der Stuermer and was executed in 1946.

Robert Spencer is a prominent critic of Islam who runs the Jihadwatch.org website. He is the author of several best selling books on Islam and he has spoken on Fox News, CNN, NBC and other news channels.

He has organized protests against the construction of mosques in New York. He has advised the FBI on Islam and his books were recommended by the FBI for its agents.

The following is a comparison of their views on Muslims and Jews respectively.

1 Muslims/Jews have a religious duty to conquer the world.

“Islam understands its earthly mission to extend the law of Allah over the world by force.”

Robert Spencer.

“Do you not know that the God of the Old Testament orders the Jews to consume and enslave the peoples of the earth?”

Julius Streicher.

2 The Left enables Muslims/Jews.

“The principal organs of the Left…has consistently been warm and welcoming toward Islamic supremacism.”

Robert Spencer.

“The communists pave the way for him (the Jew).”

Julius Streicher.

3 Governments do nothing to stop Muslims/Jews.

“FDI* acts against the treason being committed by national, state, and local government officials…in their capitulation to the global jihad and Islamic supremacism.”

(Freedom Defense Initiative, Robert Spencer/Pamela Geller organisation).

“The government allows the Jew to do as he pleases. The people expect action to be taken.”

Julius Streicher.

4 Muslims/Jews cannot be trusted.

“When one is under pressure, one may lie in order to protect the religion, this is taught in the Qur’an.”

Robert Spencer.

“We may lie and cheat Gentiles. In the Talmud it says: It is permitted for Jews to cheat Gentiles.”

From The Toadstool, children’s book published by Julius Streicher.

5 Recognizing the true nature of Muslims/Jews can be difficult.

“There is no reliable way for American authorities to distinguish jihadists and potential jihadists from peaceful Muslims.”

Robert Spencer.

“Just as it is often hard to tell a toadstool from an edible mushroom, so too it is often very hard to recognize the Jew as a swindler and criminal.”

From The Toadstool, children’s book published by Julius Streicher.

6 The evidence against Muslims/Jews is in their holy books.

“What exactly is ‘hate speech’ about quoting Qur’an verses and then showing Muslim preachers using those verses to exhort people to commit acts of violence, as well as violent acts committed by Muslims inspired by those verses and others?”

Robert Spencer.

“In Der Stuermer no editorial appeared, written by me or written by anyone of my main co-workers, in which I did not include quotations from the ancient history of the Jews, from the Old Testament, or from Jewish historical works of recent times.”

Julius Streicher.

7 Islamic/Jewish texts encourage violence against non-believers.

“’And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter…’ — 2:191.”

Koranic verse quoted by Robert Spencer on Jihadwatch.org.

“’And when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally: men and women and children, even the animals.’ (Deuteronomy 7:2.).”

Biblical verse quoted by Julius Streicher in Der Stuermer.

8 Christianity is peaceful while Islam/Judaism is violent.

“There is no Muslim version of ‘love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you’ or ‘if anyone strikes you on the right cheek turn to him the other also’.”

Robert Spencer.

“The Jew is not being taught, like we are, such texts as, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,’ or ‘If you are smitten on the left cheek, offer then your right one.’”

Julius Streicher.

9 Muslims/Jews are uniquely violent.

“(Islam) is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers.”

Robert Spencer.

“No other people in the world has such prophecies. No other people would dare to say that it was chosen to murder and destroy the other peoples and steal their possessions.”

Julius Streicher.

10 Criticising Muslims/Jews is not incitement to violence against Muslims/Jews.

“There is nothing in anything that I have ever written that could be reasonably construed as an incitement to violence against anyone.”

Robert Spencer.

“Allow me to add that it is my conviction that the contents of Der Stuermer as such were not (incitement). During the whole 20 years, I never wrote in this connection, ‘Burn Jewish houses down; beat them to death.’ Never once did such an incitement appear in Der Stuermer.”

Julius Streicher.

Notes:

Robert Spencer quotes;

(1) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-871902797772997781

http://www.ourbeacon.com/cgi-bin/bbs60x/webbbs_config.pl/md/read/id/314123119154008

(2) http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/07/anders-breivik-and-the-echo-chamber.html
(3) http://freedomdefense.typepad.com/about.html
(4) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-871902797772997781
(5) http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/08/australian-pol-to-oppose-islamic-immigration.html
(6) http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/07/daniel-greenfield-in-defense-of-robert-spencer.html
(7) http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/08/wapo-do-critics-actually-read-the-koran-uh-yeah.html
(8) http://books.google.ie/books?id=eanFm7hiM1cC&pg=PA27
(9) http://www.jihadwatch.org/2006/01/what-is-a-moderate-muslim.html
(10) http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00hz34g

Sources for Julius Streicher quotes;

http://propagander.tripod.com/js2.html

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/story5.htm

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Streicher.html

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Giftpilz.html

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/secretplan.html

www.twitter.com/colmobroin

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Any Loonwatchers Near Steubenville, Ohio? Robert Spencer to Speak at Franciscan University

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Any Loonwatchers Near Steubenville, Ohio? Robert Spencer to Speak at Franciscan University

Posted on 03 November 2011 by Garibaldi

Anti-Muslim activist Robert Spencer is expected to speak at the Franciscan University on Tuesday, November 8th at 7 pm. Admission is free and there will be a question and answer session. If any loonwatchers live in the area or can make the drive it would be great.

Franciscan University will be a hostile environment, so it will be like walking into the lion’s den. The universities supporters believe they are in a kulturkampf with the Obama administration, and Spencer has already spoken to an approving crowd in the past where he delivered a triumphalist message in militaristic tones.

Ultimately it is only Jesus Christ that can fight against this [Islam]~Robert Spencer

Here is the advert from Franciscan University:

STEUBENVILLE, OH—Robert Spencer, the internationally known founder of Jihad Watch, will speak at Franciscan University of Steubenville on Tuesday, November 8, at 7:00 p.m. on the topic ”Islam’s View of Christianity: Why It Matters.” The talk, which will take place in the Tony and Nina Gentile Gallery of the J.C. Williams Center, is free and open to the public.

Spencer will speak on the peculiar understanding of Christianity contained in the founding texts of Islam, how that view has shaped Islamic/Christian interactions down to the present day, and what we as Catholics and Christians can do in the face of this resurgent religion.

Spencer has studied Islamic theology, law, and history for over three decades. He currently serves as the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. intelligence community.

He is the author of 10 books, including Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t, a refutation of moral equivalence and call for all the beneficiaries and heirs of Judeo-Christian Western civilization, whatever their own religious or philosophical perspective may be, to defend it from the global jihad.  He is coauthor, with Daniel Ali, of Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics, and editor of the essay collection The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims.

His articles on Islam and other topics have appeared in a wide array of newspapers and Web sites.

Spencer has appeared on the BBC, ABC News, CNN, FoxNews, PBS, and many other media outlets as well as on numerous radio programs including Vatican Radio.

Following his talk, Spencer will answer questions from the audience.  For more on Spencer at Franciscan University, watch a clip from his remarks at this summer’s Defending the Faith Conference.

If any loonwatchers go and record Spencer and or would like to submit a piece about their experience we will run the article with all due credit. Let us know if anyone is interested. Feel free to comment below or email us at:info@loonwatch.com.

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toyota_taliban

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Owner of Car Dealership Labeled “Taliban Toyota” Wins Millions

Posted on 03 November 2011 by Amago

Owner of car dealership labeled “Taliban Toyota” wins millions

(Reuters) – The owner of a large southwest Alabama car dealership derided as “Taliban Toyota” by a competitor has been awarded $7.5 million in damages after a jury trial for his slander claim.

Iranian-born Shawn Esfahani, owner of Eastern Shore Toyota in Daphne, Alabama, sought $28 million in compensatory and punitive damages from Bob Tyler Toyota, claiming employees at that Pensacola, Florida-based dealership falsely portrayed him as an Islamist militant to customers.

“The feeling I received in the courtroom for the truth to come out was worth a lot more than any money anybody can give me,” Esfahani told Reuters on Tuesday.

Esfahani’s lawsuit said that Bob Tyler sales manager Fred Kenner told at least one couple considering buying from Eastern Shore Toyota in 2009 that Esfahani was of Middle Eastern descent and was “helping fund the insurgents there and is also laundering money for them.”

Esfahani, a naturalized U.S. citizen, fled his native Iran in 1980 following the Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah and swept Shi’ite Muslim clergy to power, his lawsuit said. He opened his car dealership in 2007.

The Taliban, by contrast, are hardline Islamists in the central Asian nations of Afghanistan and Pakistan who follow an austere interpretation of Islamic law.

A Bob Tyler salesman was accused of telling the same couple that Esfahani was from Iraq and calling him a “terrorist” who put soldiers including the salesman’s brother in harm’s way.

“(Esfahani) is funneling money back to his family and other terrorists. I have a brother over there and what you’re doing is helping kill my brother,” the salesman told the couple when he called them on the Eastern Shore sales floor, according to the suit.

The jury deliberated for three hours before awarding Esfahani $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages on Monday evening.

Bob Tyler’s attorney Jeffrey Ingram could not be reached for comment on Tuesday, and Tyler and Kenner both declined to comment on the verdict through a dealership spokesman.

Esfahani said the dollar amount awarded by the jury was irrelevant unless the case sets a precedent by which other business owners can seek recourse against tactics he considers “un-American.”

“This case didn’t take aim at just Mr. Tyler,” he said. “It was intended to address any other business that resorts to those kinds of actions to win at their game unfairly.”

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Cynthia Johnston)

Original post: Owner of car dealership labeled “Taliban Toyota” wins millions

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Action Required: Mayor Don Reimal Invites Bigoted Fake Ex-Terrorist Kamal Saleem to Speak

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Action Required: Mayor Don Reimal Invites Bigoted Fake Ex-Terrorist Kamal Saleem to Speak

Posted on 02 November 2011 by Garibaldi

Loonwatchers action is required! For some reason “Kamal Saleem” has been invited by Mayor Don Reimal of Independence, MO to speak at his Prayer Breakfast.

An Interfaith group from Independence has called the Mayor out on his selection of Saleem:

An inappropriate speaker for Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast in Independence

Independence, MO —An open letter to Independence Mayor Don Reimal.

The purpose of this letter is to address the selection of Kamal Saleem as the guest speaker for this year’s Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast.

It is the opinion of the Interfaith Progressives of Independence that Mr. Saleem is a poor choice for this community event. Mr. Saleem’s message is one of division and fear. He paints Islam as a religion bent on world domination and violence. We don’t understand how this message is appropriate for our community.

On his own website (Kamalsaleem.com), one can find him stating things such as this: “there are people coming here (USA) who want to convert the stars on the American flag into crescents.” (www.kamalsaleem.com)

Mayor Reimal, we find such sentiments to be inappropriate for the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast. It is important that civic events be welcoming to all people in Independence.

The Interfaith Progressives of Independence believe it is important that all our Muslim, Jewish, atheist and other citizenry are treated with respect. In our opinion, the choice of Mr. Saleem is disrespectful to our non-fundamentalist Christian residents.

Rev. Brian Morse
Mark Matzeder
Michele Yancey Bigler
Terry Flowers
Paul Neidlinger
Michele Spillman
Interfaith Progressives of Independence

Lets show solidarity with the Interfaith organization and contact the Mayor to let him know that Kamal Saleem is a very poor selection for the Prayer Breakfast.

Phone: (816) 325-7027
Home Phone: (816) 461-6044
Fax: (816) 325-7012
E-mail: dreimal@indepmo.org

Here is some info to share with him on Kamal Saleem:

The Three Stooges Coming to a Campus Near You!

Kamal Saleem Still Selling His Fake Ex-Muslim Story

Fake Ex-Terrorist Kamal Saleem Trying to Swindle Michiganians

Kamal Saleem: Fake “Ex-Terrorist” Wants Sharia’ Banned in Missouri

Update:

The Mayor as of now is sticking by his choice of Saleem:

Despite several pleas to Mayor Don Reimal’s office to reconsider the choice for the Independence Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast keynote speaker in two weeks, the selection committee’s unanimous choice for a presenter remains in place.

A chaplain in the Missouri National Guard also emailed Reimal and said he would no longer attend the breakfast because of the speaker choice. That person, Reimal said, represents the only cancellation – to his knowledge – based solely on the selection of a speaker.

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Georgia Militiamen Tried to Kill Fellow US Citizens with a Deadly Biological Toxin

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Georgia Militiamen Tried to Kill Fellow US Citizens with a Deadly Biological Toxin

Posted on 02 November 2011 by Amago

Georgia

“There is no way for us, as militiamen, to save this country, to save Georgia, without doing something that’s highly, highly illegal. Murder,” Thomas said during the meeting, court records show.

Imagine if these militia men were Muslims, Spencer and Geller would be on Fox News telling the world how dangerous Islam is. Yet there is no mention of their religious affiliation. The article refers to these men with the use of two main adjectives: militia and Georgia. It would seem “Christian” the ostensible faith of the arrested is an an unnecessary adjective that creates a bias towards a religion.

And so imagine once again if these militia men were Muslims, Islam would be the main adjective in the story.

Georgia men charged with plotting to make ricin

By Colleen Jenkins | Reuters – 13 hrs ago

(Reuters) – Federal authorities on Tuesday arrested four Georgia men accused of plotting to buy explosives and produce a deadly biological toxin to attack fellow U.S. citizens and government officials.

The Justice Department said the men were members of a fringe domestic militia group and had planned to manufacture ricin for use in their attacks.

The men attended meetings starting in March where they discussed carrying out crimes, including murder, in order to undermine federal and state government, prosecutors said. The targets included local police, federal government buildings and employees of agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service.

The meetings were monitored by FBI agents with the assistance of a confidential informant, according to prosecutors. Two of the men also met with an undercover agent to discuss buying explosives and weapons parts, prosecutors said.

The men are Frederick Thomas, 73; Dan Roberts, 67; Ray H. Adams, 65; and Samuel J. Crump, 68. Thomas is from Cleveland, Georgia, and the other three men are from Toccoa.

At a meeting at Thomas’ house in March, Thomas said he had enough weapons to arm everyone at the table and that he had compiled a “Bucket List” of government employees, politicians, corporate leaders and media members he felt needed to be “taken out” to “make the country right again,” according to court documents.

“There is no way for us, as militiamen, to save this country, to save Georgia, without doing something that’s highly, highly illegal. Murder,” Thomas said during the meeting, court records show.

During a meeting in September, Crump said he wanted to make 10 pounds of ricin and disperse it in various U.S. cities, according to prosecutors. Authorities said he described one scenario in which the toxin would be blown from a car traveling on Atlanta highways.

Last month, Adams allegedly gave Crump a sample of the beans used to produce ricin, prosecutors said.

Ricin can cause death from exposure to as little as a pinhead amount. Most victims die between 36 hours and 72 hours after exposure, and there is no known antidote.

The most famous case of ricin poisoning was in 1978 when dissident Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov was killed when an assassin in London jabbed him with an umbrella that injected a tiny ricin-filled pellet.

“These defendants, who are alleged to be part of a fringe militia group, are charged with planning attacks against their own fellow citizens and government,” Sally Quillian Yates, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said in a statement.

“While many are focused on the threat posed by international violent extremists, this case demonstrates that we must also remain vigilant in protecting our country from citizens within our own borders who threaten our safety and security,” she said.

(Additional reorting by Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by Greg McCune)

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Wichita mosque fire

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Wichita Mosque Damaged by Fire had Received anti-Islam Messages

Posted on 02 November 2011 by Amago

I guess Islamophobia doesn’t exist? More anti-Muslim hate, this time in Wichita Kansas.

Mosque that burned had received anti-Islam letters, leader says

By FRED MANN and STAN FINGER

WICHITA - A Muslim mosque in west Wichita that was heavily damaged by fire early Monday had received anti-Islam letters in recent months.

Somebody also had begun turning on its outside water faucet overnight to hike its water bill, its leader said.

Abdelkarim Jibril, president of the Islamic Association of Mid Kansas at 3406 W. Taft, said the letters put down Islam, called the prophet Muhammad a pig, and enclosed drawings that mocked him.

The mosque received about eight of the letters starting four to six months ago, but they had stopped about a month ago, he said.

Jibril said the mosque hadn’t turned the letters over to authorities before the fire.

The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined the fire investigation Monday.

The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.

Investigators are aware of the letters.

“We don’t know if any of the letters have any relationship to the fire at this point. It’s something we’re looking into though,” said Wichita fire Lt. Troy Thissen.

“We’re not ruling out anything,” Wichita fire Capt. Stuart Bevis said.

The blaze was reported at 12:45 a.m. at the association, southeast of Maple and West streets.

The fire spread quickly and gutted the attic, Bevis said. Damage was set at about $130,000.

“It’s a fairly good-sized structure,” he said. “We had fire get up in the attic space early on.”

Firefighters had to assume a defensive posture soon after arrival because of the danger posed by being inside the structure with upper levels on fire, Bevis said.

The fire may well have totaled the mosque, he said, because of the extensive damage to the attic and roof support structure.

“We’re going to be taking a lot of steps” to review evidence because the fire involves a religious meeting place, Bevis said.

Jibril, who has been president of the association for most of its 32-year history, said he was called to the scene about 4 a.m.

“It’s devastating to see something like that, or see somebody even try to do something like that, “ he said.

Jibril said the anti-Islam letters appeared to have been sent by the same person because they contained the same types of pictures and same handwriting. Among the messages: “I don’t need to know anything else about you but 9/11”, Jibril said.

Enclosed pictures included drawings of prophet Muhammed with a beard, Jibril said.

“We don’t allow pictures of the prophet,” he said.

Most of the letters were mailed from somewhere in Texas with the mosque’s return address on the envelopes, Jibril said.

Some letters were sent to cities in the east, such as Boston, with the mosque’s return address on them.

Mosque leaders were talking about turning them over to the FBI and had decided to do that, but didn’t do it before the fire.

Jibril said the letters would still have been in the office at the mosque at the time of the fire.

The mosque’s outside faucet began being turned on during the night at about the time the letters stopped a month ago, Jibril said.

That action raised the association’s monthly water bill, normally about $30, to $500, Jibril said.

Jibril said the mosque will be rebuilt.

“We need a place on the west side for the people that live and work on the west side,” he said.

Hussam Madi, a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Wichita, who also delivered sermons at the mosque, said the fire was “ very, very sad” for the people who prayed there.

The mosque was the first to open in Wichita.

Muslims bought the building, formerly a Mennonite community center, in 1979. Muslims had held prayer services in homes or other churches until then.

About 30 or 40 people attended Friday services at the mosque, which also held Sunday school classes, classes in Arabic, holiday prayers and other gatherings, Jibril said.

Although there are two mosques on the east side of Wichita, the mosque on the west side served members of the Muslim community who live on both sides of the city, Madi said.

Muslims from the east side who flew out of town on Fridays often would stop there to pray before they left town, he said.

The fire already has caught the attention of one national organization.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American/Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C., said he will be monitoring the investigation to see whether it is deemed to be a hate crime. “This is the kind of thing that happens all too often,” he said, “but it’s hard to predict.”

In the past year, arsonists have targeted mosques, or mosque construction sites, in Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and Michigan, he said.

In May of last year, a bomb exploded at a Florida mosque.

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Cornerstone Church

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Lou Ann Zelenik and her Sharia Conference gets turned down by 20 hotels

Posted on 01 November 2011 by Amago

Cornerstone Church

Cornerstone Church

Action works against Islamophobes!: LoonWatch’s call to Action against Islamophobes.

Update: Geller withdrew from the “Shariah Conference,” (read below) and she also just withdrew from the Tea Party Convention in Florida. She is claiming victim status.

 

Madison church to host anti-Shariah conference

Written by Scott Broden

MURFREESBORO — Former congressional candidate Lou Ann Zelenik said Monday she has found a place to hold a freedom conference after getting turned down by 20 hotels.

Cornerstone Church in the Madison community on Nashville’s northeast side agreed to hold the event, “The Constitution or Sharia Conference.” The event will be held at 10 a.m. Nov. 11.

“There was no room in the inn for freedom, but pastor Maury Davis of Cornerstone Church opened his doors for free speech,” said Zelenik, who lost the 2010 Republican primary to U.S. Rep. Diane Black of Gallatin.

However, headliner Pamela Geller, who runs the Atlas Shrugs anti-Islam blog, has bowed out because the event is no longer at a secular venue.

“While I have nothing against speaking in a church per se, I refuse to have my message driven from the public square,” she wrote in an email.

Geller and Zelenik referred to Hutton Hotel’s decision last week to cancel booking for the event in Nashville, citing safety concerns.

“It was a poor decision by Hutton Hotel when they changed their story three times from what they initially told me,” Zelenik said. “Our goal is to expose and disclose the differences between Constitutional and Shariah law. Our conference recognizes the freedoms of all Americans, including Muslim women, because they have equal protection under our Constitutional law. I reject Islamic Shariah for any woman.”

Zelenik also criticized Islamic Center of Murfreesboro member Saleh Sbenaty, who described the conference as “hate speech.”

“Hate speech for what?” she said. “Does he hate our Constitution or does he hate Shariah law? I wonder how he would feel in Saudi Arabia or Egypt or Iran with constitutional law competing with Shariah? Anyone who would try to bring in constitutional law in these countries would be imprisoned and/or put to death.”

Sbenaty, who works as a 19-year professor at MTSU in the Engineering Technology Department, said he referred to the gathering as a hate group because he’s concerned with the reputations of the speakers Zelenik has invited.

“I’d like to ask her does she want to associate herself with those who inspired Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 93 people in Norway?” Sbenaty asked. “In his manifesto of more than 1,5,00 pages, he was inspired by the people she invited to this conference. He mentioned Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. Why would we need these people who are coming here to town to preach hate?”

Events such as these can hurt tourism, Sbenaty added.

“Why would you want to bring in people who would damage the reputation of Nashville and Murfreesboro?” he asked. “It’s ironic that she is damaging our community in the name of freedom.”

Sbenaty said there’s always a small sect in any religious group that’s dangerous and can commit tragic acts in the name of their religion.

“Extremists can interpret any religion they way they want,” said Sbenaty, noting that he grew up in Damascus, Syria, with Christian and Jewish friends before becoming a U.S. citizen after moving to Tennessee in 1982. “This is my country. This is where I want to live. This is a country that is founded on freedom, and it’s founded on equality. It’s not founded on bigotry.”

The Rev. Maury Davis of Cornerstone said he agreed to host the conference because he wants to learn more about Shariah law and its impact on American culture. Earlier this year, the church hosted a speech by Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician who is highly critical of Islam.

He said speakers will not be allowed to promote hatred toward Muslims.

“I am not going to have any hate speech,” Davis said. “And I define hate speech as inciting people to hurt people or mistreat people.”

Tickets to the conference are $20 and can be purchased at shariafreeusa.com.

 

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train-up-a-child-book

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“He Who Spares the Rod, Hates His Son”: The Bible’s Justification for Corporal Punishment of Children Leads to Murder

Posted on 01 November 2011 by Garibaldi

The Canadian case in which Mohammad Shafia killed three of his daughters and his first wife are being sensationalized in the Islamophobesphere as a clear cut instance proving Islam sanctions “Honor Killing.” There are all sorts of wily and convoluted attempts at stretching Quranic verse and Prophetic tradition to mean something they clearly don’t, as Ilisha makes clear in her most recent article.

The video below clearly demonstrates however that there are some Christians who are willing to use corporal punishment to put their children “back in place,” and they do this based on the Bible (hat tip: Omar Q.):

Needless to say such literalism can have deadly consequences, but should we now blame all of Christianity for these zealots? Should we say that their interpretation is the correct one, the one most in fidelity with scripture?

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Mass Honor Killing Delights Loons

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Mass Honor Killing Delights Loons

Posted on 01 November 2011 by Ilisha

Shafia Trial

The Shafia murder trial currently underway in Ontario, Canada is a public relations bonanza for anti-Muslim bigots who have made so-called “Islamic honor killings” a major theme in their campaign to vilify Muslims. Three of Mohammad Shafia’s daughters and his first wife were found dead in a car submerged in a shallow canal two years ago in what prosecutors say was a quadruple murder staged to look like an accident.

Mohammad Shafia, 58, his second wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41, and their son Hamed, who was 18 at the time of the incident, have each been charged with four counts of first-degree murder. All three have pleaded not guilty.

Shafia is a wealthy Montreal businessman originally from Afghanistan, who was apparently living in a polygamous arrangement with his first (infertile) wife, his second wife, and their seven children. After leaving Afghanistan in 1992, the family had lived in Dubai, Pakistan and Australia before settling in Quebec, Canada.

Two summers ago on a return trip from a Niagara Falls vacation, the family checked into a Kingston hotel for the night. Early the next morning, police found the family’s wrecked sedan in the nearby Kingston Mill locks.

Inside were the bodies of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti Shafia, 13, and Mohammad’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, 52. Autopsies indicated all four victims had drowned.

At first, the couple told police their eldest daughter had taken the sedan for a joyride without their permission, resulting in a tragic accident. Inconsistencies in their story left police suspicious, and evidence found at the scene contradicted their account.

Investigators said the sedan would have had to travel past a locked gate, over a concrete curb and a rocky outcrop, and then make two U-turns to wind up in the locks of the canal. Damage found on both vehicles indicates that Mohammad Shafia’s SUV pushed the sedan into the shallow canal at an isolated, unlit location.

Police seized a laptop from the family’s Montreal home they said was owned by Shafia but used by his son Hamed. In the weeks leading up to the alleged murder, forensic experts found incriminating phrases had been entered in the Google search engine, including “Where to commit a murder,” “Can a prisoner have control over their real estate,” and ”Montreal jail.”

Shafia’s chilling statements captured on police wiretaps suggest he orchestrated the death of his daughters because they consorted with boys and dishonored his family with their defiant behavior:

“They committed treason on themselves. They betrayed humankind. They betrayed Islam. They betrayed our religion…they betrayed everything.”

An apparently remorseless Shafia told his second wife that when he views the cell phone photos of Zainab and Sahar posing with their boyfriends or in suggestive clothing, he is consoled, saying:

“I say to myself, ‘You did well.’ Were they come to life, I would do it again.”

The trial has received intense media coverage in Canada, but in the US, coverage has been mostly confined to anti-Muslim hatemongers and outrage peddlers. Frontpage Magazine, a site run by anti-Muslim loon David Horowitz, prompted some hate-filled comments from readers responding to an article about the Shafia trial:

“IslamoFascist Pigs will continue to carry out the tenets of Islam because they are 7th Century barbarians in the 21st Century. It’s unfortunate that Canada doesn’t have a death penalty.”

“…The West is drinking poison, we need to puke it out and close the door and seal every crack to keep this evil out.”

An article on The Blaze, a right wing website founded by former Fox News host Glenn Beck, provoked over 200 colorful comments, including:

“These towelheads think they are above the law. I don’t know what its going to take to wake up our country and it’s leaders.”

“ISLAM THE MUSLIM BARBARIC SATAN CULT! These are Dictator Barack Hussein Obamas chosen people! The SHARIA-LAW IS ALREADY STARTING IN OUR AMERICA!”

“Gee…if Muslims keep this up there won’t be a ‘problem’ with them. I say we need to keep hands off and let this run its course.”

“Nuke Mecca, Nuke Medina. Peace through Strength, Strength through Superior Firepower.”

Pamela Geller’s website Atlas Shrugs is also covering the story, and her readers appear to be equally hateful, paranoid, and in some cases, unaware that Afghans are not Arabs:

“Muslim DOGS is what they are… Arab DOGS!”

“Just another moderate Muslim. And that is not tongue-in-cheek. DEPORT ALL OF THEM.”

“The pathetic politically-correct wussies in the canadian parliament have totally rolled-over and caved to these islamo-crazies. Sharia will be the law of the land in canada within the next three years. It’s time to beef up our northern border.”

Notice that these comments are not confined to outrage over this specific crime, but are a wholesale denunciation of all Muslims and the Islamic religion, as well as calls for violence, deportation, and even genocide. Comments consistently expressed a visceral hatred of Muslims, belief in a sinister left-Islamist alliance, and paranoid conspiracy theories about Muslims taking over and imposing Sharia (Islamic Law) in the Western world.

Geller has a section on her website entitled, “Honor Killings: Islam Misogyny,” where she frequently repeats the lie that honor killings are sanctioned by Islamic Law.  She describes honor killing in America as, “a grotesque manifestation of [S]haria law abrogating American law,” and warns that “creeping [S]haria” will bring a myriad of barbaric practices to the US if  “Islamic supremacists” are not stopped.

The fact is that honor killings are not religiously or legally sanctioned by Islam. Rafia Zakaria is a lawyer, a doctoral candidate at Indiana University, and the Director for Amnesty International USA.  Zakaria is also a Muslim feminist and a regular contributor to Ms.blog Magazine, which covers contemporary women’s issues. On the subject of honor killing, she has said:

“That is one of the black and white statements I can make. There is absolutely nothing, either in the Qur’an or in the Hadith, or even in any secondary source that says that honor killing is something that Muslims should do or can do or that is lawful.”

Honor killing is an ancient practice that can be linked to the ancient Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, circa 1700 BC.  Barbara Kay, a harsh critic of Islam who previously sparked controversy with her column, “The Rise of Quebecistan,” says the first honor killing in Judeo-Christian civilization is recorded in the Bible in Genesis 34.  She relates the story here.

Some Muslims, a minority mistakenly believe that “honor killing” is permitted in Islam, and Mohammad Shafia’s statements in the wake of his daughters’ deaths suggest he shares this misconception, conflating culture and faith. For this reason, it is important to spread the news that Islam does NOT condone these killings, yet anti-Muslim bigots who claim they care about Muslim women are doing the opposite.

In a pathetic attempt to prove Islam sanctions honor killings, the loons have dredged up  ”Reliance of the Traveller,” a classical manual for the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence written over 600 years ago. A convoluted interpretation of select passages has gone viral, and is now routinely cited on the pages of hate sites and in comments on numerous articles related to honor killing.

Geller quotes a section of The Traveller on her website that says certain crimes, including the killing of one’s offspring, are not subject to retaliation, implying Muslim parents have a free pass to murder their children under Islamic Law, which is a bold faced LIE. Retaliation is a form of reciprocal justice, lex talionis, commonly known as “an eye for an eye.”

A crime that is not subject to retaliation can still be punished by other means. Restrictions on reciprocal justice in the Qur’an were meant to reduce blood feuds and the cycle of vengeance. The concept of retaliation is also found in Jewish and Christian scriptures, and like honor killing, traces back to the ancient Code of Hammurabi.

Even if The Traveller sanctioned honor killing (which it doesn’t), it would be the interpretation of one Islamic cleric who lived centuries ago, and not a formal part of Islamic Law. Sharia is drawn primarily from the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and neither sanctions honor killing.

Of course Geller is only parroting a common anti-Muslim talking point pushed by her teacher in all things Islamic, Robert Spencer. Spencer, since the launch of JihadWatch has tried his utmost to find an Islamic text that he could contort and link to “honor killings.”

His one method has been to cite the well known story of Khidr in the 18th chapter of the Qur’an as such a justification for “honor killing” in Islam:

Khidr killed the young man because he would grieve his pious parents with his “rebellion and ingratitude” (v. 80), and Allah (SWT) will give them a better son (v. 81).

…[further down states]…

Another point emerges in Islamic tradition: don’t kill children, unless you know they’re going to grow up to be unbelievers. “The Messenger of Allah (SWT) (may peace be upon him) used not to kill the children, so thou shouldst not kill them unless you could know what Khidr had known about the child he killed, or you could distinguish between a child who would grow up to he a believer (and a child who would grow up to be a non-believer), so that you killed the (prospective) non-believer and left the (prospective) believer aside.” The assumption thus enunciated may help explain the persistence of the phenomenon of honor-killing in Islamic countries and even among Muslims in the West.

Robert Spencer shamelessly tries to mislead the reader into thinking there is some textual justification for honor killing. Seeking Ilm, a traditional conservative Muslim website takes Spencer to task for this and sheds light on the above falsities, debunking Spencer’s mythical explanation:

Such an explanation is not at all mentioned by the scholars of old or of late. None understood this story to mean that it is permitted to kill children if they will be an unbeliever.

It goes on to discuss the tradition mentioned by Spencer: first the speaker is a disciple of the Prophet Muhammad known as Ibn Abbas; second, the wording of the tradition cited by Spencer is from a shaadh (peculiar) narration of the said tradition and is therefore “weaker” and not “accepted”; third, it is narrated differently in the Sahih of Imam Muslim (one of the most authoritative books of tradition) with only these words,

“Verily the Messenger of God (sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) did not kill children, so do not kill children, unless you know what Al-Khidr knew when he killed the child.”

The Seeking Ilm folks go on to write,

The fact is it is impossible to know what Al-Khidr knew. Imam An-Nawawi (1234-1278 CE), recognized as one of the most brilliant Muslim jurists and judges to have lived, explained these words in his commentary upon the Sahih of Imam Muslim:

“It means: Verily it is not permitted to kill them (i.e. children), nor is it permitted for you to make a connection to the story of Al-Khidr utilizing it to kill children. For verily, Al-Khidr did not kill except by the command of God, the exalted, as this was specifically allotted to him just as was mentioned in the end of the story [of khidr], “And I did it not of my own accord.” So [Ibn ‘Abbas is saying] if you came to know of such from a child then he is to be killed. And it is known such cannot be known [by a person] and so it is not permitted to kill him.” ((Sharh Sahih Muslim: Translated by Seekingilm team ))

What is also important to mention is that Imam Nawawi himself, the great Dr. in Hadith and commentator of the Sahih, places this hadith beneath the chapter title, “Women Participants in Jihad are to be Given Reward but not Part of the Spoils, and the Prohibition of Killing Children of the People of War.” This fact stresses our point that the Muslims  did not extract the meaning claimed by Robert Spencer. If Robert Spencer and crew did not get all of what we just stated, let us sum it up for the idiots out there: one of the most prominent scholars for all Muslims is clearly stating that killing children is not permitted based upon this verse, as knowledge of the child’s future is not certain save by revelation from God, as was received by Al-Khidr. Even Moses, according to the story, did not know of the plight of the child, so how is it that a layman is to know of such? Furthermore, Imam An-Nawawi known as the second Imam Ash-Shafi’i, is stating that it is totally forbidden to kill children. The fact is Spencer’s null attempt at utilizing this statement for his own fear-mongering and islamophobic agenda only shows anyone with any knowledge of Islamic law how horridly ignorant Robert Spencer is of Islam.

Horridly ignorant is right!

In any case, it seems highly unlikely that the Canadian court will consult a centuries-old manual on Islamic jurisprudence to determine sentencing in the Shafia case.

Loons, who are clearly unhinged from reality, insist liberal “wussies” are caving in to “Islamo-crazies” and will allow Muslims to invoke Sharia to get away with murder in Western courtrooms.  Apparently they see no contradiction between their belief that Islamic Law is soft on crime and simultaneously, exceptionally harsh and barbaric.

Outside of the loons’ fevered imaginations, Sharia is not a factor in the Shafia trial. The accused will be subject to the Law of Canada, and if convicted, all three face life in prison.

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LGF: Fact-Checking Pamela Geller: ‘270 million’ victims of Islam?

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LGF: Fact-Checking Pamela Geller: ‘270 million’ victims of Islam?

Posted on 31 October 2011 by Mooneye

No surprise here, Geller is making up facts as she goes along, but what did you expect from the Looniest Blogger Ever.

Fact-Checking Pamela Geller: ‘270 million’ victims of Islam?

by Sergey Romanov (LGF)

In her latest post Pamela Geller screeches:

It is time there was a museum exhibit dedicated to the victims of jihad. Where is the Met’s showcase of the lives and cultures and histories of the 270 million victims of over a millennium of jihadi wars, land appropriations, cultural annihilations, and enslavements? Where is the grandiose suite of new galleries dedicated to highlighting Islam’s systematic dehumanization of women: honor killings, clitorectomies, and so much more?

Wow, wow, Pamela, wait there a second. “270 million victims” of Islam? Are you sure? What might be the source for this? She gives no link.

Thankfully, Gus found what might be the primary source for this statistic:

Tears of Jihad

These figures are a rough estimate of the death of non-Muslims by the political act of jihad.

Africa

Thomas Sowell [Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture, BasicBooks, 1994, p. 188] estimates that 11 million slaves were shipped across the Atlantic and 14 million were sent to the Islamic nations of North Africa and the Middle East. For every slave captured many others died. Estimates of this collateral damage vary. The renowned missionary David Livingstone estimated that for every slave who reached a plantation, five others were killed in the initial raid or died of illness and privation on the forced march.[Woman’s Presbyterian Board of Missions, David Livingstone, p. 62, 1888] Those who were left behind were the very young, the weak, the sick and the old. These soon died since the main providers had been killed or enslaved. So, for 25 million slaves delivered to the market, we have an estimated death of about 120 million people. Islam ran the wholesale slave trade in Africa.

120 million Africans

Christians

The number of Christians martyred by Islam is 9 million [David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-10] . A rough estimate by Raphael Moore in History of Asia Minor is that another 50 million died in wars by jihad. So counting the million African Christians killed in the 20th century we have:

60 million Christians

Hindus

Koenard Elst in Negationism in India gives an estimate of 80 million Hindus killed in the total jihad against India. [Koenard Elst, Negationism in India, Voice of India, New Delhi, 2002, pg. 34.] The country of India today is only half the size of ancient India, due to jihad. The mountains near India are called the Hindu Kush, meaning the ‘funeral pyre of the Hindus.’

80 million Hindus

Buddhists

Buddhists do not keep up with the history of war. Keep in mind that in jihad only Christians and Jews were allowed to survive as dhimmis (servants to Islam); everyone else had to convert or die. Jihad killed the Buddhists in Turkey, Afghanistan, along the Silk Route, and in India. The total is roughly 10 million. [David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-1.]

10 million Buddhists

Jews

Oddly enough there were not enough Jews killed in jihad to significantly affect the totals of the Great Annihilation. The jihad in Arabia was 100 percent effective, but the numbers were in the thousands, not millions. After that, the Jews submitted and became the dhimmis (servants and second class citizens) of Islam and did not have geographic political power.

This gives a rough estimate of 270 million killed by jihad.

This was written by Bill French aka “Bill Warner” of “Center for the Study of Political Islam” (cf. this FrontPageMag interview).

Let’s go over it step by step.

1. Africans. The number of 120 million victims is, of course, taken from thin air. Even assuming the number of 25 million slaves to be correct, and assuming that “Islam” was responsible for them, one cannot simply multpily the number by a single dodgy statistical point to get some sort of a total number of “dead”.

Notice that the whole transatlantic slave trade is attributed to Islam! Apparently, Christians had nothing to do with it. This way we will soon hear that Confederacy was an Islamic separatist state.

However, when we assume the scope of the Arab slave trade (which existed before Islam) to be between 10-18 million people, to claim that Islam as such is responsible for the associated victims is the same as claiming that Christianity is to blame for the victims of slavery and racism perpetrated by Christians (among many other things).

2. Christians. The first source cited is not quite scholarly. It’s a mish-mash of statistical data, and when it comes to “martyrdom” particularly, there is no careful, scholarly discussion of each particular number as well as its sources, which leaves the question of the reliability of each particular statistic open. Here’s the table 4-10. It is so exhaustive, yet it has only 9 million alleged Christian victims of Muslims (I did not bother to verify by recounting, but table 4-5 does have 9 million alleged victims of Muslims). However then the “Tears of Jihad” article claims that there were 50 million more of them. How did the authors of that table somehow miss these additional millions? If they were so incompetent, why cite their statistics in the first place?

But where is the 50 million figure from? The source is given as “History of Asia Minor” by Raphael Moore. Quick Google search brings up this source, which is an article by Raphael Moore entitled “In Memory Of The 50 Million Victims Of The Orthodox Christian Holocaust”. Its first sub-section is called “History Of Asia Minor: 1894-1923”, which is apparently at the root of confusion for Geller’s source: the name of the sub-section was confused with the name of the complete work. Such brilliant scholarship.

The number “50 million” does appear in the article, but only as a total number of Christians martyred in XXth century!

Between the tolls exacted from prisons, concentration camps, forced marches and exiles, warfare, famine, and brutal military occupation, it is reasonable to conclude that up to 50 million Orthodox Christians have perished in the first eight decades of the twentieth century.

Geller’s source simply took this number and ascribed it to “Jihad”.

(As a side note, this source is also far from scholarly and the number is not calculated properly, but that is already irrelevant for the purposes of the present critique.)

3. Hindus. It is claimed that the number is estimated by Elst (who is known for right-wing anti-Muslim bias). However, when we take a look at his book we see this:

As a contribution to research on the quantity of the Islamic crimes against humanity, we may mention Prof. K.S.Lal’s estimates about the population figures in medieval India (Growth of Muslim Population in India). According to his calculations, the Indian (subcontinent) population decreased by 80 million between 1000 (conquest of Afghanistan) and 1525 (end of Delhi Sultanate). More research is needed before we can settle for a quantitatively accurate evaluation of Muslim rule in India, but at least we know for sure that the term crime against humanity is not exaggerated.

So it’s not Elst’s estimate, but Lal’s estimate. And moreover, it is not an estimate of 80 million murders. It’s an estimate of a population decrease in five centuries, the causes of which may be many, including natural population decrease, conversions, etc.

The problem, however, is that Lal’s estimates are simply fantasies. One cannot take seriously any such estimates based on extremely fragmentary demographic data for the year 1000. Simon Digby writes in his review of Lal’s book, after addressing some of Lal’s assumptions (Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol. 38, no. 1, 1975, p. 177):

Regarding the population of India before A.D. 1000 Lal quotes the guesses of Colin Clark – 70 millions – and Jyotindra Mohan Datta – 200 to 300 millions. He himself prefers 200 millions and he believes that, mainly as a result of the Muslim invasions and presence, the population of India fell from 200 millions in A.D. 1000 to 125 millions in A.D. 1500, to rise under more amiable Mughal rule to 175 millions in 1700.

[…]

The author is known for his detailed studies of the Khalji dynasty and of the fifteenth century Delhi sultanate. He is well versed in the sources of medieval North Indian history. In the present study he has assembled almost all the conceivably relevant data and for this reason it will remain of value as a compendium of references. Yet the unknown variables are so great and the quality of the data yielded by our sources so poor that almost any detailed general estimates of population based upon them must appear wilful, if not fantastic. At the time when this review was being written, E. J. Hobsbawm (in New Society, 11 July 1974, 76) called the attention of historians of premodern Europe, who dabble in social statistics based on sources of comparable quality to those of Lal, to an axiom of computer operators ‘GIGO’: this stands for ‘Garbage in – Garbage out’!

A reasonable person can agree with this conclusion. Thus, the figure of “80,000,000” Hindus murdered by Muslims is based on nothing but weak speculations.

Interestingly, elsewhere Elst writes:

Prof. K.S. Lal once estimated that the Indian population declined by 50 million under the Sultanate, but that would be hard to substantiate; research into the magnitude of the damage Islam did to India is yet to start in right earnest.

4. Buddhists. The only source given for the alleged Buddhist victims of Muslims is the same book with Christian statistics, not any scholarly historical source about, you know, Buddhists. But when we look at the table 4-1, we only see the number of 10,000,000 Buddhists cited (without sources, I might add; and it contains 80,000,000 alleged Muslim martyrs as well, 10 million more than alleged Christian martyrs, estimated to be 70 million!). There is no indication in the table that these Buddhists were slaughtered by Muslims.

———

As an atheist, I have no problem with talking about the responsibility of religions for many evils of this world. However I must state that the much bandied about number of “270 million” victims of Islam is total bunk based on nothing.

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Terry Jones 2012: Pastor Who Burned Quran Running For President

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Terry Jones 2012: Pastor Who Burned Quran Running For President

Posted on 31 October 2011 by Danios

Remember Terry Jones, the mustachioed clown of a pastor who created a furor over burning copies of the Quran?  Mr. Jones has decided to throw his hat into the ring and run for President of the United States.  He will be running as a Republican (surprise, surprise) and laid out a seven point plan, which includes deporting 20 million illegal aliens.

Here is a report from the Huffington Post:

Many have scoffed at his announcement, but is he any less absurd a candidate than many other GOP contenders who are running on the anti-Muslim platform?  The Republican party is full of candidates trying to use Islamophobic rhetoric to woo right-wing voters.  These include hopefuls like Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and Herman Cain.  This article by Sheila Musaji on The American Muslim, entitled The GOP Has Declared War on American Muslims, is worth reading.

Maybe Herman Cain can run Terry Jones as his vice president.  Then, they can offer a great deal on burning Qurans: burn the first Quran for $9.99, next Quran is on us! 

Certainly, Terry Jones’ seven point proposal is more reasonable than Herman Cain’s 9/9/9 pizza plan.  In fact, one of Terry Jones’ seven points is to reduce military spending.  Number three in his seven point plan is:

Reduce military spending: All military on foreign soil should be brought back immediately and all future involvement of military on foreign soil should not be engaged until our country has become economically strong again. The security of our nation must be reexamined and our military spending must be cut by several billion dollars.

Is it possible that a right-wing uber-Islamophobe just said something more reasonable about foreign policy than most of the rest of the candidates, including Barack Obama himself?

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Meet American Vision, Your Friendly Neighborhood Christian Taliban

Posted on 31 October 2011 by Emperor

This is what you don’t hear about much, but its real and its out there.(hat tip: DE)

Christian Reconstruction Group Cruises ‘Patriot’ Waters

(SPLC Hatewatch Blog)

American Vision is a hard-line Christian Reconstruction organization whose current leader, Gary DeMar, has said that democracy should be replaced by a theocratic government run by Christians who will impose Old Testament prohibitions and the occasional executions of “sodomites” to drive gay people back into the closet. It’s no surprise, then, that American Vision has involved itself over the years with anti-gay and anti-abortion causes.

Lately, however, it has branched out and seems to be testing its message in the antigovernment and conspiracy-laden “Patriot” waters. Literally.

The group is co-sponsoring a January 2012 “Patriot Cruise” that will, according to a promotional webpage, transform participants’ abilities to defend their faith and the country’s foundations, and help them learn how to convert others who oppose “the truth by which we stand.”

During the weeklong cruise aboard Royal Caribbean’s 1,020-foot Mariner of the Seas, participants will “explore what Americans really believe” in the learning environment of a “masters [sic] level teaching classroom and the energy of a Town Hall meeting.” Other sponsors include the Patriot Depot (which sells anti-Obama T-shirts and other “supplies for the conservative revolution”) and a Gary DeMar side project, Vision2America, which is working to “restore America to a Christian republic.”

“No conference on land,” American Vision claims, “will equip you for opposing the godless apologists of the liberal machine.”

So far, in addition to DeMar, there are four “On Board Leaders” (other speakers to be announced). The others are Alan Keyes, former presidential candidate and birther who works with the Declaration Alliance (which supported the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps); speaker and author Bill Federer of American Minute, who has appeared on conspiracy-monger Alex Jones’ show; and Tea Party activist Victoria Jackson, once known for her six seasons on Saturday Night Live but currently known for her anti-gay, anti-Muslim and anti-liberal slams; and birther Gary Kreep, a former national board member for Young Americans for Freedom. Kreep also lists himself as unpaid general counsel to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. The MCDC closed down in March 2010, though its website remains.

Can’t make the cruise and need a Patriot fix? The American Vision store carries the Patriot-friendly tract Gateway to Liberty: The Constitutional Power of the Tenth Amendment, as well as a 2011 Firearms Guide and another guide called Disaster Prep 101. You can also pick up some copies of the young adult novels The Drums of War, a series about the Revolutionary War.

American Vision is also tailoring its Christian Reconstructionist rhetoric to more Patriot and Tea Party-sounding calls to “restore America.” Its website currently posts a “County Rights” project, a series of articles by research director Joel McDurmon (soon to be available in video and book) that tell readers how to “restore freedom” by taking control of local (i.e. county) governments and establishing the kind of community that reflects their values.

In one article, titled “State’s Rights: How to Get Freedom Back,” McDurmon gives a shout-out (but is quick to claim it’s not an endorsement) to the Tenth Amendment Center (TAC), a driving force behind so-called “nullification” movements to undo or weaken federal laws that proponents don’t like. Though he claims not to endorse the TAC, he nevertheless lists 12 issues that the TAC is working on, including “Sheriffs First” laws against “unwarranted federal policing activities” and freedom from federal gun regulations. He calls the list “impressive” and proceeds to explain how nullification might be a strategy to undo Roe v. Wade at the state level.

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Muslim ‘terrorist Barbie’ comments slammed

Posted on 31 October 2011 by Emperor

What, no ‘terrorist Ken’?

(via. Islamophobia-Today)

Muslim ‘terrorist Barbie’ comments slammed

A Radio New Zealand host’s reference to a “suicide bomber Barbie” doll for the Muslim market has been labelled hateful and divisive.

The comment was made by host Paul Brennan while standing in on Jim Mora’s regular afternoon show last Thursday. Brennan had been discussing niche Barbie doll products for adult collectors when panelist John Bishop said there was “a huge market in the Muslim world” and asked why there couldn’t be “a terrorist Barbie”. Brennan then suggested a “suicide bomber Barbie” that came with a little belt.

Radio New Zealand has cautioned the presenters about inappropriate remarks after receiving 13 formal complaints over the exchange.

One complainant, Gisborne councillor Manu Caddie, said he was surprised to hear such stereotypes on the national broadcaster and had to check he wasn’t listening to talkback radio. “I thought it was pretty hateful kind of comments and not particularly helpful or the kind of thing we want to be promoting in New Zealand,” he said. “I think we’ve done well to create a fairly tolerant, multicultural society and those kind of comments aren’t going to help promote that kind of openness and diversity.”

Mr Caddie said people were free to air their opinions but he expected higher standards from Radio New Zealand.

New Zealand Herald, 31 October 2011

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Must See Viral Video: Radio Show Host Michael Berry Promotes “No Arabs, No Muslims Allowed” Ad by Crockett Keller

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Must See Viral Video: Radio Show Host Michael Berry Promotes “No Arabs, No Muslims Allowed” Ad by Crockett Keller

Posted on 30 October 2011 by Danios

Crockett Keller is a right-wing gun-nut in Texas who owns Keller’s Riverside Store.  Keller is certified by the Department of Public Safety to teach people how to obtain and use a Concealed Handgun License.  He paid for an “interesting” radio ad, which ran for six days, in which he specifically says he refuses to teach “socialist liberals” and “non-Christian Arab[s] or Mozlem[s].”  In the ad, Crockett Keller says:

If you are a non-Christian Arab or Muslim, I will not teach you the class with no shame; I am Crockett Keller, thank you and God bless America.

He said later:

The fact is if you are a devout Muslim then you cannot be a true American. Why should I arm these people to kill me?  That’s suicide.

KVUE-TV News notes:

It’s a stance Keller isn’t alone on. During this interview the instructor fielded nearly 40 calls congratulating him for the ad.

In fact, Keller’s anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry will no doubt be a boon for business, something that speaks volumes about how prevalent Islamophobia has become.

Keller and his supporters claim he has a right to discriminate against Muslims, but the Department of Public Safety, the same government agency that certified him to teach, says otherwise; they released the following statement:

The Texas Department of Public Safety certifies individuals to teach coursework and provide training required to be taken by individuals seeking to qualify for a Texas concealed handgun license. Certified instructors are required to comply with all applicable state and federal statutes. Conduct by an instructor that denied service to individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion would place that instructor’s certification by the Department at risk of suspension or revocation. The Department became aware of the statements in question yesterday and has begun an investigation into the matter. The Department will take appropriate administrative action based on the findings from the investigation.

Here’s a video of the ad, which would normally be amusing but we must take seriously the fact that many Americans feel the same way as him:

What’s not getting as much attention is the fact that this radio ad is shamelessly being promoted by radio host Michael Berry:

Berry gushed over this ad, calling it “the best gun commercial ever” and promised viewers “you’re gonna love it.”  This is the same Michael Berry who said he hoped someone would blow up a mosque.  Can you imagine, just for a second, a Muslim-American radio show host still on the air if he said he thought a synagogue should be blown up or if he promoted the same radio ad except it was “Jews” instead of “Muslims?”  How fast do you think such a person’s career would be over?

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Fox “News”:  Evil Muslims Behind Occupy Wall Street

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Fox “News”: Evil Muslims Behind Occupy Wall Street

Posted on 29 October 2011 by Danios

Well, that didn’t take long.  Fox “News” had Dick Morris on, who claimed that the Evil Muslims are behind the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Watch the video yourself (h/t Young Turks)–the fun part about “the Moozlums” comes near the end of the clip around 5:15:

Notice how Morris says: “It’s come out that they [Occupy Wall Street] are Anti-Semitic, that the Mozlem groups are involved…”

So, if any Muslim group is involved, that’s bad?  No Muslims are ever allowed to join anything at any time anywhere?  Should American movements from now on have a “No Muslim” Policy like the GOP does?

And I love how he equates “Anti-Semitic” with “Muslim,” as if they are interchangeable.  Occupy Wall Street is not Anti-Semitic, but I’ll tell you who is Islamophobic: Dick Morris, Bill O’Reilly, and Fox “News.”

These people make me furious, and are the reason I spend so much of my very limited free time writing for this site.

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courthammer1

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Fine her, she’s a witch!

Posted on 29 October 2011 by Amago

Saudi Arabia convicts individuals for practicing sorcery and when they do Spencer and Geller  blog about how it is proof of Islam’s backwardness and repression. Where is their outcry over this? (hat tip: DE)

Fine her, she’s a witch!

by Yossi Gurvitz

Rabbinical court penalizes a woman for witchcraft. And no, it’s not Monty Python

The rabbinical court of Haifa ruled against a woman whose husband claimed she practiced witchcraft in their home. The court acquitted the woman of refusing to cook for her husband, as the latter committed adultery, which the court found constituted mitigating circumstances in the woman’s dereliction of culinary duties. (Hebrew)

The woman denied being a witch, but she failed a polygraph test  – which is not accepted as evidence in regular Israeli courts. Presumably the duck test was unavailable. The court, composed of rabbis Yitzhak Shmuel Gamzo, Michael Bleicher, and Meir Kahan, admitted they found no legal precedent for reducing the woman’s ktuba – the money her husband pledges her in case of divorce – presumably since the Halachaic punishment for witchcraft is death. They nevertheless relied on the dubious book of Rabbi Nachman of Breslau, which is not generally considered to be law book (much more of a moral tale) to deprive her of some 90,000 NIS. Impressive.

And no, this isn’t mythical medieval England. This is Israel, 2011. And the court is funded by the government.

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Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Rick Scott Not Sharing Stage with Islamophobe Pamela Geller

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Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Rick Scott Not Sharing Stage with Islamophobe Pamela Geller

Posted on 28 October 2011 by Garibaldi

“If you are an Islamophobe, and even Tea Party Politicians don’t want to hang out with you, you are in trouble.”

We live in the age of organized Islamophobia. Anti-Muslims coalesced after 9/11 and created, in effect, an industry that sought to influence public officials, government bodies and the masses across the United States and Europe. While the forces involved may come from different backgrounds in terms of ideology, faith and political persuasion they are united in their efforts to demonize Islam and Muslims.

Anti-Muslim Islamophobes have created a structure of Islamophobia that cuts across many levels. They hope that in people’s minds Islam will become the new Nazism and Communism combined or worse, because at least the former two enemies of humanity were “Western” and had some “rationality,” whereas Islam is the incomprehensible beast from the East.

Reza Aslan explains it well:

Simply put, Islam in the United States has become otherized. It has become a receptacle into which can be tossed all the angst and apprehension people feel about the faltering economy, about the new and unfamiliar political order, about the shifting cultural, racial, and religious landscapes that have fundamentally altered the world. Across Europe and North America, whatever is fearful, whatever is foreign, whatever is alien and unsafe is being tagged with the label ‘Islam.’ (No god but God)

Islamophobes work assiduously to push their agenda. They have boosted the profiles of (fake)ex-Muslims, (fake)scholars, and created a network of think tanks, foundations, “terror experts,” bloggers that have produced hate groups such as ACT! for America and SIOA amongst others.

Their activism is strong and they won’t stop anytime soon because that is what they get paid to do!

For some time American Muslims must have felt alone in fighting the scourge of bigotry and hatred that was aimed at them, however efforts such as ours here show that decent people from all walks of life can come together to fight the menace of fear-mongering and prejudice.

It is through the efforts of loonwatchers that we have agitated the SPLC and even the ADL to take firm stands against the Islamophobia movement. Loonwatchers were also instrumental in first booting Geller from the Hyatt Place in Sugarland, Texas and then evicting her crew from the Hutton Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee where they planned a “Sharia Conference” that was really more of a love-in for the vanguard of Islamophobia.

Now, according to several reports, another victory, both Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Rick Scott, Republicans from Florida say they will not participate in a Tea Party Convention where they would have shared the stage with Pamela Geller and another Islamophobe:

Rubio and Scott are listed as “confirmed speakers” at the convention, but representatives of their respective offices told CAIR-FL that the event is not on the senator’s nor the governor’s official schedule.

Before we published our article asking loonwatchers to contact both Rubio and Scott the two were still confirmed speakers at the Tea Party Convention. It is not out of the realm of possibility that Rubio and Scott may end up showing up for the convention, they are after all Republicans, but if this stands it is another strong rebuke to Geller, Spencer and the rest of the anti-Muslim Islamophobia movement.

Daniel Tutt writes that Islamophobes have noted that there is push back against them, and they are none too happy about it, this is why it is an opportune moment to point out that we have to continue to hound the Islamophobes. An elected official should never share the same podium as a Pamela Geller, the FBI should never allow its employees to be instructed or lectured by a Robert Spencer, universities should never invite a Nonie Darwish to their campus to deliver speeches on “Islam,” or “Sharia.”

We shouldn’t rest on our laurels! Loonwatchers should capitalize on the momentum and actively campaign, using fliers, letters, phone calls, organizing protests and rallies where ever and when ever Islamophobes attempt to gain legitimacy. We will do our part by exposing them for the frauds they are and giving you the ammunition to shed light on their hatred.

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Broward GOP Treats Muslims Worse Than Other Republicans

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Broward GOP Treats Muslims Worse Than Other Republicans

Posted on 28 October 2011 by Emperor

Allen West with Pamela "the loon" Geller

NPR exposes Allen West’s antagonistic attitude toward Islam and Muslims.

CAIR: Broward GOP Treats Muslims Worse Than Other Republicans

by Lisa Rab (Broward New Times)

U.S. Rep. Allen West has already tried to end federal funding for National Public Radio. But if he needed another reason to hate NPR, yesterday’s “All Things Considered” segment should do the the trick.
The story explored West’s view of Islam as a “totalitarian, theocratic, political ideology,” and his ongoing rhetorical battle with Nezar Hamze, the executive director of the South Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. No news there — the West/Hamze controversy has already been well-documented on the Pulp. But NPR took the story one step further, suggesting that Broward Republicans were more anti-Muslim than their GOP comrades in other states.

Last month, Hamze attempted to join the Broward Republican Executive Committee, and was soundly rejected by a “pit of discrimination.”

Yet committee chairman Richard DeNapoli told NPR:  ”I really don’t think this had anything to do with religion. It’s just that this was a widely known circumstance where he had made statements against Allen West, and the members reacted to that.”

Strike one. Broward Republicans will defend West to the end, even if it makes them look like bigots on national radio. But wait, there’s more!

“CAIR officials say they have good relations with other Republicans, but that in South Florida at least, the Republican Party and their Tea Party supporters have made Muslims feel unwelcome,”  NPR reporter Greg Allen said.

Ouch. This means South Florida — a predominantly Democratic area– is allegedly more prejudiced against Muslims than other Republican strongholds.

Congratulations, Broward. You are the new Strom Thurmond.

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Christians Pray for Jesus to Invade Muslims Dreams Before Michigan Becomes an Islamic State

Posted on 27 October 2011 by Emperor

Lou Engle wants to convert Muslims by invading their dreams, I guess that beats literally invading their countries. (hat tip: M)

Detroit prayer rally aims to convert Muslims

An evangelical group known a The Call, headed by Lou Engle, is planning a prayer rally at Ford Field in Detroit in Nov. 11 with the goal of converting Muslims before they turn Michigan into an Islamic state.

In a Youtube video, Engle and another pastor, Rick Joyner, say that the event will use prayer to send dreams of Jesus to the Muslims and convert them:

Joyner: One of the things Detroit has become known for in our nation is the largest Muslim community in our nation, and Dearborn, it’s growing. Many havesaid there actually is an attempt to make Michigan our first Muslim state…. You cannot understand our modern world today without understanding Islam, and the Lord called them hypocrites who did not know the Signs of the Times. We need to know and understand this issue, we have to. And Islam is in our face, everywhere we return. And here, in America, this is the one place where it is most in our face, right now…

Engle: At 11-11-11 the Lord just clearly showed to us, you got to pray all night long because it’s when the Muslims sleep and all over the world right now Muslims in the night are having dreams of Jesus, we believe that God wants to invade with His love Dearborn with dreams of Jesus. We’re gathering together to say God, pour out your grace and revelations of Jesus all over Dearborn and the Muslim communities of North and South America.

Joyner and Engle were also two of the primary movers behind Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s prayer rally in Houston in early August.

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Right Wing Watch: ACT! Demands Donations To Fight Imaginary Sharia Invasion

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Right Wing Watch: ACT! Demands Donations To Fight Imaginary Sharia Invasion

Posted on 27 October 2011 by Emperor

Brigitte Gabriel

ACT! for America is really Hate! for America.

ACT! Demands Donations To Fight Imaginary Sharia Invasion

Brigitte Gabriel of ACT! for America (formerly American Congress for Truth) today sent members a video message urging them to become “Patriot Partners” by making monthly donations to her anti-Muslim group. She said that the funding will go towards efforts to pass laws banning the supposed use of Sharia law in courts, such as the one struck down by a federal judge in Oklahoma. Gabriel called her rivals “unhinged” and “fronts” of the Muslim Brotherhood who intend to “smear” and use “legal assaults” against anti-Sharia legislation.

Of course, Gabriel’s legislative fix is still in need of a problem, as there is simply no evidence that Sharia law or Sharia courts are permeating the American justice system. But don’t let that stop you from giving Gabriel your money!

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What I Bet You Didn’t Know About the Christian Just War Tradition (I)

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What I Bet You Didn’t Know About the Christian Just War Tradition (I)

Posted on 25 October 2011 by Danios

This article is part 11 of LoonWatch’s Understanding Jihad Series. Please read my “disclaimer”, which explains my intentions behind writing this article: The Understanding Jihad Series: Is Islam More Likely Than Other Religions to Encourage Violence?

It is common to hear comparisons between  the so-called “just war tradition” in Christianity and the jihad of Islam.  We are told that Jesus of the New Testament was non-violent and that the early Church was pacifist.  According to this standard narrative, it was only with Constantine that the Church “fell from Grace” and accepted a very limited concept of defensive war, one that sought to limit, restrain, and constrain war.  We are told that the violent acts committed by Christians throughout history were done in contradiction to this doctrine.

Many Westerners seem to be under the impression that we can draw a straight line from the ancient Greeks to St. Augustine to Thomas Aquinas to Hugo Grotius to modern international law.  This very selective, cursory, and incomplete understanding of history creates a very “generous” depiction of Christian tradition.  Once this mythical and fabricated history is created, it is compared to the jihad tradition of Islam.  No such “generous” depictions of Islamic tradition are harbored; if anything, the most cynical view possible is taken.

Such an unfair comparison–coupled with a completely Western perspective on contemporary world affairs–begs the question: why is Islam so violent?  Why is the Islamic tradition so much more warlike than the Christian one?

Many right-wing Christians and even secular people of the “Judeo-Christian tradition” exhibit a great deal of religious arrogance, especially when it comes to this subject.  Repeatedly, we are told to compare the supposedly peaceful Christian just war tradition with the allegedly brutal Islamic jihad tradition.

Occasionally, Christian polemicists have some level of shame and recognize that the history of Christianity has been marred by war and violence: the Crusades, the ethnic cleansing of the Americas, and the colonial enterprise come to mind.  We are assured, however, that these occurrences were “in direct contradiction” to official church doctrine.  This is what career Islamophobe Robert Spencer argues, for instance, in his book Islam Unveiled.  This is, we are told, completely unlike the Islamic offenses throughout history, which were supposedly in line with traditional Islamic thought.

In this article series, I will prove that this understanding of the Christian just war tradition is mythical, fanciful, and misleading.  Throughout history, there were serious shortcomings to the Christian understanding of just war–both in matters of jus ad bellum (the right to wage war) and jus in bello (right conduct during war).  Specifically, just war doctrine was restricted to Christians and Europeans.  Its constraints simply did not apply to “infidels”, “pagans”, “heathens”, “barbarians”, and “primitives”.  The Christian just war tradition was not just exclusivist but through-and-through racist.

One could reasonably argue that such a critique suffers from a modern bias: using contemporary standards to evaluate pre-modern societies is not something I generally encourage.  Yet, if we insist on critiquing historical Islam based on such standards, then surely we should be willing to apply the same to Christianity.

Additionally, this shortcoming–the lack of application of the just war principles to infidels–is hardly a tertiary issue.  Instead, it lies at the very heart of the comparison that is continually invoked between Christianity and Islam.  One could only imagine, for instance, the reaction of anti-Muslim critics if the dictates of war ethic in Islam were applicable to fellow Muslims only.  Had this been the case, such a thing would not be seen as a mere “shortcoming” but indicative of the “Islamic supremacist attitude.”  This wouldn’t be understood as something that could be relegated to a footnote or a few sentences buried somewhere deep in a huge text (which is the case with books talking about the Christian just war tradition).  Instead, pages and pages would be written about the injustices of the Islamic principles of war.

This double standard between believer and infidel, were it to exist in the Islamic tradition (and it does, to an extent), would become the focus of discussion.  But when it comes to the Judeo-Christian tradition, such things are relegated to “by the way” points that are minimized, ignored, or simply forgotten.  Western understandings of the Christian just war tradition create a narrative by cherry-picking views here and there to create a moral trajectory that is extremely generous to that tradition.  Meanwhile, Islamic and Eastern traditions are viewed with Orientalist lenses, focusing on the injustices and flaws (particularly with regard to religious minorities).  This of course may be a result of a primarily Eurocentric view of history: how did their war ethic affect people that were like me?

Yet, if we wanted to extrapolate an overarching theme of the Christian just war tradition, it would have to be this: the Christian just war tradition did not limit war (as is commonly argued) but instead, for the most part, served to justify the conquest and dispossession of indigenous populations.  This was not merely a case of misapplying or exploiting doctrines.  Rather, the doctrines were themselves expounded in a way so as to facilitate such applications.  Many of history’s famous just war theorists were generating such theories to provide the moral arguments to justify colonial conquest.  The tradition was more about justifying wars than about limiting violence to just wars.  The Christian acts of violence throughout history were not in spite of Church doctrine; they were more often than not because of it.

Why is it that, even in some scholarly books, the Christian just war tradition towards fellow believers is compared to the Islamic attitudes towards war with unbelievers?  Either the Christian treatment of Christians should be compared to the Islamic treatment of Muslims, or alternatively the Christian treatment of infidels should be compared to the Islamic treatment of the same.  It is the unfair comparison between apples and oranges that serves to reinforce this warped understanding of the matter.

*  *  *  *  *

An error we must avoid is conflating the modern-day just war doctrine with the historical Christian just war tradition.  Although St. Augustine laid down some principles that, through a long process of evolution, found themselves in today’s doctrine, it should be noted that Augustine’s views of just war were, by today’s standards, extremely unjust.  One must compare this proto-doctrine with what was practiced in traditional Islam, instead of retroactively superimposing the modern concept of just war onto Augustine.

Indeed, “one of the most influential contemporary interpreters of the [just war] tradition today, James Turner Johnson, goes so far as to say that to all intents and purposes, ‘there is no just war doctrine, in the classic form as we know it today, in either Augustine or the theologians or canonists of the high Middle Ages. This doctrine in its classic form [as we know it today], including both a jus ad bellum…and a jus in bello…does not exist before the end of the middle ages. Conservatively, it is incorrect to speak of classic just war doctrine existing before about 1500″ (Prof. Nicholas Rengger on p.34 of War: Essays in Political Philosophy).

In other words, for 1500 years–roughly seventy-five percent of Christian history–there was no real just war doctrine. Shouldn’t this fact be stated when comparing Christian and Islamic traditions?  The just war doctrine–as we know it today–arose during a time when the Christian Church’s power was waning, hardly something for Christians to boast about.

And even after that–lest our opponents be tempted to use this fact to their advantage (that the Christian world distanced itself from the Church unlike in the Islamic world)–the just war doctrine that was established continued to be applied, from both a doctrinal standpoint and on-the-ground, to only Christians/Europeans.  This continued to be the case in the sixteenth century and all the way through the nineteenth century.

It was only for a fleeting moment in the twentieth century that just war doctrine became universal.  It is an irony that in no other century was just war theory so horrifically violated, and this by the Western world (with the United States dropping two atomic bombs on civilian populations).

This brings us to the situation today: Jewish and Christian neocons and extreme Zionists in the United States and Israel are leading the charge against the just war doctrine, trying to use legal means to change it to accommodate the War on of Terror.  Many of our opponents are the most vociferous proponents of doing away with such quaint principles as just war, at least when it comes to dealing with Muslims.

Is it this fleeting moment in Christian history, in which for a fraction of a second the just war doctrine really existed, that our opponents use to bash Muslims over the head with?

*  *  *  *  *

The standard meme among Islamophobes–and wrongfully accepted by the majority of Americans–has been that Islam is exceptionally violent–certainly more violent than Judaism and Christianity.  When we look at the scriptural sources, however, this does not bear out: the Bible is far more violent than the Quran (see parts 123456-i6-ii6-iii6-iv789-i, and 9-ii of LoonWatch’s Understanding Jihad Series.)

Among the many other “fall back” arguments used by our opponents, we are reassured that Judaism and Christianity have “interpretive traditions” that have moved away from literal, violent understandings of Biblical passages–altogether unlike Islam (so we are told).  Robert Spencer writes on p.31 of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades):

When modern-day Jews and Christians read their Bibles, they simply don’t interpret the passages cited as exhorting them to violent action against unbelievers. This is due to the influence of centuries of interpretive traditions that have moved away from literalism regarding these passages. But in Islam, there is no comparable interpretive tradition. The jihad passages in the Qur’an are anything but a dead letter.

The Islamophobes then temporarily move away from quoting the scriptural sources but instead focus on comparing (1) the traditional interpretations of the canonical texts, and (2) the modern-day understandings of said texts.  In both respects, we are told, the Judeo-Christian tradition is more peaceful than the Islamic one.

In the previous article series (entitled Does Jewish Law Justify Killing Civilians?), I addressed the Jewish side of “the Judeo-Christian tradition.”  [Note: That article series is being modified before the last couple pages will be published.  I have decided to take reader input and mellow it out quite a bit, i.e. remove the images, change the title, etc.]  I proved that both traditional and contemporary Jewish understandings of the scriptural sources could hardly be used to justify the argument against Islam.

But when it comes to such matters, it might be more important to address the Christian side of the coin.  Considering that Christians are in the majority in this country, it is more common to hear right-wing Christians invoke bellicose comparisons between their faith and Islam.  Robert Spencer, an anti-Muslim Catholic polemicist, relies on this comparison routinely.

In order to shield himself from possible “counter-attack,” Spencer uses an interesting argument.  In a section entitled “Theological Equivalence” in his book Islam Unveiled, Spencer writes:

When confronted with this kind of evidence [about Islam's violence], many Western commentators practice a theological version of “moral equivalence,” analogous to the geopolitical form which held that the Soviet Union and the United States were essentially equally free and equally oppressive.  ”Christians,” these commentators say, “have behaved the same way, and have used the Bible to justify violence.  Islam is no different: people can use it to wage war or to wage peace.”

I am one of these “Western commentators.”  Spencer cites ”the humanist Samuel Bradley” who noted that “Central America was savaged” because of “this country’s God.”  Bradley quoted “Spanish conquistador Pizarro” who slaughtered the indigenous population, by his own admission, only “by the grace of God.”

But, Spencer rejects such “theological equivalence,” arguing that Pizarro violated “the Just War principles of his own Roman Catholic Church.”  Spencer is not just arguing that the modern-day just war theory would prohibit the European conquest and dispossession of the Native Americans, but that even in the time of the conquest and dispossession itself the Church’s just war doctrine did.  He is arguing that the Christian acts of violence throughout history were “fundamentally different” than those committed by Muslims, since–according to him–the former were done against the just war doctrine of the Church, whereas the latter were endorsed by the Islamic religious establishment.

But, as I have argued above, this is patently false. The Christian just war tradition was used to justify the conquest and dispossession of the Native Americans, one of the greatest crimes in all of history.  In fact, these doctrines were formulated for that exact purpose in mind.

*  *  *  *  *

Disclaimer:

Naturally, as was the case with the article series on Jewish law, there is the chance of offending well-meaning and good-hearted Christians.  Let it be known, again, that nowhere am I trying to paint the entire Christian faith or community with a broad brush.  There exists no shortage of Christians who oppose war (especially America’s current wars in the Muslim world) and who advocate peace, tolerance, and mutual respect.

Critically evaluating religious traditions can be uncomfortable, but the problems therein should not be ignored nor should we pretend they don’t exist.  Honest evaluations of the past can be the key to coming up with more tolerant answers for the present and future.

I have already discussed some of the problems with the Jewish tradition.  This article series deals with the Christian tradition.  Rest assured, however, that a future article series of mine will take a critical look at the Islamic tradition as well.  However, because Islamophobia has become so rampant and pervasive in our culture, I do not think that this should be done before we first look at the problems inherent in the Judeo-Christian tradition that our society is based on.  Once that is done, we can then look at the Islamic tradition from a more nuanced, balanced, and helpful perspective.  This is the purpose of this somewhat controversial article series.

To be continued…

Update I:  A reader pointed out that I made many claims above but did not back them up with proof.  I should clarify that this page is just the introductory piece to the article series and simply states what I will prove.  It is just a statement of my thesis; the proof to back the thesis up is still to come–hence, the “to be continued…

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Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin Promotes Call for Palestinian Genocide

Posted on 25 October 2011 by Garibaldi

Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin promotes call for Palestinian genocide

by Max Blumenthal (Al-Akhbar English)

In a blog post cheering the release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, neoconservative activist Rachel Decter Abrams descended into a twisted call for genocide, calling for Israel to throw released Palestinian prisoners whom she described as “child sacrificing savages” and “unmanned animals” — along with “their offspring” — “into the sea, to float there, food for sharks.”

Abrams is the half-sister of Commentary editor John Podhoretz, the wife of Iran-Contra felon and former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, and the daughter of Midge Decter and step daughter of neocon founding father Norman Podhoretz. She is also a board member of the right-wing Emergency Committee for Israel, which recently produced baseless ads claiming the Occupy Wall Street movement is anti-Semitic.

The Washington Post’s neoconservative “Right Turn” blogger Jennifer Rubin is one of Abrams’ closest allies in the media. As soon as Abrams tweeted out a link to her exterminationist blog post, Rubin — whose Twitter account is “JRubinBlogger” — retweeted it to her followers, clearly approving of its content. Indeed, Rubin is not known for retweeting material she does not endorse. Hours later, Rubin deleted the tweet from her account, hoping that no one would notice it — and tacitly admitting she had crossed a bright red line.

Unfortunately for Rubin, I grabbed a screenshot of her tweet promoting Abrams’ call for mass murder. Here it is:

In July 2010, the veteran CNN correspondent Octavia Nasr was fired for writing on Twitter that she was “sad” to hear of the death of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a figure instrumental in the foundation of Hezbollah whom she said she “respect[ed] a lot.” Despite apologizing and explaining that she merely admired Fadlallah’s strong stance against honor killings and support for women’s rights, CNN heeded calls from pro-Israel groups for her termination.

An Ottawa-based diplomat from the Palestinian Authority, Linda Sobeh Ali, was reassigned by the Canadian government last week after she retweeted a link to a Youtube video that included a call for a war “against the soul of Zionism.” Pro-Israel groups in Canada were responsible for bringing the retweet to the government’s attention, and for pressuring it to act.

In the case of Nasr, CNN took full responsibility for what she wrote and promoted on her personal Twitter account. The news organization saw her tweet as a reflection on its reputation and credibility, and took action. The Washington Post has done nothing, however, about Rubin’s approving promotion of her friend’s call for genocide.

Does the Washington Post have a policy on the promotion of mass murder by its staffers? It is up to Post Ombudsman Patrick Pexton to explain if Rubin’s act was permissible according to his paper’s ethical guidelines, and if so, why.

Pexton can be reached at 202.334.7582 or ombudsman@washpost.com

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Engy Abdelkader: Islamophobic Bullying in Our Schools

Posted on 25 October 2011 by Amago

Is this innocent fun? Or does it cross the line into hateful bullying?

Islamophobic Bullying in Our Schools

by Engy Abdelkader

“You boys were so much fun on the 8th grade trip! Thanks for not bombing anything while we were there!” read the yearbook inscription penned by the middle school teacher.

The eighth grade yearbook was littered with similar remarks by classmates linking Omar to a “bomb.”

“To my bomb man!” read one note. “Come wire my bomb,” read another.

“What is this?” asked Omar’s mother incredulously. He had handed the yearbook over to her moments earlier when he arrived home that afternoon.

Omar answered quietly, “I know, Mom, I know.” He stared down at the kitchen floor. His eyes could not meet his mother’s but he began to tell her what had happened just one month earlier.

In May 2009, Omar joined his classmates on a school trip to Washington, D.C. As they toured the Washington Monument, visited area museums and passed by the White House, the kids repeatedly told Omar they hoped he wouldn’t “bomb” any of the sites. A teacher chaperoned the children, heard the comments and responded by doing… well, nothing, except leave a denigrating remark in Omar’s yearbook a month later.

It was clear to Omar’s mother that her American born and raised son was harassed because of his Muslim faith and Arab ancestry.

Unfortunately, this was not the first bias-based bullying incident involving Omar that school year. Only several months earlier a peer was intimidating Omar, calling him a “terrorist,” during an elective trade course. Omar finally told his mother about the bullying when his report card indicated that he was failing that same class, while acing the others where he was not subjected to such humiliating treatment.

Omar’s mother had addressed the bullying with the school Vice-Principal immediately afterwards.

But, when she spoke to her son’s school Principal regarding the D.C. trip and subsequent offensive yearbook comments (by a school teacher), the Principal was shocked to learn that Omar had been a prior victim of bullying earlier in the academic year. He had no knowledge of that incident in his school.

While the Principal assured her that he would take proper action against the offending teacher, nothing actually happened. The teacher denied hearing the bomb-related comments during the field trip to D.C. and excused her yearbook note as a “joke.”

Omar’s incensed mother took her case to the school Superintendent who in turn suggested scheduling a cultural sensitivity training about Arabs and Muslims for faculty.

That never came to pass, however.

In a written complaint Omar’s mother filed with a state government agency (with jurisdiction over such bias-based bullying incidents as the one involving her son) she observed:

“[O]ne day, there will be a child who is pushed beyond their limits, as we have seen in tragic events throughout the country, like Columbine and suicides of children being picked on for no other reason than being “different.”
What will we do then?
Must we wait for tragedy to create a safer and more open society for our community?”

By now Omar was a freshman in the public high school where the bullying continued, unabated.

In school, Omar was frequently referred to as “faggot.”

Omar never told his parents.

The verbal harassment culminated into physical “touching.”

A male student rubbed Omar’s shoulder while calling him “faggot.”

Still, Omar said and did nothing seeming paralyzed by his fear and shame.

Then, during a fire drill at school a group of boys yelled out to Omar, “Call off your tribe so we can go back into school!”

That was it.

Omar told his parents what was happening. He explained to his mother that he tried to keep the bullying a secret because he did not want to “hurt or upset” them.

Omar’s mother complained to the Principal, Superintendent and state agency… again.

This time, the high school held a cultural sensitivity training focusing on American Arabs and Muslims and geared towards faculty members, only.

Some mistakenly believe that bullying is a rite of passage which children must endure. It is worth noting the American Medical Association, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identify school bullying as a “public health problem.”

In fact, bullying has been recognized as a form of child abuse when perpetrated by other children. Studies have shown that victims of bullying may suffer school phobia, increased truancy and reduced concentration and classroom achievement. Bullying victims may also suffer sleep disturbances, bedwetting, abdominal pain, high levels of anxiety and depression, loneliness, low self-esteem and heightened fear for personal safety.

While anti-bullying legislation plays a critical role in protecting bullying victims, proper implementation and enforcement of those laws is key. Case in point: over 45 states have such legislation in effect (including Omar’s home state) yet bullying — and bias-based bullying — persists in epidemic proportions.

And, what happens when a disappointing report card or offensive inscriptions in a child’s yearbook does not tip off a parent that his or her child is a target of such bullying conduct? Many children refrain from sharing such details with family members sometimes out of a sense of shame and embarrassment but often because they are attempting to shield parents from being hurt or upset, as we saw in Omar’s case above.

Preventative measures geared at faculty, students and administrators are necessary to stop bullying from occurring in the first instance. Indeed, evidence suggests that bullying behavior can be significantly reduced through prevention curricula.

According to a new report published by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) titled, “Global Battleground or School Playground: The Bullying of America’s Muslim Children,” bias-based bullying against American Muslim children (or those perceived to be Muslim) is on the rise and such school bullying is largely attributed to cultural and religious misunderstanding.

The report finds that a primary factor underlying the persistent harassment, ridicule and discrimination against American Muslim children is the American mainstream’s general misperception of Islam and Muslims.

The ISPU paper calls for intensive and pervasive efforts to educate American society about Islam and Muslims. It suggests that such cultural information should be provided to libraries, knowledge bases, teachers and school administrators.

Such facts and figures about Muslims and Islam — compiled with the assistance of diverse community groups and advocates — should also be featured in educational materials and resources, school curricula, popular Internet sites, television and films.

Not surprisingly the report identifies the media as a problem source for stereotyped images of Muslims as terrorists and the outside group in the “us” versus “them” dichotomy.

Perhaps it is time for “Hollywood” to consider positive associations for the Muslims it portrays on the big screen and in our family rooms. American Muslims are doctors, lawyers, engineers, make-up artists, photographers, engineers, information technology specialists, law enforcement agents, teachers, professors, bankers, community advocates, humanitarians, etc. — isn’t it time we portray them that way?

Children’s programming can also play a critical role in addressing this issue.

Note the influence of Sesame Street, for instance: a 1996 survey found that 95 percent of all American preschoolers had watched Sesame Street by the time they were three. More recently, in 2008, an estimated 77 million Americans had watched the program as kids.

In my view, Sesame Street should feature more American Muslim, Arab American and South Asian celebrities, children and characters in its regular programing.

The children’s show has made great strides in promoting diversity and multiculturalism and recently introduced its first South Asian character to the regular cast. To further promote increased diversity, it could throw a party with authentic Middle Eastern food and music for its American viewing audience, for example.

Musicians could play the tabla — an Arabic percussion instrument which produces a great beat — while guests enjoy pita chips and hummus. Mangos, a popular fruit in the Arab and Muslim world, could also make an appearance where celebrating children learn how to count all the mangos.

And, during ‘The Word on the Street’ segment, Murray could imaginably interview a young Sikh man with a turban or a young American Muslim girl or woman who wears a hijab or headscarf. This may help address the growing phenomenon of “hijabophobia.”

Further, The Daily Show‘s Asif Mandvi, who happens to be an Indian-American Muslim in addition to being funny, could make a cameo appearance to help define and explain a new word (e.g. the word jocular) to the young viewing audience. I am willing to offer my consulting services free of charge to help realize progress in this way.

The answer does not lie with Sesame Street alone, however. Countless other children’s programming could help as well and impact continued positive change. For instance, in addition to Dora, Diego and Ni Hao, Kai-lan, perhaps Nickelodeon could consider adding similar programming with Arab, Muslim and South Asian heroes and heroines.

You may be wondering about Omar and his family. His mother organized and conducted cultural competency training on American Muslims and Arab Americans for her son’s school district. It was well-received.

As for Omar — with the help of his family he has a great new attitude towards bullying which prompts him to stick up for other children targeted in the way he was.

Please note that names have been changed to protect the child’s identity according to his parent’s wishes.

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Queensland: mosque protest turns ugly with pig’s head posted on fence

Posted on 24 October 2011 by Amago


Queensland: mosque protest turns ugly with pig’s head posted on fence

The battle to stop a mosque being built in a Gold Coast hinterland estate is turning nasty, with a pig’s head posted on a fence and signs publicising the Islamic project vandalised. The Sunday Mail believes police were called after a pig’s head splattered with red paint was hung on a fence at the site.

The incident has sparked fears of a protracted hate campaign against the Muslim community. The words “terrorists” and “Go back to Afghanistan” were scribbled across planning signs outside the property in Alkira Way at Worongary. A resident, who asked not to be named, told the Sunday Mail: “This place will become a war zone. There are old people living here who are scared.”

Police at Mudgeeraba were called to remove the pig’s head and have spoken to residents about the unrest in their quiet rural suburb. “We’re aware of an incident at that address. We are continuing to investigate,” a police spokesman said.

 

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President Obama hosts Iftar dinner at White House for American Muslims during Ramadan.

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Muslim Scholars Issue Fatwa Declaring No Conflict Between Islamic Law And U.S. Constitution

Posted on 24 October 2011 by Amago

President Obama hosts Iftar dinner at White House for American Muslims during Ramadan.

President Obama hosts Iftar dinner at White House for American Muslims during Ramadan.

Muslim Scholars Issue Fatwa Declaring No Conflict Between Islamic Law And U.S. Constitution

Islamic scholars tired of conservative charges that Muslims in the United States constitute a radical fifth column bent on subverting American values and obligated by their religion to launch jihadist terror attacks are fighting back by issuing a fatwa.

The Islamic religious ruling, a “Resolution On Being Faithful Muslims and Loyal Americans,” is a response to what its authors call “erroneous perceptions and Islamophobic propaganda” that has built up for a decade following the 9/11 attacks and subsequent terrorist plots by adherents of al-Qaida and other extremist groups. It was issued in Virginia late last month by the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), a group of Islamic scholars who meet several times a year to draft opinions on issues of concern to American Muslims.

“As a body of Islamic scholars, we the members of FCNA believe that it is false and misleading to suggest that there is a contradiction between being faithful Muslims committed to God (Allah) and being loyal American citizens,” the fatwa declared.

“Islamic teachings require respect of the laws of the land where Muslims live as minorities, including the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, so long as there is no conflict with Muslims’ obligation for obedience to God. We do not see any such conflict with the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. The primacy of obedience to God is a commonly held position of many practicing Jews and Christians as well.”

Muslims make up less than 1 percent of the nation, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, yet the fast-growing community has been a constant target of right-wing groups. From protests against the so-called “ground zero mosque,” to efforts in more than a dozen states to ban Sharia lawin courts, to recent Capitol Hill hearings on Islamic radicalization that brought comparisons to McCarthyism, Muslims have had to assert their loyalty.

And that troubles members of the Los Angeles Police Department, who in recent years have been at the forefront in building bridges to the Muslims in order to combat radicalization and enlist the community in the fight against terrorism.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and other law enforcement officials will attend a meeting Thursday at the Islamic Center of Reseda to talk about the new fatwa as part of his department’s Muslim Community Forum. Muzammil Siddiqi, director of religious affairs of The Islamic Society of Orange County and the president of the Fiqh Council of North America, will be on hand to discuss the origins of the fatwa.

For many non-Muslims, perhaps the best-known fatwa was the one against authorSalman Rushdie for his book ”The Satanic Verses.” Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared it blasphemous and called for Rushdie’s death.

This new decree might face a warmer welcome.

“We’re always fighting two sides of extremism. There’s the violent ideological side and the neo-conservative side that is creating hate campaigns against American Muslims …which is a bunch of BS,” said Michael Downing, commander of the LAPD’s Counter Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau. “The majority of American Muslims are as patriotic as you and I. This declaration says it is not a conflict to be a faithful Muslim and loyal American.”

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Creeping Halakha in Brooklyn? Women Told to Sit in the Back of the Bus

Posted on 22 October 2011 by Emperor

If this were Muslims you could be sure that there would be a boycott of this bus line, as well as cries about Creeping Sharia’ and the threat of Islamization.

Women ride in back on sex-segregated Brooklyn bus line

(New York World)

On the morning of October 12, Melissa Franchy boarded the B110 bus in Brooklyn and sat down near the front. For a few minutes she was left in silence, although the other passengers gave her a noticeably wide berth. But as the bus began to fill up, the men told her that she had to get up. Move to the back, they insisted.

They were Orthodox Jews with full beards, sidecurls and long black coats, who told her that she was riding a “private bus” and a “Jewish bus.” When she asked why she had to move, a man scolded her.

“If God makes a rule, you don’t ask ‘Why make the rule?’” he told Franchy, who rode the bus at the invitation of a New York World reporter. She then moved to the back where the other women were sitting. The driver did not intervene in the incident.

The B110 bus travels between Williamsburg and Borough Park in Brooklyn. It is open to the public, and has a route number and tall blue bus stop signs like any other city bus. But the B110 operates according to its own distinct rules. The bus line is run by a private company and serves the Hasidic communities of the two neighborhoods. To avoid physical contact between members of opposite sexes that is prohibited by Hasidic tradition, men sit in the front of the bus and women sit in the back.

The arrangement that the B110 operates under can only be described as unorthodox. It operates as a franchise, in which a private company, Private Transportation Corporation, pays the city for the right to provide a public service. Passengers pay their $2.50 fare not by MetroCard, but in dollar bills and coins. The city’s Franchise and Concession Review Committee defines a franchise on its website as “the right to occupy or to use the City’s inalienable property, such as streets or parks, for a public service, e.g., transportation.”

The agreement goes back to at least 1973, and last year the franchise paid the city $22,814 to operate the route, according to the New York City Department of Transportation. According to the news site Vos Iz Neias?, which serves the Orthodox Jewish community in New York City and elsewhere, the bus company has a board of consulting rabbis, which decreed that male passengers should ride in the front of the bus and female passengers in the back.

City, state and federal law all proscribe discrimination based on gender in public accommodations. “Discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations in New York City is against the law,” said Betsy Herzog, a spokeswoman for the New York City Commission on Human Rights, which investigates and prosecutes alleged violations of anti-discrimination law.

The Department of Transportation, which issues the franchise, confirms that it understands the B110 to be subject to anti-discrimination laws. “This is a private company, but it is a public service,” said Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the DOT. “The company has to comply with all applicable laws.”

Following the New York World’s inquiry, Solomonow said DOT would contact Private Transportation Corporation. “We are reaching out to the company about this alleged incident to ask for its response, with the expectation that it will take steps to prevent the occurrence of incidents of this nature,” he said.

The B110 bus shares stops with MTA busesMelissa Franchy/Special to the New York World

Herzog said the Human Rights Commission would not investigate the B110 unless someone filed a complaint. But its website states that “anyone who provides goods and services to the general public is considered a public accommodation” and that it illegal for public accommodations to “set different terms for obtaining those goods or services” to different groups.

Ross Sandler, a professor at New York Law School and editor of the CityLaw newsletter, said that anti-discrimination laws apply to bus franchises, but that religious groups are sometimes granted exceptions. “Do all these laws apply? Yes, they apply to buses that are franchises,” Sandler said. “The question is whether there is an exception for this particular bus line.”

The Transportation Department said that the B110 had not been granted any exceptions to anti-discrimination laws.

Calls to the offices of Private Transportation Corporation also went unreturned. We tried calling the home of Jacob Marmurstein, the company’s president, but were told he was unavailable.

The New York World will be keeping a close eye on the practices aboard the B110 bus and the city’s response – and we will let you know when we hear more.

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Attacks on Bulgarian mosques: ‘This hatred is new to us’

Posted on 21 October 2011 by Emperor

Burning guard post in front of Roma leader's house

Muslims and Roma may be the new scapegoats in Bulgaria.

Attacks on Bulgarian mosques: ‘This hatred is new to us’

Anna Zacharias

Violent ethnic riots swept Bulgaria weeks before this Sunday’s presidential elections, following the killing of a teenager by a man with links to a local Roma crime boss. Originally aimed at highlighting the alleged corruption of “Tsar” Kiril Rashkov, these demonstrations soon spread across the country, before ugly scenes developed. Rioters turned on ethnic minorities and Muslims and attacked mosques in both Sofia, the capital, and Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-largest city.

A few months earlier, politicians and the public had gathered to show their support for a unified Bulgaria following violent demonstrations outside Sofia’s historic Banya Bashi mosque. But what began as a “peaceful protest” against the volume of loudspeakers that broadcast the call to prayer, ended with supporters of Ataka, the ultra-nationalist party, setting fire to prayer mats and pelting worshippers with stones.

Some observers equated this attack with the creep of Islamophobia being seen in parts of western Europe. Yet it came as a shock to many in a country that prides itself on its history of religious tolerance.

“[That] was something nobody expected,” said Mustafa Alish Hadji, the grand mufti and leader of Muslims in Bulgaria, following the protests. “It is worrying for Muslims and Christians because it [creates] tension that didn’t exist before.”

Ethnic distinctions have become a favoured topic to exploit in the country’s post-communist political landscape, particularly since Ataka won 9.36 per cent of the vote in the 2009 parliamentary elections, establishing an informal coalition with the governing centre-right party.

But, while Ataka’s hardline rhetoric has served it well, the mosque protests did not get the expected results – ethnic sectarianism is accepted in Bulgaria, religious sectarianism is not. The public laid flowers at the mosque and opposition politicians denounced the attacks as a publicity stunt in the preamble to this Sunday’s municipal and presidential elections, in which Volen Siderov, the Ataka leader, is running for president using the campaign slogan, “I am your weapon, use it”.

Ataka was condemned in a declaration by Parliament to be “dangerous to the government” with an attitude “completely foreign to the Bulgarian people and their religious and ethnic tolerance”.

Irrespective of ethnicity, Bulgarian Muslims face prosecution because they are considered “Turkish” and associated with the rule of the Ottoman empire.

While myths of the terrible Turk are ubiquitous in Bulgarian culture – painted on churches and reenacted in village celebrations – so, too, is a strong sense of religious acceptance.

“This hatred is new to us,” said Hadji. “It’s the first time we have seen such nationalism and seen such hatred towards others. Most Muslims are rural. The problem is not in rural areas, it is in towns and in cities. Nationalism has more power [there] than in the villages,” he said. “In the city, people don’t know each other so well. In the village, Muslims and Christians live and pray together. Nationalism has no way to separate them.”

Nowhere is this religious tolerance better exemplified than in the villages of the Rhodope mountains, where minarets rise above thick clusters of pine trees and Muslims and Christians live side by side.

On the same day that blood stained the steps of the Banya Banshi mosque in Sofia, a three-day wedding was underway in the village of Musfata Alish Hadji. The celebration shared by Christians and Muslims exemplifies Bulgaria’s comfortable blend of Slavic and Eastern traditions. Women with red sequins glued bindi-style to the centre of their brow began the festivities by ring dancing to a pop song. Their performance was followed by belly dancing and exclamations in Greek and Arabic. Around tables spread with banitsa pastry and halva sweets, wedding guests spoke of their shock at the Sofia attacks.

Ramadan, a lorry driver in his thirties who had previously worked in Spain, said Bulgaria was among the most tolerant places in Europe for Muslims.

“The racism in Spain is horrible,” he said. “In the south, they treat us Muslims like s***, they swear at us. This doesn’t happen here. We are respected.”

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AlJazeera English: Footage Shows a Dead Muammar Gaddafi

Posted on 20 October 2011 by Amago

When NATO backed rebels entered Tripoli in late August, it spelled the end of the Gadaffi regime. His reported death today marks the symbolic end of the Gadaffi era. There is no shadow of a doubt that Gadaffi was a dictator, that much is clear from numerous human rights and amnesty reports.

Now marks a new beginning for Libya.

Unlike the Egyptian revolution, the Libyan uprising was tainted by Nato’s involvement; it was not a victory purely by the people, of the people and for the people. It is hoped that the forces of self-determination and true democracy will prevail over those trends that are either open to, or already have been co-opted by foreign interests.

Needless to say, the Islamophobes are already instigating the doomsday scenario. Robert Spencer says in a blog post titled, “Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Gaddafi has been captured”:

It is likely that the new America-backed regime will compete with the Gaddafi regime in its hatred for America and the West, and become noted for being even more anti-American than he was.

It goes without saying that one should take Spencer’s words with a heavy grain of salt, after all such pessimism on his part is born not out of a true analysis of Libya as it is today but out of a deep seated hatred for Islam and Muslims. For Spencer Muslims can only ever live under dictatorship and oppression.

Footage shows Gaddafi’s bloodied body

Footage obtained by Al Jazeera shows the body of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi following his death in Sirte.

Al Jazeera has acquired exclusive footage of the body of Muammar Gaddafi after he was killed in his hometown, Sirte.

Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, vice chairman of Libya’s National Transitional Council, confirmed that the ousted leader had been killed on October 20, 2011 near Sirte.

“We announce to the world that Muammar Gaddafi has been killed at the hands of the revolutionaries,” Ghoga told a news conference in Benghazi.

The news came shortly after the NTC captured Sirte after weeks of fighting.

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Genocidal Arab-Bashing Muslim-Hating Rant From Pro-Israeli PAC’s Founding Board Member

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Genocidal Arab-Bashing Muslim-Hating Rant From Pro-Israeli PAC’s Founding Board Member

Posted on 19 October 2011 by Danios

Rachel Abrams is a founding board member of a pro-Israeli PAC called the Emergency Committee for Israel.  She recently posted this genocidal Arab-bashing Muslim-hating rant on her blog (h/t Glenn Greenwald):

Then round up [Gilad Shalit's] captors, the slaughtering, death-worshiping, innocent-butchering, child-sacrificing savages who dip their hands in blood and use women—those who aren’t strapping bombs to their own devils’ spawn and sending them out to meet their seventy-two virgins by taking the lives of the school-bus-riding, heart-drawing, Transformer-doodling, homework-losing children of Others—and their offspring—those who haven’t already been pimped out by their mothers to the murder god—as shields, hiding behind their burkas and cradles like the unmanned animals they are, and throw them not into your prisons, where they can bide until they’re traded by the thousands for another child of Israel, but into the sea, to float there, food for sharks, stargazers, and whatever other oceanic carnivores God has put there for the purpose.

As Greenwald so presciently notes, Rachel Abrams is not “some fringe Arab-hating figure but from the heart and soul of the American neocon movement.”

Abram’s world view, one which depicts the Judeo-Christian America and Israel as the harbingers of freedom, liberty, and democracy–and the Violent Dark-Skinned Ay-rab jihad-loving Moozlum Terrorist world as the incarnation of all that is Evil–cannot exist in a vacuum.  The only reason so many people hold such views is because of how carefully and closely the mainstream media and the national discourse is controlled.

This is the reason that my controversial series–about the inequities of “the Judeo-Christian tradition”–is so important.  There is no other way to truly kill this paradigm except to expose how truly hypocritical such a view is.

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Horowitz and Spencer’s Islamophobia

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Horowitz and Spencer’s Islamophobia

Posted on 19 October 2011 by Garibaldi

David Horowitz

Horowitz and Spencer’s Islamophobia

by Matt Duss

In a recent article for National Review Online, David Horowitz and Robert Spencer criticized the Center for American Progress’s report “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.” Following a familiar formula, the authors play the victim, accusing CAP of peddling “conspiracy theories” about anti-Muslim activists like themselves.

Even a cursory glance at our report, however, shows we have done no such thing. Quite the contrary, the dissemination of hateful anti-Muslim ideas by Horowitz, Spencer, and others is done right out in the open. CAP’s contribution was to document these efforts, to draw together the various strands in order to properly view them as part of a coherent whole — an organized campaign to spread misinformation about the religious faith of millions of Americans.

The authors first take issue with our use of the term “Islamophobia,” claiming “the purpose of the suffix — phobia — is to identify any concern about troubling Islamic institutions and actions as irrational, or worse as a dangerous bigotry that should itself be feared.” This is false. As my co-authors and I note in our report, we don’t use the term “Islamophobia” lightly. We define it as an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from America’s social, political, and civic life.

We think that any fair-minded reader of Horowitz and Spencer’s work, which our report extensively documents, would conclude that it qualifies.

Engaging in exactly the sort of careless slander that our report examines, the authors then deride similar reports from what they refer to as “[Muslim] Brotherhood fronts like CAIR [the Council on American-Islamic Relations], and jihadist apologists like the Southern Poverty Law Center.” Interestingly, they spare the Anti-Defamation League, which released a backgrounder earlier this year declaring that Spencer’s group, Stop Islamization of America, “promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam.”

Spencer’s group, the Anti-Defamation League wrote, “seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy ‘American’ values.” Should the Anti-Defamation League also be lumped with the “jihadist apologists”?

Rather than addressing such charges, however, the authors spend the majority of their response listing reasons why Islamic extremist terrorism represents a genuine threat to American security. But they are rebutting an argument we have not made. As evidenced by the considerable amount of work CAP has produced on the subject, we take the issue of national security extremely seriously — far more seriously than Horowitz and Spencer’s selective, inflammatory, and unscholarly rendering of the Islamic peril suggests that they themselves do.

It is enormously revealing that Horowitz and Spencer do not address the actual argument made in “Fear, Inc.,” which is that they, along with a small cadre of self-appointed experts and activists, promote the idea that religiously inspired terrorism represents true Islam. (“Traditional Islam itself is not moderate or peaceful,” wrote Spencer in 2006. “It is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers.”) They also promote the idea that Sharia law is incompatible with a modern society (“There is no form of Sharia that does not contain . . . [the] death penalty for apostasy,” wrote Spencer, obviously ignorant of the manner in which Islam is practiced by millions of Sharia-adherent Muslims in the United States).

The unmistakable implication of these claims is that all observant Muslims should be viewed with suspicion simply by virtue of being observant Muslims. That’s obviously Islamophobic. (It also flies in the face of the evidence. Earlier this year, the largest study of Muslim Americans ever done, the Muslim American Public Opinion Survey, found that “involvement with the mosque, and increased religiosity increases civic engagement and support for American democratic values.”)

It is worth noting here the irony of Horowitz and Spencer’s accusing CAP of promulgating a conspiracy theory, because, as the Anti-Defamation League’s backgrounder also notes, a conspiracy is precisely what those authors themselves allege in regard to American Muslims’ supposed efforts to infiltrate the American legal system with Islamic Sharia law. (For an examination and rebuttal of those claims, see CAP’s previous issue brief, “Understanding Sharia Law.”)

And finally, a word about the venue in which Horowitz and Spencer’s piece was published, National Review. While we don’t share many of this magazine’s positions, we recognize it as an institution of American conservatism and a key player in the American political debate. Its imprimatur matters, which is why we’re concerned that that imprimatur should be granted to characters like Horowitz and Spencer.

Back in the 1950’s, the stridently anti-Communist John Birch Society made very similar claims about the threat of Communism that Islamophobes now make about the threat of Islam. At one point, Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society, wrote that Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower was “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.”

National Review’s founder and editor, William F. Buckley Jr., responded to Welch’s allegation with condemnation. “How can the John Birch Society be an effective political instrument while it is led by a man whose views on current affairs are, at so many critical points . . . so far removed from common sense?” Buckley asked. “That dilemma weighs on conservatives across America.” Buckley’s condemnation helped marginalize the John Birch Society from the mainstream conservative movement for decades.

In Horowitz’s FrontPage magazine on Feb. 3, 2011, Spencer wrote, “[Muslim] Brotherhood operatives are in the American government and working closely with it, thanks to Barack Obama.” On Sept. 12, 2011, Spencer criticized President Obama’s choice of a Bibleverse read at the 9/11 commemorations as evidence of the president’s “remarkable, unqualified and obvious affinity for Islam.” The list of similar allegations from Spencer is not short.

This new dilemma should weigh on conservatives across America. David Horowitz, Robert Spencer, and the rest of the Islamophobes we name in our report are the modern version of the John Birch Society. Judging Robert Welch’s allegations of President Eisenhower’s supposed Communist sympathies to be beyond the pale, William F. Buckley denounced them in the pages of National Review. It’s unfortunate that, rather than do the same in response to Welch’s heirs, today’s National Review gives them a platform.

— Matt Duss is a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress and the director of the Center’s Middle East Progress project. He is a co-author of “Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.”

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THE 99 Superheroes Vs. The Loons

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THE 99 Superheroes Vs. The Loons

Posted on 19 October 2011 by Ilisha

 

THE 99 is an animated series featuring superheroes inspired by Islamic culture and society. The series was scheduled to launch in the US last week on the The Hub children’s television network, but producers have since announced the broadcast will be postponed indefinitely. Vicious anti-Muslim bigots everywhere are gleeful, boasting that their small but boisterous outcry may have prompted the delay.

The New York Post published a scathing article by outrage peddler Andrea Peyser criticizing the series and calling on anti-Muslim bigots to protest loudly so they can “cancel THE 99 before it starts.”  Peyser says the series will indoctrinate impressionable young children with Sharia-compliant Muslim superheroes “masquerading as the good guys.”

For Peyser the Hateful, Muslims are always super villains, so characters who represent the 99 virtues of God in the Qur’an will naturally use their powers to wage the ultimate jihad. She conjures up fearsome images of Jabbar the Powerful dishing out a mean stoning, and Darr the Afflicter venting his rage on hapless dhimmis.

The looniest blogger ever, Pamela Geller, told CNN that THE 99 is unacceptable because Islam must be portrayed as misogynistic, violent, and oppressive to non-Muslims, and that there must be an emphasis placed on Islam’s bloody, violent history.  She said anything else is just “dawah proselytizing.”

Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, the Kuwaiti-born, U.S.-educated psychologist who created THE 99, said he never expected to face his fiercest opposition to the series in the US, a country that prides itself on diversity and tolerance.  The whole point of  THE 99 was to bridge the gap between Islam and the West by promoting universal values and encouraging tolerance, cooperation, and mutual understanding. Al-Mutawa said  he wants to provide positive role models to all children:

“I told the writers of the animation that only when Jewish kids think that THE 99 characters are Jewish, and Christian kids think they’re Christian, and Muslim kids think they are Muslim, and Hindu kids think they’re Hindu, that I will consider my vision as having been fully executed.”

Geller is not appeased, and continues to describe the series as an onslaught of cultural jihad aimed at radicalizing American children. She says the true superheroes are “counter-jihadists” like  Ibn WarraqNonie Darwish, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, all of whom are in fact rabid anti-Muslim loons. She has also launched a crude online parody called THE 19, which features Spencerman and Gellerwoman as superheroes presumably fighting Muslim evildoers.

Last month, Geller and her fellow hate mongers must have been thrilled with the release of a comic series that suits their agenda perfectly.   Frank Miller is a legend in the comic world for writing and drawing  film noir-style comic book stories, including Batman:  The  Dark Night Returns.  Influential in Hollywood, he directed the film version of The Spirit  and co-directed  Sin City.  Miller also produced  the 2006 American fantasy action film 300, which some critics described as psychological warfare against Iran.

Miller released a post-9/11 propaganda comic series to correspond with the ten year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York City, and said he hoped it would ”really piss people off.”  He was braced for a fatwa and seemed to look forward to a backlash that never came.  Despite the underwhelming response from Muslims, Wired Magazine said:

“Holy Terror is a screed against Islam, completely uninterested in any nuance or empathy.”  Miller has produced, “one of the  most appalling, offensive and vindictive comics of all time. “

Outrage over the 9/11 attacks inspired Miller’s dark comic series steeped in insatiable rage and vengeance, but the same events also inspired Al-Mutawa, who said he wanted to take Islam back from the extremists who had hijacked it.  He conceived of the idea for his series during a London cab ride with his sister in 2003.

Al-Mutawa envisioned THE 99 as a world-class comic book on a par with American classics, so he assembled a team of veteran writers and artists with experience creating comic icons like Spider-man, Power Rangers, and X-Men. In 2006, he launched his new series to audiences in the Middle East.

THE 99 quickly became the most popular comic book in the region, selling over a million copies per year, and prompting Forbes Magazine to declare the series as one of the 20 trends sweeping the globe. An English language version launched in the US in 2007 without opposition.  Industry giant DC Comics gave the series  a promotional boost in 2010 by producing a six-part limited edition crossover that paired THE 99 with classic American superheroes including Batman, Superman, and the Justice League of America.

In 2009, Al-Mutawa decided to turn his successful comic book into an animated series.  His company, Teshkeel Media Group, partnered with a Dutch company to co-produce and distribute the new series.  The cartoon version of  THE 99 has also been a smashing success, and it is expected to reach viewers in over 50 countries by the end of next year.

THE 99 was initially banned in Saudi Arabia when critics expressed concern that Al-Mutawa was violating Islamic Law with characters that personified God. Al-Mutawa eventually won approval for the series after he convinced religious authorities that the characters are not manifestations of God, but merely extol the 99 virtues mentioned in the Qur’an.

Saudi Arabia has since signed on for merchandise deals and even plans to build its own Disney-style theme park based on the series.  The 99 Village opened in 2009 in Kuwait, and several more theme parks are planned throughout the region.  Today no Arab country bans THE 99, which is also broadcast in a growing number of Muslim countries outside the Arab world, including Turkey and Indonesia.

Not everyone is happy about the widespread acceptance THE 99 has received in the Muslim world.  Phyllis Chesler, another rabid anti-Muslim bigot and friend of Pamela Geller, has criticized Muslims for what she describes as “disturbing double standards.”  She says they are turning a blind eye to Al-Mutawa while he creates 99 images of  God, but they terrorize Westerners with fatwas and violence for lesser offenses.

Chesler is apparently a fan of far right Dutch politician Geert Wilders, and she is outraged that the Moooslims want to stop him from “telling the truth about Islam.” Wilders is infamous for spreading vicious lies against Islam and Muslims, and he is still vigorously exercising his right to free speech.

She said Muslims (apparently all of them) have also terrorized American cartoonist Molly Norris for her Everybody Draw Muhammad Day hate fest, and Dutch cartoonist Kurt Westergaard for his infamous drawing of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-studded turban.

It is difficult to see the connection between these provocative events and the introduction of THE 99, but Chesler seems to think they should all inspire a backlash of equal proportions if the Muslims are to apply consistent standards. This is tortured logic, but in any case, shouldn’t it be a good thing that THE 99 didn’t cause a violent backlash?

Chesler and her loony friends certainly didn’t write any articles praising Muslims for their subdued reaction to Frank Miller’s provocative, hateful comic series.  For them, Muslims always deserve only criticism, no matter what they do.

Batina the Hidden

Batina the Hidden

Chesler also expressed concern over what sinister “Muslim values” the series might foist on non-Muslim children.  She asks, “Will children learn about democracy, modernity, tolerance, Enlightenment, women’s and gay rights from these ‘Islamic’ figures?”

Spider-man doesn’t typically lecture children on democracy, modernity, and Enlightenment.  Those seem like heavy topics for a cartoon series written for children.

As for gay rights, how many gay and lesbian characters can you name from the Justice League or any other mainstream comic series?  If Chesler is really an advocate for gay rights, she needs to expand her focus to the entire industry.

THE 99 does promote gender equality, which Al-Mutawa has elaborated on during numerous interviews.   Islamphobes like Chesler and Geller will simply not let facts stand in the way of their propaganda efforts, and continue to spread the lie that the female characters in the series are oppressed and forced to wear Islamic clothing.

On her website Atlas Shrugs, Geller quotes herself  telling CNN:

“Because [THE 99] is mainstreaming the institutionalized oppression of women under Sharia, as exemplified by the burqa-wearing superhero. One would think that the male superheroes would have superpowers strong enough to be able to control themselves without the women having to don cloth coffins.”

Batina the Hidden seems to be the loons’ favorite obsession.  The character is from Yemen, and her clothing accurately reflects what some women wear in that country. Al-Mutawa said the burqa is not Islamic, but it is a cultural tradition that is important to some people, adding:

“I believe that forcing someone to wear the burqa is despicable. But I believe that if somebody wants to choose to do it, that’s their right…And so, out of respect for people who choose to wear the burka, I have one character out of 99—one percent—that wears a burqa. “

Although nearly every one of their articles tries to generate hysteria about Batina, the Hidden, Islamophobes have yet to explain how merely seeing a cartoon character wearing a burqa will traumatize American children. Marvel already has two characters who are Muslim women. The character Dust is from Afghanistan, and she wears a black ensemble that covers her from head-to-toe, showing only her eyes.

Dust has been around since 2002, though it seems few of our hyper-vigilant hate bloggers have detected her “stealth jihad.” Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Aonso said,

“I don’t view a Muslim superhero as avant garde. Muslims comprise 23 percent of the world’s population, and we like our comics to reflect the world and its diversity.”

Despite all the controversy, Dr. Al-Mutawa remains optimistic.  He has faced many hurdles in the last eight years, and his frustrations have been chronicled in the PBS documentary Wham! Bam! Islam!  ”One way or the other,” he says, “‘The 99′ will get on air in the U.S.”

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california quarry shooting–1627563069_v2.grid-3×2

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“Strong Christian” Gunman Opens Fire, Killing Three

Posted on 18 October 2011 by Inconnu

Shareef Allman

Shareef Allman

A quarry worker opened fire on his co-workers on October 5 in California, killing three and wounding six others. The man, Shareef Allman, was shot and killed by police officers the next day. The gunman was described as a “devoted single father of two, a strong Christian and the author of a novel about the evils of domestic violence.”

As the article said:

When Allman started shooting, Ambrosio said, he shouted: “You guys want to (expletive) with me? You want to (expletive) with me?”

What if he was Muslim? What do you think the Islamophobes would have been screaming?

TERRORISM!

SHARIA!

ISLAM IS EVIL!

THE QURAN IS VIOLENT!

But, when a “strong Christian” opens fire and kills innocent people…it is just an aberration. He is certainly not a terrorist. I smell double standard…don’t you?

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Tom-Trento-300×225

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It Didn’t Take Long for the anti-Muslims to Link the “Occupy Protests” to a Muslim Brotherhood Conspiracy

Posted on 18 October 2011 by Emperor

Tom Trento believes the Muslim Brotherhood is behind “Occupy Orlando.” Just watch him in the video below stretching and trying to grasp at anything to come up with his absurd conspiracy theory.

Trento and his friends seem like stalkers. It’s also quite funny how he passes off the “Rifqa Bary” case as a victory when in fact none of the objectives that he and his friends, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer wished to achieve were actualized. The whole Rifqa Bary episode was a colossal and humiliating defeat for the Islamophobes.

Hasner ally says Muslim Brotherhood is behind Occupy Orlando

By | 10.17.11 | 1:56 pm

In a video clip and blog post published today, a right-wing activist with ties to GOP Senate candidate Adam Hasner alleges that Occupy Orlando, a Central Florida group that has sprung up in solidarity with the New York-based Occupy Wall Street movement, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Occupy Orlando held its first event this past weekend, beginning its “occupation” at Senator Beth Johnson Park, outside of the Orlando Chamber of Commerce, at 8 a.m. Saturday.

In a recent post on the website for The United West, an anti-”Shariah Islam” organization, the group’s director, Tom Trento claims that his team found what they consider evidence that the Occupy Wall Street-inspired group in Orlando is part of a “move by a Muslim activist to take over control of ‘Occupy Orlando,’ in the ‘spirit of the Arab Spring.’”

Trento writes:

For those with eyes to see, ears to hear and a wee bit of cranial activity, the jury is in, the facts are known and the words “Arab Spring,” are synonyms for “Muslim Brotherhood.” Though there is strong evidence for the Ikhwan’s involvement initiating the various revolutions in Egypt and the northern Maghreb, it is indisputable that the Brothers are exploiting the incoherent chaos in these countries and taking a leadership role either overtly or through compliant proxies to move toward a shariah-compliant state. In the spirit of Rahm Emanuel, the Muslim Brotherhood will never let a good crisis go to waste.

As The United West video teams circulated (overtly and covertly) through hundreds of protestors at “Occupy Orlando, “ I was informed that a Muslim activist lawyer with whom  we had confrontations in the past, was at this demonstration. Though it has been two years, we could never forget the easily-agitated, Mr. Shayan Elahi. Yes, Orlando, this is the same Muslim who lost a race in 2010 to become a Judge.

After Elahi’s second try at “intimidating” us (yes, it was comical) it became obvious to us that he was not just an observer at this event but a participant…and then it all came together. Shaya Elahi is the leader (of the leaderless) Occupy Orlando! It turns out that he is the “official” legal counsel for this movement and indeed one of the key people, if not the main person calling the shots!

Once we watched Shayan Elahi in action, running around, signing up speakers, providing direction, telling people what to do, we started to connect the dots to the stated Face Book Mission Statement of “Occupy Orlando,” which reads, “…we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America.”

In his post, Trento asks United West supporters if they think Elahi “is looking for a place to mark up his first win by coopting a incoherent movement primarily made up of ‘hippies and anarchists’ so that he can build a political base for his Islamic goals?”

Groups that have sprung up in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street have, for the most part, been leaderless — much like the original movement. Occupy Orlando’s Facebook page describes itself as a “leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions.”

A recent press release from Occupy Orlando states that there were “approximately 200 speakers and more than 1,500 participants spanning across many political and generational spectrums gathered to share dialogues ranging from pro-life to dismantling the federal reserve” at the event.

As Trento mentioned, he and Elahi have had run-ins in the past. Elahi was an attorney for Rifqa Bary’s parents after she separated herself from her Muslim parents in Ohio as a minor when she converted to Christianity. Trento, along with other anti-Islam activists in Florida, fought in the legal battle to keep Bary in the state and away from her parents.

During an interview in Trento’s video, Elahi pulls aside one of the frustrated protesters Trento is talking to and tells her, “He is one of the biggest bigots in town.” Elahi also turns to Trento and calls him a “racist bigot.”

GOP Senate hopeful Adam Hasner has called Trento a “good friend” and was among the group of Florida activists that tried to keep Bary in Florida. He and Trento founded the Florida Security Council together in 2008; that group eventually expanded to become The United West.

Watch Trento’s “investigation” for yourself:

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Michael Powell: Police Eyes Hovering Over Muslims

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Michael Powell: Police Eyes Hovering Over Muslims

Posted on 18 October 2011 by Emperor

NYPD

“In our society, government is supposed to be public and you’re supposed to have a private life,” Moustafa Bayoumi, an English professor at Brooklyn College, said. “We’ve flipped that on its head.”

Police Eyes Hovering Over Muslims

By MICHAEL POWELL (NewYorkTimes)

Hello to you, and to whoever might be spying on us tonight.

This is how some Muslim New Yorkers have grown accustomed to opening meetings, on campus and at mosques from Steinway Street in Queens to Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Their assumption is that someone is always listening for hints of frustration and anger and disloyalty.

And that the listener works for the New York Police Department.

“In our society, government is supposed to be public and you’re supposed to have a private life,” Moustafa Bayoumi, an English professor at Brooklyn College, said. “We’ve flipped that on its head.”

The temptation is to dismiss such fears as post-9/11 paranoia. But The Associated Press, in a startling series, and the dependable Leonard Levitt, who writes the NYPD Confidential Web site, have put substantial meat on the bone of these suspicions.

They found that undercover officers, known as rakers, infiltrated hundreds of mosques; that a secret demographic unit compiled extensive dossiers on where Muslim New Yorkers eat, work, type on computers and transfer money to relatives; and that even imams who worked closely and courageously with the police have found themselves spied on and listed as “suspects.”

The Police Department’s reach extends to India, Pakistan and the Middle East, and less exotically to New Jersey, where undercover police cells have taken roost. And the department works with the F.B.I. and, more controversially, the C.I.A. in a way that sounds less fraternal than like a blood marriage.

Recently, the C.I.A. sent what The A.P. described as “one of its most senior clandestine officers” to work at One Police Plaza. It is highly unusual and troubling for the C.I.A. to work so closely with a police department.

So how should we parse these deeply unsettling findings? We live in an age of moral murk. It is to diminish none of the power of The A.P.’s work to acknowledge that some revelations fall into moral shadow rather than a Manichean play of pitch darkness and light.

Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly vibrates with certitude. He watched those towers transformed into calamitous clouds of dust. He learned of profound federal intelligence failures and bristles with a determination not to go there again.

“We’re paid to think the unthinkable,” Mr. Kelly told the City Council at a hearing 11 days ago. “We want to know how individuals traveling here communicate and conceal themselves. We go where the leads take us.”

I get that. The word “if” dominated our lives for many months after 9/11. Shortly afterward, my wife and I decided not to send our son to a fine public middle school in Lower Manhattan, for fear of having him too far removed from our Brooklyn home if. …

And I have felt a bubbling up of impatience with some religious leaders. The Al Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn was briefly home to the Blind Sheik, Omar Abdel Rahman, who helped plot the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, and since then other radicals are reported to have passed through. Does anyone there tend the door?

Councilman Brad Lander is one of those wrestling thoughtfully with such questions. But as he put pointed questions to Mr. Kelly at the hearing, the answers were illuminating in not terribly comforting ways.

It sounds, Mr. Lander said, as if you’re engaged in religious and ethnic profiling.

The commissioner shrugged. “I wouldn’t believe everything that I read,” he replied.

This fell well short of candor, which is unfortunate at a time when the police brass ask us to give them something like blind trust in their intentions. Afterward, an A.P. reporter asked, point-blank, Can you point to specific factual inaccuracies in our reporting?

And the commissioner replied: No.

This pattern recurs. Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, has a tendency to emphatically deny what has certifiably happened, whether the spying on and locking up of demonstrators for days at the Republican National Convention, or these recent revelations.

Credibility is like sand flowing through an hourglass. It runs out.

Professor Bayoumi rides subways and elevators and understands terrible possibilities. “I understand there need to be investigations,” he said. “But to base it on religious beliefs and what someone says at a meeting, rather than on actual leads …”

He paused, frustrated. “It weakens the bonds in a community and corrodes trust. Is that useful?”

E-mail: powellm@nytimes.com

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Fake Nigerian Christians Burnt Alive Photo Resurfaces on Facebook

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Fake Nigerian Christians Burnt Alive Photo Resurfaces on Facebook

Posted on 17 October 2011 by Garibaldi

It looks like the myth that Geller was pushing some months ago about Muslim hordes incinerating Nigerian Christians is resurfacing once again, this time on Facebook.

A blog by the name of Waffles at Noon covers the re-emergence of the photo:

A horrifying photo has surfaced on Facebook, one that claims the dead, charred bodies in the photo are Christians burnt alive by Muslims in Nigera. A common caption reads reads:

Christians burnt alive by Sunni Muslims in NIGERIA…(Posted by Jillian Becker in Africa, Arab States, Christianity, Christians burnt alive by Sunni Muslims, Islam, Muslims, jihad)…..PLEASE SHARE IT OR JUST UPLOAD YOUR OWN…BUT SOMEHOW SPREAD IT IF YOU’RE EVEN 1% CHRISTIAN — It is still not over yet! —

Waffles goes on to cite our piece from April that points out the fact that the picture is a fake.

Below is our post exposing the absurd falsity of attempting to pass the Congo gas tanker explosion as an example of Nigerian sectarianism.

******************

Pamela Geller Watch: Ties Gas Tanker Explosion in Congo to Electoral Violence in Nigeria

Pamela is claiming in a blog titled, Nigeria: Muslim Hordes Mass Slaughter Christians that a gruesome picture is evidence of Muslim violence against Christians in Nigeria (be warned the picture is gruesome):

A terrible and horrifying picture indeed.

Pamela brags that she wrote about it “first” back on April 19, and then wonders “why” is America fighting in Libya to restore a “universal Caliphate?”

Huh??

It turns out however that the above picture is not evidence of some “Muslim rampage” in Nigeria! The charred bodies are a tragic result of a tanker explosion in the CONGO!! A whole other country the last time I checked! Here is the evidence from Afrik.com (I give you the Google translation since it was originally in French):

The explosion, on July 3, a tanker in the town of Sange, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has resulted in 235 deaths.

Here is the original French language report where you will also find more pictures: RDC : les images atroces du drame de Sange au Sud-Kivu

You will also see an interesting picture of Muslim UN soldiers, possibly from Pakistan helping to respond to the tragedy.

Here is a report from Reuters with some more pictures:

(Reuters) – At least 230 people were killed when a fuel tanker overturned and exploded in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, unleashing a fire ball that tore through homes and cinemas packed with people watching World Cup soccer.

Officials said on Saturday the explosion late on Friday also injured 196 people, adding that the death toll could rise.

They described scenes of devastation in the town of Sange, where houses were burned and bodies littered the streets. Some people died while trying to steal fuel leaking from the tanker, but most were killed at home or watching World Cup soccer in cinemas.

Many of the bodies were charred beyond recognition.

United Nations helicopters began airlifting injured people to hospital, while Congo’s army, which lost a number of men in the blast, has sent soldiers in to help with the rescue.

“Our latest numbers are 230 dead and 196 injured,” Madnodje Mounoubai, a spokesman for the U.N. mission, said. Congo’s government also gave the same number of dead.

Marcellin Cisambo, governor of South Kivu province, where the incident took place, said the blast occurred when the fuel truck overturned, leaked fuel and then later exploded.

It was not immediately clear what caused the initial accident or later blast, but local people said the truck, which was part of a convoy, stopped when the road seemed to crumble, toppling the vehicle and spilling fuel. Fire then erupted.

“It’s a terrible scene. There are lots of dead bodies on the streets. The population is in terrible shock — no one is crying or speaking,” Jean-Claude Kibala, South Kivu’s vice governor, said from Sange, which is between the towns of Bukavu and Uvira.

“We are trying to see how we can coordinate with (the U.N.) to manage the situation and how to take the wounded to hospital,” he added.

TANKER ACCIDENTS

Roads in the area are notoriously bad after years of war and neglect in the vast central African nation.

“Some people were killed trying to steal the fuel, but most of the deaths were of people who were indoors watching the (World Cup) match,” Cisambo said.

There have been numerous similar accidents across Africa, where crowds gather around fuel tankers involved in crashes, only for the tanker to explode.

Millions of football fans across Africa were watching Ghana, the continent’s last team in the World Cup, play Uruguay in the quarterfinals of the tournament on Friday evening.

For many, who have no electricity at home, makeshift cinema halls are the only option for watching the football.

“My children were watching the football match in the cinema and then they ran out to see the petrol,” said Kiza Ruvinira, who lost three children and his sister-in-law in the blast.

“I went out to see what happened and I found my three children’s bodies myself. I don’t know how to go on.”

Mubaya Mumasura also lost three family members: “I don’t know what to do with myself I am so sad. I want the government to assist all the victims and help us.”

Congo’s weak government has difficulty providing even the most basic services, so U.N. peacekeepers began airlifting some of the wounded to nearby hospitals and aid workers were called in to help with medical treatment.

“The national Red Cross is working on collecting the bodies and taking them to the morgue, but the priority is obviously to take the wounded to the hospital,” International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) coordinator Inah Kaloga told Reuters.”

Kaloga said aid workers were trying to identify bodies before they were buried, but many were completely charred.

“It’s a catastrophe,” said Captain Olivier Hamuli,” spokesman for Congo’s military operation in South Kivu, adding that 13 soldiers had been injured and another 10 were missing.

The Kenyan driver of the truck is being held by the police.

Alain Ilunga, deputy CEO of Congo’s storage and distribution company, which is already investigating the incident, said the truck was carrying 49,000 liters of petrol at the time.

(Writing by David Lewis; editing by Ralph Boulton)

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Kamal Saleem Still Selling His Fake Ex-Muslim Story

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Kamal Saleem Still Selling His Fake Ex-Muslim Story

Posted on 17 October 2011 by Emperor

Saleem is still defrauding mostly gullible Evangelical Christians of their money.

Forum: Saleem challenged by member of the crowd

By Shakil Saghir

After a long and hard debate, I finally decided to attend Kamal Saleem’s Sept. 25 talk at the Midland Center for the Arts. My purpose of attending the talk was to take notes and ask questions during a Q&A session. Because there was no Q&A, I decided to raise my concerns here.

He started his talk with a few sentences of peace and right after that started to describe the importance of Sept. 11 for Muslims, linking it to the Battle of Vienna and revenge, which was news for me — a born Muslim. That was the beginning of his, what I believe, hate speech.

His next claim was “God of the Quran does not love his people”; whereas, at least 11 of 99 attributes (names) of Allah have a meaning of love, compassion, mercy, or peace including Al-Wadood, The Loving. His love is mentioned in the Quran many times including: “And He is oft-forgiving, the Loving (85:14)”. Saleem claimed that Allah wants Muslims to die for Him and says this is the primary reason for the terrorism/ suicide bombing in the world, ignoring the underlying geopolitical reasons and terrorism by non-Muslims, including Christians (remember the Crusades). According to a 2008 Pew poll, only 5 percent of Pakistanis justified suicide bombing, even though Pakistan is the country most affected by the menace. As a Muslim, I was taught that suicide is prohibited in any circumstance, no exception. The Quran specifically says: “O you who have believed, do not consume one another’s wealth unjustly but only [in lawful] business by mutual consent. And do not kill yourselves. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful (4:29)”. The concept of suicide bombing was alien to Muslims; for example, in Pakistan, the first suicide attack occurred only in the mid- ’90s and none were recorded in Afghanistan until 2002. However, the history of suicide bombing goes back to 1 AD (see, “Dying to Win” by Robert Pape). The Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka (LTTE), a Marxist organization, invented the suicide vests and killed many, including Rajiv Gandhi, then Indian Prime Minister.

Saleem also kept calling Muslims as Moslems, which was weird. As a former believer of the religion he should know the correct pronunciation.

According to Kamal, most of the terrorism and killings in history have been perpetrated by Muslims, which is a fallacy. Ironically, even ignoring earlier historical events such as the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the genocide of native North and South Americans and of other native people, most of the killings in the last 100 years have been carried out by non-Muslims (e.g., WWI, WWII, USSR [Stalin], China [Mao], Congo [Leopold II of Belgium], British India [1947]; Cambodia [Pol Pot], North Korea [Kim Il Sung], Ethiopia [Menghistu], Korea, Vietnam, Sri Lanka [LTTE], Gulf, Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, to name a few). A detailed, but not exhaustive, list can be found at http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html. The FBI database indicates that attacks by Islamic extremists on U.S. soil comprised only 6 percent during 1980-2005.

He also spent significant time on the concept of Taqiyya and linked it to stealth jihad by saying Muslims are allowed to lie by their religion. Growing up as a Muslim, I only heard this term in reference to Shia religion; however, I never encountered a situation confirming this even with my Shia friends with whom I grew up. The term Taqiyya is a false concept not belonging to the authentic teachings of Islam — I did not find a single entry in Hadith (Sahih Bukhari, the most authentic compilation) or the Quran which can relate to this concept. (I even searched with words: lie, lying, Taqiyya, etc. at http://www.searchtruth.com/). One of the Hadith that I found during my search was “The signs of a hypocrite are three: Whenever he speaks he tells a lie; whenever he is entrusted he proves dishonest; whenever he promises he breaks his promise (Book #51, Hadith #12).”

During the Google search, however, I saw “Lying is not permitted except in three cases: (1) a man’s speaking to his wife to make her happy; (2) lying at times of war; (3) and lying in order to reconcile between people. Even though I could not find any Hadith to back this up, if we consider this to be true, it is not different from the teachings of Judaism (e.g., Talmud, Baba Kamma 113a) or Christianity (e.g., 1 Samuel 16 incident), for detail see http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/08/silencing-spencer-taqiyya-and-kitman-are-part-of-judeo-christian-belief/.

Jihad was described as a Holy War (the term itself has come from the Crusades) by Kamal and was explained as the 6th pillar of Islam, obligatory for every Muslim. Jihad is never considered as one of the pillars of Islam by Sunni Muslims, and fighting is only permitted in self defense after exhausting every other option.

And even then, Muslims must follow strict rules of combat including prohibitions against harming civilians and against destroying crops, trees, and livestock. The notion that Islam spread through the sword was emphasized by the speaker — one question I had for him was how did it spread to Indonesia, Malaysia and many other parts of the world where no Muslim soldier ever put his feet? Compulsion in religion is in fact forbidden in the Quran: “Let there be no compulsion in religion. Truth has been made clear from error (2:256)” and “And neither I am going to worship that which you have worshipped, nor will you worship the One whom I worship. For you is your faith, and for me, my faith (109:4-6).”

Unfortunately he was not open to Q&A. Contrary to Saleem’s assertion that all the verses of love and peace in the Quran came when Muslims were weak (prior to their immigration to Madina) and were abrogated thereafter (after the establishment of Islamic state in Madina), the former verse was revealed in Madina (two years after the immigration) prohibiting Muslims to forcefully converting anyone to Islam, including their own children.

Of course his talk could not be complete without bringing up the fear of Sharia in the U.S. Scholars agree that Muslims living in non-Muslim countries have to comply with laws and regulations of the country where they have been living — this is what I was taught and therefore, I don’t see an issue of Sharia laws taking over our Constitution.

Kamal also kept quoting verses from the Quran (e.g., 5:51, 5:80) out of context and generalizing from them; whereas, those verses were revealed on specific occasions mentioning specific groups of people. He mentioned that slavery is not prohibited in the Quran (it isn’t in the Bible either), which is true; however, he forgot to mention how many times the Quran mentions the importance of freeing slaves; only one of many verses in the Quran should suffice as an answer: “…Righteous are those who believe in God, the last day, the angels, the scripture, and the prophets; and they give the money, cheerfully, to the relatives, the orphans, the needy, the traveling alien, the beggars, and to free the slaves; and they observe the prayers (Salat) and give the obligatory charity (Zakat); and they keep their word whenever they make a promise; and they steadfastly persevere in the face of persecution, hardship, and war. These are the truthful; these are the righteous. (2:177).”

Even the POWs were treated with respect by Muslims and subsequently released (e.g., see POWs of the battle of Badr) — a thing never practiced at that time; POWs were either killed or enslaved. This verse also answers his assertion that when Muslims sign a peace treaty it is only valid for 10 years and it has to be broken within that period

I believe he wanted to mention the peace treaty of Hudaybiyya, which was signed between the Muslims of Madina and the polytheists of Mecca for a stipulated period of 10 years but which was broken by the Meccans two years later. He misquoted many other verses which are popular with Islamophobes. Explanations of a few can be read at the following site as I cannot go in detail of all here: http://www.load-islam.com/.

Another topic was the presumed ambitions of Muslims to dominate the world and convert everyone to Islam which can easily be rejected as Muslims ruled India for over 500 years and remained a minority. Similarly, large populations of Christians live in Lebanon (40 percent), Palestine pre-1948 (30 percent) and Egypt (10 percent), to name a few countries. Jews and Christians (always called people of the books in the Quran and never nonbelievers or infidels) and Muslims lived together in peace for millennium; even when Jews were persecuted in Europe, they were safe in Muslim countries. The issues that we currently see are the result of geopolitics (colonization, occupation [Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq], denying freedom by supporting dictators and preventing the liberation [Kashmir, Chechnya]), not religion. More information can be gleaned at: http://www.al-bab.com/arab/background/jews.htm.

Saleem mentioned killing of Jews of Bani Quraiza in Madina after the Battle of Trenches without giving any details. They were guilty of treason by helping Meccans in the battle when they had an agreement to support Muslims and their fate was determined using Jewish laws (Deuteronomy 20:10-18) by one of their former leaders upon their agreeing to his adjudication (read Martin Lings’ book, “Muhammad: his life based on the earliest sources.” This is the common punishment of treason even today (Section 110 of Article III states, “…such person or persons shall be adjudged guilty of treason against the United States, and shall suffer death …” and this is exactly what happen to Anwar Al-Awlaki recently).

His portrayal of the status of women in Islam was also completely wrong. In order to understand the issue of the treatment of women in Muslim countries, we should separate the religion and the culture. The maltreatment of women by Muslims can always be traced to the cultural practices and never to the teachings of the religion itself. The Quran clearly states that men and women are equal in creation and in the afterlife, but not identical. Both of them are created from a single soul. One person does not come before the other, one is not superior to the other, and one is not the derivative of the other. A woman is not created for the purpose of serving a man. Rather, they are both created for the mutual benefit of each other (Quran 4:1, 30:21).

And before I end, I would like to write summary of my research on Kamal Saleem. He was born in 1957 and according to his claim, he was recruited by the PLO in Beirut, Lebanon when he was 7 years old, that would be 1964 or 1965. This cannot be true as the PLO was founded on May 28, 1964 in the West Bank and had its first armed wing in Southern Lebanon in 1969 and was not deployed to Beirut until the mid 1970s. His claim that he was a member of both the PLO (a socialist organization with Christians as members [e.g., Hanan Ashravi, George Habash]) and the Muslim Brotherhood (an arch rival of the PLO) and that he met Yasir Arafat, Moammar Gadhafi, Hafiz Al-Asad and Saddam Husain is ridiculous.

To further this, I include excerpts from one of the posts I found online which is supposedly from one of his nephews, Mohammad Itani. The real name of Kamal Saleem is Khodor Al Shami. He was a Sufi with Sheikh Rajab who never believed in militancy and the Brotherhood was not in existence in Lebanon during his time there. His Dad, Kamal Shami, was a blacksmith in downtown Beirut. Many of his close friends were Christians and he could not ask his son to kill Christians, as Kamal Saleem claims, while being friends with them. Additionally, Kamal Saleem’s older brother, Mahmound Shami, married a Christian, Madlin Khoury; this gives the lie to his claim that his mother and father taught him to hate and kill non-Muslims. He used to work with his brother and never handled a gun. Before his coming to the U.S., he worked in the Persian Gulf where he was introduced a man who helped him come to the U.S. As to his time in Afghanistan, he was actually living in the U.S. and had regular phone contact with his family. It is all about fame and fortune.

This sounds right, since just before ending his talk he started selling his and similar books, videos and CDs including interpretations of the Quran for Christians (Snake oil salesmanship!). I hope the audience will choose to go to the original sources and not fall into his trap and see the world through his eyes.

Shakil Shagir is a Midland resident.

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Pamela Geller Watch: Tea Party Reminds Us it Is Islamophobic

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Pamela Geller Watch: Tea Party Reminds Us it Is Islamophobic

Posted on 17 October 2011 by Emperor

Like we ever forgot.

Activist Pamela Geller to address Sugar Land Tea Party

The Sugar Land Tea Party will host activist, author and blogger Pamela Geller on Tuesday, Oct. 18, at the Hyatt Place.

Geller is the founder, editor and publisher of the blog Atlas Shrugs. She is the executive director of Stop the Islamization of America, as well as the Freedom Defense Initiative, and is a regular columnist for American Thinker, Human Events and other publications.

Geller is the author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and the newly released Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. She has been a guest on numerous news programs, including “Sean Hannity.”

The event will start with a meet and greet at 6:30 p.m., with  Geller’s presentation to follow from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. After the event, she will sign copies of Stop the Islamization of America.

The Hyatt Place located at 16730 Creek Bend Drive in Sugar Land.

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Gear Up for Some Good Ole Nashville Islamophobiapalooza: “Yeehaw!”

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Gear Up for Some Good Ole Nashville Islamophobiapalooza: “Yeehaw!”

Posted on 14 October 2011 by Emperor

Tennessee is increasingly making a strong case as the capital of Islamophobia in the USA. From anti-Sharia’ legislation to the Murfreesboro Mosque controversy to organizations such as the Tennessee Freedom Coalition, Islamophobia is alive and well in the “volunteer state.”

So it may not be a big surprise that next month Nashville will be the locus for anti-Muslim hate and bigotry in the form of a conference titled: The Constitution or Sharia: A Freedom Conference.

The King and Queen of the Islamophobesphere, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller will be headlining the event, but they aren’t the only hatemongers that are expected to speak:

Nashville, Tennessee – November 11, 2011

The Constitution or Sharia: Preserving Freedom Conference, the first true national conference on Sharia and the Islamization of America sponsored by major freedom oriented organizations! Not just another educational conference. Speakers, such as Pamela Geller, Wafa Sultan and Mathew Staver are action oriented and you will finish the day with an understanding of how to fight the advance of Sharia Law in the United States.

Speaker and panel topics will include

Sharia and Jihad
The European Experience with Sharia
The Dehumanization and Diminishment of Women in the West Under Sharia
Religious Persecution Under Sharia
The Muslim Brotherhood In America
Sharia and Legal Action 
Grassroots Organizing Against Sharia and Rabat (including Mega-Mosques)
Defending Liberty In Legislatures
Fighting Islamist Propaganda in the Media

Plus an action packed evening banquet!

See Tentative Schedule

SIGN UP NOW – Please go to event registration page

Confirmed Speakers include
  • Pamela Geller of Stop Islamization of America ** and Atlas Shrugs
  • Robert Spencer of Stop Islamization of America and Jihad Watch
  • J. Thomas Smith of U.S. Justice Foundation **
  • William J. Murray of Religious Freedom Coalition **
  • Andrew Miller and Lou Ann Zelenik of  Tennessee Freedom Coalition **
  • Frank Gaffney of Center for Security Policy **
  • Fred Grandy, former congressman and actor
  • David Frenchof  American Center for Law and Justice *
  • Andrea Lafferty of Traditional Values Coalition  *
  • Christopher Holton of Center for Security Policy
  • Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel
  • Dr. Mark Durie, Australia and Barrister Paul Diamond, United Kingdom
  • Wafa Sultan, Champion of women’s rights
  • Father Keith Roderick of The Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights
  • James Lafferty of Virginia Anti-Sharia Task force
  • Honorable Rick Womick
  • Kenneth Timmerman, author and journalist
  • Linda Brickman of Arizona Freedom Alliance
  • Rabbi Jonathan Hausman
  • Steve Gill, Syndicated talk show host and Michael DelGiorno, WTN talk show host

SIGN UP NOW – Please go to event registration page

Confirmed Speakers include
FREEDOM BANQUET: Separate evening event at the Hutton Hotel featuring special guest speakers including Hollywood actor and former congressman Fred Grandy and bestselling author Pamela Geller along with internationally known champion for women’s rights Wafa Sultan.

** Conference Sponsors / * Conference co-sponsors

SIGN UP NOW – Please go to event registration page

If there are any loonwatchers in and or around Tennessee they should consider going to this conference and perhaps speak with participants and speakers, much in the same manner Max Blumenthal does.

For more info on some of the characters and organizations that will be there, see:

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Glenn Greenwald: The “very scary” Iranian Terror plot

Posted on 13 October 2011 by Garibaldi

Maybe the best piece Glenn Greenwald has ever written. A complete evisceration of the surreal absurdness that has come to characterize US politics.

The Islamophobes have been going buck-wild over this “Iranian plot,” which is surprising when one considers the fact that Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller both think Obama is a wacky Jihadi Mooslim who is working on behalf of Iran. See our post: Obama is a Mooslim, Jihadist, Pimp, anti-Semite who is aiding the Iranian Nuclear program

The “very scary” Iranian Terror plot

by Glenn Greenwald (Salon.com)

(updated below – Update II – Update III – Update IV)

The most difficult challenge in writing about the Iranian Terror Plot unveiled yesterday is to take it seriously enough to analyze it. Iranian Muslims in the Quds Force sending marauding bands of Mexican drug cartel assassins onto sacred American soil to commit Terrorism — against Saudi Arabia and possibly Israel — is what Bill Kristol and John Bolton would feverishly dream up while dropping acid and madly cackling at the possibility that they could get someone to believe it. But since the U.S. Government rolled out its Most Serious Officials with Very Serious Faces to make these accusations, many people (therefore) do believe it; after all, U.S. government accusations = Truth. All Serious people know that. And in the ensuing reaction one finds virtually every dynamic typically shaping discussions of Terrorism and U.S. foreign policy.

To begin with, this episode continues the FBI’s record-setting undefeated streak of heroically saving us from the plots they enable. From all appearances, this is, at best, yet another spectacular “plot” hatched by some hapless loser with delusions of grandeur but without any means to put it into action except with the able assistance of the FBI, which yet again provided it through its own (paid, criminal) sources posing as Terrorist enablers. The Terrorist Mastermind at the center of the plot is a failed used car salesman in Texas with a history of pedestrian money problems. Dive under your bed. “For the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents,” explained U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and “no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere and no one was actually ever in any danger.’”

But no matter. The U.S. Government and its mindless followers in the pundit and think-tank “expert” class have seized on this ludicrous plot with astonishing speed to all but turn it into a hysterical declaration of war against Evil, Hitlerian Iran. “The US attorney-general Eric Holder said Iran would be ‘held to account’ over what he described as a flagrant abuse of international law,” and “the US says military action remains on the table,” though “it is at present seeking instead to work through diplomatic and financial means to further isolate Iran.” Hillary Clinton thundered that this “crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for.” The CIA’s spokesman at The Washington Post, David Ignatius, quoted an anonymous White House official as saying the plot “appeared to have been authorized by senior levels of the Quds Force.” Meanwhile, the State Department has issued a Travel Alert which warns American citizens that this plot “may indicate a more aggressive focus by the Iranian Government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States.”

In case that’s not enough to frighten you — and, really, how could it not be? — some Very Serious Experts are very, very afraid and want you to know how Serious this all is. Within moments of Holder’s news conference, National Security Expert Robert Chesney  – without a molecule of critical thought in his brain — announced that this “remarkable development” was “very scary.” Very, very scary. Chesney then printed large blocks of the DOJ’s Press Release to prove it. Self-proclaimed “counter-terrorism expert” Daveed Gartenstein-Ross tapped into his vast expertise to explain: ”Holder weighing in on the plot’s connection to Iran means the administration is deadly serious about it.” Progressive think-tank expert and Atlantic writer Steve Clemons decreed that if the DOJ’s accusations are true, then ”the US has reached a point where it must take action” and “this is time for a significant strategic response to the Iran challenge in the Middle East and globally,” which “could involve military.”

The ironies here are so self-evident it’s hard to work up the energy to point them out. Outside of Pentagon reporters, Washington Post Editorial Page Editors, and Brookings “scholars,” is there a person on the planet anywhere who can listen with a straight face as drone-addicted U.S. Government officials righteously condemn the evil, illegal act of entering another country to commit an assassination? Does anyone, for instance, have any interest in finding out who is responsible for the spate of serial murders aimed at Iran’s nuclear scientists? Wouldn’t people professing to be so outraged by the idea of entering another country to engage in assassination be eager to get to the bottom of that?

Then there’s the War on Terror irony: our Hated Enemy here (Iran) is a country which had absolutely nothing  to do with the 9/11 attack. Meanwhile, our close ally, the victim on whose behalf we are so outraged (Saudi Arabia), is not only one of the most tyrannical and aggressive regimes on the planet, but produced 15 of the 19 hijackers and had extensive and still-unknown involvement in that attack. If the U.S. is so deeply offended by the involvement of a foreign government in an attack on U.S. soil, it would be looking first to its close friend Saudi Arabia, where “elements of the government” were likely involved in an actual plot rather than a joke of a plot.

To make sure you understand just how dastardly and evil the Iranian plotters here are, the DOJ in its complaint highlighted that the used-car-salesman-Terrorist-Mastermind said that he preferred that nobody else be killed when the Saudi Ambassador was assassinated, but if it were absolutely necessary, he could accept some unintended deaths! Here’s how the NYT summarizes that:

The complaint quotes Mr. Arbabsiar as making conflicting statements about the possibility of bystander deaths; at one point he is said to say that killing the ambassador alone would be preferable, but on another occasion he said it would be “no big deal” if many others at the restaurant — possibly including United States senators — died in any bombing.

What kind of monster thinks that way, we are supposed to ponder. Behold the warped mind of the Terrorist! He’s actually willing to accept that others die besides his intended targeted! Is that not the mentality that drives U.S. behavior in multiple countries around the world every day? The U.S. flattened an entire civilian apartment building in Baghdad with a 2,000-pound bomb when it thought Saddam Hussein was there (he wasn’t — oops — but lots of innocent people were). NATO repeatedly bombed structures in Tripoli where it thought (mistakenly) Moammar Gadaffi was located, in the process almost certainly killing large numbers of unintended targets. The U.S. just killed one of its own citizens that it insists (not very credibly) it did not intend to kill in order to eradicate the life of Anwar Awlaki, and killed dozens of innocent people when it previously tried to kill Awlaki with cluster bombs.

The U.S. is the living, breathing symbol of this “collateral damage” rationale. It’s what drives all the multi-nation American wars and occupations and drone campaigns and assassinations that continuously pile up the corpses of innocent people. But we’re all going to gather in righteous disgust at the idea that this monstrous International Terrorist would be willing to incur some unintended civilian deaths in order to assassinate an official of the peaceful, freedom-loving Saudi regime. Really, for brazen irony, how can this be beat?

Tom Kean, former chairman of the 9/11 Commission said the alleged plot “surprises me.” Speaking to CNN’s Erin Burnett, Kean said the plot is “pretty close to an act of war. You don’t go in somebody’s capital to blow somebody up.

Meanwhile, President Obama decried this plot as “a flagrant violation of US and international law.” But maybe some Persian Marty Lederman in Tehran wrote a secret legal memo concluding that this was all in accordance with domestic and international law, which — as we know — is conclusive and provides a full shield of immunity.

So facially absurd are the claims here — why would Iran possibly wake up one day and decide that it wanted to engage in a Terrorist attack on U.S. soil when it could much more easily kill Saudi officials elsewhere? and if Iran and its Quds Force are really behind this inept, hapless, laughable plot, then nothing negates the claim that Iran is some Grave Threat like this does — that there is more skepticism expressed even in establishment media accounts than one normally finds about such things. Even the NYT noted — with great understatement — that the allegations “provoked puzzlement from specialists on Iran, who said it seemed unlikely that the government would back a brazen murder and bombing plan on American soil.” The Post noted that “the very rashness of the alleged assassination plot raised doubts about whether Iran’s normally cautious ruling clerics supported or even know about it.” The Atlantic‘s Max Fisher has more on why this would be so out of character for Iran.

But while some attention has been devoted to asking what motive Iran would have for doing this, little attention has been paid to asking what motive the U.S. would have for exaggerating or concocting the connection of Iran’s government to this plot. Aside from the benefits the FBI and DOJ receive when breaking up a “very scary” plot — the bigger, the better — it has been one of Obama’s highest foreign policy priorities to isolate Iran and sanction it further: as a means of placating Israel and punishing Iran for thwarting America’s natural right to rule that region (so monstrous is Iran that, as the U.S. has repeatedly complained, they actually continue to “interfere” in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan!). As Ignatius explains, the U.S. Government instantly converted this plot into a vehicle for furthering those policy ambitions:

With its alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Iran has handed the United States an opportunity to undermine Tehran at a moment when U.S. officials believe the Iranian regime is especially vulnerable. . . . “We see this as a chance to go out to capitals around the world and talk to allies and partners about what the Iranians tried to do,” the [White House] official said. “We’re not going to tolerate targeting a diplomat in Washington. We’re going to try to use this to isolate them to the maximum extent possible.”

Meanwhile, Joe Biden announced today that the U.S. is “working to unite the world” behind a response to Iran’s “outrageous” actions and that ”nothing has been taken off the table.” So Iran’s supposed involvement in this plot is the ideal weapon for the U.S. to advance its long-standing goals with regard to that country. Maybe that warrants some serious skepticism about whether the U.S. Government’s claims are true? But we all know that only Bad Muslim countries exploit foreign policy exaggerations or fabrications for political gain, and not the United States of America (especially not with Barack Obama, rather than a Republican, in the White House).

What’s most significant is that not even 24 hours have elapsed since these allegations were unveiled. No evidence has been presented of Iran’s involvement. And yet there is no shortage of people — especially in the media — breathlessly talking about all of this as though it’s all clearly true. If the Obama administration decided tomorrow that military action against Iran were warranted in response, is there any doubt that large majorities of Americans — and large majorities of Democrats — would support that? As I said when discussing the Awlaki killing, the truly “scary” aspect of all of this is that the U.S. Government need only point and utter the word “Terrorist” and hordes of citizens will rise up and demand not evidence, but blood.

 

UPDATE: Perpetual war-cheerleader Ken Pollack of Brookings says that, if true, this plot “shows that Tehran is meaner and nastier than ever before” and “would represent a major escalation of Iranian terrorist operations against the United States.” Also, he announces, this “should remind us that Iran also is not a normal country by any stretch of the imagination.” That — self-anointed arbiter of who is and is not a “normal country” — from a person as responsible as any pundit or think-tank expert for the attack on Iraq that killed at least 100,000 human beings, denouncing as Terrorists and abnormal a country that has invaded nobody.

 

UPDATE II: On NPR this morning, Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations — and Ken Pollack’s co-author on Iran — said this when asked if he has any doubts about the accuracy of U.S. government statements: “The only unusual aspect of this is actually having a terrorist operation on American territory. I don’t know what the evidence about this is, but I’m not in a position to doubt it.” That perfectly summarizes the political, media and “expert” class’ attitude toward U.S. Government claims: they’re keeping everything secret about their accusations, so there’s no reason to doubt what they’re claiming. The National Security Priesthood that uncritically amplified every U.S. Government claim and fanned the flames of war against Iraq is alive, well, and more mindless and dutiful than ever.

 

UPDATE III: The Christian Science Monitor details the many reasons why “Iran specialists who have followed the Islamic Republic for years say that many details in the alleged plot just don’t add up.”

 

UPDATE IV: On Good Morning America this morning, Joe Biden warned that “the Iranians are going to have to be held accountable” and “nothing has been taken off the table,” and then promised: “And when you see the case presented you will find there is compelling evidence for the assertion being made.” Except — after 24 hours of media hysteria — there’s this Reuters article, which — under the headline “Officials concede gaps in U.S. knowledge of Iran plot” — reports:

Iran’s supreme leader and the shadowy Quds Force covert operations unit were likely aware of an alleged plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, but hard evidence of that is scant, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

The United States does not have solid information about “exactly how high it goes,” one official said. . . .The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said their confidence that at least some Iranian leaders were aware of the alleged plot was based largely on analyses and their understanding of how the Quds Force operates.

I wouldn’t exactly call that — what was the phrase Biden used? — “compelling evidence for the assertions being made.” In fact, it reminds me of the language anonymous government officials began using to describe their “knowledge” of Anwar Awlaki’s alleged operational role in plots against the U.S. once they killed him: “patchy”; “partial”; “suspicion.” But what we learned with Awlaki is likely what we’ll see here: many people reflexively believe government accusations even when unaccompanied by evidence, and that belief is not diluted even when government officials began acknowledging (albeit anonymously) that they do not possess and never did possess any conclusive evidence to support their accusations.

Glenn Greenwald
Follow Glenn Greenwald on Twitter: @ggreenwald.More Glenn Greenwald

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Homeland Security TSA Agent Exposed As Anti-Muslim Bigot

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Homeland Security TSA Agent Exposed As Anti-Muslim Bigot

Posted on 12 October 2011 by Danios

Roy Egan, “a veteran officer with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Chicago” and a TSA agent, was confronted by a reporter for his rabid anti-Muslim Facebook comments.  Right now, the story is limited to local ABC News.  I wonder if this will be aired on national and cable news networks.

A word of caution is in order: Roy Egan is just one part of a much larger problem.  He is a cog in a much larger Islamophobic machine.  The Department of Homeland Security and the TSA are operating inherently racist, bigoted, and fear-mongering policies.

(cross-posted from ABC)

October 12, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) – A veteran officer with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Chicago is being disciplined after posting hundreds of racist and derogatory comments on Facebook.

His name is Roy Egan. Not only were Officer Egan’s racial and religious rants open for anyone to see, for years he openly identified himself by name on Facebook and listed his employer as U.S. Homeland Security-TSA, the Transportation Security Administration.

For the past nine years, Egan has worked as a TSA baggage screener at O’Hare Airport. The 46-year-old has noted on his Facebook page, “I look for bad stuff going on airplanes.”

But it wasn’t Egan’s personal data that caught the eye of the I-Team. It was his public postings calling “Islam a cult that glorifies death…and a filthy religion.” It is a theme Egan repeated in postings just about every day: that Muslims should be exterminated.

In the garage at Egan’s southwest suburban home, the I-Team questioned the nine-year TSA officer about his anti-Muslim statements.

Goudie: “You posted those, didn’t you?
Egan: It was common stuff I picked off the web and made comments on.
Goudie: What does it say that a TSA officer is saying these kinds of things about Muslims?
Egan: I don’t refer to it in my job.”

Egan’s job is to screen baggage at O’Hare. Since 9/11, the treatment of Muslim travelers and allegations of Middle Eastern profiling, have dogged Homeland Security agencies.

Officer Egan recently posted, “does anything at all make you smile more than a Muslim burning by his own hateful hand.” He maintains such beliefs don’t interfere with his work.

Goudie: “How about if some Muslim name, on a piece of luggage comes by you? Does it get extra scrutiny?
Egan: No, no. That’s against the rules. I wouldn’t do it. There’s no reason for me to open it unless we’re mandated to open it via the machine telling us to. I would never discriminate against a passenger.
Goudie: Do you understand why this attracted our attention?
Egan: I suppose…I don’t hide what I do. I don’t think anything I’ve said is illegal. I don’t think, I definitely don’t do anything illegal.”

“It made me sick. It’s chilling to know that someone who is a federal employee and works at TSA of all places can hold these views with such hatred and such intensity, and to hold them publicly on his Facebook page unabashedly without any sort of regret. It really, it’s scary,” said Ahmed Rehab, Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Egan also posted against gays, Hispanics and blacks. He called President Obama “Muslim-in chief,” made racial comments on Obama’s skin color and said he hopes to “live long enough to see him die.” He described Michelle Obama as a “ghetto snipe” and other names unsuitable to print. And to Attorney General Eric Holder he posted, “die tasting your own blood.”

Egan: “If you read the comment, and it was based on an article that was written, and I’m just commenting on an article. I think he’s committing crimes against our citizens.
Goudie: And he should be dead.
Egan: I didn’t say that. I don’t like the guy.”

TSA officials would not speak on camera, but after learning of our findings TSA officials placed Egan on administrative leave and are moving to fire him.

In a statement, a spokesman said, “TSA has management directives in place governing employee conduct. We hold our security officers to the highest professional and ethical standards. TSA learned of the situation and took immediate steps to initiate the individual’s removal from federal service.”

In my conversation with Egan, conducted before he was suspended, the veteran TSA officer seemed immovable.

Egan: “I don’t do anything against policy, I’ve never done anything against policy that I’m aware of.
Goudie: You’re OK with the things that you’ve posted here, for the public to see?
Roy: I don’t know what you’re fishing for but I’m not trying to do anything against anybody. It’s commentary. It’s freedom of speech commentary.
Goudie: Why would you put this up for the public to see, though?
Roy: I’m not the only one. It’s all over the Internet.”

“We’re going to be in touch with TSA to work with them in order to ensure that this is not a situation that is replicated and that it’s not a deeper problem,” said Rehab.

TSA officials in Chicago declined to answer our questions about screener training and evaluation and whether authorities monitor social media in an attempt to weed out bigoted employees. TSA does have a code of conduct that requires its employees on or off duty to conduct themselves in a way that doesn’t cause the public to question their judgment or harm the agency’s mission.

Transportation Security Administration www.tsa.gov

TSA management directive on employee conductwww.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/foia/TSA_MD_1100_73_5_FINALv2_090521.pdf

Council on American-Islamic Relations www.cairchicago.org

U.S. Department of Homeland Security www.dhs.gov/index.shtm

 

(Copyright ©2011 WLS-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

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Mitt_Romney_Walid_Phares

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Mitt Romney Appoints anti-Muslim Militiaman Walid Phares

Posted on 12 October 2011 by Garibaldi

There is a troubling track record on the Right-Wing of nominating hatemongerers, bigots and now potential associates to war crimes to key positions in their cabinets. Is it willful ignorance, stupidity, or purposeful?

We reported last on Walid Phares when Rep. Peter King announced he was going to call Phares to testify at his “Muslim American radicalization hearings.” King eventually walked back that announcement due to pressure. For God sake, Walid Phares joined an organization whose slogan was, “Kill a Palestinian and you Shall Enter Paradise.”

Mitt’s Muslim Problem

(Daily Beast)

After a prominent Baptist minister proclaimed last week that Mormonism is a non-Christian “cult” that would ideally disqualify adherents from the White House, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney enjoyed a full-throated defense from people all over the political spectrum who considered the pastor’s remarks an ugly example of religious bigotry. But Romney, a practicing Mormon, may soon find himself facing allegations of intolerance from another religious minority: American Muslims.

The Daily Beast has learned that the nation’s leading Muslim advocacy group sent a letter to the Romney campaign late Tuesday calling for the ouster of the candidate’s recently appointed foreign-policy adviser, Walid Phares. In the letter, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) refers to Phares as “an associate to war crimes” and a “conspiracy theorist,” citing ties to a violent anti-Muslim militia. Scholars and leaders throughout the Islamic community are adding pressure on Romney to drop the adviser immediately. (The Romney campaign and Phares did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)

The controversy comes at an awkward time for the campaign. Hours before CAIR’s letter was sent, Romney called on primary rival Perry to “repudiate” the anti-Mormon remarks made by the Rev. Robert Jeffress, who has endorsed the Texas governor, and touted the importance of tolerant discourse. “I just don’t believe that kind of divisiveness based on religion has a place in this country,” Romney said at a New Hampshire press conference.

Yet Phares is a divisive figure in the minds of some leading U.S. Muslims. To admirers, Phares is a well-regarded scholar who has testified before the Defense and State departments, and has worked as a terrorism expert for professional news outlets such as NBC and, most recently, Fox News.

But to critics, Phares has long been a lightning rod for charges of Islamophobia and outright aggression toward Muslims. According to CAIR, Phares, who was born in Lebanon, worked as an official in the Lebanese Forces, a Christian militia that reportedly took part in “the 1982 massacre of civilian men, women, and children at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.” In 1984, another Lebanese militia with which Phares was allegedly associated rounded up a group of men for questioning and then slaughtered them with guns and grenades, according to a news report. (There is no indication that Phares was directly involved in the violence; his roles in the organizations are reported to have been administrative.)

When he emigrated to the United States in the 1990s, Phares positioned himself as an expert on Islam and Middle East relations, allying himself with conservative think tanks and appearing frequently on television. Throughout his career as a pundit, he has warned that some Muslims are plotting a secret takeover of American institutions with the end goal of imposing Sharia.

This history of inflammatory rhetoric has drawn scorn from many corners of the American Muslim community, and CAIR’s concerns were echoed by a chorus of Islamic scholars reached by The Daily Beast.

“[Phares] is hostile to Muslims and Romney has adopted an expert who is going to alienate him from a good section of the voting public,” said Ebrahim Moosa, a Duke professor of Islamic studies.

“Frankly, it is a pathetic reflection on Governor Romney to have surrounded himself with such a person for advice on the Middle East and Islam,” said Omid Safi, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. “It would be akin to turning to [former KKK member] David Duke to get advice on race relations.”

Correy Saylor, legislative director for CAIR, is willing to give Romney the benefit of the doubt and assume he was largely unaware of Phares’s past. Saylor credits Romney with showing an increased sensitivity to Islam over the years.

During his 2008 presidential candidacy, Romney reportedly told supporters in a private meeting that he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet. But he later walked back that comment, and in this election cycle he has occasionally found himself defending Islam against his opponents’ intolerance. Saylor cited an early primary debate during which Herman Cain hypothesized that appointing a Muslim to his cabinet could open the door to the implementation of Sharia in the U.S. Romney dismissed the paranoid theory, insisting that “people of all faiths are welcome in this country.”

“He’s getting better,” Saylor concluded. “But this appointment is a step in the wrong direction.”

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sheik-yermami

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Jihad Watch University (JWU) Graduates Another Pseudo-Scholar: Sheik YerMami Declares Himself “Scholar of Islam”

Posted on 11 October 2011 by Danios

Sheik Yer Mami?  This racist image appears on Sheik Yer Mami’s site.

Islamophobes rely on pseudo-scholars to validate their anti-Muslim beliefs.  One of the pioneers in this was Bat Ye’or, who with absolutely no academic qualifications to speak of, was self-anointed a “scholar of Islam.”  Robert Spencer dubbed her a “pioneering scholar” of Islamic studies.  Not long after starting his blogging career, Spencer himself donned the title of “the acclaimed scholar of Islam,” an epithet which is found on his website.  This, even though his master’s degree is in Christian studies.  He has no educational degree related to Islam, at all.

When confronted with this uncomfortable fact, Spencer’s minions point out that he has written many “best-selling books.”  So, does anyone who writes “best-selling books” become a scholar?  Is the author of the Harry Potter series a scholar?

It seems that if you devote enough hours to blogging against Islam and cyber-attend Jihad Watch University (JWU), you can eventually claim “scholar of Islam” status.  The latest claimant to this title is Sheik YerMami, a raving anti-Muslim blogger/lunatic.  He’s been blogging for long enough that the gods of the anti-Muslim blogosphere have granted him the right to call himself a “scholar of Islam.”  Here is what Sheik YerMami said (emphasis added):

I am a scholar of Islam and I rely on Koran, sira & hadith, not on loon watch.

What academic qualifications does he have to claim “scholar” status?  Anyone?

Update I:

Sheik YerMami responded with a long, incoherent, and rambling reply to LoonWatch.  He exhibits what is called a flight of ideas.  Yet, even with all that ranting and raving, not a single word defends his claim–one which we challenged–of being a “scholar of Islam.”

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Manis Friedman

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Rabbi Manis Friedman on Treatment of Arabs

Posted on 08 October 2011 by Emperor

Manis Friedman

Manis Friedman

The article below is from 2009, but it goes well with Danios’ series on how “Jewish Law” can be interpreted by some in a bellicose and genocidal manner. Can one imagine if the below were said by a mainstream Muslim scholar? All hell would break loose. (hat tip: DE)

Popular Rabbi’s Comments on Treatment of Arabs Show a Different Side of Chabad

By Nathaniel Popper (Forward.com)

Like the best Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis, Manis Friedman has won the hearts of many unaffiliated Jews with his charismatic talks about love and God; it was Friedman who helped lead Bob Dylan into a relationship with Chabad.

But Friedman, who today travels the country as a Chabad speaker, showed a less warm and cuddly side when he was asked how he thinks Jews should treat their Arab neighbors.

“The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle),” Friedman wrote in response to the question posed by Moment Magazine for its “Ask the Rabbis” feature.

Friedman argued that if Israel followed this wisdom, there would be “no civilian casualties, no children in the line of fire, no false sense of righteousness, in fact, no war.”

“I don’t believe in Western morality,” he wrote. “Living by Torah values will make us a light unto the nations who suffer defeat because of a disastrous morality of human invention.”

Friedman’s use of phrasing that might seem more familiar coming from an Islamic extremist has generated a swift backlash. The editor of Moment, Nadine Epstein, said that since the piece was printed in the current issue they “have received many letters and e-mails in response to Rabbi Friedman’s comments — and almost none of them have been positive.”

Friedman quickly went into damage control. He released a statement to the Forward, through a Chabad spokesman, saying that his answer in Moment was “misleading” and that he does believe that “any neighbor of the Jewish people should be treated, as the Torah commands us, with respect and compassion.”

But Friedman’s words have generated a debate about whether there is a darker side to the cheery face that the Chabad-Lubavitch movement shows to the world in its friendly outreach to unaffiliated Jews. Mordecai Specktor, editor of the Jewish community newspaper in Friedman’s hometown, St. Paul. Minn., said: “The public face of Lubavitch is educational programs and promoting Yiddishkeit. But I do often hear this hard line that Friedman expresses here.”

“He sets things out in pretty stark terms, but I think this is what Lubavitchers believe, more or less,” said Specktor, who is also the publisher of the American Jewish World. “They are not about loving the Arabs or a two-state solution or any of that stuff. They are fundamentalists. They are our fundamentalists.” Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a regular critic of Arab extremists, said that in the Jewish community, “We are not immune to having these views. There are people in our community who have these bigoted, racist views.”

But, Foxman warned, Friedman’s views are not reflective of the Chabad rabbis he knows. “I am not shocked that there would be a rabbi who would have these views,” Foxman said, “but I am shocked that Moment would give up all editorial discretion and good sense to publish this as representative of Chabad.”

A few days after anger about the comment surfaced, Chabad headquarters released a statement saying that, “we vehemently disagree with any sentiment suggesting that Judaism allows for the wanton destruction of civilian life, even when at war.”

The statement added: “In keeping with Jewish law, it is the unequivocal position of Chabad-Lubavitch that all human life is G-d given, precious, and must be treated with respect, dignity and compassion.”

In Moment, Friedman’s comment is listed as the Chabad response to the question “How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?” after a number of answers from rabbis representing other Jewish streams, most of which state a conciliatory attitude toward Arabs.

Epstein said that Friedman was “brave” for stating his views so clearly.

“The American Jewish community doesn’t have the chance to hear opinions like this,” Epstein said, “not because they are rare, but because we don’t often ask Chabad and other similar groups what they think.”

The Chabad movement is generally known for its hawkish policies toward the Palestinians; the Chabad Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, rejected peace accords with the Palestinians. Rabbi Moshe Feller, the top Chabad rabbi in Minnesota, said that the rebbe taught that it is not a mitvah to kill, but that Jews do have an obligation to act in self-defense.

“Jews as a whole, they try to save the lives of others,” Feller told the Forward, “but if it’s to save our lives, then we have to do what we have to do. It’s a last resort.”

Friedman is not a fringe rabbi within the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He was the English translator for the Chabad Rebbe, and at the rebbe’s urging, he founded Beis Chana, a network of camps and schools for Jewish women. Friedman is also a popular speaker and writer on issues of love and relationships. His first book, “Doesn’t Anyone Blush Anymore?” was promoted with a quote from Bob Dylan, who Friedman brought to meet the rebbe.

On his blog and Facebook page, Friedman’s emphasis is on his sympathetic, caring side. It was this reputation that made the comment in Moment so surprising to Steve Hunegs, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council: Minnesota and the Dakotas.

“Rabbi Friedman is a best-selling author who addresses some of the most sensitive issues of the time,” Hunegs said. “I intend to call him and talk to him about this.”

But Shmarya Rosenberg, a blogger and critic of Chabad who lives a few blocks from Friedman in Minnesota, says that the comment in Moment is not an aberration from his experiences with Friedman and many other Chabad rabbis.

“What he’s saying is the standard normal view of a Chabadnik,” Rosenberg said. “They just don’t say it in public.”

For his part, Friedman was quick to modify the statement that he wrote in Moment. He told the Forward that the line about killing women and children should have been in quotes; he said it is a line from the Torah, though he declined to specify from which part. Friedman also said that he was not advocating for Israel to actually kill women and children. Instead, he said, he believed that Israel should publicly say that it is willing to do these things in order to scare Palestinians and prevent war.

“If we took this policy, no one would be killed — because there would be no war,” Friedman said. “The same is true of the United States.”

Friedman did acknowledge, however, that in self-defense, the behavior he talked about would be permissible.

“If your children are threatened, you do whatever it takes — and you don’t have to apologize,” he said.

Friedman argued that he is different from Arab terrorists who have used similar language about killing Jewish civilians.

“When they say it, it’s genocide, not self-defense,” Friedman said. “With them, it’s a religious belief — they need to rid the area of us. We’re not saying that.”

Feller, the Chabad leader in Minnesota, said that the way Friedman had chosen to express himself was “radical.”

“I love him,” Feller said. “I brought him out here — he’s magnificent. He’s brought thousands back to Torah mitzvah. But he shoots from the hip sometimes.”

Contact Nathaniel Popper at popper@forward.com.

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Herman Cain Defends His Sharia Conspiracy: ‘Call Me Crazy’

Posted on 07 October 2011 by Emperor

Herman Cain Defends His Sharia Conspiracy: ‘Call Me Crazy’

By Faiz Shakir

On ABC’s This Week, host Christiane Amanpour confronted Herman Cain about a comment he made to ThinkProgress. “There’s this creeping attempt…to gradually ease Sharia Law and the Muslim faith into our government,” Cain told us in March.

After showing Cain his quote, Amanpour asked him to respond to Chris Christie, who has said, “This Sharia law business is crap, it’s just crazy, and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies.” Cain responded:

CAIN: Call me crazy. … Some people would infuse Sharia Law in our courts system if we allow it. I honestly believe that. So even if he calls me crazy, I am going to make sure that they don’t infuse it little by little by little. … American laws in American courts, period.

AMANPOUR: American laws are in American courts. So the people of this country should be safe for the moment.

In July, Cain met with a small group of Muslims and said he was “truly sorry for any commentsthat may have betrayed my commitment to the U.S. Constitution and the freedom of religion guaranteed by it.” It’s therefore disappointing that Cain is still clinging to his anti-Sharia rhetoric.

The “creeping Sharia” threat, as CAP explained in our report “Fear, Inc.,” is the product of a hate campaign organized by a small number of Islamophobic actors who are trying to cast suspicion on the presence of all Muslims in America. In fact, Cain’s language of “American laws in American courts” is lifted directly from a right-wing lawyer named David Yerushalmi, who has been leading an effort to pass anti-Sharia measures in roughly two dozen states.

As the ACLU has explained in a thorough legal analysis, the “creeping Sharia” rhetoric is a mythical menace and a fabricated threat:

There is no evidence that Islamic law is encroaching on our courts. On the contrary, the court cases cited by anti-Muslim groups as purportedly illustrative of this problem actually show the opposite: Courts treat lawsuits that are brought by Muslims or that address the Islamic faith in the same way that they deal with similar claims brought by people of other faiths or that involve no religion at all. These cases also show that sufficient protections already exist in our legal system to ensure that courts do not become impermissibly entangled with religion or improperly consider, defer to, or apply religious law where it would violate basic principles of U.S. or state public policy.

A Center for American Progress report on Sharia explained, “It’s important to understand that adopting” the creeping Sharia rhetoric “would direct limited resources away from actual threats to the United States and bolster an anti-Muslim narrative that Islamist extremist groups find useful in recruiting.”

Recall, in 2010, Oklahoma passed a “Save our State” ballot initiative that banned Sharia in its state courts. That amendment was halted from taking effect by a federal district court. District Court Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange argued: “It would be incomprehensible if…Oklahoma could condemn the religion of its Muslim citizens, yet one of those citizens could not defend himself in court against his government’s preferment of other religious views.” The 10th Circuit court is now hearing the case.

Original post: Herman Cain Defends His Sharia Conspiracy: ‘Call Me Crazy’

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‘No ragheads’ response to plan for Islamic centre in Illinois town

Posted on 07 October 2011 by Emperor

‘No ragheads’ response to plan for Islamic centre in Illinois town

Timoth Sylvia, pastor of HOPE United Church of Christ in Naperville, first noticed the signs saying “Vote No to Mosque on 248″ early this week.

The signs relate to the possible annexation into Naperville of a 14-acre property on 248th Avenue just south of 95th Street. The land is currently owned by the United Church of Christ’s national organization. However, the Islamic Center of Naperville is working to purchase the land and get it annexed into the city. The site includes a four-bedroom house which United Church of Christ used for offices before moving to its new location at 1701 Quincy Ave. in Naperville this summer. The rest of the property is farmland.

The annexation was discussed on Wednesday night at the Naperville Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. The meeting may have been the spark for those who put the signs up in the area.

Sylvia said he got word Monday that signs had been put up on the property. He said one sign put in the front yard of the property said “No Ragheads on 248″. “It was just disheartening,” he said. There were also signs saying a basic “Vote No to Mosque on 248″ on utility poles up and down 248th Avenue, he said, and also along stretches of Route 59 in Naperville.

Naperville Sun, 6 October 2011

See also Chicago Tribune, 7 October 2011

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Robert Spencer Hates the U.S. Constitution

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Robert Spencer Hates the U.S. Constitution

Posted on 06 October 2011 by Rousseau

Robert Spencer hates the U.S. Constitution

Robert Spencer, director of the hate site Jihad Watch, has been steamed by the arguments of certain individuals and groups who have protested against the killing of Anwar Awlaki, such as the ACLU, Rep. Ron Paul, and writer Glenn Greenwald.

He says the following:

Perhaps the ACLU, CAIR, Greenwald and Paul would have been satisfied if we had airlifted an elite corps of defense attorneys into Yemen, along with a couple of cops to read al-Awlaki his Miranda rights and give him a chance to lawyer up.  Along with them, CNN could have sent all the equipment necessary to set up a satellite feed, so that al-Awlaki could have been given an international platform to spread his message of anti-Americanism, hatred and Islamic jihad.

Then everyone would have been satisfied that the rights of this stalwart American citizen had been respected, and al-Awlaki himself could have had time to ensure that his efforts to murder innocent Americans in the name of Islam would go on unimpeded if he were convicted and imprisoned for a long stretch.

What all these statements fail to take into account is that we are at war, and that this war is different from all wars that have gone before it.  Anwar al-Awlaki was an American citizen, yes.  He was also a traitor.  He was waging war against his native country.  He was an enemy combatant.  If an American citizen had gone to Germany and joined the Wehrmacht in 1942, and was killed in battle against American forces, would anyone have been raising “constitutional issues” over the killing?

Al-Awlaki was on the battlefield of this war when he was sitting at his computer exchanging e-mails with the Fort Hood jihad mass murderer, Nidal Hasan​, or working out the details of the plot to blow up American cargo planes last year.  Thus American forces were perfectly justified, legally and morally, to take him out in such a setting, without sending him a lawyer or reading him his rights or spending a few million dollars to give him a global forum to air his views.

As the nature of warfare has changed, so must also our response to it.  Al-Awlaki was not a cat burglar assassinated by rogue cops.  His killing is not a violation of anyone’s civil rights.  That this question has even been raised is indicative of just how thick the fog of ignorance still remains about the nature of the conflict we’re in, who it is exactly that we’re fighting, and what precisely we should do about it.

The short answers:  This is an Islamic jihad.  Al-Awlaki was a jihadist, dedicated to killing Americans.  He got what was coming to him.

Well then, it’s very simple, you see. President Obama, or anyone in government, can say so-and-so is a terrorist and voila! That person should be deemed an existential threat to the United States and be killed without any due process of law.

First, Spencer says that Awlaki was a traitor. He may very well have been a traitor, but we have constitutional provisions that handle this issue in Article III, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution. But if it were up to Spencer then the President or someone else in government could simply declare someone a traitor and have that person’s life taken away.

I find this logic by Spencer very illustrating not because of how mainstream this type of warped thinking is in the U.S. amongst the political punditry, but because of the hypocrisy he shows when it’s a Muslim country that does the same thing.

Recently Iran declared one of its citizens, Yusef Nadarkhani, an apostate and, as Spencer’s hate site reports it, has now dropped that charge and replaced it with a charge of treason. The same charge Spencer throws at Awlaki. Iran declares one of its citizens to be a traitor without any evidence and Spencer is there to protest against this. But the United States declares one its citizens to be a terrorist without a shred of proof offered and Spencer is smiling at the prospect at the death of the accused.

Don’t expect Spencer to catch the contradiction there.

Second, Spencer said that Awlaki was waging war. How does he know that? Because the U.S. government says so.

But didn’t the Iranian government say that Yusef Nadarkhani was a traitor? Why not believe them, too? I’m sure they have secret evidence as well.

In all seriousness, the situation with Nadarkhani should make Spencer pause and think about the implications of what he is saying about Awlaki and how it can affect civil rights in America. Instead of lusting for blood, if Spencer cared at all about civil rights he would be concerned about the abuse or potential abuse that Obama’s decision to kill Awlaki could have in the future.

But evidence doesn’t matter to Spencer – except when it’s an evil Muslim country that is attempting to punish its citizens without due process. Spencer just eats up whatever proof the U.S. government gives him – even when that proof is admittedly weak.

The Obama administration has not made public an accounting of the classified evidence that Awlaki was operationally involved in planning terrorist attacks.

But officials acknowledged that some of the intelligence purporting to show Awlaki’s hands-on role in plotting attacks was patchy.

And:

Officials said at the time the United States had voice intercepts involving a phone known to have been used by Awlaki and someone who they believed, but were not positive, was Abdulmutallab.

The proof the U.S. is offering is not even of the “full proof” variety. It’s “patchy” and they’re admittedly not even “positive” it was Awlaki who was allegedly giving instructions to another person to commit a terrorist operation.

But for Spencer, and other fake patriots like him, whatever accusations the government hurls at someone are holy, while any attempts to examine the accusations of the government are met by hostile resistance from such fake patriots. Spencer and the fake patriots care little about the Constitution, but are more concerned with killing people who haven’t been proven guilty of any crime.

Look at Spencer jumping out of his seat to show this “proof” to his readers that Awlaki was a criminal:

Spencer says:

Here is more evidence that al-Awlaki was an enemy combatant — a commander in a new kind of war.

And then Spencer offers this damning evidence:

The Homeland Security/FBI bulletin, obtained by Fox News, specifically says Awlaki, an influential new-generation figure in Al Qeada, showed the suspected Christmas Day bomber how to detonate the bomb he is accused of hiding in his underwear….

See! Homeland Security said that Awlaki taught the underwear bomber how to detonate the bomb he hid in his underwear! Never mind that this “evidence” offered by Homeland Security and Spencer is simply an accusation. Also never mind that the accused underwear bomber himself, who is not even a U.S. citizen, is getting his day in court, while Awlaki – who was a U.S. citizen and had no opportunity to defend himself against the accusations made against him – had a missile fired at him from a drone that ultimately killed him.

This is how constitutional freedoms die. They die at the hands of fools who wrap themselves in the flag, while they simultaneously smash the essence of the country they claim to be fighting for because they are cowards.

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Justice Department Official: Muslim ‘Juries’ Threaten ‘Our Values’

Posted on 05 October 2011 by Garibaldi

My favorite Spencer, Spencer Ackerman once again has the scoop. It turns out that “FBI Intelligence analysts weren’t the only ones teaching their colleagues that the U.S. is at war with the Islamic religion,” Justice Department officials and the military were in on the game as well.

They are using the trope pushed by Islamophobes that there is a “civilizational jihad” between Islam and the West. We note Tarek Masoud’s comments at a House hearing regarding this Islamophobic talking point in our article, Sue Myrick’s Muslim Brotherhood Hearing.

Justice Department Official: Muslim ‘Juries’ Threaten ‘Our Values’

by Spencer Ackerman (Wired.com)

A slide from a 2010 PowerPoint prepared by Justice Department intelligence analyst John Marsh

FBI intelligence analysts weren’t the only ones teaching their colleagues that the U.S. is at war with the Islamic religion. Justice Department officials — and even teachers at the Army’s top intellectual center — are delivering similar messages.

Danger Room has acquired a 2010 PowerPoint presentation compiled by an intelligence analyst working for the U.S. Attorney in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Reminiscent of FBI training materials exposed by Danger Room in September, the PowerPoint warns of a “Civilizational Jihad” stretching back from the dawn of Islam and waged today in the U.S. by “civilians, juries, lawyers, media, academia and charities” who threaten “our values.” The goal of that war: “Replacement of American Judeo-Christian and Western liberal social, political and religious foundations by Islam.”

When Danger Room questioned the Justice Department about the briefing, it issued a statement pledging to join the FBI in scrubbing its counterterrorism training for signs of material that equate average Muslims with terrorists.

“To ensure that Justice Department standards are upheld,” the statement reads, “the Department has today instructed all components and U.S. Attorney’s Offices to review all training materials and presentations provided by Justice Department personnel to ensure that any material presented is consistent with the Department’s standards, goals and instructions.”

But the Justice Department is hardly alone in hosting bigoted and counterproductive counterterrorism training. Even if federal prosecutors and FBI agents no longer go through such instruction, Danger Room has learned that anti-Islam training material has spread into the military. Some of the Islamophobic presenters hired by the FBI also lecture at premiere schools for military intelligence; at an online university favored by students seeking jobs in U.S. intelligence agencies and with affiliated contractors; and even at the Army’s intellectual center, Fort Leavenworth.

In other words, what the FBI once told Danger Room was an isolated incident — occurring one time in one lecture session — has spread throughout numerous government agencies over the years.

And in addition to being dubious as a matter of civil rights, experts say that the training places U.S. counterterrorism efforts at risk. “Boneheaded is a generous way to describe this training,” says counterterrorism analyst Jarret Brachman, author of Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice. “I’d lean more towards hateful, paranoid and completely counterproductive.”

 

Another slide from a 2010 PowerPoint prepared by Justice Department intelligence analyst John Marsh

The presentation in question is the work of John Marsh, a self-described “intelligence specialist” working for the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Titled “21st Century Terrorism: History, Perspective, Development” and dated May 19, 2010, it was apparently delivered to a Defense Department hazardous-materials conference.

Marsh’s presentation, which claims to be “one analyst’s view” and not that of the U.S. government, paints a harsh view of Islam. “Internal Islamic Failures/Collapse,” it advises, “Did NOT Start on 9/11,” but instead date back “~1400 years” — that is, to the birth of Islam itself and the death of the Prophet Muhammad. (Other slides take a meandering tour through world history, and specifically the very pre-Islamic Roman Empire.) “2 Inescapable facts” about contemporary terrorists, Marsh presented, are “1. All Say they are Muslims. 2. All believe they are acting as followers of the true Islam.” Oddly, Marsh doesn’t mention the 2009 shooting spree at the U.S. Holocaust Museum or the 2010 attack on an Austin, Texas IRS office; both strikes were clearly acts of terror, but neither perpetrator was Muslim.

Still, Marsh provides “disclaimers” that Muslims “can separate politics [from] religion.” He acknowledges distinctions between Shiites and Sunnis, and between average “Muslims” and hardcore “Islamists.” Some slides list “positive contributions” from Muslims, particularly in the fields of medicine, art and architecture. “Many Muslims do desire peace,” Marsh allows.

But several of Marsh’s other slides blur those distinctions. They describe Islam as operating along a “broad Muslim belief spectrum,” spanning from average “Muslim” to “Jihadi supporters/terrorists.” (The “Two ‘Faces’ of Islam,” in Marsh’s telling.) The briefing contends, “No Major Muslim group has ever renounced the doctrines of jihad of the sword.” Underscoring his point, a picture of the burning Twin Towers is paired with two minarets. Over them reads a quote: “The West never remembers and the East never forgets.”

Those aren’t the only quotes Marsh uncritically presents. A famous line borrowed from Samuel Huntington’s influential book The Clash of Civilizations — also the title of one of Marsh’s briefing slides — reads, “Islam is CONVINCED of the superiority of its CULTURE; and OBSESSED with the inferiority of its POWER.” Marsh also presents a quote from the son of the founder of Hamas, a convert to Christianity: “What matters is not whether my father is a fanatic or not, he’s doing the will of a fanatic God. It doesn’t matter if he’s a terrorist or a traditional Muslim. At the end of the day a traditional Muslim is doing the will of a fanatic, fundamentalist, terrorist God.” And bookending his presentation is a quote from Princeton’s Bernard Lewis that seems to anticipate the objections to Marsh’s own briefing: “Self censorship and political correctness will destroy our ability to discuss issues critical to our survival.”

If that sounds reminiscent of William Gawthrop, the FBI intelligence analyst who compared Islam to the Death Star, it may not be an accident. One of Marsh’s slides cites a briefing of Gawthrop’s, titled “The Sources and Patterns of Terrorism in Islamic Law,” which presents straight-line arrows leading from “Islam” to “Hostile Islamic Groups,” “Hostile or Facilitating Islamic Nations” and ultimately an “Insurgency Environment.” The countries Gawthrop lists as afflicted by Islamic insurgencies include Iraq — but also the Netherlands, England, France and even the United States.

“Ironically, this briefing could have been delivered by Osama bin Laden himself,” says Brachman. “The fact that it’s getting airtime is a disaster for our government and the American Muslim community alike.”

Marsh refused to speak to Danger Room about his presentation. Both he and his boss, U.S. Attorney Peter J. Smith, referred Danger Room to the Justice Department for comment. The Justice Department promptly disavowed Marsh’s briefing — and pledged to join the FBI in reforming its counterterrorism curriculum.

“The presentation in question does not reflect the views of the Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania or the FBI. The presentation represented ‘one analyst’s view,’ as stated in the slides, and the opinions expressed were only those of the presenter,” reads a statement prepared for Danger Room.

Nevertheless, the Department statement continues:

To ensure that Justice Department standards are upheld, the Department has today instructed all components and U.S. Attorney’s Offices to review all training materials and presentations provided by Justice Department personnel to ensure that any material presented is consistent with the Department’s standards, goals and instructions. This is particularly important with regard to training related to terrorism, countering violent extremism and other training that may relate to ongoing community outreach efforts.

Marsh, it turns out, does a fair amount of speaking on the perceived Islamic threat. In March 2011, he spoke to a Harrisburg community college’s homeland security conference on the subject of “Stealth Jihad: A Long-Term Threat to America?” (.pdf) Back in 2008, Marsh was invited to speak at the annual convention of the National Institute of Justice, the Justice Department’s R&D agency. The subject of his panel? (.pdf) “Hotbeds of Radicalization in Contemporary American Society.”

But the Justice Department is hardly the only government agency playing host to briefings that take a skeptical view of Islam. At least 10 times since 2007, Stephen Coughlin, a former consultant on Islamic law for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has lectured at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the Army’s intellectual nerve center.

Coughlin has given presentations before conservative audiences that claimed Muslim nations have a “ten year plan” to make criticism of Islam illegal under international law. He has criticized ex-President George W. Bush’s assurances that the U.S. is not at war with Islam for having a “chilling effect” on intelligence analysis. Now a visiting fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center in Washington, Coughlin gave a January talk to the FBI’s D.C. field office allegedly claiming Islamic law was incompatible with the U.S. Constitution.

“I brief the FBI, brief the Department of Defense,” Coughlin told Danger Room during a short telephone conversation.

Danger Room has confirmed that Coughlin regularly lectures before a class at the Army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth. The course is known as FA30, an “Information Operations” course, which instructs mid-career Army officers how to get the military’s message out.

When Danger Room initially called the course’s supervisor, an Army civilian named John Warner, to ask about Coughlin’s lectures, Warner abruptly ended the conversation, saying, “There’s really not a need for you guys to know this.”

Coughlin would not discuss the content of his briefings: “There’s a degree of confidentiality. If they want to talk, that’s their decision.” Before ending the conversation, he added, “I think you’re doing a hit and run and it’s pretty sleazy.”

Later, Army Col. Mike Dominique, who is in charge of training Army information operations officers at the Combined Arms Center, decided he did want to talk about Coughlin’s briefings. Dominique elaborates that his own “focus is the extremist groups” — the ones that the majors who take the FA30 course have to confront. And that is why Coughlin will continue to be invited to lecture at Leavenworth. “What Mr. Coughlin brings is a certain level of expertise on these extremist groups. He brings a perspective to the audience,” Dominique says.

But Coughlin also discussed Islam itself in the Leavenworth class. “Does he draw parallels between religion and the extremist groups? That can be seen. He uses that as an example,” Dominique says. “His only area of expertise is Islamic law. I can tell you this — and I’d like to really focus on this — my teaching point is not on the Islamic religion. That’s something we are very careful about. Who are the folks we have to deal with? We have IO [Information Operations] officers and American soldiers who are of the Muslim faith. We don’t focus on the religion aspect, but on the extremist aspect.”

A spokesman for the Combined Arms Center, Army Lt. Col. Steve Leonard, acknowledges that “in other venues, [Coughlin] may have created a negative message.” But Leonard says that even when Coughlin discusses Islam at Fort Leavenworth, he does not cross a line into anti-Islam sentiment.

“He helps the students develop a mental model of extremist groups and the process they use to influence moderate Muslims,” Leonard tells Danger Room. “He explains how extremists use the Quran and Sharia law to build a jihadist narrative that creates significant influence within a moderate population.”

In 2007, as Stephen Coughlin began lecturing on Islam at Fort Leavenworth, William Gawthrop began delivering a similar message at the premiere school for U.S. military intelligence. The class was catalogued as NFI 533, “Intelligence and Homeland Security.” It took place at the National Defense Intelligence College, the professional education institution run by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

According to a 2007 email Gawthrop sent to colleagues, obtained by Danger Room, Gawthrop saw his pedagogic activities as part of a self-initiated effort to build a “knowledge bank” of analysts “whose interests include Islamic Law and its impacts on Homeland Security.” The “informal” group would study Islamic Law’s influence on such issues as “immigration, birth rates and demographics,” “aggressive civil suits,” “Sharia Economics,” “Academia, Information Operations, and Parallel Structures.”

A spokeswoman for the DIA, Susan Strednansky, confirms to Danger Room that Gawthrop taught the 2007 course. The previous fall, he also taught a course called “Intelligence and National Security Policy Structure and Process.” Strednansky did not explain why Gawthrop’s lecturing ended.

That was not the only venue Gawthrop had to instruct U.S. intelligence analysts.

Gawthrop remains on the faculty of American Military University, an online higher-learning institution that caters primarily to military veterans and students interested in entering the security field. Gawthrop teaches classes on intelligence.

AMU is an 20-year old university — first a correspondence school, later exclusively online — that offers a variety of bachelor’s and master’s programs to its 97,000 students. About two-thirds of its students are active-duty troops or reservists. And it’s attractive to them because AMU accepts academic course credits that troops can earn in on-base education centers, so they don’t have to start their education from scratch when they finish their service. Most military and intelligence contractors require a college degree for their highest-paying jobs — and accordingly, many of AMU’s alumni are in “public safety or first-responder careers,” says AMU spokesman Brian Muys.

Gawthrop has taught at AMU since August 2007, to a “variety” of courses, each averaging about 14 students per class. “As a matter of university policy, his personal views expressed in any public forums — like those of all our other faculty — do not necessarily represent those of AMU itself,” says Muys. “Similarly, his appearance at public forums outside of our classroom environment does not otherwise imply any AMU endorsement of, or involvement in, such events.”

But American Military University recommended Gawthrop as a lecturer on Islam to the New York chapter of Infragard, a partnership organization between the FBI and the private sector, according to chapter president Joseph Concannon. On June 8, 2011, Gawthrop lectured to the group, instructing that al-Qaida was “irrelevant” compared to the threat of Islam itself. (Muys said he was unable to comment on the matter.)

The FBI explains that several of its employees have second jobs. It refused to comment on Gawthrop specifically. And as it has since the beginning of Danger Room’s expose, the FBI refused to make him available for an interview or explain why it continues to employ him.

The FBI’s parent agency, the Department of Justice, may not be taking any action to fire Gawthrop or Marsh. But in announcing its new vetting for anti-Islamophobic material in its training session, it emphasized that it views American Muslims as partners, rather than targets of the mass suspicion portrayed in the briefings.

“The Justice Department is fundamentally committed to upholding the civil rights of all Americans and is responsible for bringing to justice those who violate civil liberties,” the statement issued to Danger Room reads. “The Department’s commitment to protecting the rights of the Muslim and Arab-American communities has never been stronger, and its outreach to these communities continues daily around the country. Members of the Muslim community are indispensable partners in a shared effort to combat national security threats.”

The FBI and the Justice Department both are now reviewing their counterterrorism training for anti-Islam messages. Will the U.S. military follow suit?

Images: Justice Department intelligence analyst John Marsh’s 2010 briefing on “21st Century Terrorism.” Photo: Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

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Anya Cordell: Hate Speech Against Muslims Incites Violence

Posted on 04 October 2011 by Emperor

Hate speech against Muslims incites violence

By Anya Cordell (WashingtonPost)

Hatred is a current ‘cool’ fad—but a terribly dangerous one.

Four days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, three innocent men, (Sikh, Muslim and Egyptian Christian) were murdered. The killer of the Sikh victim vowed to “kill the ragheads,” shooting the first person he saw wearing a turban.

A Hindu man was murdered October 4, 2001, and we just marked the 10th anniversary of the day an extraordinary young Muslim, Rais Bhuiyan, was blinded in one eye and left for dead.

Even now, most articles mentioning Muslims continue to elicit strings of comments, many of which genocidally proclaim, “Kill them all.” The anti-Muslim cloud permeates our atmosphere; coloring perceptions, inciting bullying, assaults and policies.

Bhuiyan worked arduously, though unsuccessfully, to prevent the execution of his would-be killer, Mark Stroman, a swaggering self-avowed “red-neck patriot.” At his trial, Stroman raised his middle finger at the two grieving widows, whose husbands he had slain.

But Bhuiyan’s compassion, transformed the murderer. “At that time here in America everybody was saying ‘let’s get them’—we didn’t know who to get, we were just stereotyping,” Stroman told a reporter. “I stereotyped all Muslims as terrorists and that was wrong.” Moments before being executed, Stroman said. “Hate is going on in this world, and it has to stop. Hate causes a lifetime of pain.”

I wish Stroman were alive to preach his epiphany to those who are writing, yelling, garnering votes and cashing in on the ongoing smear campaign against all Muslims. Like Stroman, their commentary targets without care for the true nature of those they would harm, or inspire others to harm. Their victims are considered guilty by virtue of being born Muslim.

Last month, I was the only Jewish speaker at a predominantly Muslim conference (United for Change). Every speaker condemned 9/11 and all attacks on innocents. Each acknowledged atrocities by some who have falsely usurped Islam and distanced themselves from those criminals. This is something that Christians and Jews do not seem to need to do when members of their faith commit crimes.

At the closing, we read the Charter for Compassion . The other woman on the podium was wearing a headscarf. Some clerics were wearing long robes and the dome-shaped turbans routinely caricatured in anti-Muslim cartoons. The image was made for Islamophobes, who rail against all things Muslim.

Yet the woman looked like Mother Theresa or Mary, and the clerics were dressed no more strangely than the Pope.

A young woman at the conference told me that if one were devout, it would seem as if there was an air-conditioner under one’s scarf on hot days. I think the same magic device must be under Sikhs’ turbans, the anachronistic black coats and fur-trimmed hats of orthodox Jewish men and orthodox Jewish women’s wigs and the Pope’s mitre. Maybe the Dalai Lama has a magic heater under his saffron cotton for cold climates, and clothing challenges, including looking “different,” are something around which this unlikely group could form an alliance.

We have to be allies for one another. I received the Spirit of Anne Frank Award; for my programs and work as an ally, post 9/11–my story is at “Where the Anti-Muslim Path Leads” and (My) Life, Etc. (Post 9/11). I credit the non-Jewish friends who hid and supported Anne’s family for inspiring me to espouse the necessity of crossing gulfs on behalf of people of other religions, ethnicities, etc. I know Rais and the families of the hate-crime victims would be my ally if the tables were turned.

If those who are invested in smearing Muslims took a break from yelling and judiciously listened, I believe they would no longer be knee-jerk anti-Muslim. Islamophobes, however, deny Islamophobia while they foment it. And they seem untroubled by violence, unless it is perpetrated by Muslims.

Those whom the perpetrator of the Norway massacre credited for inspiring his vicious attacks dismissed any influence, casting aspersions instead on the victims, smearing them as Muslims and “multi-culturalists”. (A site that tracks anti-Muslim attacks, daily, is www.IslamophobiaToday.com ).

As with Holocaust deniers, evidence does not deter those who smear all Muslims. But just because many people scream something does not make it true. Similar smear campaigns by intellectuals, social and political leaders targeted Native Americans, African Americans, Jews and Japanese Americans. These cases wrought untold destruction, until they were revealed as false and horrifying in the extreme. In the wake of racism, murder and genocide, profound lessons have often been realized, but too late to reverse the irreversible.

Though I continue to hold hope, logic seems lost to Islamophobes. Since Muslims are roughly 1/5 of the world’s population, they would be wrecking massive havoc, worldwide, if their nefarious goal was domination and destruction of all non-Muslims. It clearly isn’t.

At the conference, I heard absolutely no evidence of hatred directed at anyone. Yet, Muslims are chronically impugned as haters, and, therefore, worthy of hate, according to Islamophobes.

The Charter for Compassion reminds us what makes the most sense in this crazy world: That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. I cannot top the Golden Rule, but I would also ask this question:

If hate is the problem–as it was on 9/11–how can hate be the solution?

Anya Cordell is recipient of the Spirit of Anne Frank Award, for her work against the designation of any group as “Other.” She is the author of RACE: An OPEN & SHUT Case, and presents programs against “appearance-ism” (appearance-based judging of ourselves and others), xenophobia, stereotyping, teasing, bullying, racism and all forms of bias. Following 9/11 Anya reached out to strangers and founded The Campaign for Collateral Compassion to raise awareness of the backlash against Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and others. See http://www.Appearance-ism.com

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Jewish Israeli Extremists Set Mosque on Fire, What if they Were Muslim?

Posted on 03 October 2011 by Emperor

Mosque Set Alight

Mosque Set Alight by Jewish Extremists

Can you imagine the reaction if Muslims had done this to a Synagogue or a Church?

Israeli ‘Price Tag’ Vandals Set Mosque Alight

A mosque in northern Israel has been set on fire by suspected Jewish extremists in the latest of a series of incidents known as “price tag” attacks.

The interior of the mosque in the Upper Galilee was destroyed along with many holy books. It’s thought the arsonists arrived in the early hours of Monday morning.

Graffiti including the slogan “price tag” was spray-painted on walls.

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Yasir Qadhi: Anwar al-Awlaki’s Killing Illegal and Counterproductive

Posted on 03 October 2011 by Emperor

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An interesting perspective on the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki from Yasir Qadhi.

(Hat tip: Ginger)

An Illegal and Counterproductive Assassination

by Yasir Qadhi (New York Times)

ANWAR AL-AWLAKI, the Yemeni-American cleric who was killed Friday in a C.I.A. drone attack in Yemen, appears to be the first United States citizen that our government has publicly targeted for assassination.

The accusations against him were very serious, but as a citizen, he deserved a fair trial and the chance to face his accusers in a court of law. Whether he deserved any punishment for his speech was a decision that a jury should have made, not the executive branch of our government. The killing of this American citizen is not only unconstitutional, but hypocritical and counterproductive.

The assassination is unconstitutional because the Fifth Amendment specifies that no person may “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” A group of policy makers unilaterally deciding that a particular citizen needs to be targeted is, by no stretch of the imagination, due process.

The assassination is hypocritical because America routinely criticizes (and justifiably so) such extrajudicial assassinations when they occur at the hands of another government. We most certainly don’t approve the regimes of Syria or Iran eliminating those whom they deem to be traitors. In fact, Al Qaeda’s own justifications for murder stem from the notion that its members are qualified to be the judge, jury and executioner of those whom they view as enemies. America’s moral authority is undermined if we criticize in others what we do ourselves. It only reinforces the stereotype that the United States has very little concern for its own principles. Even Nazi war criminals got their day in court, at Nuremburg.

It is ironic to note that those who have actually attempted terrorist attacks on American soil and been caught were read their Miranda rights and went to trial, even though some were not United States citizens. Yet Mr. Awlaki, who has never been accused of himself directly attempting an attack, was not given this chance.

Lastly, the assassination is counterproductive because it feeds into the martyr mythology that makes Al Qaeda’s narrative so different from that of most other terrorist groups.

If our policy makers studied history, they would realize that Sayyid Qutb, a founder of radical Islam, while popular in his life, only achieved his legendary status after the Nasser regime in Egypt had him executed, in 1966. Instantly, his books became (and remain) best sellers. Killing people doesn’t make their ideas go away.

Mr. Awlaki was born in New Mexico in 1971 while his father was pursuing graduate studies. Though his parents returned to Yemen when he was seven, he later returned to the United States to pursue degrees in engineering and education. Eventually, he became an imam, or leader, of a mosque in California and later in Virginia. During these years, it is alleged that he met multiple times with at least three of the 9/11 hijackers. But for many American Muslims, he was only known for one thing: the telling of stories from the Koran. He lectured about the lives of the prophets of God, drawing from traditional Islamic sources (and sometimes even Biblical ones).

His captivating lecture style and copious quotations from classical sources made him extremely popular, especially among American Muslim youth. During these pre-9/11 years, these lectures, still available online, became some of the hottest-selling items at some Islamic conferences across America. At this stage, he was not publicly associated with any radical views. However, after 9/11, he adopted a more adversarial and anti-American tone, eventually moving back to Yemen. He was jailed for two years (and rumored to have been tortured).

It was only after his release that he publicly began supporting Al Qaeda and issuing messages calling for attacks upon the United States. It was alleged that he came into contact with or inspired a number of people to attempt terrorist activities: Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused in the 2009 killings in Fort Hood, Tex.; Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalib, accused of trying to set off a bomb hidden in his underwear on a 2009 flight to Detroit; and Faisal Shahzad, who tried to blow up a car in Times Square last year.

Mr. Awlaki’s ideas were dangerous. His message that one cannot be a good Muslim and an American at the same time was insulting to nearly all American Muslims. His views about the permissibility of killing Americans indiscriminately were completely at odds with those of mainstream Muslim clerics around the world. He needed to be refuted. And that is why many people, myself included, were extremely vocal in doing just that.

Mr. Awlaki needed to be challenged, not assassinated. By killing him, America has once again blurred the lines between its own tactics and the tactics of its enemies. In silencing Mr. Awlaki’s voice, not only did America fail to live up to its ideals, but it gave Mr. Awlaki’s dangerous message a life and power of its own. And these two facts make the job of refuting that message now even more difficult.

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Sri Lanka Buddhist Monks Destroy Muslim Shrine

Posted on 01 October 2011 by Emperor

When one thinks of Buddhism, images of violence and intimidation do not generally come to mind. However in Sri Lanka a group of Bhuddist monks led a crowd in the destruction of a Muslim shrine.

A Sri Lankan news website showed photographs of a crowd including monks apparently reducing a small structure to a pile of rubble.

The mob waved Buddhist flags and – in one picture – burnt a green Muslim flag. There have been no other reports of what happened.

Ten years ago the Taliban destroyed the famous Bamiyan statue, the world was rightly grieved and upset at their reckless actions. Islamophobes and others exploited the situation and imputed the Taliban’s destruction to Islam, can we now say Buddhism is responsible for the destruction of the Muslim shrine?

Sri Lanka Buddhist monks destroy Muslim shrine

(BBC)

A group of Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka led a crowd that demolished a Muslim shrine last week, the BBC has learned.

This incident took place on Saturday in Anuradhapura, an ancient Buddhist city and Unesco world heritage site.

The monk who led the group told the BBC he did it because the shrine was on land that was given to Sinhalese Buddhists 2,000 years ago.

But a prominent Muslim in the area said he was very sad and the sentiment was shared by many Sinhalese too.

A Sri Lankan news website showed photographs of a crowd including monks apparently reducing a small structure to a pile of rubble.

The mob waved Buddhist flags and – in one picture – burnt a green Muslim flag. There have been no other reports of what happened.

‘Police presence’

But the BBC has spoken to the monk, Amatha Dhamma Thero, who admits masterminding the demolition of the Muslim shrine.

He said he arranged a gathering of 100 or so monks, including some from other Asian countries, to take action because – he alleged – local Muslims were trying to convert the shrine into a mosque despite new constructions being illegal on this site with its many Buddhist temples.

He said local government officials arrived and said they would remove the shrine within three days, but the crowd said “we cannot wait” and proceeded to tear down the structure.

Some witnesses say that the police were present during the incident and did not do anything to stop the destruction of the shrine. Amatha Dhamma Thero says that the police were there to prevent communal clashes.

But the police deny they were present at all.

“This is a fabricated story. No media in Sri Lanka has reported this and we don’t have any police report. If this happened there would have been a complaint. We have not received any complaint,” outgoing police spokesman Prishantha Jayakody told BBC Sinhala.

One councillor told the BBC that mosque officials were afraid to complain about an attack that occurred while senior police officers were present.

The demolition has been denounced by a local senior Muslim and a local Sinhalese politician.

‘Government should act’

The Muslim, Abdul Razack, denied that a mosque was planned and said the demolished shrine was about 300 years old and had attracted visitors of other faiths too.

He said local Muslims and Buddhists alike were concerned at what happened but Muslims had avoided the site on Saturday, fearing sectarian disharmony.

The politician, Aruna Dissanayake, said the government should act against those who had attacked the shrine.

A minority was trying to create sectarian problems in a place where most Muslims and Sinhalese Buddhists co-existed well, he added.

Most of Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese are Buddhist, and Muslims are regarded as a separate ethnic group.

In a recent newspaper column, a veteran Muslim journalist said there was a growing fear among his community that some people were running a campaign to incite the Sinhalese against them, including through Sinhalese websites and print media.

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Radical Anti-Muslim Islamophobe Nonie Darwish Invited to Speak at George Mason Law School

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Radical Anti-Muslim Islamophobe Nonie Darwish Invited to Speak at George Mason Law School

Posted on 30 September 2011 by Garibaldi

Nonie giving a passionate anti-Muslim lecture

Nonie Darwish, a staple of the Right-wing anti-Muslim Islamophobia network has been invited to speak by the George Mason Law School. She is scheduled to speak at the law school on October 5. [5 p.m., Room 121]. Her address, titled “The West’s Clash with Radicalism,” is sponsored by the Federalist Society and the Jewish Law Students Association. We urge all loonwatchers to contact the school and ask that she be disinvited.

Recently Nonie Darwish let loose her radical and violent rhetoric at an SIOA rally. (Bear in mind that SIOA has been designated an anti-Muslim hate group by the SPLC and was denied a trademark patent by the US government.)

Islam is a poison to a society. It’s divisive. It’s hateful. Look what Islam is doing on our college campuses. It’s full of anti-Semitism. It’s going to turn us against one another. It’s going to produce chaos in society. Because Islam should be feared, and should be fought, and should be conquered, and defeated, and annihilated, and it’s going to happen. Ladies and gentlemen, Islam is going to be brought down. . .Because Islam is based on lies and it’s not based on the truth. I have no doubt whatsoever that Islam is going to be destroyed.

We have also dealt with Nonie Darwish’s radicalism in past articles. One of the most recent articles dealt with the fact that she was called as a witness in a New York State Senate hearing on “preparedness since 9/11″:

Like most in the anti-Muslim business, Nonie has a greatly exaggerated personal sob-story backed up by book deals and speaking engagements in all the typical “hating on Muslim” venues. She sells herself as a “human rights activist,” as do so many other virulent Muslim-bashers, though she doesn’t seem to care too much about the human rights of Muslims. This time, however, she will be using the pseudonym “Nahid Hyde,” perhaps as a not-so-clever way of avoiding government inquiry into her association with other bigots and white supremacists. Yet, even a cursory view of her ridiculous book titles should cause any serious security official to question her credibility as a fair and impartial witness.

The reviewer of her latest book, “Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law,” (which sells for a whopping $28.99) stated:

In her estimation, Islam is a backward and authoritarian ideology that is attempting to impose on the world the norms of seventh-century Bedouin life. For Darwish, Islam is a sinister force that must be resisted and contained.

It must be difficult to pack so many stereotypes into 272 pages, but Ms. Darwish has done it, making such bold generalizations and demonstrably false claims as:

Sharia is incompatible with any state that has as a foundational principle the equality of the sexes before the law.

Perhaps she should “educate” the Grand Mufti of Egypt, who recently remarked:

Egypt’s religious tradition is anchored in a moderate, tolerant view of Islam. We believe that Islamic law guarantees freedom of conscience and expression (within the bounds of common decency) and equal rights for women. And as head of Egypt’s agency of Islamic jurisprudence, I can assure you that the religious establishment is committed to the belief that government must be based on popular sovereignty.

But disclosing some enlightening and nuanced facts about contemporary Islam or the multivalent, non-monolithic view and relationship Muslims have with Islamic Law would ruin her book sales and speaking tours, wouldn’t it?

Like other Islamophobes, she is careful to make a distinction between Islam and Muslims, so as not to appear like the plain bigot she is:

Darwish is careful to distinguish between people and ideas: “The purpose of this book is not to spread hatred of a people but to tell the truth about the wickedness of Islamic Sharia law.”

Such distinctions are disingenuous, pro-forma statements that only fool the naïve into thinking she isn’t a professional hate-monger. (Right, just like how Pam Geller loves those Moozlims so much she wants to drop nuclear bombs on them, out of love, of course.)

Contrary to her assertion, Ms. Darwish regularly engages in dehumanizing rhetoric about all Muslims, not just extremists. She even told the New York Times:

A mosque is not just a place for worship. It’s a place where war is started, where commandments to do jihad start, where incitements against non-Muslims occur. It’s a place where ammunition was stored.

That was one of her tamer statements dressed up before a liberal audience. Such sweeping outright lies have been instrumental in the spread of anti-Muslim, anti-Sharia, and anti-Mosque hysteria in our country, materializing in over 800 documented cases of anti-Muslim violence and discrimination. When confronted about her lies, she will likely attempt to dismiss her critics as agents of the Mad Mullah Conspiracy, rather than owning up to the falsity of her claims.

It is sad that Darwish is still getting a pass on her bigotry and lies and finding mainstream audiences willing to listen to her spout her desire to see the demise and destruction of Islam. For more on Darwish read the article, Nonie Darwish Caught in a Pool of Lies.

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John Jay: Close Ally of Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, Co-Founder of SIOA Calls for Mass Murder of Muslims

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John Jay: Close Ally of Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, Co-Founder of SIOA Calls for Mass Murder of Muslims

Posted on 30 September 2011 by Garibaldi

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer’s close ally, John Jay (a founding member of SIOA) is calling for the mass murder of all Muslims–again. We reported on him previously in our piece, SIOA Co-Founder: Kill Your Liberal Relatives and All Muslims.

Anders Breivik redux anyone? And yes, he is a US citizen.

If John Jay inspires someone to kill a bunch of Muslims will we need drones to hunt him down?

Pamela Geller Associate John Jay Openly Calls for Mass Murder

(Little Green Footballs)

One of the groups founded by anti-Muslim demagogues Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer is called the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), an “umbrella” group that provides cover for their other activities and funding for their anti-Muslim advertisements.

John Jay, one of the founding members of the board of AFDI and a very frequent commenter at Pamela Geller’s website, has posted a manifesto very reminiscent of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik’s — a deranged, violent fantasy of mass murder: summer patriot, winter soldier: start the revolution …

start the revolution …

first things first.—

1.)take out the talking head media, and burn the new york times, the los angeles times and the washington post to the ground.  draw and quarter the media, and shoot their remains from canons in the four directions of the prevailing winds.

rinse, lather, repeat as needed.

2.)take out all the incumbent leadership of both parties in the congress, and every self avowed socialist and communist in congress.  give them all proper muslim burials at sea, just like osama bin laden.

eliminate pensions for congressional service.  rinse, lather, repeat as needed.

3.)eliminate the faculty senates at harvard, yale, columbia, nyu and university of california at santa barbara.  boil bill ayers, bernie dorhn and angela davis in canola oil, and feed their remains to the fishes.

“send all of the muslim immigrants back to their native countries, in boxes or tourist, their choice”— John Jaythey are all physical cowards.  they should fall into line pretty quickly.  repeat every ten years as a prophylactic, on general principle.

and,

4.)now that the “arab spring” has brought enlightenment to the middle east, send all of the muslim immigrants back to their native countries, in boxes or tourist, their choice.

burn all the mosques.  period.

just sayin’.

john jay @ 09.26.2011

p.s.  burn the editors and contributors to “the daily kos” at the stake.  i’ll think of something suitable for hilary clinton.  bill, he has to room with jimmy carter in a clapped out pickup & camper on the edge of a southern peanut field, somewhere in arkansas: that’s about as close to a living hell as i can imagine for him.

and, throw all the living governors of new york, california, ohio, illinois, washington, florida and massachusetts into the fiery pits, from which there is no escape.  sorry, jeb.  but, i think that you were a skull & bones internationalist, too, weren’t you?

A stunning level of hatred and incitement, even for these crazed bigots. Let’s hope the authorities are keeping as close an eye on this lunatic as they are on radical Muslims.

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President Obama: Judge, Jury and Executioner for Anwar al-Awlaki

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President Obama: Judge, Jury and Executioner for Anwar al-Awlaki

Posted on 30 September 2011 by Garibaldi

The title may offend some, but here at Loonwatch we do not believe in any sacred cows. By now we have all heard reports about the killing of accused terrorist and mastermind behind the “underwear bomber” and “Fort Hood shootings,” US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. The fact that he was on a “hit list” that included other US citizens was reported back in January:

It was first reported in January of last year that the Obama administration had compiled a hit list of American citizens whom the President had ordered assassinated without any due process, and one of those Americans was Anwar al-Awlaki.

After several unsuccessful attempts by the US government Anwar al-Awlaki is finally dead. The indefatigable Glenn Greenwald spells out the tendentious nature of the hunt for Awlaki and all the resultant shadiness:

No effort was made to indict him for any crimes (despite a report last October that the Obama administration was “considering” indicting him).  Despite substantial doubt among Yemen experts about whether he even has any operational role in Al Qaeda, no evidence (as opposed to unverified government accusations) was presented of his guilt.  When Awlaki’s father sought a court order barring Obama from killing his son, the DOJ argued, among other things, that such decisions were “state secrets” and thus beyond the scrutiny of the courts.  He was simply ordered killed by the President: his judge, jury and executioner.  When Awlaki’s inclusion on President Obama’s hit list was confirmed, The New York Times noted that “it is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing.”

Awlaki once was a marginal figure, on the run in the mountains of Yemen, his operational role in AlQaeda was nill, now he has been transformed into a martyr with a little help from our brutal friend, the President of Yemen:

After several unsuccessful efforts to assassinate its own citizen, the U.S. succeeded today (and it was the U.S.).  It almost certainly was able to find and kill Awlaki with the help of its long-time close friend President Saleh, who took a little time off from murdering his own citizens to help the U.S. murder its.  The U.S. thus transformed someone who was, at best, a marginal figure into a martyr, and again showed its true face to the world.  The government and media search for The Next bin Laden has undoubtedly already commenced.

The implications for our civil liberties and checks and balances on the power of the Executive are clear:

What’s most striking about this is not that the U.S. Government has seized and exercised exactly the power the Fifth Amendment was designed to bar (“No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law”), and did so in a way that almost certainly violates core First Amendment protections (questions that will now never be decided in a court of law). What’s most amazing is that its citizens will not merely refrain from objecting, but will stand and cheer the U.S. Government’s new power to assassinate their fellow citizens, far from any battlefield, literally without a shred of due process from the U.S. Government.  Many will celebrate the strong, decisive, Tough President’s ability to eradicate the life of Anwar al-Awlaki — including many who just so righteously condemned those Republican audience members as so terribly barbaric and crass for cheering Governor Perry’s execution of scores of serial murderers and rapists — criminals who were at least given a trial and appeals and the other trappings of due process before being killed.

From an authoritarian perspective, that’s the genius of America’s political culture.  It not only finds way to obliterate the most basic individual liberties designed to safeguard citizens from consummate abuses of power (such as extinguishing the lives of citizens without due process).  It actually gets its citizens to stand up and clap and even celebrate the destruction of those safeguards.

Greenwald’s evaluation is dark because of the uncomfortable truth he relates: we are cheering the destruction of the very liberties that safeguard us from the abuses of power.

This is all being done under the guise of defending our “freedom” and “security.” In reality, as terror expert Professor Charles Kurzman points out, very few Muslims were interested in Awlaki’s message:

Given that Awlaki’s messages is sitting on the internet, easily accessible to millions of English speaking Muslims, it’s very interesting how few have taken him up on his demand that Muslims join the revolutionary movement.

It is time that US citizens stand up for their rights and say we will not allow the government to take the life of our citizens without due process. We are not going to buy the line that our civil liberties and freedoms must be bargained in the interest of “security,” especially from a threat that is overblown in the first place.

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Banned Books Week: Read ‘The Hunger Games’ or the ‘Koran’

Posted on 29 September 2011 by Amago

Banned Books Week: Read ‘The Hunger Games’ or the ‘Koran’

By Liz Kelly Nelson

Thanks to the vigilance of the American Library Association (ALA), the list of books banned or challenged in 2010-2011 isn’t as long as it could be, but it’s long enough to keep a person out of books for at least a year. Every year during Banned Book Week the ALA works to keep books considered controversial, obscene or profane on library shelves and in schools.

In the past year, books in danger of censorship include Suzanne Collins’ popular “Hunger Games” series, which was adapted into a screenplay and will arrive in theaters sometime in 2012 to torment parents and others who think it numbs kids to violence. A Virginia school system also tried to ban “The Diary of Anne Frank,” when it received a complaint that the book “sexual material and homosexual themes.”

The ALA asks that from Sept. 24 – Oct. 1, lovers of literature read a banned book. Below, some titles from the 2010-2011 list to get you started:

  • “The Hunger Games,” Suzanne Collins
  • “The Diary of Anne Frank,” Anne Frank
  • “Water for Elephants,” Sarah Gruen
  • “Brave New World,” Alduous Huxley
  • “The Koran”
  • “The Catcher in the Rye,” J.D. Salinger
  • “Push,” Sapphire
  • “Slaughter-house 5,” Kurt Vonnegut
  • “Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India,” Joseph Lelveld
  • “My Mom’s Having a Baby,” Dori Hillested Butler

Follow Zap2it on Twitter and Zap2it on Facebook for the latest news and buzz 

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79284041-israeli-terrorism

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State Funded Terrorism by the Israeli Government

Posted on 28 September 2011 by Emperor

The hollow words of Netanyahu are even more pronounced when we realize his government is in fact funding extremist radical Yeshivas (Jewish religious colleges) in West Bank settlements.

Can you imagine if this were a Muslim country? We wouldn’t hear the end of “state funded terrorism.” (hat tip: T.H. and MrIslamAnswersBack)

Israeli agency urges funding to be cut from extremist settler college

by Donald MacIntyre (The Independent)

Israel’s domestic intelligence agency is urging the government to stop funding a religious college in a Jewish West Bank settlement after warning that its senior rabbis are encouraging students to attack Palestinians.

The intelligence agency, Shin Bet, pressed a month ago for an immediate block on the annual £226,000 grant for the religious college, or yeshiva, in the notoriously extreme settlement of Yitzhar, near Nablus. The Education Ministry has reportedly yet to take a decision despite two meetings with Shin Bet.

Residents of the nearby Palestinian village of Asira El Qbilya say the masked, club-wielding teenage settlers who invaded it last week came from Yitzhar.

The Israeli military disclosed last month that it had issued restraining orders on 12 settlers from the Yitzhar area for “violent and clandestine activity” targeting Palestinians in the West Bank, including endangering lives by “igniting… mosques, vehicles and buildings”.

The head of the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva complex in the settlement, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, has been filmed accompanying students who threw stones at a Palestinian village. Rabbi Shapira is the author of The King’s Torah, a book which suggests that Jewish law on occasion permits the killing of non-Jews.

There was heightened tension in parts of the West Bank last week as Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, submitted his application for UN recognition. A Palestinian was shot dead in Qusra, also near Nablus, by Israeli troops after confronting villagers who gathered in response to a settler invasion. A Jewish settler and his one-year-old son were killed in a car crash near Hebron, which the police say was probably caused by Palestinians throwing stones.

Meanwhile, the US joined Palestinian leaders in condemning Israeli government approval yesterday for the construction of 1,100 new homes in the Jerusalem area settlement of Gilo. It came only days after the international quartet of the US, EU, Russia and the UN urged the parties to “refrain from provocative actions” that might jeopardise future negotiations.

A US State Department official said Washington saw the “continued expansion of settlements” as “corrosive not only to peace efforts and a two-state solution, but to Israel’s future itself”.

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Two Charged in Attack on South Asian Men were Inspired by Breivik

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Two Charged in Attack on South Asian Men were Inspired by Breivik

Posted on 28 September 2011 by Emperor

Anders Breivik

Anders Breivik

Inspired by Breivik.

Two men charged for Breivik ‘tribute’ attack

(the Local)

Two men, aged 25 and 26, were charged in Västerås on Friday for attempted murder in connection with attacks on two men of south Asian origin at the end of July.

According to the prosecutor the case concerns a hate crime with the men targeting their victims due to their foreign origin.

Four days after the attacks in Oslo and Utøya which left 77 dead, a man sleeping on a bench in the town of Västerås was attacked. He was seriously injured and was relieved of his mobile phone.

Two days later another man, this time of Sri Lankan origin, was stabbed and seriously injured while completing his paper round.

According to the police report on the case, the accused, who deny the charges, expressed hatred of immigrants in the attack with one screaming “Go home” to the bleeding victim and then pausing to draw a swastika on the man’s bag.

According to the Dagens Nyheter daily the police report details that one of the defendants sent the follow text message to the other shortly after Behring Brevik’s terror attack on July 22nd:

“A Norwegian ‘Nazi’ has killed like, around 84! From the left who, like, cheered on Islam. HAHAHA!! WHITE POWER!”

The men were arrested shortly after the second attack.

A police inspection of computers seized in the defendants homes has revealed pictures of the men raising their arms in a Nazi-style salute in front of the Swedish flag.

Furthermore the men’s internet history showed that they spent time immediately prior to the attack in the early hours of July 28th visiting a racist YouTube channel.

TT/The Local/pvs (news@thelocal.se)

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Honor Killings: The Epidemic that Isn’t

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Honor Killings: The Epidemic that Isn’t

Posted on 28 September 2011 by Ilisha

My previous article describes how anti-Muslim bigots use young Muslim murder victims as props in their campaign of hate.  Sensational headlines, haunting photographs, and lurid tales of cold blooded murder are indispensable tools in their campaign to vilify Islam.   This campaign is bolstered by a set of core themes that are reinforced through tireless repetition.

Islamophobes portray honor killings as a special kind of evil that is unique to Islam, and greatly exaggerate the prevalence of these crimes.  Atlas Shrugs, Jihad Watch, and Frontpage Magazine rarely miss an opportunity use the phrase “Islamic honor killing,” which has joined “creeping sharia” and “stealth jihad” in an endless parade of misleading slogans and catchphrases.  All of these themes converge in paranoid conspiracy theories about Muslims taking over and imposing barbarism in the Western world.

Most of their arguments depend on casual acceptance and do not stand up to scrutiny.  With the help of some grade school math, relevant facts, and a healthy dose of global context, it is fairly easy to set the record straight.

The term “honor killing” was not coined by Islamophobes, even though it serves their agenda well.  Many human rights organizations track honor killings as a subcategory of homicides or femicides (killing of women).  For our purposes, that’s a good thing because it allows us to refute the idea of widespread honor killings using statistics from credible sources.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates there are 5,000 murders classified as honor killings each year worldwide, and they are not all perpetrated by Muslims.  To put that into perspective, consider that the World Health Organization says there are over half a million annual homicides in the world. Using basic math, we can conclude that honor killings make up less than 1% of all murders.

If 1% of the world’s Muslims perpetrated an honor crime each year, we could project at least 1 million incidents.   The number is far lower, and leaves 99.99% of the Muslim population innocent of this crime.  Why should all Muslims be indicted for the actions of a negligible minority?

Pamela Geller says, “over 90% of honor killings worldwide are Islamic,” and Robert Spencer quotes the exact figure at 91%.  Spencer links to an article on the Middle East Forum as the source of this statistic. This is an anti-Muslim propaganda site founded by Daniel Pipes, and the article there is authored by Phyllis Chesler, who is yet another rabid Islamophobe.

Chesler quotes the same estimate of 5,000 annual honor killings worldwide, but she says the true number is “much greater.” “Definitive or reliable worldwide estimates of honor killing incidence do not exist,” she concedes, yet she is somehow certain the the number is much greater.

She cites a study of the media throughout her article, which found, “there were 100 victims murdered for honor in the West, including 33 in North America and 67 in Europe.” Taking her study at face value, do you think 33 honor killings constitutes an epidemic?  Stinging insects kill more than 40 people each year in the US, which is more than the number of honor killings Chesler reported over the course of her study for all of North America.  Chesler says, “to combat the epidemic [emphasis mine] of honor killings requires understanding what makes these murders unique.”

In the US, an estimated 1200 women are killed by their spouse or partner each year.  Chesler herself states that, “In the non-immigrant West, serious domestic violence exists which includes incest, child abuse, marital rape, marital battering, marital stalking, and marital post-battering femicide.” Yet for some reason, she feels it is more important to focus on the unique nature of honor killings than to address the broader issue of violence in her own country.

To her credit, Chesler does not blame honor killings on Sharia, nor does she say these crimes are religiously sanctioned in Islam. Instead she resorts to blaming them on Islamic culture. The Director of Human Rights Watch says that honor killings cut across cultures and religions, and that dowry deaths and crimes of passion have a similar dynamic.

Dowry killings actually outnumber honor killings, and they are on the rise. Women with insufficient dowries are murdered or driven to suicide in what are often disguised as kitchen accidents. For this reason they are sometimes called “bride burnings.” In 2008, there were over 8,000 dowry deaths reported in India alone.

Murders for crossing caste boundaries are also similar to honor killings in that they are a cultural inheritance, victims are usually killed by their own family members, and the crimes are often endorsed or encouraged by village-based caste councils. The caste system is outlawed, but it remains entrenched in parts of India and Nepal, neither of which has a Muslim majority.

Honor killings also share features with other forms of femicide outside of the Middle East and South Asia.  Just a 10-15 minute drive from El Paso, Texas, USA, there is a border town in Mexico called Ciudad Juarez. Over the last two decades hundreds of women have been kidnaped, brutally raped, tortured, and murdered in Juarez, and the perpetrators remain free.  Femicides in Mexico have nearly doubled from 1,085 in 2007 to 1,926 in 2009.

There were nearly 700 murders of women in neighboring Guatemala in 2010, and 1,110 reported cases of femicide in Honduras between 2008 and 2010.  Of the cases in Honduras, only a 211 made it to court, and a mere 4.2% resulted in a conviction.

High rates of homicide and femicide also plague many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.  In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, rape is used as a weapon of war in a systematic pattern of destruction that has claimed an estimated 2 million victims. The conflict in the Congo has resulted in more deaths than the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Darfur (Sudan) combined.

The United Nations says, “The brutality and scale of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo almost defies imagination.” Over five million people have died in the last 10 years in what 60 Minutes described as a “War Against Women.

Imagine the photos Geller could harvest for “Islam’s Gruesome  Gallery,” featured on her website Atlas Shrugs, if only this were an Islamic country.  Since the overwhelming majority of the people in the Congo are Christians, these crimes don’t receive the spotlight on anti-Muslim hate sites.

How can anyone genuinely interested in the rights of women ignore the situation in the Congo? Even if Islamophobes could substantiate their claims that honor killings are exceptionally barbaric and unique to Islam, that would not be a justification focusing on them exclusively.

True human rights activists don’t discriminate among murder victims.  All major human rights organizations address honor killings in context, and they do not promote these crimes as a way to spread fear and hatred toward Islam.  Islam also takes a universal approach, likening the killing of one human being to the killing of the entire human race (Qur’an 5:32, 6:151, 17:33).

In her book proposal for Stop the Islamization of America, Geller described herself as, “One of America’s foremost activists for human rights and freedom.” If she were sincere, she would give up her vicious campaign against Islam and join us in the struggle to end violence against women from all cultural and religious backgrounds.

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Gates of Vienna Incites for Muslim Holocaust

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Gates of Vienna Incites for Muslim Holocaust

Posted on 26 September 2011 by Guest

by Farha Khaled

Gates of Vienna the notorious white supremacist blog which published Fjordman and inspired Anders Brievik, recently published a three part essay which calls for the Holocaust of Muslims.

This is the same far right cesspool-of-bigotry-website notorious for publishing Pedar Jensen who vented his Islamophobia for many years under the pen name of Fjordman, and who has now gone into hiding after being interviewed by Norwegian police over the Anders Breivik massacre. Gates of Vienna is run by a couple in the USA, one Baron Bodissey whose real name is thought to be ‘Ned May’ and a woman calling herself Dymphna.

This is not first time Gates of Vienna has published screeds supposedly written by other anonymous contributors calling for the genocide of Muslims. A few years back a similar lovingly written piece inciting for the genocide of Muslims was published as Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs noted in Gates of Vienna Toys with Genocide:

‘If violence does erupt in European countries between natives and Muslims, I consider it highly likely that people who had never done anything more violent than beat eggs will prove incapable of managing the psychological transition to controlled violence and start killing anything that looks remotely Muslim. Our unspoken conviction that we, in 21st-century Europe, ‘

On 20th September 2011,  Dymphna Of Gates of Vienna posted a three part series by one Zenster with the introduction:

 This is the first of a three part essay dealing with Islamic terrorism and what can be expected regarding Islam’s ultimate fate.

Moving on to Part 1, titled  ‘When Will It End?’ the essay begins by setting the tone with:

‘Short answer ― It will end when the tipping point is reached. This tipping point can be defined as follows:

When living with Muslims becomes more trouble than living without Muslims.

A long rambling justification about the costs of policing airlines from terrorists, and how that money could be better spent on fighting aids and other social ills follows, in an obvious attempt to find some sort of moral justification as to why there is no other way. It ends  with the ominous warning ‘The tipping point is approaching swiftly’

Part two of the essay has the presumptuous title Why it will End? and answers the question by stating ‘Islam has “unhappy ending” written all over it’ before going on to elaborate with hyperbole and lies including one manufactured on Gates of Vienna by Fjordman:

‘Throughout Europe, Muslims are disproportionately represented in rape, violent crime and imprisonment statistics. The expense of this criminality reaches into extra billions of Euros per year and does not cover property damage, victim rehabilitation and other ancillary expenses. Nor does this speak to the same criminal practices and consequences resulting from ostensibly legal immigration into Europe by tens of millions of Muslims over the past few decades.’

The rapes statistics in Scandinavia that Fjordman published at Gates of Vienna which were then repeated on the Islamophobic blogosphere were proven to be lies. Zenster continues his mental masturbation:

The reputation of Muslims as predatory criminals and intensely parasitic occupiers all combines into a damning indictment of Islam. Its presence on earth only promises increased conflict, more atrocities, new genocides and unwarranted diversions of wealth that could better serve far more deserving causes. Finally, Islam is assembling too many enemies too fast to where they cannot be expected to keep pursuing their own petty quarrels instead of addressing the overarching threat of jihad. The complete and total inability of Islam to coexist with any legitimate faith or other culture presages a day when its numerous victims will band together in pursuit of an ultimate victory.

That is why it will end.

In the concluding Part three, How it will End? Zenster sums it up briefly: ‘The Muslim holocaust.‘ He then continues exhibiting more megalomania and what clearly appears to be a projection of his own fantasies:

‘Suffused with delusions of adequacy, Muslims think nothing of constantly antagonizing Western powers who long ago perfected industrialized warfare to an extent that Islam can only dream of, despite its supremacist fantasies.’

This could explain why the far right white supremacists see Israel as an ally. They see Israel as doing their dirty work for them, and as if on cue Zenster trots out the Samson option:

‘Neither is this the end of it. Iran’s reckless pursuit of genocide against the Jews could precipitate the Muslim holocaust all by itself. Little known to most people is Israel’s Samson Option. If true, the Jewish state has quietly informed its Arab neighbours that a single WMD strike against Israel will result in the entire MME (Muslim Middle East) being incinerated in nuclear plasma. Hundreds of fusion warheads along with newly acquired Dolphin class submarines and cruise missiles back this up.’

Contradictions galore! Elsewhere in this three part essay the author talks of the plot to establish the world Caliphate, but here he says he is convinced it won’t come about. Freudian slip? :

‘Now, consider how America rolled up Iraq’s sidewalks in two weeks. This is the “reality gap” confronting Islam and its delusory vision of world domination. No such thing will ever happen.’

More ramblings, perhaps to justify his own dreams of nuclear warfare

‘It is more than safe to say that an industrially and militarily unlettered Islam is not going to take over the world using such a feeble tool as terrorism. As was also noted in Part II, Islam is assembling too many enemies too fast and that pace far outstrips any ability of theirs to perfect the mass production of intricate nuclear weapons nor muster fighting forces of even marginal proficiency. Chronic overreach is a hallmark of Islam and its habit of poking at the Western nuclear dragon with its terrorist pointed wooden stick bodes especially unwell for Muslims everywhere.’

The essay is full of dire warnings, rants about liberals who are complicit in Islamising the planet, of the political establishment for being too weak, but more gravely, it even condemns the ‘counter jihad’ movement for not calling for a ‘solution’ and for being too soft.

When you hear of so called ‘counter jihadis’ accused of being ‘soft’ and the whole of western civilization embroiled in a plot whose aim it is to – err- destroy themselves – it is safe to assume you are reading from someone not quite right in the head, to put it politely. Someone who doesn’t deserve a second thought and should ordinarily be dismissed as a raving loon. Except that it was at this very website, where a writer with the same Islamophobic rhetoric inspired a loner to kill tens of children on a holiday island!

Farha Khaled is a columnist for the Saudi based Arab News.

http://farhakhaled.blogspot.com  http://twitter.com/farhakhaled

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geocentric

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Some Catholics Still Believe in a Geocentric Universe

Posted on 24 September 2011 by Emperor

Should all Catholics be judged by this fringe group who are challenging modern science? What if they were Muslim? There would be ceaseless discussion about how Islam is incompatible with science and modernity. (hat tip: Ahmed)

Galileo got it wrong: Catholics

(The West Australian)

Scientists have got it wrong – Earth really is the centre of the universe, according to a group of staunch Catholics who refuse to believe otherwise.

“A few conservative Roman Catholics are pointing to a dozen Bible verses and the church’s original teachings as proof that Earth is the centre of the universe, the view that was at the heart of the church’s clash with Galileo Galilei four centuries ago,” The Chicago Tribune has reported.

“The relatively obscure movement has gained a following among those who find comfort in knowing there are still staunch defenders of early church doctrine.

“By challenging modern science, proponents of a geocentric universe are challenging the very church they seek to serve and protect.

“Those promoting geocentrism argue that heliocentrism, or the centuries-old consensus among scientists that Earth revolves around the sun, is a conspiracy to squelch the church’s influence.”

Robert Sungenis, the leader of a movement urging scientists to reconsider their opinion, said believing in heliocentrism was dangerous.

“False information leads to false ideas, and false ideas lead to illicit and immoral actions – thus the state of the world today,” Mr Sungenis told The Tribune.

“Prior to Galileo, the church was in full command of the world, and governments and academia were subservient to her.”

Astrophysicists at Catholic university Notre Dame in the United States said there was good reason why the concept of geocentrism was extinct.

“It’s an idea whose time has come and gone,” astrophysics professor Peter Garnavich told The Tribune.

“There are some people who want to move the world back to the 1950s when it seemed like a better time. These are people who want to move the world back to the 1250s.”

Professor Garnavich said geocentrism “violates what he believes should be a strict separation of church and science”, according to The Tribune.

“One answers why, the other answers how, and never the twain should meet.”

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Pamela Geller to Delete Posts as Part of Settlement in Rifqa Bary Lawsuit

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Pamela Geller to Delete Posts as Part of Settlement in Rifqa Bary Lawsuit

Posted on 23 September 2011 by Emperor

More retreating from the anti-Muslim bigots. Pamela Geller will probably scream censorship, however this just underscores how obscene and twisted Pamela Geller’s anti-Muslim crusade during the Rifqa Bary case was (hat tip: W. Ruiz):

Tarazi had argued that New York-based blogger Pamela Geller defamed him by alleging he has terrorist ties. One posting linked him to Hamas, for example, which the State Department has designated a foreign terrorist organization.

That blog and four others will be removed permanently from Geller’s “Atlas Shrugs” blog under the settlement, which did not involve any money.

Anti-Islamic blogger to delete posts as part of settlement in Rifqa Bary lawsuit

By (Florida Independent)

Pamela Geller, an anti-Islamic blogger based in New York, settled a lawsuit filed by one of Rifqa Bary’s attorneys this week.

Bary, a minor, fled from her parent’s house in Ohio to Florida because she converted to Christianity. According to Bary’s attorneys, she moved to Florida in an effort to practice Christianity away from her disapproving parents. A website created about the case claims that Bary left “after her father threatened to kill her for apostasy, a crime under Islamic Sharia law.”

Geller — along with a small group of anti-Muslim advocates in Florida, including a U.S. Senate candidate — fought to keep the young girl away from her parents. An attorney for Bary’s parents, Omar Tarazi, later sued some of those involved in the case for defamation.

Florida Family Policy Council President John Stemberger was sued by Tarazi for saying Tarazi was unqualified. Stemberger also alleged that Tarazi had terrorist ties in a 2009 TV interview. Last month, the defamation lawsuit was dropped after the two men reached an undisclosed agreement.

Geller and Rifqa Bary’s attorney were also sued for defaming Tarazi, a case that was settled this week.

According to the Associated Press:

Columbus attorney Omar Tarazi represented Bary’s parents, who denied intending to harm their daughter. Investigators in Florida and Ohio documented tension in the family but never found evidence that Bary was in danger.

Police recommended criminal charges be filed against adults in Ohio and Florida, including Christian ministers, who helped Bary run away, but prosecutors declined to pursue the charges.

Tarazi had argued that New York-based blogger Pamela Geller defamed him by alleging he has terrorist ties. One posting linked him to Hamas, for example, which the State Department has designated a foreign terrorist organization.

That blog and four others will be removed permanently from Geller’s “Atlas Shrugs” blog under the settlement, which did not involve any money.

Atlas Shrugs was described by The New York Times as a “site that attacks Islam with a rhetoric venomous enough that PayPal at one point branded it a hate site.” According to the Times, Geller “has called for the removal of the Dome of the Rock from atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem; posted doctored pictures of Elena Kagan, the Supreme Court justice, in a Nazi helmet; suggested the State Department was run by ‘Islamic supremacists’; and referred to health care reform as an act of national rape.”

In court documents, Geller argued “that many of the postings singled out in the lawsuit also could fall in the realm of hyperbole and not defamation.”

Bary was eventually returned to Ohio. She has yet to reconcile her with her family. She turned 18 last year and is no longer embroiled in a public legal battle.

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Christian Member of the Knights Templar Interrupts Muslim Student Event

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Christian Member of the Knights Templar Interrupts Muslim Student Event

Posted on 22 September 2011 by Emperor

Even Ivy League Universities such as Princeton are not immune from radical anti-Muslims. A Christian man by the name of Adam Pyle interrupted a Muslim Student “welcome back dinner,” telling them that “Muslims are going to hell.”

One can only imagine the hysteria this would have caused in the anti-Muslim blogosphere if a Muslim had barged into a Christian, Jewish or any other faith’s “welcome back dinner.”

This is also noteworthy in the backdrop of the terrorist attacks in Norway. Anders Behring Breivik claimed to be a member of the Knight Templars as well. While we should not extrapolate excessively from this one incident we should keep in mind that there is a rise in the appropriation of Christian Crusader theology, symbols and rhetoric amongst the anti-Muslim movement.

One need only look at Robert Spencer’s extolling of the Crusades and reiteration of its call, “God Wills it,” and to the fascination in anti-Muslim groups of Crusader symbols, vividly brought to the fore in our piece, SIOA is an Anti-Muslim Hate Group.

Threats arise at Muslim Students Association event

by Henry Rome (DailyPrincetonian)

A local man claiming to be part of the Knights Templar was arrested on Saturday night after allegedly interrupting a Muslim Student Association welcome back dinner and telling students that “Muslims are going to hell,” according to multiple witnesses and police reports.

While the incident reflects a nationwide spike in bias crimes in the wake of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, MSA members say they are treating it as an isolated event and do not plan to scale back any of their events in response.

The man, Adam Pyle, 26, of Princeton Township, had apparently been present for part of the actual dinner at Campus Club, said Sohaib Sultan, the University’s Muslim life coordinator. Toward the conclusion of the dinner, Pyle left the dining area and allegedly started going through the backpack of Jihad Al-Jabban ’14, the MSA public relations chair.

When Al-Jabban walked over, Pyle explained that he was a Christian but still a member of the “ummah,” the global Muslim community, according to Al-Jabban. Pyle then proceeded to bow and ask MSA members if they were members of the ummah, said MSA vice president Areej Hassan ’13. He also allegedly asked a member, “Why do you hate Jews?” Hassan is a  staff writer for The Daily Princetonian.

“I immediately became a little bit nervous about what his intentions were,” Sultan said. “I realized this could be a potentially violent situation.”

Sultan then ushered the 60 to 70 students attending the dinner into a closed room away from Pyle, and an attendee called Public Safety. In the meantime, Pyle allegedly said, “Muslims are going to hell” and “Death to Muslims,” and began walking toward the students, according to Sultan.

“I stood right in front of him and said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not going to let [you] go inside,’ ” Sultan recalled. During the night, Pyle also allegedly made references to the anti-Christ, University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua said in an email.

At 8:57 p.m., Public Safety officers arrested Pyle and charged him with bias intimidation, criminal attempt, disorderly conduct, harassment and defiant trespass, Mbugua said. Pyle will face the criminal charges on Monday in the Borough Municipal Court. Public Safety ordered Pyle to stay away from campus for the next 90 days, and the department intends to ban him permanently.

A message left seeking comment at Pyle’s home phone number was not returned. Pyle is not affiliated with the University.

“You just never know the type of individual [who] might come in and do something,” Sultan said. “The Muslim community in America has seen a real rise in Islamophobia over this past year in particular, and so it shakes us up. We really did feel threatened.”

It is unclear how Pyle learned of the welcome back dinner, since the event was only advertised via email and with limited on-campus advertising, MSA board members said.

“I don’t even think it was premeditated,” said Sheeba Arif ’14, the MSA events chair. “I feel like he just stumbled in on it actually.”

It is also unknown how Pyle gained access to Campus Club, access to which was limited by prox at the time, Mbugua said.

Sultan said the incident has shaken up some Muslim students, and he is concerned that new students may get the wrong impression about the University.

“To the freshmen and first-year graduate students, please don’t worry. This was an isolated incident and you will find this campus as warm and welcoming to Muslims as anywhere in this country,” Sultan said in an email to the MSA listserv.

Sultan has invited officers from Public Safety to speak with students at Friday prayers this week to thank the officers and to discuss revising any safety protocols. Students praised the responding officers, who also offered to escort the members back to their dorm rooms after the event.

Sultan added, however, that he doesn’t anticipate any increased security as a result of the incident.

“We really do hope and anticipate that this was a completely isolated incident,” he said. “We want to continue being the open community that we’ve become at Princeton.”

Other religious organizations on campus, including the Office of Religious Life, have lent their support and have offered to hold discussions and vigils in response to the incident. MSA board members said they may discuss the issue broadly at the next Religious Life Council meeting, but they want to move forward.

“It’s an isolated incident,” Arif said. “We don’t want to make a bigger deal than it is.”

While advocacy groups noticed a rise in bias crimes around the 9/11 anniversary, Ibrahim Hooper, the national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that colleges and universities are often immune.

“Colleges and universities have typically not been a major factor in our annual reporting on bias-related incidents, just because they tend to be more open, more tolerant and more knowledgeable about Islam and Muslims,” he said.

Indeed, Sultan said he couldn’t recall any similar incident occurring on campus, except for the occasional controversial speaker or offensive email. Mbugua also said this is the first incident of its nature to happen on campus.

“I think it’s still on the minds of students, but I think we recognize this was completely an isolated incident,” Sultan said. “Princeton University has been a wonderful and very welcoming home for Muslim students and faculty for many years.”

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Sydney schoolboy was beaten ‘for being a Muslim’

Posted on 22 September 2011 by Garibaldi

Sydney schoolboy was beaten ‘for being a Muslim’

A schoolboy from Sydney’s north was brutally bashed and verbally abused by more than 20 students for being Muslim, the boy has claimed. Hamid Mamozai, 15, was allegedly hit up to a dozen times by two fellow students at Asquith Boys’ High School on Wednesday as several more cheered and hurled racial abuse from the sidelines.

“[They were saying] hit him more, hit him more, he deserves it, you terrorists, go back to where you came from, go blow something up,” Hamid told Channel 10. He said he was kneed in the face four of five times and hit up to 15 times in the face. Hamid was taken to hospital unconscious and with internal bleeding but suffered no serious injuries.

Najia, Hamid’s sister, said he had been subjected to racial abuse at the school for up to two years and was “emotionally and mentally sick” because of it. “The boy is scared … he doesn’t get out of the house,” she said.

His mother, Hosna, who fled war-torn Afghanistan 20 years ago, said she had repeatedly complained to the school to no effect. “I just want to know why this is happening, why the principal doesn’t care that students are being bullied, why don’t they stop it? I want other parents to know why this is happening,” she said.

Asquith Boys’ High declined to comment last night. In response to inquiries from the Herald, a spokesman for the Department of Education said one student had been suspended for 20 days and the police had been informed. Teachers provided immediate assistance to Hamid and called his family and an ambulance when the incident occurred, the spokesman said. Hamid and his family have been offered counselling and the school has arranged to meet with Mrs Mamozai this morning.

“Racism is not tolerated by Asquith Boys’ High School, which disciplines students engaged in such behaviour and supports students subjected to it,” the spokesman said. “Disciplinary action has been taken against students who have previously used racist language to the injured student. Due to the police investigation, it is inappropriate to comment further on the incident at this stage.”

Sydney Morning Herald, 23 September 2011

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Teenager admits sickening attack on elderly Muslim outside Kilmarnock mosque

Posted on 20 September 2011 by Amago

(Via Islamophobia-Watch)

Teenager admits sickening attack on elderly Muslim outside Kilmarnock mosque

A teenager shouted racial abuse as he kicked and stamped on a 71-year-old grandfather’s head for 10 minutes. And he later sent a sickening text boasting about his horrifying actions.

At Kilmarnock Sheriff Court on Monday, the 16-year-old – who cannot be named for legal reasons – pleaded guilty to carrying out the vicious attack outside the Ayrshire Central Mosque in July.

His victim, who had already suffered a stroke, sustained severe facial injuries in the unprovoked attack which took place in the early hours of the morning.

Nancy Beresford, prosecuting, said that the former Crosshouse shopkeeper had gone to the mosque, in Hill Street, Kilmarnock, to prepare for Friday prayers at around 1.40am. As he approached the door, clad in white robes, he noticed a male and two females, along with young children, standing in the street, with another group of females nearby.

The 16-year-old then came towards him shouting abuse, including “Paki bastard”. He punched the pensioner in the chest, causing him to fall to the ground. The teenager continued the assault, while still shouting abuse.

Interviewed, he denied the assault and racial abuse. The 16-year-old told police that he couldn’t understand “why somebody was praying at that time in the morning”.

Kilmarnock Standard, 16 September 2011

Via ENGAGE

The Ayrshire Central Mosque was opened earlier this year after the conversion of a former pub – a development that was fiercely opposed by the Scottish Defence League. Back in 2009, when the EDL was planning to extend its Islamophobic campaign north of the border, Osama Saeed reported:

“Mosques in Glasgow and Kilmarnock have been identified by the far right Scottish Defence League and their English counterpart as possible scenes of protest. In Glasgow, we understand that they have discussed George Square, Pollokshields and the Sheriff Court as possible locations. The latter seems like a strange place to hold a demonstration till it is understood that it is across the street from Glasgow Central Mosque. Also discussed has been a pub in Kilmarnock, the Hillhead Tavern, which is the subject of interest from a Muslim group to buy and convert into a mosque.”

The SDL eventually settled on Glasgow for their first demonstrationbut went on to organise a protest in Kilmarnock in June last year. Although it was billed as a demonstration in defence of “free speech”, the SDL’s main target was clearly the conversion of the former Hillhead Tavern.

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VIDEO: FBI Counterterrorism ‘Expert’ Compared Islam to Star Wars Deathstar

Posted on 20 September 2011 by Garibaldi

What is the FBI thinking?

The FBI says that Gawthrop gave his last presentation to Bureau counterterrorism classes in April 2011, but the newly disclosed videos would suggest that Gawthrop has continued his career as a terrorism “expert” at FBI sponsored events for at least another two months.

VIDEO: FBI Counterterrorism ‘Expert’ Compared Islam to Star Wars Deathstar

by Eli Clifton (Think Progress)

In video acquired by Wired’s Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman, FBI counterterrorism trainer William Gawthrop, who in previously leaked documents was shown to have lectured that the Muslim prophet Mohammed was a “cult leader,” tells his audience that “[After 9/11] we wasted a lot of analytic effort talking about the type of weapon, the timing, the tactics. All of that is irrelevent… if you have an Islamic motivation for actions.”

Ackerman had previously called attention to Gawthrop’s presentation materials for his lectures at the FBI’s training facilities in Quantico, Virginia, in which the counterterrorism “expert” suggested that Islam, unlike Judaism or Christianity, hadn’t moderated its “militancy considerations” since approximately 622 B.C.

Gawthrop, much like many of the experts discussed in the Center for American Progress’s new report Fear, Inc., believes that Islam is, at its roots, a violent ideology at war with the West.

In the newly released video, Gawthrop tells his audience at the New York Metro Infragard at the World Financial Center in downtown Manhattan — an FBI sponsored public-private partnership — that even overthrowing Islamic states, like Iran, who threaten the U.S. and its allies, is insufficient since “there are still internal forces that will seek to exert Islamic rule again.”

Watch it:

Gawrthrop, as he advocates in his PowerPoint presentations, pushes for a direct confrontation with Muslims that challenges the underpinnings of their religion and Koranic teaching. Referring to a slide with the words “Holy Texts” and “Clerics,” Gawthrop says:

If you remember Star Wars, that ventilation shaft that goes down to into the depths of the Death Star, they shot a torpedo down there. That’s a critical vulnerability.

Ackerman and Shachtman report that a different video, which they were unable to recover before it was deleted, showed Gawthrop criticizing outreach programs to Muslims communities:

If we were going back to the 1940s, this would be like the Army and Navy asking Japanese-Americans to participate in the intelligence and operations paths trying to understand the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. That didn’t happen,

The FBI says that Gawthrop gave his last presentation to Bureau counterterrorism classes in April 2011, but the newly disclosed videos would suggest that Gawthrop has continued his career as a terrorism “expert” at FBI sponsored events for at least another two months.

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The battlements of Carcassonne's medieval old town Tony Cross

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Racist slogans found on Muslim graves in French military cemetery

Posted on 19 September 2011 by Amago

The battlements of Carcassonne's medieval old town Tony Cross

The battlements of Carcassonne's medieval old town Tony Cross

Racist slogans found on Muslim graves in French military cemetery

By RFI

About 30 Muslim graves have been desecrated in Carcassone, south-west France. A legal inquiry has been launched to find the perpetrators and punish them.

The caretaker of the military cemetery of Saint-Michel de la ville discovered racist and Nazi slogans daubed on the gravestones when he closed up on Saturday.

The graves belonged to Muslims killed fighting for France during World War I and were immediately repainted and restored.

The graffiti were “really racist” and “particularly disgusting”, according to Carcassonne prosecutor Antoine Leroy, who has opened an inquiry into the incident.

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Young Turks: Michael Moore vs. Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Osama bin Laden

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Young Turks: Michael Moore vs. Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Osama bin Laden

Posted on 19 September 2011 by Garibaldi

Cenk, posing as a Bollywood hero

Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian of the Young Turks analyze the debate between Michael Moore and Elisabeth Hasselbeck on The View regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck makes almost absolutely no sense:

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The Federal Bureau of Idiocy

Posted on 16 September 2011 by Garibaldi

A good article exposing the stupidity and incompetence of the FBI.

The Federal Bureau of Idiocy

by Justin Raimondo (Anti-War.com)

The complete failure of our law enforcement agencies to protect us from real threats of terrorism was confirmed on September 11, 2001, when – in spite of plentiful warnings, including from field offices of the Federal Bureau of Idiocy Investigation – nineteen hijackers armed only with box cutters commandeered three airliners and drove them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

No one paid the price for this – except, of course, the victims of the attacks. No high-ranking US government official, including the head of the FBI, was fired or even called on the carpet.

Instead, our law enforcement agencies were given a free pass – and a blank check. Billions were poured into “anti-terrorist” programs, as a terrified and prostrate Congress authorized unprecedented intrusions into the lives of ordinary Americans. The Surveillance State, already growing at a rapid pace, grew to gargantuan proportions, employing tens of thousands of professional snoops and sneaks to spy on the legal, constitutionally protected activities of American citizens.

The first, but far from only, targets of this massive escalation of spying were Americans of the Muslim faith – and, while the neocon media salivated at the prospect, mosques, religious leaders, and ordinary people were put in the government’s sights. The wholesale targeting of Muslims has become so egregious that agents inside the FBI rebelled, and leaked documents to Wired.com’s Spencer Ackerman which reveal the craziness that has not abated since 9/11.

The documents are dozens of pages out of “training” manuals which posit that Islam, per se, is inherently and inescapably violent and subversive. As Ackerman reports:

“The FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that ‘main stream’ [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a ‘cult leader’; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a ‘funding mechanism for combat.’

“At the Bureau’s training ground in Quantico, Virginia, agents are shown a chart contending that the more ‘devout’ a Muslim, the more likely he is to be ‘violent.’ Those destructive tendencies cannot be reversed, an FBI instructional presentation adds: ‘Any war against non-believers is justified’ under Muslim law; a ‘moderating process cannot happen if the Koran continues to be regarded as the unalterable word of Allah.’”

This is craziness, and it’s not the craziness of the Bush era, either – Ackerman reports that the last “training session” that utilized these nut-job materials was in March of this year. Yes, folks, it’s all about hope and change – from bad to worse.

Go here and feast your eyes on the actual materials used to “train” FBI agents involved in “counterterrorism” operations in the US: Mohammed, according to the FBI, was a “cult leader,” and torture is part of the Muslim religion, mandated by the Prophet – a weird accusation coming from the US government, which infamously institutionalized torture techniques borrowed from the Communists and the Nazis. Much space is given over to characterizing the prophet Mohammed as psychopath who “heard voices,” “contemplated suicide,” and plotted heinous murders. In short, he’s a medieval version of David Koresh – another FBI target – whose followers presumably deserve the same fate.

The theme of this material is simple: Islam is not a religion but a military-political formation whose goal is world conquest, whose methods are utterly ruthless, and whose followers are mad dogs who can only be shot down with relentless ferocity.

As Ackerman points out, al-Qaeda couldn’t agree more.

The lunacy doesn’t end there, however: a document entitled “Militancy Considerations” has a graph that charts the violent tendencies of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. According to this work of graphical genius, Judaism underwent a very brief period of orienting toward violence that began to be ameliorated starting in 1400 B.C. – a factoid the Palestinians will be thrilled to hear about. Christianity, in contrast, started out pretty violently – which should be news to fans of the Sermon the Mount – and only started to approximate the relative peacefulness of Judaism around the year 1900, where the two lines on the graph representing the two religions meet and merge.

Islam, however, is an entirely different story: here the line goes up very briefly, charting the course of what the FBI describes as the “Meccan period,” but then goes sideways – toward increasing violence – in a straight line, after entering what is termed the “Medina period.”

We have heard all this before, of course – in the ravings of Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, and David Horowitz. Indeed, the author of at least one of the FBI “presentations,” one William Gawthrop, was interviewed by WorldNutDaily – birther headquarters – in which he attributed radical Islamist terrorism to the prophet Mohammed’s “mindset.” In the interview, Gawthrop is described as someone “who until recent months headed a key counterintelligence and counterterrorism program set up at the Pentagon after 9/11.” Islam isn’t really a religion, according to Gawthrop, but a “military doctrine.” The Koran is not only a sacred text but also a manual for world conquest:

“’Today the United States and an increasing number of other governments are beleaguered by an expanding array of states, groups and individuals whose goals, actions and norms are animated by Islamic values,’ Gawthrop said. ‘This places the defenders in the unenviable position of having to fight, at the strategic level, against an idea.’

“How do you attack an idea? By hitting ‘soft spots’ in the Islamic faith that, once exploited, ‘may induce a deteriorating cascade effect upon the target,’ Gawthrop says.”

“’Critical vulnerabilities of the Quran, for example, are that it was uttered by a mortal,’ Gawthrop said. ‘Similar vulnerabilities may be found in Muhammad’s character.’”

This reads like a rationale for the worst sort of hate-mongering of the kind one sees on far-right-wing blogs, and the obscene excesses of wackos like Pamela Geller, who ascribe every sort of moral and sexual perversion to the most revered figure of one of the world’s three great Abrahamic faiths. The idea is not to win over Muslims, at home and abroad, to the anti-terrorist cause, but to insult and provoke them to higher levels of violence.

Somewhere close to the lowest rung of Hell, Osama bin Laden is smiling.

Gawthrop criticizes the Pentagon for lacking his own “strategic” understanding of Islam, and predicts that:

“As the jihad spreads …  the government eventually will have to get involved in a such a controversial national education campaign, politically incorrect as it may be. ‘If the United States, moderate Muslim governments and the non-Muslim world seek to engage ideological adversaries on their own ground,’ he said, ‘they will have to develop, use and maintain the full range of capabilities in the ideological component of national power, and address Islam’s strategic themes directly.’”

In other words: hire him to direct a national – nay, international – hate campaign directed at Islam, per se, and the memory and image of the Prophet Mohammed.

The anti-Muslim business is one of the few that is booming in Obama’s America, along with the arms manufacturers and the hedge funds. “Homeland Security” is a growth industry, with the prospect of huge amounts of government money flowing into the coffers of frauds like Hawthrop. This is welfare for nut-balls.

See hereherehere, and here for reports on the growing infiltration of Washington’s “counter-terrorism” efforts by Anders Breivik look-alikes. As Dana Priest pointed out in her comprehensive series on the gargantuan “anti-terrorist” bureaucracy that has mushroomed since 9/11:

“In their desire to learn more about terrorism, many departments are hiring their own trainers. Some are self-described experts whose extremist views are considered inaccurate and harmful by the FBI and others in the intelligence community.”

This is the inevitable result of any government program designed to “study” a religio-ideological phenomenon – an entire industry grows up in the lush atmosphere of plentiful and lucrative government contracts, flowering into the likes of Hawthrop and other crackpots who pose as “experts.” It happened during the cold war, with neoconservative “experts” arising to push their extremist policies – and the same thing is happening today in our endless “war on terrorism.”

These snake oil salesmen gain surface credibility on account of their background in government and the military, or due to their association with a whole sub-universe of fringe “thinktanks,” such as Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy (CSP). Gaffney’s CSP is a key node in the nut-job network, and one indication of their credibility level is the fact that Gaffney has endorsed the laughable “intelligence” expertise of Walid Shoebat, who claims Obama is a Muslim. Gaffney and Shoebat once appeared on a panel together discussing the question of whether – or when – Obama became a Muslim. Gaffney, for his part, along with David Horowitz, is convinced that the Republican party – and the US government – have been infiltrated by Islamists due to the efforts of Grover Norquist! Shoebat is also a favorite of the International Counter-Terrorism Officers Association (ICTOA), which publishes Hawthrop’s drivel in their journal: he appeared, with Robert Spencer and William Boykin — the “crusader” General — at a “Ft. Hood Memorial” hate-fest. The wacko circle-jerk of cross-endorsements and interlocking organizations serves to buttress the “credentials” of these “experts.”

That they have infiltrated law enforcement at the local, state, and federal level, is horrifying – and unsurprising. They’re just going where the federal dollars flow, springing up like weeds in a sparsely-grown patch of ground. Tax dollars spread generously around breed these phonies like flies after a summer rain: it’s a built-in feature of our bureaucratic approach to “fighting terrorism.”

What’s scary is that the FBI is supposed to be protecting us from “terrorism” – but who will protect us from our protectors? These lazy dolts have nothing better to do than sneak around “investigating” Americans who have broken no law, accusing even this web site – and this columnist – of being “a threat to National Security” and in all probability an “agent of a foreign power.”

The foreign power is in Washington, D.C., where parasites like Hawthrop & Co. feed at the public trough. It’s more than past time to clean the Augean stables of our “counterterrorism” bureaucracy and start defending the nation in a credible way.

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Hate Crime: Burnt Qur’an sent to Bronx mosque

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Hate Crime: Burnt Qur’an sent to Bronx mosque

Posted on 14 September 2011 by Emperor

Hate crimes continue.

(via. Islamophobia-Watch)

Burnt Qur’an sent to Bronx mosque

A Bronx Imam received a partially burnt Koran, delivered in an envelope to his mosque the day before Sept. 11th.

The Imam found the Koran in a brown envelope, which showed up at his mosque on East 198th Street at around noon Saturday. There were also papers inside the envelope covered with cartoon like drawing depicting hatred towards Muslims.

The Imam also found white powder inside the envelope. Tests determined the powder was actually pieces of the burnt Koran.

The incident is being investigated by the hate NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force.

WABC, 13 September 2011

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Fake Ex-Terrorist Kamal Saleem Trying to Swindle Michiganians

Posted on 14 September 2011 by Emperor

We exposed the fraud known as “Kamal Saleem,” two years ago in our article, “Three Stooges Coming to a Campus Near You!”

Loonwatchers in Michigan and elsewhere should not stand for this fakery. They should take action and lodge complaints with their senators and congressional representatives. No longer should those who are clearly out to make a buck while trafficking in hate and lies be given a free pass.

Self-declared ‘former terrorist’ speaks at Agema rally

(Michigan Press)

The appearance of a man who claims to be a reformed terrorist at a rally against illegal immigration at the Capitol building in Lansing is raising questions both about the accuracy of his story and the propriety of his invitation to speak.

Kamal Saleem of Berkley spoke at the rally and testified before the House Commerce Committee supporting legislation introduced by Rep. Dave Agema (R-Grandville) that would require contractors for the state and temporary agencies to use E-Verify, a federal system to verify a person’s immigration status.

E-Verify is a federal program that has been found to return false denials, resulting in people losing jobs. The legislation was tabled by the Commerce Committee for a second time.

“I came to the United States of America not to love you all. I came to be — exactly — to destroy this country as a terrorist. We crossed the Canadian border. We brought weapon caches right through cities, through Windsor,” Saleem told attendees. “This is what is all happening by allowing illegals in here to come through our borders and become a part of our country. They can become legal terrorists in your hometown to kill your children, and your grandchildren and your future as we know it.”

Saleem claims that he was a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization as well as the Muslim Brotherhood when he came to the U.S. in 1979 “for the first time.” He said the E-Verify system was important to prevent future terror attacks on American soil.

“This (E-Verify) will not allow people like me to come to this country to destroy it and would allow the American people to legally work and have their freedom in this country,” he said.

For Calvin College history professor Douglas Howard, there is much to doubt about the claim to have been a former terrorist. Howard researched Saleem’s background in 2007 when the Calvin College Republican Club invited him to present at the conservative Christian college. Howard said that as an expert in Middle East history, his department tasked him with reviewing Saleem’s credentials and advising the department on whether or not it should co-sponsor the event.

“I concluded this person is a fraud,” Howard says.

Howard tried to get the appearance canceled but it was too late in the process.

In a 2010 Books and Culture: A Christian Review article about Saleem’s book “The Blood of the Lambs,” Howard explains how he first came to question Saleem’s story.

A look at his website told me immediately that he was not who he said he was. The signature of his deception was his statement that “in my family was the Grand Wazir of Islam.” The term is ridiculous, a spurious title meant to mislead the innocent with an aura of authority.

In the conclusion of that article — in which he calls Saleem a fraud and deconstructs errors in his book — Howard writes of Saleem’s book:

“It is insulting to be told that we have to look down the barrel of a gun to see life’s inner meaning, or that only a killer can really understand Islam. Authentic experience comes when we see a man or a woman before we see a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew; when we hear a human voice before we hear ‘a thick Middle Eastern accent’; when the person next to us on the plane is a young man—with a father and a mother waiting for him—before he is a Nigerian or an American. Anything else leads down the road toward extremism. Although Kamal Saleem has forsaken much, he has evidently not yet forsaken that.”

Howard says that while he was doing research on Saleem, he called a former employer. He did not name the employer during the interview with Michigan Messenger, however, he identifies the employer as Focus on the Family in Books and Culture review.

“He claimed to have been a former football player, a placekicker for Barry Switzer (former coach of the University of Oklahoma football program) and claimed that he won a game in the last three seconds with a field goal,” Howard recalled Focus on the Family staff telling him. The problem? No such game existed and while Saleem makes a big deal about hiding his real name, Focus on the Family staff referred to him by his given name — allowing Howard to check Oklahoma rosters.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation reported in 2008 on Saleem’s history:

Kamal Saleem, whose real name is Khodor Shami, worked for Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network for sixteen years, and was hired by Focus on the Family in 2003. In 2006, he launched Koome Ministries, whose mission is to “expose the true agenda of [Muslims] who would deceive our nation and the free nations of the world… America must wake-up and set a continued Christian agenda of Liberty and Truth as a standard to follow throughout the free world.”

Focus on the Family staff expressed discomfort with Saleem, Howard said, particularly with his claims of Christian conversion. Saleem alleges that he was in a near fatal car wreck, but Christians cared for him, taking him into their home and provided for him while he healed. That he says lead to his conversion. In an interview with Pat Robertson 700 Club TV show, Saleem says he called out for Allah to answer him, and when he didn’t he decided to kill himself for questioning his faith. At that moment, Saleem claims, the Christian God came to him. Robertson is transfixed by this tale.

Saleem has never identified what city or state this near fatal accident occurred in, nor has he ever identified the Christian doctor who allegedly gave him refuge and helped him pay his bills while he was recovering.

The history professor says that Saleem’s claim on Tuesday to have smuggled weapons into the U.S. is new. “It sounds like he is upping the ante,” Howard said.

The story Saleem tells is bewitching, Howard admits.

“It preys on people’s lack of information and their worries and their fears and their wanting to find a way to justify their own attitudes toward Islam and Middle East policy,” Howard says. “There’s a market out there that wants Kamal Saleem’s story to be true.”

And Saleem is not alone in this new, post 9-11 market. He has appeared with another well known former terrorist, Walid Shoebat. Shoebat was recently the subject of an investigation by CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 show. That investigation raised questions about the veracity of Shoebat’s claims to being a former terrorist.

Boyd, the DOJ National Security spokesman, declined to discuss the concerns about Saleem’s accuracy.

“Further, we have no comment on whether Mr. Saleem’s other statements are accurate or not,” he said.

Maria Elena Garcia Upson, spokesperson for the Citizenship and Immigration Services, would not comment on Saleem’s case specifically, citing privacy rules. But she did comment in general about alleged ex-terrorists receiving American citizenship.

“Well obviously it would be a concern in general, but we are not the enforcement arm, you will have to talk to Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Upson said.

An ICE spokesperson did not return inquires by press time.

Others are arguing that if Saleem’s story is true, that raises even more questions both about his citizenship and his appearance at the rally.

“If Representative Agema recruited as a speaker an admitted terrorist who says he brought weapons into the United States my first question is why this guy isn’t in custody or in jail? And why was Mr. Saleem allowed to become a United States citizen?” asks David Holtz, executive director of Progress Michigan. “In trying to make a point about illegal immigration, Dave Agema instead makes you question his judgment and sanity. Perhaps the FBI should be invited to future Agema events since he may decide he needs more terrorists to deliver his talking points.”

State Rep. Rashida Talib (D-Detroit) went even further.

“I am unforgiving for any terrorist,” Talib said in exclusive interview with Michigan Messenger. “He should be deported for that. And you can quote me on that.”

Agema defends Saleem.

“What happened with Kamal is totally different,” Agema says of the reformed terrorist. Agema says following his conversion to Christianity, Saleem helped the federal government track down terror cells in the U.S., a claim that could not be verified.

“As a general rule, the Justice Department does not publicly comment on whether or not someone has provided assistance to the U.S. government in counter-terrorism operations,” said Dean Boyd, spokesman for the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, when asked what role, if any, Saleem had played in uncovering terror plots in the U.S.

Howard also called Agema out over Saleem’s appearance and testimony.

“It is really unfortunate that Rep. Agema has decided to align himself with this kind of cynical opportunism,” he said. “That is unbelievable that he could testify before a House committee.”

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Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller Lead SIOA Anti-Muslim Hate Rally on 9/11

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Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller Lead SIOA Anti-Muslim Hate Rally on 9/11

Posted on 13 September 2011 by Emperor

That SIOA is an anti-Muslim hate group is well known. After we published our expose on their hateful antics the SPLC designated them a hate group.

Predictably, Geller and co. used the tenth anniversary of 9/11 to fear-monger and spread hate of Islam and Muslims:

(via. Islamophobia Watch)

Geller and friends commemorate 9/11

“There is no smiley face, no whitewash on what happened here ten years ago today. What happened, was murder!” As she peppered her speech with soundbites, Pamela Geller was occasionally forced to pause for chants of “U-S-A!” from the smattering of supporters who had turned out for her Freedom Rally yesterday in Lower Manhattan. It was doubtful that there were any “smiley faces” at the official commemoration at the 9/11 Memorial that morning, but if you spoke with attendees of the Freedom Rally, one might have gotten the impression that Presidents Obama and Bush presided over a mass burning of Bibles and bald eagles.

“This country has become communist,” Sheepshead Bay resident Patricia Randolph told us. “A good way to fight for freedom is to know your history, to know that Muslims build victory mosques in places that they have conquered.” She was referring of course to Park51 a cultural center and mosque that may be built blocks from the World Trade Center site. “And have you heard about that mosque they’re building in Sheepshead Bay near a school? Those women that walk around my neighborhood with black nails? They’re Taliban wives.” Her friend Elizabeth of Midwood added, “The Muslims rape little girls, we have to make it safe for the kids.”

Gothamist, 12 September 2011

See also Media Matters, 12 September 2011

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Murfreesboro Mosque Controversy Sparks Islamophobia, Threats And Vandalism

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Murfreesboro Mosque Controversy Sparks Islamophobia, Threats And Vandalism

Posted on 13 September 2011 by Amago

Islamic Center of Murfreesboro

Islamic Center of Murfreesboro

Murfreesboro Mosque Controversy Sparks Islamophobia, Threats And Vandalism

by Janell Ross via Huffington Post

By some accounts, Anthony Mijares is a bit player in the story of Murfreesboro, Tenn., a small city 40 minutes south of Nashville. In Murfreesboro, a growing Muslim community’s plan to build a new mosque has unleashed a public furor, produced threats and counterthreats, and revealed just how far fear of another terrorist attack has spread across the United States.

Since the mosque won local government building approval in May 2010, Murfreesboro’s 250 Muslim families have taken an undesirable spot at center stage. Unidentified individuals vandalized a sign that had marked the future worship space site for months and in a separate incident, someone set ablaze a piece of construction equipment. On Labor Day an anonymous caller threatened the group again. A bomb, the caller said, will explode over the September 11 weekend inside the office space where Murfreesboro’s Muslims currently worship. Local law enforcement, the FBI and ATF are investigating the incidents and will not comment on their status.

But Mijares, a retiree and Roman Catholic, is also the lone voice behind a letter-writing campaign to discourage companies from displaying or advertising in a local paper that he believes is helping to fuel the local controversy. For more than a year, the paper has featured stories about the planned mosque, Islam and the alleged threat they pose to Murfreesboro. And this summer, that publication launched its own campaign against Mijares, publishing his home address in an ad that called for readers to “combat” his efforts.

“Yes, I consider that a threat,” said Mijares, 54. “What else could it be when every local right-wing nut, some militia member in Idaho or some Aryan (Neo-Nazi) in West Virginia can read the words ‘combat’ printed next to my address online? The Rutherford Reader knows what it’s doing. That wasn’t a mistake.”

What is happening to Mijares may be the final proof that the crisis in Murfreesboro has been created by nothing more than irrational fear and hate, not legitimate concerns about safety, said Reavis Mitchell, a historian at Fisk University in Nashville who specializes in 20th Century American history.

“There is a long line of people who have been branded an outsider, a troublemaker of some kind, because they won’t tolerate injustice silently,” said Mitchell.

Historically, community crises like the one in Murfreesboro have been resolved, or at least calmed, after the name-calling, threats, acts of intimidation or actual violence begin national attention turns to the troubled town or ringleader, Mitchell said. During the McCarthy anti-Communist campaign and The Civil Rights Movement, that’s the point at which change occurred, he said.

CNN, Time Magazine and international publications have covered the mosque controversy in Murfreesboro. But Mijares and his campaign have remained largely unknown.

In April 2010, just a few weeks before the new mosque won local government approval, Mijares picked up a copy of The Rutherford Reader, a free weekly newspaper, at a Murfreesboro Kroger. Mijares had scannedThe Rutherford Reader before, but that day Mejares was appalled. In stories, editorials and hard-to-describe items where opinions and facts were commingled, the paper called for a halt on “Muslim immigration” and described Islam as “dehumanizing” and “defiling.”

Mijares decided to contact Kroger. Within weeks, the grocery chain directed its distributor to stop making room for The Rutherford Reader on its free publication racks.

Mijares insists that he isn’t a fan of censorship, arguing that The Rutherford Reader can print what it wants and distribute it anyway that it can. But businesses that keep The Rutherford Reader afloat by supplying advertising revenue and access to consumers should think about this carefully, Mijares said, or they risk offending their own customers.

Over the next year, Mijares sent similar letters to the owners of local stores, restaurants and the local Chamber of Commerce. When seven stores, restaurants and chamber locations decided to stop displaying The Rutherford Reader on their free publication racks, Mijares expanded his efforts to advertisers.

“This is hate speech, pure and simple,” Mijares said. “I thought advertisers should know that The Rutherford Reader has taken a turn.”

Pete Doughtie – The Rutherford Reader‘s editor, publisher and owner — did not respond to multiple requests for comment left at his office and home. But this week, Doughtie’s column posed a revealing challenge.

Muslims are not in America to assimilate. They are here to change our system … Our preachers should go beyond telling us more than ‘we must love our enemies.’ That is simply passing the buck. They should be getting every Christian ready and armed with the Word of God and an understanding of the Quran and Hadith, to defeat those who are out to destroy Christianity, and our American way of life.

(Hadith is a collection of sayings and ideas attributed to the prophet Muhammed.)

Since the mosque project was approved, Doughtie -a self-described white Christian American – has described Islam in his column as a “political ideology,” rather than a religion. He has told readers that Islam compels violence and attempts to implement sharia, a code of Islamic laws. He has described Mijares as a Muslim. And he has described as “terrorists” Mijares and other locals who have objected to The Rutherford Reader‘s content and the vandalism and arson at the mosque.

“Pete Doughtie is a bully and a bigot,” said Mijares. “I may be a 5’4″ Italian-American guy with a big nose and olive skin who gets looks around town. And I know that he cannot fathom that there are non-Muslims who do not agree with his ideas. But I am, in fact, not a Muslim. I am not a terrorist. And I am not afraid of Pete Doughtie.”

Mijares is a retired international cargo expeditor who spent September 11 directing cargo traffic at the panic-stricken Los Angeles Airport, so he does not scare easily, he said. He moved to Tennessee to care for his ailing mother in 2005.

The Rutherford Reader is a right-of-center publication that represents the community’s concerns, said Kevin Fisher, an unpaid Rutherford Reader columnist. Fisher, who is African American, is a corrections officer and also the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit that aims to stop construction of the new mosque.

“I take civil rights seriously and I wouldn’t participate in anything that tramples on people’s rights. I wouldn’t write anything that intentionally offends anyone,” said Fisher. “If I have, I am sincerely sorry. But I know Mr. Doughtie and I’ve always thought he was a really nice guy.”

Fisher objects to the lack of detail included in the public meeting notice where the mosque project was approved. The notice — which included the same information as other planning commission announcements -– allowed the mosque to escape comment from people who oppose it, Fisher said. But that is not his only concern.

“We don’t know enough about the motivations here. It’s only been 10 years since 9/11,” said Fisher, who has sought and lost two bids for public office since 2008. “In the blink of an eye, foreign students went from students to terrorists. And I think that this is why our whole thinking as a nation changed. We have to judge the issue of terror and the potential for Islamic radicalization a little differently. We certainly have to look at that potential in our own community.”

Fisher would not comment on the ads featuring Mijares’ complete home address. But, Fisher said, Mijares invited the attention when he began his campaign.

When Mijares says that the ads may be dangerous, he is right, said Eric Allen Bell, a documentary filmmaker. In 2010, Bell moved to Murfreesboro planning to take a break. Instead, he wound up making a documentary about the mosque controversy. A full-length version of that film, “Not Welcome,” will be released next year, Bell said.

While Bell was making the film, he wrote a series of editorials that criticized the mosques’ opponents, including The Rutherford Reader. The weekly’s subsequent issue included Bell’s picture beneath a headline that read, “The Rutherford Reader’s Free Speech is Being Threatened.”

Bell began to receive death threats via email, he said. Bell hired a private security to accompany him to certain public events. Then one particularly scary threat arrived over Facebook. When Bell approached local law enforcement, he was reminded that an official complaint would become a matter of public record and would include his home address. A police officer warned him that this might put him in greater danger, Bell said.

“I was advised by people who know that community that you probably need to take this seriously and leave town,” said Bell, who returned to California in November 2010.

It is not a coincidence that when the small but vocal group of Murfreesboro residents who oppose the mosque describe their concerns, the sorts of claims made in The Rutherford Reader often come up, said Saleh M. Sbenaty, a board member of Murfreesboro’s mosque and a professor at Middle Tennessee State University.

“There are people and publications in this city that specialize in making false accusations,” said Sbenaty, who moved to the United States from Syria, 30 years ago around the same time that Muslims in Murfreesboro formed the city’s mosque. “They insist that all Muslims are dangerous. And unfortunately, there are a small number of nut jobs who will take that seriously.”

Late Wednesday, the mosque’s board voted to suspend usual weekend activities at the mosque because of the bomb threat. On Saturdays, the mosque typically holds religious education classes for children. On Sundays, there are sports or community events for kids.

“It is quite unfortunate that our children are bullied in school and now are the subject of a new threat,” said Sbenaty, a father of two.

Threats, or what some people consider threats, are becoming common in Murfreesboro.

Back in May, Mijares noticed a Rutherford Reader ad for a Nissan dealership. Mijares contacted the dealer. And since the Japanese car company’s North American headquarters are located in nearby Franklin, Tenn., he also called Nissan’s community relations staff.

“After he (Mijares) made us aware of the publication where this ad was placed,” said Paula Angelo, Nissan’s director of corporate communications, “it was clear immediately that its content does not align with Nissan’s core values.”

Mijares contacted corporate headquarters on May 24. The dealership makes independent decisions about advertising, but there was a conversation between the business and corporate officials, Angelo said. On June 8, Angleo contacted Mijares to advise him that the dealership had purchasedRutherford Reader ad space in May and June but that additional ads would not be placed, he said.

On July 18, The Rutherford Reader began running its series of full-page anti-Mijares ads.

“Murfreesboro, to borrow a phrase, is the ground zero of Muslim bashing in America right now,” said Faiz Shakir, vice president of the Center for American Progress and one of the researchers behind“Fear, Inc.,” a six-month study released in August by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank that examined the rising tide of anti-Islamic sentiment.

The study found that small groups of individuals have funneled the same pieces of questionable research to activists, commentators and politicians, who have then stirred or led groups such as the one that opposes the Murfreesboro mosque, Shakir said. In August, one of those individuals, Frank Gaffney, testified in the Murfreesboro case hoping to help stop the mosque. Fisher first met Gaffney in the courtroom, he said.

“I am nobody’s puppet,” Fisher said.

On August 30, a judge ruled that the mosque’s construction could move forward. The decision will be appealed, Fisher said.

Inside Murfreesboro, some people suspect that The Rutherford Reader‘s interest in covering the alleged threats posed by Islam may be driven by profit. In Tennessee, local governments are required to list public notices -– advisories about government meetings and other activities -– in general interest publications. These ads generate revenue for newspapers.

“I think it may be Mr. Doughtie’s goal to write just enough about this local controversy to drive up his circulation and meet the definition of a general interest publication,” said Ernest G. Burgess, Rutherford County mayor. Murfreesboro is the largest city in Rutherford County and Burgess is the county’s chief executive officer.

In late August, the ads with Mijares’ home address disappeared. Mijares received a few nasty letters and emails. But, Mijares says, he won’t stop his letter-writing campaign.

“I’ve never been terribly social. In fact, some people may call me a misanthrope,” said Mijares. “I don’t mind if some people don’t like me. I just don’t appreciate anyone threatening my family.”

If the ads continue, Mijares said he will post Doughtie’s home address online with a description of Doughtie’s activities and ideas in Arabic.

 

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00056hdc

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Two stoned to death over illicit love affair

Posted on 10 September 2011 by Amago

 

Imagine if this incident involved Muslims. We would not hear the end of it from these Islamophobes about how Sharia is taking over. (hat tip: Alfred J from Kenya)

Two stoned to death over illicit love affair

By CHARLES WANYORO charlwanyoro@yahoo.co.uk

In the first incident, a man and a woman were stoned to death by angry villagers on suspicion they were having an illicit love affair.

Mr Alexander Mukangu, 45, and Ms Lillian Nkatha were allegedly found in a compromising position in a miraa farm house.

Mr Mukangu was said to have taken Ms Nkatha to his matrimonial home while his wife was away. Ms Nkatha was in her late 20s.

The wife got wind of the relationship and informed the villagers who confronted the two lovers.

On arrival at the home, they found the two in bed.

“They were beaten with stones and other assorted weapons. They died as they were being taken to hospital,” said Igembe police boss Ali Zimbu.

 

 

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Terry Jones returns to Michigan to denounce Islam

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Terry Jones returns to Michigan to denounce Islam

Posted on 09 September 2011 by Amago

Terry Jones returns to Michigan to denounce Islam

by Marisa Schultz/ The Detroit News

Lansing — Terry Jones, the controversial Florida pastor, returned to Michigan on a rainy Wednesday night for a 30-minute speech on the steps of the Capitol where he railed about radical Islam.

The pastor’s speech was greeted by more police, media and protesters than supporters or curious onlookers.

About a dozen protesters started chanting “Say No to Hate” during Jones’ speech before police quieted them down.

“Terry Jones is not welcome here,” said protester David Mitchell, 30, of Lansing, who held a banner with others saying: “They shall not pass.”

Jones, wearing jeans and a Harley Davidson black bomber jacket, decried Islam as a not a peaceful religion and oppressive to women. The Islamic law, Sharia, should not be tolerated, he said.

“Islam is a religion that hates freedom of speech,” Jones said.

He was in Lansing to support a new organization, Operation Freedom’s Tree, founded by James Terpening. The political group denounces Islam as evil.

Jones supporter Eugene Connors, 40, of Lansing agrees. One sign he held said: “Stop Burning Christians.”

“People don’t realize the threat Islam poses to everyone,” he said.

Afterward, Jones said he doesn’t have a problem with Muslims, just the radical element and Sharia. Jones lamented the low turnout, including the no-show of state Rep. Dave Agema, R-Grandville, who authored legislation to ban foreign law.

“He chickened out,” Jones said.

Asked if he has plans to burn the Quran again, Jones said no.

Jones, who caused a hubbub for burning the Quran in March, also caused a stir with a visit to Dearborn during the Arab International Festival this summer.

mschultz@detnews.com

(313) 222-2310

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Joe Kaufman-O-Meter #5: Dodges Question on Whether He Supports Nuking Iran

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Joe Kaufman-O-Meter #5: Dodges Question on Whether He Supports Nuking Iran

Posted on 08 September 2011 by Emperor

Joe Kaufman

Just when you thought Joe Kaufman couldn’t make more of a fool of himself he proves you wrong! Previously, Kaufman eulogized a dead terrorist and racist by the name of Rabbi Meir Kahane, and we thought “well he can’t top that!” Then he called for nuking Muslim countries, and we thought “OK, that’s it, no way he can surpass such lunacy.” Then it so happened we learned he’s been paying homeless people to join his pathetic anti-Muslim rallies to bolster their numbers, and we’re like “golly jee, he keeps setting the bar so low.”

Recently, Kaufman was at a rally to express love for anti-Muslim politician Allen West and condemn CAIR South Florida. I kid you not, Kaufman’s exact words at the rally were “I love Allen West.” But that’s not the real ludicrous bit.

The ridiculous portion is Kaufman’s response to a reporter who asked him about his infamous call to “nuke the Mooslims”:

Reporter: “Do you support the nuclear bombing of Iran?”

Joe Kaufman: “No…um, well, I would never say whether I would support that or not.”

Why is this so ridiculous? Well, Kaufman has had 10 years to reflect and ponder on how he would answer this inevitable question, and the above is the best he could do. Rather then coming right out and saying he “wouldn’t,” as most conscientious people would, he hesitated and dodged. By dodging however, he not-so-subtly implied he is open to supporting such horrific action. That’s wily Kaufman for you I guess.

Who is he?:

Joe Kaufman, has been on the Anti-Muslim scene for quite a while now and is dubbed by the far Right-Wing FrontPageMag as, you guessed it…another one of their ”Investigative Journalists.”  That he has been influenced by Meir Kahane and the Kahanist ideology is well documented, as is his love and angst for Kahane.

In the past he has been accused of contributing to the terrorist organization founded by Kahane known as JDL (Jewish Defense League) while others accuse Kaufman of at the very least holding views that parallel JDL positions.

Kaufman’s unsavory associations and views are quite real and they are only dangerous to America if you’re stupid enough to swallow his conspiracy theories but other than that he is simply a half-baked paranoid conspiracy theorist, some what along the lines of the “9/11 Truthers.”

In every nook and cranny there is a “Mooslim”…hiding and ready to get ya…so beware and be afraid. Be veryyyy afraid goes his story.

In this special LoonWatch series we will detail the exploits and punchlines that Krazy Kaufman throws out there and attempts to pass as serious journalism, commentary and investigation.

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06palestinians-articleLarge

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Israeli Settlers Vandalize and Set Mosque on Fire

Posted on 07 September 2011 by Garibaldi

Settler crying after his illegal outpost was demolished. Later they went and set a mosque on fire.

Can anyone imagine if Muslims had done this to a so-called “disused” Synagogue, Church, etc.? You can be sure there would be a big brouhaha over how Islam is evil and is trying to destroy the “infidel.”

Earlier in the day, Israeli settlers in the West Bank tried to set a fire inside a disused mosque to protest the Israeli military’s destruction of three settler houses at an illegal outpost.

The police and witnesses said the settlers threw burning tires into the mosque and spray-painted the names of two settlement outposts on the walls, including that of Migron, where the army destroyed three buildings constructed on private Palestinian land. The Israeli Supreme Court determined that the entire outpost was built on such private land, but the three chosen for destruction had been built after that decision was handed down. (Via the NewYorkTimes)

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Republican Debate at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire

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Paul Rosenberg: Exposing Religious Fundamentalism in the US

Posted on 07 September 2011 by Emperor

Exposing religious fundamentalism in the US

by Paul Rosenberg

With Representative Michele Bachmann’s victory in the Ames, Iowa straw poll, and Texas Governor Rick Perry’s triumphal entrance into the GOP presidential primary, there’s been a sudden spike of attention drawn to the extremist religious beliefs both candidates have been associated with – up to and including their belief in Christian dominionism. (In the Texas Observer, the New Yorker, and the Daily Beast, for example.) The responses of denial from both the religious right itself and from the centrist Beltway press have been so incongruous as to be laughable – if only the subject matter weren’t so deadly serious. Those responses need to be answered, but more importantly, we need to have the serious discussion they want to prevent.

For example, in an August 18 post, originally entitled, “Beware False Prophets who Fear Evangelicals”, Washington Post religion blogger Lisa Miller cited the three stories I just mentioned, and admitted, “The stories raise real concerns about the world views of two prospective Republican nominees”, then immediately reversed direction: “But their echo-chamber effect reignites old anxieties among liberals about evangelical Christians. Some on the left seem suspicious that a firm belief in Jesus equals a desire to take over the world.” Of course, she cited no examples to bolster this narrative-flipping claim. More importantly, she wrote not one more word about the real concerns she had just admitted.

Dominionism is not a myth

“What In Heaven’s Name Is A Dominionist?” Pat Robertson asked on his 700 Club TV show, one of several religious right figures to recently pretend there was nothing to the notion. Funny he should ask. In a 1984 speech in Dallas, Texas, he said:

“What do all of us do? We get ready to take dominion! We get ready to take dominion! It is all going to be ours – I’m talking about all of it. Everything that you would say is a good part of the secular world. Every means of communication, the news, the television, the radio, the cinema, the arts, the government, the finance – it’s going to be ours! God’s going to give it to His people. We should prepare to reign and rule with Jesus Christ.”

Furthermore, C Peter Wagner, the intellectual godfather of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), actually wrote a book called Dominion! in 2008. Chapter Three was entitled “Dominion Theology”. When pressed, Peter likes to pretend that his ideas are just garden-variety Christianity, based on Genesis 1:26, in which, before the fall, God gives Adam and Eve dominion over the natural world - a far cry from dominion over other people, who did not even exist at the time, as evangelical critics of this dominionist argument have repeatedly pointed out.

Dominionism is not new 

Dominionist ideas have circulated throughout the religious right for decades prior to Robertson’s 1984 speech. A primary source was the small but influential sect known as Christian Reconstructionism, founded by R J Rushdoony in the 1960s, which advocates replacing American law with Old Testament codes. Centrists like Miller make the mistake of thinking that the small size of Rushdoony’s core of true believers is the full extent of his influence. But this is utterly mistaken. As Michelle Goldberg wrote in Daily Beast, “Rushdoony pioneered the Christian homeschooling movement, as well as the revisionist history, ubiquitous on the religious right, that paints the US as a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. He consistently defended Southern slavery and contrasted it with the greater evils of socialism.”

A second source traces back to the roots of the Latter Rain movement of the late 1940s, long rejected by orthodox evangelicals because they contradicted scripture and denied primary agency to God – which is why they insist that Christians must actively establish church dominance over all of society, because God can’t do it alone.

The Latter Rain was denounced by the Assemblies of God – the largest American Pentecostal church – in 1949, not solely for dominionist ideology, but for a variety of related beliefs and practices. When similar teachings and practices re-emerged in the guise of the New Apostolic Reformation 50 years later, the Assemblies of God denounced them again in 2000.

This time, however, many Assemblies of God congregations have increasingly accepted the NAR influence. Sarah Palin’s long-time church in Wasilla is one such congregation. The most clear-cut example of NAR dominionism is the so-called “Seven Mountains Mandate”, which holds that dominionist Christians should control the whole world by infiltrating and dominating the “Seven Mountains” of culture: (1) Business; (2) Government; (3) Media; (4) Arts and Entertainment; (5) Education; (6) Family; and (7) Religion.

Dominionism is not a left-wing fantasy 

A number of authors made charges similar to or derived from Joe Carter, web editor of First Things, who wrote: “The term ["dominionism"] was coined in the 1980s by [sociologist Sara] Diamond and is never used outside liberal blogs and websites. No reputable scholars use the term for it is a meaningless neologism that Diamond concocted for her dissertation.”

However, at the same time Diamond was working on her dissertation – published as the book Spiritual Warfare in 1989 – evangelical writer/researcher Albert James Dager was taking similarly critical aim, though from a different direction. In 1986 and ’87, he published a multi-issue essay “Kingdom Theology” in the publication Media Spotlight. In that text he also used the terms “Kingdom Now” or “Dominion” Theology. In 1990, Dager, too, published a book, Vengeance Is Ours: The Church in Dominion.

While his main focus was doctrinal error and non-Christian practices and influences, Dager’s work traced dominionism back to the 1940s and even earlier. Many more have followed in his footsteps since then. If you Google the words “dominionism” and “heresy”, you’ll get more than half a million hits. It should be obvious to anyone that conventional conservative Christians have big problems with dominionism – if only the United States’ establishment media could figure out how to use Google.

Dominionism is not an imprecise catch-all term

Despite lingering definitional differences that are common with relatively new terminology, those who study dominionism and related phenomenon in a political framework have an increasingly common and precise terminology that most writers and researchers share. Researcher Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates provided a very useful guide, “The Christian Right, Dominionism, and Theocracy”, which addresses issues of terminology from several different perspectives – for example, between “generic dominionism” and specific dominion theologies.

Berlet also draws a distinction between “hard” and “soft” dominionists. “Soft Dominionists are Christian nationalists,” he writes. “They believe that Biblically-defined immorality and sin breed chaos and anarchy. They fear that America’s greatness as God’s chosen land has been undermined by liberal secular humanists, feminists, and homosexuals … Their vision has elements of theocracy, but they stop short of calling for supplanting the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” Hard Dominionists add something more to the mix: “They want the United States to be a Christian theocracy. For them the Constitution and Bill of Rights are merely addendums to Old Testament Biblical law.”

Rushdoony’s Christian Reconstructionists clearly fall into the hard dominionist camp. But the NAR seems to straddle the soft/hard division. On the one hand, they clearly do claim that conservative Christians are ordained to run the world, not just US society. Thus, the Seven Mountains Mandate. On the other hand, Wagner and others have argued that the Seven Mountains is compatible with democracy. The state of Hawaii shows how: Early in the 2010 election cycle, both the Republican and the Democratic frontrunners for governor were associated with the NAR. That changed when long-time Congressman Neil Abercrombie joined the race on the Democratic side, and eventually won the race handily. But for a while, the NAR came tantalisingly close to realising their dream, at least in one state – not just to win power, but to occupy all the possible paths to power.

What’s more, in a recent article at Talk2Action, Rachel Tabachnick draws attention to another hedge on Wagner’s part, quoting from Dominion! In a section entitled “Majority Rules”: “If a majority feels that heterosexual marriage is the best choice for a happy and prosperous society, those in the minority should agree to conform – not because they live in a theocracy, but because they live in a democracy. The most basic principle of democracy is that the majority, not the minority, rules and sets the ultimate norms for society.”

This, of course, is utterly false in a liberal democracy, such as the United States. Liberal democracies combine majority rule as a general governing principle with a framework of rights protecting individuals in political minorities from persecution, political repression, and the like. The fact that Wagner so utterly misunderstands the foundations of American democracy shows just how dangerous such “soft” dominionism can be. This same lesson can be drawn from Uganda as well, where several different strains of dominionist theology have combined to bring that nation to the verge of passing a law that will make homosexuality punishable by death. Such is the nature of illiberal dominionist “democracy”.

Europe’s bloody theocratic wars

This brings us, finally, to the serious discussions that dominionists and their enablers, like Miller, are trying to prevent. The first of those is about the very nature of American democracy. For nearly 200 years, Europe was torn apart by a series of religious wars and their bloody aftermath – the major reason that the United States was founded as a secular republic. We’re potentially on the verge of forgetting all that history and suffering through it again, just as we’re now suffering through forgetting the lessons of the Great Depression. Those centuries of war began with the German Peasants’ War of 1524-26, in which more than 100,000 died; continued through the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War on the European continent; and lasted until the end of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). This was the bloody European history of religious intolerance and strife that many, if not most, American colonialists were fleeing from when they came to the New World.

It was also this bloody history that gave rise to the development of classical liberalism, affirming the individual right to religious liberty and replacing the top-down theocratic justification of the state with Locke’s concept of the bottom-up social contract, based on the consent of the governed. The ideas that Locke perfected took generations to develop. Religious tolerance, for example, began as simply a matter of pragmatism: unless people stopped killing each other for differing religious beliefs, war in Europe would never end.

But gradually, the idea took hold that tolerance was a positive good, and key to this new perspective was the recognition that torturing someone to change their beliefs could not produce the desired result of a genuine heartfelt conversion. Thus, the moral rejection of torture – another feature of classical liberalism – had its roots in the evolution of the idea of religious liberty. The idea of utterly forgetting the prolonged bloody history that the United States was born out of is no laughing matter.

The same could be said of the myth that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, with laws based on the Bible. Of course most Americans were Christians at the time, but the leading intellects were decidedly less so, much more influenced by Enlightenment thought. There were many, such as Jefferson, who were better described as Deists, who believed that God had created a rational universe, but did not intervene supernaturally thereafter. They deliberately used terms like “the Creator” and “Nature’s God” to affirm their distinctive, non-Christian view.

Moreover, God was not mentioned at all in the Constitution, and religion was only mentioned to exclude its influence, stating that no religious test should be required for office. Finally, US law was based on British common law, not the Bible. The Supreme Court itself is a common law court, following common law precedents and practices. And British common law traces back to Roman law, which first came to England centuries before Rome adopted the Christian religion.

Of course the intolerant religious right wants us to forget this. How else could they ever gain power, except through massive forgetting of who and what the United States really is? Not to mention who and what they are: the most fundamental enemies of the United States, who would, if they could, return us to the centuries of blood before the US was born, the nightmare out of which the United States awakened.

Theocratic thinking threatens the US today

There are very immediate consequences that flow from the theocratic mindset. You’ll note, for example, that the “Seven Mountains” of culture do not include science. That’s not because dominionists intend to leave science alone, but rather because they see no need to dominate what they can simply cut off, ignore and deny. If science tells them that homosexuality is an inborn trait, why fight that in the realm of science when politics, the media, religion and education offer much, much better places to fight? After all, who says that education has to be based on facts? The same holds true for evolution and global warming as well, not to mention the workings of the economy.

One rightwing denier of dominionist influence, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, even framed his attack as “An unholy war on the Tea Party, while another denier complained that instead of describing the Tea Party as a movement united around concern about big government, many journalists seem to be trying to redefine the colour red by overlaying religious intent and purpose on the movement.

Yet the dominionist connection to the Tea Party goes far beyond just the two candidacies of Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. Ron Paul, whose extreme anti-government positions helped to fuel the emergence of the Tea Party, has much deeper dominionist connections than either of the two new darlings. During his first term in Congress, one of his aides was Gary North, Rushdoony’s son-in-law, and a leading Reconstructionist in his own right, who has written extensively on so-called “Biblical Capitalism”, an ideology profoundly at odds with traditional Biblical-based teachings on economic justice.

While libertarians once traced their descent from John Locke, and more recently from the deeply anti-Christian Ayn Rand, Reconstructionism represents an increasingly important foundation for their views. A recently released sociology study, “Cultures of the Tea Party”, found that Tea Party supporters are characterised by four dispositions: “authoritarianism, ontological insecurity, libertarianism, and nativism”. Since traditional libertarianism was purportedly the opposite of authoritarianism, this highlights how radically libertarianism has changed – a conclusion that’s echoed by the 2011 Pew Reaserch Political Typology Poll, which found that religious and economic conservatives had completely merged into one single group since 2006 and all previous polling.

What this means in the long run is far from clear. But it strongly suggests a solidfying outlook with deep Reconstructionist sympathies that actually looks at government failure to deal with major issues, such as restoring the economy, as a positive good. If faith in American institutions collapses entirely, then who wouldn’t give Biblical law a shot? The more loudly such people proclaim themselves patriots, the more loudly they cheer for US collapse. It’s not just Obama they want to fail. It’s the very idea of America.

Paul Rosenberg is the Senior Editor of Random Lengths News, a bi-weekly alternative community newsletter.

You can follow Paul on twitter @PaulHRosenberg

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Rep. Allen West Goes “Nuts!”

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Rep. Allen West Goes “Nuts!”

Posted on 06 September 2011 by Garibaldi

Rep. Allen West is well known to us as the anti-Muslims’ favorite politician. His alliance with terrorist inspirers and MEK terror-linked hate activists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer is common knowledge. He is also supported by the likes of the long-time stalker of Muslims Joe “Nuke ‘em” Kaufman and loon Reverend O’Neal Dozier.

We reported a few weeks ago about a letter sent by Nezar Hamze of CAIR South Florida, a constituent of Allen West’s district, expressing his concern at West’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and associations with extremists and hatemongers. West responded to Hamze’s letter with a one word reply, “NUTS!”:

In attempting to explain what the Miami New Times called possibly the “dumbest thing ever written on congressional stationery,” some have latched on to the likelihood that he is “channeling a famous line by an American general fighting the Nazis during World War II. During a battle with German troops in Western Europe, Gen. Anthony McAuliffe was told that the Germans wanted his men to surrender. He replied, ‘Us surrender? Aw, nuts!’”

Instead of condemning the radical company that he has been keeping, Rep. Allen West decided to tell Hamze to ‘go to hell.’ West implies Islam is akin to Nazism and that Muslims are modern day Nazis.  This aligns well with the Islamophobic belief that Islam is not a religion but rather a totalitarian political ideology that seeks to conquer and subjugate the entire world. To say this dehumanizes Muslims would be an understatement.

West and his supporters, perhaps smarting from the blow of this latest PR disaster decided to hold a town hall on “terrorism” as well as a rally against Nezar Hamze and CAIR:

Instead of helping their cause, Allen West and his supporters undermined it even more by exposing their radicalism and stubbornly clinging on to their conspiracies of infiltration and subversion by “Mooslims.”

For instance Peter Lebowitz leader of something called (Senior?)Citizens for National Security stated at the rally, “They(muslims) are not in large numbers at this point but they have infiltrated our schools, our colleges, our government, our treasury department. They are not coming to the gate, they are inside the gate!” He also said that “if we don’t wake this country up, your grandchildren and my grandchildren will not know America,” “we are being attacked and they are everywhere.” Sounds kind of like Anders Breivik doesn’t he?

Rev.O’Neal Dozier spoke plainly without any of the sugar-coating some Islamophobes are accustomed to:

He’s not in the video, but Rev. O’Neal Dozier was also named in the CAIR letter as an anti-Islam extremist tied to Congressman Allen West. His words were unambiguous.”“I believe Islam, period, is a danger to this country,” said Dozier, a former George W. Bush advisor who leads a large church in Pompano Beach where Allen West has spoken. “The only true Muslim is an extremist … true Muslims are terrorists.”

Interestingly, Joe Kaufman was questioned about his call for nuking Muslim countries after 9/11 and far from repudiating the comment he struck an ambiguous tone:

Reporter: “Do you support the nuclear bombing of Iran?”

Joe Kaufman: “No…um, well, I would never say whether I would support that or not.”

All of these individuals are intimately linked with Allen West. They are his base of support, and they are not confined to southern Florida or Allen West’s district. It remains to be seen if Allen West’s star will continue to shine on the Right-Wing or whether such antics will relegate him to being a one term Congressman.

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Islamophobes Build Faux Memorial for Muslim Victims on Land that Muslims Cannot Own

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Islamophobes Build Faux Memorial for Muslim Victims on Land that Muslims Cannot Own

Posted on 03 September 2011 by Rousseau

Aqsa Parvez

We here at Loon Watch have documented many of the perverse and reprehensible statements of those in the Islamophobic blogosphere. However, sometimes these loons take their disgusting behavior and rhetoric to another level. It is safe to say that these loons have a burning hatred in their hearts for Muslims and the religion of Islam, despite their hollow claims to the contrary (Pamela Geller claiming that she “loves Muslims” or Robert Spencer being pushed to say that Islam molds its followers to be moral and upright individuals).

Previously, Geller and Spencer attempted to exploit the Rifqa Bary incident to their advantage. However, their ridiculous claims that the girl’s life was in danger were dispelled by law enforcement who told all sane individuals that the parents were cooperating and posed no threat to young Rifqa. Despite the police’s claims to the contrary, the loons continued to use Rifqa’s situation to promote their hate fest against Islam and Muslims.

So it is nauseating to read that bigots like Geller and Spencer have decided to “honor” a Muslim girl named Aqsa Parvez who was murdered in 2008 by her father for not practicing her faith the way her father wanted. Geller used the opportunity to exploit the murder of this young Muslim girl for her anti-Muslim agenda by creating a “memorial” in Aqsa’s honor.  In reality, it is nothing but a monument symbolizing “everything that is wrong with Islam” in the mind of Pamela Geller.  She is weaponizing a young girl’s grave site.

Geller raised money, asking her anti-Muslim fans to support the erection of a headstone at the site of Aqsa Parvez’s grave in Canada. “All was going according to plan,” says Geller, until Aqsa’s family refused to use such a headstone from her.  What is amazing is that Geller didn’t seem to anticipate this, and instead raised $5,000 from her supporters anyways.  One wonders why she is so incredulous: does it take a rocket scientist to figure out why a Muslim family wouldn’t want to erect an anti-Muslim headstone on their daughter’s grave site?  A headstone funded by people who absolutely hate their religion?

Says Geller further: “The family (yes, the family that murdered her) had refused to ‘sign off’ on the headstone.”  The family didn’t kill Aqsa Parvez.  Her father and brother did.  They are both serving life sentences for her murder.  I seriously doubt they had any legal say in what is placed on Aqsa’s grave.  It was likely the mother who decided against using such a headstone.  One could hardly expect her to do otherwise, considering she is Muslim herself.

It is even doubtful that Aqsa Parvez herself would support the headstone.  It is quite possible, even probable, that Aqsa would renounce her self-proclaimed benefactor Pamela Geller.  Based on what we know, Aqsa was most likely still a Muslim, and never renounced her religion altogether.  Why would she want to associate herself with people who vilify her own religion and all its adherents?  Like many young Muslims, she might simply have been rebelling against a strict interpretation of Islam–a firebrand, conservative form of it.  Why is it a given that she rejected the entire religion of Islam, as Geller et al. would imagine?

After being rebuffed by the family, Geller shopped around for a place to erect a memorial and finally decided upon Israel.  Writes Geller:

I approached the JNF and worked to plant the Aqsa Parvez Grove in American Independence Park in Jerusalem, Israel, where the plaque before the grove will read: “In Loving Memory of Aqsa Parvez and All Victims of Honor Killings Worldwide.

The irony of the location perfectly encapsulates the absurdity of the whole thing.  The JNF, the Jewish National Fund, is a quasi-governmental organization in Israel that does not sell land to non-Jews, certainly not to Muslims.  Indeed, the JNF has been at the forefront of stripping Muslims of any land rights in the state of Israel.  Quite literally then, the “memorial” for Aqsa Parvez is built on land that she herself could never own.  She could not own her own “memorial.”

But of course that was the point.  The choice of Israel was intended to be especially inflammatory.  With very good reason, no country earns the ire of Muslims more than Israel, which illegally occupies and oppresses its Muslim population.  Choosing Israel as the site for this “memorial” is meant to give the Muslim world the middle finger.  It would be like the KKK selecting apartheid-era South Africa as the site to erect a “memorial” to honor victims of black-on-black violence during the 1960′s.  Nobody would take the KKK’s “memorial” seriously, and everyone would know that they don’t give two damns about the black victims.  The point would be to vilify black people, not honor them.  Likewise, the “memorial” for Muslim victims is not meant to honor them but vilify Muslims.

The idea of career anti-Muslim bigots creating a “memorial” for Muslim victims is truly a laughable notion and people should see through the thin fog of bigotry on display.  This faux memorial is a sadistic propaganda attempt by Geller and Spencer to exploit the death of a young girl for their agenda to link a disgusting crime to Islam and Muslims.

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Islamic society of Wichita

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Judge orders Spirit One pastor to stay away from Islamic Center

Posted on 02 September 2011 by Amago


Islamic society of Wichita

Islamic society of Wichita

Judge orders Spirit One pastor to stay away from Islamic Center

BY RON SYLVESTER

The Wichita Eagle

A judge ordered a Wichita pastor to stay away from the Islamic Society of Wichita, as part of a sentence for loitering and disrupting business.

Sedgwick County District Judge Phil Journey this morning sentenced Mark Holick to serve 12 months unsupervised probation, pay $300 in fines and stay at least 1,000 feet from the Islamic Center, where he was arrested in August 2010.

Holick, pastor of Spirit One Christian Ministry, and more than a dozen followers had gone to the Islamic Center as members there were trying to celebrate the holy month of Ramadan. Holick said they were there to hand out Bibles. Police said he was causing a disturbance and blocking access to the center.

Police had said they asked Holick to move to a public sidewalk. In one instance, cited by Journey, Holick marched in place in response to police orders to move.

“The only reason you were the one arrested is because you were the only one who disobeyed the police orders,” Journey told Holick.

The case reached district court on an appeal from a conviction in Wichita Municipal Court. Holick asked for a a jury trial. Jurors found Holick guilty early last month on two counts of loitering and disrupting a local business.

Journey’s sentence followed the recommendations of Assistant City Attorney Michael Hoelscher.

During the hearing, Holick gave a 15-minute speech, quoting Bible verses and accusing the city of violating his First Amendment rights.

“Wichita is confused,” Holick said. “I am not your enemy. Islam is. The Lord said there will be no other gods before me.”

Journey told Holick that the First Amendment guaranteed his rights to express his religious beliefs but allowed laws to regulate how he practices his faith.

“I want you to think about this,” Journey said. “What if the shoe had been on the other foot and someone from the Islamic Center had come to your place and tried to convert your members and had blocked your driveway?”

Spirit One has been a street and online ministry since a month after his arrest, Holick said, when he sold his building in south Wichita to another church. First Freewill Baptist now resides at 1515 E. Harry.

The judge reminded Holick that the Constitution provides protection for people of all faiths, not just Holick’s.

“I hope you will reflect on the choices you made,” Journey said. “There’s nothing wrong the proselytizing or holding your beliefs. It’s the manner of how you carry them out that’s the problem.”

Holick could face a six-month jail term if he doesn’t follow the conditions of his probation.

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steve_emerson

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Fox Invites Anti-Muslim “Expert” To Lash Out Against Islamophobia Report

Posted on 01 September 2011 by Amago

That Eric Bolling is a terrible host is not a new revelation. Recently he had Islamophobe Steven Emerson on his show to discuss the CAP report on the Islamophobia Network (video below). Bolling once again reveals himself to be a shill for Right-Wing anti-Muslim hacks:

“I find it hard to believe that a group of four or five people are — who are responsible for what is perceived Islamophobia. I think it has a lot more to do with 3,000 people dying at the World Trade Center 10 years ago.”

What irks me more than Bolling however is Emerson professing he is merely a “messenger.” Messengers generally don’t claim to be scholars or experts. By saying he is merely a “messenger” Emerson hopes to secure the victim card and divert attention away from any responsibility for his Islamophobic statements and actions.

It is no coincidence his Islamophobe contemporaries, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, acted the same exact way during the Norway Massacre.

Fox Invites Anti-Muslim “Expert” To Lash Out Against Islamophobia Report

August 31, 2011 2:11 am ET by Terry Krepel

Last week, the Center for American Progress published a report detailing the network of anti-Muslim “experts” who relentlessly promote Islamophobia in America, as well as the sources of their funding. One of those featured in the report, Steve Emerson, appeared on the August 30 edition of Fox Business’Follow the Money to misrepresent the report and attack CAP in an attempt to discredit the report’s claims.

Emerson said on Fox that he felt “somewhat complimented because they’re attributing to me and four other people the ability to control the minds of 300 million Americans for 15 years.” In fact, the report features a dozen “main players who conjure up and spread misinformation about American Muslims and Islam,” as well as seven major financial contributors and an echo chamber that includes the religious right, the media, politicians, and grassroots organizations.

Emerson went on to suggest that some level of Islamophobia is justified because “65 to 70 percent of all international terrorist attacks are carried out by radical Muslims, so there’s a fear based on that.” He accused CAP of quoting “terrorist organizations” and “a front group for Hamas” in its report, dismissing CAP as a “$38 million-a-year organization that looks like the Democratic Party in exile.”

Emerson also falsely suggested that the report somehow denies that Islam is used as a justification for terrorist acts:

What’s interesting here is that when it comes to looking at Islamic terrorist attacks, what they deny and what they claim is racist is the assertion that Islamic terrorism is motivated by Islamic extremist clerics, mosques, statements –

In reality, the report states:

Around the world, there are people killing people in the name of Islam, with which most Muslims disagree. Indeed, in most cases of radicalized neighbors, family members, or friends, the Muslim American community is as baffled, disturbed, and surprised by their appearance as the general public. Treating Muslim American citizens and neighbors as part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, is not only offensive to America’s core values, it is utterly ineffective in combating terrorism and violent extremism.

During his Fox appearance, Emerson also offered this bizarre comparison: “This reminds me of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or, you know, it reminds me of someone who attacked the Southern Poverty Law Center because they attacked the Ku Klux Klan. Right? I’m the messenger.”

Emerson later said:

They believe that the only reason there exists suspicion against Islam — popular suspicion, and it’s not a majority, it’s a minority — is because of people like me who are orchestrating it like, you know, the Wizard of Oz. The bottom line is it comes from so many rampant sources — if you go on YouTube, on the Internet. Most of the Islamic organizations in the United States, they’re run by the Muslim Brotherhood or they were created by the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that believes in imposing Islam and the sharia around the world. We’re coming out with a documentary –

Host Eric Bolling echoed Emerson: “I find it hard to believe that a group of four or five people are — who are responsible for what is perceived Islamophobia. I think it has a lot more to do with 3,000 people dying at the World Trade Center 10 years ago.”

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Playland logo

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Altercation at New York amusement park after Muslim women banned from rides for wearing headscarves

Posted on 31 August 2011 by Amago

(Via Islamophobia-Watch.com)

Altercation at New York amusement park after Muslim women banned from rides for wearing headscarves

A New York amusement park was temporarily shut down Tuesday after a large-scale altercation erupted between Muslim patrons and park rangers over a disagreement on headgear rules.

Muslim women in a tour group at Rye Playland in Westchester County were reportedly denied access to several rides because they were wearing hijabs – their traditional headscarves, MyFoxNY reports.

“Our headgear policy is designed to protect the safety of patrons and safety is our first concern,” said Deputy Parks Commissioner Peter Tartaglia. “This policy was repeatedly articulated to the tour operator, but unfortunately the message did not reach some of the members of his group.”

The altercation began when park officials offered refunds and members of the Muslim group got in a scuffle, Tartaglia told The Journal News. Two park rangers were injured when they jumped in to break it up, he said, and were taken to local hospitals.

Dozens of police vehicles from nine agencies then rushed to the park, where officers arrested 15 people – mostly for disorderly conduct, authorities said. The disturbance involved around 30 to 40 people.

All other visitors were not allowed into the park between 4 and 6 p.m. ET, with exit ramps from I-95 closed as well.

The tour group – the Muslim American Society of New York – was at the park to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr, an Islamic holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, MyFoxNY reports.

“Everybody got mad, everybody got upset,” Amr Khater, a Brooklyn resident, told The Journal News. “It’s our holiday. Why would you do this to us?” Khater said park rangers notified him of the headgear rules upon arrival.

Fox News, 30 August 2011

The Journal News reports: “Lola Ali, 16, of Astoria said she witnessed a group of girls and women wearing hijabs go to park security to confront them about the headgear issue. She said the women were upset and yelling. She said the security officers started pushing them away and the girls stood their ground, at which point the security officers grabbed them, pushed them to the ground and handcuffed them. Men within the park saw this and tried to intervene, Ali said, and the situation went downhill from there. ‘They were beating down the girls, then they started beating down the guys,’ she said of the security officers.”

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911coloringbook

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9/11 Coloring Book Influences Kids With Islamophobia

Posted on 31 August 2011 by Amago

911coloringbook

9/11 Coloring Book Influences Kids With Islamophobia

By Tanya Somanader on Aug 30, 2011 at 4:32 pm

Believing that the upcoming 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 is best memorialized in crayon, Really Big Coloring Books, Inc. is publishing a new coloring book entitled “We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom.” In offering kids the option of coloring the Twin Towers burning, mourning survivors, or the Navy SEALs shooting Osama Bin Laden, publisher Wayne Bell insists that “the doodles represent patriotism,” a “simplistic, honest tool” to “help educate children on events on 9/11.” But many Muslims describe it as, in a word, “disgusting.”

Pointing out that Muslims are already dealing with an environment of increasing Islamophobia, Michigan Council on American Islamic Relations representative Dawud Walid noted that “nearly all of the mentions of Muslims in the book are accompanied by the words ‘terrorist’ or ‘extremist.’” Indeed, the page depicting a Navy SEAL aiming at bin Laden cowering behind is veiled wife reads “Children, the truth is, these terrorist acts were done by freedom-hating Islamic Muslim extremists. These crazy people hate the American way of life because we are FREE and our society is FREE.” Bell’s response? “The truth is the truth“:

“Little kids who pick up this book can have their perceptions colored by those images … it instills bias in young minds,” said Walid. He says that some of the narrative and photos aren’t even correct, noting that Bin Laden wasn’t hiding behind a wife when he was shot.

Bell stood by the book as an “honest depiction”.

“The truth is the truth,” Bell said, adding, “It’s unfortunate that they were all Muslim and that’s the part people want to erase … I don’t know what else you can call them.”

Noting that one page depicts a woman mourning with a cross chain dangling from her neck, Walid says “Muslims mothers lost sons too.” He also noted that he’s not an advocate of showing children violent images — a sentiment that many military families share. Shariah Gibbs, a military spouse in Germany, said “This should not be a coloring book.” Another said, “I would not buy a coloring book [about 9/11]…To me, coloring books should be fun….this is not!”

It is important to note that Bell has published other coloring books on topics “from dinosaurs and zoo animals to African-American leaders, President Obama, superheroes of the Bible and even the Tea Party.” He even said that, if asked to print a book reflecting positive images of Muslim Americans, “I’d print it tomorrow.” To which Walid said, “Well, I’m asking him to do it right now.”


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Omar Baddar

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Omar Baddar: Who is Brigitte Gabriel?

Posted on 29 August 2011 by Garibaldi

Omar Baddar

Omar Baddar

This is a decent video from anti-loon Omar Baddar exposing the insanity, contradictions and bigotry of Brigitte Gabriel:

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Mark_Vendetti_NY_Mosque

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5 Teens Arrested After Shot Fired Outside Mosque

Posted on 29 August 2011 by Emperor

*Originally published Aug.25.

Hate is alive and well, and it’s affecting our youth as well. (hat tip: Amber)

5 Teens Arrested After Shot Fired Outside Mosque

Five teens were arrested and charged after a shot was fired outside of an Orleans County mosque Monday night as worshipers were leaving nightly Ramadan services.

YNN spoke with members of the World Sufi Foundation Mosque in Waterport as well as law enforcement officials to learn more about what happened.

“I’m just grateful that things weren’t worse last night, which they easily could’ve been,” said David Bell of the World Sufi Foundation Mosque.

Members of the mosque in Waterport said they have been harassed since they were first founded in 1974. They said they have experienced everything from people speeding by and shouting vulgar language to having their fence torn out and burned down.

Still, they said nothing compares to what happened Monday after nightly prayer services.

“As we were standing here, the one car came back and instead of speeding by that car swerved directly into our group of people. It clipped me,” Bell said. “I fell to the ground and what’s even more difficult is what happened after. There was a group of people and a shot was fired before the car sped away.”

“This is actually the first time that someone’s actually been physically injured and that’s a concern for us. Imagine coming out after a service, particularly a holy service, coming out and seeing someone flipped by a car obviously we’re going to feel threatened by it, we’re going to feel insecure about it and we’re gonna wonder where is our protection and where are our rights,” said Bilal Huzair of the World Sufi Foundation Mosque.

Huzair said members of the mosque immediately called 911 to report the incident.

He said another member, who was late to prayer service, spotted the black SUV and white truck parked down the road at the Lake Alice Public Boat Launch. He said the member recognized the vehicles as the ones that were allegedly involved in a separate harassing incident just a few days earlier.

5 Teens Arrested After Shot Fired Outside Mosque

Huzair said once David Bell was taken to the hospital for treatment, he and other members of the mosque drove to the boat launch and used their cars to surround the two vehicles full of teens until police arrived.

Huzair claims it took more than 40 minutes for police to arrive and that police only came after the teens called 911 to say they were being harassed.

“I think there’s some miscommunication as to what agencies can respond and where they respond. There was more than one law enforcement agency involved in this. We did have local Albion police and state police assisting the sheriff’s office on both incidents,” said Orleans County Sheriff Scott Hess.

“Whether or not it was properly responded to initially is something we’ll be looking at, but I can tell you on behalf of this county, this is something that we’re taking extremely serious and will be properly addressed to be sure there will be no further escalation of what’s already occurred and the harassment that they’ve been subject to,” said Joseph Cardone, Orleans County district attorney.

Investigators charged Mark Vendetti, 17; Tim Weader, 17; Dylan Phillips, 18; Jeff Donahue, 18; and Anthony Ogden, 18, with misdemeanor disruption of religious services.

Vendetti is also charged with felony criminal possession of a weapon for allegedly shooting a 16-gauge shotgun in front of the mosque where people were leaving. He was arraigned and sent to the Orleans County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bail.

Authorities said all five teens are buddies from Holley.

No charges have been filed related to Bell’s injury, though the district attorney said more charges are possible. Four of the teens are scheduled to appear in Carlton Town Court on September 6.

“I’m hopeful that something can begin to change,” Bell added.

Later in the day on Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called for appropriate hate crime charges to be brought against the five Orleans County teenagers.

“New York Muslims must be free to practice their faith without fear of harassment or intimidation,” said Faiza N. Ali, community affairs director of CAIR’s New York chapter.

People who live near the mosque are reacting to the arrests. Opinion seems to be mixed on whether the incidents are related to religion.

“Just kids being renegade kids, you know there’s renegade kids out there. So anyway nobody got shot I guess. Kid probably went by and blew a shot out of the window,” said Phil Coville of Albion.

“You don’t do pranks with loaded weapons. It’s unfortunate. Kids, I don’t know how old they are, but they have a way of wrecking their own youth with rash acts And i hope somebody will put the brakes on these guys,” said Patricia Smith of Ontario.

“They were wrong because you don’t go interrupt somebody’s thing and go shoot off a gun, that’s not right, that’s not right. They should think first with their actions, not try to hurt somebody,” said Deborah Rebar of Albion.

People that YNN spoke with said they know very little about the mosque itself.

YNN contacted Carlton Town Supervisor Gayle Ashbery, who declined comment for our report.

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Pamela Geller Ready to Start Holy War Over Mistranslated Bumper Sticker

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Pamela Geller Ready to Start Holy War Over Mistranslated Bumper Sticker

Posted on 27 August 2011 by Danios

Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs recently published an alarmist, fear-mongering article about some bumper sticker on a Honda Accord:

ON THE ROAD: “VICTORY FROM ALLAH, AND INVASION SOON”

This just came in from “infidel” in Maine:

I saw this car in Portland yesterday August 24th, 2011.  I had to take a picture of this bumper sticker to share.  The translation on the sticker says “Help from Allah and present victory”

In Arabic it says “Victory from Allah, and invasion soon”  The word “FATTEH = Invasion” was used back in Muhammad’s days when he went from country to country killing people who don’t submit to Shariah.  After they were done, they would celebrate for the “FATTEH” of this country.

This bumper sticker was made for the USA, and was translated so it would sound good to the non-Arabic seaking American…

The car was driven by a burka.

First things first: I did not know “burka’s” could drive.

In any case, this is a mistranslation.  The bumper sticker reads nasr min Allah wa fatah qareeb, which translates to “Help and victory from God is near.” [Nasr = help, min Allah = from God, wa = and, fatah = victory, qareeb = near; so technically, it translates to "Help from Allah and victory is near" although I think my rendering flows a bit better.]

To say that it means “victory from Allah, and invasion soon” is purposefully misleading, blatantly incorrect, and obviously deceitful.

The bumper sticker is actually a verse from the Quran, namely verse 61:13:

Help and victory from God is near.  Give glad tidings to the faithful. (Quran, 61:13)

Interestingly enough, the very next verse gives the example of Jesus’ disciples:

O you who believe, be God’s helpers.  As Jesus, son of Mary, said to the disciples, ‘Who will come with me to help God?’ The disciples said, ‘We shall be God’s helpers.’ Some of the Children of Israel believed and some disbelieved: We supported the believers against their enemy and they were the ones who came out on top. (Quran, 61:14)

It is true that when this chapter of the Quran was revealed, it was in the context of war: the early Muslims were being persecuted for their faith and they were fighting a much stronger foe.  To boost their morale, the Quran reassured them: “Help and victory from God is near.”

Today, those words are used by Muslims whenever they face adversity, not just in the war context.  Certainly Jews and Christians shouldn’t make too much of a fuss about this, since they themselves do the same with Biblical passages.  For example, Psalm 3:8 from the Bible is often invoked by Jews and Christians:

Psalm 3:8 Victory comes from you, O Lord. May you bless your people.

This verse is contained in a “psalm of David”–a war poem.  David beseeches God for help against his enemies, saying:

Psalm 3:7 Arise, O LORD! Deliver me, O my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked.

This was revealed during David’s wars of conquest, in which he committed acts of ethnic cleansing and even genocide, which I’ve documented here.  Indeed, God grants “victory” to David, who subsequently “did not leave a man or woman alive” (I Sam. 18:11).

Yet, today Psalm 3:8–”Victory comes from you, O Lord”–is routinely invoked by Jews and Christians.  For example, this marketing website invokes the verse to say that God grants victory/success in one’s business adventures.  Does anyone think that the website is calling for the impending genocide against infidels?

There are several other Biblical verses in a similar vein, which were initially revealed in a war context (actually, in support of ethnic cleansing and genocide), but which are now used routinely by Jews and Christians for the every day struggles of life.  For example:

Deuteronomy 20:4 For the Lord your God is going with you! He will fight for you against your enemies, and he will give you victory!

This verse was said to be revealed to Moses before he conquered the Canaanites and then killed them all, in what can only be called genocide (which I documented here).  Yet, here we have a Christian using this same verse on a cutesy-looking card:


(link)

Should we sound the alarm?  Is this card a Christian-supremacist genocide card?

Or how about this:

Joshua 10:8 “Do not be afraid of them,” the Lord said to Joshua, “for I have given you victory over them.  Not a single one of them will be able to stand up to you.”

In spite of the fact that this verse references genocide (“not a single one of them will be able to stand up to you”)–refer to my earlier article for Joshua’s genocides–this verse is routinely used by Christians today.  Indeed, this website here uses the verse in an article about how to overcome your fears.

Similarly, the Quranic phrase “help and victory from God is near” is routinely used by Muslims whenever they find themselves in times of difficulty.  It is meant to reassure them that soon God will answer their prayers and grant them relief from hardship.

To immediately assume that the bumper sticker is a call for the invasion of America and the subjugation of infidels is truly ludicrous.   In any case, don’t you think the burka who that drove the car would want to keep the impending overthrow of America hush-hush instead of advertising it on her its car?

*   *  *  *  *

But what if some nutty Muslim somewhere decided to put up a crazy bumper sticker, so what?  Have you seen the crazy bumper stickers some Evangelical Christians put on their cars?  In fact, they actively sell them on “respectable” sites.

If you’re up in arms over the vaguely worded Quranic verse bumper sticker above, then what about the bumper stickers below which I found after just two minutes of searching on Google?

Bumper Sticker Calling for Shariah Biblical Law and the Killing of Gays:

 

(link)

Rule America With the Quran Bible:


(link)

America is a Christian Country:

(link)

America is a Christian Nation:

(link)

Hatred Against Christians Muslims:

(link)

BOMB MECCA and THE ONLY GOOD ARAB IS A DEAD ARAB, etc. etc.:

(link)

Surely Pamela Geller should be more worried about this guy, right?  Isn’t “nuking Mecca” the same or worse than “conquest?”

NUKE IRAN:

(link)

 You can find many, many “nuke Iran” bumper stickers.  Nothing wrong with that, right?

Bring Back the Crusades–You Know, the Holy War and Conquest of the Lands of Islam:

(link)

 

Another Crusades Decal:

(link)

Christian Jihad:

(link)

 

It’s Time to Play Cowboys And Muslims:

 

(link)

I could go on and on and on…

In fact, I’d be willing to bet that I could find 100 times as many bigoted uber-Christian, anti-Muslim bumper stickers than the other way around.  Pamela Geller found one–which she had to mistranslate to make her point–and she’s making such a big fuss about it.

That’s the thing with these Islamophobes: they live off of profound double-standards.  Who cares that I’ve just shown her bumper stickers from right-wing Christians that call for Sharia Biblical theocracy, holy war against the infidel, and nuclear holocaust.  Don’t you see that one bumper sticker on that one Honda Civic which, if you mistranslate it and look at it in one particular angle with just the right lighting, that might somehow (maybe?) call for something or the other Islamist-related?

Do you know how many crazy people there are out there in the world?  In our very own country no less?  Has Pamela Geller ever seen a campus rally during her college years?  She would have seen all sorts of crazy signs there: people holding the most absurdest of signs, from warnings of CIA microchips implanted in our brains to your garden-variety God Hates Fags signs…

If we condemned all religions for the sign or bumper sticker one crazy person from that faith used, every religion–including Christianity–would stand condemned.  But for Geller et al. Muslims are held to a very special standard.  She wants to single them out and demonize them.  Her message is very clear:

Be very afraid of the Moozlums!  They are coming to get you!  Kill them before they kill you!

*  *  *  *  *

On another note, we’re almost done fixing up the site after the recent hacking attack.  We’ll give you updates on that situation shortly.  Until then, we’ll only be occasionally publishing new articles.  But we should be back to normal soon…

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$42 Million From Seven Foundations Helped Fuel The Rise Of Islamophobia In America

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$42 Million From Seven Foundations Helped Fuel The Rise Of Islamophobia In America

Posted on 26 August 2011 by Garibaldi

money bags

A very interesting report on the funding of the anti-Muslim movement. It is unfortunate that despite a few citations there is scant mention of our taking the haters on day in and day out for over two years.

REPORT: $42 Million From Seven Foundations Helped Fuel The Rise Of Islamophobia In America

By Faiz Shakir on Aug 26, 2011 at 9:30 am

Following a six-month long investigative research project, the Center for American Progress released a 130-page report today which reveals that more than $42 million from seven foundations over the past decade have helped fan the flames of anti-Muslim hate in America. The authors — Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matt Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and myself — worked to expose the Islamophobia network in depth, name the major players, connect the dots, and trace the genesis of anti-Muslim propaganda.

The report, titled “Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network In America,” lifts the veil behind the hate, follows the money, and identifies the names of foundations who have given money, how much they have given, and who they have given to:

The money has flowed into the hands of five key “experts” and “scholars” who comprise the central nervous system of anti-Muslim propaganda:

FRANK GAFFNEY, Center for Security Policy – “A mosque that is used to promote a seditious program, which is what Sharia is…that is not a protected religious practice, that is in fact sedition.” [Source]

DAVID YERUSHALMI, Society of Americans for National Existence: “Muslim civilization is at war with Judeo-Christian civilization…the Muslim peoples, those committed to Islam as we know it today, are our enemies.” [Source]

DANIEL PIPES, Middle East Forum: “All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.” [Source]

ROBERT SPENCER, Jihad Watch: “Of course, as I have pointed out many times, traditional Islam itself is not moderate or peaceful. It is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers.” [Source]

STEVEN EMERSON, Investigative Project on Terrorism: “One of the world’s great religions — which has more than 1.4 billion adherents — somehow sanctions genocide, planned genocide, as part of its religious doctrine.” [Source]

These five “scholars” are assisted in their outreach efforts by Brigitte Gabriel (founder, ACT! for America), Pamela Geller (co-founder, Stop Islamization of America), and David Horowitz (supporter of Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch). As the report details, information is then disseminated through conservative organizations like the Eagle Forum, the religious right, Fox News, and politicians such as Allen West and Newt Gingrich.

Over the past few years, the Islamophobia network (the funders, scholars, grassroots activists, media amplifiers, and political validators) have worked hard to push narratives that Obama might be a Muslim, that mosques are incubators of radicalization, and that “radical Islam” has infiltrated all aspects of American society — including the conservative movement.

To explain how the Islamophobia network operates, we’ve produced this video to show just one example of how they have mainstreamed the baseless and unfounded fear that Sharia may soon replace American laws:

*We published this piece earlier but took it down for technical reasons.

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Oregon

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Man arrested for hate crime in fire at Ore. mosque

Posted on 25 August 2011 by Amago

Oregon

Man arrested for hate crime in fire at Ore. mosque

PORTLAND, Ore. — A 24-year-old man has been arrested on hate crime charges for the November firebombing of a mosque in Corvallis, Ore., where the suspect in a Portland, Ore., bomb plot once worshipped, a federal law enforcement official said Thursday.

The suspect in the Corvallis firebombing was identified as Cody Crawford, who lived a block from the mosque. Shortly after the firebombing, authorities searched his home.

Read the rest…

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Technical Difficulties Here at LoonWatch

Technical Difficulties Here at LoonWatch

Posted on 24 August 2011 by Admin

Not to be Captain Obvious but LoonWatch is suffering some technical difficulties right now, we are being attacked by hackers.  More details will be forthcoming, and we should be back up really shortly…

Update: You may access the site now without worry of any malware, etc. We are still working on a few things, so bear with us.

Update II: We will be updating the site with posts and so forth, however there may be interruptions periodically.

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Threat to America’s Freedom? It’s Not Islamic Law

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Threat to America’s Freedom? It’s Not Islamic Law

Posted on 23 August 2011 by Rousseau

Imagine, for a minute, that Muslims in America were openly advocating at meetings and conferences to take control of major sectors of public life, such as the government, media, and the law.

Imagine further that Muslims had built law schools, accredited no less, with the agenda to teach its students that America should be governed by Islamic law.

And imagine a little further that the leaders of this Muslim movement to Islamicize America were openly calling for America to become a Muslim nation.

And just imagine that all of the above was being absorbed into a major American political party and that some members of this Muslim mission were in Congress and were also looking to become the next President of the United States.

Of course, there would be mass hysteria and panic at such a notion. But none of the above is actually happening. Instead, replace Muslim with Christian and that is precisely what is currently occurring in America.

But of course, certain Islamophobes would have us worry about an imagined threat from Muslim-Americans–who make up a measly 2% of the U.S. population–rather than the Christian groups out there who are actively working to Christianize America, and who have been working at this for over three decades with the aid of one of the two main political parties.

Many of these evangelical Christian groups are actively looking to restrict the rights of women, members of the LGBT community, and to force their religious viewpoint on to the rest of the country.  Worse yet, advocates of Christian dominionism call for world conquest, to subjugate the infidel nations of the world to Christian domination.

Here is an excellent article from Sarah Posner on dominionism (emphasis added)–just imagine how utterly insane Islamophobes would go if Muslim were substituted for Christian here:

The Christian right’s “dominionist” strategy

by Sarah Posner

An article in the Texas Observer last month about Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s relationship with followers of a little-known neo-Pentecostal movement sparked a frenzied reaction from many commentators: Dominionism! Spiritual warfare! Strange prophecies!

All the attention came in the weeks before and after “The Response,” Perry’s highly publicized prayer rally modeled on what organizers believe is the “solemn assembly” described in Joel 2, in which “end-times warriors” prepare the nation for God’s judgment and, ultimately, Christ’s return. This “new” movement, the New Apostolic Reformation, is one strand of neo-Pentecostalism that draws on the ideas of dominionism and spiritual warfare. Its adherents display gifts of the spirit, the religious expression of Pentecostal and charismatic believers that includes speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing and a belief in signs, wonders and miracles. These evangelists also preach the “Seven Mountains” theory of dominionism: that Christians need to take control of different sectors of public life, such as government, the media and the law.

The NAR is not new, but rather derivative of charismatic movements that came before it. Its founder, C. Peter Wagner, set out in the 1990s to create more churches, and more believers. Wagner’s movement involves new jargon, notably demanding that believers take control of the “Seven Mountains” of society (government, law, media and so forth), but that’s no different from other iterations of dominionism that call on Christians to enter these fields so that they are controlled by Christians.

After Perry’s prayer rally, Rachel Maddow featured a segment on her MSNBC show in which she warned,

“The main idea of the New Apostolic Reformation theology is that they are modern day prophets and apostles. They believe they have a direct line to God … the way that they’re going to clear the way for it [the end of the world] is by infiltrating and taking over politics and government.”

Maddow’s ahistorical treatment of the NAR, however, overlooked several important realities. For anyone who has followed the growth of neo-Pentecostal movements, and in particular the coalition-building between the political operatives of the religious right and these lesser-known but still influential religious leaders, the NAR is just another development in the competitive, controversial, outrageous, authoritarian and often corrupt tapestry of the world of charismatic evangelists.

Before the NAR came along, plenty of charismatic leaders believed themselves to be prophets and apostles with a direct line to God. They wrote books about spiritual warfare, undergirded by conspiracy theories about liberals and Satan and homosexuality and feminism and more (my own bookshelves are filled with them). They preached this on television. They preached it at conferences. They made money from it. They all learned from each other.

Before the NAR, Christian right figures promoted dominionism, too, and the GOP courted these religious leaders for the votes of their followers. Despite a recent argument by the Daily Beast’s Michelle Goldberg that “we have not seen this sort of thing at the highest levels of the Republican Party before,” it’s been there since at least 1980. Michele Bachmann is a product of it; so was Mike Huckabee. Ronald Reagan pandered to it; so did both Bushes; so does Perry.

In 2007, I saw Cindy Jacobs and other “apostles” lay hands on Shirley Forbes, wife of Rep. Randy Forbes, the founder of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, which boasts some Democrats as members and many of the GOP’s leading lights. “You are going to be the mother of an army,” they told Forbes, prophesying that she would “speak the power of the word into politics and government. Hallelujah!”

The idea that Christians have a sacred duty to get involved in politics, the law and media, and otherwise bring their influence to bear in different public spheres is the animating principle behind the religious right. If you attend a Values Voters Summit, the annual Washington confab hosted by the Family Research Council, you’ll hear speakers urging young people to go into media, or view Hollywood as a “mission field.” That’s because they insist these institutions have been taken over by secularists who are causing the downfall of America with their anti-Christian beliefs.

A few days ago, the Washington Post’s religion columnist, Lisa Miller, took Goldberg and Maddow to task for overhyping dominionism as a plot to take over the world. Miller, though, misses the boat, too, by neglecting to acknowledge and describe the infrastructure the religious right has built, driven by the idea of dominionism.

Oral Roberts University Law School, where Bachmann earned her law degree, was founded with this very notion in mind: to create an explicitly Christian law school. Herb Titus, the lawyer converted by Christian Reconstructionism who was instrumental in its launch, describes his mission in developing a Christian law school as a fulfillment of a “dominion mandate.” After ORU was absorbed into Regent University in the 1980s, Titus was the mentor to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who last week was elevated to chair of the Republican Governors Association and is widely speculated to be a possible vice-presidential pick.

Christian Reconstructionists, and their acolytes of the Constitution Party, believe America should be governed by biblical law. In her 1995 book, “Roads to Dominion: Right Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States,” Sara Diamond describes the most significant impact of Reconstructionism on dominionism:

“the diffuse influence of the ideas that America was ordained a Christian nation and that Christians, exclusively, were to rule and reign.” While most Christian right activists were “not well-versed in the arcane teachings” of Christian Reconstructionism, she wrote, “there was a wider following for softer forms of dominionism.”

For the Christian right, it’s more a political strategy than a secret “plot” to “overthrow” the government, even as some evangelists describe it in terms of “overthrowing” the powers of darkness (i.e., Satan), and even some more radical, militia-minded groups do suggest such a revolution. In general, though, the Christian right has been very open about its strategy and has spent a lot of money on it: in the law, as just one example, there are now two ABA-accredited Christian law schools, at Regent (which absorbed the ORU law school) and Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. There are a number of Christian law firms, like the Alliance Defense Fund, formed as a Christian counterweight to the ACLU. Yet outsiders don’t notice that this is all an expression of dominionism, until someone from that world, like Bachmann, hits the national stage.

John Turner, University of South Alabama historian and author of “Bill Bright and the Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America,” said that the NAR’s “Seven Mountains” dominionism is “just a catchy phrase that encapsulates what Bright and many other evangelical leaders were already doing — trying to increase Christian influence (they would probably use more militant phrases like ‘capture’) in the spheres of education, business and government.”

Bright, like Perry’s prayer cohorts, believed America was in trouble (because of the secularists) and needed to repent. One of the most well-known evangelicals in the country, Bright had agreed to let Virginia Beach preacher John Gimenez, a charismatic, organize the rally, despite evangelical discomfort with charismatic religious expression. In his book, Turner describes the Washington for Jesus rally of 1980:

From the platform, Bright offered his interpretation of the source of the country’s problems, asserting that “[w]e’ve turned from God and God is chastening us.” “You go back to 1962 and [196]3 [when the Supreme Court banned school-sponsored prayer and Bible-reading],” Bright argued, “and you’ll discovered a series of plagues that came upon America.” Bright cited the Vietnam War, increased drug use, racial conflict, Watergate, and a rise in divorce, teenage pregnancy, and alcoholism as the result of those decisions. “God is saying to us,” he concluded, “‘Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!’” … “Unless we repent and turn from our sin,” warned Bright, “we can expect to be destroyed.”

Unlike Perry’s rally, Ronald Reagan the candidate wasn’t present at the Washington for Jesus rally. At a 2007 gathering at his church, Gimenez recounted how he and Bright later met with President Reagan, and Bright told him, “You were elected on April 29, 1980, when the church prayed that God’s will would be done.”

In August 1980, though, after Reagan had clinched the nomination, he did appear at a “National Affairs Briefing” in Texas, where televangelist James Robison (also instrumental in organizing Perry’s event) declared, “The stage is set. We’ll either have a Hitler-type takeover, or Soviet domination, or God is going to take over this country.” After Robison spoke, Reagan took the stage and declared to the 15,000 activists assembled by Moral Majority co-founder Ed McAteer, “You can’t endorse me, but I endorse you.”

That was also a big moment for Huckabee, who worked as Robison’s advance man. It was even imitated by then-candidate Barack Obama, who met with a group of evangelicals and charismatics in Chicago and repeated Reagan’s infamous line. Obama’s group included publisher Stephen Strang (an early endorser of Huckabee’s 2008 presidential bid) and his son Cameron, whose magazines Charisma and Relevant help promote the careers of the self-declared modern-day prophets and apostles. Huckabee appeared with Lou Engle at his 2008 The Call rally on the National Mall (like Perry’s, billed as a “solemn assembly”) in which Engle exhorted his prayer warriors to battlesatanic forces to defeat “Antichrist legislation.”

When I interviewed former Bush family adviser Doug Wead for my 2008 book, “God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters,” he gave me a lengthy memo he compiled for George H.W. Bush in 1985, to prepare him for his 1988 presidential run. In the memo, he identified a thousand “targets,” religious leaders across the country whose followers, Wead believed, could be mobilized to the voting booth.

In my book, I examined the theology and politics of the Word of Faith movement (also known as the prosperity gospel) and how Republicans cultivated the leading lights of the movement. Primarily because of television, but also because of the robust (and profitable) speaking circuit these evangelists maintain, they have huge audiences. All that was in spite of — just as the scrutiny of NAR figures now is revealing — outlandish, strange and even heretical theology. What’s more, Word of Faith figures have endlessly been embroiled in disputes not just with their theological critics, but with watchdogs and former parishioners who charge they took their money for personal enrichment, promising that God would bring them great health and wealth if they would only “sow a seed.”

At Gimenez’s 2007 event, Engle and the other “apostles” were not the stars; rather, the biggest draw was Word of Faith televangelist Kenneth Copeland. In 1998, writing to Karl Rove, Wead called Copeland “arguably one of the most important religious leaders in the nation.” At Gimenez’s church, Copeland, who has boasted that his ministry has brought in more the $1 billion over his career, preached for two hours. The sanctuary was packed, with the audience hanging on every word. Gimenez introduced him as “God’s prophet,” and Copeland urged them to “get rid of the evening news and the newspaper,” study “the uncompromised word of the Holy Ghost,” and take “control over principalities.”

The commenters who have jumped on the NAR frequently overstate the size of its following. Engle’s events, for example, are often smaller than advertised, including a poorly attended revival at Liberty University in April 2010, where one would expect a ready-made audience. When I’ve covered these sorts of events, including smaller conferences by local groups inspired by figures they see on television, it’s often hard to see how the often meandering preachers are going to take over anything, even while it’s clear they cultivate an authoritarian hold on their followers. I meet a lot of sincere, frequently well-intentioned people who believe they must be “obedient” to God’s word as imparted by the “prophets.”

Most chilling, though, is the willingness to engage in what’s known in the Word of Faith world as “revelation knowledge,” or believing, as Copeland exhorted his audience to do, that you learn nothing from journalism or academia, but rather just from the Bible and its modern “prophets.” It is in this way that the self-styled prophets have had their greatest impact on our political culture: by producing a political class, and its foot soldiers, who believe that God has imparted them with divine knowledge that supersedes what all the evil secularists would have you believe.

Last week CNN’s Jack Cafferty asked, “How much does it worry you if both Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry have ties to dominionism?” That worry crops up every election cycle. If people really understood dominionism, they’d worry about it between election cycles.

However, it’s the Moozlums we’re supposed to worry about.

To clarify though, LoonWatch is not pressing the panic button: the threat from the religious right is very real, but we don’t think it’s a doomsday situation.  All we’re saying is that the threat from the Christian right is certainly greater than this imaginary threat from Muslims and all this Sharia-nonsense.

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Self-Hating Muslim Irshad Manji’s WTF Tweet of the Day

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Self-Hating Muslim Irshad Manji’s WTF Tweet of the Day

Posted on 22 August 2011 by Danios

(Update I below)

Muammar Gaddafi’s regime collapsed yesterday, as the capital Tripoli was liberated by freedom-fighters.  As people all over the world rejoiced–including Libyans and Muslims across the globe–this is what faux-progressive Muslim Irshad Manji had to say; she tweeted:

Regardless of what happens in #Libya, may the victims of Pan Am 103 be at rest.” #Qaddafi #Tripoli

Ahmed Rehab tweeted in response:

WTF tweet of the day: @IrshadManji: “Regardless of what happens in #Libya, may the victims of Pan Am 103 be at rest.” #Qaddafi #Tripoli

Rehab described Manji’s tweet in the best possible manner: a WTF tweet.  WTF, indeed.

(“Pan Am 103″ is referencing a terrorist attack in the 1980′s, in which about 270 people were killed.  Libyans were implicated in this attack.  As one reader pointed out, it was actually Gaddafi himself, but Irshad Manji won’t let that fact bother her too much–it was those damn Libyans!)

In any case, a twitter war ensued thereafter, with one person responding to Manji saying:

and how about the 20 thousand Libyans who died in battle fighting Qadafi?

To which Manji replied:

Of course. While we’re busy praising them (rightly), let’s not overlook others. It’s not either/or. It’s and/both.

Umm, yeah.  Except that she specifically chose to highlight a terrorist attack that took place decades ago , without mentioning the thousands of Libyans who were killed recently.  Is it not likely that Manji cares much more about good white folk that die but cares much less about brown Muslims who are killed in record numbers?

The fact that Irshad Manji’s first thought when it comes to Libya is “1980′s Pan-Am 103 terrorist attack” is proof that–far from being the “Muslim representative” she parades around as–she is an outsider posing as an insider, who can only see the Muslim word through the lens of Orientalism.  To her, Libya is reduced to whatever America’s experience and simplistic stereotype of it is.  So, to her, Libya is 1980′s Pan-Am terrorist attack.  The more than two decades of Libyan history that followed after that are largely irrelevant to her understanding of the region.

Ahmed Rehab commented on Manji’s Facebook page:

I found it strange that of all the things that could be said at such a historic moment in the plight of a people dying for their freedom, this is what you could think of. I mean, what is it about Libyan citizens fighting for freedom against a 42 year oppressive rule, giving life and limb, and finally celebrating being on the cusp of finding it, that conjures up a 1980′s terrorist attack in your mind? Very Bizarre for me.

Very bizarre indeed.  WTF more like it.

Update I:

Ahmed Rehab threw another grenade, saying:

@Irshad, the phenomenon of the people of Libya fighting for freedom and celebrating their victory yesterday has nothing to do with a terrorist act by Qaddafi in the 80′s. But since you’re in the business of randomly mentioning things and associating events together because they’re “human too” then why not throw in that tweet mention of the 1000+ dead in the last Gaza war at the hands of an occupation you seem to support and say something like “I wish they too could have seen a free day”? Seems like just as much a logical association if not more than the one you threw out. Come on, why not? What’s happening in your heart that you would need to view this as an either/or scenario, rather than an and/both sentiment?

But of course Irshad Manji doesn’t sympathize with the Palestinians under Israeli occupation.  That would put her in the bad books with the right-wingers and neo-conservatives whose approval she so desperately needs.  So much for the “and/both” claim.

Rehab said further:

There’s nothing wrong with evoking the victims of Hiroshima, but it would be bizarre if one tweeted “regardless of who wins the olympic gymnastics Gold between the US and Romania, I hope the victims of Hiroshima rest in peace” and then when someone rightly wonders WTF, the response is “what is it in your heart that you cannot BOTH celebrate the US gold AND have it in your heart to remember Hiroshima”. It’s the bizarre forced associaton that makes your tweet incoherent. I know you are intelligent enough to grasp this simple point. So, there’s something else going on with you. And I will tell you what it is: expediency. I don’t personally believe that you are concerned with the freedom of Libyans, or with the victims of terrorism for that matter (if you were you’d have – even if once by sheer accident – decried Israeli state terrorism against unarmed Palestinian families). I think instead you are a professional panderer givning a segment of Western society what you think they want to hear from a Muslim to be patted on the back and hansomely rewarded as a “good, civilized, educated” Muslim. And you never waste an opportunity to deliver the goods. In fact, you’ve made a career of mastering that art. You will forgive my honesty.

That’s pretty much spot-on.

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Robert Spencer Insists Muslims Worship a Different, Pagan God; A Case Study in Spencer’s Paper Thin Arguments

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Robert Spencer Insists Muslims Worship a Different, Pagan God; A Case Study in Spencer’s Paper Thin Arguments

Posted on 21 August 2011 by Danios

I just published an article series entitled The “Allah is the Moon-God” Nonsense Could be the Stupidest Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theory Yet (see pages I, II, III, IV, and V).  This ridiculously absurd theory is promoted by such clowns as Robert Morey and Yoel Natan.

But lest we think that Robert Spencer, the self-declared “acclaimed scholar of Islam,” is above such silliness, we’d be quickly disabused of such a notion.  Indeed, Spencer toys with the “Allah is a pagan God” idea in a post entitled “Is Allah God?” He first quotes Daniel Pipes (another veritable Islamophobe) who says:

Islam views Judaism and Christianity as flawed versions of itself, correct on essentials but wrong in important details. This outlook implies that all three faiths share the God of Abraham.

Spencer is unsatisfied with this, and says: “Yes they do – in a sense.” They only worship the same God in a sense. Spencer then claims:

Muslims themselves vehemently deny that the Allah of the Qur’an is the God of the Bible.

This is a completely false claim.  Muslims have always claimed that they worship the same God as the God of the Bible.  They believe in the God of Israel, whom the Jews believe in, and whom the Christians refer to as the Father.  The Quran itself says:

Do not argue with the People of the Book [the Jews and Christians] except in the kindest possible manner, save those of them who are oppressive, and say: “We believe in what was revealed to us and what was revealed to you; our God and your God are one and the same, and to Him do we submit ourselves.” (Quran, 29:46)

Spencer’s argument, however, revolves around the fact that Muslims don’t believe in the Trinity or in the divinity of Jesus:

However, Muslims themselves vehemently deny that the Allah of the Qur’an is the God of the Bible. Not only is the Trinity, which is accepted by almost all Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox groups (with the exception of a few marginal groups and self-anointed experts) blasphemous to Muslims; referring to God as “Father” is for them blasphemous as well. Even to say such a thing puts one at risk of Hell.

And:

No Muslim, therefore, would say he worships the Triune God of Christianity, which the Qur’an rather inaccurately denigrates as worship of God, Jesus, and Mary (5:116). Hardly a promising ground for mutual understanding.

Aha!, you see, Muslims don’t really believe in the same God as us! Spencer, in his zealous attempt to cast out Muslims as “pagans” stupidly shoots himself in the foot.  Guess what, Mr. Spencer?  Jews don’t believe in the Trinity, the Triune God of Christianity, or the divinity of Jesus either.  So this means, according to Spencer’s brilliant logic, that Jews also don’t worship the same God as the Jews and Christians do.  Most Jews I’ve met are pretty convinced that they worship the same God as the God of the Jews.

Since the Old Testament doesn’t mention the Trinity anywhere in it (barring fantastic attempts by Christians to superimpose it into various verses) and certainly Jews reject the concept altogether, and by Spencer’s own logic this means that Jews and Christians worship different gods, then in that case we could say that the Christians don’t worship the same God as Jews do.  In this manner, Jews and Muslims worship the same God, whereas Christianity–not Islam–is the odd one out.

Historically, Jewish religious authorities permitted Jews to enter mosques but not churches.  (Refer to p.133 of Prof. Reuven Firestone’s book Children of Abraham.)  The Jews considered Islamic worship to be monotheistic, whereas the Christian church was seen as a place of polytheism (three gods instead of one).  The Christian images of Jesus were deemed idolatrous, whereas no such impediment was present in mosques.  If then Robert Spencer desires to cast out Islam as the pagan faith, then it seems it would be very easy to turn this around on Christianity, especially his own Catholicism which abounds in religious imagery and iconography.

It is often argued that there can be some level of mutual understanding between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam based on the fact that they all worship the same God.  Spencer can’t tolerate the idea of “mutual understanding” with Islam, and therefore argues that there is “hardly a promising ground for mutual understanding” since Muslims reject the Trinity as blasphemy.  Well, so too do Jews regard the Trinity as blasphemous.  In fact, in Spencer’s own Bible it says that the Jews wanted to stone Jesus for this blasphemy:

John 10:31 Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him,

10:32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”

10:33 “We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

Certainly, Jews continue to consider the Trinity to be blasphemous: Rabbi Shraga Simmons says, “In Jewish law, worship of a three-part god is considered idolatry” and the Jewish Encyclopedia concludes that the concept of Trinity is born out of “the paganistic tendency of the Church.”  Wouldn’t this also “hardly [be] a promising ground for mutual understanding?”  Time and time again, we’ve seen Spencer et al.’s double standards with regard to Islam.

Even though Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe God to have slightly differing qualities, they all worship the same God.  Evangelical or Catholic Christians cannot reasonably argue otherwise because doing so would mean accepting the idea that Jews and Christians worship two different Gods.  In other words, the three faiths may differ in their basic conception and understanding of God, but this doesn’t mean they worship a different God altogether.  After all, even within Christianity there exist multiple conceptions and understandings of God that differ from one another.  (I will argue in my next article that the Jewish and Christian conception and understanding of God is no more desirable than the Islamic one.)

Lastly, it would be worthwhile to note that Robert Morey, the clown who furthered the “Allah is the Moon-God” theory, uses the exact same argument as Spencer, saying:

Islam and Christianity do not worship the same God. The Christian worships the Holy Trinity while the Muslim worships a unitarian deity.

Despite his attempts to pass off as a “serious scholar of Islam,” Robert Spencer is nothing more than a Christian apologist like Robert Morey.

*  *  *  *  *

Robert Spencer then whines that Islam’s view towards Judaism and Christianity is intolerant because it views “Judaism along with Christianity as a renegade perversion of Islam, which is based on the idea that the Bible as we have it has been corrupted.”  He says:

In light of that, it is no small thing that, as Pipes notes, “Islam views Judaism and Christianity as flawed versions of itself, correct on essentials but wrong in important details.” I think unfortunately that this makes it unlikely that some path to mutual coexistence can be based on the fact that “all three faiths share the God of Abraham.” They do, but Islam views the other two not as equal or even potential partners, but as renegade perversions of the true faith of the God of Abraham.

The childish arguments raised by Spencer are indicative of his complete lack of sophistication of thought.  Here again, we must wonder if Robert Spencer had the capacity to think out his argument before opening his mouth.  Christianity views Judaism and certainly Islam as “flawed perversions.”  So too does Judaism regard Christianity and Islam as such.

Islam at least views the other two faiths as “correct on essentials but wrong in important details.”  Muslims believe in the Jewish and Christian prophets, and they even believe that the Bible is a divine book (although they believe over time it has lost its textual integrity).  Meanwhile, Jews reject Jesus altogether, some even going so far as to believe he was a fraud, charlatan, and fake prophet.  Certainly, Jews believe this of Muhammad!

Likewise, Jews regard the New Testament and the Quran as worse than just being tampered with: these holy books are considered wholly bogus, at least in the sense of divine inspiration.  In a similar vein, Christians don’t just think that Muhammad was “not a prophet” but they think of him as a fraud, charlatan, and fake prophet.  This is, after all, what Robert Spencer himself thinks.  He authored a book with the title The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion.  Christians regard the Quran not as a divine book that was simply tampered with, but rather as a wholesale forgery.  If Muslims are to be chastised for believing the Bible has lost its textual purity, shouldn’t Christians be chastised for believing the Quran to be entirely bogus?

Spencer wonders:

In light of the Qur’anic verses I have referred to here and others, I wonder if it would really be possible for Qur’an-believing Muslims to “recognize the validity of alternate approaches to the one God” – specifically approaches that are condemned as perversions of the true faith in the same Qur’an.

While Spencer wonders, we too wonder: will Christians “recognize the validity of alternate approaches to the one God?”  Jesus says in the Bible that “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6), which Christians use to claim that there is no alternate approach to the one God except through Jesus: as the popular Evangelical website GotQuestions.org says, “Jesus is the only way of salvation.”  In fact, even those people who don’t believe in Jesus because they have never heard of him will burn in Hell.  And yep, Jews will burn in Hell too.  But God damn it, when will those Muslims ever tolerate other approaches to the one God?

In terms of religious exclusivity, Christianity can be understood to be more exclusive (intolerant?) than either Judaism or Islam (more on various Islamic views towards salvific exclusivity in a later article).  While exceptions exist (the importance of which ought not be dismissed), it can certainly be said that Christians in general are at least as strict–if not more so–as Muslims on the need to convert to be “saved” from Hell.  In Robert Spencer’s own Catholicism, there was and still is a question of whether or not non-Catholic Christians are automatically damned or not, let alone your run-of-the-mill infidel.  So why focus on Islam?

What perfectly encapsulates Robert Spencer’s complete obliviousness to his own amazing double-standards is his conclusion, in which he asks:

Will this change as Muslims come to recognize that we are all children of Abraham with a common God? I hope so.

This, even while he himself denies that Muslims truly worship “a common God” as Jews and Christians–something that he argues in the very same article no less!  Spencer argues: (1) Muslims worship a different God than Jews and Christians; (2) If only Muslims weren’t so supremacist and rejected the fact that we all worship the same God! Another case of right-wing projection.

*  *  *  *  *

Robert Spencer’s article Is Allah God? serves as a good case study of Spencer’s paper thin arguments.  Will he actually defend his ideas or just continue to crow in victory over his debates with bumbling, cherry-picked opponents and puff out his chest because Muslim or liberal figures are supposedly too cowardly to debate him? Why is it that Robert Spencer prides himself in never backing down from a good debate, but at the same time refuses to debate the one person who keeps on refuting him?

*  *  *  *  *

Some people have wondered: why is it important to clarify that Muslims worship the same God that of the Jews and Christians?  What’s wrong with saying that the Islamic God is pagan?  What’s wrong with paganism?  As one reader put it: the Wiccans worship the moon-god; this doesn’t (and shouldn’t) mean that they have less rights.

While this is most certainly true–and while I am hesitant to engage in such discussions for fear of legitimizing the demonization of pagan faiths (something that has been a major problem in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition)–it should be noted that Wiccans themselves say they worship the moon-god and have no problem with it.  Meanwhile, Muslims do not say they worship the moon-god, and therefore attributing it to them is purposefully insulting; the anti-Muslim Evangelicals who say “Allah is the moon-god” intentionally want to denigrate Islam by saying such.

More importantly, casting out Islam’s deity as the pagan, non-Abrahamic moon-god is yet another means employed by the anti-Muslim camp to Other-ize Muslims.  They are so totally absolutely, totally different than us that they can’t possibly worship the same God as us.  This Other-ization is the first step leading to demonization, which becomes especially acute when this other, strange pagan God is charecterized as a a god of war and violence.

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r-THE-HURT-LOCKER-large570

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Rep. Peter King Wants Bin Laden Movie Investigation; Kathryn Bigelow, Obama Administration Respond

Posted on 18 August 2011 by Amago

Peter King really knows how to waste everybody’s time.

Rep. Peter King Wants Bin Laden Movie Investigation; Kathryn Bigelow, Obama Administration Respond

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee sought an investigation Wednesday into the Obama administration’s cooperation with award-winning filmmakers working on a movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said too much information already has leaked out about the Navy SEALs raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan in May, and Pentagon officials have cautioned against discussing details of the mission.

King asked the inspectors general of the CIA and Defense Department to determine what consultations occurred in the Obama administration about providing Hollywood with access to covert military operators and clandestine CIA officers.

The picture will be directed by Kathryn Bigelow and the screenwriter will be Mark Boal, 2009 Academy Award winners for “The Hurt Locker.”

The White House ridiculed King’s request, saying the moviemakers will not receive any sensitive information.

Press secretary Jay Carney told reporters, “When people, including you in this room, are working on articles, books, documentaries or movies that involve the president, ask to speak to administration officials, we do our best to accommodate them to make sure that facts are correct. That is hardly a novel approach to the media.

“We do not discuss classified information. And I would hope that as we face the continued threat from terrorism, the House Committee on Homeland Security would have more important topics to discuss than a movie.”

He said information provided about the raid was focused on President Barack Obama’s role and it’s the same information given to anybody writing about the topic.

King said his staff has spoken to CIA officials who were upset about any cooperation with the movie-makers. Among the things he asked the inspectors general to investigate were:

_Any consultations within the administration on the advisability of providing Hollywood executives with access to covert military operators and clandestine CIA officers to discuss the raid.

_Whether a copy of the film would be submitted to the military and CIA for pre-publication review to determine whether special operations tactics, techniques and procedures, or intelligence sources and methods, would be revealed.

_Whether filmmakers attended a meeting with special operations personnel and CIA officers, and whether any such attendance was balanced against the duty to maintain cover for these operatives.

The movie may be released by Sony Pictures Entertainment next fall, shortly before the November 2012 elections.

Marine Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman, told reporters, “This film project is only in the script development phase, and DoD is providing assistance with script research, which is something we commonly do for established filmmakers.

“Until there is a script to review, and a request for equipment or other DoD support, there is no formal agreement for DoD support.”

Bigelow and Boal said in a statement, “Our upcoming film project about the decade-long pursuit of bin Laden has been in the works for many years and integrates the collective efforts of three administrations, including those of Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, as well as the cooperative strategies and implementation by the Department of Defense and the CIA.

“Indeed, the dangerous work of finding the world’s most wanted man was carried out by individuals in the military and intelligence communities who put their lives at risk for the greater good without regard for political affiliation. This was an American triumph, both heroic and non-partisan, and there is no basis to suggest that our film will represent this enormous victory otherwise.”

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Oslo Rose March

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Anders Behring Breivik’s Irrational Belief about Muslim Immigrant Colonization

Posted on 18 August 2011 by Emperor

Oslo Rose March

Oslo Rose March

It’s not like I need to remind you that Breivik’s belief that immigration and an eventual Muslim take over were kooky, but here are some facts.

The sinful lies of Norway’s madman: European immigration in the wake of Breivik

Anders Behring Breivik, the butcher of Norway, believed the “Muslim colonization” of Europe – aided and abetted by multiculturalist fellow travelers and colluding weak-kneed politicians – was poised to destroy pristine Norway unless he acted. Breivik’s European Declaration of Independence lists a series of demands, above all that “immigration in whatever form should be immediately and completely halted and that our authorities take a long break from mass immigration in general until such a time when law and order has been reestablished in our major cities.”

The irrational fear of immigration does not align with the facts. Immigration has remained remarkably stable over the past 50 years – with approximately 3% to 3.2% of the world’s population as international migrants.

Norway, which sent to America some 522,000 immigrants over a century ago, is paradigmatic of the status quo. Over the course of 150 years, it has experienced a minor net migration gain. Today, it has approximately 550,000 immigrants – half of them originating in Europe, with Poles and Swedes leading the way. Norway has a small Muslim population (roughly a quarter of its immigrants).

Immigration’s stability is remarkable. While the potential for immigration continues to grow in our increasingly mobile and global world, the reality of international immigration remains quite stable – with more than 96% of all human beings living in the countries where they were born.

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The “Allah is the Moon-God” Nonsense Could be the Stupidest Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theory Yet, Page V [Conclusion]

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The “Allah is the Moon-God” Nonsense Could be the Stupidest Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theory Yet, Page V [Conclusion]

Posted on 17 August 2011 by Danios

Please make sure to read Page IIIIII, and IV first, which were recently published.  What follows is the concluding page:

After this lengthy analysis, it becomes quite clear that the anti-Muslim theory that “Allah is the moon-god” comes from nothing more than the fact that the crescent moon is often used as a symbol to represent Islam.  This argument is paper thin for numerous reasons:

1)  The star of David is used to denote Judaism; well then, the Jews must worship the stars–Yahweh must be the star-god!   The cross is used to denote Christianity; do Christians worship the cross?  Certainly, this is silly “logic.”

We can similarly disregard the “Muslims use the lunar calender” argument.  Jews also use the lunar calender; does this mean that they too worship the moon?  Christians use a solar calendar; does this mean they worship the sun god?

2)  The crescent moon as a symbol for Islam is a relatively new phenomenon.  The Prophet Muhammad certainly never used it.  In fact, it seems that he forbade all forms of religious iconography, as he feared it would lead to idolatry.  Neither did the Muslims use the symbol for hundreds of years.  It was only in the nineteenth century that the Ottoman Empire used the crescent symbol on their flag.  The Ottomans were of Turkic origin, and the crescent symbol was used by the pre-Islamic Turkic tribes.  The Ottoman Turks were converts to Islam, and they retained the pre-Islamic symbol from their pagan faith.

The Ottoman Empire expanded to involve much of the Islamic world, and soon “Muslim” became synonymous with “Turk” to the Europeans.  Therefore, the crescent became associated not just with the Ottoman Empire, but Islam in general.  Even so, it was only until the twentieth century that the crescent really became the symbol of Islam in the West and in some (but certainly not all) Muslim countries.  It is a historical irony that the adoption of the pagan symbol was a result of the early Islamic reticence towards adopting an icon.  With no icon representing the faith, the crescent moon became the stand-in symbol for Islam.

Although it is true that the crescent symbol is pagan in origin, it cannot be used as a proof that the Prophet Muhammad or the early Muslims worshiped the moon, since the crescent is of recent origin.  During Muhammad’s time (and hundreds of years thereafter), the Muslims did not use the crescent symbol.

It is hotly debated whether or not the Ottomans adopted the crescent symbol from the Byzantine Empire.  Recent scholarship has moved away from this belief, but it is interesting to note that even when it was a widely held belief, nobody in their right mind would think that it would be proof that the Christians of the Byzantine Empire worshiped the moon!  But somehow when it comes to Muslims there are always foregone conclusions.

3)  As mentioned above, the Prophet Muhammad forbade the use of religious icons.  Furthermore, even though the crescent is used by the religious laity, it is rejected by the traditional and orthodox clergy of Islam.  For example, the ultra-orthodox Islamic website Islam-qa.com says:

There is no basis in sharee’ah for taking the crescent or star as a symbol of the Muslims. This was not known at the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), or at the time of the Khulafa’ al-Raashidoon (the first four leaders of Islam after the death of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), or during the time of the Umawis (Umayyad dynasty)…there is no evidence that this symbol is prescribed by Islam, it is better not to use it. Neither the crescent nor the star are symbols of the Muslims, even though some Muslims may use them as symbols.

Elsewhere, the site says that the symbol might be haram (strictly forbidden) and even bidah (literally: a blame-worthy innovation; what it really refers to is a deviation from or corruption of the faith).  Since our opponents usually take the most conservative expressions of Islam as the only legitimate and representative forms of the religion, surely this should be acceptable to them as proof that the crescent is not a part of Islam.

*  *  *  *  *

It would be appropriate here to point out the pagan origins of many things in the Christian faith: for example, both Christmas and Easter–the two most popular holidays of Christianity–are of pagan origins.  Christmas originated from a pagan holiday involving the worship of the sun.  As for Easter, this too has pagan origins, and involved the worship of the Great Mother Goddess named Eostre. Just imagine if the two Islamic holidays–the two Eids–had pagan origins.  This would become the supreme proof for the anti-Muslim camp.  It would be proof that Allah was the sun god or the pagan mother goddess.

Robert Morey was forced to admit that Christmas and Easter come from pagan origins, but he brushed this point off by saying:

Some Muslims may point to the so-called Christian feasts of Christmas and Easter being pagan in origins.  I agree.  They are pagan in origin!  That is the reason I teach people to not indulge in Christmas and Easter as a form of worship to God, because the New Testament teaches that we are not to observe any holy days, or months or years (Gal. 4:10-11).   Keeping Christmas and Easter as a non-religious time of gift-giving is okay.  But we do not worship God with it.

Morey is arguing that although the majority of Christian laypersons worship Christmas and Easter with great devotion, the purists like himself “teach people to not indulge” in them.  Doesn’t this then apply to the crescent symbol, which is rejected by Islamic purists, namely the traditional and orthodox clergy?  What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right?  This is yet another case of the huge double-standards employed by the anti-Muslim camp when criticizing Islam.

But Christmas and Easter are just the tip of the iceberg.  Scholarship has uncovered much else of Christianity’s pagan origins; there is evidence to suggest that even the concept and story of Jesus Christ has pagan roots.

Yet more relevant is the fact that the Judeo-Christian concept of God originates from pagan sources, according to some scholars. Professor Mark S. Smith, a professor of the Bible and Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU, published a book entitled The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel in which he discusses this issue in great detail.  The book is dense and difficult reading, but fortunately it has been appropriately summarized by Wikipedia (normally I would be averse to using Wikipedia as a “source,” but here I am simply using it as a good summary of the book itself, which I have read; whoever summarized it on Wikipedia did a great job, better than I could do myself. More importantly, I’ll reference a scholar’s review of the book to corroborate the online encyclopedia.):

Smith begins from the understanding that Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in origin, and that deities such as El, Baal and Asherah, far from being alien to the Israelites, formed part of their heritage. He therefore sees Israelite monolatry (the insistence that Israel should worship one god, Yahweh, but without denying the reality of other gods) as a break with Israel’s own past.

Yahweh, he argues, originated in Edom/Midian/Teman as a warrior-god and was subsequently assimilated into the highland pantheon headed by El and his consort, Asherah and populated by Baal and other deities.[2]

Smith sees this process as marked by two major phases, which he describes as “convergence” and “differentiation.” In the period of the Judges and the early monarchy, convergence saw the coalescence of the qualities of other deities, and even the deities themselves, into Yahweh. Thus El became identified as a name of Yaweh, Asherah ceased to be a distinct goddess, and qualities of El, Asherah and Baal (notably, for Baal, his identification as a storm-god) were assimilated into Yahweh. In the period from the 9th century BC through to the Exile certain features of the Israelite religion were differentiated from the Yahweh cult, identified as Canaanite, and rejected: examples include Baal, child sacrifice, the asherah, worship of the sun and moon, and the cults of the “high places”

In other words, various Canaanite (pagan) deities converged into Yahweh, and only at a later point differentiated into competing gods but only after Yahweh had assimilated many of their qualities into himself.  Prof. Richard S. Hess has also summarized and reviewed Smith’s book, saying (emphasis added):

Smith argues that there are three major tendencies in the history of Israelite religion. There is the convergence of the characteristics of deities such as El, Baal, and Asherah into those of Yahweh. There is the divergence of the figures of Baal and Asherah from Yahweh.  Finally, there is the role of the Monarchy in the acceptance of various deities and images associated with Yahweh as well as rejection of these late in the Monarchy under Josiah.

Smith then turns his attention toward the evidence for various deities during the period of the Judges, i.e., Iron Age I. For him, this was largely a time that saw the convergence of deities such as El and Yahweh…

For Smith, El was never a threat and simply became assimilated with Yahweh in the first millennium, as evidenced by the early divine name Yahweh-El. Baal was a clear threat from the ninth century onwards as the account of Ahab and Jezebel’s attempt to introduce the Tyrian form of this deity (Baal Shamem) led to a prophetic revolt and intolerance for the god. Nevertheless, various characteristics such as those of the storm and stormcloud were adopted and applied to Yahweh. As noted, Asherah was reduced to a cult symbol of Yahweh. However, the female characteristics of Yahweh and some background to the personification of Wisdom (e.g., Proverbs 3) owe their origins to Asherah. The sun deity was assumed by Yahweh who took on its characteristics. The actual symbol of the sun in the form of the winged sun disk became a later symbol of the Judean monarchy.

This is a polemical goldmine: “the sun deity was assumed by Yahweh who took on its characteristics.”  If anti-Muslims Jews and Christians want to argue that Allah came from the moon-god, then Muslims can reply by noting that Yahweh came from the sun-god.  If the Islamophobes would cite unacademic and spurious sources like Robert Morey and Yoel Natan to claim Allah comes from the moon-god, Muslims can cite actual scholars such as Prof. Mark S. Smith and others in academia to claim that Yahweh originates from a solar deity and other pagan gods.

One could certainly disagree with Smith’s hypothesis and conclusion.  What is relevant here however is the recurring theme of hypocrisy displayed by anti-Muslim Jews and Christians, whereby they vilify Islam for what is present in their own religion.

It would be easy to apply the same simplistic line of thinking to Christianity that the Islamophobes apply to Islam: Christians use the solar calendar, they celebrate Christmas which originated from a pagan holiday involving the sun-god, and they worship the Sun/Son of God–THIS IS ALL PROOF THAT CHRISTIANS WORSHIP THE SUN-GOD!

I wouldn’t really be surprised if some anti-Muslim Jews and Christians used this fact, that some scholars say the Biblical God had roots in a solar-deity, to argue that the Islamic God came from the sun-god, since after all, the Islamic God is the same as Judeo-Christian one–except they would somehow link Allah to the sun-god, and use “ellipses” to omit the fact that the link to the sun-god is through the Judeo-Christian tradition itself.  Then they’d argue: the Islamic God is not the same as the Judeo-Christian one because Allah comes from the pagan sun-god!

*  *  *  *  *

This last revelation, that early Judaism was not completely independent of “pagan” religion and society, should signal a paradigm shift in the minds of modern-day Jews, Christians, and Muslims who often define themselves in complete opposition to pagandom.  Such a myopic view towards pagan faiths (here defined simply as non-Abrahamic religions) is intolerant, hateful, and simply inaccurate.

On a more positive note, there is certainly room to accept a more tolerant, nuanced, and appropriate view of “paganism” in Islam: the Prophet Muhammad is said to have affirmed what was good in pre-Islamic Arab custom and rejected what was wrong with it.  For example, he affirmed the hospitality that the pre-Islamic Arabs were known for, whereas he rejected female infanticide.  The point is that he did not reject pagan custom wholesale.

*  *  *  *  *

Having thus established that Allah did not originate from the moon-god–that Muslims never worshiped the moon, that the Quran itself explicitly forbids lunar worship in multiple verses, and that Allah was the most popular name the Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians used for God long before Muhammad was born, that the Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians continue to do so, that Allah is the name used for God in Arabic Bibles, that the word Allah is derived from the Aramaic word Alaha which Jesus used, that the word Allah is closer to what Jesus used than the word “God” that Christians use today, that much of Christianity comes from pagan origins, that the word “God” that Christians use today comes from pagan roots, and that some scholars say that the Israelite god originated from pagan deities including the sun-god–the Islamophobes have absolutely no leg to stand on.

And because they don’t have a leg to stand on, the Islamophobes resort to their fall-back argument.  They argue that the Muslims do not worship the same God as Christians because the Quran categorically rejects the Trinity dogma.  This argument, supported by the likes of Robert Spencer, will be addressed in the next part of the Series–and it will be seen how this is yet another case of anti-Muslim Christians shooting themselves in the foot in their desperate attempts to vilify the religion that they despise so much.

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Website Reviews Anders Behring Breivik’s Manifesto: Reads Just Like Jihad Watch, Atlas Shrugs, and Other “Counter-Jihad” Websites

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Website Reviews Anders Behring Breivik’s Manifesto: Reads Just Like Jihad Watch, Atlas Shrugs, and Other “Counter-Jihad” Websites

Posted on 17 August 2011 by Danios

Robert Spencer and his biggest fan: Anders Behring Breivik

LoonWatch was recently referenced by an interesting website that reviews “odd books.”  IReadOddBooks.com reviewed Anders Behring Breivik’s book 2083: A European Declaration of Independence. Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who killed over 70 people in Oslo (he was targeting “jihad-supporting Leftists”), penned this 1500 page manifesto and wanted it to be read widely. 

What’s interesting is how similar–in fact, how  completely indistinguishable–Breivik’s book is from any of the multitude of “counter-jihad” websites such as Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch and Pamela Geller’s Atlas Shrugs.

Here it is:

2083 by Andrew Berwick, aka Anders Behring Breivik

Book: 2083: A European Declaration of Independence

Author: Andrew Berwick, real name Anders Behring Breivik

Type of Book: Paranoid manifesto, conspiracy theory

Why Do I Consider This Book Odd: Sigh…

Availability: It’s all over the Internet.

Comments: When I learned that the Norway mass murderer had salted his manifesto all over the Internet shortly before he went on his rampage, I knew I was going to have to read it. After all, I read odd books. And more to the point, I have an unapologetic interest in the aberrant mind. From all the commentary I read online and from news reports, Anders Behring Breivik was a fundamentalist Christian, he was a fascist, he was a racist, he was an Aryan supremacist, he hated Muslims, he was a loner, he was a part of a larger anti-Islam group, he was a lunatic, he was a mastermind – he was all kinds of inconsistent things and I wondered what was correct and what was the typical media rush to judgment.  I wondered if the people who were postulating about him and his sources had actually read the manifesto.

So I read it. Every last word. I will admit that at about page 1200 things at times got a little vague for me. Reading every word of this disjointed, strange monster of a manuscript would make even an Adderall addict bleary. I also admit that after a while, all the articles explaining the horrors of Islam and all the terrible things Muslims have done wore a bit thin. I have a feeling that were I forced to read some of them again, it would be like I was reading them for the first time. That’s okay  because all that “evidence” was not likely to be of much interest to me anyway. It’s largely unimportant because I examined this manifesto from the perspective of a person interested in strange minds and conspiracy theory. On both fronts, this manifesto was quite interesting.

Strangely, Anders Behring Breivik (to be called ABB from here on out) is not the most interesting part of this manifesto. Rather, it was the cast of characters who led him to the conclusions he reached and provided confirmation for his strange ideas. Most notable is Fjordman. So notable is Fjordman that I intend to devote two entries to discussing him. Initially, I declared Fjordman to be a complete asshole, and parts of that assessment still seem true, but as I reread and wrote my discussion, I began to find him pitiable. Not pitiful, but definitely pitiable.

Fjordman, who revealed his identity recently as Peder Jensen, a 36-year-old man who seems largely unremarkable, greatly inspired ABB’s thoughts and the terrible rampage that killed 77 people. Because Fjordman influenced many of ABB’s ideas, it seems logical to me to discuss him first. You see, though much of this manifesto consists of articles from other writers, the bulk of the articles came from Fjordman. If you have not read or browsed the manifesto, many articles from anti-Islamists are reproduced in full in the manifesto. Part two of this three-part manifesto was almost a static wiki of articles from other people. Though my eyes admittedly glazed over at times, I believe I counted 40 articles from Fjordman reproduced throughout the 1500 pages. Though there are articles from other writers (one of them a hilarious pearl-clutching treatise on the horrors of rap music), Fjordman’s words take up the most space and show a very clear path of how his words affected ABB. Though there are theories about a Brit in Malta who may have influenced ABB’s rampage, the fact is Fjordman’s paranoiac and violent rhetoric influenced ABB’s mindset and his plans more than any other writer or thinker. In fact, the subtitle of this manifesto comes from the title of one of Fjordman’s articles, and the date of 2083 seems very much influenced by estimates that Fjordman posits about the decline of Europe if Muslim immigration is not stopped soon. So logically, for me at any rate, to understand ABB, we first must talk about Fjordman’s articles and the part they played in ABB’s anti-Muslim fears.

Before you read part one of my discussion about Fjordman, there are some things I would like to share with you, gentle reader. Unpleasant things. Of course, I will never not be a little shocked when I discover a whole mess of people willing to accept conspiracy theory as irrevocable fact. I may devote my life to reading books about conspiracy theory, but it is unsettling when it hits home how deeply people can believe in it. It was shocking to realize that there are people who take the word of Bat Ye’or, the woman responsible for creating what I like to call The Protocols of the Elders of Mecca, as historical truth. It was horrifying to realize that people like Diana West (ahahahaha!), Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer are not laughed out of every quarter of contemporary political thought. It was disgusting to realize that there are no depths too low for the likes of Glenn Beck, Pamela Geller and Debbie Schlussel to sink as they try desperately to keep their names and ideas relevant in the minds of those who live and breathe race hate and bigotry.

But as unpleasant as all of this is, it is important that we understand how common conspiracy theory is in some form or other for a good many people in this world. For many the natural impulse is to dismiss ABB as a crazy man, and we dismiss him as a lunatic at our own risk because if he is a lunatic, so are many, many others. It is hardwired into the human brain to believe strange things, I think, and it’s hard to look at a man like ABB and realize that he is just one of many, a man who is different solely because he took things just one step further. That is why I ultimately feel pity for Fjordman. Fjordman, a True Believer in Bat Ye’or’s Eurabia conspiracy theory was building castles in the air via his online essays, never once thinking that his words, taken at face value, could have been seen as a call to arms.

We have a vested interest in dismissing all violence as crazy, labeling people like ABB as The Other, but his views are derived from other people and are influencing other people even after anyone with common decency would dismiss him. Killing innocent teenagers for a bizarre political and social agenda should have rendered ABB’s ideas untouchable for anyone with sense and a conscience – Fjordman is appalled by what happened on Utøya – but there is a fringe element who see what ABB did as being the work of a patriot. Think I’m exaggerating? I don’t recommend visiting Pamela Geller or Debbie Schlussel’s sites because if you do, you are rewarding their dreadful antics to draw attention to themselves. Rather, check out the analysis of some of these people on sites like Loon Watch, Spencer Watch, and, interestingly enough, Little Green Footballs. (It had been years since I had visited Little Green Footballs. Last time I visited the site, it was a hive of scum and villainy. Discovering the site is no longer devoted to race hate and biogtry was perhaps the sole pleasant element to come from reading 2083.)

Before I begin my discussion of 2083, I need to make it clear, very clear, that I am not discussing any specifics of the immigration situations in other countries or the specifics of Muslim immigration in Europe. I am not qualified to discuss it and I have no interest running to ground all of the statistics, determining what information is sound and what information is not. But even though the sites I have read that discussed some elements of 2083 focus solely on the question of Islamic immigration, there is so much more than that to be found in 2083. So much, in fact, that what began as just another of my long-winded looks at strange writings turned into what I think will be a four part series: two entries about Fjordman and two entries about ABB.

But being who I am, only part of the manifesto interested me. If you want a hard political look at Muslim immigration and the social implications of it, there are plenty of political sites on both sides of the issue to accommodate you. My examination of Fjordman will look at his beliefs and an analysis of his writing. My examination of ABB will be to look at his plans and his theories, and some postulation about his brain because I cannot resist the urge to armchair psychoanalyze him. And it should be mentioned that I am not going to stray from the text. Everything I discuss about either man comes directly from 2083, and to make it clear, every word from Fjordman comes from articles that ABB found so important that he reproduced them in full in 2083. I also will end up snarking some because, given the text we are discussing, how can I not? Some ideas, even those that lead to tragedy, have an arrogant comedy in them that cannot be ignored by a woman who has a black belt in sarcasm.

So begins Part One: Fjordman.

2083, though categorized into three sections, is a mess in terms of coherence. So discussing the book chronologically is impossible for me. Instead, I am going to write in categories, first about the elements of the book that are most important in understanding the Eurabia conspiracy theory, Fjordman’s distaste for Muslims, and understanding how Fjordman’s words, however unintentionally on his part, could have inspired violence.

It’s also important to note two things before I begin. Fjordman and ABB are not native English speakers, so I will not be noting any usage errors in their writing. To include the traditional [sic] would have been time-consuming and more than a little pedantic had I been consistent. Second, if there are any errors in the way book names are presented or any other formatting differences between the original text and my quotes, assume those errors are mine. I copied from a PDF into Word then into WordPress and I can imagine some things got lost in the transfers.

So let’s begin and have a look at Fjordman, the man who influenced a mass murderer.

The Eurabia Conspiracy Theory
I want to start with the whole Eurabia theory because if we really want to assign blame for what happened in Norway, the blame begins and ends with ABB. Full stop. Non-negotiable. But at the same time, it is not hard to see how it is that conspiracy theory can lead a mind utterly astray. If Fjordman is the man who influenced ABB, then Bat Ye’or is the woman who influenced all of those who believe that there is a master plan to sell out Europe wholesale to the Muslims.

Fjordman is a true believer in Bat Ye’or’s theory of Eurabia, wherein Marxism, political correctness, cultural relativism (routinely called multiculturalism), traitor governments and the EU have collided and colluded to permit an Islamic invasion that will wipe out Western civilization. Here’s a small sample of what Bat Ye’or believes and has written about, as described by Fjordman on page 281:

In an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Bat Ye’or explained how French President Charles de Gaulle, disappointed by the loss of the French colonies in Africa and the Middle East as well as with France’s waning influence in the international arena, decided in the 1960′s to create a strategic alliance with the Arab and Muslim world to compete with the dominance of the United States and the Soviet Union.

“This is a matter of a total transformation of Europe, which is the result of an intentional policy,” said Bat Ye’or. “We are now heading towards a total change in Europe, which will be more and more Islamicised and will become a political satellite of the Arab and Muslim world. The European leaders have decided on an alliance with the Arab world, through which they have committed to accept the Arab and Muslim approach toward the United States and Israel. This is not only with respect to foreign policy, but also on issues engaging European society from within, such as immigration, the integration of the immigrants and the idea that Islam is part of Europe.”

To sum up, France tried to ally themselves with the Muslims as a counter-balance to the Soviets and now, as a result, all European leaders have an alliance with the Muslim world that affects policies toward the USA and Israel and will result in the West becoming Islamic satellite nations.

From page 283, we get the following two quotes:

A wide-ranging policy was sketched out. It entailed a symbiosis of Europe with the Muslim Arab countries that would endow Europe – and especially France, the project’s prime mover – with a weight and a prestige to rival that of the United States. This policy was undertaken quite discreetly, and well outside of official treaties, using the innocent sounding name of the Euro-Arab Dialogue. The organisation functioned under the auspices of European government ministers, working in close association with their Arab counterparts, and with the representatives of the European Commission and the Arab League. The goal was the creation of a pan-Mediterranean entity, permitting the free circulation both of men and of goods.

European leaders went behind their citizens’ backs in order to sell their countries out to the Muslims.

On the cultural front there began a complete re-writing of history, which was first undertaken during the 1970s in European universities. This process was ratified by the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe in September 1991, at its meeting devoted to “The Contribution of the Islamic Civilisation to European culture.” It was reaffirmed by French President Jacques Chirac in his address of April 8, 1996 in Cairo, and reinforced by Romano Prodi, president of the powerful European Commission, the EU’s “government,” and later Italian Prime Minister, through the creation of a Foundation on the Dialogue of Cultures and Civilisations. This foundation was to control everything said, written and taught about Islam in Europe.

There is a movement to control information about Islam, including what is taught in schools, all under the auspices of European leaders working behind the scenes to give their countries over to Islam.

More from page 284:

Eurabia is a novel new entity. It possesses political, economic, religious, cultural, and media components, which are imposed on Europe by powerful governmental lobbies. While Europeans live within Eurabia’s constraints, outside of a somewhat confused awareness, few are really conscious of them on a daily basis.

This Eurabian policy, expressed in obscure wording, is conducted at the highest political levels and coordinated over the whole of the European Union. It spreads an anti-American and anti-Semitic Euro-Arab sub-culture into the fiber of every social, media and cultural sector. Dissidents are silenced or boycotted. Sometimes they are fired from their jobs, victims of a totalitarian “correctness” imposed mainly by the academic, media and political sectors.

Okay, this is important because the reason those kids were targeted on that island is because they were attending a Labor Party summer camp. ABB makes this clear in the beginning of the manifesto, but key to the Eurabia conspiracy is the idea that cultural Marxists, the people responsible for political correctness, are the ones permitting Muslim immigration into Norway. By taking out future Socialists whom he thought would continue to harm his country, ABB was trying to stem the tide of immigration that Bat Ye’or insists comes from this conspiracy of European leaders.

And it goes on and on. To save the reader from having to read more long quotes on this matter, here is the summary: Europe’s leaders have sold out Europeans to the Muslims, who are evil and seek to destroy a Western identity. All non-Muslims will be forced into a state of “dhimmitude,” a neologism coined by Ye’or to express the perpetual second-class citizenship and a state of near-slavery that she believes Muslims will inflict on non-Muslims. Fjordman believes Bat Ye’or’s conspiracy theory and therefore so does ABB.

What I later found so interesting about Fjordman’s belief in this conspiracy theory is that there are glimpses of a reasonable mind (and note I did not say rational – conspiracy theorists are some of the most rational people on the planet but they are seldom reasonable). There are moments when, as I read, I could see the wheels turning in his mind and if he had just let them turn a bit more, he might have come out on the other side of the machine. But alas, he got stuck. For instance, Fjordman is strangely aware of how dumb his particular brand of conspiracy sounds but is unaware that he is just like every other True Believer out there in how he rationalizes his ideas. From page 280:

I decided to write this essay after a comment from a journalist, not a Leftist by my country’s standards, who dismissed Eurabia as merely a conspiracy theory, one on a par with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I do not disagree with the fact that conspiracy theories exist, nor that they can be dangerous. After all, the Protocols and the
Dolchstosslegende, or “stab in the back myth” – the idea that Germany didn’t lose WW1 but was betrayed by Socialists, intellectuals and Jews – helped pave the way for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis before WW2.

So he’s aware of conspiracy theories. He understands that they exist and that others look at the Eurabia conspiracy and dismiss it along with other conspiracies. But like all True Believers, his conspiracy is different, somehow, than all the other conspiracy theories. As much as I loathe his ideology and as much as I mock and deride his beliefs, I also know that there is a critical mind in there somewhere that has been corrupted by hate because there is no way anyone could know the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a load of pants but not be able to see how Eurabia is the same unless one is deliberately shutting down the part of one’s mind that permits reasonable comparisons.

We continue seeing how strangely his mind works on page 280:

However, what puzzles me is that it is a widely-held belief of many (not just in the Islamic world but in Europe and even in the United States) that the terror attacks that brought down the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11th 2001 were really a controlled demolition staged by the American government and then blamed on Muslims. I have seen this thesis talked about many times in Western media. While it is frequently (though not always) dismissed and mocked, it is least mentioned.

In contrast, Eurabia – which asserts that the Islamisation of Europe didn’t happen merely by accident but with the active participation of European political leaders – is hardly ever referred to at all, despite the fact that it is easier to document. Does the notion of Eurabia hit too close to home? Perhaps it doesn’t fit with the anti-American disposition of many journalists? Curiously enough, even those left-leaning journalists who are otherwise critical of the European Union because of its free market elements never write about Eurabia.

Fjordman doesn’t seem to understand that only a small number of people believe that 9/11 was an inside job, and that when it comes up, it is being brought up and discussed by the self-same people who believe in it. Aside from Charlie Sheen and the whole “Loose Change” crowd, people feel no need to deflect blame for the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center from the Muslim terrorists responsible for it. Therefore it is not that unusual that Eurabia seldom comes up either. The reason no one reputable mentions Eurabia as truth is because it is, as I said already, The Protocols of the Elders of Mecca. Even though there are some news outlets willing to let Glenn Beck shit up the place and therefore may have an open-door lunatic policy,  most of them are not, in fact, run by anti-Western freedom haters who want to see the entire world taken over by political correctness so that the Muslims can enslave us all. Rather, people don’t discuss it outside of Jihad Watch and The Gates of Brussels because most people are not bigoted paranoiacs. Even better, they aren’t saying it because Islam is not trying to take over the world. The reason it is “hardly ever referred to at all” is because it does not exist

Fjordman has really swallowed Bat Ye’or’s conspiracy theory hook, line, and sinker, to the point that he simply cannot see that this belief set is really a different side of the same coin used as currency in race hate and bigotry directed at Jews. From page 296:

According to Bat Ye’or, fear of awakening opposition to EU policy toward the Arab Mediterranean countries led to the repression of all discussion of the economic problems and difficulties of integration caused by massive immigration. Any criticism of Muslim immigration is basically brushed off as being “just like the Jews were talked about in Nazi Germany,” a ridiculous but effective statement.

It’s not ridiculous. It’s the same goddamned hate that has plagued mankind since we evolved into differing tribes. The arguments are the same – the Muslims want their own law system derived from their beliefs, they won’t assimilate, they commit crimes against native Europeans, etc. Just replace the world Muslim with Jew and we can reenact those same accusations of 70 years ago.

Bat Ye’or’s acolytes are no different than anyone else who bases their life around bizarre conspiracy. From page 296 we see the victim mentality that all these True Believers seem to possess:

Professional harassment, boycott and defamation punish those who dare to openly challenge the Politically Correct discourse. According to Bat Ye’or, this has led to the development of a type of “resistance press” as if Europe were under the “occupation” of its own elected governments.

What harm has befallen Bat Ye’or, or the people at Gates of Brussels, or Robert Spencer, or anyone else for speaking this nonsense other than earning the censure of their peers? If you say stupid things that have no basis in reality, people mock you. That’s life, not persecution for your beliefs. Moreover, I find it amusing that these folk consider themselves as equivalent to “resistance press.” They are tilting at windmills and are trying to give their bigoted conspiracy a patina of respectability, harking back to the real resistances that fought against actual occupying armies, like the French during WWII. This is not a resistance press that requires pseudonyms for personal safety – it’s a bunch of miserable people publishing bigotry as history, many of whom don’t want to eat the shit sandwich that being bigots would earn them. Bat Ye’or is no Lucie Aubrac. It is offensive that anyone would even try to associate this mess of hate with movements that genuinely did fight against occupying armies. But they must adopt this guise of being the voice for freedom, persecuted for their beliefs, lest they have to face the fact that their base beliefs are rejected because they are stupid and because they are wrong.

It’s all very sad, in a way, how such beliefs, so strange on their face, would influence anyone to believe. But they do believe. And a man killed 77 people because of the perpetuation of conspiracy theory as fact. Never forget this. ABB believed this conspiracy theory, but so do many others. The basis of the belief behind his rampage is shared by many other people.

Fjordman is a religious bigot
The force behind the Eurabia conspiracy theory is hate – bigotry aimed at a religion. Saying this in no way lessens the impact of any Muslim atrocity that may have happened. Religion is, in my atheist opinion, a shield behind which many terrible people have done terrible things. Bat Ye’or suffered a shattering upheaval because of political machinations in Egypt and calling her and those who believe her conspiracy bigots should not reduce the perception of the impact bad politics had on her life. But regardless of how she came to have the ideas she does, the basis of this conspiracy theory is hate and Fjordman definitely has the hate.

Hate makes it impossible to see any blood except that which is on your enemy’s hands. Fjordman has some odd ideas about the sanctity of other religions in comparison to Islam. From page 58:

Moreover, there are hundreds of calls in the Koran for fighting against people of other faiths. “If it is correct that many Muslims view the Koran as the literal words of God, which cannot be interpreted or rephrased, then we have a problem. It is indisputable that the texts encourage terror and violence. Consequently, it must be reasonable to ask
Muslims themselves how they relate to the text, if they read it as it is,” says Magaard.

Fjordman cops to the fact that he is not a Christian, though he thinks Christian Identity could play some role in ending Muslim immigration, so perhaps he has no idea the hilarity that ensues when one engages in comparative religious examinations of the horrors religions espouse. But suffice it to say that for every line from the Koran one uses to damn the Muslims, I can find find an equally appalling line from the Bible and/or Torah to damn the Christians and/or Jews. Let us ask all the Christians and Jews how they relate to the text, if they read it as it is. That should be fun and illuminating.

More of the same, plus some bizarre rhetoric from page 337:

Muslims are stuck with their problems and their corrupt leaders and blame everybody else for their own failures because they can never admit they are caused by deep flaws in their culture. We shouldn’t make the same mistake. Europeans export wine; Arabs export whine. That’s the way it should be.

This comes from a section wherein Fjordman is postulating that the Europeans have been too weak and have the weak government they deserve. The part I am focusing on here is the statement that Muslims never admit they cause problems and that throwaway line about wine and whine. Ugh. This is ridiculous stereo-typing (based on what – I had no idea that Muslim are considered whiny – none that I know are whiny…) and really helps the case that Fjordman is just a bigoted, strange little man willing to say outrageous things because he hates. And if all Arabs exported was whine then why all the fear? What does it say about Fjordman that he has such hate for a group that is evidently so weak he uses words like “whine” to describe them?  Of course, that was a rhetorical throwaway line, but still, it is quite grating.

Then Fjordman goes on to quote a commenter from some anti-Islam sites:

Thus, from a purely economic point of view, Islam seems to be a collective of people who live by the ethos of “beg, borrow or steal.” So why do we, the capitalist countries, who do not believe in offering anyone a free lunch, subsidise the most lazy yet aggressive bunch of people on God’s planet, who are bent on subverting our democratic system? The nub is, how has it come about, that the natural progression of the most advanced civilisation on earth is towards stupidity?

Yep, from the entirety of all the Muslims on this Earth we can safely say that every single one of them is a beggar, a moocher or a thief. This is very sound reasoning and no one should ever question when anyone makes huge, sweeping, bigoted statements like this.

But Fjordman and those he quotes don’t let anything like facts get in their way of Islamic demonization. From page 414:

Former Muslim Ali Sina[51] claims that even in the USA, which has a smaller Muslim population and less social security benefits than Western Europe, Muslims are a huge drain on the economy: “Because about 2 million Muslims live in America and among them there are some who are terrorists, Americans are forced to expend hundreds of billions of
dollars on homeland security. I have no idea how much is the actual cost. Let us be conservative and say it costs only $200 billion dollars per year. In reality it could be many times more. Does anyone have any idea? With just $200 billion dollars, every Muslim, including their children cost the taxpayers $100,000 dollars per year. This is the real “contribution” of Muslims to America Mr. President. Once you add the cost of the real damage caused in terrorist attacks, such as to planes, buildings, etc. this cost will be much higher.

Just for the record, power needs no excuse to crawl up people’s asses. Seriously, if the TSA had not been the agency that more or less destroyed the Bill of Rights, some other government agency would have. I know, I know, I am totally sounding like Alex Jones. We all have our weaknesses. But back to this quote. It is a quote that assumes there are Muslim terrorists living in America and that is why the Department of Homeland Security is doing all that it does. It assumes the number of terrorists in the USA is the sum total of Muslims in the USA, because it breaks down the amount spent by the DHS per Muslim. And then the number spent by the DHS is also speculative. Fact, schmacts! Let’s yell about terror and money and stuff because who cares about real numbers and accurate statistics?

From page 523:

As I have demonstrated above, it is perfectly accepted, and widely practiced, by Jihadist Muslims to lie to non-Muslims about their true agenda. I have also demonstrated that the relationship between radicals and so-called moderates is a lot closer than we would like to think. At best, they share the goals of establishing sharia around the world, and differ only over the means to achieve this goal. At worst, they are allies in a good cop, bad cop game to extort concession after concession from the infidels. Moreover, even those who genuinely are moderate and secular in their approach may later change, or their children may change. This can be triggered by almost anything, either something in the news or a crisis in their personal lives, which will create a desire to become a better, more pious Muslim. The few remaining moderates can easily be silenced by violence from their more ruthless, radical counterparts.

So, even the moderate Muslims are scary because they are some sort of religious Manchurian Candidate wherein they can be triggered into extremism and violence. We have to fear them even if they are not fearsome because they may become fearsome. I don’t know how anyone could look at this and not see that this is nothing but religious bigotry.

Fjordman sees the Muslims as relentless baby-making machines, echoing language that I have read condemning Italian and Irish immigrants in the United States 100 years ago, and Hispanics today. From page 286:

The growth of the Islamic population is explosive. According to some, one out of three babies born in France is a Muslim. Hundreds of Muslim ghettos already de facto follow sharia, not French law. Some believe France will quietly become a Muslim country, while others are predicting a civil war in the near future.

I am unsure how Fjordman comes by these statistics and lack the will to find out. As far as I know, France does not collect birth information using  religion statistics. However, given that Muslims make up 9% of the French population, it is hard to see how the Muslim women included in that 9% can possibly have so many children each year that they make up 33% of the total births in any given year. Oh yes, of course, the French must be deliberately misrepresenting the number of Muslims because they are a part of the Eurabia conspiracy. Or the Muslims have babies in litters like cats. Either way, this is irrational bigotry.

Fjordman also has a hard time explaining why some religions pass inspection with him and why some don’t. From page 295:

What the European Union does, however, is to treat Islam as a traditional, European religion on par with Christianity and Judaism. This is a crucial component of Eurabian thinking and practice.

At what point does a religion’s presence obtain a traditional status. Though Muslims were expelled from Spain, there was a significant Muslim presence left behind. How long does it take to become a tradition? Christians invaded Scandinavia, replacing pagan and heathen ideals with Christian ideals in some quarters and Scandinavia has only been “Christian” for 800-1200 years. If Christianity is considered a traditional religion for all of Europe, then why not Islam? Well, because Bat Ye’or’s conspiracy theory has led Fjordman to conclude that Muslims are evil.  (And while I am aware of some of Fjordman’s story that he told when he revealed his real name, I am doing my best to stick to the manifesto. However, I will say that while Fjordman has lived in Egypt and studied there, and was appalled by some Muslim reaction to the 9/11 attacks, such ideas are worthless in determining a unified outlook in the world. Taking the specific and making it the general for all people within an entire faith is a bad way of forming ideas.)

I’ll end this section on Fjordman’s religious bigotry with this quote from page 335:

There is, however, a big difference: The Islamic world always has been our enemy and always will be. China and Russia do not have to be our enemies, although our relations will be complicated because of their size and their own Great Power ambitions. We can, at best, persuade them that directly opposing us isn’t going to pay off.

So, we can reason with the Chinese and the Russians so they will not stand in the West’s way as they contain the Muslim Menace, but we can’t reason with the Muslims. Interesting… But even more interesting is the notion that the Islamic world was, is and always will be our enemy. See, this is why this is nothing but hate. This mindset is no different than those who insist that the beliefs of the Jews mean they will always be the enemy of civilization. But when you are in the depths of such beliefs you can’t see how they are the same hatred perpetuating itself over and over and over.

I don’t even have the time or desire to discuss all the various Muslim fears that Fjordman has, but he thinks the Muslim Brotherhood has a multi-point plan to take over Europe. Investments in Europe evidently mean they are setting the stage to have a strong financial foothold once they kill off or enslave whitey. At any rate, this is perilously close to New World Order bullshit because at this point, international trade and foreign investments are a part of the world economy. Get over it. There were many times I wanted to tell Fjordman to pull up his socks and get over it – the world has changed, and as much as he demeans the tribalism of Islamic adherents, he sure cloaks himself in his own tribal identity. But seeing conflicts in thinking are not the strong point of any conspiracy theorist. I will touch more on some of Fjordman’s inconsistencies in the second part of my look at his words.

Fjordman’s bleak, urgent and violent rhetoric is alarming
I have to state pretty clearly that Fjordman was pulled into this against his will. Evidently he never exchanged ideas directly with ABB and declined to meet him. In a way he didn’t ask for this. But in a way, he did. Information placed on the Internet reaches all kinds of readers and in writing in such a vehement, angry manner, using terminology for war, battle, and siege, as well as stating the urgency of the dire situation in Europe, it is not unreasonable to look at his words, note their inclusion in the manifesto, and understand the role his rhetoric played in ABB’s rampage. I don’t agree with some bloggers that Fjordman bears a criminal culpability, and he may not even bear a moral culpability. But there is no way to look objectively at his words and not come to the conclusion that they could have been read by a fellow True Believer as a call to arms.

I have seen some pundits say that if Fjordman is to bear any responsibility then the Beatles must be held responsible for the actions of the Manson family or that Salinger must be responsible for the murder of John Lennon since Mark David Chapman was carrying a copy of The Catcher in the Rye when he shot him. That is all nonsense. Paul McCartney did indeed write a song about the fall of a civilization but at no point did he say that there was to be a race war and that someone needed to start it off by killing a pregnant starlet. And god only knows what Chapman extrapolated from a book about a kid who hated phonies but at no point did Salinger indicate that perhaps the way to rid the world of phonies was to shoot a politically active rock star. However, Fjordman does, in fact, indicate that there needs to be some drastic action to stop Muslim immigration, which he sees as a part of a larger scheme to create a Eurabia wherein white Europeans are enslaved by Muslims, and he uses violent language as he shares his ideas. More importantly, he made a very convincing case that there is no hope for change via the political process or even peaceful demonstrations, which would lead some True Believers to think that the only method by which change could be achieved is the individual acting against the state.

At some point, the blogging world is going to have to understand that our words mean something, that they have overt meaning plus subtext, and that when information is so easily disseminated, words laden with subtext may reach an audience that may not know you were writing hypothetically. I can understand why Fjordman went into hiding. The horror of this situation alone has to be killing him.

But none of that changes the fact that the proof for his exhortations for urgent action, possibly violent, are clear as day in his words. Though he did not state outright that one should kill members of the Labor Party in Norway (cultural Marxists) in order to stem the tide of Islamification, he engages in fear-mongering, uses violent language that gives lie to the idea that he did not tacitly encourage violence, and proves his case that things are beyond hope. Did he mean to set off ABB? Of course not. This is less an insinuation about Fjordman’s role inspiring the Norway murders than it is an attempt to show those who still have not made up their mind about the text that there is a strong sense of urgency and a call to violence that cannot be denied simply with good intentions.

I want to begin with some quotes, offered with no commentary. In this entire section, for all quotes that have words in bold, the emphasis is mine. We start on page 322:

I know many Americans, and Europeans, too, have more or less written off Western Europe as lost to Islam already. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t think this too sometimes, but I do see encouraging signs of a real shift of public opinion beneath the surface. Judging from information such as the extremely high number of Germans hostile to Islam, I still believe, or at least hope, that Europe can be saved.

But this hope hinges on the complete and utter destruction of the European Union The EU must die, or Europe will die. It’s that simple.

From page 331:

It is conceivable that Islam in some generations will cease to be a global force of any significance, but in the meantime it will be a constant source of danger to its neighbours, from Europe through India to Southeast Asia. The good news is that Islam may not be able to achieve the world dominance it desires. The bad news is that it may be able to achieve a world war. We can only cage it as much as possible and try to prevent this from happening.

More dire language from page 378:

I’ve suggested before that native Europeans face three enemies simultaneously when fighting against the Islamisation of their lands: Enemy 1 is the anti-Western bias of our media and academia, which is a common theme throughout the Western world. Enemy 2 are Eurabians and EU-federalists, who deliberately break down established nation states in favor of a pan-European superstate. Enemy 3 are Muslims. The Netherlands from 2001 to 2007 is a clear case in point where enemies 1, 2 and 3 have successfully cooperated on breaking down the spirit of the native population through intimidation and censorship and by squashing any opposition to continued mass immigration.

From page 613:

Scandinavia is a Utopia lost. Previously quiet Scandinavian nations now suffer Islamic terror threats and death threats[28] against people criticising Islam. Norway celebrates 100 years as an independent state[29] this year. Judging from this new discrimination act and the runaway Muslim immigration, perhaps the anniversary should be called “From independence to colonisation”. At the same time as their women are no longer safe in the streets because of immigrant gangs, the authorities respond by making Norwegians defacto second-rate citizens in their own country. They use their own people as stepping stones for their personal careers in the UN bureaucracy.

From page 520:

Centre Democrat Ben Haddou[27], a member of Copenhagen’s City Council, has stated: “It’s impossible to condemn sharia. And any secular Muslim who claims he can is lying. Sharia also encompasses lifestyle, inheritance law, fasting and bathing. Demanding that Muslims swear off sharia is a form of warfare against them.”

Read that statement again, and read it carefully. Muslims in the West consider it “a form of warfare against them” if they have to live by our secular laws, not their religious laws. Will they then also react in violent ways to this “warfare” if they don’t get their will? Moreover, since sharia laws ultimately require the subjugation of non-Muslims, doesn’t “freedom of religion” for Muslims essentially entail the freedom to make non-Muslims second-rate citizens in their own countries?

It goes on and on and on. From page 342:

This war by Islam against Europe, the West and indeed mankind has been going on for more than 1300 years. This is the third major Jihad, the third Islamic attempt to subdue the heartland of the West. Although I cannot prove this, I have a very strong feeling that this will also be the last attempt. There will be no fourth Jihad. Either Muslims will win this time, or Islam itself will be handed a defeat and a blow so powerful that it may never recover from it. This is perhaps the longest, continuous war in human history. And it’s about to be decided within the coming decades. I’m not sure how all of this will play out. What I do know is that it could all be decided on my watch, and I don’t want to be the weak link in something my ancestors kept intact for 1300 years.

Fjordman is making his case about the Eurabia theory – Islam is coming to get Europe. In this one passage he spells out that the time to fight is at hand, giving urgency to the situation. He calls it a war, one of the longest in human history. He says that if Islam is not crushed this time there will be no second chance. He says he does not want to be part of the reason the West succumbs to Islam. There is no way for anyone but a Fjordman apologist not to see the implications in his ideas and his loaded word choice.

Just some more examples of the descriptive language Fjordman uses as he discusses his conspiracy theory. From page 603:

Since its inception, Islam has been waging an aggressive war against the rest of mankind, with the stated purpose of bringing every single human being on earth under Islamic rule. Infidels have been presented with only three options: Convert to Islam, die, or submit under Islamic rule as a dhimmi, a second-rate citizen in your own country subject to serious financial pressure, constant verbal humiliations and frequent physical abuse. Islam hasn’t changed in the last 1400 years.

This entire quote is incendiary in the mind of anyone who believes in Eurabia conspiracy, and ABB was definitely a True Believer.

How about this from page 636:

According to Politikerbloggen[9], AFA have produced a manual about how to use violence in order to paralyze and hurt their opponents, and they encourage their members to study it closely. Meanwhile, senior members of law enforcement are too busy waving plastic penises to care. It’s all for tolerance, and then there is this small group at the back, behind the police, the media and the cultural and political establishment, ready to assault, beat up and hospitalise anybody deemed to be insufficiently tolerant.

The people who want tolerance will beat people to a pulp to get it. With incendiary words like this one wonders if ABB decided to fight Fjordman’s fire with fire.

The urgency that Fjordman brings to making the case for Eurabia is also strong and persuasive to a True Believer. From page 677:

Several recent incidents have demonstrated that Muslims are now trying to apply these dhimmi rules to the entire Western world. The most important one was the burning of churches and embassies triggered by the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad. This was, down to the last comma, exactly the way Muslims would treat the persecuted non-Muslims in their own countries. The cartoon Jihad indicated that Muslims now felt strong enough to apply sharia rules to Denmark, and by extension NATO. Hardly anybody in the mainstream Western media made any attempts to explain this to the public.

We are hurtling toward slave status now, this very minute. The Denmark cartoon incident proves it, in Fjordman’s eyes.

More about the cartoon situation in Denmark. From page 593:

The status given to non-Muslims who accept being second-rate citizens, dhimmis, under Islamic rule is technically referred to as “protected.” During the Cartoon Jihad, the leftwing coalition government demonstrated in public that Norwegian authorities did not control the security of their citizens, and thus had to accept Muslim intervention to secure their safety. This amounted to the acceptance of Islamic rule according to sharia law, a view which was subsequently strengthened by payments to Muslims at home and abroad. Undoubtedly these payments offered by Mr. Giske on behalf of the government were viewed by Muslims as jizya, the “protection money” non-Muslims are required to pay in willing submission (Koran, 9:29) as a sign of their inferior status vis-a-vis Islam, as a compensation for not being slain.

When the government in Norway failed to protect its citizens from Islamic backlash, they effectively sold out Norwegians into a state of protected, Islamic slavery and tacitly accepted Sharia law. This is clearly making the case that urgent action is needed, right here and right now, because the government has already made Norwegian citizens Islamic slaves.  Christ, as I reread this, I sort of think that Fjordman should kiss the ground that this did not turn out worse than it did.

Here’s some more urgency from page 600:

My bet is still on Britain, or possibly Denmark, as the first Western country to face a civil war due to Muslim immigration, but the Netherlands is a potential candidate as well.

Muslim immigration will cause civil war in Europe. A True Believer and a patriot would want to avoid civil war, using any means to prevent it.

And for the love of sanity, bear in mind that I am only culling a small percentage of the alarmist quotes from Fjordman available to me. From page 586:

Sweden was presented during the Cold War as a middle way between capitalism and Communism. When this model of a society collapses — and it will collapse, under the combined forces of Islamic Jihad, the European Union, multiculturalism and ideological overstretch — it is thus not just the Swedish state that will collapse but the symbol of Sweden, the showcase of an entire ideological world view. I wrote two years ago[3] that if the trend isn’t stopped, the Swedish nation will simply cease to exist in any meaningful way during the first half of this century. The country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe, and the “Swedish model” will be one of warning against ideological madness, not one of admiration. I still fear I was right in that assessment.

Ignore the trivialization of centuries of Swedish society summed up in “Bergman, Abba and Volvo.” Were those things not to have existed, I am sure the world and Sweden would have been just fine. Just pay attention to the panic implicit in the idea that Sweden is near collapse and may cease to exist unless something is done.

Some more panicky information for the True Believer, from page 521:

It is true that Jihad is not exclusively about violence, but it is very much about the constant threat of violence. Just like you don’t need to beat a donkey all the time to make it go where you want it to, Muslims don’t have to hit non-Muslims continuously. They bomb or kill every now and then, to make sure that the infidels are always properly submissive and know who’s boss.

We are becoming donkeys who will continue to be trained by violence until we are overcome. Something needs to interrupt this training process before it is too late.

Here Fjordman is discussing the imminent fall of France to Muslims, on page 287:

The impending downfall of France is bad news for the rest of the West. What will happen to French financial resources? Above all, who will inherit hundreds of nuclear warheads? Will these weapons fall into the hands of Jihadist Muslims, too?

This is clearly setting up the idea that the world is going to be in danger of a nuclear event if something does not stop Eurabia from becoming a reality. Nuclear warheads in the hands of terrorists would make the average person jittery. Imagine how such an idea can create a sense of utter urgency in the mind of a Eurabia believer.

More of Fjordman’s charged urgency from page 326:

New anti-discrimination laws to combat Islamophobia are to be enacted, as they already have been in Norway, where Norwegians need to mount proof of their own innocence[15] if Muslim immigrants accuse them of discrimination in any form, including discriminatory speech. The EU also wants to promote an official lexicon[16] shunning offensive and culturally insensitive terms such as “Islamic terrorism.”

Ah, so now Norwegians will have to prove their innocence much like those accused of witchcraft in the 17th century, in anti-Democratic attempts to label all Norwegians Islamophobics. Again, note the urgency and overblown horror, words meant to instill fear and a need to act in the reader.

Fjordman’s sense of impending doom includes all Europeans being put to death for Islamic blasphemies:

Remember that blasphemy against Islam carries the death penalty according to sharia. Multiculturalism in Europe is about to reach its openly totalitarian phase. Those who think this is a joke can look at the Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot[13] who was arrested in 2008 for cartoons that “insulted” Muslims. Several documents that are publicly available (but little known by the general public because they are never referred to by the mainstream media) state that the EU should “harmonise” the education and legal systems with the Arab “partner countries” within the coming decade. This is being negotiated as we speak, behind our backs.

So, Europeans will one day face the death penalty for criticizing Islam. Act now or we will all face the sword for criticizing Islam. According to Fjordman, the details are being decided now behind everyone’s backs.  Can we all agree that this would create a sense of urgency to act now in a True Believer?

Now here’s where things get sticky and ugly for anyone who really wants to maintain that Fjordman’s intent was never to inspire anyone to commit acts of the sort ABB committed. It is true that Fjordman describes a plan to defeat cultural Marxists and stop Muslim immigration. From page 330:

The best way to deal with the Islamic world is to have as little to do with it as possible. We should ban Muslim immigration. This could be done in creative and indirect ways, such as banning immigration from nations with citizens known to be engaged in terrorist activities. We should remove all Muslim non-citizens currently in the West. We should also change our laws to ensure that Muslim citizens who advocate sharia, preach Jihad, the inequality of “infidels” and of women should have their citizenship revoked and be deported back to their country of origin.

Okay, within the confines of his irrational, bigoted hated for Islam, this is not that incendiary. Changing laws sounds like a pretty middle of the road option. This would still be a bit iffy given the Eurabia theory that is behind it but overall one does not want to shake Fjordman by his shoulders until he sees reason.

Well, it would be somewhat acceptable if he did not go on at length, detailing in depth the fact that changing laws is impossible, that every reasonable move the Islamophobe in Europe can make is not only doomed to failure, but could in fact, be criminalized. Fjordman unfortunately makes his case about the dire, irrevocable situation Europe is in, being at the mercy of governments in collusion with Muslims. In the face of all that he writes, it is impossible for a True Believer in Eurabia to walk away with the sense that anything legal or sensible will end the plight of the native Europeans.

Here’s an example of this, from page 599:

In March 2007, native Dutch residents of the city of Utrecht rioted to protest against harassment by Muslim youths and government inaction to stop this. The authorities immediately suppressed the riots by sealing off the area and installing surveillance cameras to control Dutch non-Muslims, but they have done virtually nothing to address the underlying problem of violence from immigrant gangs. The case is far from unique.

Such incidents demonstrate that the authorities throughout Western Europe are now dedicated to implementing continued mass immigration and multiculturalism no matter what the natives think. If they object, they will be silenced. The Dutch voted “no” by a very large margin to the proposed EU Constitution that will formally dismantle their country, as did Irish and French voters, but they are simply ignored. At the same time, the EU elites obediently respond to calls from Islamic countries to ban “stereotypes and prejudice” targeting Islam. European political elites implement the agendas of our enemies and ignore the interests of their own people. They are thus collaborators and traitors and should be treated accordingly.

So from this example we see that peaceful protests do not work and result in an Orwellian crackdown on the protesters. Any attempt to speak out will result in being silenced. The political officials reject the will and the vote of the people and are allowing the enemy to take over. The governments are full of Islamic collaborators. What good will voting or waking up the “sheeple” do if the will of the voters is ignored anyway? What is the only option left for the patriotic True Believer when even peaceful protest is taken from him?

From page 599:

In Brussels, Belgium, gangs of Muslim immigrants harass the natives on a daily basis. We have had several recent cases where native girls have been gang raped by immigrants in the heart of the EU capital, yet when the natives wanted to protest against the Islamisation of their continent on September 11th 2007, the demonstration was banned by the Socialist mayor of Brussels, whose ruling party is heavily infiltrated by Muslims. Those who attempted to carry on with a peaceful protest were arrested by the police.

So, gang rapes are common and peaceful protest against Islamization is criminalized. The options for a patriot who wants to save his countrywomen from violent rape are becoming more and more limited in Fjordman’s rhetoric.

Then we have this strange passage from page 590:

Is it just a coincidence that the one country on the European continent that has avoided war for the longest period of time, Sweden, is also arguably the one Western nation where Political Correctness has reached the worst heights? Maybe the prolonged period of peace has created an environment where layers of ideological nonsense have been allowed to pile up for generations without stop. I don’t know what Sweden will look like a generation from now, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be viewed as a model society. And if the absence of war is one of the causes of its current weakness, I fear that is a problem that will soon be cured.

Of course Fjordman means Sweden got soft and allowed the cultural Marxists to run amok because of peace, but it can be seen as a call to arms to end the peace in Scandinavia. In this sense, peace means cultural death and ABB certainly interrupted any sense of Norwegian peace. And even if that is not the case, the last line implies a vicious war with Islam looms, another heavy idea for a True Believer who thinks he is in a cultural war with Islam.

More about peace and war, from page 522:

Furthermore, the Islamic world has not only the attitude of open war. There’s also war by infiltration, as we can see in Western countries now. Is there a possibility to end this dance of war? According to Moshe Sharon, the answer is, “No. Not in the foreseeable future. What we can do is reach a situation where for a few years we may have relative quiet.”

Fjordman makes the case that there are several ways that the Muslims are committing Jihad against the West, one of them being immigration and excessive child-bearing. So even in times of peace, the warrior must be preparing for war with Islam. Even if the Muslims in some areas are not creating the panoply of problems Fjordman talks about, they are quietly infiltrating and the canny Westerner must be ready, even in the face of “relative quiet.”

This bit from page 588 is a call to arms, pure and simple:

Why does the government dispense with the social contract and attack its own people like this? Well, for starters, because it can. Sweden is currently arguably the most politically repressive and totalitarian country in the Western world. It also has the highest tax rates. That could be a a coincidence, but I’m not sure that it is. The state has become so large and powerful that is has become an autonomous organism with a will of its own. The people are there to serve the state, not vice versa. And because state power penetrates every single corner of society, including the media, there are no places left to mount a defence if the state decides to attack you.

The governments are attacking their own people because they have no accountability anymore. The state is so large and so ominous that there is nothing anyone can do if the state decides to turn against them. The implication, of course, is that a True Believer must launch an offensive because all defensive moves are doomed to failure.

From page 587:

This is a government that knows perfectly well that their people will become a minority in their own country, yet is doing nothing to stop this. On the contrary. Pierre Schori, Minister for immigration, during a parliamentary debate in 1997 said that: “Racism and xenophobia should be banned and chased [away],” and that one should not accept “excuses, such as that there were flaws in the immigration and refugee policies.”

In other words: It should be viewed as a crime for the native population not to assist in wiping themselves out.

That is hardcore, right there, the idea that failure to cooperate will be a crime. If failing to cooperate is a crime, then it makes any other sort of action the only moral course, since we seem to be dealing in black and white. And once the case is made that there is no way to affect the government as they ignore the voters (which one presumes would make it difficult to “throw the bums out” as we used to say in America), that they turn against the native citizens at every provocation, that they have criminalized protest AND may criminalize non-compliance, there really is no course of action left for a True Believing patriot than to act against the government in a direct offensive.

There is no hope of change via the democratic process, from page 376:

In 2007, former German president Roman Herzog warned that parliamentary democracy was under threat from the European Union. Between 1999 and 2004, 84 percent of the legal acts in Germany – and the majority in all EU member states – stemmed from Brussels. According to Herzog, “EU policies suffer to an alarming degree from a lack of democracy and a de facto suspension of the separation of powers.” Despite this, the EU was largely a non-issue during the 2005 German elections. One gets the feeling that the real issues of substance are kept off the table and are not subject to public debate. National elections are becoming an increasingly empty ritual. The important issues have already been settled beforehand behind closed doors.

If there is no way to change things via a political process, is it surprising ABB took to his guns and bombs? Fjordman is raising these issues with the intention of waking up Westerners but if there is nothing legal they can do to stop immigration, what else is there for them to do when rhetoric wakes them up? Blog about it? Amusingly, that will come up in my discussion of ABB, a section wherein he takes a small jab at those awake and still writing and not acting.

In fact, here is a little snippet of Fjordman’s own strange, backhanded criticism of blogging. I will touch on his other inconsistencies in part two. From page 377:

In the eyes of American theorist Noam Chomsky, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” This is undoubtedly true, which is why it’s strange that Chomsky thinks that the Internet, currently the freest medium of all, is “a hideous timewaster.”

And yet Fjordman kept writing about all these horrors in a hideously timewasting manner. One wonders if ABB was trying to best his teacher by not wasting time.

There is no middle road for the Eurabia conspiracy True Believer to trust even mainstream Muslims, from pages 518-519:

Examples such as these leave non-Muslims with a very powerful dilemma: How can we ever trust assurances from self-proclaimed moderate Muslims when deception of non-Muslims is so widespread, and lying to infidels is an accepted and established way ofhiding Islamic goals? The answer, with all its difficult implications, is: We can’t.

Does this mean that ALL Muslims are lying about their true agenda, all of the time? No,of course not. Some are quite frank about their intentions.

So, even the moderate Muslims are lying about their true intentions and the only ones not lying are the ones telling the West to their faces that they plan to defeat them. Doesn’t really leave a lot of wiggle room for negotiations. People may be willing to say that Fjordman and writers like him are trying to wake up Westerners but to what avail? In the process of making their case for Eurabia conspiracy theory, writers like Fjordman painted themselves into corners. Fjordman gave lip service to changing the situation via changing laws but goes into excruciating depth about how it is impossible to do that to which he gave lip service.

It’s sad, in a way. Fjordman proved the Eurabia theory so well that his acolytes had no choice, if they wanted to change things, but to act violently. Of course, Fjordman was engaging in rhetoric. All politics is rhetoric, it seems at times. People who bloviate about conspiracy theory mainly want to be believed, and belief in the theory, the comaraderie of being among people whom you think are not deluded and see the world as you see it is one of the heady reasons conspiracy theory will never go away. It is comforting to have others who believe as you do, and there is a lovely sense of arrogance wherein all those people know they are right and the others are wrong. This arrogance fuels endless debates, it fuels political action, and when those arrogant folk throw around violent, urgent rhetoric that offers no peaceful recourse, they should not be surprised when someone who believes them takes action.

So we come to end of Fjordman: Part One. Come back in a couple of days for Fjordman: Part Two, where I will discuss things like Fjordman’s take on feminism, some of his strange notions, and other elements to his writing, like his misuse of literature and popular culture in his articles.  Next week I will post my discussion of ABB, but I need to mention again that I find Fjordman so much more interesting than ABB. Don’t be surprised if my analysis of Fjordman’s words far outweighs my analysis of ABB’s words.

Since I suspect these entries may attract new readers , please take a moment to read my comment policy.   And welcome!  Be sure to tune back in on Thursday for more from 2083.

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Adam Barnett’s response to Robert Spencer

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Adam Barnett’s response to Robert Spencer

Posted on 17 August 2011 by Danios

By: Adam Barnett

Adam Barnett co-wrote One Law for All’s Enemies Not Allies: The Far:Right report. Here he responds to Robert Spencer’s statement on the report.

Following the publication of ‘Enemies Not Allies: The Far-Right’, our new report which investigates his and similar organisations, Stop Islamization of America director Robert Spencer has invited One Law for All to ‘substantiate [our] charges, or withdraw them and issue a public apology.’ One could simply recommend that Mr. Spencer read our report. Indeed, in his ‘rebuttal’, he writes as if he has answered all of these charges before. It’s therefore strange that he felt the need to reply to them at ‘11:53pm’ on a Sunday night, and to attempt to smear his critics as ‘racist anti-Semites’ and ‘supporters of Jihad’. One could be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Spencer hoped to prevent people from reading the report for themselves.

In any event, I’m happy to list our main charges against his group and refer interested readers to the relevant citations in our report:

- Stop Islamisation of Europe is the ‘expansion’ of a Danish anti-Muslim party, Stop Islamiseringen af Danmark (SIAD), which was itself the result of a split within a xenophobic lobby group. (p.36-37) It calls for a boycott of all ‘Islamic countries’, for the Qur’an to be banned, for the mass deportation of immigrants from Europe, and protests against the building of Mosques. (p.37, 44-46) SIOE’s leadership consider all Muslims to be congenital liars who have a ‘culture of deceit’, and never tire of announcing that they ‘do not believe in moderate Muslims’. (p.40-41, and here)

- SIOE’s leaders have collaborated with and defended Julius Borgesen, former spokesperson for the right-wing extremist group Danske Front, which has ‘co-operated’ with Blood & Honour and Combat 18. Borgessen has reportedly participated in a march to celebrate Rudolf Hess, and was imprisoned in 2007 for calling for an arson attack against a Danish minister. SIOE insist that Borgesen is ‘in no way Nazi [or a racist], but is fighting for the democracy and freedom of Denmark’. (p.38-39) Further, there is evidence to suggest that other Danish neo-Nazis, as well as members of the BNP and the National Front, have attended SIOE and SIAD events. (p.38, 47)

- Stop Islamization of America is the U.S. branch of the SIOE umbrella group, and was entrusted by its leadership to Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer in January 2010. Geller and Spencer have praised SIOE, endorsed its political programme, published its statements and expressed admiration for its leaders. (p.48-49)

- SIOA’s leaders have surpassed SIOE’s defence of war criminal Radovan Karadzic, (which included offering justifications for his actions), by defending Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, denying Serbian atrocities including the Srebrenica genocide, publishing the work of professional apologists for the Milosevic project, and in Spencer’s case working on an institutional level with such people to oppose an independent Kosovo. Ms. Geller has gone so far as to say that Bosnian Muslims killed themselves in order to ‘manipulate media coverage’, and refers to the 1995 genocide as a ‘propaganda lie’ which was ‘manufactured [by] the international community’ as part of ‘the ongoing blood libel against the Christian Serbs’. (p.42-43, 53-54 and here)

This is presumably what Mr. Spencer means when he writes of SIOA’s ‘opposition to the jihad in the Balkans and skepticism (sic) about some of the charges made of Serbian war crimes.’

- SIOA’s leadership has supported, defended and praised the English Defence League, (without equivocation until recently), and has promoted their events, published their statements and attacked their critics. (p.55-59) Co-director Pamela Geller’s web log has featured conspiratorial articles regarding the President of America’s religion, his family, his sexual history, and the circumstances of his birth, and has likened his ‘stealth jihad on the White House’ to ‘an SS officer getting elected president during WW II’. (p.52-53) In 2010, Robert Spencer defended his and Geller’s ‘colleague’ Joseph John Jay, who had recommended the ‘wholesale slaughter’ of Muslim civilians, including children, on the grounds that he had been ‘misinterpreted’. Spencer maintains this still, and Ms. Geller has recommended Jay’s writings as recently as July 2011. (p.51-51)

I could go on, but I ought to address Mr. Spencer’s direct challenge regarding a quote of his which we included. Here is the quote, published on his Jihad Watch site in 2005: ‘there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists. While Americans prefer to imagine that the vast majority of American Muslims are civic-minded patriots who accept wholeheartedly the parameters of American pluralism, this proposition has actually never been proven.’

Writing today, Spencer claims ‘what [he] meant was there is no institutional distinction, so jihadis move freely in Muslim circles among those who oppose them and claim to do so’. However, when asked by a commenter on the original article in 2005 ‘how distinctions can be made’, Spencer replied: ‘That’s simple. Let American Muslims renounce all attachment to violent Jihad and Sharia, refuse all aid from Sharia states (chiefly Saudi Arabia), and cooperate fully with anti-terror efforts aimed at rooting jihadists out of American mosques.’ (p.52) Having thus identified all Muslims as suspects who are guilty until proven innocent, Spencer does not specify how to treat Muslims who do not ‘cooperate fully’, or who fail to make the prescribed disassociations. But based on his record and the company he keeps, I’m glad we’ll never have to find out what it might entail.

I think this meets Mr. Spencer’s challenge, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to bring all of this to people’s attention. I’m not sure how one squares the above with the claim that SIOA ‘stand[s] for the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and equality of rights for all people’. Perhaps Mr. Spencer will enlighten us.

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The problem with Jihad Watch

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The problem with Jihad Watch

Posted on 17 August 2011 by Danios

(cross-post from Harry’s Place)

Guest Post, August 17th 2011, 10:40 am

This is a guest post the centrist (Lucy Lips’ boyfriend)

For someone who spends the majority of his time blogging, Robert Spencer is remarkably thin skinned. Ever since One Law for All published its report about how the far-Right has hijacked the anti-Islamist debate, Spencer has been howling with his characteristic sense of righteous indignation and victimhood. Dissent and disagreement is not allowed in Spencer’s world. Detractors are immediately branded ‘Marxists’, ‘anti-Semities’, ‘Dhimmis’, ‘stooges’ or practitioners of Spencer’s favourite slur ‘Taqiyyah’.

Spencer might claim not to hate all Muslims, but his work belies that vacuous claim. Jihad Watch essentalises Muslims on a daily basis, as if they were a monolithic whole acting in unison for the pursuit of an unspoken grand agenda. Every action performed by a Muslim, no matter what their actual motivation, is immediately ascribed to Islam. It is as if no Muslim ever acts without reference to their Islamic identity.

Consider this wild theory posted on Spencer’s website. An article posted by ‘The Anti-Jihadist’ claims that allegations of rape made against Dominique Strauss-Kahn are actually part of a ‘stealth jihad’. What matters, long before any real facts have been established in that case, is that Strauss-Kahn’s accuser is a Guinean Muslim immigrant.

It also so happens that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is Jewish. Coincidence?…Why would a Muslim, and a ‘pious, devout’ one at that, be so adept and experienced at lying? Surely Islam has nothing to do with this woman’s pathological lying, and nothing to do with her criminal attempts to extort money from a powerful, rich Jew. Of course.

Perhaps Strauss-Kahn’s accuser was trying to extort a rich and powerful man. The facts are far from settled. But if she were, why is Spencer not content to think of her as simply a crook? Rather, what is singled out and stressed is that she is Muslim. Indeed, the article is quite explicit in arguing that Muslims are inspired to become ‘pathological liars’ by Islam.

That is the modus operandi of Jihad Watch. Elsewhere on his site, Spencer posts a picture of an unknown Muslim woman wearing a headscarf while working for the TSA (Transportation Security Administration). After offering an insincere caveat, “I am sure the TSA employee pictured here is as loyal and patriotic as the day is long”, Spencer gets to the nub of the matter. He objects to seeing a Muslim TSA worker because:

we are forced tacitly to acknowledge either that that belief-system [Islam] had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks — even though the attackers themselves invoked it and only it as their motivation — and that therefore we must do nothing to oppose its spread in the West, or that even if that belief-system did motivate the 9/11 jihad attacks, it is continuing to advance in the West and we can do nothing about it.

The two goals may coalesce: in other words, Islamic jihadists who wished to infiltrate the TSA may decide that a hijabbed TSA worker would be preferable to one in secular dress, as a gesture of Islamic supremacist assertiveness as well as the placement of an agent who could weaken security at the right moment.

So any Muslim woman wearing the hijab is making ‘a gesture of Islamic supremacist assertiveness’? Remember that Spencer claims not to hate all Muslims or be immediately suspicious of them, yet he ascribes such conspiratorial motives to women who simply cover their hair.

Back to Spencer’s bizarre logic:

A hijabbed TSA worker is the personification of a dare: Islamic supremacists are daring the TSA to question her about her belief-system, thereby acknowledging that that belief-system has something to do with terror and violence.

Again, the hijab is linked to a ‘supremacist’ plot, this time as part of an ‘Islamist dare’. Spencer’s claims not to hold all Muslims in disdain and under suspicion is palpably false as demonstrated by articles like that, and literally hundreds of others on his website.

Spencer and supporters of his essentialist view automatically ascribe the beliefs of Islamist political parties, terrorist organisations, and the most regressive, literalist interpretations of Islam to all Muslims. Suspicion and distrust naturally follow, creating the climate in which the delusions that consumed Anders Breivik are formed.

Spencer has howled wildly that Breivik has nothing to do with him. Yet, it is not that simple. Spencer may not advocate actual violence but that is his only difference with Breivik – one of style rather than substance. They share a general diagnosis of ‘the problem’: the supposed ‘colonisation’ of Western societies by Muslims and the hysterical claim that there will be a ‘Muslim takeover’.

This is no different to groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb ut Tahrir which condemned 9/11 and 7/7. They might oppose those attacks, but do so over issues of style only. They share al-Qaeda’s overall diagnosis and worldview: that Islam is under attack by a belligerent West and that the only solution is the revival of puritanical Islamic societies.

In any event, Spencer’s claims about being opposed to violence require serious examination. When the Egyptian revolution began one might have expected Spencer to support a group of people fighting for their freedom. Instead, an article on Jihad Watch by ‘Roland Shirk’ could only imagine the worst.

What Muslims want, around the world, is to impose political Islam…For us to be prattling on about the virtues of self-government in this context is suicidal, like Russian aristocrats hosting Bolsheviks in their salons.

So much for all the pieties about not hating Muslims and always suspecting the worst about them. Shirk then offered a very unique solution to avoid the ‘suicidal’ situation he saw arising in Egypt, arguing:

If I could have Mubarak’s ear, I would whisper just two words of wisdom: Tiananmen Square.

That sentence was later removed, presumably after its inexpediency was realised, but you can see a screenshot of the original below.

This is a very serious charge which Spencer must answer. Yes, the offending line has been removed but who uploaded the original article – Spencer or someone else? If not Spencer, then who? And, perhaps most damning of all, why has Roland Shirk continued to post articles on Jihad Watch since calling for the massacre of countless Egyptians as they demonstrated against one of the Middle East’s most brutal regimes?

Rather than descending into wild name calling, it would be good for Spencer to engage with the issues at hand if he is sincere.

*  *  *  *  *

The problem with Jihad Watch: Addendum

Edmund Standing, August 17th 2011, 12:51 pm

The Centrist writes:

Spencer has howled wildly that Breivik has nothing to do with him. Yet, it is not that simple. Spencer may not advocate actual violence but that is his only difference with Breivik – one of style rather than substance. They share a general diagnosis of ‘the problem’: the supposed ‘colonisation’ of Western societies by Muslims and the hysterical claim that there will be a ‘Muslim takeover’.

This is indeed the case. Here’s Spencer, speaking in 2007:

There will be civil war in Europe. The European citizenry, for the most part, are not ready to accept Islamic law and there will be armed conflicts.

Here’s Dennis Prager, a man praised on Jihad Watch:

It is difficult to imagine any other future scenario for Western Europe than its becoming Islamicised or having a civil war.

Fjordman, a Norwegian writer whose work has been featured on Jihad Watch (see, for example, here, here, and here) claims, in an article recommended by Spencer:

The West is becoming so overwhelmed by immigration that this may trigger civil wars in several Western nations in the near future.

In another article, Fjordman writes:

If the Leftists and the Globalists have their way then our civilization will die, plain and simple. That’s why this ongoing struggle is likely to get ugly, because no compromise is possible. Since similar ideological struggles are taking place throughout the Western world, this situation could trigger a pan-Western Civil War.

The Fjordman quote above is taken from a ‘Brussels Journal’ article. Spencer is a supporter of the Brussels Journal (see approving quotes here and here, for example), despite it featuring articles such as this one, which speaks of ‘the sustained persecution that BNP members are subject to in the archPod state of ex-Great ex-Britain’, and goes on to advocate racial separatism:

Integration is not possible except by hoisting the white flag, as white Body Snatchers do. But separation ought to be possible, and is likely to occur in the future.

[...]

Saving Western Civilization must entail as well separation from Muslims and from Third World Latinos, which these groups already practice toward whites. How to separate without cruel and unjust policies is an issue beyond the scope of this discussion, as it requires a fully-informed consideration of the specific circumstances in each Western country separately.

What is clear is that the fault for the disaster of bringing to the West tens of millions of unassimilable Muslims, tens of millions of subliterate Mestizo laborers, millions of chaos-generating Africans, lies not with such Muslims, Mestizos and Africans but with the crazed Body Snatcher elite that has brought them – by naïve intention and by purposeful inattention, both. The separation therefore, cannot be guided by animus toward such immigrants, who have done what comes naturally, but toward those who have brought them to the West.

In a 2010 article published by Jihad Watch, Fjordman writes:

Wherever possible, non-Muslims should seek to physically separate themselves from Muslims.

Spencer, both via his own writings and the writings of others that he promotes on Jihad Watch, clearly supports a paranoid worldview in which it is only a matter of time before Europe is torn apart by wars brought about by its Muslim minority. He is happy to promote authors and journals that advocate various forms of confessional and even ethnic separatism.

The Centrist argues:

Spencer might claim not to hate all Muslims, but his work belies that vacuous claim. Jihad Watch essentalises Muslims on a daily basis, as if they were a monolithic whole acting in unison for the pursuit of an unspoken grand agenda. Every action performed by a Muslim, no matter what their actual motivation, is immediately ascribed to Islam. It is as if no Muslim ever acts without reference to their Islamic identity.

Again, this is indeed the case, and another good example of this is found in Spencer’s claims about various car accidents being part of a low-level jihadist plot.

As I noted in a post in April this year, Spencer has collected stories of Muslims involved in hit-and-run incidents and built a bizarre narrative around them.

He suggests that a man who had drunk six cans of Budweisser before crashing into six people during a police chase may have drunk the beer ‘to steel himself’ before committing a supposed act of ‘jihad’.

In another case, this time involving a man who reportedly is ‘mentally ill, suffers from depression and hasn’t being taking his medication’, Spencer nonetheless concludes that on the basis of the man’s name – Ismail Yassin Mohamed – the case may ‘possibly’ be an example of ‘Sudden Jihad Syndrome’.

Spencer can launch foaming-at-the-mouth attacks as much as he likes, but the fact of the matter is that he long ago crossed the line that separates legitimate criticism of Islam and opposition to Islamism from anti-Muslim bigotry and fearmongering.

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Pamela Geller’s Hate Group Releases McCarthy List

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Pamela Geller’s Hate Group Releases McCarthy List

Posted on 16 August 2011 by Danios

Image taken from pavlovianobeisance.com

We don’t really need to give much commentary with this one (it speaks for itself), so here it is (hat tip NassirH):

The AFDI Threats to Freedom Index

by Pamela Geller

My colleague Robert Spencer and I compiled the list from records of Threat to Freedom group statements and activities as they appear in their own publications and websites, as well as from reports from concerned citizens and mainstream media reports.

Threat to Freedom group activities can include misrepresentation of anti-terror and other law enforcement initiatives, attempts to restrict the freedom of speech regarding Islamic jihad or other threats to freedom, defamation of freedom fighters, disinformation campaigns in the mainstream media regarding attempts by the U.S. and Israel to defend themselves, and more.

Listing as a Threat to Freedom group does not in itself imply that a listed group calls for or participates in violence or criminal activities, although it does not rule out their doing so.

Here are the first groups listed on our AFDI Threats to Freedom Index. There is more detail in my book Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition retails jihadist propaganda against Israel, distorting the facts of the conflict and attempting to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist.

Code Pink: Far-Left organization aligned with Communists and Islamic jihadists, masquerading as a “peace” organization dedicated to stopping what it characterizes as unjust wars.

Cordoba Initiative: Stealth jihad organization aligned with anti-Israel jihad organizations and dedicated to building the triumphal Islamic supremacist mosque at Ground Zero.

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas-linked organization spreading disinformation about Islam and terror, opposing anti-terror activity, and defaming freedom fighters. CAIR was one of the many Islamic groups that was named an unindicted coconspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas jihad funding trial.

Friends of Sabeel-North America (FOSNA): Palestinian Christians aiding the jihad against Israel and retailing jihadist propaganda against the Jewish state.

If Americans Knew (IAK) spreads disinformation about the Palestinian jihad against Israel and Israel’s efforts to defend itself.

International ANSWER: a far-Left organization that opposes U.S. attempts to defend itself from jihad aggression.

International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT): Muslim Brotherhood organization with numerous documented links to Saudi Wahhabi organizations and jihad terror activity.

International Solidarity Movement enlists Leftist Americans to aid the Palestinian jihad against Israel and impede the defensive actions of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).

Islamic Circle of North America: Muslim Brotherhood organization preaching a global Caliphate and Islamic law (Sharia) over the U.S. ISNA was another Islamic group that was named an unindicted coconspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas jihad funding trial.

Islamic Society of North America: Muslim Brotherhood organization named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas jihad terror funding case.

Muslim American Society: chief arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., which is dedicated in its own words to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.”

Muslim Public Affairs Council: Muslim Brotherhood-linked organization that has spread disinformation about the extent of Muslim cooperation with anti-terror efforts, and has encouraged Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement.

Muslim Students Association: Muslim Brotherhood organization creating an atmosphere of intimidation for Jewish students on campuses nationwide, and bringing in speakers who preach jihad and hatred.

The New Black Panther Party (NBPP): a black militant group that relentlessly promotes violence against white people, and Jews in particular.

North American Islamic Trust (NAIT): Muslim Brotherhood organization and subsidiary of the ISNA, holder of titles of hundreds of Islamic properties in the U.S. It funds mosques and Islamic schools nationwide, and safeguards and pools the assets of the Muslim community in America. In doing so, NAIT promotes the concept of waqf, the eternal Islamic ownership of land—which is certain to cause trouble in the United States in the future. It also is tied to Saudi Wahhabi groups that are aggressively pushing, all over the world, the most virulent, violent form of Islam on the planet.

Organization of Islamic Cooperation: International organization dedicated to destroying free speech about Islam and jihad in America and Europe. The great historian Bat Ye’or explains that the OIC is “close to the Muslim World League of the Muslim Brotherhood,” and that “it shares the Brotherhood’s strategic and cultural vision: that of a universal religious community, the Ummah, based upon the Koran, the Sunna, and the canonical orthodoxy of shari’a.”

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding: Saudi-funded center at Georgetown University spreading disinformation about Islam and jihad. It underwrites material by the deceptive pro-Sharia academic John Esposito, such as the 2011 book Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century, a book-length barrage of Muslim victimhood propaganda, designed to deflect attention away from Islamic jihad activity and Islamic supremacism.

George Soros: The only individual to make the “Threats to Freedom” list, Soros is, according to Discover the Networks, “one of the most powerful men on earth,” with personal assets of an estimated $13 billion. Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) donates millions of dollars to far-Left, pro-Sharia, anti-freedom groups.

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) defames and attempts to marginalize conservative, pro-freedom organizations as “hate groups.” It uses its listing of “hate groups” to try to stigmatize, and ultimately criminalize, love of country and patriotism. It works to systematically destroy voices that are speaking out against oppression and persecution.

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) spreads jihadist propaganda and disinformation about Israeli self-defense on U.S. university campuses.

Aside from a couple outliers, all of those listed fall into one of the following groups: human and civil rights groups, anti-war groups (including a feminist group), interfaith groups, hate watch groups, a few Muslim-American organizations, and poor George Soros.  Unfortunately, we didn’t make the list (perhaps next year?), but Geller did accuse us of being funded by George Soros, so maybe that counts somewhat?  What do we need to up our game to make the list?

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Omer Subhani: “Spencer debates fool; Avoids LW’s Danios like the plague”

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Omer Subhani: “Spencer debates fool; Avoids LW’s Danios like the plague”

Posted on 14 August 2011 by Danios

Robert Spencer recently debated Moustafa Zayed, and from what I’ve heard, Zayed did not fare so well.  Zayed authored a book entitled The Lies About Muhammad: How You Were Deceived into Islamophobia, in which he attempted to refute Robert Spencer’s book The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion.

LoonWatch’s sister site SpencerWatch had publicized Zayed’s book when it first came out (see here).  This was the first I had heard of Zayed or his book, so I immediately ordered it.  After reading just half of it, I’d made my judgment: the book sucked.  Here is what I wrote then in the comments section of SpencerWatch (just under a year ago from today):

Danios says:

August 29, 2010 at 7:32 pm

I have read about half the book [by Moustafa Zayed]. Sadly, it is very poorly written and the arguments are weak. Overall, the “refutation” was highly ineffective. In fact, I would go so far as to say the book is childish. It was painful to read, and was quite simply tiresome.

Waste of money in my humble opinion. Worse than that, the author’s failure to effectively refute Robert Spencer’s arguments will give the impression that Spencer’s arguments are strong. So in a way, this book does more harm than good. More likely, however, the book will simply be disregarded.

I was honestly skeptical of the book when I bought it, simply because I have seen so many “Muslim scholars” fail so miserably when debating Spencer. Even then, however, the author managed to surprise me by how poorly it was written.

This is not to say that Spencer’s book is well-written or convincing. I will eventually devastate the arguments in his book, just like I am doing now with The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). The inability of “Muslim scholars” to write dispassionately and from a neutral analytical perspective hampers their effectiveness quite considerably…

No wonder then that Spencer chose to engage in debate with Zayed.  This follows Spencer’s modus operandi: engage in debate with those who are weak debaters, fastidiously avoid debating with those who are skilled debaters (and who have solid grasp of the subject matter), and then crow in victory over one’s supposedly undefeated record.

Robert Spencer has repeatedly chickened out of debating me, making excuse after excuse to get out of it, which prompted us to write an article entitled Internet Sociopath Robert Spencer Scared of Debate.  So when he saw Spencer crowing in victory over his recent debate with Zayed, Omer Subhani wrote the following post calling Spencer out:

Spencer debates fool; avoids LW’s Danios like the plague
Zayed, deceit, and body language – Jihad Watch

Why is Robert Spencer too cowardly to debate Danios of Loonwatch?

He will debate this fool, Zayed, but dodges Danios like the plague. I smell something. And it smells like chicken.

Danios has repeatedly told Spencer he would debate him, but Spencer just makes excuses. I think the bigot knows deep down he will be disposed of like the trash that he is.

Perhaps it is a bit too harsh to refer to Zayed as a “fool.” I’m sure he’s a lovely guy and I don’t want to insult him.  Having said that, I don’t think he’s adequately equipped to take on Spencer.  And in doing so, he is doing a disservice to those he is trying to defend.  Sheila Musaji at The American Muslim recently published an excellent article, in which she notes that “useful idiots” (again, perhaps too harsh a term) lose in debate against the Islamophobes, only to give the illusion to the audience that the Islamophobes have a strong argument.  They are doing more harm than good.

In any case, so long as Spencer keeps making up excuses to avoid debating me, he will be quite the cowardly hypocrite, whining that so-and-so is too scared to debate him while at the same time fastidiously avoiding debating me.

Update I: On an unrelated note, check out page IV of The “Allah is the Moon-God” Nonsense Could be the Stupidest Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theory Yet, which I just published.

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Defending Jewish girls

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Jewish group fights beach harassment

Posted on 13 August 2011 by Amago

Defending Jewish girls

Jewish group fights beach harassment

Anti-assimilation organization warns girls bathing on Israel’s seashores not to be fooled by Arab men posing as Jews

Yair Altman

Published: 07.17.11, 13:08 / Israel Jewish Scene

The Organization for Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land (Lehava) has decided to start “defending the daughters of Israel” on the country’s beaches.

According to the organization, many Arab men are posing as Jews, courting and harassing the beautiful women. In response, a “coast guard” aimed at fighting the alleged phenomenon has been set up.

In recent weeks, Lehava members have been handing out dozens of leaflets to Jewish women on the beaches of Bat Yam, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Caesarea and Eilat, asking them to maintain their Jewishness and not to give in to the non-Jewish men’s appeals.

The organization decided to do something after receiving complaints from many women who claimed to be harassed by non-Jewish men on the beach.

“Last year we discovered that there are many gentiles arriving at the beaches, but not in search of the sun or water,” said Benzi Gopstein, one of Lehava’s leaders.

“Due to the multiple complaints,” he explained, “we decided to promote a campaign at the start of the bathing season this year in order to prevent situations in which girls discover that the ‘Yossi’ they are dating is actually ‘Yusuf’, prevent sexual harassment and assimilation.

“The volunteers handing out the leaflets are all seculars, as the religious public only visits segregated beaches, which don’t have the Arab problem. We’ve also started distributing a clip on Facebook and YouTube and we hope the girls will open their eyes.”

‘There are enough Jewish men around’

Gopstein noted that the “coast guard” is also called “The committee for defending girls on beaches across Israel“, and that its members are volunteers living in the beach area.

He said that the patrol members use convincing methods only. “We turn to the girls with a plea: ‘There are enough good Jewish men you can go out with.’”

He stressed that “the letter of the rabbis’ wives (calling on Jewish girls not to date Arabs) was intended for the religious public. Now we are turning to the secular public and saying that you don’t have to be a religious girl in order to marry a Jew, you don’t have to be religious in order to want your son to remain Jewish, and its part of the people of Israel’s duty to remain Jewish.

“At the moment we are operating in several cities, but I believe that following the clips we’ll reach other places too.”


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Robert Spencer Admits “Islam Makes” Most Muslims “Very Moral”

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Robert Spencer Admits “Islam Makes” Most Muslims “Very Moral”

Posted on 12 August 2011 by Greeneye

Robert Spencer

It wasn’t long ago that Robert Spencer, a leader in the anti-Muslim movement, was arguing that “the only good Muslim was a bad Muslim.” Now he has suddenly “reversed” his position on Islam during a recent interview with Fox News’ Alan Colmes. Colmes did a pretty good job challenging Spencer on the holes in his anti-Muslim ideology: his double standards vis-à-vis Islam and Christianity, his downplaying the peaceful teachings of the Quran, his support for Pam Geller’s extremist and “meaningless” rhetoric, etc. Spencer spent most of his time on defense, often interrupting Colmes just when he was making a solid point.

Colmes could have done a better job refuting the point Spencer tried to make with the case of would-be terrorist Faisal Shazad. Spencer claimed that Shazad wholly and independently justified his actions by Islam when, in fact, he justified his deeds citing American foreign policy. This is what he really said:

“I want to plead guilty 100 times because unless the United States pulls out of Afghanistan and Iraq, until they stop drone strikes in Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen and stop attacking Muslim lands, we will attack the United States and be out to get them.”

Shahzad cited the numerous civilian deaths as primary justification for perpetrating retaliatory terrorism, along with vague platitudes about the Quran, justice, and the afterlife; very little to do with normative Islamic teachings and mostly to do with drone strikes and civilian “collateral damage,” as Danios pointed out. Tellingly, Shahzad plainly violated mainstream Islamic teachings about fulfilling pledges and being a good neighbor. The judge rightly told him, “I do hope you spend time in prison thinking about whether the Koran gives you the right to kill innocent people.”

If this is the example Spencer wants to cite, then that’s a debate that I am happy to have. As in this case, Spencer’s own examples often turn out to be proofs against him. The raw data is simply on the side of those people, Muslim and non-Muslim, who wish to live together in a peaceful democratic society. Perhaps Colmes can be forgiven for not pressing him on this point (after all, he does work for Fox News). But it was this exchange at the end of the interview that was truly magical:

Robert Spencer Finally Admits Islam Makes Muslims Good People:

Colmes: Robert, excuse me, is there anything positive about Islam you could say?

Spencer: Islam makes a lot of people be very moral and upright and live fine lives.

Colmes: That’s good right? And wouldn’t that be true of most Muslims?

Spencer: I would certainly say so, yeah, I never have denied it.

At some point, Spencer must have had a “change of heart” and decided all his years of attacking Muslims as a whole, the Prophet, and the Quran wasn’t really fair. More likely, however, is that when pressed in public on his anti-Muslim ideology, Spencer retreats to the “political correctness” he regularly derides in liberals, lest the viewers think he is nothing but a hard-nosed bigot. Because I remember specifically when Spencer denied the fact that most American Muslims are normal, ethical people:

“I have written on numerous occasions that there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists. While Americans prefer to imagine that the vast majority of American Muslims are civic-minded patriots who accept wholeheartedly the parameters of American pluralism, this proposition has actually never been proven.”

And again, who can tell the difference between peaceful Muslims and terrorists? Spencer observes:

“I have maintained from the beginning of this site and before that that there is no reliable way to distinguish a “moderate” Muslim who rejects the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism from a “radical” Muslim who holds such ideas, even if he isn’t acting upon them at the moment. And the cluelessness and multiculturalism of Western officialdom, which make officials shy away from even asking pointed questions, only compound this problem.”

Spencer had written on numerous occasions and maintained from the beginning that there is no practical difference between the average American Muslim on the street and an indoctrinated, foreign, psychotic jihadist. Did he really forget he said all that? Because Anders Behring Breivik, the Norway shooter, didn’t forget when he justified killing liberal race traitors, echoing Spencer’s talking points about multiculturalism and Islam:

“Tell me one country where Muslims have lived peacefully with non-Muslims without the Jihad

…How many thousands of new Europeans must die, how many one hundred thousand European women should be raped, millions robbed and tractor discarded before you understand that multiculturalism + Islam does not work?”

And again the killer repeats Spencer’s belief in the alleged absence of moderate Muslims:

“And then we have the relationship between conservative Muslims and so-called “moderate Muslims”. There is moderate Nazis, too, that does not support fumigation of rooms and Jews. But they’re still Nazis and will only sit and watch as the conservatives Nazis strike (if it ever happens). If we accept the moderate Nazis as long as they distance themselves from the fumigation of rooms and Jews?…. For me it is very hypocritical to treat Muslims, Nazis and Marxists differ. They are all supporters of hate-ideologies. Not all Muslims, Nazis and Marxists are conservative, most are moderate. But does it matter? A moderate Nazi might, after having experienced fraud, choose to be conservative. A moderate Muslim can, after being refused to enter a club, be conservative, etc.”

And where in the world could he have gotten the idea that Muslims and Nazis are the same?

Is Spencer willing to acknowledge the plethora of errors in his long track record of extremist hate speech, or are his comments to Colmes yet another implementation of Islamic taqiyya on his part? Taking a lesson out of the jihadist playbook, are you Robert? Judging by your latest round of hateful vitriolic spew, in which you railed against the “propaganda line” that “Islam is a religion of peace,” it seems like you are.

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1assault081111

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Minneapolis Man Pleads Guilty to Civil Rights Crime

Posted on 12 August 2011 by Emperor

Not America’s finest.

Minneapolis man pleads guilty to civil rights crime

A 64-year-old man pleaded guilty Wednesday to violating the civil rights of an 83-year-old Somali man he assaulted in Minneapolis last year while yelling that his victim was a Muslim and should go back to Africa.

George Thompson of Minneapolis appeared before U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson in federal court in St. Paul.

Court papers said that Thompson, a former employee of the Transportation Security Administration, attacked his victim on May 4, 2010, because of the man’s “actual and perceived religion and national origin.”

The incident occurred near 5th Street and Cedar Avenue S. The victim was identified in court papers only by his initials.

The Hennepin County attorney’s office deferred to federal authorities because Thompson could receive a longer sentence under federal law, said Chuck Laszewski, a county attorney’s office spokesman.

Thompson was charged under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Protection Act, passed in 2009. Shepard was tortured and murdered in Wyoming by two men who believed he was gay; Byrd, a black man, was dragged to his death behind a truck by three men in Texas.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis said Thompson could receive up to 10 years in prison.

On July 26, 2010, Thompson was arrested a second time by Minneapolis police, also near 5th and Cedar, in a similar incident.

A Somali man told police he was getting into a car when he was approached by Thompson and asked if he was a Somali. When the man said he was, Thompson told him he was going to kill him and began to chase and threaten him.

Thompson then went into the Nomad World Pub, where he was taken into custody. The complaint said Thompson was intoxicated and had two loaded firearms with him and a permit to carry them. Thompson was charged in that case with second-degree assault and making terroristic threats.

Laszewski said the Hennepin County attorney’s office will move to dismiss the charges in the July 2010 case once it gets official notice of the status of Thompson’s federal case.

Randy Furst • 612-673-7382

Original post: Minneapolis man pleads guilty to civil rights crime

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spencerrobertson

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Robertson And Spencer Agree: Media Love Islam ‘Cult’ Because They Hate America

Posted on 11 August 2011 by Emperor

(via. Islamophobia Today)

Robertson And Spencer Agree: Media Love Islam ‘Cult’ Because They Hate America

Submitted by Brian Tashman on August 3, 2011 – 1:55pm

Anti-Muslim activist Robert Spencer joined Pat Robertson on The 700 Club today to discuss the increased scrutiny of Spencer’s writings after it came to light that they were frequently cited by the right-wing Norway terrorist who killed scores of progressive youth activists and government employees. Robertson, whose American Center for Law and Justice worked with Spencer to organize a rally opposing the construction of an Islamic community center near Ground Zero, previously said that people who “oppose Muslims” am like himself are similar to those who fought “Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.”

Spencer told Robertson, who was upset that no one in the media was telling “the truth about this cult,” that the “hard left” media hate America and Christianity, and therefore “love” radical Islam. Later in the program, Robertson blasted the “anti-American” media for embracing “something out of the Eighth Century B.C.” (note: Muhammad was born in 570 AD) and denounced Islam for supposedly endorsing violence and restricting the rights of women (things Robertson has neverever supported).

Robertson: Tell me what it is about the media today that seems to be in favor of radical Islam, why do they want to put down anybody who tells the truth about this cult?

Spencer: Well I tell you I think the unpleasant truth about it is, is that the media being hard left is essentially anti-American. And so anything that’s American, that’s Western, that’s Christian, that’s Judeo-Christian, they hate. And so they see Islam and it’s non-Western and non-Christian and they love it.

Robertson: ladies and gentlemen, it’s out there. You know, you ask the media in this country: What in name is wrong with you? Are you so anti-American, are you so opposed to this great nation and the freedoms you have that you want to embrace something out of the Eighth Century B.C. that restricts the role of women and causes hideous fighting, jihad, the killing of innocent civilians? Why do you embrace that? And you ask yourself, the media in America, why do you embrace that? You’re living in the freest, nicest, most beautiful nation on earth, what’s wrong with you? Wake up!

Original post: Robertson And Spencer Agree: Media Love Islam ‘Cult’ Because They Hate America

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Birmingham-murder-inquiry-005

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Three British Muslims Killed by Car after Leaving Mosque

Posted on 10 August 2011 by Emperor

Riots have been rocking Britain for days now. Interestingly the EDL and their cohorts were quick to blame Muslims and Islam as the culprits. Many Islamophobes were eager for a repeat of 2005 when riots rocked France and they latched onto the fact that many of the youths involved were of North African descent.

Can you imagine if Muslims were heavily involved in these riots, or if there was a Muslim face to these riots? You can be sure that Islamophobes would be blaming Islam. Instead we have a sad case in which some Muslim youths who were actually protecting their neighborhood were killed after leaving the Mosque, in what witnesses are saying was a targeted killing. Will the Islamophobes suck up their pride, put away their hate and commend these youth for sacrificing their lives while protecting their neighborhood? (hat tip:Link182 &JD)

UK riots: Birmingham murder inquiry after car kills three British Asian men

(Guardian)

Police in Birmingham have launched a murder inquiry after three British Asian men were killed by a car in an incident that has raised fresh tensions after nights of looting.

A tearful and resentful crowd gathered outside the City hospital following the incident early on Wednesday morning, with police protecting the building against any incursion as feelings ran high.

A man has been arrested and a car impounded following the crash near a mosque in the Dudley Road area of England’s second city. Neighbours said the men had just left the mosque and were among large numbers of local people determined not to allow the fluid series of grab-and-run attacks in the city centre to spread to their area.

Unconfirmed reports suggested that two of the men were brothers Shazad Ali and Abdul Mussavir , 32 and 30, who ran a carwash which was reckoned to be among possible targets for looters. The BBC has interviewed the father of another victim, Haroon Jahan, 21, who worked as a mechanic in a local garage.

Emergency ambulances found around 80 people already trying to help the victims when they arrived at the scene, which is close to a petrol station on Dudley Road. Throughout Tuesday, large numbers of British Asians had gathered outside shops and other businesses in Handsworth, Lozells and other inner-city areas, sometimes in tense face-offs with small groups of mostly African-Caribbean youths.

Community leaders are working to calm intense anger in the largely British Asian area around the scene of the tragedy, where groups of local people are out on the streets openly warning of inter-communal violence.

The local Labour MP, Shabana Mahmood, joined a tense meeting at Dudley Road mosque, which was being protected by young men in the early hours when the car rammed into a group including the three victims.

The Bishop of Aston, the Right Rev Anthony Watson, was also there and warned of concern about possible reprisals and events “potentially having an ugly race dimension”. Efforts are being focused on calming younger people who accuse the police of taking too little action to protect locally owned businesses from the looters.

One man who declined to give his name said that he had seen the incident and described it as “deliberate – no way was it an accident. The driver went on to the pavement and rammed them. He knew what he was doing.” He said that he had given evidence to the police.

Feelings have been inflamed by an alleged 20-minute delay before an ambulance arrived, with other locals saying that police riot vans had got in the way. Frantic efforts by locals to resuscitate the men failed and two died at the scene. The third died shortly afterwards at City hospital. Forensic experts are examining the scene and the impounded car and an appeal has made for witnesses.

Confrontation with the British Asian community or inter-communal violence would take the disturbances on to a new level and police have worked rapidly on the murder inquiry. It comes on top of 19 court appearances due on Wednesday after 43 arrests on Tuesday, and a further 37 on Tuesday night as violence dogged pockets of Birmingham and neighbouring West Bromwich and Wolverhampton.

Police do not yet know if there is any link to the troubles beyond the fact that unusually large numbers of people were on the streets in Winson Green and neighbouring suburbs. A spokesman for the West Midlands force said: “The incident took place close to the Jet filling station on Dudley Road in Winson Green at approximately 1.15am. Three ambulances, two rapid response vehicles and an incident support officer were sent to the scene.

“When crews arrived, they found around 80 people at the scene with resuscitation ongoing on three men. Crews used their advanced life support skills while police officers provided support.”

Violence in Birmingham on Tuesday night was on a much-reduced scale compared with Monday, but its spread to West Bromwich and Wolverhampton, in contrast to the relative calm in London, attracted growing attention. Police are growing increasingly used to troublemakers’ use of Twitter and other swift links to spot unprotected areas and zero in on them.

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wholefoods

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Facing Islamophobic Backlash, Whole Foods Instructs Stores Not To ‘Promote’ Ramadan This Year

Posted on 09 August 2011 by Emperor

Facing Islamophobic Backlash, Whole Foods Instructs Stores Not To ‘Promote’ Ramadan This Year

(ThinkProgress)

In the current era of Islamophobia, anything remotely “Muslim-ish” touches off paranoid delusions of impending jihad, particularly when it involves American emblems — like Whole Foods. Last week, the suburban staple decided to tout “Saffron Road,” a new line of Halal-certified frozen food, to coincide with the Muslim holiday of Ramadan. Halal foods are items permitted under Islamic dietary guidelines. In a post on the company’s website entitled “What’s this halal about,” Whole Foods offered a chance to win free samples because “whether you eat halal because of your religious dietary guidelines or you simply prefer to choose food that’s made with high-quality, responsibly farmed ingredients, then Saffron Road has some tasty offerings for you.”

It seems that a “very small” contingent of consumers and right-wing bloggers simply preferred to throw an apoplectic fit. Thus, in apparent genuflection to this bloc, Whole Foods sent an email to all its U.S. stores specifically telling the franchises not to promote Ramadan this year. The Houston Press obtained a copy of the email:

“It is probably best that we don’t specifically call out or ‘promote’ Ramadan,” reads a portion of that email. “We should not highlight Ramadan in signage in our stores as that could be considered ‘Celebrating or promoting’ Ramadan.”

This reversal marks “a significant departure from years past, when Whole Foods has promoted its halal items during Ramadan with small signs that displayed a crescent moon, the symbol of Islam.” What’s more, the move is hardly likely to placate the small number of fringe bloggers who are already boycotting the chain for “pimping and promoting–’Canaan Fair Trade’ and ‘Palestinian Fair Trade’ Olive Oil.” But given the conservative credentials of Whole Foods owner John Mackey, perhaps its surprising the company even considered recognizing Islam in the first place.

Whole Foods responded that the company has not stopped the campaign. It states it is still highlighting halal but also maintained it is still “not specifically [promoting] #Ramadan after some negative comments.” In any event, as Gawker notes, the whole episode does serve as a kind of flow chart for future faux-controversies: “Are you a racist xenophobe who dislikes anything at all for any arbitrary reason? Simply complain loudly on your blog, and Whole Foods will obsequiously cater to your every last prejudice.”

*Updated*

Despite a wave of false rumors that it was backing out of its Ramadan campaign, Whole Foods has directly stated via Twitter that they are indeed standing behind their efforts.

“We are still carrying and promoting halal products for those that are celebrating Ramadan this month. We never sent a communication from our headquarters requesting stores take down signs or remove parts from this promotion. We have 12 different operating regions and unfortunately, one region reacted by sending out directions to promote halal and not specifically Ramadan after some negative online comments.”

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Georgia

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Opponents say they will protest plans for new mosque in metro Atlanta community

Posted on 09 August 2011 by Emperor

Georgia

Georgia

Opponents say they will protest plans for new mosque in metro Atlanta community

LILBURN, Ga. — Opponents of a mosque being planned by a Muslim congregation in the metro Atlanta suburb of Lilburn are planning a protest.

WSB Radio reports (http://bit.ly/qUW7Jd) that opponents are planning to protest Monday night outside the Lilburn City Council meeting.

The congregation plans to submit a third request to the city for rezoning of four acres at the corner of U.S. Highway 29 and Hood Road so they can build a 20,000 square foot mosque and a 200 space parking lot.

Twice in the past, the city has denied requests to change the zoning.

The city council is scheduled to hear the congregation’s most recent proposal later this month.

___

Information from: WSB-AM, http://wsbradio.com/

Original post: Opponents say they will protest plans for new mosque in metro Atlanta community

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Mike Huckabee

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Huckabee Generates Cash With 9/11 ‘History’ Cartoon

Posted on 05 August 2011 by Amago

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Huckabee Generates Cash With 9/11 ‘History’ Cartoon

By MARY MURPHYpix11.com

7:46 p.m. EDT, August 3, 2011

NEW YORK (PIX11)— Former presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, is cashing in on the upcoming, 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks by marketing an educational “cartoon” about the events that sent the United States back to war.

“You can go to Learn Our History.com,” Huckabee told viewers this week on Pat Robertson‘s “700 Club” cable show. The one-timeArkansas governor is producing a series of DVD’s, and he told the TV audience, “The first one’s $9.95, and then it goes to $11.95.”

“Someone to profit off the worst day in American history is unheard of,” fumed retired, FDNY fire chief, Jim Riches, who lost his firefighter son, Jim Jr., on 9/11.

“Three thousand Americans were murdered, and it’s for his personal gain. I think it’s blood money,” Riches told PIX 11.

A preview of Huckabee’s cartoon for the “Time Cycle Academy” shows a plane heading toward the Twin Towers on a clear day, with someone shouting below “No!” before the jet crashes into the first tower. The cartoon also shows a “Wanted” poster for Al Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden — long before he was fatally shot by U.S. Navy Seals this past May — portraying an animated Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan, as he proclaims, “The time for jihad is upon us, death to the Americans!”

When PIX 11 traveled to the Tribute Center right next to Ground Zero on Wednesday, a Utah tourist, Heather Robertson, said this about Huckabee’s history lesson: “I don’t know if I like it in cartoon form.” Robertson continued, “I think it diminishes what took place on 9/11.”

A laborer named Frankie, who was working in a hard-hat re-building World Trade Center Tower 4, said this about Huckabee’s efforts, “Then do it for free. He’s about making money. He ain’t about teaching anybody anything. If he’s doing not-for-profit, then that’s a different story. But I’m sure he’s making money on it.”

David Yi, a Korean immigrant who lives in New Jersey, did not think the cartoon was such a bad idea for kids. “We have to teach them freedom to protect ourselves,” he told PIX 11.

Huckabee’s representatives have not been responding to requests for comment.

Jim Riches had plenty more to say, however. “I think for politicians trying to teach our kids, we’re in trouble. Leave it to the teachers, the educators.”

Riches also noted the recently-passed Zadroga Law to help sick, 9/11 “First Responders” leaves certain people out. “The people who have cancer aren’t even going to be covered,” Riches told PIX 11. “And I think that would be another good place to put the money, instead of putting it in his pocket.”

See Video:

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Debbie Schlussel: Oslo Victims Were Terrorists Not Victims, Their Deaths Was Karma, Child Victims Were Bitches

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Debbie Schlussel: Oslo Victims Were Terrorists Not Victims, Their Deaths Was Karma, Child Victims Were Bitches

Posted on 03 August 2011 by Danios

In previous articles we’ve highlighted the hideous things Pamela Geller said about the victims of the Oslo terrorist attack, calling them anti-Semites, socialists, Communists, Nazis, pro-Islamists, jihad-enablers, and rape-enablers.  They had it coming.

But lest you think that Pamela Geller is the only one from the right-wing that has issued such insensitive and atrocious comments, let it be known that she is certainly not alone.  Glenn Beck, for instance, referred to the victims as Nazis, claiming that they are the equivalent of the Hitler Youth.  Another well-known personality and conservative blogger is also trying to grab the spotlight with her outrageous comments: Debbie Schlussel.

Remember how Pamela Geller included a racist caption saying that the victims were mostly “Middle Eastern” or “mixed” and not “pure Norwegian?”  Seems like Schlussel wanted to top that, and so she had a similar picture but with a caption provocatively asking:

“Victims” or Perpetrators?

By the very fact that she asked the question–and that she placed the word “victims” in quotations and “perpetrators” without quotations–we can safely say that she is saying that the victims of the Oslo terrorist attack were actually perpetrators of terrorism–they were terrorists.  At minimum, “they sided with Islamic terrorists.”  Schlussel goes on to say (emphasis is mine):

Again, you must read Zalmi’s important piece on this, which provides far more detail on these “victims” of terrorism who celebrated terrorism against other victims.

Please savor the morbid nature of that statement: imagine, just for a minute, if some Muslim blogger wrote that the victims of 9/11 were in fact terrorists not victims.  Can you imagine the outrage?

Schlussel also says that their deaths was just a result of “karma,” i.e. it was the universe giving them what they justly deserved.  Opines Schlussel:

And I don’t get too upset when they face the karma that is their fate.

She goes on:

Karma is a bitch . . . especially for Jew-haters who were Fatah’s bitch.  You hang out with snakes, you get bitten.

Oh, dozens upon dozens of children were shot and killed?  Well, karma is a real bitch, suck it up.  That’s the way the cookie crumbles, tough luck, bitches.

Schlussel agrees with Glenn Beck’s statement that the victims were equivalent to the Hitler Youth, saying:

More proof that Glenn Beck was spot on when he compared Norway’s Utoya Island political camp, shot up by Anders Breivik, to a Hitler Youth camp.

Aside from labeling them Nazis, Schlussel mocks the victims, calling them “spoiled airheaded kids” and “hateful, privileged brats.”

The delusional Schlussel calls the Oslo victims “would-be assassins,” saying:

I can’t feel sorry for those who support my would-be assassins.

What the smurf is she talking about?  Basically, Schlussel has equated the Oslo victims with Hamas.  Her proof for this amazing juxtaposition?  Apparently, some of those on the island supported boycotting Israel for its apartheid policies towards Arabs.  This “divest from Israel” campaign utilizes the methods used to pressure apartheid South Africa, and is in fact supported by none other than Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.  Are Mandela and Tutu also a part of Hamas then?  Are they anti-Semites and Jew-haters?

Schlussel also takes issue with supporting the Freedom Flotilla, shrieking that the children were playing a game

re-enacting of the HAMAS flotilla in which terrorists tried to murder Israeli soldiers

The Freedom Flotilla attempted to give humanitarian aid to the starving people of Gaza, who have been the victims of an inhumane and illegal blockade by Israel.  It has nothing to do with Hamas.

Another image that Debbie Schlussel takes offense to shows a tee-shirt that says “tear down this wall,” which refers to the illegal Wall of Separation–more properly called the Apartheid Wall.  Well, that’s the same decision that the United Nations and the International Court of Justice came to, namely that Israel must tear down the wall.

We could debate Israel and Palestine all day long, but regardless of that, is this really the time to be worrying about the Oslo victims’ political viewpoints?  Perhaps we can just mourn their deaths as decent human beings are supposed to?  No, not Debbie Schlussel.  She calls the children “HAMASniks,” saying:

And I shed no tears for these HAMASnik campers with a Scandinavian dialect. Perpetrators are not victims. Sorry. HAMAS collaborators don’t get my pity. They never will.

Debbie Schlussel summarizes her cold-hearted and depraved position by saying:

For me, this is like Alien v. Predator.  I’m not sad for either side.  And I make no apologies for it.  Now these kids’ families know what it feels like to be victims of the Islamic terrorists whose Judenrein boycotts and terrorist flotillas against Israel they support.  We don’t live in a vacuum.  I can’t feel sorry for those who support my would-be assassins.  And I don’t get too upset when they face the karma that is their fate.

Sad for either side?  What is the other side?  There are the more than seventy victims–the majority of which were children–who were killed in this terrorist attack.  And then on the other side is Anders Behring Breivik, the terrorist.  Who in their right mind is feeling sad for Breivik that this even needs to be said?  Is Schlussel equating Breivik to his victims?  How absolutely sickening.

Debbie Schlussel calls the children “Fatah’s bitch.”  I don’t know about that, but I do have some thoughts about who is a complete ….

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Pamela Geller’s Racist Comments: Oslo Victims Weren’t “Pure Norwegians,” Just “Middle Eastern” or “Mixed”

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Pamela Geller’s Racist Comments: Oslo Victims Weren’t “Pure Norwegians,” Just “Middle Eastern” or “Mixed”

Posted on 02 August 2011 by Danios

Yesterday, I wrote the following:

Instead of mourning the dead, Pamela Geller–Breivik’s “spiritual benefactor”–is now bad-mouthing the innocent dead.  She calls the victims of the terrorist attack “anti-semites,” arguing that the summer camp is an “antisemitic indoctrination center” where they play “antisemitic war games.”  Blares the insane and lunatical Pamela Geller:

Utoya Island is a Communist/Socialist campground, and they clearly had a pro-Islamic agenda.

Aha! So, Pamela Geller’s comrade-in-arms Robert Spencer was just blowing smoke when he claimed that Breivik’s choice of victims just didn’t jive with the “counter-jihadist” ideology.  In reality, these dirty communists/socialists “had a pro-Islamic agenda.”  They were communists and pro-Islamists–that’s a two-for-one bag of hate for right-wingers.

And just like any good right-winger, Geller transitions swiftly between Communist references and Nazi/Hitler references, likening the victims to Hitler youth:

Glen Beck was not far off when he compared it to the Hitlerjugend or Young Pioneers.

The Young Pioneers was the youth organization for the Soviet Union, once again exhibiting how crazy right-wingers like Pamela Geller can move from Islamists to Nazis to Communism all in one breath.

More disgustingly, Pamela Geller mockingly and sarcastically refers to the young kids (who were the victims of the Oslo attack) as “little dearies:”

I saw at least one article that had photos of previous summers with the little dearies and their handlers assembling Israel-bashing displays.

Then she mentions something about “red diaper[s]” (wtf?)–I guess a reference to raising kids as communists.

And then we have Pamela Geller coming dangerously close to justifying the shooting, saying:

Breivik was targeting the future leaders of the party responsible for flooding Norway with Muslims who refuse to assimilate, who commit major violence against Norwegian natives, including violent gang rapes, with impunity, and who live on the dole… all done without the consent of the Norwegians.

Don’t you get it?  Anders Breivik killed people who were enabling violent gang rapes!  He killed rape-enablers!  Is that even a crime?  Shouldn’t he get a medal for that?

Can anyone imagine the reaction had Norwegians (or Muslims!) mocked the victims of 9/11 in this way?

I neglected to mention one of the most disturbing parts of Pamela Geller’s post, something which she had written but then had deleted before I viewed her site.  Some of our readers did point this out to me, but it was only yesterday night that I got a chance to read comments.  Apologies for the delay in posting this.

So, for those of you who haven’t read about it yet, Geller included the following caption under a picture of the youth camp:

Note the faces which are more MIddle [sic] Eastern or mixed than pure Norwegian.”

Realizing that her caption would (rightfully) be seen as unadulterated racism, Geller quickly deleted it. Luckily, a screenshot was saved (available on ThinkProgress.com):

Do you notice the Darkies and the Sand-Niggers in the photo?  I think I even see a Raghead in the front row.

So, you see, these weren’t “pure Norwegians” or pure whites that were targeted and killed–they were just Darkies, Sand-Niggers, and Ragheads.  They were budding terrorists–they were at minimum terrorist sympathizers.  They had it coming.

ThinkProgress notes that it was within 24 hours of the attack that Pamela Geller made this disturbing comment.  Can you imagine the depravity and bigotry of this lady that she had the morbid nature to say such of the dead even before they were laid to rest?  I don’t know about you, but I don’t do a race check when I read news of people dying.

Although I was not at all surprised that Pamela Geller would say something like she did (after all, her anti-Muslim views are just racism by another name), I am always impressed by her impetuous nature: she has no filter and just posts whatever comes to her sick mind, and then curses herself as she tries to delete and cover up what she said just a few hours earlier.  Pam, here’s a tip: think before you type.  Remember: you can’t be so obvious about your racism.

In any case, all of this shows that Geller is coming dangerously close to justifying Anders Behring Breivik’s terrorist attack: in her mind, the victims were socialists, Communists, rape-enablers, jihad-enablers, pro-Islamists, Hitler Youth, Middle Eastern, and mixed race (and thus impure)–so they really just had it coming.

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Colin Powell Receives Anti-Defamation League Award

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Islamophobia, Zionism and the Norway Massacre

Posted on 02 August 2011 by Emperor

A very well written piece from Ali Abunimah. The connection between Zionism and the rise in Islamophobia was explored by LW when we wrote an exclusive piece exposing the funding apparatus of Islamophobia, The Connection between Zionism and Organized Islamophobia–The Facts.

In the piece we elaborated on how Aubrey Chernick, a premiere funder of Islamophobes has also donated to, amongst other groups, the ADL which is quite literally taken apart in the article below.

Ali Abunimah writes,

The continued lurch towards extremism in Israel, and among many of its supporters, underscores the truth that anyone who wants to dissociate from ultranationalism, racism and Islamophobia, also has to repudiate Israel’s state ideology, Zionism.

It may not be true that Zionism needs to be absolutely repudiated for one to “dissociate from ultra-nationalism, racism and Islamophobia,” however criticism of Zionism should not be conflated with anti-Semitism or seen as a desire to destroy Israel.

Islamophobia, Zionism and the Norway massacre

by Ali Abunimah (AlJazeeraEnglish)

In a Washington Post op-ed last week, Abraham Foxman, the National Director of the Anti Defamation League, likened the hateful ideology that inspired Anders Behring Breivik to massacre 77 innocent people in Norway to the “deadly” anti-Semitism that infected Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This is a parallel that I, and many others who have been observing with alarm the rise of anti-Muslim incitement in the US and Europe, have made frequently.

Does this mean that Foxman – head of one of the most hardline and influential pro-Israel lobby groups – has found common ground with the Palestine solidarity movement?

That would be a good thing if it helped to fight the growing scourge of racist incitement. But by criticising the ideology that inspired Breivik, and pointing the finger at a few of its purveyors, Foxman appears to be trying to obscure the key role that he and some other pro-Israel advocates have played in mainstreaming the poisonous Islamophobic rhetoric that has now – Foxman himself argues – led to bloodshed in Norway.

Pointing the finger

Foxman describes, in his Washington Post article, “a relatively new, specifically anti-Islamic ideology” which Breivik used to justify his attack. “Growing numbers of people in Europe and the United States subscribe to this belief system”, Foxman writes, “In some instances it borders on hysteria. Adherents of this ideological Islamophobia view Islam as an existential threat to the world, especially to the ‘West.’”

“Moreover”, Foxman explains, “they believe that leaders and governments in the Western world are consciously or unconsciously collaborating to allow Islam to ‘infiltrate’ and eventually conquer democratic societies.”

Just such irrational beliefs underpin the hysteria about “Creeping Sharia” – the utterly baseless claim that Muslims are engaged in a secret conspiracy to impose Islamic law on the United States. So prevalent has this delusional belief become, that legislative efforts have been mounted in about two dozen American states, and have been passed by three, to outlaw Sharia law.

Foxman points the finger – as others have rightly done – at extreme Islamophobic agitators such as Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, co-founders of “Stop Islamisation of America” – whose hate-filled writings Breivik cited in his manifesto.

So far, Foxman has it right. But then he drops a clue about what really frightens him:

“One bizarre twist to Breivik’s warped worldview was his pro-Zionism – his strongly expressed support for the state of Israel. It is a reminder that we must always be wary of those whose love for the Jewish people is born out of hatred of Muslims or Arabs.”

Who does Foxman think he is kidding? There is nothing “bizarre” about this at all. Indeed Foxman himself has done much to bestow credibility on extremists who have helped popularise the Islamophobic views he now condemns. And he did it all to shore up support for Israel.

After Norway, Foxman may fear that the Islamophobic genie he helped unleash is out of control, and is a dangerous liability for him and for Israel.

Zionists embrace Islamophobia after 9/11

Many American Zionists embraced Islamophobic demagoguery after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Their logic was encapsulated in then-Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s notorious assessment that the attacks – which killed almost 3,000 people – would be beneficial for Israel.

Asked what the 9/11 atrocities would mean for US-Israeli relations, Netanyahu told The New York Times, “It’s very good”, before quickly adding, “Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy” and would “strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we’ve experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror”.

In order for Israel and the United States to have the same enemy, the enemy could not just be the Palestinians, who never threatened the United States in any way. It had to be something bigger and even more menacing – and Islam fit the bill. The hyped-up narrative of an all-encompassing Islamic threat allowed Israel to be presented as the bastion of “western” and “Judeo-Christian” civilisation facing down encroaching Muslim barbarity. No audience was more receptive than politically influential, white, right-wing Christian evangelical pastors and their flocks.

Sermons of hate

“Since the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon, on September the 11th, American politicians have tripped over themselves to state that the vast majority of Muslims living in the United States are just ordinary people who love America and are loyal to America. Is that true? Is that really true?”

That is the question Pastor John Hagee, leader of an evangelical megachurch and founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), posed to his followers whom, he said, were becoming more concerned as “mosques appear across the nation”.

In a series of sermons soon after the 9/11 attacks which he titled “Allah and America,” Hagee began a relentless campaign of inciting his followers to fear and hate Muslims and Islam (videos of Hagee’s sermons can be found on YouTube.

Hagee has emerged over the past decade as one of the most prominent Christian Zionist supporters of Israel. His sermons are broadcast on dozens of TV channels and he influences millions of Americans.

As his “Allah and America” sermons progressed, Hagee’s answers became clear: “In the Qur’an, those who do not submit to Islam should be killed. That means death to Christians and death to Jews. Now I ask you, is that tolerant? Is that peaceful? Is that a sister faith to Christianity?”

After reading and distorting “selected verses from the Qur’an, which is the Islamic bible, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, to increase our understanding of the basis of their faith,” Hagee claimed, “the Qur’an insists that no matter how mighty a nation is, it must be fought until it embraces Islam.”

And, apparently knowing that his congregation may hate and fear only taxes as much as Muslims, Hagee told them that the Qur’an’s message to Muslims is “when you get into the government, tax Christians and Jews into poverty until they submit willingly to Islam. Sounds like the IRS [Internal Revenue Service], but not faith.”

Then he offered this warning: “Politicians who are telling America that Islam and Christianity are sister faiths are lying to the people of this country. There is no relationship of any kind between Islam and Christianity. None whatever.”

At every step, Hagee exhorted the faithful that Islam and Muslims were not only a danger to the United States, but specifically to Israel – a country to which they should offer unconditional support.

This sounds a lot like the ideology of generalised fear and loathing of Muslims that Foxman condemned in the Washington Post.

Islamophobic fearmongering, demonisation and dehumanisation, from the likes of Hagee, and bellowed continuously on cable channels and radio stations across America, enabled the US government to legitimise invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and expand wars from Pakistan to Yemen to Somalia. These took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, under the guise of a “war on terror” – all the while as presidents hosted White House iftars.

What makes Breivik’s attack so shocking and new is that he turned the Islamophobic rhetoric against the white citizens of the Euro-American “homeland”, those whom the officially-sanctioned military slaughter of Muslims abroad was ostensibly meant to protect.

Foxman welcomes Hagee in from the fringes

While Hagee offered his zealous support to Israel (he founded CUFI in 2006), not all of Israel’s supporters returned the love. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, warned in 2007 that the pro-Israel Jewish community’s embrace of far-right ideologues would drive away young, socially-liberal Jews from supporting Israel. He feared it could endanger the bipartisan support Israel always enjoyed in the United States by identifying it with what Yoffie saw as extremist elements.

Yoffie focused his criticism on Hagee, “who is contemptuous of Muslims, dismissive of gays, possesses a truimphalist theology and opposes a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.” He worried about the warm reception Hagee was receiving at conferences of Jewish Federations all over America.

One influential figure who didn’t share Yoffie’s fears about Hagee was Foxman, who told a reporter from the Religion News Service in March 2008, “I don’t have to agree with anybody 100 per cent in order to welcome their support, as long as their support is not conditioned on my agreeing with them on everything or accepting them 100 per cent.”

When it came to light during the 2008 US presidential campaign that Hagee had said in a 1999 sermon that Hitler had been sent by God to drive the Jews to Israel, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain repudiated Hagee’s endorsement. But Foxman was quick to offer Hagee absolution, issuing a statement accepting the pastor’s “apology”.

Enabling Islamophobia

Foxman’s embrace of Hagee does not even mark the lowest point of his dalliance with Islamophobic extremists. Recall last summer – in the run up to the US midterm elections – the hate campaign targeting a proposal for an Islamic community centre planned for lower Manhattan in New York City.

Dubbed the “Ground Zero Mosque” by its critics, it became a cause celebre for the Republican Party – and some gutless Democrats – who claimed that building the institution close to the former site of the World Trade Centre would be an insult to the memory of victims.

The hate campaign was notable for unprecedented anti-Muslim rhetoric that exceeded anything heard in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 attacks. While New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg earned plaudits for defending the right of American Muslims to build the Islamic centre where they wanted, Foxman and his Anti-Defamation League caused consternation when they backed the bigots and came out against the project.

And who was it who helped take a little-noticed plan for a community centre and turn it into “a national political spectacle?” None other than Pam Geller and Robert Spencer – as the Washington Post reported at the time- the same Islamophobic extremists whom Foxman now blames for fueling the kind of hatred that inspired Breivik to kill.

Rescuing Zionism from Islamophobia

Foxman’s claim that Breivik’s support for Israel is “bizarre” is a brazen attempt to deflect attention from the alliance that Foxman and leading Israeli politicians have made with the most racist Islamophobes – ones Foxman accurately likens to anti-Semites.

To be clear, Israel and Zionism have always been racist toward Palestinians and other non-Jews, otherwise how else could they justify the expulsion and exclusion of millions of Palestinians solely on the grounds that they are not Jews? It is the virulent, specifically anti-Muslim trend that has been particularly pronounced since 2001.

But the rot has already gone too far. As a recent article in Der Spiegel underscores, Europe’s far-right anti-Muslim demagogues have found many allies and admirers in Israel, particularly within the upper echelons of the ruling Likud and Yisrael Beitenu parties.

And the feeling is mutual: European ultra-nationalists, such as Dutch Islamophobe Geert Wilders, have put support for Israel’s right-wing government at the centre of their politics.

Islamophobia welcome in Israel

While the world was united in horror at Breivik’s massacre, several commentators in Israel’s mainstream media were much more understanding of his motives, if not for his actions. An oped on Ynet, the website of Israel’s mass circulation Yediot Aharonot, stated that “the youth movement of the ruling Labour Party” – of which many of the youths murdered on Utoya island were members – “is an organisation of anti-Israeli hate mongers”.

An editorial in The Jerusalem Post offered sympathy for Breivik’s anti-Muslim ideology and called on Norway to act on the concerns expressed in his manifesto, while an op-ed published by the same papersaid that the youth camp Breivik attacked had been engaged in “a pro-terrorist program”.

Meanwhile, an article in the American Jewish newspaper The Forward noted that on many mainstream internet forums, Israelis expressed satisfaction with Breivik’s massacre and thought that Norway got what it deserved.

Clear warning signs

Foxman cannot claim he didn’t see any of this coming. Back in 2003, I interviewed him for an article about the inclusion of Yisrael Beitenu and other parties in Israel’s governing coalition, parties that openly advocated the expulsion of Palestinians. Foxman’s attitude was as indulgent toward those racists and would-be ethnic cleansers as he was to Hagee’s hate-mongering a few years later, and it is those same Israeli parties that have forged the closest ties with European and American anti-Muslim extremists.

The continued lurch towards extremism in Israel, and among many of its supporters, underscores the truth that anyone who wants to dissociate from ultranationalism, racism and Islamophobia, also has to repudiate Israel’s state ideology, Zionism. Universal rights and equality for all human beings are concepts that are anathema to both.

With his panicked and belated jump onto the anti-Islamophobia bandwagon, Foxman hopes we won’t notice, and that organisations like his can continue defending Israel’s racism free from the stain of the deadly anti-Muslim extremism they have done so much to promote.

Ali Abunimah is author of “One Country, A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse”, and is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

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Anders Behring Breivik shooting

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Anti-immigration Ally of Silvio Berlusconi Says Breivik had ‘Some Excellent Ideas’

Posted on 01 August 2011 by Emperor

Anders Behring Breivik shooting

The true reality of how most Islamophobes felt about Breivik’s ideas and actions.

Anti-immigration ally of Silvio Berlusconi says Breivik had ‘some excellent ideas’

A coalition ally of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has provoked outrage after he praised the rantings of Norwegian right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik.

Mario Borghezio, an MEP with the anti-immigration Northern League party, who have campaigned against Muslims and the building of mosques, said Breivik had some ‘excellent’ ideas.

Speaking on an Italian radio show he said he agreed with the maniac’s ‘opposition to Islam and his explicit accusation that Europe has surrendered before putting up a fight against its Islamisation.’

Though Borghezio added that he did not however agree with the use of extreme violence, or Breivik’s anti-Papal views, his comments immediately unleashed a storm of fury with his own party apologising to still grieving Norway.

Northern League chief Roberto Calderoli said: ‘His comments are terrible and completely unqualified and we can only apologise to the families of the victims for the delirium of what he said.’

The Northern League is a key ally of Berlusconi’s ruling right-wing coalition and, although the prime minister did not comment personally, members of his party also rounded on Mr Borghezio.

Carlo Giovanardi, an MP for the Christian Democratic Party, said: ‘Is it too much to ask for our Northern League friends to throw Borghezio out of their party?

‘We have vain hopes he will resign for what he said but that is unlikely to happen.’

Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini also stepped into the row over Borghezio’s comments and said: ‘He should offer Norway his personal apologies.

‘We as a government cannot intervene directly with an MEP – but we have made it very clear that the best course of action would be for him to make a personal apology.

‘His own party has disassociated themselves from him and that is a very important sign – he must feel the duty to say himself that he is sorry for what he said.

‘Any message of racism, xenophobia and exclusion or which leads to an incitement of violence or an emulation of violence must be condemned.’

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A Crazed and Unstable Pamela Geller Bad-Mouths Victims of Oslo Terrorist Attack

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A Crazed and Unstable Pamela Geller Bad-Mouths Victims of Oslo Terrorist Attack

Posted on 01 August 2011 by Danios

Anders Behring Breivik, the self-confessed Norwegian terrorist who killed over seventy-five innocent civilians, was a huge fan of anti-Muslim bloggers such as Jihad Watch‘s Robert Spencer and Atlas Shrug‘s Pamela Geller.  In fact, Breivik cited Robert Spencer and Jihad Watch dozens upon dozens of times in his manifesto.

Meanwhile, Pamela Geller reproduced an “email from Norway” that sounds like it came from Breivik (or somebody linked to him)–an email with an ominous warning:

We are stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition and equipment. This is going to happen fast.

Geller specifically stated that she hid the identity of the emailer in order to prevent his arrest or prosecution.  After the Oslo terrorist attack, Geller had the same theory we did: the “email from Norway” sounds like it could be from Anders Behring Breivik.  And so, Geller stealthily removed the offensive line (about stockpiling weapons) from the “email from Norway.”  The question we asked yesterday was: could Pamela Geller have prevented the Oslo bloodbath by reporting the Norwegian emailer to authorities?

When news of the terrorist attack broke, the mainstream media–along with the anti-Muslim blogosphere including Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller–quickly blamed Muslims.  They called it “Norway’s 9/11” and stressed that it was the “worst terrorist attack in Norwegian history.”

But when it was revealed that the actual perpetrator was a white, blond and blue-eyed Christian–and an anti-Muslim right-winger to boot–then suddenly their tone quickly changed.  When it became known that the terrorist was in fact one of their own fans, suddenly they called for nuance and discretion: don’t rush to judgment, they implored.

Robert Spencer wrote an article entitled “The Blame Game,” whining that people were unjustly linking the terrorist to “counter-jihadists” like himself.  Funny how Spencer makes a living off of six degrees of association when it comes to Muslims, but suddenly cries foul when he is on the receiving end.

In that article, Spencer argues that it simply doesn’t make sense to link Breivik to the “counter-jihad movement.”  Fumed an irate Spencer (emphasis is ours):

1. Freedom fighters preach free speech, freedom of conscience and equality of rights for all people, against Sharia and Islamic supremacism that denies those rights, advocating only legal means of protest and dissent.

2. Some nutcase who allegedly expressed allegiance with the freedom fighters kills people, none of whom are preaching Sharia or Islamic supremacism.

3. Media assumes that #1 caused #2 and blames freedom fighters.

We had issued a response to this article, pointing out that Breivik was targeting people deemed to be “jihad-enablers:”

The obvious problem with Spencer’s logic is that it does not include his and other anti-Muslim loons’ consistent denunciations of “leftists” as jihad-enablers. This is a key tenant of the so-called anti-jihadist movement. They hate the left, or more specifically, anyone who treats Muslims with a smidgen of fairness and tolerance. Spencer and Geller consistently and constantly portray the left as those who would sell out the West to the scary Mooslems. Spencer’s hate site Jihad Watch is filled with posts denouncing the “Leftist/Jihadist alliance,” warning his readers of how the left will happily allow the Mooslem hordes to overthrow the West and “dhimmify” its population.

Breivik adopted this view of the left.  Paul Woodward notes that Breivik argued “that cultural conservatives should not identify their main opponents as Jihadists, but instead should focus their attention on those he regards as the ‘facilitators’ of Jihadists, namely, the proponents of multiculturalism.” It was these liberals and “multi-culturalists” that were the target of his rampage.

If a Neo-Nazi targeted and killed white people, this doesn’t mean that his killings weren’t related to his Neo-Nazi ideology if the targets were “race traitors” (white people who married black people, etc.).  Similarly, Anders Breivik was targeting non-Muslims who were “jihad-enablers” or “facilitators of the jihad.” (For the record, LoonWatch itself and other “leftist websites” have been accused of this.)

Proof that this was indeed the case can be found in the fact that Anders Breivik chose Utøya island as the target of his terrorist attack.  The island is owned by the Workers’ Youth League, the youth wing of the Labour Party, which is affiliated with Socialist International.  Apparently they were also sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.  These were left-leaning people who were targeted by Breivik, who in his mind were not only were socialists but jihad-enablers!

The Oslo terrorist chose to attack during the youth summer camp, which explains why an overwhelming majority of his victims were teenagers.  To make his attack even more grotesque, Breivik dressed up as a police officer, fooling children into coming out of hiding by claiming he was there to help them–only to shoot them when they did come out.

This was a truly heinous act.  Instead of mourning the dead, Pamela Geller–Breivik’s “spiritual benefactor”–is now bad-mouthing the innocent dead.  She calls the victims of the terrorist attack “anti-semites,” arguing that the summer camp is an “antisemitic indoctrination center” where they play “antisemitic war games.”  Blares the insane and lunatical Pamela Geller:

Utoya Island is a Communist/Socialist campground, and they clearly had a pro-Islamic agenda.

Aha! So, Pamela Geller’s comrade-in-arms Robert Spencer was just blowing smoke when he claimed that Breivik’s choice of victims just didn’t jive with the “counter-jihadist” ideology.  In reality, these dirty communists/socialists “had a pro-Islamic agenda.”  They were communists and pro-Islamists–that’s a two-for-one bag of hate for right-wingers.

And just like any good right-winger, Geller transitions swiftly between Communist references and Nazi/Hitler references, likening the victims to Hitler youth:

Glen Beck was not far off when he compared it to the Hitlerjugend or Young Pioneers.

The Young Pioneers was the youth organization for the Soviet Union, once again exhibiting how crazy right-wingers like Pamela Geller can move from Islamists to Nazis to Communism all in one breath.

More disgustingly, Pamela Geller mockingly and sarcastically refers to the young kids (who were the victims of the Oslo attack) as “little dearies:”

I saw at least one article that had photos of previous summers with the little dearies and their handlers assembling Israel-bashing displays.

Then she mentions something about “red diaper[s]” (wtf?)–I guess a reference to raising kids as communists.

And then we have Pamela Geller coming dangerously close to justifying the shooting, saying:

Breivik was targeting the future leaders of the party responsible for flooding Norway with Muslims who refuse to assimilate, who commit major violence against Norwegian natives, including violent gang rapes, with impunity, and who live on the dole… all done without the consent of the Norwegians.

Don’t you get it?  Anders Breivik killed people who were enabling violent gang rapes!  He killed rape-enablers!  Is that even a crime?  Shouldn’t he get a medal for that?

Can anyone imagine the reaction had Norwegians (or Muslims!) mocked the victims of 9/11 in this way?

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Stoltenburg

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In Norway, Ramadan Begins in the Shadow of a Massacre

Posted on 01 August 2011 by Emperor

In Norway, Ramadan begins in the shadow of a massacre

By Katell Prigent (AFP)

OSLO — Norway’s Muslims, reviled by the far-right extremist behind the twin attacks of July 22, began an emotional Ramadan Monday amid more funerals and ceremonies commemorating the 77 people killed.

The Muslim fasting month “will be filled with emotions and in honour of the the victims and their families,” said Methab Asfar, who heads the Islamic Council, an umbrella organisation for Muslim groups across Norway.

As in most other countries, Norway’s Muslims began fasting Monday, just 10 days after 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik carried out his deadly attacks in what he described as a battle against a “Muslim invasion” of Europe.

“Ramadan is always a special time, and we pray everyday. Of course we will be praying for the victims of the attacks and their families,” Samaia Elamin, 23, told AFP as she bought fruit and vegetables for the Iftar feast when the fast is broken after sunset.

Not far away, with the red, white and blue crossed flag of Norway flying at half-mast over the parliament building, the Scandinavian country’s political elite, headed by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, gathered inside to pay tribute to the victims.

With King Harald V and his son Crown Prince Haakon among the onlookers, the gathering observed a minute of silence before striking up Norway’s national anthem, “Ja, vi elsker,” meaning “yes, we love” in English and listening to parliament speaker Dag Terje Andersen read each of the victims’ names.

Stoltenberg meanwhile announced that a national day of commemoration and mourning would be held on August 21.

Several Muslims died in the attacks, including a 17-year-old girl of Turkish origin named Gizem Dogan, whose funeral Monday drew more than 1,000 people to the central-western town of Trondheim, including Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

The Muslim ceremony was held on a football field, since the local mosque was not big enough to hold the throngs of people carrying roses and pictures of the smiling, brown-haired girl, who wanted to pay their last respects.

“Gizem has gained a hero status in the Turkish people’s hearts,” Davutoglu told the crowd gathered around her white flower-covered coffin turned to face Mecca.

While they were the actual focus of the killer’s hatred, some Muslims felt the brunt of suspicion in the chaotic hours before Behring Breivik was arrested, when many commentators were speculating that Islamist terrorists were responsible.

“Muslims were attacked verbally and physically in the hours after the attacks,” Asfar said, adding that “this kind of thing should not happen in a democratic society. We need to be able to solve our differences without resorting to violence.”

According to official statistics, Norway is home to some 100,000 Muslims out of a total population of nearly five million people.

The Islamic Council chief had only praise however for Norwegian authorities, who he said “handled the situation very well.”

“They never pointed a finger at any group or individual based on ethnicity or religion,” he said.

Behring Breivik’s main target was the ruling Labour Party, which he blamed for its multicultural policies.

He first set off a car bomb in Oslo’s government quarter, killing eight people and damaging the offices of among others Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, before going on a shooting rampage on Utoeya island near Oslo, where the party was holding a youth camp.

Sixty-nine people, most of them teenagers, were killed in the shooting.

“Of course the attacks will leave a mark on Ramadan. Everyone has this in mind and we are especially mindful of the victims’ loved ones,” Asfar told AFP in a telephone interview.

“In one way, it is an entire nation that will be fasting,” Asfar said.

“The aim of the fast is to keep in mind those who are in difficulty. It’s a time for forgiveness, for reflections, for love and warmth. Muslim or not, our thoughts will be with the victims and their families,” he said.

Throughout the month of Ramadan, devout Muslims must abstain from food, drink and sex from dawn until sunset when they break the fast with the Iftar meal.

The fast is one of the five pillars of Islam, along with the annual pilgrimage to Mecca which able Muslims should do once in a lifetime.

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Pamela Geller Hiding the Identity of Norwegian Terrorist (or Possible Future Terrorist)

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Pamela Geller Hiding the Identity of Norwegian Terrorist (or Possible Future Terrorist)

Posted on 31 July 2011 by Danios

In 2007, Pamela Geller–queen of the anti-Muslim internet world–published an email from Norway that sounds like it may have come from the anti-Muslim Oslo terrorist Anders Behring Breivik.  In it, the emailer ends his anti-Muslim rant with the ominous warning:

We are stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition and equipment. This is going to happen fast.

After the Oslo terrorist attack, Geller was worried that the link would be made between Breivik and herself, so she stealthily removed the offensive line from the 2007 post.  Too bad for her but Little Green Footballs called her out, reproducing an old cache of the webpage to prove it.

But the plot thickens.  As Glenn Greenwald writes:

In the comment section to the post at the time, she said she was purposely shielding the identity of the letter-writing — by publishing it anonymously – in order to prevent the writer from being investigated and prosecuted.

Pamela Geller’s exact quote, in response to a comment by a user by the name of turn, was: “yes turn, which is why I ran it anonymously.”

There exist two possibilities here:

1) The mysterious emailer to Geller’s website was indeed Anders Behring Breivik.  In that case, Breivik was not just citing Geller’s work, but Geller herself was reproducing Breivik’s writing on her website.  But more importantly, she personally knew Breivik’s identity and hid it in order that he wouldn’t be arrested and prosecuted.  Had she turned him in at that time the dastardly attack may have been prevented.

When Pamela Geller received an email from someone talking about how he is “stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition and equipment”–and warns that “this is going to happen fast”–shouldn’t she have reported him to the authorities?  Imagine if an Islamic website got an email from a disgruntled Muslim saying the same…What do you think would have been the result?  What do you think Pamela Geller would be saying about that on her website?

2) The other possibility is that the emailer is not Anders Behring Breivik.  In that case, there’s another right-wing nut job in Norway who–like Breivik–is “stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition and equipment.” Shouldn’t Pamela Geller reveal the identity of the mysterious emailer so that the authorities can investigate this possible future terrorist before he pulls off a terrorist attack like the one that just happened?

Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to the United Nations, notes the possibility that emailer may be part of a network linked to Breivik:

Geller goes on to say that she is protecting the proto-terrorist’s identity so he won’t be arrested. We do not know how this wannabe terrorist in Norway relates to Breivik or his other “cells”. Geller may know but the police are not asking her.

The idea that Breivik might not have been acting alone should certainly be considered.  The mysterious emailer used the term “we,” indicating that there is a group of these lunatics.  And of course, there’s the question of the money:

Anders Behring Breivik, Mystery Man
Following the money trail

by , July 29, 2011

What do we really know about Anders Behring Breivik, the Norway mass murdererwho killed in the name of his anti-Muslim ideology, nearly a week after his horrific rampage? We know what he did, and why he did it: he left behind not only a 1,500 page manifesto, in which he pours out his hatred of Muslims, but also a day-by-day diary that details his elaborate preparations, in which he claims his crime was nine years in the making.

That’s an awfully long time for a “lone wolf” to keep his plans to himself, yet the head of Norway’s intelligence agency was quick to state Breivik acted alone – this is spite of Breivik’s own contention, in his online “book,” that two other cells of his “Knights Templar Europe” exist. Furthermore, according to Breivik, the Knights were founded at a London meeting in 2002, at which his British “mentor” and representatives fromacross the continent were in attendance.

What we don’t know, however, is how he did it. Oh, he gives us a detailed account of his obsessive preparations, including how much protein he added to his weightlifting regimen. We know he set up a front company, Breivik Geofarm, supposedly devoted to the growing of tubers, which is how he managed to get the fertilizer that was a key component of his car bomb. What we don’t know, however, is where money came from.

Breivik hadn’t had much income recently, as detailed here – yet he seemed to have some assets. The exact source of these assets is unknown. According to him, he “earned his first million kroner as an entrepreneur at the age of 24.” Yet a number of news accounts flatly contradict this, notably the Sydney Morning Herald, which reports:

“Government records suggest that despite his management qualifications, his early attempts at business were a failure until he established Breivik Geofarm in eastern Norway for the cultivation of ‘’vegetables, melons and tubers.’ The business would have given Breivik access to nitrogen-based fertilizer – one of the main ingredients of a fertilizer bomb.”

Yet “Breivik Geofarm” was, according to Breivik, just a “front” company, a legal shell meant to shield his activities from prying eyes. We don’t know that he ever grew a single tuber. The Wall Street Journal tells us:

“Government records show Mr. Breivik registered a business, Geofarm, in May 2009, though its main business activity was at first listed as trading stocks and other investments. Tax records show he reported no income that year but listed 390,171 kroner (about $50,000) in unverified assets.”

If Breivik’s business ventures were failures prior to the Geofarm project, then where did these unverified assets come from? According to the Independent:

“After school, Breivik did a brief stint in the army, and then appears to have gone from one job to the next. He is believed to have started a computer company and earned enough money to live in a luxury apartment and sport a Breitling watch. However, other reports suggest that for years he worked in a lowly call center and lived almost anonymously.

“… Exactly what he lived on in the run- up to the massacre remains a mystery. But his bank details reveal that in 2007, a sum equivalent to €80,000 (£70,000) was added to his account, which would have enabled him to live without having to work.”

The mystery deepens….

Check out Breivik’s resume here, wherein he claims to have been the “managing director” of “E-Commerce Group AS,” which is described as a “part investment company – 50%, part sales/outsourcing company – 50%,” with a “total of 7 employees: 3 in Norway, 1 in Russia, 1 in Indonesia, 1 in Romania, 1 in the US.” Like Breivik Geofarm, he says:

“This was a front (milking cow) with the purpose of financing resistance/liberation related military operations. The company was successful although most of the funds were channeled through a Caribbean subsidiary (with base in Antigua, a location where European countries do not have access): Brentwood Solutions Limited with bank accounts in other Caribbean nations and Eastern Europe. E-Commerce Group was terminated in 2007 while most of the funds were channeled in an ‘unorthodox manner’ to Norway available to the coming intellectual and subsequent operations phase.”

There is no online record of Breivik’s “E-Commerce Group AS,” as far as I can see: an odd happenstance for an e-commerce outfit, wouldn’t you say? As for Brentwood Solutions Limited, there is no record of those guys, either: however, there is a Brentwood Solutions LLC in Naples, Florida. In any case, what I want to know is how did Breivik manage to get his hands on the equivalent of nearly $115,000 added to his account in 2007? If the money was legitimately earned, then why hide it in Caribbean and Eastern European banks and why go through “unorthodox” procedures in order to sneak it into Norway?

Okay, now let’s summarize what we know about Breivik’s money trail, based not on what he says in his diary but on what little investigative reporting has been done on the matter. It boils down to this: His tax records show a small income in 2007 – the year all that money miraculously appeared in his bank account – and a bit more in 2008. He had no reported income in 2006 and 2009. Prior to that, there is no evidence of his “first million” anywhere to be seen.

While his diary emphasizes that he saved every penny to finance his terrorist operation, there had to be some income coming in from somewhere. And then there’s that mysterious $115,000 – did he rob a bank? Or did he have a benefactor? Here is where Breivik’s money trail simply … trails off.

The idea that Breivik acted alone is absurd: he had to have help, just on logistical matters, never mind the financial side of such an operation. Furthermore, it’s hard – nay, impossible – to believe he kept the secret to himself for nine years. In order to escape detection, and have the means to carry off such a complicated operation, Breivik must have had some organized assistance – and not from amateurs, by any means. At this point, we don’t know from whom.

However, we can see in the reaction to his murderous assault a kind of support network that has sprung up, if not to defend him personally then to defend his motivations and the ethos from which his hatred welled up. As I have said in myother columns on this subject, the so-called counter-jihadist milieu – whose writings were copiously cited in the online manifesto – provided the theoretical basis for Breivik’s horrific actions. The “anti-jihadist” pro-Israel blogosphere played an important role in reinforcing and elaborating Breivik’s crazed worldview, and there is even some frightening evidence that they played more of an activist role than that.

In a post dated June 24, 2007, Pamela Geller, a leading light of the counter-jihadi movement, posted the following on her web site:

“I am running an email I received from an Atlas reader in Norway. It is devastating in its matter-of-factness.

    “Well, yes, the situation is worsening. Stepping up from 29 000 immigrants every year, in 2007 we will be getting a total of 35 000 immigrants from somalia, iran, iraq and afghanistan. The nations capital is already 50% muslim, and they ALL go there after entering Norway. Adding the 1.2 births per woman per year from muslim women, there will be 300 000+ muslims out of the then 480 000 inhabitants of that city.
    “Orders from Libya and Iran say that Oslo will be known as Medina at the latest in 2010, although I consider this a PR-stunt nevertheless it is their plan.
    “From Israel the hordes clawing at the walls of Jerusalem proclaim cheerfully that next year there will be no more Israel, and I know Israel shrugs this off as do I, and will mount a strike during the summer against all of its enemies in the middle east. This will make the muslims worldwide go into a frenzy, attacking everyone around them.
    “We are stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition and equipment. This is going to happen fast.
    “Before, I thought about emigrating to Britain, Israel, USA, South Africa, etc. for taxes and politics, but instead (although I believe we are the very last generation on earth before the return of God) I will stay and fight for the right to this country and indeed the entire peninsula, for the God-fearing people, just in case this isn’t the end of the world after all. Doesn’t hurt to have a backup plan.
    “It’s far from impossible to achieve, after all my people has done it every time before, in feats that match the ancient Greek, hebrew and british ‘legends’.
    “Oslo and the southeast may fall easily, but there are other lines than ‘state’-borders drawn across this country since long before there was even a single muslim in the world, and we have held them this long, against everyone else too. We are entering a new golden age for my people, and those of a handful other countrys, but only through struggle.
    “Never fear, Pamela. God is with you too in this coming time.”

In the comments, one of Geller’s readers warns that the author of the letter could be prosecuted by Norewegian authorities. Geller replies: “Yes … which is why I ran it anonymously.”

So here is some nut stockpiling “weapons, ammunition, and equipment,” because “this is going to happen fast” – with Geller’s enthusiastic encouragement. Indeed, she’s so concerned her correspondent might be arrested that she’s protecting his identity.

Who is Geller’s mystery correspondent – is it the same Norwegian nut-case who ruthlessly cut down dozens of children, or a different one waiting in the wings to do the same? Come on, Pamela – clear up the mystery. Or would you rather continue to shield your fellow “counter-jihadist”?

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the leaders and “scholars” who provided Breivik with the intellectual and political support he needed also provided more substantial support, such as ensuring the confidentiality of communications with the “Knights.” Geller has already gone on the public record as supporting the thugs of the English Defense League, who troll the streets of British cities looking for Muslim victims – why not Breivik?

Never has a “lone wolf” had this much company.

Normally, I’d be hesitant to jump to conclusions, but do you think Pamela Geller would be hesitant had the shoe been on the other (Muslim) foot?

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17,000 “Islamic terrorist” Attacks Exist in Fevered Islamophobic Brains

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17,000 “Islamic terrorist” Attacks Exist in Fevered Islamophobic Brains

Posted on 28 July 2011 by Emperor

17,000 “Islamic terrorist” attacks exist in fevered Islamophobic brains

by Sheila Musaji

Robert Spencer objects to an MSNBC News Report by Michael Isikoff which discussed an increase in right-wing attacks over the past several years.  Spencer claims In this one, Isikoff claims that there has been a “surge” of “right wing attacks” in the last couple of years—since Obama has been president (racism implication noted). This is sheer Leftist fantasy; meanwhile, Isikoff and NBC completely ignore the very real and readily documented surge in jihad plots in the U.S. over the last two years.

Of course, any recognition that we face a serious problem from EXTREMISTS no matter what their ideological or religious underpinnings is an argument that Spencer must attempt to refute because it gets in the way of his paranoid delusion that all or most terrorists are Muslims.

In a number of recent articles we can clearly see Spencer (and the rest of his Islamophobic cohorts who endlessly repeat each others anti-Muslim memes) newest meme.  Spencer makes the claim (as have others) that there have been 17,000+ Islamic jihad terror attacks since 9/11. (He provides a link to a http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/).  Spencer then says:  Two non-Muslim terrorists: Tim McVeigh and, sixteen years later, Anders Breivik. And Scott Shane suggests that the “focus of counterterrorism efforts” should be shifted from Islamic jihadists to “the subculture of anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing activists.”

Spencer also posted what he calls a “demonization roundup” in which he once again brings up this fake number of 17,000 Muslim terrorist attacks, but this time has upped his non-Muslim number to 4 – That’s four white male terrorists, versus 17,000+ jihad terror attacks since 9/11 committed by Muslim males (many of whom were white, by the way) and a handful of females. To the LA Times, the existence of those four is sufficient to refute the commonsensical call for the TSA to address the actual source of its troubles and reason for its existence.

Lies upon lies.  No matter how you define terrorism – Breivik and McVeigh are certainly not the only non-Muslim terrorists.  If this is the extent of Spencer’s research abilities, then any claims he makes to being a serious scholar of anything are pretty much undermined.
Spencer could go to legitimate sources to obtain factual information from which to make an informed decision about extremist and terrorist threats.

As Stephen Walt notes … according to the EU’s 2010 Terrorism Situation and Trend Report, the total number of terrorist incidents in Europe declined in 2009. Even more important, the overwhelming majority of these incidents had nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.  The report is produced by Europol, which is the criminal intelligence agency of the European Union. In 2009, there were fewer than 300 terrorist incidents in Europe, a 33 percent decline from the previous year. The vast majority of these incidents (237 out of 294) were conducted by indigenous European separatist groups, with another forty or so attributed to leftists and/or anarchists. According to the report, a grand total of one (1) attack was conducted by Islamists. Put differently, Islamist groups were responsible for a whopping 0.34 percent of all terrorist incidents in Europe in 2009. In addition, the report notes, “the number of arrests relating to Islamist terrorism (110) decreased by 41 percent compared to 2008, which continues the trend of a steady decrease since 2006.”

Spencer could go to http://www.fbi.gov/ which is the site of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, you can access a great deal of information about terrorism in the U.S.  You can check out the FBI’s most wanted domestic terrorists.  There are 7 listed right now, and none seem to be Muslims.  You can check out their Domestic Terrorism In the Post-9/11 Era report.

Spencer could check out numerous existing reports and surveys about terrorism, radicalization, and strategies to counter these that have been produced by respected governmental and academic organizations that clearly paint a very different picture of the facts.

Spencer could check out the ADL or SPLC data bases on terrorism and extremism.

Spencer could check out our TAM collection of information on the topic titled Claim that all terrorists are Muslims ignores history.

Spencer could – but facts get in the way of propaganda.  Robert Spencer cites a rabidly anti-Muslim site called the Religion of Peace for his number of 17,000 terrorist attacks worldwide since 9/11.  That would be somewhat like citing a KKK or White Supremacist site for their information about Jews or African-Americans.  This site lists acts commited around the world – some in wars, some having nothing to do with Islam, but to do with nationalist or political struggles, some in civil wars.  No links are given.  No sources for any of this just a list of supposed attacks carried out by “Islamic terrorists”.  All of my suggestions for Spencer to check out contain lots of links and sources.

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In Defense of Demonization: Frontpage’s lame defense of Robert Spencer

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In Defense of Demonization: Frontpage’s lame defense of Robert Spencer

Posted on 26 July 2011 by Greeneye

Robert Spencer

By now you probably have read all the details concerning the terrorist attack in Oslo, Norway. This attack has shined a spotlight on the demonization of Muslims at the hands of anti-Muslim bloggers we have profiled on this site. For example, the NY Times published a devastating expose of the shooter’s ideological ties to Robert Spencer. The evidence is so damning that Spencer is in a panicked state of damage control. So his friends at Frontpage Magazine have jumped to defend his Islamophobic enterprise, an apologia worthy of a detailed response from Loonwatch.

The article begins with some whining about how poor Spencer is the victim of the lamestream media:

No tragedy goes long without exploitation, and the atrocities in Norway are no exception to that rule.

Spencer spends his days exploiting bad news about Muslims, but when the news reflects poorly on him and he is criticized, it suddenly becomes exploitation?

Is silencing researchers who have put years of effort into exposing networks of radicals the right response to a terrorist attack? No reasonable person would think so. But that is exactly what media outlets like the New York Times and the Atlantic are trying to do.

Who is silencing Robert Spencer? Has his website been shut down? Is he prevented from publishing more books? Rest assured that Spencer’s first amendment rights are intact. The problem here is that Frontpage is cynically playing victim; they cannot distinguish between being fairly criticized and actually being denied rights.

Now let’s turn to the voluminous citations from Spencer found in the Shooter’s manifesto:

The “64 times” cited by the Times and its imitators reflects lazy research since the majority of those quotes actually come from a single document, where Spencer is quoted side by side with Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice.

See, Spencer was only cited 64 times making the argument (unlike Blair and Rice) that terrorism is an essential aspect of mainstream Islam.

Quite often, Robert Spencer is quoted providing historical background on Islam and quotes from the Koran and the Hadith. So, it’s actually Fjordman quoting Spencer quoting the Koran. If the media insists that Fjordman is an extremist and Spencer is an extremist — then isn’t the Koran also extremist? And if the Koran isn’t extremist, then how could quoting it be extremist?

Actually, it’s Fjordman quoting Spencer quoting the Quran (out of context) and explaining that good Muslims are terrorist killers. Why shouldn’t he defend Western civilization from Muslims?

The New York Times would have you believe that secondhand quotes like these from Spencer turned Breivik into a raging madman… The complete absence of quotes in which Robert Spencer calls for anyone to commit acts of terrorism reveals just how empty the media’s case against him is.

See, Spencer is just arguing that good Muslims are terrorists, that Islam is pure evil, and that Muslim immigration, aided by liberals, is destroying Western civilization. He supposedly never* actually calls for outright violence, but he has no problem with people who post violent comments on his website.

If we follow Spencer’s logic, it can be easy to conclude that violence is needed to stem the Hottentot Mongol tide of immigration. This argument ignores the fact that demonization leads to violence:

“When you push the demonization of populations, you often end up with violence,” said Heidi Beirich, research director for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

But the shooter didn’t kill Muslims, so Islamophobia cannot be involved, right?

And even this is irrelevant because Breivik did not carry out violence against Muslims… If Breivik was motivated by Islamophobia, then why did he not attempt to kill Muslims? Why did he not open fire inside a mosque?

This point is refuted by Alex Pareene at Salon:

Opposition to Islam was the killer’s stated motivation. He targeted other white Scandinavians because he considered them race traitors. He wrote all of this down, too, so we don’t even have to make guesses about it! He blamed liberals for enabling jihad by supporting “multiculturalism.”

Just because he didn’t directly attack Muslims does not mean Islamophobia had nothing to do with this attack. In fact, it had everything to do with the attack. But there is one last straw for Spencerites to grasp at:

Not only did Breivik not target Muslims, but he considered collaborating with Muslim terrorists… “An alliance with the Jihadists might prove beneficial to both parties,” Breivik wrote. “We both share one common goal.”

Interesting, Breivik and the Islamophobic ideology he shares with Spencer do indeed share one common goal with jihadists. They both want a homogenous society that doesn’t tolerate the Other. They both want to incite religious/nationalist war. They both want to increase Islamophobia; Spencer because it is his source of income, and jihadists because it is good recruiting propaganda. So, it is not a surprise to us that extremists share common goals but for vastly different reasons. We’ve known for some time that Muslim and anti-Muslim extremists reinforce one another.

In sum, Spencer and Frontpage want free reign to demonize Muslims and peddle baseless sharia conspiracy theories, but they cry foul when they get criticized in public. They suddenly demand the nuance that they have so far happily denied to Muslims as a whole.

*Admin Note: Spencer has subtly and overtly endorsed violence or a violent posture against Muslim citizens and their “liberal enablers” in the West. Just in January, in a piece titled “Digging Graves for the Next World War,” Roland Shirk a contributor at JW wrote,

The strings that knit together peaceful coexistence among communities are straining under the pressure of millions of resident aliens who should never have been admitted, who can only be tolerated when they are as sure as we that compared to us they are helpless. Islam is a religion of fear and force, and its adherents can only be at your feet or at your throat. We had better decide which posture we prefer. The time is short.

Those words are essentially the theme of Breivik’s manifesto, and Spencer approved it. This is on top of the knowledge that Spencer joined a Facebook group that sought as its objective a Reconquista of Anatolia, a holocaust of Turks and a forced conversion of any and all remaining Muslims. Spencer never denied joining the group, only claiming that he was the victim of a “trick.”

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Anders Breivik

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In response to Norway attacks, right-wing bloggers suddenly demand nuance

Posted on 25 July 2011 by Emperor

Anders Breivik

Anders Breivik

In response to Norway attacks, right-wing bloggers suddenly demand nuance

American anti-Islam bloggers aren’t to blame for the Norway Massacre. But their response to the attacks is nonetheless revealing, in that they are now demanding the kind of nuanced analysis of the Norway shootings that they’ve always failed to offer when implicating jihadism or all Muslims for terror attacks.

As the news of terrorist attacks in Oslo broke on Friday, the conservative media were quick to place the blame on al Qaeda even though the details weren’t fully known. Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin wrote that the attacks were “a sobering reminder for those who think it’s too expensive to wage a war against jihadists.”

At first, it wasn’t unreasonable to reach that conclusion. Given the way the attacks unfolded — multiple targets being hit within a short time period — it was reasonable to assume that Islamic extremists were responsible, rather than anti-Muslim extremist Anders Behring Breivik.

When the truth became known, Rubin, like many others on the right, tried to downplay the right-wing anti-Muslim ideology driving the alleged shooter. She was suddenly far more generic in how she describedBreivik’s motive, referring to it as “undiluted evil.”

What’s notable about the response by conservatives to the attack is that their primary worry was that the anti-Islam cause might be tarnished. Bruce Bawer, writing in the Wall Street Journal, was beside himself that “this murderous madman has become the poster boy for the criticism of Islam.” He then casts Breivik’s concerns, if not his actions, as defensible, describing “the way he moves from a legitimate concern about genuine problems to an unspeakably evil `solution.’”

It would be hard to imagine a conservative showing such empathy for Hamas, concluding that while terrorism is evil, they are nevertheless acting out of legitimate concerns about Palestinian suffering. What’s pathetic is not so much their reasoning, but the knowledge that their arguments would be the same in substance, if more enthusiastic, had Muslim extremists been responsible.

The most telling reaction was from the anti-Muslim bloggers Breivik cited by name in his manifesto.

Pamela Geller, who along with Professional Islamophobe Robert Spencer has been active in opposing the construction of mosques in the U.S., wrote: “This is just a sinister attempt to tar all anti-jihadists with responsibility for this man’s heinous actions.” Spencer, for his part,wrote: “as if killing a lot of children aids the defense against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, or has anything remotely to do with anything we have ever advocated.”

Most of Geller and Spencer’s blogging consists of attempts to tar all Muslims with the responsibility for terrorism. At CPAC last year, Geller and Spencer drew a large crowd for their documentary referring to the proposed community center near Ground Zero as “the second wave of the 9/11 attacks.” Yet they’re now pleading for the world not to do what they’ve spent their careers doing — assigning collective blame for an act of terror through guilt-by-association. What’s clear is that they understand that the principle of collective responsibility is a monstrous wrong in the abstract, or at least when it’s applied to them. They are now begging for the kind of tolerance and understanding they cheerfully refuse to grant to American Muslims.

These bloggers are not directly responsible for the actions of Anders Behring Breivik. But make no mistake: Their school of analysis, which puts the blame on all Muslims for acts of terrorism perpetrated by Islamic extremists, has been fully discredited — by their own reaction to the Oslo attacks. While it’s obvious that few if any of them will take this lesson to heart, the rest of us should — terrorist acts are committed by individuals, and it is those individuals who should be held responsible.

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Loonwatch Has Been Warning about an Anders Behring Breivik for Years

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Loonwatch Has Been Warning about an Anders Behring Breivik for Years

Posted on 25 July 2011 by Garibaldi

Robert Spencer and his biggest fan: Anders Behring Breivik

Robert Spencer and his biggest fan: Anders Behring Breivik

Anders Behring Breivik is by all accounts an intelligent individual, wealthy and from a privileged background. He believes Europe is under assault, that it is being colonized by the hordes of the evil “green” menace known as ‘Islam’ and that Europe’s leaders are responsible for the onslaught. He believes this despite the fact that there are no Muslim Armies occupying ANY European nation, there are no Muslim Armies that have set up bases in ANY European nation.

How did he come to the irrational conclusion that his very way of life was under imminent threat?

His inspiration can be gleaned from the words of his manifesto, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence. In his own words he was inspired by Andrew Bostom, Robert Spencer, Bat Ye’or, Pamela Geller, Geert Wilders, Ibn Warraq, Serge Trifkovic, the so-called “Vienna School” and a plethora of other Islamophobes and anti-Muslims.

LoonWatch since its inception has been warning about the ever increasing radicalization of the anti-Muslim Movement, its trans-atlantic nature, as well as the eventuality of violence. We documented numerous instances of “inciting violence,” both in the speech of the leading Islamophobes as well as in the conduct and speech of their followers.

One only needs to look at our piece on Pamela Geller, “The Looniest Blogger Ever,” in which Geller engages in all of the well worn conspiracies that we are used to and which Breivik shared, as well as her pronouncements of genocide against Muslims and the “political elites” who enable them.

Robert Spencer’s influence on Breivik’s ideas about Islam, Muslims and the West seems to be greater than anyone else. He cites Spencer numerous times (64) in his manifesto, always glowingly, for instance he writes on p. 754,

About Islam I recommend essentially everything written by Robert Spencer. Bat Ye’or’s books are groundbreaking and important, though admittedly not always easy to read. The Legacy of Jihad by Andrew Bostom should be considered required reading for all those interested in Islam. It is the best and most complete book available on the subject in English, and possibly in any language. Ibn Warraq’s books are excellent, starting with his Defending the West . Understanding Muhammad by the Iranian ex-Muslim Ali Sina is also worth reading, as is Defeating Jihad by Serge Trifkovic.

Like Spencer, Breivik believes in waging a Crusade against Muslims. Spencer declared in his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), “God Wills it!,” that was the battle cry of the Crusaders. There is more in Danios’ series rebutting The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).

We have been trying to prevent the grisly terrorist attacks that rocked Norway by making people aware of the serious threat from radicals who in the guise of freedom and under the mantle of liberty wish to impose their truly destructive, exclusivist ideology upon the masses.

However, our protestations were generally unheeded. It resulted in the Beslan of Norway and now we have a manifesto from a killer inspired by the extremists who we have been exposing for years. Anders Behring Breivik is the polo sweater wearing anti-Muslim Right-wing nationalist Crusader icon of Islamophobes worldwide, he is their Che Guevara and he will inspire more copycats in his wake.

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Robert Spencer in Damage Control After Terror Attack in Norway

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Robert Spencer in Damage Control After Terror Attack in Norway

Posted on 24 July 2011 by Rousseau

Spencer is working hard to disassociate himself from one of his fans

The anti-Muslim loons of the world are in a major bind right now. Their intolerant anti-Muslim attitude and constant fear-mongering is responsible for the horrible terrorist attack that occurred in Norway at the hands of self-professed Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller supporter Anders Behring Breivik. Recent reports suggest that Breivik was inspired by the writings of anti-Muslim bigots like Spencer and Geller, as well as others in the anti-Muslim circle such as Bat Ye’or and Fjordman.

Spencer himself has come out and attempted to dismiss the connection between Breivik’s violence and his own anti-Muslim bigotry, saying “no one has explained or can explain how this guy’s supposed anti-jihad views have anything to do with his murdering children.” A fair question in light of the tragic violence that Breivik was responsible for.  Did the anti-Muslim hatred inspire the violence in Oslo?

Spencer lays out his version of the logic this way, saying:

1. Freedom fighters preach free speech, freedom of conscience and equality of rights for all people, against Sharia and Islamic supremacism that denies those rights, advocating only legal means of protest and dissent.

2. Some nutcase who allegedly expressed allegiance with the freedom fighters kills people, none of whom are preaching Sharia or Islamic supremacism.

3. Media assumes that #1 caused #2 and blames freedom fighters.

The obvious problem with Spencer’s logic is that it does not include his and other anti-Muslim loons’ consistent denunciations of “leftists” as jihad-enablers. This is a key tenant of the so-called anti-jihadist movement. They hate the left, or more specifically, anyone who treats Muslims with a smidgen of fairness and tolerance. Spencer and Geller consistently and constantly portray the left as those who would sell out the West to the scary Mooslems. Spencer’s hate site Jihad Watch is filled with posts denouncing the “Leftist/Jihadist alliance,” warning his readers of how the left will happily allow the Mooslem hordes to overthrow the West and “dhimmify” its population.

Breivik adopted this view of the left.  Paul Woodward notes that Breivik argued “that cultural conservatives should not identify their main opponents as Jihadists, but instead should focus their attention on those he regards as the ‘facilitators’ of Jihadists, namely, the proponents of multiculturalism.” It was these liberals and “multi-culturalists” that were the target of his rampage.

Therefore, a more logical set-up would be as follows:

1. Anti-Muslim bigots vilify Muslims as a threat to Western culture and civilization, and argue that the left is most responsible for allowing Muslims to undermine Western civilization.  In fact, the left is more the enemy than the anti-jihadists themselves!

2. A right-wing self-proclaimed anti-jihadist chooses the capital of a famously liberal, leftist, and socialist country as the target for his attack.

3. Media is perfectly justified in establishing a link between #1 and #2.

When you preach bigotry and fear on a daily basis, don’t be surprised when one of your followers takes the next logical step.  But Robert Spencer has a reason to feign surprise and indignation over what his hatred has incited, as the link between his hate-writing and this act of terrorism becomes clear:  Richard Silverstein notes that the right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik cited Robert Spencer 46 times in his manifesto.  He was clearly quite the fan.  This certainly seems to be right-wing anti-Muslim terrorism inspired by the king of Islamophobia himself, Robert Spencer.

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Oslo Terrorism Bombing

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Norway attacks suspect admits responsibility

Posted on 24 July 2011 by Emperor

Oslo Terrorism Bombing

Oslo Terrorism Bombing

Norway attacks suspect admits responsibility

(AlJazeeraEnglish)

The man suspected of a gun and bomb attack in Norway has called his deeds atrocious yet necessary, his defence lawyer said.

“He has said that he believed the actions were atrocious, but that in his head they were necessary,” defence lawyer Geir Lippestad told TV2 news on Saturday.

Lippestad said his client had said he was willing to explain himself in a court hearing on Monday. The court will decide at the hearing whether to keep the suspect in detention pending trial.

Earlier on Saturday, officials in Norway had charged a 32-year-old Norwegian man with killing at least 92 people in a gun and bomb attack described as the worst act of violence in the country since World War II.

Police confirmed to Al Jazeera on Saturday that the suspect had been named as Anders Behring Breivik.

Breivik, who confessed to firing weapons during questioning on Saturday, belonged to right-wing political groups. But officials said they are not jumping to conclusions about his motives.

Reports suggest he belonged to an anti-immigration party, wrote blogs attacking multi-culturalism and was a member of a neo-Nazi online forum.

But Norwegian authorities said Breivik, detained by police after 85 people were gunned down at a youth camp and another 7 killed in an Oslo bomb attack on Friday, was previously unknown to them and his internet activity traced so far included no calls to violence.

‘Beyond comprehension’

Breivik bought six tonnes of fertiliser before the massacre, a supplier said on Saturday, as police investigated witness accounts of a second shooter in the attack on Utoya.

If convicted on terrorism charges, Breivik would face a maximum of 21 years in jail, police said

If convicted on terrorism charges, he would face a maximum of 21 years in jail, police have said.

Norway’s royal family and prime minister led the nation in mourning, visiting grieving relatives of the scores of youth gunned down at an island retreat, as the shell-shocked Nordic nation was gripped by reports that the gunman may not have acted alone.

The shooting spree began just hours after a massive explosion that ripped through an Oslo high-rise building housing the prime minister’s office.

“This is beyond comprehension. It’s a nightmare. It’s a nightmare for those who have been killed, for their mothers and fathers, family and friends,” Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Saturday.

Though the prime minister cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the gunman’s motives, both attacks were in areas connected to the left-leaning Labour Party, which leads a coalition government.

The youth camp, about 35km northwest of Oslo, is organised by the party’s youth wing, and the prime minister had been scheduled to speak there on Saturday.

‘Christian fundamentalist’ views

The blond-haired Behring Breivik described himself on his Facebook page as “conservative”, “Christian”, and interested in hunting and computer games like World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2, reports say.

On his Twitter account, he posted only one message, dated July 17, in English based on a quote from British philosopher John Stuart Mill: “One person with a belief is equal to a force of 100,000 who have only interests”.

The suspect was reportedly also a member of a Swedish neo-Nazi internet forum, a group monitoring far-right activity said on Saturday.

Nordisk, a 22,000-member web forum founded in 2007, describes itself as a portal on the theme of “the Nordic identity, culture and traditions.”

In comments from 2009-2010 to other people’s articles on another website, Document, which calls itself critical of Islam, Breivik criticised European policies of trying to accommodate the cultures of different ethnic groups.

“When did multi-culturalism cease to be an ideology designed to deconstruct European culture, traditions, identity and nation-states?” said one his entries, posted on February 2, 2010.

Breivik wrote he was a backer of the “Vienna School of Thought”, which was against multi-culturalism and the spread of Islam.

He also wrote he admired Geert Wilders, the populist anti-Islam Dutch politician, for following that school. Wilders said in a statement on Saturday: “I despise everything he stands for and everything he did”.

Nina Hjerpset-Ostlie, a contributing journalist to the right-wing website, said she had met Breivik at a meeting in late 2009.

“The only thing we noticed about him is that he seemed like anyone else and that he had some very high-flying, unrealistic, ideas about marketing of our website,” she said.

Police searched an apartment in an Oslo suburb on Friday, which neighbours said belonged to Breivik’s mother.

“It is the mother who lives there. She is a very polite lady, pleasant and very friendly,” said Hemet Noaman, 27, an accounting consultant who lives in the same building in a wealthy part of town. “He often came to visit his mother but did not live here.”

Oslo Deputy Police Chief Roger Andresen would not speculate on the motives for what was believed to be the deadliest attack by a lone gunman anywhere in modern times.

“He has never been under surveillance and he has never been arrested,” Andresen told a news conference on Saturday.

Populist party member

Breivik, who attended a middle class high school called Handelsgym in central Oslo, had also been a member of the Progress Party, the second-largest in parliament, the party’s head of communications Fredrik Farber said.

He was a member from 2004 to 2006 and in its youth party from 1997 to 2007.

The Progress Party – conservative but within the political mainstream – wants far tighter restrictions on immigration, whereas the centre-left government backs multi-culturalism. The party leads some public opinion polls.

A politician who met Breivik in 2002-2003, when he was apparently interested in local Oslo politics, said he did not attract attention.

“I got the impression that he was a modest person … he was well dressed, it seemed like he was well educated,” Joeran Kallmyr, 33, an Oslo municipality politician representing the Progress Party, told the Reuters news agency.

Progress leader Siv Jensen stressed he had left the party.

Breivik was also a freemason, said a spokesman for the organisation.

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Oslo_Bombing_Anders_Behring_Breivick

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Anders Behring Breivick’s Dream of a “Knights Templar Europe”

Posted on 23 July 2011 by Garibaldi

Oslo Bombing Anders Behring Breivick

Oslo Bombing Anders Behring Breivick

Breivick sick twisted dream. This video that he originally created sums up his 1400 page manifesto titled, “European Declaration of Independence.”

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oslo1

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The Norway massacre and the nexus of Islamophobia and right-wing Zionism

Posted on 23 July 2011 by Emperor

A great piece from MondoWeiss.

The Norway massacre and the nexus of Islamophobia and right-wing Zionism

by Alex Kane (MondoWeiss)

Details on the culprit behind yesterday’s massacre in Norway, which saw car bombings in Oslo and a mass shooting attack on the island of Utoya that caused the deaths of at least 91 people, have begun to emerge.  While it is still too early for a complete portrait of the killer, Anders Behring Breivik, there are enough details to begin to piece together what’s behind the attack.

Although initial media reports, spurred on by the tweets of former State Department adviser on violent extremism Will McCantslinked the attacks to Islamist extremists, it was in fact an anti-Muslim zealot who committed the murders.  An examination of Breivik’s views, and his support for far-right European political movements, makes it clear that only by interrogating the nexus of Islamophobia and right-wing Zionism can one understand the political beliefs behind the terrorist attack.

Breivik is apparently an avid fan of U.S.-based anti-Muslim activists such as Pamela GellerRobert Spencer and Daniel Pipes, and has repeatedly professed his ardent support for Israel.  Breivik’s political ideology is illuminated by looking at comments he posted to the right-wing site document.no, which author and journalist Doug Sanders put up.

Here’s a sampling of some of Breivik’s comments:

And then we have the relationship between conservative Muslims and so-called “moderate Muslims”.

There is moderate Nazis, too, that does not support fumigation of rooms and Jews. But they’re still Nazis and will only sit and watch as the conservatives Nazis strike (if it ever happens). If we accept the moderate Nazis as long as they distance themselves from the fumigation of rooms and Jews?

Now it unfortunately already cut himself with Marxists who have already infiltrated-culture, media and educational organizations. These individuals will be tolerated and will even work asprofessors and lecturers at colleges / universities and are thus able to spread their propaganda.

For me it is very hypocritical to treat Muslims, Nazis and Marxists differ. They are all supporters of hate-ideologies…(page 2-3)

What is globalization and modernity to do with mass Muslim immigration?

And you may not have heard and Japan and South Korea? These are successful and modern regimes even if they rejected multiculturalism in the 70′s. Are Japanese and South Koreans goblins?

Can you name ONE country where multiculturalism is successful where Islam is involved? The only historical example is the society without a welfare state with only non-Muslim minorities (U.S.)…(page 7)

We have selected the Vienna School of Thought as the ideological basis. This implies opposition to multiculturalism and Islamization (on cultural grounds). All ideological arguments based on anti-racism. This has proven to be very successful which explains why the modern cultural conservative movement / parties that use the Vienna School of Thought is so successful: the Progress Party,Geert Wilders, document and many others…(page 13)

I consider the future consolidation of the cultural conservative forces on all seven fronts as the most important in Norway and in all Western European countries. It is essential that we work to ensure that all these 7 fronts using the Vienna school of thought, or at least parts of the grunlag for 20-70 year-struggle that lies in front of us.

The book is called, by the way 2083 and is in English, 1100 pages).

To sums up the Vienna school of thought:

-Cultural Conservatism (anti-multiculturalism)

-Against Islamization

-Anti-racist

-Anti-authoritarian (resistance to all authoritarian ideologies of hate)

-Pro-Israel/forsvarer of non-Muslim minorities in Muslim countries

- Defender of the cultural aspects of Christianity

- To reveal the Eurabia project and the Frankfurt School (ny-marxisme/kulturmarxisme/multikulturalisme)

- Is not an economic policy and can collect everything from socialists to capitalists…(page 20)

Daniel Pipes: Leftism and Islam. Muslims, the warriors Marxists Have Been praying for.

link to www.youtube.com

The following summarizes the agenda of many kulturmarxister with Islam, it explains also why those on death and life protecting them. It explains so well why we, the cultural conservatives,are against Islamization and the implementation of these agendas… (page 27)

We must therefore make sure to influence other cultural conservatives to come to our anti-rasistiske/pro-homser/pro-Israel line. When they reach this line, one can take it to the next level…(page 41)

Breivik’s right-wing pro-Israel line, combined with his antipathy to Muslims, is just one example of the European far-right’s ideology, exemplified by groups such as the English Defense League (EDL).  The EDL, a group Breivik praisesalong with the anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders, share with Breivik an admiration for Israel.

Anti-Muslim activists and right-wing Zionists share a political narrative that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a “clash of civilizations,” one in which Judeo-Christian culture is under attack by Islam.  Israel, in this narrative, is the West’s bulwark against the threat that Islam is posing to Europe and the United States.  The nexus of Islamophobia and right-wing Zionism was clearly on display during last summer’s“Ground Zero mosque” hysteria, which culminated in a rally where Geller and Wilders addressed a crowd that included members of the EDL waving Israeli flags.

This comment by Breivik is one example of the twisted way in which Islamophobia and a militant pro-Israel ideology fit together:

Cultural conservatives disagree when they believe the conflict is based on Islamic imperialism,that Islam is a political ideology and not a race.

Cultural conservatives believe Israel has a right to protect themselves against the Jihad.

Kulturmarxistene refuses to recognize the fact that Islam’s political doctrine is relevant and essential. They can never admit to or support this because they believe that this is primarily about a race war – that Israel hates Arabs (breed).

As long as you can not agree on the fundamental perceptions of reality are too naive to expect that one to come to any conclusion.Before one at all can begin to discuss this conflict must first agree on the fundamental truths of Islam’s political doctrine.

Most people here have great insight in key Muslim concepts that al-taqiiya (political deceit), naskh (Quranic abrogation) and Jihad. The problem is that kulturmarxister refuses to recognizet hese concepts.They can not recognize these key Muslim concepts. For if they do so erodes the primary argument that Israel is a “racist state” and that this is a race war (Israelis vs. Arabs) and not defense against Jihad (Kafr vs. Ummah)

Breivik’s admiration for the likes of Daniel Pipes is also telling, and should serve as a warning that, while it would be extremely unfair and wrong to link Pipes in any way to the massacre in Norway, Breivik’s views are not so far off from some establishment neoconservative voices in the U.S.  For instance, both Pipes and Breivik share a concern with Muslim demographics in Europe.  In 1990, Pipes wrotein the National Review that “Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene…All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.”

Pipes was appointed by the Bush administration to the U.S. Institute of Peace, andsits on the same board than none other than the Obama administration’s point man on the Middle East, Dennis Ross.

Pipes’ and Breivik’s concern about Muslim and Arab demographics also recall the remarks of Harvard Fellow Martin Kramer, who infamously told the Herzliya Conference in Israel last year that the West should “stop providing pro-natal subsidies for Palestinians with refugee status…Israel’s present sanctions on Gaza have a political aim, undermine the Hamas regime, but they also break Gaza’s runaway population growth and there is some evidence that they have.”

Adding to the Israel/Palestine angle here is the fact that the day before the attack on the island of Utoya, a Palestine solidarity event was held there.

Why Breivik, and his accomplices if he had any, would attack young Norwegians remains unclear.  But it probably had something to do with Breivik’s belief that European governments, and the Norwegian government, were run by “Marxists” allied with Islamist extremists who were bent on destroying Europe through “multiculturalism.”

Of course, support for Israel and its current right-wing policies do not automatically translate into support for extremist right-wing violence.  But Palestinians, and the larger Arab and Muslim world, know far too well the consequences of Islamophobia and far right-wing Zionism.  Now, it seems that Norwegians do too.  While much remains to be learned about the attacks in Norway, it has exposed the dangerous nexus of Islamophobia, neoconservatism and right-wing Zionism, and what could happen when the wrong person subscribes to those toxic beliefs.

Alex Kane, a freelance journalist currently based in Amman, Jordan, blogs on Israel/Palestine at alexbkane.wordpress.com.  Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.

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Pamela Geller and Co. Connected to Norway Bomber Anders Behring Breivik?

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Pamela Geller and Co. Connected to Norway Bomber Anders Behring Breivik?

Posted on 22 July 2011 by Emperor

Anders Behring Breivik

Oslo Bombing Suspect Anders Behring Breivik

We’ve been screaming from the top of our lungs about how these crazed radical anti-Muslim Islamophobes are inciting violence through their hate-mongering. Anders Behring Breivak, arrested as a suspect in the attack has written glowingly of Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, SIOE, and the EDL. Charles Johnson of LGF reports that he had a link with Fjordman who was a guest writer on Geller’s blog.

Terrorism in Europe has been over linked to an Islamic Muslim threat, even though we reported on how exaggerated the claim was: Europol Report: All Muslims are Terrorists…Except the 99.6% that Aren’t.

What Just Happened in Oslo, Norway? (UPDATES)

(Mother-Jones)

This explainer is being updated as more news emerges. Click here for photos from the sceneand here for details about the man arrested in connection with the attacks. For the latest news updates, click here.

The basics: A massive explosion hit Norway’s government hub in central Oslo on Friday, killing at least seven people and injuring at least 15 others. The six-story building that was most heavily damaged included the oil ministry and is next to the building that houses the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. The PM was unharmed in the blast and is now operating out of an undisclosed location. Witness testimony and damage at the scene are consistent with reports of a car bombing. The New York Times reports:

Stunned office staff and civil servants working in the vicinity of the bombed building said two explosions could be heard in close succession. The sound of the blasts echoed across the city just before 3:30 p.m. local time. Giant clouds of light-colored smoke continued to rise hundreds of feet into the air over the city…

Photos and television footage showed windows blown out in the 17-story office building across the street from the oil ministry, and the street and plaza areas on each side were strewn with glass and debris.

The first person on the scene “described it as ‘worse than a war zone,’” says Joe Sivilli, who’s talking to Mother Jones‘ Tim McDonnell from on the ground in Oslo. Sivilli, who speaks Norwegian fluently, works at a home-brewed beer shop about 2 kilometers away from the site of the bombing. He says he felt a “rumble, like a small earthquake,” when the bomb went off, but assumed it was just “construction or something like that.” He’ll be monitoring the Norwegian-language media for us as this story develops.

Wasn’t there another attack? A gunman dressed as a policeman reportedly opened fire this afternoon at a Labour party youth camp on the island of Utoya, about 15 miles outside of Oslo, killing at least 80 people (police officials previously reported at least 10 casualties, but had expect that number to rise). Police have a suspect in custody. Prime Minister Stoltenberg was due to visit the camp tomorrow morning, according to NRK, Norway’s national public television broadcaster. (Stoltenberg has attended gatherings at the camp almost every year in recent memory.) On Friday evening, police found undetonated explosives on the island.

Close to 700 teenagers had gathered on Utoya, and initial reports suggested that some tried to flee by swimming. CBS News reports that Kurt Lier, Oslo’s assistant chief of police, “had little information about what had happened on the island, but said if people are leaving island swimming, it is a ‘long swim.’” Hans-Inge Langø, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), says the “timing and targets [of the attacks are] too similar for this not to be connected.” The AP reports that Norwegian police say the two events were definitely connected.

The Pamela Connection:

UPDATE 1, Saturday, July 23, 12:16 a.m. EDT: Blogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs is reporting that the Oslo bombing/shooting suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, posted often on a Norwegian anti-immigration site and recommended a post by the prominent anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller, who spearheaded the US drive against the planned “Ground Zero mosque.” (We’ve previously covered her activities herehereherehere, and here.) LGF also asserts a link between Breivik and one of Geller’s guest bloggers, Fjordman.

Geller responded on her own website: “This is just a sinister attempt to tar all anti-jihadists with responsibility for this man’s heinous actions…this is war. And the left is vicious, amoral and depraved. They mean to win, and that is the only way they know how.”

UPDATE 2, Saturday, July 23, 11:06 a.m. EDT: Oddmy Estenstad, an employee of agricultural retailer Felleskjøpet, tells CNN that Utoya shooting suspect Anders Behring Breivik bought six tons of fertilizer from the company in May:

She did not think the order was strange at the time because the suspect has a farm, but after Friday’s explosion in Norway’s capital, Oslo, she called police because she knew the material can be used to make bombs.

“We are very shocked that this man was connected to our company,” said Estenstad. “We are very sad about what happened.”

UPDATE 3, Saturday, July 23, 11:09 a.m. EDT: According to the UK’s Daily Mirror, Anders Behring Breivik has been “preliminarily charged with acts of terrorism.” Norwegian police say the 32-year-old Breivik appears to be an extreme right-wing, Christian fundamentalist, due to postings on his website. NRK reports that the suspect is a member of an Oslo gun club, and “was exempted from military service, and thus…has no special education [from the Norwegian] Armed Forces.”

UPDATE 4, Saturday, July 23, 11:19 a.m. EDT: Norwegian media report on eyewitness accounts of the Utoya massacre. The Los Angeles Times also has the story:

Media reports say the gunman apparently used a handgun and a machine gun, and that police arrived at the island possibly 90 minutes after the shooting started. At midmorning Saturday, police were still searching the island for more bodies.  One wounded survivor, Adrian Pracon, described the gunman as “calm and controlled,” shooting people who tried to escape the island by swimming to the mainland…Pracon described his attempt to escape. “We started running down to the water and people had already undressed and started swimming.”

Pracon said he began swimming, but “after 150 meters … I realized I wouldn’t make it so I went back and saw him standing 10 meters from me shooting at the people who tried to swim over.”

From our Loonwatch Readers:

Dane Bargeld:

He has written a number of comments on norwegian website document.no:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.document.no/anders-behring-breivik/

He seems to be more intelligent than the average loon. His comments are reflective rather than emotional. He doesn’t seem crazier than the average loon. His last comment is from october 2010 though.

He’s expresses support for:

- The Vienna school of thought
- Political movements like Tea Party, PVV (Wilders), EDL and (norwegian) Progress Party
- Israel
- Christianity (he’s a protestant but dislikes modern day protestancism and suggest that christians should unite in the roman-catholic church)
- Countries like Japan and South Korea (for rejecting multiculturalism)

He dislikes:

- Islam
- Totalitarian ideologies
- Cultural marxism
- Multiculturalism

David:

According to Norwegian reports, the organization this CHRISTIAN TERRORIST belonged to tried to establish links with the English Defense League — another Lieblingsorganization von Frau Geller.

Myrpou:

The swedish site realisten.se claim that Anders Behring Breivik claimed to be THE Fjordman over a year ago, so they initially reported when they got his name that Fjordman was the terrorist. However Robert Spencer claims it isn’t Fjordman and an article on Gates of Vienna claims the same, however the former was a bit suspicious to me, they didn’t allow any comments on that particlar article and made it clear that “the discussion was over”. If they’re certain that this guy isn’t fjordman wouldn’t they be more willing to prove it?

Eslaporte:

Breivik has had many posts on the site Document.no, an Islam-critical site that publishes news and commentary…Anders Breivik Behring has also commented on the Swedish news articles, where he makes it clear that he believes the media have failed by not being “NOK” Islam-critical…

As far as the Dutch connection, we still don’t know the total details about the 2009 Queen’s Day Apeldoorn attack – which there were accusations that the ethnic Dutchman, Karst Tates, was a radical right nutjob. The Dutch police appeared to whitewash the report and there appear to be a sloppy investigation of Tates’ past year up to his terrorist attack on the Dutch Royals.

Last April, we had a shoppingmall shooting where the shooter was an unabashed PVV voter and hated foreigners also. Are we going to see the are whitewash by Dutch police?

How Islam Created the Modern World:

He was active in the kind of Huy buoy-like forums in the Netherlands as we know. He was active in SOORTS called Huy buoy-eight forums that even in Kenner Netherlands.

There is another link with the Netherlands. Ice is another link system nand Netherlands. Breivik is also a follower of Pamela Geller, an angry white woman who became famous thanks to the action against the otnmoetingscentrum five blocks from where the WTC once stood. Breivik is a follower of Pamela Geller, an Angry glossy women who shoveled name thanks to the Acti called otnmoetingscentrum Five block from where formerly called World Trade Center stood. Geller invited Geert Wilders and the two support each other. Geller invited Geert Wilders supports a two Elka. Breivnik how close to her is unclear (probably a follower, and no more).

How Hecht Breivnik ice with her was not clear (probably a Volga, a Not anymore). It seems that he wanted to act against the Muslims politically dangerous enough to play offered. It seems that HE is a DAAD Wild Couples against the dangerous politics against Muslims Few games offered.

Apparently, the norwegian far right Anders has also praised Geert Wilders PVV party as being the only true party.

‘Verdachte aanslag en schietpartij heeft sympathie voor PVV’
http://welingelichtekringen.nl/14368-schutter-heeft-sympathie-voor-pvv.html

Google translate from Dutch to English

‘Suspicious attack and shootings have sympathy for PVV’

Anders Breivik Behring, the man suspected of the bombing and the shooting on the island, according to Fox News Utoya sympathy for Geert Wilders. On a Swedish news site he would have said that the Freedom Party is the only “true” conservative party. The media were not critical enough towards Islam.

Wilders said in a statement on Saturday:
“I despise everything he stands for and everything he did.”

Look at the hypocricy, it’s stunning. What a reptilian farce, I mean can’t these muslim haters at least be loyal to one another? Anders at least is honest, but Geert Wilders is a smarmy liar, when he says he despises everything Anders stands for.
How can he say that, when he shares his goals and supports the PVV, is pro Zionist, supports the Israeli far right, anti Muslim,

Death toll at Oslo attacks rises to 92

http://www.ejpress.org/article/52233

Breivik wrote he was a backer of the “Vienna School of Thought,” which was against multiculturalism and the spread of Islam.

He also wrote he admired Geert Wilders, the populist anti-Islam Dutch politician, for following that school.

Wilders said in a statement on Saturday:
“I despise everything he stands for and everything he did.”

Norwegian:

The suspect is not, by all accounts, the blogger known as Fjordman. He is one of his followers in his preachings of class war. Fjordman is widely believed to be one of the two brothers Anfindsens, since part of OJ ANfindsens book about the necessity of the survival of the white race seems written by his brother and bears close resemblance to Fjordmans style of writing.

JD:

Ok so when this story first broke out Yahoo was reporting it as a muslim terrorist see link below ( picture is fuzzy because it a screen shot of whole page click on it to zoom in and you can read it)

http://justpaste.it/2030

If you scroll down you love the comments

Grobpilot: Kill all muslims even the babies because they will eventually grow up and start killing you.

Bob: They rounded up japanese americans during ww2 and put them in basicly concentration camps in the desert
maybe thats what need done with the muslims till they are shipped out

Hakepeszip:When will civilized countries finally learn not to allow in Islamist in especially not if they are from any
of their garbage countrys

Another Article Few Hours Later ( keep in mind this is mid day we still dont know who what where when why )

http://justpaste.it/2031

People blamed by journalist Louise Nordstum and Matt Lee at AP were..
Al-Quida
Helpers of Global Jihad
Libya
People Pissed off at Mohammed Cartoons.

This lead to more wonderful comments which are at bottom of the pic you can read them

Uncle Remus: Welcome to the rest of the world norway see how far the muslim cancer has spread.

Thaddeus : Lets Hope if it is a white christian patriot then he took out plenty of left wong traitors
and some muzzie immigrants Europe must cleanse itself of third world immigrants
and left wingers Me and my mates are ready herer in England blah blah blah(+5 thumb up)

Norwegian national broadcaster NRK identified him as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik and said police searched his Oslo apartment overnight. NRK and other Norwegian media posted pictures of the blond, blue-eyed Norwegian.

“He is clear on the point that he wants to explain himself,” Roger Andresen told reporters Saturday.

National police chief Sveinung Sponheim told NRK that the suspected gunman’s Internet postings “suggest that he has some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views, but whether that was a motivation for the actual act remains to be seen.”

Andersen said the suspect posted on websites with Christian fundamentalist tendencies. He did not describe the websites in any more details.

George Carty:

Here’s an extra interesting piece of info: the island camp had hosted a pro-Palestinian rally the day before. I wonder if the gunman got his dates mixed up?

Salam:

He has written a 1400 page islamophobic book where he described in detail how the bombing/massacre would go down. I take back what I said about his ideology not being extreme. This is fucking insane. He used this as a publicity stunt to spread his propaganda. Oh wow.

You can download the book in English here: http://www.sharepdfbooks.com/3TZOU0V52W6B/2083_-_A_European_Declaration_of_Independence.pdf.html

A quote from the book:
“7a. Apprehension
If you for some reason survive the operation you will be apprehended and arrested. This is the point where most heroic Knights would call it a day. However, this is not the case for a Justiciar Knight. Your arrest will mark the initiation of the propaganda phase.
7b. Your trial offers you a stage to the world”

When I thought this couldn’t get more surrealistic..

Damian:

This video calling for European Christians to take up arms against the Islam and the multicultural left seems to have been posted by Anders Breivik (here anglicised as “Andrew Berwick”) yesterday before he put his plans into action (please note: Youtube have removed original by Andrew Berwick, so this is a repost, which may also be moved):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mZ29eUVAxg

The video shows him holding a gun a the end. From the text of the video, it seems he is hoping to start a new Crusade, a civil war that will finally rid Europe of Islam once and for all.

His thinking on these issues is clearly influenced by Robert Spencer of “Jihad Watch”, who also calls for a new “Crusade” against Islam in his books. Much of what Breivik says in online comments comes straight out of Spencer’s thinking on these issues: e.g. that the leftists/multiculturalists are the greatest threat to Western civilisation, because they are facilitating the “Islamisation” of Europe:

http://translate.google.com/translate?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&rurl=translate.google.com&twu=1&u=http://www.document.no/anders-behring-breivik/

In these comments Breivik cites Spencer’s “Jihad Watch”, as well as Pamela Geller’s anti-Islam/anti-leftist hate-site “Atlas Shrugs”, as sites that all Europeans should read.

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Walid Shoebat: “Ex-Terrorist” Fraud Stealing Taxpayer Money

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Walid Shoebat: “Ex-Terrorist” Fraud Stealing Taxpayer Money

Posted on 22 July 2011 by Emperor

Walid Shoebat is well known as a fraud. CNN recently exposed him in a two part series for masquerading as a “terror expert.” The truth is that Shoebat is just one of many so called “terror expert professionals” who are banking big time on your dime when in fact they are impostors, no better then two-bit snake-oil salesmen.

Now there is a website documenting the fraud Shoebat is perpetrating: www.walid-shoebat.com.(hat tip: Rick) Please follow the site, favorite it and share with your networks.

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HABOOB-articleLarge

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The Word “Haboobs” Causing Chaos in Arizona?

Posted on 22 July 2011 by Emperor

What is going on in Arizona? The word “Haboobs” is being criticized because it is Arabic? Ridiculous, I thought the objection might be that to some ears the word is close to a certain slang term referring to women’s breasts? That would be reason to keep the term, it would be great fodder for comedians or regular citizens playing off the term!

‘Haboobs’ Stir Critics in Arizona

(NYTimes)

PHOENIX — The massive dust storms that swept through central Arizona this month have stirred up not just clouds of sand but a debate over what to call them.

The blinding waves of brown particles, the most recent of which hit Phoenix on Monday, are caused by thunderstorms that emit gusts of wind, roiling the desert landscape. Use of the term “haboob,” which is what such storms have long been called in the Middle East, has rubbed some Arizona residents the wrong way.

“I am insulted that local TV news crews are now calling this kind of storm a haboob,” Don Yonts, a resident of Gilbert, Ariz., wrote to The Arizona Republic after a particularly fierce, mile-high dust storm swept through the state on July 5. “How do they think our soldiers feel coming back to Arizona and hearing some Middle Eastern term?”

Diane Robinson of Wickenburg, Ariz., agreed, saying the state’s dust storms are unique and ought to be labeled as such.

“Excuse me, Mr. Weatherman!” she said in a letter to the editor. “Who gave you the right to use the word ‘haboob’ in describing our recent dust storm? While you may think there are similarities, don’t forget that in these parts our dust is mixed with the whoop of the Indian’s dance, the progression of the cattle herd and warning of the rattlesnake as it lifts its head to strike.”

Dust storms are a regular summer phenomenon in Arizona, and the news media typically label them as nothing more than that. But the National Weather Service, in describing this month’s particularly thick storm, used the term haboob, which was widely picked up by the news media.

“Meteorologists in the Southwest have used the term for decades,” said Randy Cerveny, a climatologist at Arizona State University. “The media usually avoid it because they don’t think anyone will understand it.”

Not everyone was put out by the use of the term. David Wilson of Goodyear, Ariz., said those who wanted to avoid Arabic terms should steer clear of algebra, zero, pajamas and khaki, as well. “Let’s not become so ‘xenophobic’ that we forget to remember that we are citizens of the world, nor fail to recognize the contributions of all cultures to the richness of our language,” he wrote.

Although use of the term often brings smirks, Mr. Cerveny said the walls of dust could have serious consequences, toppling power lines and causing huge traffic accidents. Although ultradry conditions in the desert are considered one cause for the intensity of this year’s storms, Mr. Cerveny pointed to another possible factor: the housing bust that left developments half-finished and unmaintained, creating more desert dust to be stirred up.

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Study finds that news of Osama Bin Laden’s death led Americans to be more fearful of Muslims

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Study finds that news of Osama Bin Laden’s death led Americans to be more fearful of Muslims

Posted on 21 July 2011 by Emperor

Study finds that news of Osama Bin Laden’s death led Americans to be more fearful of Muslims

Matthew C. Nisbet on July 20, 2011, 3:53 PM

My brother Erik Nisbet, a professor at The Ohio State University, has a study out that casts important new light on how Americans reacted to the news of the death of Osama Bin Laden.  Below is the write up from Jeff Grabmeier of the OSU Research News Service. You you can read the full survey report here.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Instead of calming fears, the death of Osama bin Ladenactually led more Americans to feel threatened by Muslims living in the United States, according to a new nationwide survey.

In the weeks following the U.S. military campaign that killed bin Laden, the head of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, American attitudes toward Muslim Americans took a significant negative shift, results showed.

Americans found Muslims living in the United States more threatening after bin Laden’s death, positive perceptions of Muslims plummeted, and those surveyed were less likely to oppose restrictions on Muslim Americans’ civil liberties.

For example, in the weeks before bin Laden’s death, nearly half of respondents described Muslim Americans as “trustworthy” and “peaceful.”  But only one-third of Americans agreed with these positive terms after the killing.

Most of the changes in attitude happened among political liberals and moderates, whose views shifted to become more like those of conservatives, the survey found.

The shift in views can be explained by the fact that bin Laden’s death reminded some Americans of why they may fear Muslims in the first place, saidErik Nisbet, assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University, and one of the leaders of the survey project.

“The death of bin Laden was a focusing event.  There was a lot of news coverage and a lot of discussion about Islam and Muslims and Muslim Americans,” Nisbet said.

“The frenzy of media coverage reminded people of terrorism and the Sept. 11 attacks and it primed them to think about Islam in terms of terrorism.”

In fact, while prior to bin Laden’s death only 16 percent of respondents believed a terrorist attack in the United States was likely in the next few months, 40 percent believed an attack was likely after the killing.

“That is going to have a negative effect on attitudes,” Nisbet said.

The researchers’ ability to find out how American attitudes changed after bin Laden’s death was accidental, Nisbet said.  Nisbet and Ohio State colleagueMichelle Ortiz, also an assistant professor of communication, had commissioned the Survey Research Institute of Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire Survey Center to jointly conduct a national telephone poll of Americans beginning in early April.  The survey focused on perceptions and attitudes about Muslim Americans.

Interviews started on April 7, 2011, and 500 interviews were conducted prior to May 1, when bin Laden was killed.  The remaining 341 interviews were conducted following the death.

Many of the survey responses changed significantly after the killing, Nisbet said.

After bin Laden’s death, 34 percent of Americans surveyed agreed that Muslims living in the United States “increased the likelihood of a terrorist attack.”  That was up from 27 percent prior to the killing.  The percentage of respondents agreeing the Muslims in the United States are supportive of the country dropped from 62 percent to 52 percent.

Americans were less likely to oppose restrictions on Muslim American civil liberties after the killing, Nisbet said.  For example, public opposition to profiling individuals as potential terrorists based solely on being Muslim dropped from 71 percent to 63 percent.  Likewise, opposition to requiring Muslims living in the United to register their whereabouts with the government dropped from two-thirds of respondents to about one-half.

Changes in attitudes were not related just to preventing a possible terrorist attack, but also included attitudes about religious tolerance of Muslims.  For example, nearly one in three respondents surveyed after bin Laden’s death agreed that “Muslims are mostly responsible for creating the religious tension that exists in the United States today.”  That was up from about one in five respondents before the killing.  Correspondingly, opposition to a nationwide ban on mosque construction in the United States fell to 57 percent from 65 percent.

The negative feelings even carried over to personal relationships.  The percentage of respondents who said they were unwilling to have a Muslim as a close friend doubled after the death, going from 9 percent to 20 percent.

“That’s important because research has shown that the best way to reduce prejudice and improve intergroup relations is through personal contact,” Nisbet said.  “That won’t happen if people avoid contact with Muslim Americans.”

Many of the changes in attitudes after Bin Laden’s death were almost entirely due to political liberals and moderates changing their opinions about the threat posed by Muslims in the United States, the survey found.

The percentage of liberal respondents who agreed that Muslims in the United States “make America a more dangerous place to live” tripled after bin Laden’s death, going from 8 to 24 percent.  The percentage of moderates believing this increased from 10 percent to 29 percent.

In contrast, the percentage of conservatives who believed this were essentially unchanged – 30 percent before bin Laden’s death and 26 percent following.

“Liberals and moderates essentially converged toward conservatives in their attitudes about Muslim Americans,” Nisbet said.

Nisbet said it is unclear whether these changes in attitudes would last long-term or not.  But research suggests these negative feelings can be dangerous even if they are short-lived.

“Every time these anti-Muslim feelings are activated by media coverage, it makes them that much easier to get reactivated in the future,” Nisbet said.  “These feelings and attitudes become more constant the more you experience them.”

The telephone survey involved adults in the continental United States, including cell-phone only homes, and was designed to be representative of the U.S. population.  All percentages reported here were adjusted to control for differences in the characteristics of survey respondents interviewed before and after bin Laden’s death.  The researchers controlled for age, gender, race, education, political ideology, whether the respondents were evangelical Christians, and their knowledge about Islam.

That means any differences in attitudes between respondents polled before and after the death are not the results of any difference on these personal attributes.

In addition to Nisbet and Ortiz, the survey was conducted by Yasamin Miller, director of the Survey Research Institute at Cornell and Andrew Smith, associate professor and director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.

A copy of the researchers’ survey report is available here:http://www.eriknisbet.com/files/binladen_report.pdf

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Contact: Erik Nisbet, (614) 247-1693begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (614) 247-1693      end_of_the_skype_highlighting; Nisbet.5@osu.edu Written by Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (614) 292-8457      end_of_the_skype_highlighting; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu

 

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Bryan Fischer: No longer alone in Bigotry

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Bryan Fischer: No longer alone in Bigotry

Posted on 21 July 2011 by Greeneye

GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain has revealed himself to be, for various reasons, the biggest bigot and buffoon in the race. He kicked up a firestorm with his recent comments on Fox News Sunday in support of the “right” to ban American mosques. Apparently, Cain thinks that freedom of religion means freedom to ban religions:

CAIN: They could say that. Chris, lets go back to the fundamental issue that the people are basically saying they’re objecting to. They’re objecting to the fact Islam is both a religion and a set of laws, Sharia law. That’s the difference between any one of our other traditional religions where it’s just about religious purposes. The people in the community know best, and I happen to side with the people in Murfreesboro.

WALLACE: You’re saying any community, if they want to ban a mosque?

CAIN: Yes. They have a right to do that. That’s not discriminating based upon religion.

Discriminating against Muslims is not discrimination because they’re Muslims! Kind of like the argument we hear from racists that discrimination against black people is not discrimination because black people are more likely to be criminals.

Many religious leaders took Cain to task for his comments, but not everyone. In fact, more than enough far right wingers are gleefully embracing his call to deny American Muslims their fundamental American rights.

Bryan Fischer is a Christian fundamentalist who is one of the loudest voices of intolerance on the right wing. For example, he has argued that Muslims should not serve in the military, law-abiding Muslim immigrants should be “sent back home,” and all American mosques should be banned:

Permits, in my judgment, should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America. This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government.

Did you get that? Each Islamic mosque is “dedicated” not to the pillars of Islam (faith, prayer, charity, and fasting) but to the “overthrow of the American government.” As if all the Muslims of every denomination (Sunni, Shi’ite, Sufi, liberal, conservative, etc.) are acting with one will, one goal, like the Borg (resistance is futile, you will be assimilated). He must have read that somewhere in the Protocols of the Elders of Mecca.

Anyway, it is this last point that has Bryan Fischer super excited: he is no longer alone in his Bigotry now that a big shot GOP candidate has legitimated his effort to ban all mosques. On what grounds can they so brazenly defy the First Amendment? The bogus talking point about Islam being a political ideology, not a religion:

In point of fact, in Islam the church IS the state. And since Islam allows no room for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of conscience and equal rights for women, it’s view of culture is so bizarrely un-American as to be dangerous and destructive to civilized society in all its forms.

This is quite ironic coming from a man whose goal in life is to impose his backward religious opinions on an unwilling society. Don’t mind our homegrown Christian fundamentalists who reject separation of church and state. They don’t count.

In reality, the Gallup polls of the Muslim world reveal the exact opposite of Fischer and Cain’s claims:

•Large majorities cite the equal importance of democracy and Islam to the quality of life and progress of the Muslim world. They see no contradiction between democratic values and religious principles.

•Political freedoms are among the things they admire most about the West.

•Substantial majorities in nearly all nations say that if drafting a new constitution, they would guarantee freedom of speech.

•Most want neither theocracy nor secular democracy but a third model in which religious principles and democratic values coexist. They want their own democratic model that draws on Islamic law as a source.

•Significant majorities say religious leaders should play no direct role in drafting a constitution, writing legislation, determining foreign policy, or deciding how women dress in public.

Another poll reports that less than 1% of Egyptians want the radical fusion of religion and state like Iran:

Egyptians… express little interest in recreating their country in the image of Iran, as has been the fear among some Western commentators. Less than 1% say the Islamic Republic should be Egypt’s political model, and most Egyptians think religious leaders should provide advice to government authorities, as opposed to having full authority for determining the nation’s laws. The majority of residents in the Arab world’s most populous nation desire a democracy informed by religious values, not a theocracy.

The numbers concerning Muslim attitudes toward women are equally destructive to Fischer’s arguments:

•Majorities in most countries believe that women should have the same legal rights as men: They should have the right to vote, to hold any job outside the home that they qualify for, and to hold leadership positions at the cabinet and national council levels

•Majorities of men in virtually every country (including 62 percent in Saudi Arabia, 73 percent in Iran, and 81 percent in Indonesia) agree that women should be able to work at any job they qualify for.

•In Saudi Arabia, where women cannot vote, 58 percent of men say women should be able to vote.

•While Muslim women favor gender parity, they do not endorse wholesale adoption of Western values.

So, while scientific polling of the Muslim world (not to mention American Muslims) reveals broad support for democratic principles, a rejection of theocracy, and support for women’s rights, that won’t stop the far right from parroting the thoroughly debunked but politically potent talking point that Islam is somehow uniquely anti-democratic, oppressive to women, and dangerous.

Bryan Fischer is the face of the grassroots prejudice to which Herman Cain is appealing and which will not likely be criticized by the rest of the GOP candidates. American right-wing politics has sunk to a new low. No longer is shredding the First Amendment considered fringe, crazy talk.

Fischer is not a lone anti-freedom bigot anymore. The GOP is right there with him.

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7-19-11 MOSQUE01

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La Mirada, South California mosque vandalized

Posted on 20 July 2011 by Emperor

La Mirada, South California mosque vandalized

Venusse Navid, Staff Writer

LA MIRADA – The vandalism of a La Mirada mosque is not being investigated as a hate crime, Sheriff’s Department officials said Tuesday.

Someone threw a rock through the mosque’s newly installed rear doors between 2 and 6 p.m. Monday, according to Rezaur Rahman, the president of Muslim Community Services Inc.

“This is not being classified as a hate crime right now because there is nothing to substantiate it as one,” said Lt. Pat Valdez of the sheriff’s La Mirada Station. “(But) we are very concerned about it and have already notified our department’s Terrorism Early Warning Group.”

The congregation finished prayer at 2 p.m. Monday and Rahman did not return until before the evening’s prayer session.

“Everything was fine before I left the mosque yesterday afternoon, and when I returned later that evening, I noticed shattered glass on the floor near our newly installed doors,” Rahman said.

“I found a rock lying among the shattered glass and was very surprised that it could have broken through our very strong, double-layered doors,” he said.

Deputies from the sheriff’s Norwalk Station responded to the scene, 14225 Imperial Highway, 10 minutes after Rahman reported the incident.

Authorities took pictures and secured the rock as evidence.

The report has been filed as a vandalism incident and additional patrols have been placed in the mosque’s area to ensure its safety until the investigation is completed, officials said.

The mosque opened on Feb. 16 after an eight-month renovation that began in July 2010.

“This is something that motivates me to create a peace rally,” Rahman said.

Rahman said he contacted Rabbi Mark Goldfarb of Temple Beth Ohr and the Rev. Bill Miller of United Methodist Church, relaying the news regarding the incident and his interest in organizing a community peace rally.

“We’re all concerned with the situation and the Whittier Area Interfaith

Council is determined to make it clear that this is not acceptable in our community,” Miller said.

“It is an outrage and when one of us is hurt, we’re all hurt and it’s our job to stand together when things like this happen,” he said.

The congregation reconvened at 9:30 p.m. Monday for prayer which lasted until 5 a.m. Tuesday.

“At first we were afraid to publicize this, but we think it’s better if we do because we need to do our part to let everyone know that we’re here and we want peace,” Rahman said.

“It’s deeply troubling to hear about the incident at the La Mirada mosque. Unfortunately mosque vandalism around the nation is not uncommon, however, we should remember those incidents are not widespread and the American Muslim community continues to live in peace and harmony with their American neighbors and citizens,” Munira Syeda, a spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Tuesday.

“It is also important to remember that as Americans, we need to continue to increase bridge-building and the understanding of our various minorities and those who may not know that much about the Islamic and Muslim faith. Mosques are American houses of worship and the Muslim faith is a positive part of our country. We ask mosque members to remain vigilant and report vandalism incidents to their local authorities right away,” Syeda said.

A similar incident took place on March 19, one month after the mosque opened.

“Luckily no one was here when the incident took place because someone could have been hurt,” Rahman said.

Deputies are investigating the incident.

venusse.navid@sgvn.com
562-698-0955, ext. 3000

Original post: La Mirada mosque vandalized

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John Guandolo

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Terrorism Training Casts Pall Over Muslim Employee

Posted on 19 July 2011 by Emperor

John Guandolo

"Terrorism Expert" John Guandolo

This cottage industry of “terror experts” needs to be reanalyzed. Walid Shoebat, John Guandolo, Robert Spencer, and there are many more.

Terrorism Training Casts Pall Over Muslim Employee

by DINA TEMPLE-RASTON (NPR)

The man at the center of this story is 59-year-old Jordanian-American Omar al-Omari. He looks very much like the college professor that he is — tweed jacket, button-down shirt, thick round glasses, drinking coffee. We met at a coffee shop near downtown Columbus, Ohio, where he laid out a series of events that ended with him being accused of having links to terrorism.

“Actually, I was out of town, out of state, attending a conference and on my way back to Columbus,” Omari said, “and I received a call from one of the attendees of this conference in which I was told my name was used repeatedly during the training. Apparently I was labeled as a suspect. They personalized the attacks. There was a promise to dig into my background, and basically, as an Arab-Muslim American, they thought I’m a suspect.”

Omari was singled out at a three-day seminar for local police and law enforcement in the Columbus area last April. The class was part of a larger nationwide initiative to help local law enforcement not just understand terrorism, but perhaps find ways to stop it. The Obama administration has set aside millions of dollars to fund these training programs, and, not surprisingly, that money has helped create an industry in which self-styled terrorism experts contract themselves out to local police departments as terrorism tutors.

There is no certification process to vet the experts. They simply present their resumes and, often through word of mouth, they get hired. The trainers tend to be former government officials. Sometimes they have had key roles in the federal government fighting terrorism. Just as often, they have not. There’s growing evidence that many of these training sessions are providing officers at the grass roots with a biased view of Muslims in America. That is what appears to have happened to Omari.

The training at the Columbus Division of Police took place over three days in mid-April 2010. The course was titled “Understanding the True Nature of the Threat to America.” Broad outlines of the curriculum are posted on the trainers’ website. The course includes a discussion about the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States; Islamic law as it relates to jihad; and the trainers say they will provide “specific examples of Muslim Brotherhood/Islamic Movement activity in the locale in which the presentation is given.” It was in that context that Omari became a target.

One of the trainers in Ohio that day was a man named John Guandolo. He’s a former FBI agent and former Marine. According to people in the training class that day and Guandolo himself, a photograph of Omari with members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a local Muslim advocacy group, was put up on the screen. According to the people who were there, Guandolo and the other visiting trainers didn’t say outright that Omari was a terrorist, but they suggested that he had links to bad people — people who were members of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and even al-Qaida.

“I stand by what I said that day about Omari,” Guandolo told me, though he declined to say so on tape. “The facts are on my side.”

Now, to understand why the accusations against Omari were so surprising, it is important to know that at the time he ran a key Muslim outreach program for the state of Ohio. What he was doing for the state’s Department of Public Safety was considered so effective, counterterrorism officials in Washington sent him overseas to talk about it.

Omari is from Jordan. He has been living in the U.S. for 30 years, and he’s an American citizen. Even so, for people in the counterterrorism class in Columbus that day, it seemed entirely possible that he could be a terrorist. And that reaction in the room surprised a lot of people — most notably Deputy Chief Jeffrey Blackwell of the Columbus Division of Police. Blackwell is now in charge of the division’s homeland security unit.

“I was shocked,” he said. “I was shocked that a person at Omar’s level in the state of Ohio in the Department of Public Safety would have his picture displayed by an anti-terrorism group. His reputation was impugned incredibly by the speakers.”

Blackwell and other officials suspended the class to make sense of what happened. “We had a meeting and we discussed what we were witnessing right before our very eyes, what was transpiring in the lecture hall,” Blackwell said. What was so strange about Omari being singled out was that nearly everyone in the room knew him, or at least had heard of him. He was one of Ohio’s most high-visibility Muslims. Many of the visiting officers and Columbus officers had actually worked with Omari on outreach in the Muslim community.

“I knew him really well,” Blackwell said. “And I thought he was a great professional, so that was part of the reason why I was so surprised when his picture popped up in the presentation.”

But for some reason, maybe because former government officials said Omari couldn’t be trusted, Blackwell watched as some people in the room were ready to believe the worst.

“There were a large amount of people there that felt the class was in fact appropriate — that the finger-pointing and the name-calling and the nexuses that were developed and discussed were appropriate to discuss,” he said. “And then you had a huge percentage that were equally and diametrically opposed to that way of teaching and the substance of the anti-terrorism class.”

And the lesson Blackwell took from their reaction?

“That as Americans we are all over the board on our feelings about the terrorism issue,” he said. “And as a law enforcement professional, even law enforcement is divided in how they view people.”

The next day, some people came to Omari’s defense. The head of the local Joint Terrorism Task Force and one of the FBI’s top agents in Ohio both arrived at the academy and assured the class that Omari wasn’t a terrorism suspect. Everyone says that at that point the room erupted in shouts. Half the officers sided with Omari. The other half trusted the trainer, Guandolo. Blackwell said they assumed he must be privy to intelligence on Omari that he wasn’t revealing.

Guandolo suggested when I interviewed him on the phone that there were things he knew about Omari that the FBI didn’t. “We know we have our facts right, because we have to,” Guandolo said. (Nearly a dozen sources contacted by NPR in the intelligence community, the FBI and at the Department of Homeland Security said Omari has no links to terrorists or terrorism. They said the accusations against him are unfounded.)

Bill Braniff, who is in charge of the training program at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, sees what happened in Ohio as part of a larger problem.

“I think this is something that happens across the nation fairly consistently,” he said. “No one is tracking this with numbers, but anecdotally we are hearing about it all the time. The Muslim-American community is being preyed upon from two different directions. One, the jihadist recruitment and radicalization that is actively preying on their sons and daughters; and two, the elevated levels of Islamophobia — Islamophobia at worst and distrust and alienation at best.”

That distrust had real consequences in Columbus. Omari lost his job with the state of Ohio, though not because of claims that he had ties to terrorism. After that training session, officials began digging into Omari’s past, and they eventually found something: They discovered that his employment application was incomplete. He hadn’t listed all of the schools where he had worked before taking the job with the state of Ohio. Omari says he just listed places where he had taught relevant courses — courses that touched on Middle Eastern studies. But he was fired anyway — some six months after the training session.

Federal officials familiar with the case say Omari was singled out because he distinguished between extremist Muslims and mainstream Muslims in his outreach and training programs. Guandolo, the trainer, had a different view. When he talked to me about Muslim groups in the U.S., he spoke in terms of whether or not Muslims were patriotic.

Omari, for his part, still can’t believe he got fired. “I lost a lot of things over this,” he said. “I lost respect, dignity, reputation — everything really was connected with that, and definitely, you know, how could you defend yourself?”

Chief Blackwell says even more than a year after the episode, he’s still upset. “That was not a good day, in my opinion, for the Columbus Division of Police or law enforcement in general,” he said.

Omari filed suit last week against the Ohio Department of Public Safety and several individuals for wrongful dismissal. He said he’d love to get his job back. And the trainers who came to the Columbus police department? One of them is scheduled to hold another training session in August at the CIA.

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966832143 (1)

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800 ultra-Orthodox protesters attempt to block Jerusalem road

Posted on 19 July 2011 by Amago

Ultra-Orthodox protestors clashing with police on Jerusalem’s Neviim Street on Saturday. By Nir Hasson Photo by: Olivier Fitoussi

There were 800 ultra-Orthodox protesters attempting to block traffic on Shabbat due to religious motivation, but if Muslims did something of this caliber, everyone would mention that Islam demands all Muslims to act like this.

800 ultra-Orthodox protesters attempt to block Jerusalem road

Police arrived on horseback to disperse the crowd on the central Neviim Street, using a water-spraying vehicle to push the ultra-Orthodox protesters back toward the curb and allow traffic to resume. Protesters yelled out “Shabbos” and “Nazis” and threw objects as police remained in the vicinity to keep the peace.

Earlier this week, Jerusalem District Commander Niso Shaham requested that secular activists refrain from protesting ultra-Orthodox attempts to close off the road, explaining that this would only fuel tensions. The commander pledged to take the necessary measures to ensure traffic would flow as usual on the central Jerusalem road.

Saturday’s events come just days after ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim residents set fire to trash cans and hurled rocks at police officers to protest the shutting down of an illegal slaughterhouse. Six policemen were wounded in the fray.

Neviim Street, a central Jerusalem road, is one of the most important avenues of transportation in the capital, particularly since the closure of Yaffo Road to traffic in recent years. Neviim also serves as a border between ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods and the cultural and shopping center of the city.

Secular residents claim that the police are turning a blind eye to ultra-Orthodox efforts to block traffic on the street every Saturday, with hundreds of religious men often resorting to violence in a bid to prevent cars from desecrating Shabbat.

Although police have successfully prevented the total closure of Neviim Street in the past, secular drivers have complained of ultra-Orthodox zealots kicking, hitting, and throwing bottles on their cars when they attempt to drive through the street.

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71-year-old Muslim Seriously Assaulted Outside Kilmarnock Mosque

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71-year-old Muslim Seriously Assaulted Outside Kilmarnock Mosque

Posted on 18 July 2011 by Emperor

(via. Islamophobia-Watch)

71-year-old Muslim seriously assaulted outside Kilmarnock mosque

Police at Kilmarnock are continuing enquiries and appealing for information after an elderly man was seriously assaulted in the early hours of Friday 15 July 2011.

The 71-year-old Asian man was discovered with serious facial injuries around 0130 hrs on Friday 15 July 2011 outside the Community Mosque in Hill Street, Kilmarnock. It is believed that he was attacked prior to opening the Mosque for a prayer session and was discovered by two fellow members of the Mosque who informed the emergency services.

The injured man was taken by ambulance to Crosshouse Hospital where he is currently being treated for his injuries. Hospital staff describe his condition as stable.

Chief Inspector Wilson Brown at Kilmarnock Police Office said: ”This is a despicable act of violence carried out on a defenceless man. At this time there would appear to be no motive for this attack however we can’t rule out the possibility of it being racially motivated.

“It is believed that the man was attacked prior to him opening the Mosque and it is not known how long he may have been lying on the ground injured before two fellow members discovered him.

“At the time that the injured man was discovered by his fellow members of the Mosque, another two young men approached them to assist. Unfortunately these two men left prior to police arrival and I’d like to ask them to contact police immediately as it is vital that we speak to them.

“I also urge anyone who has any information which could assist us in tracking down the person or persons responsible for this sickening attack to contact police.

Anyone with information should contact Kilmarnock Police Office on 01563 50500 or alternatively CRIMESTOPPERS on 0800 555 111 where anonymity can be maintained.

Cumnock Chronicle, 15 July 2011

Via ENGAGE

The Hill Street mosque was opened earlier this year after the conversion of what had formerly been the Hillhead Tavern. The conversion was denounced by the Scottish Defence League who held a demonstration in Kilmarnock in June last year.

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Herman Cain: Americans Can Stop Mosques

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Herman Cain: Americans Can Stop Mosques

Posted on 17 July 2011 by Garibaldi

This is a GOP candidate who is getting 6% of the popular vote right now, and this sort of rhetoric is acceptable for a large portion of Americans.

Herman Cain: Americans Can Stop Mosques

Herman Cain said Sunday that Americans should be able to ban Muslims from building mosques in their communities.

“Our Constitution guarantees the separation of church and state,” Cain said in an interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.” “Islam combines church and state. They’re using the church part of our First Amendment to infuse their morals in that community, and the people of that community do not like it. They disagree with it.”

Last week, the Republican presidential candidate expressed criticism of a planned mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, telling reporters at a campaign event that “This is just another way to try to gradually sneak Sharia law into our laws, and I absolutely object to that.”

“This isn’t an innocent mosque,” Cain said.

On “Fox News Sunday,” Wallace pressed him about those comments.

“Let’s go back to the fundamental issue,” Cain said. “Islam is both a religion and a set of laws — Sharia laws. That’s the difference between any one of our traditional religions where it’s just about religious purposes.”

“So, you’re saying that any community, if they want to ban a mosque…” Wallace began.

“Yes, they have the right to do that,” Cain said.

Cain has made a number of controversial comments about Muslims, including a vow to be cautious about allowing a Muslim to serve in his administration.

On Sunday, Cain defended his position, telling Wallace that it’s not discrimination.

“Aren’t you willing to restrict people because of their religion?” Wallace asked.

“I’m willing to take a harder look at people who might be terrorists, that’s what I’m saying,” Cain replied. “Look, I know that there’s a peaceful group of Muslims in this country. God bless them and they’re free to worship. If you look at my career I have never discriminated against anybody, because of their religion, sex or origin or anything like that.”

“I’m simply saying I owe it to the American people to be cautious because terrorists are trying to kill us,” Cain said, “so yes I’m going to err on the side of caution rather than on the side of carelessness.”

Original post: Herman Cain: Americans Have The Right To Ban Mosques In Their Communities

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Christopher Eric Wey, U.S. Soldier, Tries To Board Flight With Explosives

Posted on 17 July 2011 by Emperor

This soldier stole C4 and was caught trying to board a flight with it in his possession. Can you imagine if he had been Muslim?

Christopher Eric Wey, U.S. Soldier, Tries To Board Flight With Explosives

A U.S. soldier was caught attempting to board a flight to Los Angeles on Wednesday with high-velocity explosives in his bag.

Army Private First Class Christopher Eric Wey, 19, was arrested after he tried to board a United flight, the U.S. Attorney’s office for Arizona told Reuters.
Reuters reports that TSA officials at the Yuma International Airport detected a half-ounce of C4 explosives hidden in a tobacco can inside one of Wey’s bags. In a conflicting report, the Associated Press reportsthat it was a quarter-ounce.

Wey was detained and interviewed by FBI agents, who in turn discovered that Wey had stolen the C4 while attending an explosive training course.

Authorities found no indication that Wey intended any harm but him with trying to carry an explosive onto an aircraft and a stolen one at that, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years behind bars and a $250,000 fine.

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Muslim Woman in Hijab Kicked and Slapped in Hate Crime

Posted on 16 July 2011 by Emperor

The Islamophobes will deny this happened at all or will instead blame the victim, saying she had it coming for wearing a “hijab.”

Muslim Woman in Hijab Kicked and Slapped in Hate Crime

(Buffalo News)

NIAGARA FALLS — The arrest of a Niagara Falls woman accused of using ethnic slurs and assaulting a woman of Pakistani origin is “a troubling symptom” of increased anti-Muslim sentiment across the country, the spokesman of a national civil rights group said Friday.

“How do you prevent something like this if [you're a] law enforcement officer?” asked Ibrahim Hooper, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C.

“It’s almost impossible,” Hooper said. “I think it’s more of a job for religious and political leaders, who need to speak out against this anti-Muslim sentiment in our society, so that those who carry out these attacks don’t see tacit approval of their actions in the silence of public officials.”

Police described the incident as uncommon in a city that regularly welcomes international tourists of many ethnic origins, and a local Muslim leader said relations between Muslims and others generally are better in the Buffalo Niagara region than in many other parts of the country.

But police say good will went out the window at about 8:20 p.m. Thursday when Antoinette S. Ivey, 32, of Ninth Street, and another woman in a van hurled ethnic and racial slurs at a 26-year-old woman of Pakistani origin walking along Portage Road on the way to meet her husband.

The victim was wearing a purple head scarf, or hijab, a common garment among Muslim women.

According to the victim and other witnesses, the two women continued yelling at the victim after she met her husband in the parking lot of the Dollar Tree store on Portage, and when the victim asked why they were swearing at her, the two women got out of the van and assaulted her.

Before her husband could intervene, the victim was slapped in the face, knocked to the ground, punched and kicked repeatedly, police said. Her hair also was pulled, and she suffered bruises, pain and swelling on her head and body.

There is “no indication” that the victims and assailants knew each other, Police Superintendent John R. Chella said.

The victim was taken by ambulance to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, where she was treated and released, police said.

While police searched Friday for her companion, Ivey was held in the Niagara County Jail in lieu of $750 bail. She was charged with third-degree assault as a hate crime.

The crime normally is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in a county jail, but as a hate crime, it becomes a felony punishable by up to four years in state prison, Assistant Niagara County District Attorney Peter M. Wydysh said.

Chella said this might have been the first instance this year of a hate crime, which his department is required to report quarterly to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.

The Falls, he said, is a safe place for residents and visitors.

“Our numbers don’t indicate a serious problem,” he said. “We take each individual case seriously, but we don’t have an epidemic that we’re doing anything proactively to prevent it. I can’t recall any one [incident] this year.”

Police responded quickly and appropriately, said Hooper, whose group has called on the FBI to investigate the matter along with two other recent incidents in New York City.

Relations between Muslim-Americans and others in Western New York are “much better” than some other parts of the country, said Dr. Khalid J. Qazi, president of the local chapter of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

“We’ve been visible in the community for a number of years, and hopefully that has made a difference in how we are perceived and Muslims in general [are perceived],” Qazi said. “We want to make sure we contribute to the growth of the country like everybody else.”

News Niagara Reporter Thomas J. Prohaska contributed to this report.

cspecht@buffnews.com bobrien@buffnews.com

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New Jewish Group Wants to Restore Polygamy, What if they were Muslim?

Posted on 16 July 2011 by Mooneye

If such an initiative were started by a group in a pre-dominantly Muslim nation, as it has in places such as Jordan and Malaysia, the Islamophobesphere would go buck wild with cries that it is proof of the backwardness of those societies, or a result of evil SHARIA!! At the very least the complexity of the issue both theologically and societally would be reduced or all together discarded.

Even in the United States there are now efforts to introduce legislation to legalize polygamy in Utah. What if they were Muslim?

New Jewish group wants to restore polygamy

(Jerusalem Post) By JONAH MANDEL

Practice promoted as solution for the abundance of single women, Arab demographic threat and the predicament of seeking extramarital relations.

A new organization is trying to reinstate polygamy into mainstream Orthodox Judaism, despite it being against the contemporary norm of Jewish law, and prohibited by the state.

The idea is the brainchild of Habayit Hayehudi Hashalem (The Complete Jewish Household).

It is being promoted as the Jewish solution for the abundance of single women, the Arab demographic threat and the male predicament of seeking extramarital relations.

A small advertisement over the weekend in the broadly circulated Shabbat Beshabato, a hand-out distributed in synagogues nationwide dealing with the weekly Torah portion and contemporary issues, quoted a paragraph from senior Sephardi adjudicator Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s Yabi’a Omer treatise, in which he wrote that it is a mistake for non-Ashkenazim to follow Rabbeinu Gershom’s “stringency,” according to which it is prohibited for a man to marry more than one wife. Approximately 1,000 years ago, Rabbeinu Gershom of Mainz, Germany, issued resonating reforms on a variety of subjects pertaining to Jewish life, and those who transgressed them were liable to be socially excommunicated. Perhaps the most well-known of these prohibitions is to not to be married to more than one woman at a time, despite the fact that this was common in biblical times.

The man behind the ad, Rabbi Yehezkel Sopher, saw no legal problem in his initiative.

“This is not about secular people who abide by the rules of the state, rather religious people. Whoever wants to take another wife – the Torah does not object to it,” Sopher told The Jerusalem Post. “We work according to the Shulhan Aruch, there are rules here.”

As for Rabbeinu Gershom’s excommunication ban, even for those who would as Ashkenazim have followed it – “that has been over for hundreds of years by now,” as its end date was the end of the fifth millennium according to the Jewish year count, i.e. some 700 years ago, he said.

As for the fact that the rabbinate is against bigamy and polygamy, Sopher, who identified himself as a resident of the Central region, explained that “the rabbis at the Chief Rabbinate receive their salaries from the state,” so publicly they have to object to polygamy. “But if you ask them behind closed doors, they will say it’s allowed.”

Sopher himself is married to only one woman, “but there is already consent to a second.”

Asked why they made this issue public now, and in a mainstream national-religious publication, he said that “we really wanted it to resonate.

We’ve been working on it for two years now, through our publications.

But we want it to get out to the larger public.

“This is a cry out to all God-fearing Jews. Instead of Arabs marrying Jewish women, Jews should,” he said.

“This is also a solution for women who never married, for widows, divorcees.”

The whole notion of monogamy is not an essentially Jewish one, Sopher stressed. “This [polygamy] is very acceptable in our religion, it’s religious coercion from the establishment under the influence of Catholicism that prevents about 15 percent of women in their fertile age from marrying,” he said.

“It’s cruel. And the Jewish nation is harmed by it. We think national fertility could rise by at least 10%. This is national discrimination, where the state turns a blind eye to Beduin, who freely take more wives. If Jews do, they are thrown into prison. And if a law is implemented in a discriminatory manner, it doesn’t have to be heeded,” he said.

In the ad, Sopher noted his group had a rabbinical court working with it on the issue. The head of that court is Rabbi Dov Stein of Jerusalem, who also serves as secretary for the nascent Sanhedrin project.

Stein said Habayit Hayehudi Hashalem’s initiative is not counter to the laws of the state.

“You can legally marry a second woman, the same way the secular public figured out how to marry in Cyprus and then have it approved here. Rabbis have found ways to enable such frameworks – otherwise we’d be inciting to a crime here,” he told the Post. “There are loopholes in the law we can find, Ashkenazim as well.”

The source of this move is not men, rather women, said Stein.

“This is an appeal of women to change the law, they are voicing their protest, they are not enabled to establish a family, have a future.

They are miserable.”

Stein said on Sunday afternoon that nearly 100 people had already telephoned to express interest in such an endeavor, following the weekend ad.

“There are women who agree, but can’t act on it. But even if a woman doesn’t agree, her husband is not her property, and by law he is not prohibited from having an affair with another woman.”

Senior members of the Chief Rabbinate slammed Habayit Hayehudi Hashalem and said it was a perversion of Judaism, motivated solely by “carnal lust.”

This is a distortion and madness,” said Rabbi Ya’acov Bezalel Harrar, the head of Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar’s office.

As for Yosef’s adjudication quoted in the ad, “this was taken out of context.

The validity of Rabbeinu Gershom’s excommunication ban might have expired, but that doesn’t mean that polygamy is permitted,” Harrar said.

“No rabbi would permit such a thing,” he said. “This is despicable villainy,” Harrar continued. “I am even less bothered by homosexual relations than such an instance in which a man takes two wives. In a homosexual scenario there are two people who decide to live their life that way. Here a person is putting two women into a conflict.

“Besides carnal lust” of the men involved, “there is nothing here,” he said of the claim that this was being proposed in the name of women who otherwise wouldn’t be able to marry or bear children. Harrar also doubted the fact that this could be seen as a trend. But “if it is a trend, it deserves all possible condemnation,” he said.

Kiryat Ono Chief Rabbi Ratzon Arusi, head of the Chief Rabbinical Council’s Marriage Committee, said that “it is true that in the Torah a man is allowed to marry more than one woman. But it is wrong to think that besides Rabbeinu Gershom’s ban the phenomenon was widespread.”

Arusi noted as proof the fact that Yemenite Jews, who never accepted the ban, rarely took more than more wife, and even when they did it was only in extreme cases such as infertility.

But in modern Israel, a rabbinic court would not allow a Yemenite man to take another woman, even when his barren wife insisted that she wanted him to, he said.

“Don’t think rabbinic courts aren’t very careful about not letting one bring troubles into his home,” Arusi said. A rare case in which a second wife would be allowed would be if the first one were in a coma, and it would be impossible to divorce her according to Jewish law. “And even then, the rabbis would ensure that all the comatose woman’s rights were ensured, should she awake from her coma,” he said.

Arusi was concerned that such a phenomenon would increase the rates of unregulated marriages and divorces in Israel, which could lead to severe pedigree problems.

“Woe to all those who take the law into their own hands, and create facts on the ground, and seek ways around the rabbinate with private weddings, without getting permission from the rabbinate and the leading rabbis.

They are not solving problems, rather creating them. By registering marriage in Israel, we can monitor things and ensure there are no mamzerim [people forbidden to marry according to Halacha] marrying. Can we have that supervision with unregulated weddings? And how can one be sure that the divorce carried out for such a person who wed off the books would be entirely by Jewish law? This is narrowmindedness that should not be allowed,” Arusi said.

“There is an internal halachic debate on this, but these people should not deceive the public into thinking that without Rabbeinu Gershom’s ban any Jew can go and marry as many women as he wants,” he said.

Arusi said his committee would examine the issue in its next meeting.

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Asra Nomani: Government Should Tell Muslims How to Worship

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Asra Nomani: Government Should Tell Muslims How to Worship

Posted on 15 July 2011 by Greeneye

Freedom of worship is one of our most invaluable rights. It means that I have the complete freedom and the human right to worship God the way I see fit or to not worship, provided that I uphold the standards of civil law. Thomas Jefferson so eloquently wrote:

That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

[The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom]

This human right is the cornerstone of our democracy. It keeps the political conversation rational, among other things, and prevents our nation from degenerating further into partisan religious delinquency. So, naturally, I am dismayed when I see this most basic and cherished freedom become a casualty in our national discourse on Islam and Muslims.

Observe Asra Nomani, whom we’ve criticized before for supporting racial profiling, in her latest draconian suggestion; if mosques do not bow to the demands of her ideology, they should be denied tax exempt status (i.e. forced to shutdown from crippling taxes). How did she arrive at such a conclusion?

Nomani says she is fighting Gender Apartheid:

Our goal was to walk through the front double doors designated for “brothers” and pray in the forbidden space of the opulent musallah, or main hall, of the mosque.

She paints herself as a freedom fighter, a successor to Martin Luther King Jr. But the question is: why do Muslim men and women pray in separate spaces? Is it sexism?

Until a point in time when we live in a “genderless” society (maybe something Asra advocates?), men and women are generally considered distinguished entities and traditional religions tend to take this into account. In the case of the majority of Muslims, men and women pray in separate places for the five congregational prayers because the Quran says:

Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them… And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof… (24:30-31)

Pious Muslims are not supposed to gawk with lust at members of the other sex. This applies in daily life and even more so in the ritual prayer in which concentration and focus should be directed towards God and not the opposite sex. Separating men and women in the Muslim prayer is therefore considered a matter of modesty; not that women are inferior or have less rights. Thus, separate prayer halls in themselves are not an indication that women are being mistreated or denied access to the mosque.

But perhaps the issue is that women have a less nice area to pray in or are being denied access to the mosque altogether. On this issue Nomani has a point, and she produces some statistics and studies, although mired by her sweeping generalizations:

In a 2005 publication, “Women Friendly Mosques and Community Centers,” written by two American-Muslim groups — the Islamic Social Services Associations and Women In Islam — the authors confirmed that “many mosques relegate women to small, dingy, secluded, airless and segregated quarters with their children,” some mosques “actually prevent women from entering,”…

It is true that some mosques have less than adequate facilities to accommodate female worshippers, but is it always a case of sexism? If you haven’t noticed, opening or expanding a mosque is not the easiest thing to do in America right now. There are other factors involved other than an alleged omnipresent sexism dominating the Muslim community. Some of these mosques do not have the funding to give women a bigger space; and perhaps, it may be the conservative culture of a particular mosque for women to normally pray at home with their children, usually coming to the mosque only on special occasions, and thus a bigger space is unnecessary.

Nomani could draw from Islamic tradition to support her legitimate goal of helping women increase their presence and participation in the mosque. She could, for example, mention how numerous authentic traditions record that the Prophet Muhammad gave women universal support to go to the mosque:

Do not prevent the maid-servants of Allah from going to the mosque.

[Sahih Muslim, Book 004, Number 0886]

She could engage in a respectful dialogue with notable Imams, scholars and activists, work for grassroots change in her local community, and help establish the model mosque she seeks with their help or of her own volition. Unfortunately, Nomani thinks strong-arm bully tactics and shouting matches in the mosque are the way to go.

First, she travels to different communities to whom she does not belong and demands to violate their sacred spaces. Then, she makes a ruckus in the media to bring pressure on Muslim communities from society at large. That hasn’t worked, so now she wants the government to step in and tell Muslims how they should organize their prayer halls:

I understand the difficulties in having the state intervene in worship issues. I believe in a separation of church and state, but I’ve come to the difficult decision that women must use the legal system to restore rights in places of worship, particularly when intimidation is used to enforce unfair rules.

Unbelievable! One Christian author took the words right out of my mouth:

That is an almost comically irrational paragraph, and yet it ran in a column published in none other than USA Today. Nomani says that she “understand[s] the difficulties in having the state intervene in worship issues,” but shows no such understanding at all. Then, she writes that she “believe[s] in a separation of church and state,” but then she calls upon the coercive power of the state to force doctrinal change in places of worship. She cannot have it both ways…

I am not worried that IRS agents are about to descend on the nation’s churches, mosques, and synagogues to force a new government-endorsed theology on our places of worship. I am very concerned, however, that this kind of argument, left unaddressed, implies a power that the government does not and should not possess.

Undoubtedly what Nomani is asking for is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution’s, First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” She would open the floodgates of government intervention into the most private area of our lives, our places of worship, our sacred spaces, and threaten to raise our taxes if we didn’t worship in a manner consistent with her ideology (a curious double-violation of Tea Party ideology but nonetheless will probably receive a free pass from many on the Right because of the fact that Muslims are Nomani’s target).

She warns us that in mosques “intimidation is used to enforce unfair rules” but she has no problem using the long arm of the law to intimidate Muslims and force them to construct their prayer halls in line with Nomani’s ideology or else be crushed by burdening taxes.  So, Asra, how are you not also using intimidation “to enforce unfair rules?” Can anyone else see the double standard?

Don’t get me wrong. Freedom and women’s rights are very vital issues for Muslims to tackle, but not so much for Nomani. She seems far more interested in getting her uninformed and sensational views published than in helping the Muslim community from within.

How else can we understand her aggressive assault on our most basic American freedom?

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‘Ex-Terrorist’ Fraud: Walid Shoebat Exposed Part 2

Posted on 15 July 2011 by Emperor

The expose on the fraud known as Shoebat continues on CNN:

Robert Spencer, watch out you’re next.

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Muslim Woman Assaulted in an Alleged Hate Crime in New York, Civil Rights Violation Lawyer Investigates

Posted on 15 July 2011 by Emperor

(via. Islamophobia-Today)

Muslim Woman Assaulted in an Alleged Hate Crime in New York, Civil Rights Violation Lawyer Investigates

By: The Perecman Firm

New York civil rights lawyer David Perecman comments on allegations of an possible attack on a burka-wearing woman in Harlem. New York City police are investigating whether the attack was a hate crime.

Aissatou Diallo claims that two women, one back and one white, attacked her as she was walking in Harlem. She said she was called a “f–king terrorist” and punched after she asked one of the women to stop taking pictures of her. The pair allegedly then ran off only to return and throw Diallo to the floor, pull off her burka and curse at her.

Both women who allegedly attacked Diallo have been arrested on assault charges. NYPD hate crime detectives are investigating whether the crime was a bias attack.

In New York, civil rights violation lawyers understand that being charged with a hate crime can increase the severity of an assault or battery charge.

“Being charged for a hate crime can make a rotten situation even worse for someone arrested in New York,” civil rights violation lawyer Perecman said.

New York civil rights violation lawyer Perecman is the founder of The Perecman Firm, one of New York’s civil rights violation law firms.

Original post: Muslim Woman Assaulted in an Alleged Hate Crime in New York, Civil Rights Violation Lawyer Investigates

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Inside Torat Hamelech, the Jewish Extremist Terror Tract Endorsed by State-employed Rabbis

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Inside Torat Hamelech, the Jewish Extremist Terror Tract Endorsed by State-employed Rabbis

Posted on 15 July 2011 by Emperor


We have been covering the story about “The King’s Torah” for quite some time now, it is quite popular amongst the religious right in Israel. Can you imagine if texts such as this were found in an Islamic book called the “The Caliph’s Sharia’”?,

I. A gentile must not kill his friend, and if he has killed, he must die.

II. The prohibition “thou shalt not commit murder” refers to a Jew who kills another Jew.

III. A Jew who kills a gentile is not required to die.

Replace “gentile” with “kafir” and Jew with “Muslim,” and imagine the reaction from the Islamophobesphere.

Inside Torat Hamelech, the Jewish extremist terror tract endorsed by state-employed rabbis

by Max Blumenthal

Last year, I reported on a convention of top Israeli rabbis who gathered to defend the publication of Torat Hamelech, a book that relied on rabbinical sources to justify the killing of gentiles, including infants “if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us.” The most prominent rabbinical endorsers, Kiryat Arba’s chief rabbi Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef, had dismissed police summons at the time, insisting that man’s law could not touch the halakha. A year later, in late June, the Israeli police finally arrested Lior for his role in endorsing and promoting the book.

Riots broke out almost immediately in the wake of the arrest, with mobs of religious Zionists burning tires and attempting to storm the Israeli Supreme Court compound. Fearing more riots and with sales of Torat Hamelech surging, the police handled Rabbi Yosef with kid gloves, requesting he come in for questioning but not arresting him. In the end, the state neglected to remove Lior, Yosef, or any other state-employed rabbi from his position for endorsing Torat Hamelech.

Why is Torat Hamelech so explosive? Yuval Dror, an Israeli journalist and academic, excerpted some of the book’s most incendiary passages. What appeared was Jewish exclusivism in its most extreme form, with non-Jews deemed permissible to kill, or Rodef, for the most inconsequential of wartime acts, including providing moral support to gentile armies. The book is a virtual manual for Jewish extremist terror designed to justify the mass slaughter of civilians. And in that respect, it is not entirely different from the Israeli military’s Dahiya Doctrine, or Asa Kasher and Amos Yadlin’sconcept of “asymmetrical warfare.” The key difference seems to be the crude, almost childlike logic the book’s author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, marshals to justify the killing of non-Jewish civilians.

Here are passages from Torat Hamelech, as excerpted by Dror and translated by Dena Bugel-Shunra:

II. Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder

Maimonides wrote in the Halachas of Murder, Chapter A, Halacha A:

He who kills one soul of Israel violates a prohibition, as it is said “thou shalt not commit murder, and if he committed murder maliciously, in front of witnesses, his death shall be by the sword…

It is therefore made explicit that the “thou shalt not commit murder” prohibition refers only to a Jew who kills a Jew, and not to a Jew who kills a gentile, even if that gentile is one of the righteous among the nations… we have derived that from the verse “thou shalt not commit murder”, one cannot learn that there is a prohibition on killing a gentile.

(Page 17-18)

VIII. Conclusion

I. A gentile must not kill his friend, and if he has killed, he must die.

II. The prohibition “thou shalt not commit murder” refers to a Jew who kills another Jew.

III. A Jew who kills a gentile is not required to die.

IV. The prohibition on a Jew killing a gentile derives from the fact that a gentile is not allowed to kill a gentile.

(Page 27)

I. A gentile is killed for one death, and with one judge

A gentile who violates one of the seven rules [of Noah] must be killed, and he is killed based on the word of one witness and with one judge and with no warning.

II. A witness becomes a judge

For the Sons of Noah [gentiles] the witness can himself be a judge. This mean: if one person saw the other committing a crime – he can judge him and kill him for this, as he is the witness and he is the judge… Moses [moshe rabbenu] saw the Egyptian hitting a man of Israel, and killed him for that. So there Moses is the witness and is the judge, and this does not delay the carrying out of the law upon the Egyptian.

(Pp. 49-50)

What transpires from these matters is that when you judge a gentile for crimes that he has committed – you must also consider the question of whether he has repented, and if he has – he must not be killed… moreover: it is better that the gentile repent than that we kill him. If we come upon a gentile who does not abide by the Seven Laws [of Noah], and the importance of abiding by them can be explain to him, so he will repent – we would prefer to choose that path, and not judge an kill him.

(page 70)

It is explained in Yerushalmi [codex] that when a [child of] Israel [a Jew] is in danger of his life, as people tell him ‘kill this particular gentile or you will be killed’ – is permitted to kill the gentile to save himself… and the [interpreters of the law] Rashi and Maimonides say that the law of requiring to die rather than commit the crime is only valid in case of a Jew against another Jew, not in the case of a Jew against a stranger living among them… It is clear from these statements that when the choice is between losing the life of a stranger living among them and losing the life of a child of Israel [a Jew] – the simple decision is to permit [the killing].

(Pp. 157-158)

When the question is of a life of a gentile weighed against the life of a child of Israel [Jew], the initial proposal returns, which is that a Jew can violate  law in order to save himself, as what is at stake is the soul [life] of a Jew – which supersedes the entire Torah [code of law] - in contrast with the life of a stranger living among us, which does not permit any Torah prohibition to be superseded.

(page 162)

To save the life of a gentile, one does not violate the Sabbath rules, and it is clear from this that his life is not like the value of the life of a child of Israel, so it may be used for the purpose of saving the life of a child of Israel.

(page 167)

An enemy soldier in the corps of intelligence, logistics, and so forth aids the army that fights against us. A soldier in the enemy’s medical corps is also considered a “rodef” [villain who is actively chasing a Jew], as without the medical corps the army will be weaker., and the medical corps also encourages and strengthens the fighters, and helps them kill us.

A civilian who supports fighters is also consider Rodef, and may be killed… anyone who helps the army of the evil people in any way, strengthens the murderers and is considered to be Rodef.

(page 184)

III. Support and encouragement

A civilian who encourages the war - gives the king and the soldiers the strength to continue with it. Therefore, every citizen in the kingdom that is against us, who encourages the warriors or expresses satisfaction about their actions, is considered Rodef and his killing is permissible. Also considered Rodef is any person who weakens our kingdom by speech and so forth.

(p. 185)

We are permitted to save ourselves from the Rodef people. It is not important who we start with, as long as we kill the Rodef people, and save ourselves from the danger they pose. And see for yourself: if you say that the fact that there are many of them brings up the question of whom to start with, and that that question is supposed to delay us from saving for ourselves - why it stands to reason: the existence of any one of them postpones the salivation, and this is the reason to treat each and every one as a complete Rodef, and to kill him, so he will not cause this ‘life-threatening’ question…

Whoever is in a situation where it is clear that he will chase and danger us in the future - it is not necessary to give it fine consideration as to whether at this moment, exactly, he is actively helping the chasing [harassment?] of us.

(Pp. 186-187)

X. People who were forced to partner with the enemy

We have dealt, so far, with gentiles whose evil means that there is a reason to kill them. We will now turn to discuss those who are not interested in war and object to it with all force…

We will start with a soldier, who is party to fighting against us, but is doing so only because he has been forced by threats to take part in the war.

If he was threatened with loss of money and such things - he is completely evil. There is no permission to take part in chasing and killing due to fear of loss of money, and if he does so -he is a Rodef in every definition thereof.

And if he was threatened that if he would not participate in the war, he would be killed - according to the MAHARAL [rabbi]… just as he is permitted to kill others - so, too, can others (even gentiles)kill him, so we will not die. And for this reason, according to the MAHARAL, it is simply evident that such a soldier may be killed.

And according to the Parashat Drachim [rabbi? Or possibly book of law?] - he must not participate in the murdering even if he must give his life due to this. And if he does so [participates] - he is evil and may be killed, like any other Rodef.

We will remind, again, that this discusses all types of participation in the war: a fighter, a support soldier, civilian assistance, or various types of encouragement and support.

(P. 196)

XVI. Infants

When discussing the killing of babies and children - why on the one hand, we see them as complete innocents, as they have no knowledge, and therefore are not to be sentenced for having violated the Seven Laws, and they are not to be ascribed evil intent. But on the other side, there is great fear of their actions when they grow up… in any event, we learn that there is an opinion that it is right to hurt infants if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation the damage will be directed specifically at them.

(Pp. 205-200)

IV. Killing the enemy like killing our own men

Inside Torat Hamelech, the Jewish extremist terror tract endorsed by state-employed rabbis

by Max Blumenthal

If the king is permitted to kill his own men for the purpose of war - that same opinion also holds with regard to people who belong to the evil kingdom. In a war of righteous people against evil people, we assume that the evil will eventually hurt us all, if we let it raise its head, and the people of the evil kingdom will also suffer from it.

We are, in fact, arguing to any person from the evil kingdom: if you belong to the evil king - you are liable to be killed for helping murderers; and if you do not help him - you should help us, and it is permissible to kill you as we kill our own people (as we are all in trouble together, and in such a situation it is permissible to kill the few in order to save the many.)

This theory also permits intentional hurting of babies and of innocent people, if this is necessary for the war against the evil people. For example: If hurting the children of an evil king will put great pressure on him that would prevent him from acting in an evil manner - they can be hurt (even without the theory that it is evident that they will be evil when they grow up.)

(P. 215)

VII. Revenge

One of the needs which exists, in the hurting of [Evil people?] is the revenge. In order to beat [win the war against] the evil people, we must act with them in a manner of revenge, as tit versus tat…

In other words, revenge is a necessary need in order to turn the evil-doing into something that does not pay off, and make righteousness grow stronger; and as great as the evil is - so is the greatness of the action needed against it.

(Pp. 216-217)

Sometimes, one does evil deeds that are meant to create a correct balance of fear, and a situation in which evil actions do not pay off… and in accordance with this calculus, the infants are not killed for their evil, but due to the fact that there is a general need of everyone to take revenge on the evil people, and the infants are the ones whose killing will satisfy this need; and they can also be viewed as the ones who are set aside from among a faction, as reality has chosen them to be the ones whose killing will save all of them [the others from that faction?] and prevent evildoing later on. (And it does indeed turn out that to this consideration, the consideration that we brought forth at the end of the prior chapter also definitely is added - which is, that they are in any event suspected of being evil when they grow up.)

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‘Ex-terrorist’ Rakes in Homeland Security Bucks

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‘Ex-terrorist’ Rakes in Homeland Security Bucks

Posted on 14 July 2011 by Emperor

Walid Shoebat

Last night CNN had a “special investigation” on the fraud that is known as Walid Shoebat. It took them years to realize that he was a fraud, even after they had him on as a “terrorist expert” in the past. We wrote about Shoebat two years ago in a piece titled, Three Stooges Coming to a Campus Near You, and Walid Shoebat:”Kill them and their Children”.

CNN provided some disturbing video of Shoebat defrauding security personnel and first responders and wasting tax payer money with his lies. Hopefully it won’t be long until Robert Spencer and the rest who get paid to hate-monger to the DHS are exposed by mainstream media.


Watch Part 2 of Drew Griffin’s special investigative report about Walid Shoebat Thursday on AC360° beginning at 10pm E.T.

From Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston, CNN Special Investigations Unit

Rapid City, South Dakota (CNN) — Walid Shoebat had a blunt message for the roughly 300 South Dakota police officers and sheriff’s deputies who gathered to hear him warn about the dangers of Islamic radicalism.

Terrorism and Islam are inseparable, he tells them. All U.S. mosques should be under scrutiny.

“All Islamic organizations in America should be the No. 1 enemy. All of them,” he says.

It’s a message Shoebat is selling based on his own background as a Palestinian-American convert to conservative Christianity. Born in the West Bank, the son of an American mother, he says he was a Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorist in his youth who helped firebomb an Israeli bank in Bethlehem and spent time in an Israeli jail.

That billing helps him land speaking engagements like a May event in Rapid City — a forum put on by the state Office of Homeland Security, which paid Shoebat $5,000 for the appearance. He’s a darling on the church and university lecture circuit, with his speeches, books and video sales bringing in $500,000-plus in 2009, according to tax records.

“Being an ex-terrorist myself is to understand the mindset of a terrorist,” Shoebat told CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”

But CNN reporters in the United States, Israel and the Palestinianterritories found no evidence that would support that biography. Neither Shoebat nor his business partner provided any proof of Shoebat’s involvement in terrorism, despite repeated requests.

Back in his hometown of Beit Sahour, outside Bethlehem, relatives say they can’t understand how Shoebat could turn so roundly on his family and his faith.

“I have never heard anything about Walid being a mujahedeen or a terrorist,” said Daood Shoebat, who says he is Walid Shoebat’s fourth cousin. “He claims this for his own personal reasons.”

CNN’s Jerusalem bureau went to great lengths trying to verify Shoebat’s story. The Tel Aviv headquarters of Bank Leumi had no record of a firebombing at its now-demolished Bethlehem branch. Israeli police had no record of the bombing, and the prison where Shoebat says he was held “for a few weeks” for inciting anti-Israel demonstrations says it has no record of him being incarcerated there either.

Shoebat says he was never charged because he was a U.S. citizen.

“I was born by an American mother,” he said. “The other conspirators in the act ended up in jail. I ended up released.”

He said his own family has vouched for his prison time. But relatives CNN spoke to described him as a “regular kid” who left home at 18, eventually becoming a computer programmer in the United States.

Shoebat, now in his 50s, says he converted to Christianity in 1993 and began spreading the word about the dangers of Islam. He has been interviewed as a terrorism expert on several television programs, including a handful of appearances on CNN and its sister network, HLN, in 2006 and 2007.

Since al Qaeda’s 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, expertise on terrorism has been in high demand. The federal Department of Homeland Security has spent nearly $40 million on counterterrorism training since 2006. The department doesn’t keep track of how much goes to speakers, nor does it advise officials on the speakers hired by states and municipalities.

Shoebat spoke at a 2010 conference in South Dakota and was so well-received that he was invited back for the May event in Rapid City, according to state officials. He warned the police and first responders gathered in the hotel conference rooms that the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah had operatives working in Mexico and that drug cartels were raising money with Islamic groups. He also asserted that federal agents could have prevented the 9/11 attacks by looking for a chafed spot, called “zabibah,” that sometimes forms on the foreheads of devout Muslims.

“You need ex-terrorists who can tell you what life is like and what thinking is like of potential terrorists,” Shoebat said. “But had we looked at the zabibah only, we would have deflected a suicide action of killing 3,000 Americans.”

But Shoebat also told the group there were 17 hijackers when there were 19. And perhaps more surprising from a man who bills himself as a terror expert, Shoebat said the Transportation Security Administration could have stopped them. The TSA wasn’t created until after the 9-11 attacks.

Jim Carpenter, South Dakota’s homeland security director, said Shoebat brought “a point of view that certainly is not mainstream.”

“He brings in commentary about living and being raised as a Muslim and converting over to Christianity — gives them a different aspect of breaking the mold, so to speak,” Carpenter said. But he said Shoebat’s appearance was “a small portion” of the two-and-a-half-day conference.

“It’s not like we’re talking about setting up training and a discipline we would follow, that this is the only way and that’s the particular point of view of a Muslim or somebody of the Islamic faith. That’s not the case,” Carpenter said. “That’s his point of view.”

Carpenter said there is “no fear of threat” from Islamic terrorism in South Dakota, where the last census reports showed the state’s Muslim community made up less than one-half of 1 percent of the population. According to Rapid City’s local newspaper, about two dozen Muslims live in the city.

During Shoebat’s presentation, he criticized Muslim organizations and told audience members to be leery of Muslim doctors, engineers, students and mosques.

“Now, we aren’t saying every single mosque is potential terrorist headquarters. But if you look at certain reports by the Hudson report, 80 percent of mosques they found pamphlets and education on jihad. So they’re in the mosque, the mosque in accordance to the Muslim brotherhood is the command post and center.”

The conservative Hudson Institute said it never issued such a report and has no idea why its name was invoked.

Shoebat warned that making special accommodations for Muslim beliefs was a step toward establishing Islamic religious law. And he recounted how he wore a T-shirt that read “Profile me” on a trip to the airport and approached the screeners at the security checkpoint.

“I got tapped down, I got checked, I got all these different things,” he said. “I say it’s wonderful.”

Shoebat and business partner Keith Davies run several foundations and three websites that are all linked. Shoebat said the major group, the Forum for Middle East Understanding, includes his own Walid Shoebat Foundation.

In tax records filed by Davies, the Forum for Middle East Understanding reported 2009 earnings from speaking engagements, videos and book sales of more than $560,000. The documents are thin on specifics, and so is Shoebat.

“Basically, we are in information, and we do speaking and we do also helping Christians that are being persecuted in countries like Pakistan, and we help Christians that are suffering all throughout the Middle East,” he said. Asked how they do that, he said, “None of your business” — adding that disclosing details could endanger people he was trying to help in Islamic countries that have laws against blasphemy.

Shoebat’s name doesn’t appear on any of the paperwork. As for his own salary, he said he makes “probably what a gas station makes or a garage makes.”

“Everybody thinks I’m just raking in the dough, which is absolutely incorrect,” he said. He referred details to Davies, who offered to provide a copy of the group’s tax returns — but didn’t. When asked who served on the foundation’s board of advisers, Davies gave “Anderson Cooper 360″ the name of a former pilot, who didn’t return phone calls. But he could not name the high-ranking military officers he said were on the board.

Federal officials say they don’t know exactly how much money has gone to speakers like Shoebat. But in April, the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee raised concerns about “vitriolic diatribes” being delivered by “self-appointed counterterrorism experts” at similar seminars.

Sen. Susan Collins, the committee’s Republican chairwoman, and Connecticut Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman asked the department to account for how much federal grant money went to state and local counterterrorism programs and what standards guided those grants. The request followed reports by the liberal Political Research Associates and the Washington Monthly that raised similar questions.

The Homeland Security Department told CNN that it has standards — and if training programs don’t meet them, “corrective action will be taken.”

“We have not and will not tolerate training programs — or any DHS-supported program — that rely on racial or ethnic profiling,” the agency said in a written statement.

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Levi_Aron_Leiby_Kletzky

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Boy’s Remains Found in Refrigerator; New York Man in Custody

Posted on 14 July 2011 by Emperor

If this happened in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, rest assured the Islamophobes would be blaming Islam.

Boy’s remains found in refrigerator; New York man in custody

(LA Times)

NEW YORK—A young Brooklyn boy who vanished while walking home from a day camp in one of the safest parts of the city was killed and dismembered by a stranger who he had turned to for help after getting lost, police said Wednesday.

An intense search for the missing 8-year-old, Leiby Kletzky, ended early Wednesday morning with the gruesome discovery of pieces of his dismembered body inside the home of a man who had been seen with the child around the time he disappeared, police said.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the 35-year-old suspect, Levi Aron, made statements implicating himself in the boy’s death.

Photos: Missing boy found dead

Investigators tracked Aron with the help of surveillance video that showed him being approached by the lost boy.

When detectives arrived at the man’s home, they asked him where the boy was and he nodded toward the kitchen, Kelly said.

Detectives saw blood on the freezer door and they opened it to discover bloody knives, a cutting board and feet inside, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Additional body parts were found inside a red suitcase that had been tossed into a trash bin in another Brooklyn neighborhood.

Police and volunteers had been looking since late Monday afternoon for Leiby, who disappeared while on his way to meet his mother in the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park.

The break in the case came when investigators focused on a grainy surveillance video that showed the boy, wearing his backpack, walking down the street, while a man walked nearby.

Detectives noticed the man on the video going into a nearby dentist’s office, Browne said. The dentist, located later in New Jersey, said he remembered someone coming by to pay a bill for a patient, and police were able to identify Aron using records from the office. When they went to his home, they made the gruesome discovery.

Police said Aron lives alone in the apartment, in a building shared with his parents. He once had a summons for urinating in public but otherwise did not have a criminal record, Kelly said.

Outside the family’s apartment building Wednesday morning, men and women from the community clustered in separate groups. Many of the mothers gathered there said the streets are safe enough for a child Leiby’s age to walk home alone.

“This is a no-crime area,” said State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose district includes the area. He said the boy was the only son of the Kletzky family. The couple has four daughters, and the husband works as a driver for a private car service.

“Everybody is absolutely horrified,” he said. “Everyone is in total shock, beyond belief, beyond comprehension … to suddenly disappear and then the details … and the fact someone in the extended community … it’s awful,” he said.

He said the parents did not know Aron, who lived about a mile away from the boy.

At about 6:45 a.m., an NYPD crime unit carted away the trash bin where some of the body parts had been found and put it in a truck, and police officers walked in a line looking for evidence under cars and on sidewalks.

The medical examiner’s office will determine a cause of death and positive identification.

Leiby was one of the neighborhood’s many Hasidic Jews, an ultra-Orthodox people who live in tight-knit, somewhat insular communities and abide by strict religious rules that require men to wear dark clothing that includes a long coat and a fedora-type hat. Men often have long beards and ear locks.

Most of the 165,000 members in the New York City the area live in neighborhoods in Brooklyn and are part of three different sects. Hasidism traces its roots to 18th-century Eastern Europe.

A $100,000 reward had been offered, Hikind said the outpouring of support has been tremendous with people from all over the state volunteering their time to scour the neighborhood and hand out flyers.

Adel Erps, who lives two blocks from the family, said she was very upset because the state of the body means it will be more difficult to do a proper burial. Like other neighborhood residents congregating near the boy’s home Wednesday, she expressed shock that the suspect was Jewish.

“He’s a sick person obviously, but it hurts so much more,” she said.

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bowen_36.4_cameron

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John R. Bowen: Europeans Against Multiculturalism

Posted on 13 July 2011 by Emperor

A very extensive piece from John Bowen regarding the rightward shift of European politics and the constructed attack against “multiculturalism.”

Europeans Against Multiculturalism

John R. Bowen (Boston Review)

One of the many signs of the rightward creep of Western European politics is the recent unison of voices denouncing multiculturalism. German Chancellor Angela Merkel led off last October by claiming that multiculturalism “has failed and failed utterly.” She was echoed in February by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron. All three were late to the game, though: for years, the Dutch far right has been bashing supposedly multicultural policies.

Despite the shared rhetoric, it is difficult to discern a common target for these criticisms. Cameron aimed at an overly tolerant attitude toward extremist Islam, Merkel at the slow pace of Turkish integration, and Sarkozy at Muslims who pray in the street.

But while it is hard to know what exactly the politicians of Europe mean when they talk about multiculturalism, one thing we do know is that the issues they raise—real or imagined—have complex historical roots that have little to do with ideologies of cultural difference. Blaming multiculturalism may be politically useful because of its populist appeal, but it is also politically dangerous because it attacks “an enemy within”: Islam and Muslims. Moreover, it misreads history. An intellectual corrective may help to diminish its malign impact.

Political criticisms of multiculturalism confuse three objects. One is the changing cultural and religious landscape of Europe. Postwar France and Britain encouraged immigration of willing workers from former colonies; Germany drew on its longstanding ties with Turkey for the same purpose; somewhat later, new African and Asian immigrants, many of them Muslims, traveled throughout Western Europe to seek jobs or political refuge. As a result, one sees mosques where there once were only churches and hears Arabic and Turkish where once there were only dialects of German, Dutch, or Italian. The first object then is the social fact of cultural and religious diversity, of multicultural and multi-religious everyday life: the emergence in Western Europe of the kind of social diversity that has long been a matter of pride in the United States.

The second object—suggested by Cameron’s phrase “state multiculturalism”—concerns the policies each of these countries have used to handle new residents. By the 1970s, Western European governments realized that the new workers and their families were there to stay, so the host countries tried out a number of strategies to integrate the immigrants into the host society. Policymakers all realized that they would need to find what later came to be called “reasonable accommodations” with the needs of the new communities: for mosques and schools, job training, instruction in the host-country language. These were pragmatic efforts; they did not aim at assimilation, nor did they aim to preserve spatial or cultural separation. Some of these policies eventually were termed “multicultural” because they involved recognizing ethnic community structures or allowing the use of Arabic or Turkish in schools. But these measures were all designed to encourage integration: to bring new groups in while acknowledging the obvious facts of linguistic, social, cultural, and religious difference.

The third object that multiculturalism’s critics confuse is a set of normative theories of multiculturalism, each of which attempts to mark out a way to take account of cultural and religious diversity from a particular philosophical point of view. Although ideas of multiculturalism do shape public debates in Britain (as they do in North America), they do so much less in continental Europe, and even in Britain it would be difficult to find direct policy effects of these normative theories.

Politicians err when they claim that normative ideas of multiculturalism shape the social fact of cultural and religious diversity: such diversity would be present with or without a theory to cope with it. Nor are state policies shaped by those ideas, which tend to be recent in origin. Quite to the contrary, each European country has followed well-traveled pathways for dealing with diversity. Methods designed to accommodate sub-national religious blocs are now being adapted and applied to Muslim immigrants. Far from newfangled, misguided policies of multiculturalism, these distinct strategies represent the continuation of long-standing, nation-specific ways of recognizing and managing diversity.

• • •

Consider the case of Germany. Merkel’s claims were perhaps the least weighty, but her words point to a growing conviction among some Germans that Muslim immigrants are inassimilable. Merkel’s attack was as vague as it was opportunistic. She regretted that the German “tendency had been to say, ‘let’s adopt the multicultural concept and live happily side by side, and be happy to be living with each other’” and concluded that this attitude had not produced results, as if she had thereby identified policies that could be changed. Her real meaning was made clear by the presence of Horst Seehofer next to her on the podium. Seehofer, the Bavarian state premier and Merkel’s coalition partner, has called for curtailing immigration.

One poll showed a third of Germans believed the country was ‘overrun by foreigners.’

Merkel’s speech followed a series of anti-Muslim public statements by high-placed German officials. In June 2010 then-Bundesbank member Thilo Sarrazin published a book in which he accused Muslim immigrants of lowering the intelligence of German society. Although he was censured for his views and dismissed from his central bank position, the book proved popular, and polls suggested that Germans were sympathetic with the thrust of his arguments. One poll showed a third of Germans believed the country was “overrun by foreigners.” A few months earlier, in March, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble waded in to say that Germany had been mistaken to let in so many Turkish workers in the 1960s because they had not integrated into society.

At least the finance minister pointed to a real German policy, one that encouraged low-paid laborers to relocate to the country and rebuild it. But Merkel’s notion that the German government had promoted a multikulti society (as distinct from celebrating colorful Kreuzberg or a Turkish star on the German soccer team) ignores the brunt of German immigration policy, which, until 2000, denied citizenship to those workers, their children, and their grandchildren. In other words, the government and many, perhaps most, Germans had not hoped, as Merkel claimed, that everyone would live side by side. Rather, the hope was that “they” would just pack up and leave.

In this sense Germany has largely followed its longer-term policies for dealing with diversity: German federal and state governments have historically denied that immigration could be of value and maintained a policy of limiting citizenship only to those who could demonstrate German descent. But Germany may also follow the public-corporation model it has arranged with Christian and Jewish groups. A proposed Islamic public corporation would have the legal status to obtain government funding for mosques and would serve as a legitimate overseer of materials selected for Islamic religious education. This promising policy goal, not yet achieved, would recognize and support Islam in accordance with long-standing German principles governing religious diversity, not on grounds of multiculturalism.

• • •

In contrast to Germany, Britain has promoted multiculturalism as an explicit policy, but not in those domains where Cameron denounced it. In his February 2011 speech, Cameron blamed multiculturalism for creating spatial divisions and fomenting terrorism. “Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism,” he claimed, “we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream.” Left apart, some have submitted to extremism, he argued, and some of those extremists have in turn carried bombs in the name of Islam. His solution was three-fold: ensure that any organization asking for public money subscribes to doctrines of universal rights and encourages integration, keep extremists from reaching students and prisoners, and ensure that everyone learns English.

As a diagnosis of problems of homegrown terrorism, the speech fell short. The British bombers principally responsible for the 2005 attacks in London knew English and English people well. Mohammad Sidique Khan, believed to be the leader of the bombing plot, was recalled as a “highly Westernized” man who grew up in Leeds and attended university there. Shehzad Tanweer, another of the bombers, had a similar background. According to the official report on the bombings, both men had developed jihadist convictions in Pakistan.

If these and other homegrown terrorists have problems feeling at home in Britain, it is because they do not remain in their “separate cultures” but instead become isolated individuals without a social or cultural base. In otherwise-distinct analyses of European jihadists, French political scientist Olivier Roy and American counterterrorism expert Marc Sageman each paint a picture of young men who suffer from a lack of ties with others in their communities. Roy calls them “deterritorialized”; Sageman describes a “bunch of guys” who find themselves without opportunities at home, who are considered foreigners despite being born in Europe, and who end up traveling abroad to seek out extremists. Hardly walled off in enclaves in Bradford (or Hamburg), they are free-floating, perfect speakers of English (or German) who feel themselves rejected by the people and institutions around them.

It’s not just Muslims who cut themselves off. A large percentage of British children attend schools that admit only Catholics and Anglicans.

Cameron used his speech to argue for his “Big Society”—policies of state divestment from welfare predicated on the belief that if people have to work together to survive they will gain a stronger sense of being British. But whatever the merits of this approach to British social ills, it has little to offer individuals who already consider themselves discarded by those around them.

So Cameron got it wrong when it comes to homegrown terrorism. What did he have in mind when he spoke of “state multiculturalism”? Multicultural policies in Britain today mainly concern how state schools handle their diverse clientele: teaching cultural and religious studies curricula, offering halal meals to Muslim pupils. Behind these specific policies is the notion, generally accepted in Britain, that the cultural and religious traditions of each pupil should be positively recognized. These politics find one salient expression in a commissioned white paper by the political theorist Bhikhu Parekh, whose 2000 book, Rethinking Multiculturalism, asks: in a multicultural society, how should the state balance legitimate claims to diversity with the need to “foster a strong sense of unity and common belonging among its citizens”? This is precisely Cameron’s concern, but Parekh voices it as a justification for educational multiculturalism. Parekh argues that recognizing the traditions held by religious and ethnic communities through multicultural school curricula provides a psychologically sound basis on which to construct an inclusive national identity. (His view comes close to claims made by another political theorist, Will Kymlicka, who argues that maintaining cultural heritage is of psychosocial importance in the development of a liberal citizen.)

There is controversy in Britain about schooling and the isolation of cultural minorities, but spatial segregation of immigrant communities was a product of South Asian settlement patterns in Britain in the 1960s and ’70s, not state multiculturalism. When men (and, later, families) moved from Pakistan and Bangladesh to Britain, they brought whole lineages and villages along with them, reproducing their old linguistic and religious networks in urban British neighborhoods. The result was a chasm separating Asian and white communities, and in some cities this absence of interaction and understanding spiraled into hatred and unrest. In the spring and summer of 2001, riots pitted Asians against whites in the northern cities of Oldham, Burnley, and Bradford. Today, these cities remain highly segregated. Their schools reflect, and exacerbate, the problem. Pupils remain sorted into largely white and largely Pakistani or Bangladeshi schools. As one head teacher at a 92 percent Pakistani primary school said in a report released on the tenth anniversary of the riots, “Some of our children could live their lives without meeting someone from another culture until they go to high school or even the workplace.”

Charles Roffey / Flickr.com / CharlesFred

The combination of religion and schooling contributes to this segregation, but not in the way that Cameron’s speech suggests: it’s not just Muslims who’ve cut themselves off from the rest of society. Across Britain a large percentage of children go to schools that only admit students who regularly attend a Catholic or an Anglican church. In sharply segregated Oldham, 40 percent of secondary schools are of this type, and they draw from a largely white population. This religious divide is increasing, due to the addition to the school scene of state-supported “faith academies,” mainly Church of England and Catholic schools. Whereas in the United States government support for religiously exclusive schools would be judged as excessive entanglement of the state with religion, British ideas of public life start from the premise that religious communities are legitimate and socially important sources of citizen education, and thus deserving of state aid.

Thus, if state multiculturalism exists in 2011, it would be found in broadly accepted principles about the role of state support in promoting diverse kinds of schools. These policies can have segregating effects, but they are also current Tory policies. Cameron and his Party don’t like to bring them up in other contexts, though; they are not in the business of attacking Christian schools.

On the whole, then, it seems that accommodation of immigrants in Britain has taken the usual course for that nation. The methods applied to distinct religious groups that predate Islam on the Isles have been extended to the newest arrivals.

British ideas of public life start from the premise that religious communities are legitimate sources of citizen education.

Cameron’s policy proposals were on a wholly different topic: he paid special attention to reducing the degree of toleration afforded Islamic groups with extreme views. Here one might join with the prime minister in finding that certain Islamic groups ought to have their public activities curtailed. The most frequently cited example is the Hizb ut-Tahrir, who reject participation in British politics and urge British Muslims to prepare themselves for the coming of the Islamic state, to be created somewhere in the world in the not-too distant future. This, however, does not concern the validity of recognizing cultural diversity but rather the degree to which the state ought to allow extreme or intolerant public speech, the same issue that arose thanks to the Danish cartoons controversy and that regularly figures in laws against Holocaust denial.

• • •

Although French President Nicolas Sarkozy attacked le multiculturalisme, more often French politicians use the term “communalism” (communautarisme). This refers not to the North American philosophy of communitarianism, although that takes its lumps sometimes as well, but to everyday practices and attitudes that reject “living together” in favor of “living side by side.” Usually Britain is the negative example, though of late the French have been blaming themselves for this supposed deficiency as well.

But communalism is no more precise an object of denunciation than is multiculturalism. InLe Monde on March 16 of this year, the new Interior Minister, Claude Guéant, said that high unemployment among those who come to France from outside the European Union proves “the failure of communalisms” because those immigrants tend to clump together by culture and doing so keeps them from getting jobs. He acknowledged that people chose where to live, that the state did not put them there, but argued, “We have gone too long in letting people group together in communities.” Guéant suggests that what has been going on is a state multiculturalism of inaction without specifying how the state could break up existing communities.

A few pages later in the same issue, a columnist analyzed the American “Galleon affair,” a case of financial fraud involving financiers from India, as an instance of communalism because these men, who held degrees from Harvard and Wharton and worked at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, had common national origins. Now, these immigrants did get jobs, great ones. Apparently communalism of one sort is the key to success, albeit illicit success, while communalism of another sort explains high unemployment rates. A cynic might add that if working in small incestuous groups defines communalism, then France, with its unusually small set of industrialists serving on interlocking boards of major companies, its exclusive school system, and marriage practices designed to preserve the elite, is among the most communalist of nations.

In any case France has never undertaken state multiculturalism. Although some officials have decried the politics of the “right to a difference” that marked several years at the beginning of François Mitterrand’s presidency in the 1980s, those politics could hardly be called “multicultural.” Some instruction in “languages of origin” was provided, but this was intended to facilitate the eventual “return” of immigrants and their children. Other sources of aid provided tutoring and training, and current policies direct additional money to school districts with large numbers of pupils “in difficulty.” At the same time, the French state has provided free language classes to immigrants, assistance to groups seeking to build mosques, and practical accommodations to allow the preparation of halal meat in abattoirs. State support for and control of religious groups is, despite the rhetoric of strict state-religion separation, a long-term feature of French policy. More than a century after France’s 1905 law of church-state separation, the state pays for the upkeep of older religious buildings, gives tax breaks to religious groups, and hires teachers for private religious schools (most of them Catholic).

• • •

Blaming multiculturalism for social ills is a Dutch national sport. Yet, as the University of Amsterdam sociologist Jan Willem Duyvendak has written, the Netherlands has never pursued state multiculturalism or the preservation of minority cultures. Instead it has pursued two sets of policies, one aimed at maintaining the long-standing commitment to the political peace, the other at achieving the integration of minorities.

The long-standing Dutch preference for compromise is embodied in the polder model—a reference to working together to build dykes, a bit like Tocqueville’s American “barn-raising.” Historically this meant that people were loath to criticize unassimilated immigrants. Dutch cultural practices thereby favored the unofficial continuation of a multicultural social reality, where people were free to continue to speak their own languages, worship in their own ways, and so forth. This kind of “live and let live” social habit was the Dutch solution to religious conflicts during a period of relatively intense religious belief and practice in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It gave rise to a quasi-official model of “pillars”: religious networks and institutions within which each Dutch man or woman was presumed to remain.

For the Dutch right, attacking Islam is a psychologically useful way of reworking their own heritage.

This social conception of keeping the religious and political peace by separating people according to religion subtended policies of creating and financing religious schools. Although the pillar structure had come apart before major Muslim immigration was underway in the 1970s and ’80s, a psychological residue persisted, dictating that each religious group should ignore the particularities of the other. Far from accepting or recognizing the other’s validity, this attitude promoted bare tolerance, civic acceptance of the right to the existence of Catholics, Protestants, and for that matter, gays and pot-smokers. Condemnation was constrained to the home or the pulpit. So while Dutch policies and norms favored a diverse society, they took no part of what is today thought of as multiculturalism, with its efforts to reach beyond toleration toward appreciation.

At the same time, governments developed a series of policies aimed at promoting the advancement of minorities through provision of schoolteachers who spoke their languages (principally Arabic and Turkish), construction of local councils that would advise the government on how best to foster integration, and special funding to provide additional tutoring and support at schools heavily attended by the children of immigrants. By the end of the twentieth century these policies had been changed to focus more on skills training and teaching in Dutch, but the goal of state policy continued to be, as it had always been, that of promoting integration. In the Netherlands, as in France, financial aid was targeted to schools with many poor students, who happened to descend from recent immigrants.

The attack on these policies and attitudes has focused on values attributed to Muslims or to Islamic doctrine. In 1991 parliamentary opposition leader Frits Bolkestein criticized the government for failing to defend Western values of free speech and equality against Islamic views. He used the case of Islam to launch a broader attack against the political elite and their way of papering over differences (the polder model) rather than standing up for Enlightenment values against the Islam of the Ayatollahs. A rising class of populist politicians seconded this critique, among them the right-wing and openly gay Pim Fortuyn—killed in 2002 by an activist concerned about scapegoating Muslims—and the anti-Islam campaigners Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders. Their attacks on Islam were also political appeals against the elites in order to curry favor with the forgotten working classes. Polder politics, elite domination, and Islam were the common enemy, and the refusal of the leading classes to denounce non-Dutch and anti-Enlightenment Islamic values was the major evidence that things had gone wrong. As in France this admonition has been heard on the left and the right, from Social Democrats as well as from Wilders’s far-right Party for Freedom. It reflects a cultural nationalism that can appeal to the old-style populism of the right or to the universalism of the left.

In life and in death, Fortuyn focused the attack on multiculturalism even more narrowly as an attack on Islamic intolerance of sexual diversity, and in particular, of gay lifestyles. Fortuyn personified a secularist, sexually open, and “tolerant” Dutch identity, against which Islam and Muslims could easily be targeted as the pre-Enlightenment other. In no other country has the issue of tolerating gays become so central and so salient a part of the critique of Islam. This line of attack was powerful because it also was a critique of older Dutch ways of doing politics and thinking about sexuality. Throughout most of the twentieth century, most Dutch people held religious views about homosexuality and women’s rights that were not too different from those now ascribed to Muslims by their opponents. Attacking Islam was thus also a psychologically useful way of reworking one’s own heritage.

Ironically, the current focus on Islam per se—Wilders compared the Qur’an to Mein Kampfand seeks to have it banned in the Netherlands—has distracted the far right from policies about minority achievement and language learning. The focus now is on the acceptability in the Enlightenment West of the pre-Enlightenment Muslim. And yet the right continues to attack Dutch multiculturalism because it remains rhetorically useful to link the cultural critique of religion to a populist critique of past elites.

• • •

Blaming multiculturalism, then, is useful because it is both vague and misdirected. It would be much harder for Cameron to acknowledge that British racism, immigration trajectories, foreign policy, and faith-based schools have made major contributions toward minority isolation than it is to say: we got it wrong, now let’s get it right, let’s all be British. Islam provides a soft target for aspiring cultural nationalists. It is easier for Sarkozy and Marine Le Pen of the right-wing French National Front to decry Muslims praying in the street than it is to make room for adequate mosques. And across Europe, it is easier to point to the irresponsible statement of a foreign imam and say that Islam is the problem than to figure out how Muslims, like practicing Catholics and Jews before them, might best construct the cultural and religious institutions they need to be at ease in their new (and not so new) countries.

One can, and should, refute these misdiagnoses and at the same time give due credit to policies promoting integration within each of these societies. Speaking the language of the country and gaining job skills are the keys to becoming a productive citizen. France made free French courses part of its “integration contract” in 2003; with its 2005 Immigration Act, Germany began providing free German lessons to people granted work visas. When most Islamic religious officials are recent immigrants, it makes good sense to offer them instruction in the language, law, and politics of their new country of residence. These are policies of integration rather than assimilation; they are perfectly consistent with the promotion of equal respect for all religions and cultures.

Blaming multiculturalism ties the package together: it discredits a foreign element—Islam—and it identifies the fifth column that let it in, those past proponents of multiculturalism. That it misreads history is beside the point. It makes for effective, albeit irresponsible, populist politics.

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American Jew refused entry to Israel on suspicion of converting to Islam

Posted on 13 July 2011 by Amago

Fuller-Bennet. Now allowed in the country after a lengthy battle.

What if they were Muslim?

American Jew refused entry to Israel on suspicion of converting to Islam

By Amira Hass

Two years after participating in a Taglit-Birthright tour, Harald Fuller-Bennett was denied entry into Israel. The Shin Bet claimed he had links to terrorists and suspected him of no longer being Jewish.


With regard to a young American Jew named Harald Fuller-Bennett, the Taglit-Birthright project to some extent achieved its goal. The project brings young Jews from around the world for a trip in Israel “in order to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants’ personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people,” to quote its own words. And indeed, about two years after coming on a Taglit-Birthright tour, Fuller-Bennett intended to visit Israel again.

But this time, the people working to diminish the distance between him and Israel were two Tel Aviv lawyers, Omer Shatz and Iftach Cohen, and Jerusalem District Court Judge Yoram Noam. Together, they overturned a bizarre attempt by the Shin Bet security service to accuse him of having connections with terrorists and intending to convert to Islam – for which reasons it barred him from entering Israel for 10 years.

Fuller-Bennett is now 30 years old. On his Taglit-Birthright tour in January 2008, he said, “I gained a lot of sympathy for Israelis and for the multitude of challenges they face (and the many mistakes the government is currently making in facing them ). We had a number of engaging Israeli military members on our bus. I am still Facebook friends with some of them. My conversations with them taught me much about the complexity of modern Israel, and the difficulty of being born into a state with a siege mentality.”

Fuller-Bennett joined a group within the Taglit program called “Peace, Pluralism and Social Justice.” He is not certain that this subgroup of Taglit is still active, but the fact of its existence shows the organizers recognized that there are young Jews whose interest in Israel has not eliminated their capacity for criticism. “We had questions about Israel but wanted to see for ourselves,” Fuller-Bennett said.

But it was not his participation in Taglit’s “most lefty, peacenik” group, as Fuller-Bennett defines it, that made the Shin Bet decide this employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture was dangerous.

‘Suspicious conduct’

That happened on May 2, 2010, when he and his girlfriend (now his fiancee ) landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport for a week-long visit to Israel. This would have been his third visit to the country. But to their astonishment, after his passport was stamped for entry, he was taken aside, interrogated and put on a plane back to the United States. The fresh stamp was crossed out with two diagonal lines and the additional stamp: “Denied Entry.”

“About a week after I was denied entry, Noam Chomsky and a Spanish clown were denied,” he recalled.

The Shin Bet investigator asked him where they intended to go. “To Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and perhaps Bethlehem,” where a friend of his girlfriend lives, he answered. Afterward the state would claim, in response to the suit filed by Shatz and Cohen, that Fuller-Bennett had been “briefed to conceal his intention to enter Judea and Samaria,” and that “his conduct during the questioning at Ben-Gurion Airport aroused the questioners’ suspicion.”

Indeed, as Fuller-Bennet wrote me by email from his home in the U.S., “I was quite nervous during the investigation, especially when the investigator became accusatory and suspicious because of my travel to Syria and Sudan. I had never been interrogated in such a manner before, and I am a naturally easygoing person not accustomed to, nor expecting, such treatment. I’m sure I acted oddly as a result.”

When he realized he was being denied entry, he wrote, “I felt like shit. I felt like an idiot for being naive and not getting a ‘clean’ passport, and for being nervous during my interrogation despite the fact that I had absolutely zero intention of doing anything remotely activist-like in Israel other than possibly going to Bethlehem (which I hear many foreign Christians do every year ).”

A few months after he was sent back to the U.S., he contacted attorneys Shatz and Cohen. In October 2010, they asked the Interior Ministry to explain the deportation and inform them whether a denial of entry order had been issued, and if so, for how long, so that they could request its cancelation.

Having received no reply, the lawyers wrote again in January 2011, this time warning they would go to court if they did not receive an answer. The answer was: “Your client’s entry into Israel was denied by the security authorities because he is suspected of links to hostile terrorist elements.”

The petition to the Jerusalem District Court, in its capacity as a court of administrative affairs, was filed in March 2011. The state’s response, filed on June 29, 2011 by Deputy Jerusalem District Attorney Moran Braun, asked the court to reject the petition. To defend the Shin Bet’s decision to deny Fuller-Bennett entry, Braun wrote: “Information was received about anti-Israel protest activity in which the plaintiff took part; moreover, the possibility arose that the plaintiff had converted to Islam.”

But at the hearing on June 3, Braun said the claim that Fuller-Bennett had ties to terrorists was “mistaken.” And while there had been concern that he might have converted to Islam, “Today we have presented our position and we are not insisting on this.” In short, he added, the ban on Fuller-Bennett entering Israel had been canceled.

The lawyers therefore agreed to withdraw the petition. Judge Noam ordered the state to pay Fuller-Bennett’s court costs, because the Interior Ministry rescinded its entry ban only after the petition. And Fuller-Bennett would like to make it clear he is in fact an atheist.

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Richard Dawkins: Trying to Use Muslim Women as Foot Soldiers in his Crusade against Religion

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Richard Dawkins: Trying to Use Muslim Women as Foot Soldiers in his Crusade against Religion

Posted on 13 July 2011 by Garibaldi

Richard Dawkins has been an “asshat” for quite a while now. His anti-Muslim, sexist, xenophobic statements have been exposed on our site before.

Below, Fatemeh Fakhraie dissects his most recent inane and despicable comments.

Obligatory Richard Dawkins Post

by Fatemeh Fakhraie (Muslimah Media Watch)

So Richard Dawkins is an asshat. Anyone surprised?

Here’s the comment he left on a thread that discussed sexism:

Dear Muslima

Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.

Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so . . .

And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.

Richard

And here’s a brief roundup of what people are saying about it.

The Atlantic Wire:

Several comments, including Watson’s own, hit on exactly what the fight’s about. Dawkins has every right to dismiss Watson’s story and to argue that she was not in a high risk situation. But his attempt to prove how insignificant Watson’s story was by comparing it with the much worse scenario of a Muslim woman’s daily life hurts his argument. The fact that something worse is going on somewhere else does not diminish whatever may be happening here. Also, as Watson points out, Dawkins is admired widely for work criticizing creationism and denouncing the use of religion as an excuse for repressing women in particular. To defend only some women from misogyny and not all, she and others argue, is hypocrtical. (sic)

Shakesville:

Again, he implies that “Muslim women” and “American women” are mutually exclusive groups; again, he implies that American women do not “suffer physically from misogyny,” nor are their lives “substantially damaged by religiously inspired misogyny.”

What Tami Said:

High-profile and influential men, like Dawkins, who use their status to minimize sexism in the West, deny the lived experiences of women, and advance the stupid thinking that all Western women are both white and privileged, poison a well already rank with gender bias. Men like Dawkins who sneer at Western misogyny make Western women’s lives more difficult, including women like Watson who are atheists. So, why should Watson and other women continue to hand Dawkins their money and support, and prop up his influence, when he thinks they’re all a bunch of whiny bitches who should be satisfied getting sexually harassed because somewhere (in those bad, brown, Muslim countries) a woman has it worse?

Lots of people have said lots of things about this, rightfully calling out Dawkins’ male privilege and pointing out that the “there are bigger problems” argument is derailing and silencing.

But very few of these posts have touched on Dawkins’ use of Muslim women specifically. And that’s where we come in.

Richard Dawkins is an atheist, and as an atheist, he believes that organized religion is harmful for women. There are plenty of religious and non-religious thinkers who can level-headedly make the case that organized religions use rooted patriarchal norms to oppress women and often works against their own ideals, but Dawkins is not one of those people. Dawkins uses the stereotype of the oppressed Muslim woman and gives little regard to how his politicized views are received by Muslim women.

So no one should be surprised at his comment above.

But that’s doesn’t make it okay. Dawkins’ comment trades in stereotypes about Muslim women “over there.” Does female genital mutilation happen? Yes. Are women not allowed to drive cars in Saudi Arabia? Yes. Is stoning a thing? Yes. But is Dawkins’ use of these acceptable? No.

It’s unacceptable for Dawkins to make sweeping statements like this because he attaches loaded terms like “female genital mutilation” and “stoning” to a huge, worldwide term like “Muslim women,” and attaches these things to Islam itself, ignoring outside cultural, economic, and social influences. Making blanket statements about FGM and stoning and driving attaches these to all of us, and contributes to the Oppressed Muslim Women stereotype. And you know what that stereotype has done to help us? Nothing.

It’s also just as silencing to female Muslim activists “over there” who are dealing with these issues, and other important ones, such as campaigning for the right to vote, pass their citizenship to their children, or keep custody of their children after divorce. Dawkins is injecting Muslim women “over there” into an issue that concerns us as well (sexual harassment and sexism in belief systems), but uses us to derail this issue.

And what is Dawkins doing to actually help the Muslim women he claims are “mutilated with a razor blade[s],” and “not allowed to drive a car,” and “stoned to death”?

NOT A DAMN THING.

So kindly shut the f**k up, Richard Dawkins, and stop using us as foot soldiers in your crusade against organized religion. We’ll be fine without you.

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Robert Spencer Grasps at Any Crack Pot “mythistory”: Links Hajj Origins to Hinduism

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Robert Spencer Grasps at Any Crack Pot “mythistory”: Links Hajj Origins to Hinduism

Posted on 13 July 2011 by Greeneye

Robert Spencer cites crackpot mythistorian on Hajj

Robert Spencer is failing to convince America that Islam itself is a threat to national security. Americans are waking up to the fact that the universal values that bring Americans and Muslims together are far more numerous than our differences. But Spencer has spent the last several years trying to “prove” that Muhammad, Prophet of Islam, was a war-monger, a fanatic, a woman-hater, a pervert, (insert evil cliché here), etc. For example, one of his top books is, “Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion.” All of his arguments are predicated on the fact that Muhammad existed in order to found Islam. Jihadist terror didn’t come from nowhere, right?

Well, these arguments just won’t cut it anymore. People can only be fooled for so long by a handful of cherry-picked verses and facts. Perhaps Islam does have something in common with Judaism and Christianity, Spencer’s readers might think. These are dangerous thoughts in Spencer’s profession. So he has moved on to a new strategy: Muhammad didn’t exist. Islam is, in fact, an extension of Hinduism. How did he reach such a conclusion and for what purpose?

Spencer receives an e-mail from the mysterious “Arnaud” allegedly an “Islamic scholar who writes from Switzerland” with a strange theory about how Hajj (pilgrimage) and Salat (ritual prayer) are actually Hindu in origin. He posts the article, the purpose of which is to “debunk” the two pillars of Islam:

Islam is like a special table that needs 5 legs (so-called “5 pillars”). Displace two of them and the table would fall, wouldn’t it?

At some point Spencer must have realized that it was simply the junk history of “mythistorian” and “crack pot” Purushottam Nagesh Oak. The article is riddled with so many factual errors that Spencer takes the post down. He must have thought that anything with a negative angle on Islam deserves the benefit of the doubt. Post first; ask questions later.

Yet Spencer depends upon his audience perceiving him as an authoritative “Islamic scholar.” He has to maintain some pro forma standards of objectivity. Damage control is needed. So he rewrites the article, taking out the most egregious misinformation (just enough to appear somewhat scholarly), crediting an unnamed “European researcher” (not Arnaud), and publishes it on Pam Geller’s site as a part of his new-found effort to prove that Muhammad never existed.

What does this little sidetrack into mythistory have to do with Jihad and “Islamic” terrorism, the focus of Spencer’s work? Nothing at all, which plainly demonstrates what we’ve been saying all along. Spencer is an intolerant fundamentalist, a religious polemicist, NOT an expert on security or terrorism. He cares about sustaining his career on the back of Islamophobic prejudice, even if that means drawing upon every crackpot theory he receives from fellow internet goons. No need for his allegations and theories to be logical or internally consistent, so long as the target is Islam. The ends justify the means.

Honestly, this is quite bizarre coming from Spencer, a man who has sold himself for so long as the “politically-incorrect” Islamic scholar willing to speak hard truths about the “intolerant” Muhammad, the prophetic figure allegedly at the heart of Jihadist terrorism. Now it seems he’s willing to completely change his tactics and develop other theories to attack Islam. Whatever Spencer ultimately believes about the nature of Islam, it must be profoundly negative and foreign. He sees no “universal moral values” in Islam that Muslims can share with other religions (see Politically Incorrect, Ch. 6).

Yesterday, Muhammad was a fire-breathing infidel-slayer. Today, he is a Hindu myth gone wrong. Tomorrow, I imagine he’ll be something else, perhaps the first Nazi. Wait, that’s been done. Oh well. If the old stuff doesn’t work anymore, you’ll think of something new, right Bob?

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Islamophobia_Hitchens

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High Priests of Islamophobia

Posted on 12 July 2011 by Emperor

Islamophobia comes to the fore in the poorly written articles of Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis.

High priests of Islamophobia

by Tanvir Ahmed Khan (Gulf News)

All across the world of Islam, we find responsible thinkers, analysts and creative writers engaged in deep introspection on how their societies became vulnerable to religious extremism and how this issue became a casus belli for the West.

Some of the affluent Arab states invest considerable sums of money in the promotion of inter-faith harmony and understanding. Many intellectuals from the West respond positively and help place issues in a constructive perspective.

Unfortunately, the dominant trend in the West continues to be the exploitation of terrorism to demonise Islam. This becomes particularly noticeable when writers of repute give up all pretence to objectivity and weigh in on the side of low order propagandists against the Muslim world.

Christopher Hitchens is a famous British writer who migrated to the United States some 20 years ago. In due course he abandoned his leftist past and became an ardent neo-conservative.

He also claimed a Jewish lineage on facts that his own brother considers rather exaggerated. In internal debates on both sides of the Atlantic, he fiercely supported the invasion of Iraq. In the latest issue of Vanity Fair he returns to Pakistan, a country that arouses visceral hatred in him and lambasts it in a language that does not fight shy of using four-lettered words.

The occasion is the hunting down of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. The very opening of his polemic, however, shows that he wants to use the incident to attack the Pakistani society from every conceivable angle. So blatant and biased is the denunciation of Pakistan that the best refutation so far has come from Christine Fair, a regional specialist who teaches at Georgetown University.

Hitchens employs his old trick of seizing on some isolated feature of a Muslim society and dresses it up as its dominant trait. The opening gambit comes from the well-known fact that Islam has not been entirely successful in uprooting some old tribal customs, usually in remote areas. Pakistan still faces the evil phenomenon of honour-killing that raises its head in some communities from time to time.

In the opening paragraph of a very poorly researched article that Vanity Fair thought it fit to publish, Hitchens first finds that much of Pakistan has been Talibanised and then goes on to make the extraordinary observation that Pakistan ‘is a society where rape is not a crime’. “It is”, he declares ” a punishment” to which women can be sentenced by tribal and kangaroo courts.

He then quickly moves on to savage President Asif Ali Zardari as the man who “cringes daily in front of the forces who openly murdered his wife, Benazir Bhutto” ; a man ‘lacking in pride’ and indeed ‘lacking in manliness’. As he ridicules the very concept of sovereignty of Pakistan, very few Pakistani readers would doubt that the writer is a typical American Zionist-neoconservative who cannot bear the thought of a Muslim state equipped with nuclear weapons in violation of the ‘law’ that only Israel in this region has the right to possess them.

Hitchens’ ludicrous claim that much of Pakistan has been Talibanised is a reminder that most polemics against Islam and Muslim societies rely on such sweeping generalisations.

Qutb’s impact

In October 2006, Hitchens’ closest friend, the distinguished British novelist, Martin Amis, published a long essay on extreme Islamism in London’s Sunday Observer. He based his lengthy thesis on the premises that liberal Islam has already been defeated and supplanted by violent Islamism.

For evidence he relied heavily on a critique of the impact of Sayyid Qutb. In his native Egypt as, indeed, in most Muslim countries his philosophy and political activism continue to generate controversy. This dialectical debate about his work is an essential part of intra-Islamic disputations. Amis completely ignored this fact and presented him as the triumphant influence on Muslims.

As a critique of Qutb’s ideas the essay was a non-starter. Having made a most perfunctory reference to this aspect of Qutb, he went on to ridicule him almost entirely in terms of his presumed frustrations in dealing with liberated western women during his travels and study in Europe and North America. The idea was to locate the true provenance of Qutb’s struggle against western imperialism in his discomfort in dealing with western women.

Some time back, a thoughtful article by Michael Vlahos in the American Conservative discussed in detail how the ‘great Muslim War’ replaced the story of globalisation and how American insistence on ‘you are either with us or against us’ is now promoting counter-movements all over the globe. Hitchens and Amis wilfully ignore the context — centuries of western colonialism and the revived quest for western hegemony at the turn of the century — because their basic purpose is to support war as an instrument of restoring dominance.

By trying to show all Muslims as potential Al Qaida followers they sell their militarism to the anti-war majorities in the West. It is unfortunate to see the broad humanism of distinguished writers who should claim a universal audience being made available to the neo-imperialists of our times.

The writer is a former ambassador and foreign secretary of Pakistan. Till recently, he worked as the Chairman of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad.

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07/07/11 – EDL March in Cambridge city centre .

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Slideshows & video: English Defence League march ends after failed bid to target mosque

Posted on 11 July 2011 by Emperor

The cracks are starting to appear in the hate facade of the transatlantic “counter-jihad.” Another unsuccessful march for the EDL.

Slideshows & video: English Defence League march ends after failed bid to target mosque

Raymond Brown (Cambridge-news)

Members of the English Defence League (EDL) made a failed bid to target a Cambridge mosque after they marched through the city.

>> Click here to read our live updates on how the day unfolded.

The incident came after a relatively peaceful march by the EDL through the city centre Saturday in which scuffles with police broke out along with bottle-throwing.

Officers threw up a cordon around the mosque in Mawson Road and managed to quell the troublemakers. A man was arrested but was allowed to go free after he calmed down.

Police have been heaped with praise for how they handled the two marches on one of the city’s busiest days due to the Big Weekend celebrations on Parker’s Piece.

Officers quelled some of the flashpoints sparked as around 200 EDL marchers were taunted by a small number of counter-protesters from an earlier 1,500 strong demonstration by Unite Against Fascism.

But members of the EDL, who arrived in coaches from across the country to Queens’ Green, also began fighting amongst themselves.

After the march, members of the group attempted to reach the mosque in Mawson Road, off Mill Road.

But they were stopped by dozens of police officers who then threw up a wall of steel to protect the scores of Muslims and their supporters

And at around 3pm, Muslims manning a community stall in Sidney Street were attacked by a group who picked up copies of Korans from the stall and hurled them at the victims – one of whom had his spectacles broken.

More than 650 officers and staff from six forces, including Cambridgeshire, have been praised for handling the relatively peaceful protests.

A total of seven people, all men, have been arrested.

Amjed Sheikh, a Muslim leader, said: “The police have done a great job today. We are a peaceful people and we came to live in Cambridge because the people here accept us no matter what people from the outside who have come here today say.”

Richard Howitt MEP, who was a keynote speaker at the start of the counter-protest, praised police and described the emotional scenes in Mill Road when more than 1,000 anti-EDL protesters marched along the street.

He said: “I would say that many of the counter-protesters stayed around Petersfield thinking to protect the mosque but when all is said and done it was really the police who did a fantastic job throughout the day.

“As we all walked along Mill Road, shopkeepers were all standing outside their shops handing out samosas and drinks. I had a tear in my eye.”

Insp Robin Sissons said: “Cambridge residents are familiar with and generally supportive of protest activity and this was evident on Saturday.

“Their tolerance combined with the joint operation by police and partner agencies meant the protests were largely peaceful with only minor disorder and some minor disruption to residents, visitors and businesses in the city.

“The well-established community and partnership-based relationships were also particularly beneficial in planning for, and during, the operation.

“It was heartening to hear that members of the community who reported tension before the protests, then praised the tone and nature of the policing operation after it was complete.”

Arrest details:

A 36-year-old man from Norwich arrested for being drunk and disorderly was released with no further action taken.

A 48-year-old man from Colchester has been charged with a public order offence and assaulting a police officer and has been given conditional bail to appear at Huntingdon Magistrates’ Court on Thursday (July 14).

A 27-year-old man from Ely arrested on suspicion of a public order offence was released with no further action taken against him.

An 18-year-old man from Peterborough was charged with a public order offence and was given conditional bail to appear before Huntingdon Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.

A 51-year-old man from Luton has been charged with a public order offence and is due to appear at Cambridge Magistrates’ Court on July 25.

A 30-year-old man from Gillingham, Kent, arrested on suspicion of a public order offence and was issued with a fixed penalty notice and released.

A 28-year-old man from Cambridge has been charged with a public order offence and is due to appear at Huntingdon Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.

Forces assisting with the operation were Warwickshire Constabulary, Essex Police, Ministry of Defence, City of London Police, Suffolk Constabulary and Leicestershire Constabulary.

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skilled German Muslim struggle for a job

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One Third of Germans Prefer a “Germany without Islam”

Posted on 11 July 2011 by Emperor

(via. Europeans Against Islamopohobia)

One Third of Germans Prefer a “Germany without Islam”

CAIRO – Well-qualified, ambitious and skilled Germen Muslims are complaining of growing discrimination against them in the job market, especially veiled women, who are taking the full brunt for their dress.

“Society is not open enough to let us work,” Erika Theissen, managing director of the Muslim Women’s Center for Encounters and Further Education (BFmF) in Cologne, told Deutsche Welle on Sunday, July 10.

Converting to Islam in the 1980s, she dons a carefully matched pastel blue headscarf to the rest of her outfit.

Noticing the changing work atmosphere in Germany, accompanied by exclusion of many Muslim women from work, Theissen established her BFmF center which employs over 50 Muslim women, some of them highly qualified.

In Dusseldorf, the North Rhine-Westphalian capital, she currently organizes a conference gathering about 80 people including scientists, politicians, activists and Muslim social workers to discuss discrimination against Muslim women in the workplace.

“People think the Muslim community doesn’t want Muslim women to work. But most Muslim women are not discriminated against by the Muslim community, but by society,” she added.

Theissen is not the only Muslim to face job market discrimination.

Collecting about 30 rejection letters, Ismahen Dabbach is a best example on the growing job discrimination in Germany.

“My name is Ismahen Dabbach, I am 26 years old, I was born in Germany and I am a trained office clerk. I am very flexible, independent and open to everything that carries me further forward in life,” the ambitious young woman used to say during job interviews. Yet, rejection was also the expected reply.

Dabbach, whose parents are Tunisians, feels that since she decided to wear hijab four months ago, her search for a job has become extremely difficult.

“They put you on a waiting list, then they invite you and tell you that they will call you, but after three days you get a rejection letter,” Dabbach asks.

“So you start asking yourself: did I make a mistake or is it the company’s fault?”

Germany has between 3.8 and 4.3 million Muslims, making up some 5 percent of the total 82 million population, according to government-commissioned studies.

Stereotyping

Social analysts agree that German Muslim, especially veiled women, have hardly any chance of getting a job.

Such a trend, according to Mario Peucker, a social scientist at the University of Melbourne, is apparent in medium-sized German companies which show clear anti-Muslim tendencies.

“Even if they don’t have personal resentments, they may think that their customers or their staff might have a negative image of Muslims and this becomes their reason for not employing Muslim men or women,” he says.

Germans have grown hostile to the Muslim presence recently, with a heated debate on the Muslim immigration into the country.

A recent poll by the Munster University found that Germans view Muslims more negatively than their European neighbors.

Germany’s daily Der Spiegel had warned last August that the country is becoming intolerant towards its Muslim minority.

According to a 2010 nationwide poll by the research institute Infratest-dimap, more than one third of the respondents would prefer “a Germany without Islam.”

Denouncing the growing prejudice, which a 2006 anti-discrimination law could not end, Peucker called for offering employers anonymous applications so they would not see a name or photo on the applicant’s resume.

But Erika Theissen thinks it’s not enough.

“I think the government must be a role model for those people who have the possibility to give jobs and then I hope, other people will think: ok, I can take a woman with a headscarf, it will not cause a big problem for my business,” she said.

Living the current tragedy, Dabbach only dreams of a normal eight-hour job in her home country Germany.

“I want to have a normal eight-hour-job, from eight to five, five days a week, where I can wear my headscarf, like an ordinary citizen,” she says.

To turn the dream into a reality, she started searching the internet for jobs offered by Muslim companies. She got a job outside Germany after only three days of search.

For this job, Dabbach, who lives in the western German town of Gütersloh, would move outside Germany.

“What should I do now?” Dabbach asked helplessly.

“I am at home in Germany, my family and friends are here. Should I just leave them? I am really torn.”

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bilde

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Anti-Islam group finds fertile ground in Nashville

Posted on 10 July 2011 by Emperor

Surprise, surprise, ACT for America or as they are better known ACT for Hate’s largest chapter is in Nashville. Bob Smietana does a good job reporting on them in the article below.

Anti-Islam group finds fertile ground in Nashville

by Bob Smietana

ACT! for America sums up its mission in four words: “They must be stopped.”

The “they” in question are Muslims, who ACT! for America’s leaders insist are involved in a stealthy jihad to destroy the United States from the inside out, replacing the Constitution with the Islamic legal code known as Shariah.

The Virginia Beach, Va.-based national nonprofit claims 150,000 members and spreads its message through books, websites, radio ads, cable television and the work of local chapters.

It has become a potent political force in Nashville, home to the largest ACT chapter in the nation. Local members have opposed new mosques and lobbied for laws limiting Islamic influence — including a new state anti-terrorism law that originally referenced Shariah law.

Their message appeals to Bible Belt Christians, who fear that Islam and secularization threaten their way of life, and Jewish and Christian supporters of Israel, who see Muslims as the enemy of that nation. Members point to the 2009 case of Carlos Bledsoe, a Muslim convert and former Tennessee State University student who confessed to murdering an Army recruiter in Little Rock.

Critics say ACT distorts the nature of Islam and labels law-abiding Muslims as terrorists. Local Muslims say they will stand up for their rights to religious freedom.

“We are not afraid of this ACT group,” said Rashed Fakhruddin, a member of the Islamic Center of Nashville. “But we are concerned about the climate of fear they are trying to create.”

ACT has nine chapters in Tennessee: Middle Tennessee — based in Nashville — Cleveland, Hermitage, Jackson, Lebanon, Knoxville, Memphis, Morristown and Niota. Charles Jacobs, president of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, a Boston-based anti-Islam group, said he’s not surprised that ACT has caught on in Middle Tennessee.

“The extent to which ACT has been successful in Nashville reflects its strong leadership nationally and locally and the frustration of many citizens with the failure of Nashville’s civic leadership and the media to deal with this threat,” he wrote in an email.

Anti-Islam groups fight for new laws

Daniel Bregman, a Nashville eye surgeon, leads the Middle Tennessee chapter. Bregman’s wife, Joanne, an attorney, has been one of the group’s chief lobbyists at the state Capitol.

Bregman turned down several requests for an interview. He appeared in a promotional video produced by the charity’s national office for its recent annual conference, held in Washington, D.C. The video states that Nashville has the largest chapter in the country, although the group won’t reveal its membership numbers.

“There are a couple reasons why a large chapter is good,” he said on the video. “The larger you are, the more power you have.”

The video includes images of the couple, as well as images of the outside of the Islamic Center of Nashville. Bregman repeats the claim that Muslims in the U.S. want to impose Shariah law in the place of the U.S. Constitution and are threatening non-Muslims.

“The imposition of Shariah law, which is the objective of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists in this country, is that I become a second-class citizen,” he said. “If I don’t get killed first.”

ACT members see themselves as warriors in a clash between Western civilization and Islam. That belief is reinforced at local chapter meetings, which feature speakers from other national anti-Islam groups.

They include Frank Gaffney of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy and a star witness for opponents of the new Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. He has argued on ACT! for America’s cable show that Muslims should be arrested and tried as traitors if they follow any part of Shariah law.

He spoke at a March 15 ACT meeting held at New Hope Community Church in Brentwood, and a recording of his speech recently was posted online.

“Frankly, I feel I am in the presence of a lot of heroes,” he told audience members. “Folks like you are, in the end, what’s going to make a difference between victory and defeat in what I think of as the war for the free world.”

That message appeals to ACT supporters such as J. Lee Douglas, a Brentwood dentist.

Douglas said he usually takes a live-and-let-live approach when it comes to religion. But he doesn’t believe Islam shows the same respect to other faiths.

“I think with Islam, there is an effort to not just leave people alone,” he said. “There is a compulsion to force people to join that faith.”

Defenders called apologists, ignorant

Douglas was one of 100 or so people in attendance at a workshop Tuesday night — also at New Hope Community Church — sponsored by the local chapter of ACT! for America.

The session was titled “Persuading the Near Enemy.” According to the workshop leader, Bill French, a near enemy is anyone who thinks Islam has good points.

“The near enemy is the apologist for Islam, who, I have found, doesn’t know anything about Islam,” French told the group.

French is a former Tennessee State University physics professor who writes under the pseudonym Bill Warner and runs the Center for the Study of Political Islam. He has no formal training in Islamic studies and doesn’t speak Arabic.

He recently was listed as a member of “The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle” by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Reportmagazine, along with Gaffney, ACT founder Brigitte Gabriel and David Yerushalmi, a Phoenix attorney who drafted Tennessee’s anti-Shariah bill.

That law passed after all references to Shariah and Islam were removed. The final version made giving assistance to a terrorist group a class A felony.

Shariah law’s meaning debated

French’s books, with titles such as Shariah Law for Non Muslims, and talks are based on counting verses in the Quran and other Islamic texts. He says that more verses in those texts are about politics and violence than religion.

Therefore, he argues, Islam isn’t only religion. Instead, he sees it as a political system bent on world domination, disguised with a thin veneer of religion. Real Muslims who follow the true Islam want to spread their religion by force.

“Jihad is what made Islam great,” he said.

Page Brooks, assistant professor of theology and Islamic studies at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, said ACT! For America confuses radical Islam with the more moderate mainstream version of the faith.

Brooks, who is a chaplain in the Army National Guard, spent 2010 in Iraq. He said the Muslims he met there were thankful that American troops were opposing terrorists, who used Islam to justify violence.

“Even the average Iraqi knew the difference between the radical jihadists and the average Muslim walking around the street,” he said. “We have to be careful about who we label as a radical Muslim.”

Brooks also took issue with how ACT! for America and its supporters describe the Islamic legal code known as Shariah. That code guides religious practice — such as how to pray or what to eat — as well as family law, business practices and rules for ethical warfare.

“A lot of it has to do with religious compliance and personal holiness,” Brooks said.

Ron Leonard, ACT chapter leader in Hermitage, said his group is only worried about terrorists.

“I want to make that real clear,” said Leonard, who retired from the Army National Guard in 2004. “It is not Muslims. It is the extremist elements that we are dealing with. Muslims are good people. There are people that take their extremist views to the point of killing people. And ACT is in a position to stop this from going on.”

War, religious right are at group’s roots

ACT! for America is the brainchild of Hanah Kahwagi Tudor, a Lebanese Christian who fled her homeland during that country’s civil war, which raged from 1975 to 1990.

Tudor, who goes by the pseudonym Brigitte Gabriel, first moved to Israel, where she worked for a television network owned by Pat Robertson.

She married a co-worker named Charles Tudor, a former cameraman for Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s Praise the Lordtelevision show. The couple eventually settled in Virginia Beach.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, she began speaking out about terrorism. She wrote two books — They Must Be Stopped andBecause They Hate — which became best-sellers.

In books and speeches, Tudor says that Islamic terrorists took over her home country, and she wants to stop them before they take over America.

Tudor declined to be interviewed. On Friday, the ACT! for America website announced she’d visit Nashville on a November date to be announced.

ACT and Tudor’s other nonprofit, the education group American Congress for Truth, took in a combined $1,612,908 in 2009, according to their latest federal tax returns, known as Form 990s. The groups asked for an extension for filing their 2010 tax returns.

Tudor was paid $178,441 in salary by the two charities.

The nonprofit uses constant email updates, conference calls with Tudor and other electronic means to keep in close contact with local leaders.

Email updates sent to supporters also regularly include a request for donations.

Julie Ingersoll, associate professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida, attended ACT’s recent national convention and wrote about her experience for religiondispatches.com.

Ingersoll, who is critical of ACT, said the event was well organized and professional and focused on an “us versus them” approach to Islam and to liberals, who are seen as supporting Muslims.

“It’s framed as this real fear of outsiders,” she said. “It’s tied to all of the tea party rhetoric about the real America.”

Middle Tennessee Muslims organize

ACT’s growing influence has led local Muslims and interfaith groups to become more organized.

Hillsboro Presbyterian Church recently hosted an interfaith Scripture study with local Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders. About 50 people attended.

Fakhruddin, of the Islamic Center of Nashville, helped organize opposition to the anti-Shariah bill, working with the American Civil Liberties Union as well as people of other faiths.

“It made us a stronger group,” he said. “We will not tolerate any acts of injustice. Not just to Muslims, but to all Americans.”

Local Muslims haven’t been politically active until recently, Fakhruddin said. Now they are more aware of how to get involved in the political process and have now gotten to know their state legislators. They also are committed to defending the U.S. Constitution.

“People know us a little better than they did in the past,” he said. “People will see what we stand for and who we really are now. We are Americans. We are not some other group. We stand up for America.”

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The Road to “All Muslims are Terrorists”

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The Road to “All Muslims are Terrorists”

Posted on 07 July 2011 by Gefilte

It’s been travelled before.

Aside from the fact that real democracies don’t persecute their minorities, Jews are reminded in many pieces of scripture to never forget when we were “strangers in a strange land” (see the book of Exodus). Maybe this is one reason why Muslim-bashing ticks me off so much. As a group, we should know what it’s like — if not us personally, then our parents.

Nowadays, though, we have discovered that, after centuries of being despised by zealots and Christian-tinged nationalists, we have suddenly been mailed gold membership cards to a newly-constituted “Judeo-Christian” country club [others need not apply]. We’ve arrived, we tell ourselves. They love us. Things have changed.

Well, I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but the folks who hated Jews last year have simply moved on to new enemies. They haven’t stopped their hating, and I don’t trust their unctuous expressions of new-found love. The religious right responsible for so much of the bigotry toward Muslims (and previously Jews and African Americans) still can’t decide whether they want to kiss us, convert us, wear tallit and sing in Hebrew, or keep blaming us for Golgotha. By the time they realize we really aren’t converting any time soon, I suspect they won’t love us quite so much. And then it will be time for us to die in their End Times scenario. All this is to say – we’re really still the enemy. But ever since the Holocaust it’s just been, well, a bit awkward to say things like that in polite company. But give it time. They haven’t really changed.

Yet Jews are not their only enemies. Blacks, gays, tree-huggers, socialists, progressives, unionists, Hispanics, immigrants, flag-burners, pacifists, anti-globalists, anti-imperialists, secularists, atheists – the list is pretty long – everyone’s a target. And it has always seemed so obvious to me that much of their hostility to Muslims is that Islam is simply their number one religious competitor.

But none of this is new.

A few years ago, while doing some genealogical research, I came across a 1909 immigration document which recorded a family member’s recent arrival in America on a ship from Antwerp. I always found it odd that the shipping company had recorded all this information (but more on this in a second):

19y; male; single; can read/write;
Citizen of: Russia, Race: Hebrew;
Last Residence: Russia, [town] Destination: NY, NY; Has ticket;
Passage paid by brother;
In possession of: $25; Has been in US before in NY;
Never in prison or supported by charity;
Not a polygamist or an anarchist;
Place of Birth: Russia, [town]

In that year, 1909, many Jews were sympathetic to movements advocating anti-authoritarian forms of government based on justice, not nationalistic slogans. After all, nationalism had never been kind to Jews in Europe. For reasons of both fact and perception, most Jews were presumed to be anarchists in 1909.

And a cautious nation couldn’t be too careful about letting such troublemakers into a society whose ideal was British and German Protestantism. Organizations such as the Boston-based Immigration Restriction League were alarmed that so many of these new Jewish immigrants were “undesirable” that they helped legislate large fines on steamship companies which failed to screen them out (thus the detailed steamship records above). The League’s Numerical Limitation Bill was hardly subtle: restrictions were harshest on eastern and southern Europeans (Jews and Italians). The Dillingham Commission further restricted such immigration and totally eliminated Asians. The American nativists of the time believed these foreigners were inherently “lesser breeds” and incompatible with a superior Christian, European society – something echoed frequently by Tea Party types in the U.S. today and by Islamophobes like Geert Wilders. The League’s charter:

We should see to it that the breeding of the human race in this country receives the attention which it so surely deserves. We should see to it that we are protected, not merely from the burden of supporting alien dependants, delinquents, and defectives, but from what George William Curtis called “that watering of the nation’s lifeblood,” which results from their breeding after admission.

Sound familiar?

First they came for the Jews, then the Muslims. Who’s next?

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Turkish_farmers_Ecoli

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Udo Ulfkotte and Fecal Jihad: Asymmetric Warfare or Crazy Conspiracy Theory?

Posted on 02 July 2011 by Garibaldi

Russell Blackford recently wrote a piece on Islamophobia that was reproduced by Richard Dawkins, in which he said,

“attacks on Islam..made opportunistically..cannot be dismissed out of hand as worthless.”

We responded on Twitter by saying that most attacks can be dismissed as worthless. Exhibit A: Conspiracy Theories.

Now here is a perfect example, from one Dr. Udo Ulfkotte, who thinks the recent E.coli outbreak in Germany is linked to Muslim immigrants’ importation of “fecal jihad.” After this, I don’t know who could compete for “the craziest conspiracy theory of the year award.” (hat tip: Sphinx and Jake)

Ulfkotte: Turkish women’s poor hygiene to blame for E.coli/EHEC outbreak

The writer and “Islam expert” Dr. Udo Ulfkotte has made a nice career for himself in Germany by spreading hate and fear against Muslims.  In a recent interview he fantasized about all the “living space” (Lebensraum) ethnic Germans could have if only they could conduct forced deportation of all the Turkish and Arab people living in Germany. No matter that nearly all of Dr. Ulfkotte’s hateful diatribes are based on lies: he is a much sought-after guest for TV talk shows and discussion panels.

But even Dr. Ulfkotte may have outdone himself with his mostrecent piece on the right-wing Truther site of Kopp Verlag(with thanks to Politblogger). Germany is facing a health crisis due to vegetables tainted with E.coli. Naturally, Udo Ulfkotte seizes the opportunity for yet another attack on immigrants from Turkey:

Im »Erdbeerland« in Pottenstein und auf mindestens zehn weiteren Erdbeerplantagen erfand man den Hosenzwang, weil Türkinnen, die dort saisonal gearbeitet hatten, bei der Arbeit auf die Erdbeeren uriniert und zwischen den Pflanzen auch noch andere »größere Geschäfte« verrichtet hatten. … Bestimmte Migranten haben eben völlig andere Vorstellungen von Hygiene und der Einhaltung von Hygiene-Richtlinien als wir Europäer.

(In the “strawberry region” in Pottenstein (Austria) and on at least ten other strawberry farms workers are required to wear pants because Turkish women who were working there seasonally were urinating on the strawberries and even defecating among the plants….Certain migrants have a completely different concepts of hygiene than we Europeans.)

Dr. Ulfkotte goes on to describe a “fecal Jihad” being waged by Muslims against Europeans.

Thus far, there is zero evidence that the E.coli outbreak has any connection with strawberries, much less strawberries from Austria.  Authorities believe rather that cucumbers from Spain may be to blame.  But don’t look for a retraction or an apology from Dr. Udo Ulfkotte.  He has never once retracted any of the numerous lies he’s published at Kopp Verlag or elsewhere.

Again, Ulfkotte is free to publish whatever he wishes, even if it’s mostly lies.  What concerns me is that he is viewed by the German media as an “expert” and frequently appears on German television.  They are lending to this fraud credibility he in no way deserves.

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Creeping Shariah: Stealth Threat or Conspiracy Theory?

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Creeping Shariah: Stealth Threat or Conspiracy Theory?

Posted on 01 July 2011 by Gefilte

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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LGF: British Branch of the ‘Anti-Jihad’ Movement in Full Meltdown

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LGF: British Branch of the ‘Anti-Jihad’ Movement in Full Meltdown

Posted on 30 June 2011 by Emperor

Robert Spencer next to his Perpetual Serf Pamela Geller

Even the bigoted Roberta Moore is leaving the EDL, now. When will Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller get the memo that it’s time to jump ship? (hat-tip: ZB)

British Branch of the ‘Anti-Jihad’ Movement in Full Meltdown

(Little Green Footballs)

The two most visible “anti-jihad” bloggers in the United States are probably Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. They both appear frequently on Fox News as “experts” on Islam; Geller writes for Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government, Newsmax, and World Net Daily, and they’ve recently been touring the country showing their “Ground Zero Mega Mosque” horror film. Their anti-Muslim group “Stop the Islamization of America” was recently listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, for obvious reasons.

Spencer and Geller are also notorious for their enthusiastic support of Britain’s far right English Defence League, well known for their riots, fascist roots, and thuggish intimidation of British minorities.

Two examples: Geller gushed about the EDL here:

How I wish I could be there to stand with the English Defense League.

And Robert Spencer has called for “all free people” to support the EDL:

The EDL deserves the support of all free people.

So I have to wonder how Spencer and Geller will react to the latest news about their British allies.

First, the news that one of the EDL’s leaders, John “Snowy” Shaw, has suddenly realized that he hates Jews as much as Muslims, and is raving about the infamous antisemitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion:” HOPE not hate blog: Infidel leader praises the Protocols.

With “the Protocols” Shaw has immersed himself in one of the most vile and dangerous forgeries of all time.

According to Shaw, the book has already begun to make things “click” in his head, and he advises “all true British patriots take the time to read this”.

Despite the book being discovered as a forgery, it has long been viewed as definitive proof of a Jewish conspiracy by Nazis and antisemites ever since. Adolf Hitler even had put it in the school curriculum in Nazi Germany. More recently, it was even among a selection of books that the BNP recommended for “patriots” during the 1980’s because they insisted it was still of historical interest.

The book is a crude record of the supposed minutes of a meeting of the Jewish community in the late 19th Century where plans for their world domination are discussed.

The book first surfaced in Russia in the early 1900’s and was used as a justification by antisemites to carry out pogroms against the Jewish community. It’s popularity spread as far as notorious Jew-Hater Henry Ford of Ford Motor car fame, who had a further 500,000 printed for distribution in the United States.

Having opened the book, Shaw is convinced by its authenticity. He is now adamant that both Jews and Muslims are conspiring together and that he “must stop them destroying our country”.

And second: hardline activist and leader of the EDL’s “Jewish Division,” Roberta Moore (a sort of British version of Pamela Geller), is very publicly bailing out of the group because of “the Nazis within:” EDL Jewish division leader Roberta Moore quits.

The hardline activist at the forefront of the “Jewish Division” of the extreme right-wing English Defence League has announced that she does not wish to be a part of it any longer because of Nazi elements within it. …

Although she described the EDL as “doing a fantastic job” she said the party had been hijacked by elements who wanted to use it “for their own Nazi purposes”.

Ms Moore said she still supported the EDL leaders and “all the genuine patriots out there who struggle to get their voices heard” but added that she no longer wished to be a part of it. “I sincerely hope that the leaders will get the strength to squash the Nazis within,” she said.

Mark Gardner, from the Community Security Trust, said: “This latest development shows, yet again, why Jews should not be involved in such circles.”

I cut ties long ago with people like Spencer and Geller precisely because they were willing (eager, in fact) to make alliances with the farthest of the far right, up to and including people with neo-Nazi connections — people like the English Defence League.

There’s no comment so far from either Robert Spencer or Pamela Geller on these developments.

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Rabbi_Dov_Lior

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Dov Lior: Rabbi Who Supported the Murder of Babies Arrest Causes Firestorm in Israel

Posted on 30 June 2011 by Emperor

Wild Celebrations as Rabbi Dov Lior is Released from Prison

Where do we even begin with this one? We did a story on the Rabbi’s who penned and supported the work, “The King’s Teachings,” in which all manner of immoral actions are allowed in the name of security. At the time and since, nearly the entire religious establishment of Israel has supported the Rabbis, even if some have not given their explicit endorsement.

Do we have to ask, what if they were Muslim?

(Hat tip: Tony)

There is more at Haaretz as well about the reaction from parliamentarians who are outraged at the arrest of Lior.

Rabbi’s Arrest Provokes New Friction Between Religion And Government In Israel

(Huffington Post)

JERUSALEM — The arrest of a prominent Israeli settler rabbi who endorsed a book sanctioning the killing of non-Jews under some conditions is sharpening the battle lines between some Jewish religious sages and the Israeli government.

After Rabbi Dov Lior, spiritual leader of the radical Kiryat Arba settlement in the West Bank, was detained and brought in for police questioning, hundreds of his followers, most of them teenagers, went on a rampage. Other rabbis fulminated against the idea that a rabbi could be arrested at all.

On the other side, secular Israelis complained that some rabbis in Israel think they are above the law.

Lior, a longtime symbol of religious and nationalist extremism, was brought in for questioning Monday after his car was stopped on a West Bank road. Lior, who was freed after a brief interrogation, accused officers of “Bolshevik” tactics.

Joining critics of his own government’s action, the Minister of Religious Affairs, Yaakov Margi, raged that the rabbi, who is in his late 70s, was “abducted on his way to Jerusalem like the lowest criminal.”

Lior was brought in Monday after ignoring a series of official police orders to report for interrogation.

His arrest angered supporters as a mark of disrespect for a venerated scholar.

Hundreds of disciples tried to block the road to the entrance to the city, snarling traffic at afternoon rush hour. Others tried to attack the Supreme Court. Hundreds besieged the home of a government official they thought was responsible for the arrest warrant.

The warrant had been pending for months in connection with a preface Lior wrote in support of a book, “The King’s Teachings.” The book quotes some religious sages as permitting, under certain conditions, the killing of non-Jews, including babies, “if there is a good chance they will grow up to be like their evil parents.”

Police wanted to question Lior over the possibility that his endorsement of the book was incitement to murder.

Backers accused authorities of assaulting Lior’s freedom of speech and complained that inflammatory statements by leftists against nationalist Israelis did not draw similar sanctions.

Critics of Lior and his camp saw a sign that some rabbis and their followers believe that secular law does not apply to them.

“Those who favor freedom of expression will of course find it difficult to accept as self evident the arrest of a person, any persona, for things that he said or wrote,” read an editorial in Wednesday’s Haaretz newspaper.

“But from the moment that the police decided to summon Rabbi Dov Lior to an investigation, he should have reported, even if he is firmly opposed to doing so, and taken advantage of every legitimate way of protesting against the claims against him,” Haaretz wrote, calling for Lior’s dismissal from his official, state-paid positions.

The Jerusalem Post wrote it was not clear that Lior committed a crime.

“He has, however, placed his rabbinic reputation behind a morally repugnant book” with “far-reaching and horrid implications, particularly in wartime settings,” the newspaper said.

Lior told reporters afterward that he ignored the police orders to report for questioning because he considered them illegitimate.

Although respected in the religious nationalist community, Lior’s teachings and commentaries have made him a polarizing figure in Israel for decades.

Following a shooting attack on a Jerusalem seminary in 2008, he ruled that Jewish law forbids employing and renting homes to Palestinians. He also praised Baruch Goldstein, the American immigrant doctor who massacred 29 Palestinians at a religious shrine in the West Bank city of Hebron in 1994.

Some rabbis have repudiated “The King’s Teachings,” which doesn’t explicitly mention Arabs or Palestinians.

On Wednesday, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported that a sequel to “The King’s Teachings” was in the works. Its author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, said he has sold more than 2,000 additional copies of “The King’s Teachings” since Lior’s arrest.

Shapira was arrested briefly for questioning about the book last year. No one has been charged.

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Dutch MPs Vote to Ban Religious Slaughter

Posted on 30 June 2011 by Emperor

Is it more “humane” to slaughter animals by shocking them first? That is what most Dutch politicians seem to think.

Dutch MPs Vote to Ban Religious Slaughter

(AlJazeera English)

A bill which would ban halal and kosher slaughter methods has passed through the Dutch parliament, despite opposition from Muslim and Jewish groups who say a ban would impinge on their religious freedoms.

The bill, which was passed overwhelmingly by parliamentarians on Wednesday, still has to pass through the Dutch senate, which is unlikely before the summer recess.

The Dutch cabinet said on Monday that the law may be unenforceable in its current form due to the ambiguity of a last-minute amendment that says religious slaughter licenses can be granted if they can “prove” that it does not cause animals more pain than stunning.

If the Netherlands outlaws procedures that make meat kosher for Jews or halal for Muslims, it would be the second country after New Zealand to do so in recent years. Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland also ban religious slaughter.

Henk Blekers, the Dutch deputy secretary of economic affairs and agriculture, said that the cabinet would “look at how it fits with freedom of religion”, citing the European Convention on Human Rights.

Both halal and kosher slaughter rules prescribe that animals’ throats must be cut swiftly with a razor-sharp knife while they are still conscious, so that they bleed to death quickly.

‘Animal rights over religious rights’

But the Party for Animals, the main proponents of the proposed law, argue that sparing animals needless pain and distress outweighs religious groups’ rights to follow their respective slaughter practices.

“They (livestock) stay conscious for up to 5 minutes. They lose a lot of blood and they can choke on their own blood and the cut should be one time, but research shows that with kosher slaughter (they are cut) on average 3.5 times, and with halal 5.5 times,” Karen Soeters of the Party for Animals told Al Jazeera.

But defenders of the practices said that religious slaughter methods could be humane.

“With halal, the animal can’t be stressed. It can’t see other animals being killed,” Abdulhakim Chouaati of the Dutch Halal Feed and Food Authority told Al Jazeera.

“It’s our religion we’re practicing, and expressing religion in our modern industrial society is not a thing which is appealing to the public,” Ronnie Eisenmann, a Jewish community leader in the Netherlands told Al Jazeera.

In an open letter pleading with parliament not to pass the law, a a committee of rabbis said the impact on the Jewish community would be “deep and large”.

“Older Jews are frightened and wonder what the next law will be that limits their religious life. The youth are openly asking whether they still have a future that they can or want to build in the Netherlands,” the letter continued.

Only Christian political parties opposed the ban, arguing that it undermined the country’s tradition of religious tolerance.

A solid majority of Dutch voters say they support the ban, and parliament voted for it by a margin of 116 for to 30 against.

The support for the ban comes from an odd pairing of the political left, which sees religious slaughter as inhumane, and from the anti-immigration right, which says it is foreign and barbaric.

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Frontpage Muslim-bashing Authority Can’t Do a Two Second Google Search

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Frontpage Muslim-bashing Authority Can’t Do a Two Second Google Search

Posted on 30 June 2011 by Greeneye

Behold the erroneous misinformation factory at Front Page Mag, the online place where Islamophobes go to find spurious arguments that make them feel better about being intolerant of Muslims. Today’s gem comes from Raymond Ibrahim, a skilled harvester of Islamophobic cash cows, a particularly spite-filled individual with an obsession for essentializing Islam as a religion of war, slavery, and sexual misconduct.

Where before have I heard similar claims about a similar religion? Oh yeah. Every anti-Semitic website on the internet. The strong parallel between the claims, rhetoric, and methodologies of Anti-Semites and Islamophobes have been discussed many times before, so there is no need to repeat those arguments here.

Today, I will comment on Mr. Ibrahim’s unprincipled “research” which has as an a priori(beforehand) conclusion that Muslims are never victims, only perpetrators. What perturbed me is that Front Page praises Mr. Ibrahim as a “widely recognized authority on Islam” who can translate “important Arabic news that never reaches the West.”

You see, according to David Horowitz, anti-Muslim ideological commitment makes someone a “widely recognized authority” on Islam; not rigorous academic training, as those foolish liberals believe, with their pesky “facts,” their elitist “research methodologies,” and their vexatious love of “balance.”

To the matter at hand. You may have heard the recent story about two Egyptian Christian girls who were allegedly abducted by Muslims. Raymond pens an anti-Muslim hit piece entitled “Egypt: Christian Girls Kidnapped and ‘Sold’.” Ready for some bombshell evidence of Islam’s collective depravity? Won’t find it here. Raymond is upset that the Egyptian Newspaper, Al-Masry Al-Youm, didn’t report on this story with an acceptable level of anti-Muslim bias:

At the end of the Al-Masry Al-Youm report, we get a trailing sentence alluding to “claims” that two Christian girls “were abducted by Muslims and forced to convert to Islam” as the reason why Copts were demonstrating and clashing with the police in the first place.

This is the “claim” that Mr. Ibrahim wants to advance, the claim of the Christian protestors, i.e. the girls were kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam, and this sort of thing happens all the time because of the tenets of Islam. (Sigh). It should go without saying that mainstream Islam explicitly teaches against forced conversions. Several Quranic verses can be produced to support this:

Had your Lord willed, all the people on earth would have believed. So can you [Prophet] compel people to believe? (10:99)

If your Lord had pleased, He would have made all people a single community, but they continue to have their differences… (11:118)

If you find rejection by the disbelievers so hard to bear, then seek a tunnel into the ground or a ladder into the sky, if you can, and bring them a sign: God could bring them all to guidance if it were His will, so do not join the ignorant. (6:35)

The messenger’s only duty is to give clear warning. (29:18)

We know best what the disbelievers say. You [Prophet] are not there to force them, so remind, with this Quran, those who fear My warning. (50:45)

There is no compulsion in religion: true guidance has become distinct from error, so whoever rejects false gods and believes in God has grasped the firmest hand-hold, one that will never break. God is all hearing and all knowing. (2:256)

Say, ‘Obey God; obey the Messenger. If you turn away, [know that] he is responsible for the duty placed upon him, and you are responsible for the duty placed upon you. If you obey him, you will be rightly guided, but the Messenger’s duty is only to deliver the message clearly.’ (24:54)

Note that the last two verses were revealed in Medina, just in case anyone wants to bring up the tired, old canard that everything wise and peaceful in the Quran was abrogated. In fact, Al-Azhar University’s Commission for Embracing Islam may “spend several days making sure that the person wants to convert to Islam voluntarily and as a result of their own desire.”

Therefore, if it is true that the girls were kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam, this would be an obvious breach of normative, mainstream Islamic teachings, not to mention Egyptian civil law. This would make it a case of criminal behavior, not normal religion. Whoever forces someone to be a Muslim is not behaving like a Muslim. Period.

However, as we shall see, we have strong reason to doubt these girls were kidnapped in the first place.

What are Mr. Ibrahim’s sources for claiming the two girls were in fact kidnapped and forced into Islam? A dubious Arabic website entitled “Free Christian Nation.” No possibility of bias there (sarcasm intended). Mr. Ibrahim boasts about his expert Arabic translation skills:

One must again turn to Arabic sources for the telling details. I have put together the following narrative and quotes based on these two Arabic reports:

The two girls, Christine Azat (aged 16) and Nancy Magdi (aged 14) were on their way to church Sunday, June 12, when they were seized. Their abductors demanded $200,000 Egyptian pounds for their release. The people of the region quickly put their savings together and came up with the ransom money; but when they tried to give it to the kidnappers, they rejected it, saying they had already “sold” the girls off to another group which requires $12 million Egyptian pounds to return them.

Two unsourced reports in Arabic? From which news agency? There are no authors or publishers listed on the reports. If you can read Arabic, seriously, check it out. So your ability to translate from some random anonymous Arabic websites is why you are a “widely recognized authority on Islam”?

But what our “widely recognized authority on Islam” failed to mention is that other mainstream newspapers (even in English, accessible to non-scholars, no translation necessary) have published reports contrary to his central claim. Mr. Ibrahim tells us about his scholarly research methods:

I tried to find this story in English-language media and, as expected, found nothing…

Oh really? I did a two-second Google search and found some. For example, Al-Ahram reported that:

During recent weeks, the two girls, who are cousins, have uploaded videos on YouTube announcing their conversion to Islam and that they were not kidnapped by ‎anyone. This came in response to the father of one of the girls reporting their‎disappearance. ‎

According to this report, the girls willfully converted to Islam, so Mr. Ibrahim tries to explain this away:

Some have tried to pass the usual rumor that the girls “willingly” ran off and converted to Islam, but even Egyptian officials reject this, saying that Al Azhar, which is the institution that formally recognizes conversions to Islam, has not acknowledged the conversion of underage minors.

This “rumor” happens to be based upon the Youtube testimony of the girls themselves, which would make it more than a rumor. The fact that Al-Azhar University did not announce their conversions is not proof that the girls didn’t willfully convert because, as Al-Ahram reports, Al-Azhar “does not accredit ‎conversion to Islam from anyone younger than 18.”‎ Minor details!

The point here is not whether the girls converted or not. I won’t get into “he said, she said” arguments about a pending legal case. The point is that Raymond, as usual, obviously didn’t research and balance his reporting, which means the only reason he brought it up at all is because it is useful ideological propaganda. His readers don’t read Arabic. They won’t double check his work. These blatant mistakes will get swept under rug, again as usual, to be replaced by the next propaganda item, the next blog post, the next hit piece. The erroneous misinformation factory marches on.

Does Raymond really want to help the Christian community in Egypt? Coptic Christians, whom Raymond pretends to defend, have rejected these kind of tactics and propaganda that divide Egypt along religious lines. Bishop Markos of Shubra al-Kheima told Al-Masry Al-Youm that:

Copts fall under the protection of the Egyptian state, and Muslims and Christians in Egypt fall under the protection of God, who mentioned Egypt and its people in the Quran and the Bible.

So don’t be fooled into thinking Raymond cares about these girls or even Egyptian Christians. He’s just using them and their story to whip up anti-Muslim populism, to use as a religio-political wedge issue in the campaign against Obama and liberals.

Undoubtedly, the guys at Front Page would not campaign for the human rights of these two girls if they had really converted to Islam. If their conversion to Islam was genuine, would Mr. Ibrahim and Horowitz support their religious freedom?

I ask these questions because, contrary to the 24-hour hate-on-Islam-a-thon at Front Page, Egyptian Christians who convert to Islam have also faced persecution. This certainly wouldn’t be the first case. As Al-Ahram reported:

This is not the first story of Muslim converts that has been a source of public debate and ‎concern. Camilia Shehata, who disappeared from her house in July 2010, was‎alleged to have converted to Islam only to be held in church after conversion to prevent ‎her from practicing her new religion.

Of course, stories about Muslims being denied religious freedom by Christians don’t quite fit into the Islam-is-all-evil-all-the-time-RSS-feed at Front Page Mag.

I’m not expecting an honest answer from Raymond.

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Surprise: EDL Member Christopher Payne Pleads Guilty to anti-Mosque Graffiti

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Surprise: EDL Member Christopher Payne Pleads Guilty to anti-Mosque Graffiti

Posted on 28 June 2011 by Emperor

EDL-Stoke

Are any of you shocked that an EDL member did this? Wow, I can’t believe that a group of thugs who hate Muslims and regularly throw their hands up in Seig Heils would attack a mosque! Of course both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer continue to defend them. (via. Europeans Against Islamophobia)

Man sprays anti-mosque graffiti at West Bridgford site

A 25-year-old English Defence League member has pleaded guilty to daubing hate graffiti on land being considered as a site for a mosque.

Christopher Payne of Hucknall admitted spraying the graffiti but denied putting a pig’s head on the site in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire.

He appeared at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court and will be sentenced on 21 July.

Police went to the property on 23 June where the slogan “No Mosque Here” was found spray painted on the ground.

Pig’s head

Payne pleaded guilty to causing racially or religiously aggravated alarm, dissent or distress and causing racially aggravated criminal damage.

Three other men aged 19, 21 and 31, have been arrested and questioned about the incident.

Payne, of Beardsmore Close, Hucknall, who is an events planner for the English Defence League, told the court that he sprayed the slogan but did not put the pig’s head on the grassland.

He was granted bail with a curfew but ordered to stay out of West Bridgford and not to go within 200m of a mosque.

He has also been told not to have any public association with the English Defence League.

A member of the public reported finding the graffiti near Collington Way in West Bridgford on Thursday.

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Simchon Shwartz Charged with Felony Hate Crime after Attacking ‘f—ing Arabs’ Living Next Door

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Simchon Shwartz Charged with Felony Hate Crime after Attacking ‘f—ing Arabs’ Living Next Door

Posted on 28 June 2011 by Amago

A Hasidic man, Simchon Shwartz shouted racist epithets and violently assaulted his neighbor, calling them “F—ing Arabs,” “F—ing Terrorists.”

“F—ing Arabs! F—ing terrorists!” Schwartz screamed when he grabbed his neighbor, Selda Turan, 27. He shoved the woman against her car and poured beer on her head, a police source said.

This disgusting assault will most likely not be covered much by the media, we will hear deafening silence from Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, or silly equivocation along the lines of, “but…no..he was drunk,” etc.

Imagine for a second if a Muslim had done this? We all know that this would be immortalized as a terrorist attack and Islam would be blamed for the attack. (hat tip:Peak of Elephants)

Brooklyn Hasid charged with felony hate crime after attacking ‘f—ing Arabs’ living next door

BY Rocco ParascandolaKerry Burke and Bill Hutchinson
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

A boozy Brooklyn man was hit with hate crime charges Sunday for pouring beer on a newlywed neighbor, calling her an “Arab terrorist” and pummeling her husband, police sources said.

Following the seemingly unprovoked attack Saturday night in Mill BasinSimchon Schwartz, 46, hid in a local synagogue and tried to fight off cops when they came to arrest him, sources said.

The Hasid even kicked out a window of a police cruiser as he sat inside, whining that “the cuffs are too tight,” a source said.

“F—ing Arabs! F—ing terrorists!” Schwartz screamed when he grabbed his neighbor, Selda Turan, 27. He shoved the woman against her car and poured beer on her head, a police source said.

Turan’s husband of 13 months, Mustafa Turan, rushed out of their house to protect his wife, but Schwartz punched him in the face, the source said.

Neighbors said the Turans moved into the heavily Jewish neighborhood about a month ago. They said the victims were from Turkey; it wasn’t clear if they were Muslim.

Schwartz was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on charges of felony assault and felony criminal mischief, both as hate crimes. He was also charged with resisting arrest, obstructing cops, menacing and harassment. He could get up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

“They arrested the wrong person,” Schwartz’s attorney, Lance Lazzaro, said Monday night.

He said his client was attacked by Mustafa Turan, 32, after Selda Turan complained about Schwartz’s children being noisy. He said Mustafa Turan called Schwartz a “dirty Jew” and hit him.

Cops said they found no physical evidence supporting Schwartz’s counterclaim, while Mustafa Turan needed three stitches to close a gash on his nose. The ordeal erupted at 7 p.m. Saturday when Schwartz began harassing Selda Turan on their E. 70th St. block, a criminal complaint charges. Schwartz opened a can of beer and poured it on Selda Turan, grabbed her by the the arm, pushed her into the side of her car and called her an “Arab terrorist,” the complaint said.

Selda Turan was left with scratches and bruises. Schwartz was released without bail.

A judge rejected a prosecution request to hold Schwartz on $60,000 bail, but granted the Turans an order of protection barring him from contacting them.

The Turkish couple live in a townhouse that shares a common wall with Schwartz’s home.

Cops said that following the fisticuffs, Schwartz scratched the Turans’ car with a key.

Once Schwartz, a car dealer, bolted from the scene, the Turans called 911. Schwartz’s son led cops to a Chabad House on nearby E. 69th St., where they found the suspect. Cops smelled alcohol on his breath, a source said.

Schwartz struggled with cops as they dragged him out of the synagogue in handcuffs. They drove him to his house, where his neighbors identified him as the culprit. As Schwartz threw a tantrum in the police car, his wife made a veiled threat to the victims, sources said.

“This is a majority Jewish neighborhood. We’re going to get you back,” Esther Schwartz told the Turans, the sources said.

While Schwartz was in jail over the weekend, his wife circulated a petition demanding the Turans’ landlord evict them, neighbors said. About 20 neighbors signed it, but the Turans’ landlords, Rusden and Saadet Dolan, refused.

“That’s their opinion,” Rusden Dolan told the Daily News.

With Amir Khan and Oren Yaniv

rparascandola@nydailynews.com

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Andrew Brown: Islamophobia and antisemitism

Posted on 27 June 2011 by Emperor

The money quote from the article,

“But with Muslims, in Britain today, there is a feeling that the civilised, funny, clever ones aren’t really proper Muslims at all. And don’t think that these civilised, funny, clever people people don’t notice it.

This is subtle and pervasive – more of a smell than a substance – and I’m not sure whether it’s a very diluted version of the stench that comes off Condell or Robert Spencer or something essentially different.”

I couldn’t have said it better than that.

Islamophobia and antisemitism

by Andrew Brown (Guardian)

The great thing about being in Dubai last week was being a foreigner once more. It’s how I spent much of my childhood, how I grew up, and how I feel most at home; but it brings professional rewards as well as personal pleasures. I was for the first time in my conscious life in an environment where the most important thing about Muslims was not that they were Muslims. It gave me a moment of sudden awareness, like waking in a log cabin without electricity when all the background hum and tension of electric motors that you never normally hear is suddenly audible by its absence.

The people I was hanging out, and sometimes drinking, with were Muslim intellectuals whom I know and like in England. They’re not in any way discriminated against in this country, as far as I can tell: their lives are not impeded by the kind of people who think that Muslims are a problem to be solved. The kind of crude and open prejudice that flourishes online – and go and look at comments on the Telegraph website, or the videos of Pat Condell, if you want to know what I mean – is very rare in liberal circles, and when we catch ourselves at it, we feel guilty.

But there is a more subtle and general sort of prejudice which holds that Condell is not an extremist outcast. Richard Dawkins, for example, has praised Condell, and used to sell his videos on his website, which reminds of the way that Oswald Mosley remained a member in good standing of the English upper classes until the outbreak of the second world war, despite his views on Jews.

What I realised in Dubai was that in England today Muslims can’t escape being Muslims, any more than Jews in England in the 20s or 30s could escape being Jewish. They can’t just be unremarkable, as Jews in England can be now.

In Dubai, or neighbouring Sharjah, being a Muslim did not matter in the same way. Obviously, people made a huge amount of fuss about Islam. But when you’re in a room full of Muslim academics and students arguing about culture, or censorship, or why there is so little science in the Arab world, the arguments themselves make one thing wholly plain. Neither side is more Muslim than the other. None of the flaws of the Islamic world are essential or intrinsic to it. They may be widespread, and in some cases quite horrible. But they’re all cultural and not just religious.

I don’t mean by this that all the bad bits are cultural and all the good bits religious. That’s both false and simplistic. Cultures can be both good and bad and both are still authentically Islamic. But the whole idea of an “essential” or “true” way of being Muslim makes little sense when looked at historically, no matter how important, indeed indispensable, that style of argument is between Muslims. The same is of course true about “real” Christianity, or, for that matter, “real” atheism.

We don’t have any real difficulty accepting this about Christians in this country. Except for a few noisy bigots, it’s accepted that nice, good Christians are just as Christian as nasty and vile ones: that Jesus would be just as much at home among the Quakers as in Ian Paisley’s congregation; in fact most Guardian readers believe that he would like the Quakers more. Certainly this is true about Jews. No one really believes that Lionel Blue is less Jewish than the chief rabbi (unless the chief rabbi does).

But with Muslims, in Britain today, there is a feeling that the civilised, funny, clever ones aren’t really proper Muslims at all. And don’t think that these civilised, funny, clever people people don’t notice it.

This is subtle and pervasive – more of a smell than a substance – and I’m not sure whether it’s a very diluted version of the stench that comes off Condell or Robert Spencer or something essentially different. Either way, it is a smell of which I spend most of my life unaware, and Muslims notice much more often. I shall try to flare my nostrils a little more often.

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Bigoted Pastor Alert: Rev. Keith Tucci Thinks All Terrorists are Muslim

Posted on 25 June 2011 by Emperor

This pastor is giving Christians a bad name. He thinks all terrorists are Muslims, wants a background check on all Muslims who are trying to set up a mosque in the small town of Carnegie.

Pastor concerned about Carnegie mosque

(Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

The Rev. Keith Tucci preaches from a pulpit more than an hour from Carnegie, but he’s concerned about a different religious community’s plans to relocate there.

Tucci, pastor of the Living Hope Church in Latrobe, said he has “serious concerns” about members of a Muslim mosque who want to move to a former Presbyterian church in the heart of Carnegie’s business district. Tucci said he and members of his congregation will travel to Carnegie on Monday to pass out “informational packets” about the Muslim faith.

“I have questions: Who are these people? Are they American citizens? Has anyone done a background check on them?” said Tucci, whose church is part of a national network of Bible-based churches with headquarters in Reserve, La., according to its website. “I’m not saying all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. We need more information about these people before they are allowed to move in and ruin a community.”

Carnegie Councilman Rick D’Loss, president of the borough’s synagogue, Congregation Ahavath Achim, said some residents asked questions about the plan for the building but generally expressed support.

“In a town of 8,000 people, of course you’ll have some dissenting opinions, but Carnegie is a very inclusive place,” D’Loss said. “Muslims have rights just like anyone else, and they can pray as they choose. It’s a shame that we have to keep telling people that. I find it funny that a group is going to drive all the way from Westmoreland to tell us we shouldn’t allow the Muslims to be in our community.

“If we say no Muslims, then we have to say no Jews, too. Then what?”

The borough council on June 14 approved the Attawheed Islamic Center’s request to convert the 19,000-square-foot stone and brick building along East Main Street into a place for prayer and religious education. No residents expressed opposition at a public hearing about the mosque or during the council meeting that followed. The Muslim group rents space on Banksville Road.

Even with council approval, it’s unclear when the group would move into the building, which needs extensive repairs, including a roof. Al-Walid Mohsen, vice president and manager of the Attawheed Islamic Center, did not return calls for comment.

Police Chief Jeff Harbin, who is the part-time borough manager, said the Living Hope Church group has a right to come to Carnegie and pass out information and talk about concerns, as long as they do so peacefully.

“I grew up in Carnegie, and we tend to welcome everyone,” Harbin said. “We believe in the right of people to express their opinions, and we respect the First Amendment. People are free to disagree.”

Read more: Pastor concerned about Carnegie mosque – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_743909.html#ixzz1QLpYPfU2

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My God is Better Than Yours (III): Yoel Natan, Author of Moon-O-Theism, Believes Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth with Humans

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My God is Better Than Yours (III): Yoel Natan, Author of Moon-O-Theism, Believes Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth with Humans

Posted on 24 June 2011 by Danios

This is page III of My God is Better Than Yours.  (Read page I and II first.)

Yoel Natan is author of the cleverly titled book Moon-O-Theism: Religion of a War and Moon God Prophet.  His book is frequently cited by Islamophobes to prove the “Allah is the Moon-God” claim.  Indeed, Natan himself recognizes this, saying:

Evidently, my moon-god book is making the “Allah was a moon-god” theory more respectable, since before the issue was ignored or sneered at.

Is Yoel Natan a “respectable” scholar or academic whose book could give any respectability to the moon-god theory which was previously “ignored or sneered at?”  This is a legitimate question, and it is therefore licit to determine whether or not Yoel Natan is a credible source to cite, at least on an academic or scholarly level.

Our research indicates that Yoel Natan is an anonymous blogger operating under a pseudonym.  Although there is nothing wrong with this, we can gauge his level of seriousness and sophistication (or rather, lack thereof) by glancing at his blog.  We can tell much about Yoel Natan by what he has said over the years.  In fact, we can tell a whole lot from this.  All the evidence indicates that he not only lacks seriousness or sophistication but is in fact a kooky loon.

Yoel Natan is a fervent pro-Creationist anti-Evolutionist who seems to have delusions of grandeur that make Robert Morey’s fraudulent credentials seem tame in comparison.  Natan routinely speaks of himself in the third person on his blog, posting articles with such grandiose titles:

Yoel Natan Solves Another Longtime Creationist Mystery–Mammoths

Yoel Natan Solves Yet Another Ice Age Mystery: Mass Extinctions

Yoel Natan solves the mystery of deep sea guyots and reefs

Yoel Natan solves why C14 dates are older than young earth scientists might expect

Yoel Natan solves the mystery of the flood waters rising and receding

etc. etc.

You may think that these are titles made in jest.  They are not.  They are meant to be taken 100% seriously.  And to be clear: this is not a group blog.  It is his personal blog site, and Yoel Natan is referring to himself in the royal third person here.

To understand how great Yoel Natan’s delusions of grandeur are, one only needs to look at this article in which he seems to say that the publication of his two books (The Jewish Trinity and Moon-O-Theism) were responsible for the global drop in Christians converting to Judaism and the global drop in Jews converting to Islam.

Yoel Natan’s bloated sense of self is also indicated in his choice of pen name.  Natan himself explains on his website what his pseudonym means: “Yo-el means ‘Yah[veh] is God (El). Natan[ael or iel] means ‘Gift [of God (El)].”  So, Yoel Natan is a gift of God to humanity.  After all, he solved so many scientific mysteries!

No wonder then that such a delusional person could somehow blame mall and school shooting on Darwinism (or as he says, Darwinists).  Natan somehow imagines that the various mall and school shooters wore “T-shirts with evolution slogans”:

Most of the school shooters and mass-shooters are on the left, and even wear T-shirts with evolution slogans, proclaiming that their cull is a form of natural selection and supports the survival of the fittest (more like survival of the luckiest).

Natan is not an academic or scholar at all; in fact, he is anti-academicanti-science and certainly anti-scientist, complaining that “scientists [are] bound by their models and presumptions.”  Yoel Natan, on the other hand, is not bound by scientific method or facts.  He argues in another post that the “Smithsonian natural history museum should be called a fiction museum.” Yoel Natan rejects global warming, and says “evolution is a hoax” and “evolution [is] one big straw man argument”.

Worse yet, Natan claims that carbon-dating would prove that dinosaurs were alive just a few thousand years ago (!!!) instead of millions of years ago as accepted by scientists, saying:

Evolutionists continue to refuse to C14 date fresh dinosaur tissues for fear that it will show young date–in the thousands of years before present (kilo-annum – ka BP).

Natan links back to AnswersInGenesis.org, which says that “the world is about 6,000 years old”, a view that he defends himself on his website. Yoel Natan seems to believe that “man and dinosaurs lived at the same time” just like in the Flintstones.  Natan’s blog has an entire section about dinosaurs, which makes for a good laugh.

In another kooky post, Yoel Natan explains “why evolutionists were largely responsible for the Holocaust”.  On that note, Yoel Natan is no exception to the rule that every kook needs to invoke Nazi references.  He links liberals to Nazis.  He also links evolutionists to Nazism, arguing that “Hitler said he fully supported the goals of evolution” and that World War II was in fact a war against “Darwinists” and “evolutionists”.

Likewise, the Cold War was not between capitalists and communists, but between “atheism versus religion”–against the atheistic evolutionists in the Soviet Union.  Then, in true Glenn Beck fashion, Natan links evolution to every form of fascism and communism he possibly can: “…Whenever evolutionist [sic] do have a semblance of absolute authority, evolution springs into action a al Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.”

Yoel Natan also dabbles in good old-fashioned Antisemitism, arguing that Jewish-American reluctance to accept government involvement in religion is “an example of US Jewish supremacist thinking”.  Natan also posted a random article that seems to imply that Jewish-Americans are irreligious and basically godless.  Worse, he links Jews to the evil of Communism, arguing that persecution of Jews could be partially explained by this.

And of course, the Holocaust was due to evolutionists (damn those evolutionists; they are always guilty of everything!); says Natan: “evolution was not a sufficient cause for the Holocaust, but it was a necessary cause.”

Natan says: “…Jewish support for abortion is the primary cause as to why the Jews never truly recovered from the Holocaust”.  (He prefaces his argument by saying that Richard Baehr, a Jewish-American, said this.  However, Baehr didn’t really say this, and it seems to be Natan’s own view.)

Yoel Natan’s book The Jewish Trinity: When Rabbis Believed in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a conspiracy-laden book.  Its basic thesis is that, contrary to scholarly consensus and the well-accepted historical narrative, Jews in fact believed in the Trinity (the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit) and the divinity of the Messiah.  This is a conspiracy theory of the highest order, one that is not accepted even by Evangelical scholars.

A few people have left very positive feedback of his book, possibly his friends but definitely Evangelical Christians (no surprise there); other, more neutral reviewers, have more accurate feedback, with one calling his book “a poor excuse for Bible scholarship” and another referring to it as “conspiracy theory pseudo-scholarship” and “not a serious piece of theology or Bible interpretation.”  The latter review summarizes his book and puts it in the proper light:

The author believes, incredibly, and against all Bible translators and historical theologians – Christian and not, trinitarian and not – that the ancient Jews were trinitarians, and that this important fact was deliberately hidden by a cabal of dastardly “unitarian” Jews in the inter-testamental period. This is literally a conspiracy theory book.

There is no end to the level of kookiness on Yoel Natan’s blog.  For example, in another article he argues that “very few Christians d[ied] in [the] tsunami and earthquake” that ravaged Indonesia: God killed the infidels and saved the God-fearing Christians, something which “the skeptics don’t believe.”  In fact, not only were the Christians saved but the Sharia-abiding Muslims were killed: “place where tsunami hit worst was 100 percent Sharia Law.” These atrocious comments are reminiscent of those made by Pat Robertson, another loony Evangelical, who claimed that Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake due to a pact made with the devil.

Of course, Yoel Natan’s most atrocious comments are reserved for Muslims.  He is a veritable Islamophobe.  Natan argues that Muslims are “the enemy”, a fact that evolutionists deny.  Natan subscribes to the Eurabia conspiracy theory, the fallacious claim that Muslims and Islam will soon reign supreme in Europe–and that eventually Muslim immigrants in Europe will subjugate Europeans to “dhimmitude”, a state of servitude.

Natan relies on Islamophobic loons such as Bat Ye’or, a pseudoscholar who believes in all sorts of fantastic conspiracy theories.  Natan routinely relies on anti-Muslim hatemongers and unreliable sources such as Robert Spencer and JihadWatch, Michelle Malkin, WorldNetDaily, Daniel Pipes, Alan Keyes, etc. etc.  Clearly, Yoel Natan has a strong bias against Islam.  This is undeniable, and as such, can the anti-Muslim proponents of the “Allah is the moon-god theory” cite a real contemporary scholar and scholarly work that affirms the theory?

*  *  *  *  *

What is quite interesting and telling is this post here, which Yoel Natan entitles “Yoel Natan is mentioned in blog, book that are a focus of national news.” First, his usage of the third person to refer to himself is quite comical, especially since it is his personal blog and not a group blog with multiple contributors, editors, staff, etc.  Second, he seems very pleased with himself that he was mentioned in a “blog, book that are a focus of national news.”  Third (and most amusing), it is worthwhile to note in what context he was mentioned.  Natan quotes Alec Rawls in the Crescent of Betrayal:

In a blog comment, Yoel Natan tipped me off to the fact that every mosque is built around a Mecca-direction indicator, called a mihrab, which often has a crescent shape.

Yoel Natan is so beside himself that someone read a comment he made on a blog and then reproduced it!  It would be the equivalent of someone boasting that Glenn Greenwald mentioned one of the comments left under one of his Salon articles in one of his books!

Fourth, it is also amusing that Natan then emailed Alec Rawls asking him to change it to “author Yoel Nathan”:

In case your wondering, yes, I emailed him today asking him to change that to “author Yoel Natan (yoel.info),” and I told him very briefly about my books.

And no, I was not wondering.  This of course answers the question: Yoel Nathan is not a scholar or academic.  His greatest and proudest claim is to be an “author”, publishing two conspiracy-laden books.  Again, nothing wrong with that in and of itself (well, aside from the conspiracy-theorist part).

However, he is not a credible source to cite for a theory such as the moon-god theory.  Indeed, he is a Christian fundamentalist, Bible-thumper, and loony Creationist who believes that the earth is only 6,000 years old, that dinosaurs lived with humans like in the Flintstones, and that evolution and global warming are fake.  He is also at least a little bit Antisemitic and a whole lot Islamophobic.  All in all, Yoel Natan is a poor source to cite.

*  *  *  *  *

Having thus established that the source of the moon-god theory–including Robert Morey (originator of the theory) and Yoel Natan (responsible for giving the theory a second wind)–are wholly unreliable, we now turn our attention to the substance of the theory itself.

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Breaking News: Benjamin Netanyahu’s Son Hates Islam and Muslims

Posted on 24 June 2011 by Emperor

Can I just say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree? Imagine if this had been a Muslim leaders son and he said something similar? Now Bibi is crying for context and understanding, sad.

Yair Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister’s Son, Creates Facebook Ruckus With Arab, Muslim Posts

JERUSALEM — The Israeli prime minister’s 19-year-old son posted disparaging comments about Arabs and Muslims on his Facebook page, an Israeli paper reported Friday

Earlier this year, Yair Netanyahu posted that Muslims “celebrate hate and death,” the Haaretz daily reported. After Palestinian assailants entered a West Bank settlement and stabbed five members of an Israeli family to death, he wrote that “terror has a religion and it is Islam.”

Yair Netanyahu, the eldest of the prime minister’s two sons, is currently a soldier in the Israeli military’s media liaison unit.

A lawyer for the Netanyahu family, David Shimron, said the comments were those of a “teenager” and were “taken out of context in an attempt to defame the prime minister and his family,” Shimron said in a statement provided to The Associated Press.

According to the Haaretz report, the prime minister’s son also ran a Facebook group that called for a boycott of Arab businesses and products, and used obscenities to describe Arabs. He was 17 at the time. The group had a total of 23 members, the paper reported.

In another comment, he wrote that there had never been a Palestinian state and that he hoped “there would never be one.”

Haaretz said the comments in question were removed within two hours of the paper’s request for a response from the prime minister’s representatives.

The younger Netanyahu’s Facebook page also included comments on the Israeli version of the TV show Big Brother and a “like” directed at Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli, alongside photos of himself with world leaders like Bill Clinton and Silvio Berlusconi.

A military spokesman said commanders had spoken to Netanyahu “to clarify to the soldier the military commands, outlining his mistakes, as would be done with any soldier in a similar situation.”

Some of the comments predated his military service, the military said.

Shimron, the Netanyahu family’s attorney, slammed Haaretz for reporting the comments.

“Bringing them up now is ridiculous and shows the cynical use of the words of a teenager, said in anger, when he could not imagine that someone would someday make use of them,” the lawyer wrote.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife believe in moderation and tolerance, and they respect all people without regard for their religion, origin or nationality and that is how they raise their children,” the statement said.

The families of Israeli leaders have typically been kept out of the spotlight, but Netanyahu’s family has sometimes drawn media attention in ways that have been a liability for the Israeli leader.

Sara Netanyahu, the prime minister’s third wife, has been criticized for allegedly mistreating her household staff and for meddling in state affairs. She has denied the accusations.

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A Gay (Straight) Girl (Man) in Damascus (Edinburgh)

Posted on 24 June 2011 by Emperor

When a so-called enlightened “Westerner” wants to intervene to help the poor brown people, what do you get? A hodgepodge of neo-Orientalist titillation, fantasy and the worsening of conditions for the oppressed.

Tom MacMaster should of thought this through a little better. On a side note, in the past we also got comments from one Amina Arraf on this piece and this one.

The Politics Behind the Roleplay

Contributed by Ali Abbas and Assia Boundaoui (KabobFest)

In a queer turn of events it has been exposed that Amina Arraf, known to most as the “Gay Girl in Damascus” is no more than a contrived Orientalist avatar of one 40-year-old white man from Georgia, Tom MacMaster. The first words that came to mind upon hearing the news, were “ILAAN KOS…” but we’re trying to refrain from wasting our indignation on curses (albeit justified) and re-orient the conversation into a productive analysis of what MacMaster’s hoax means for the position of Arabs in western media.

The Violence of Representation:

More than just speaking for Syrian activists, or Syrian women, or Syrian lesbians, as so many righteous liberal Westerners “interested” in the Middle East so often do, Tom MacMaster, in his own words,  “created a voice,” and in doing so redefined what representation means for Arabs in western media – we call it ventriloquism. In creating the “dummy,” Anima, through the blog Gay Girl in Damascus, MacMaster became the mouthpiece for an entire class of Syrian people while denying Syrians (activists/women/lesbians/all of the above) the right to a voice in an already one-sided global media.

In this violent act of representation in which language and meaning was appropriated, MacMaster detracted from the stories of REAL Syrians who risk their lives daily in opposition to the dictatorship of the Assad regime. Not only did the attention received by MacMasters fake blog rob Syrians of their own voice, it put them in danger in a very real way.

MacMaster, in all of his privileged splendor as a straight American white man, appropriated and “outed” his avatar Amina as a lesbian activist, and in doing so put numerous queer Syrians at risk. Writing from a cozy home in Georgia/Edinburgh/Turkey bares no risk, allowing for plenty of slack when it comes to accuracy and accountability. Yet the victims will ultimately not be the MacMasters of the world, the phony bleeding heart liberals, but the people on the ground that Amina fails to represent.

Daniel Nassar, a moniker for a Syrian Lesbian activist, blogged a furious response to the hoax, explaining that MacMaster, “took away my voice… and the voices of many people who I know. To bring attention to yourself and blog…you single-handledly managed to bring unwanted attention from authorities to our cause.” LGBT folk, like Nassar, who have been doing the ground work to better the conditions in which they live now have to combat the overreaching imaginations of gung-ho white men in the West as much as they do the unjust laws and social stigma of their own regimes.

In creating Gay Girl in Damascus and appropriating the identity of a gay Syrian woman, MacMaster violently drowned out the voices of so many Syrians undergoing REAL persecution, and detention for their dissent (and identities) against the brutal regime. As much as MacMaster relishes his role play an Arab lesbian, he fails to realize that the politics arising from that identity are earned through a lifetime of hardship and inescapable pleasures and punishment, not enthusiasm for the romanticism of a region.

Neo-Orientalist Media Titillation

Regardless of whatever lazy apology MacMaster nervously reaches for, Amina was never intended to be a fictional character for the betterment of women or LGBT people in the Middle East. She is a western fantasy intended to arouse and titillate the western sensibilities to feel, not act. This is the ultimate neo-orientalism as it not only re-imagines an existing geographic location, but invents an entire human landscape.

Because the avatar in question is a gay woman, the international media was quick to eat it up, already confirming their notions and desires for how LGBT people and women live their lives in the Middle East. In fact Amina’s story tells us more about the West than it does Syria. The cyber ghost was so easily welcomed  by the media and concerned readers because she is symbolic of all the tropes which Westerners use to position themselves as superior interpreters of Middle East society and culture.

One shouldn’t need the sensationalized fictional narrative of a lesbian Syrian woman to affirm the rights of Syrian demonstrators who are being brutally repressed by their governments. But if the goal is to arouse emotion and entertain, then MacMaster has succeeded in proving that the truth about Arabs comes secondary to Western perceptions and feelings towards them.

Reaffirming this point is the Washington Post article on MacMaster in which the authors claim that,  “the hoax raised new questions about the reliance on blogs, Tweets, Facebook postings and other Internet communications as they increasingly become a standard way to report on global events.”

For Arabs grasping on to the short end of the media stick, MacMaster’s mess is not a nuanced analysis of the importance of fact checking. To the contrary, this is a particular issue that speaks to the agency of Arab voices slowly being drowned out in a world of lazy journalism, and false reaches for objectivity.

The Violent Aftermath

Ultimately MacMaster has aided the Assad regime and other dictatorial bodies of government by confirming what the Arab dictators have been saying all along: that the uprisings are simply a conceived Western ploy. With the creation of the “Amina dummy,” MacMaster has managed to turn anti-revolutionary regime propaganda into truth by providing evidence that certain narratives of the revolution are fabrications of the West. Because this revolution is being fought on a battle field of (mis)information and truth, every single contribution is a decisive battle in which the outcome of an entire people is at stake – something MacMaster should be held accountable for jeopardizing.

The Arab revolutions are not events for the Western gaze to speculate and draw inspiration – they are real lived and often-times bloody moments that shape, destroy and rebuild the lives of living, breathing people.

Equally infuriating is the insincere “apology” MacMaster posts on his blog in which he ironicly echoes the rhetoric of the Assad regime and explains that his fabrication of a person and misdirection of a people was for the greater good. So if we are to take MacMaster’s “apology” sincerely then we are inadvertently embracing his philosophy – the belief that your voice doesn’t matter if you’re a (queer/female/activist) Arab because some white man in American can always write your story better.

Ali Abbas and Assia Boundaoui are New York based writers and freelance-journalists that submitted a blood test and birth certificate to affirm that the above thoughts are their own analysis based on a lifetime of Arab and or queer and or American and or woman identification.

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My God is Better Than Yours (II): Robert Morey, The Fake Doctor Behind the “Allah is the Moon-God” Theory

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My God is Better Than Yours (II): Robert Morey, The Fake Doctor Behind the “Allah is the Moon-God” Theory

Posted on 23 June 2011 by Danios

This is page II of My God is Better Than Yours.  (Read page I first.)

In recent times, a common claim furthered by anti-Muslim Christians is that Muslims worship the moon.  It is said that “Allah” refers to the moon-god.  Prof. Judith Mendelsohn Rood notes that this “theory” is slowly becoming “mainstream” in Evangelical circles:

Christian apologists are claiming that Allah is the “moon god” of a pagan religion–a pernicious idea that is making its way increasingly into mainstream evangelical culture.

This moon-god lie originated from “Dr.” Robert Morey, a Christian Evangelist and professional Islamophobe.  Says Morey:

Islam’s origins have been traced back by scholars to the ancient fertility religion of the worship of the moon god which was always the dominant religion of Arabia. The moon god was worshipped by praying toward Mecca several times a day, making an annual pilgrimage to the Kabah which was a temple of the moon god, running around the Kabah seven times, caressing an idol of a black stone set in the wall of the Kabah, running between two hills, making animal sacrifices, gathering on Fridays for prayers, giving alms to the poor, etc.. These were pagan rites practised by the Arabs long before Muhammad was born.

He goes on:

What religion today practices the pagan rites of the moon god? Islam! This explains why the crescent moon is the symbol of Islam. It is placed on top of mosques and minarets and displayed on hats, flags, rugs, amulets and even jewellery. Every time you see the Muslim symbol of a crescent moon, you are seeing the ancient symbol of the moon god.

Morey claims that to defeat Islam, the Judeo-Christian West must nuke the Kaaba in Mecca, saying:

First, as I wrote in my book, How to Win the War Against Radical Islam, the war against the Muslim Jihadists will be long and costly and will not be won until we bomb the Kabah in Mecca.  Islam is based on a brick and mortar building that can be destroyed. They pray to that building five times a day, make a pilgrimage to it, run around it, kiss a black rock on the wall, then run between two hills and finally throw rocks at a pillar. What if that building, the Kabah, was destroyed? They could not pray to it or make a pilgrimage to it. The old pagan temple of the moon-god, al-ilah, is the Achilles’ heel of Islam. Destroy it and you destroy Islam’s soul.

Initially, we had decided that it was not worth our time to refute this silly “Allah is the moon-god” canard: Robert Morey is clearly a loon, and who would take him seriously?  Unfortunately, as we found out, a lot of people.  Indeed, anti-Muslim Christians regularly invoke the moon-god theory, such that it makes it impossible not to deal with this issue.

It would behoove us to first question the source of this moon-god theory: who is Robert Morey?  Is he a credible scholar?  The answer is an emphatic no.  He is a Christian Evangelist and anti-Muslim polemicist: it seems fairly obvious that he has a strong bias.  As is the case with other pro-Christian anti-Muslim ideologues who claim to be “scholars on Islam” (such as Robert Spencer), Morey possesses absolutely no credible academic qualifications on the subject of Islam.

Worse than this, Morey is a quack, claiming credentials that are outright fake: on his website, he claims that he has an honorary doctor of divinity (D.D.) in Islamic Studies from the Faith Theological Seminary located in Pakistan.  Firstly, it should be noted that an “honorary degree” would mean that he never actually attended the school at all.

But if this wasn’t bad enough, the degree itself is fraudulent.  When the Faith Theological Seminary found out Morey was claiming to have a degree from their school, they categorically denied that they had ever issued such a degree to him and ordered him to remove the claim from his site or face criminal charges.  The school referred to Morey’s “degree” as an “illegal and fake degree”.  (Morey did not remove it from his site and continues to claim the degree.)

Robert Morey also claims a PhD in Islamic Studies from the Louisiana Baptist University (LBU).  This is an unaccredited institution that is not recognized by the U.S. Department of Education or by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).  LBU is a “distance learning program” (teaching via the internet), with one alumnus boasting that “the LBU program may be completed 100% via distance learning”, while noting that “I did spend one week on campus”.  In other words, the PhD is “earned” over the internet, not the classroom.

LBU is listed in Steve Levicoff’s Name It and Frame It?: New Opportunities in Adult Education and How to Avoid Being Ripped Off by “Christian” Degree Mills as a “degree mill”, a term used to refer to groups that issue bogus degrees for a fee.  Outside his book, Levicoff put it bluntly: “LBU is a joke.”  Perhaps LBU’s website words it best: “LBU has both the experience and reliability to provide an efficient quality degree program tailored to your needs.”  Indeed!  This is a case of “Phd-for-a-fee or your money back.”

In 1998, the Louisiana Board of Regents (a government agency responsible for overseeing higher education) issued a unanimous ruling to deny LBU an operating license for its business education programs, and ordered the school to cease admitting students and cease advertising.  LBU was later exempted based on the religious institution exemption and was allowed to operate as a religious institution.

Once again, things go from bad to worse for Morey when the matter is investigated further.  Morey claims on his bio that he has obtained a PhD degree in “Islamic Studies”.  The only problem?  LBU does not offer any such degree.  As the OC Weekly noted:

Morey also claims to have received a doctorate from Louisiana Baptist University. Two problems: LBU is unaccredited by the United States government, which means no serious academy would recognize it. Then there’s this: LBU doesn’t offer a Ph.D. in Islamic studies.

The paper is absolutely correct: LBU does not offer any such degree.  When OC Weekly asked him to comment on this “fib”, he altered his story:

When told LBU offers no program in Islamic studies, Morrey corrected himself and said his doctorate is in theology, with an emphasis on Islam.

Yet, Morey’s website and bio to this day continue to claim that he obtained a PhD in Islamic studies. Worse yet, LBU doesn’t even offer a doctorate in theology with an emphasis on Islam.  Graduate degrees that the school does offer include “degrees of Doctor of Philosophy in Biblical Studies, Psychology and Christian Counseling, and Christian Education.” As the OC Weekly sarcastically quipped about Morey’s imaginary degree: “He’s the first and only student to receive such a degree from the school.”

To put the nail in the coffin, there is no way Robert Morey could have studied any degree at LBU with an “emphasis on Islam” because a look at the school’s course catalog reveals that it does not offer a single course having anything to do with Islam.  It is a school that offers courses about Christianity, not Islam.

The fact that Morey had to lie about having an “honorary degree” on the one hand and an online degree from a degree mill on the other hand shows how desperate Robert Morey is that people call him “doctor”. The only other degree Robert Morey could hang his hat on for the title of “doctor” is the “D.Min.” (Doctor of Ministry) in Apologetics that he claims he earned from the Westminster Theological Seminary.

However, it should be noted that the degree of “Doctor of Ministry” can be considered  a “fluff” degree that is no way, shape, or form equivalent to or even comparable to a real PhD.  As one astute blogger worded it:

It’s a match made in heaven.

On one side: a pastor who…needs respect and money and position.

On the other side: floundering seminaries struggling to stay financially afloat in a world of tight budgets and harsher spreadsheets.  These seminaries accept (almost indiscriminately) anyone willing to put down the tuition money, no matter what their moral or intellectual character…

Welcome to the Doctor of Ministry degree. After three quick, easy, study-lite years, the pastor has attained his Doctor of Ministry degree. His doctorate degree.  That degree gives the pastor a tremendous amount of respect now.  He is Dr. Pastor now, a real somebody.  More importantly, there is tremendous upside attached to his new title, and the ceiling on his earning potential has just been lifted.  Dr. Pastor has clout now, or Dr. Rev. Pastor, if you will.   Suffix Suffice it to say, he has respect, money, and position.

Following a familiar pattern, we find that the situation gets worse for “Dr.” Robert Morey when we find out that the Westminster Theological Seminary does not seem to offer a D.Min. in “Apologetics”. It is difficult to determine which of his “credentials” is more impressive: an “illegal or fake degree” from a real university or a fake degree from a fake university or a fake degree from a real university offering fluff degrees?

In any case, Morey quickly transitioned from being the receiver of fake degrees to the one giving them out, and founded the California Biblical University and Seminary, another unaccredited money-making “university”and degree mill.  The “school’s” faculty page listed him as the only faculty member.  Due to reasons that are unclear to us now (legal action?), the school has now disappeared…no doubt after Morey fleeced enough students of their hard-earned cash.

Robert Morey also served as a pastor at the Faith Community Church in California, where members of his church accused him of illegal and immoral behavior, including using church money for his personal expenses.  Consequently, the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals (F.I.R.E.) had “Robert Morey Thrown Out Of His Denomination” and forcibly resigned him in a unanimous vote by board officials, declaring that he had “abused his pastoral authority.”

Moriel Ministries stated that Morey was guilty of “gross and habitual financial impropriety” and “academic fraud with a bogus doctorate in Islam”, and mocked him for his outrageous claim that he has “read everything in the US Library of Congress on Islam”, which Moriel astutely points out would mean “over 7,000 volumes, monograms etc. to say nothing of the fact he cannot read Arabic.”  His claim that he has read all of the books on Islam in the U.S. Library of Congress is reminiscent of Sarah Palin’s remark that she “reads all of them”, referring to newspapers.

After closing down his degree mill “university” and being thrown out of his ministry, Robert Morey seems to have in recent years fled the limelight to live away from the public eye.  Nonetheless, his moon-god theory lives on, and has in fact been given a “second wind” thanks to the surge of Islamophobia in the last decade and due to the tireless efforts of a dedicated anti-Muslim contingent trolling the internet.  All of them repeat the same lie that originates from Robert Morey, a fake doctor and quack.

Questioning Robert Morey’s credentials is not mere muckraking; rather, it is important for us to ascertain the unreliable originator of the moon-god theory.  He is not just academically defunct and wholly unreliable; he is an intellectual huckster and fraudster of the highest order.

None of this is to say that Robert Morey is not considered a well-respected author, scholar, and authority in right-wing circles.  Like other self-proclaimed “experts on Islam” used by the right-wing, Morey has no actual academic qualifications or credentials.  This fact, however, does not stop the anti-Muslim bigots from relying on him and others like him.  It is hoped, however, that more neutral minds will not be fooled.

*  *  *  *  *

Before we begin dissecting Morey’s theory, a word might also be said of Yoel Natan, author of the cleverly titled book Moon-O-Theism. Natan’s book helped give the moon-god theory a second wind.  It is on page III that we will turn to this topic.

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Discrimination against Muslims at all-time high in Belgium

Posted on 23 June 2011 by Mooneye

But all they care about is banning the Niqab?

Discrimination against Muslims at all-time high in Belgium

(Today’s Zaman)

A total of 166 out of 1,466 cases launched in connection with discrimination and racism-related offenses involve faith, according to the 2010 report prepared by Belgium’s Center for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CEOOR).

Eighty-four percent of these cases are connected to Islam while only 2 percent concern Christianity and Judaism. The high number of cases of discrimination against Muslims is likely to bring more debates on Islamophobia back to the agenda. Eighty percent of the complaints filed with the CEOOR involve racism.

About two-thirds of the cases involving Islam stem from Islamophobia, the report says. These incidents of Islamophobia are mostly characterized by propaganda being disseminated through email and pressure in the workplace. The workplace-related cases of discrimination include exclusion and verbal provocation of Muslims. The report notes these instances are a result of workplace administrations believing that “religion has no place in the workplace.” The tension arising from Islamophobic attitudes in the workplace is mostly eliminated “by transferring the Muslim employee involved to another department or laying her/him off.”

Furthermore, 50 percent of cases of discrimination involving faith are linked to media organizations that publish or air unfair accusations or generalizations about members of a specific religion. Twenty-five percent of these cases concern recruitment or promotion while 8 percent involve services provided. The cases of discrimination in the latter category are mostly visible in real estate purchases or rentals. Some real estate agents and home owners are not inclined to rent out their properties to people who they believe are of a different faith.

Additionally, the number of cases of discrimination reported to the CEOOR in 2010 increased by 25 percent compared to the previous year. A list of companies allegedly reluctant to employ foreign employees was recently posted on the Internet.

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The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle

Posted on 22 June 2011 by Amago

The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle

By Robert Steinback
Illustration by Bri Hermanson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P. David Gaubatz

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IN HER OWN WORDS “Islam is not a race. This is an ideology. This is an extreme ideology, the most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the earth.”
— On Fox Business’ “Follow the Money,” March 10, 2011

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

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

DAVID HOROWITZ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DEBBIE SCHLUSSELDebbie Schlussel
ORGANIZATION Columnist; eponymous website.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Robert Spencer: Anthony Weiner is Most Likely a Secret Muslim

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Robert Spencer: Anthony Weiner is Most Likely a Secret Muslim

Posted on 21 June 2011 by Danios

JihadWatch‘s Robert Spencer, who has absolutely no academic qualifications that would make him so, has always tried to posit himself as a serious expert on Islam.  As time went by, Spencer’s hatred for Islam bubbled to the surface and he could no longer help himself from partaking in kooky conspiratorial talk.

Spencer sees a “secret Muslim” behind every corner.  We have him on record saying that he thinks President Obama may in fact be a secret Muslim.  Now, he’s saying that Anthony Weiner, a Jewish congressman who recently admitted to ethically suspect behavior, may in fact be a secret Muslim too.  (This, despite Anthony Weiner’s well-known pro-Israel, pro-Zionist, and anti-Palestinian views.)  Spencer tried, with little success, to walk back his statement.

So, President Obama is a secret Muslim, Anthony Weiner is a secret Muslim, and oh yeah, don’t forget that Spencer has linked Adolf Hitler and Nazism to Islam too!  Spencer, is the boogieman also Muslim?

After this, should anybody take Robert Spencer seriously?

Here’s Justin Elliott’s piece on Salon:

Anthony Weiner-converted-to-Islam meme spreads

A prominent right-wing Islam expert believes the Jewish congressman “most likely” converted in secret

BY JUSTIN ELLIOTT

This interview with Robert Spencer, the go-to Islam expert for the right wing, offers a taste of the worldview of the Shariah fear-mongering set:

Frontpage: I would like to talk to you today about Anthony Weiner’s marriage to his Muslim Brotherhood wife, Huma Abedin.

How is it exactly that a Muslim woman connected to the Muslim Brotherhood is married to a Jewish man? Something is not fitting here, right?

Spencer: Jamie, Islamic law prohibits a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim man. A Muslim man may marry a non-Muslim woman, but not the other way around. This is yet another manifestation of Islamic supremacism: the idea is that a wife will become a member of her husband’s household, and the children will follow the religion of the father. Thus, Muslim men marrying non-Muslim women ultimately enriches the Islamic community, while the non-Muslim community must forever be made to diminish.

Consequently, when a non-Muslim man begins a relationship with an observant Muslim woman, he is usually pressured to convert to Islam, and such conversion is made a condition of the marriage. Of course, laws are often honored in the breach, and this is not always true. So while we know that Huma Abedin’s parents were devout and observant Muslims — indeed, her father was an imam — we don’t know what exactly is going on with her marriage to Anthony Weiner.

Certainly the most likely scenario is that Weiner did convert to Islam, as Abedin’s mother, a professor in Saudi Arabia, would almost certainly have insisted that he do so. Weiner has made no public statement of this conversion, but since it would almost certainly have cost him politically if he had announced it, this silence is not any indication that he didn’t actually convert.

However, it is also possible, given the recent scandal involving Weiner’s apparently frequent and sexually charged contact with other women, that the rumors that the Abedin/Weiner union is a political marriage of convenience are true. After all, in 2008, Hillary Clinton was running for president. There were widespread insinuations that she was involved in a romantic and/or sexual relationship with Abedin, her ever-present personal assistant. Those whisperings persisted into Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. Abedin’s 2010 marriage to Weiner, at which Bill Clinton presided, put those rumors to rest.

In Islamic law, a Muslim must officiate a marriage ceremony; hence if Bill Clinton was the only one officiating, the marriage was not valid according to Islamic law. Huma Abedin would undoubtedly have known that. Thus, if no Muslim was officiating along with Clinton, Weiner would not have had to convert to Islam, as the whole thing was a charade from the outset, apparently entered into with the full awareness of all parties concerned.

Emphasis added.

This is the second time we’ve heard the baseless claim that the very Jewish Weiner might have converted to Islam when he married Huma Abedin.

The important point here is that Spencer is no fringe figure; he’s at the very center of the anti-Muslim movement in the United States. His bio describes the impressive access he has to both mainstream and right-leaning media sources:

His articles on Islam and other topics have appeared in the New York Post, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News, the UK’s Guardian, Canada’s National Post, Middle East Quarterly, WorldNet Daily, First Things, Insight in the News, National Review Online, and many other journals.

Spencer has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He has also appeared on the BBC, ABC News, CNN, FoxNews’s O’Reilly Factor, the Sean Hannity Show, the Glenn Beck Show, Fox and Friends, and many other Fox programs, PBS, MSNBC, CNBC, C-Span, France24 and Croatia National Televison (HTV), as well as on numerous radio programs including Bill O’Reilly’s Radio Factor, The Laura Ingraham Show, Bill Bennett’s Morning in America, Michael Savage’s Savage Nation, The Sean Hannity Show, The Alan Colmes Show, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, The Neal Boortz Show, The Michael Medved Show, The Michael Reagan Show, The Rusty Humphries Show, The Larry Elder Show, The Barbara Simpson Show, Vatican Radio, and many others. He has been a featured speaker at Dartmouth College, Stanford University, New York University, Brown University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary, Washington University of St. Louis, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and many other colleges and universities.

I asked Spencer about his claim, and he emailed: “If [Weiner] converted, it was almost certainly for convenience, not out of conviction.” Spencer also amended his statement that Weiner “most likely” converted to “most immediately obvious”:

“‘Most likely’ is a bit overstated. That is the most immediately obvious scenario, given Abedin’s background and self-identification as a Muslim. It is, as is obvious from the rest of what I said, not the only possible scenario,” he wrote.

Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More:Justin Elliott

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N.Y. Anti-Mosque Leader Defends Group That Clashed With British Police

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N.Y. Anti-Mosque Leader Defends Group That Clashed With British Police

Posted on 21 June 2011 by Emperor

Hate blogger Pamela Geller

N.Y. Anti-Mosque Leader Defends Group That Clashed With British Police

(Newsweek)

A leader in the movement protesting plans to build an Islamic cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan is defending the actions of a right-wing, anti-Muslim group that was involved in violent clashes with British riot police over the weekend.

Pamela Geller is a conservative blogger, activist, and a principal organizer of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), which seeks to block construction of the proposed center. The group is sponsoring a protest rally at the site on the 2010 anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a week from Saturday. In a posting on her Atlas Shrugs blog, Geller expresses sympathy for the goals and actions of the English Defense League (EDL), a far-right group implicated in violent clashes with police during an anti-Islamic demonstration last Saturday in the northern English city of Bradford. “The stated goal of the EDL is to oppose militant Islam and the sharia,” Geller writes. “What’s wrong with that? Everything to the PC, leftist slaves in the media and the government.”

In an e-mail to Declassified, Geller affirmed her support for the EDL and defended the group’s actions in Bradford, which, with its nearby sister city of Leeds, has a substantial Muslim population, many of Pakistani extraction.

Geller wrote: “The media has been defamatory and libelous towards any and all counter jihad activists, including the EDL, which far from being neo-Nazi and racist, is pro-Israel and has Sikh and other non-white members and spokesmen. The EDL’s own explanation of what happened in Bradford ishere. As you can see from that statement, a group of Islamic supremacists and Communists actually began the violence by throwing rocks at EDL members. White supremacists at the demonstration did not represent the EDL, and EDL members actually removed them from the demonstration.”

British media reports—including accounts from outlets known for their conservative political slants—and official police statements on the Bradford clashes do not offer much support for, and in some cases contradict, the account offered by the EDL. In an official chronology of last Saturday’s events posted on the Web site of the West Yorkshire Police, the first reference to violence is a 2:30 p.m. entry that says: “Missiles have been thrown in the area around the Bradford Urban Gardens, however, this has been contained and the police are utilising their resources to manage the current situation.”

Bradford Urban Gardens is the location at which U.K. authorities had allowed the EDL to stage its rally; a left-wing counterdemonstration was booked a half mile away. (The EDL had wanted to conduct a march through the city, but authorities denied permission.)

report from The Daily Telegraph, a newspaper known for its conservative sympathies, says violence broke out “as chanting EDL supporters began throwing missiles towards Asian youngsters and anti-fascist activists who had been taunting them with shouts of ‘Nazi scum off our streets.’ ” The Telegraph said that as EDL protesters got off buses that had taken them to the site, they shouted slogans at locals, including “Allah-Pedophile,” “We want our country back,” and “We love the floods”—a reference, the paper said, to flooding that’s now devastating much of Pakistan.

The Daily Mail, a newspaper perhaps even more conservative thanThe Telegraph, also reported on the violence. The paper’s Web site carries photos of what it says are EDL protesters, with one caption reading, “Crossing the line: EDL supporters in hats, hoods and balaclavas hurl missiles at police in Bradford today.”

By her own account, Geller’s support of the EDL and other anti-Muslim groups in the U.K. has put her at odds with what are considered mainstream groups representing Britain’s Jewish community. In an interview with the conservative FrontPage Magazine Web site, Geller claims that rabbis and prominent Jewish groups in Britain had urged Jews to boycott a demonstration that a group called Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE) organized last December to protest plans to build a mosque in the North London neighborhood of Harrow.

According to Geller, the Community Security Trust, which keeps watch on extremist and anti-Semitic activities in the U.K., much like the Anti-Defamation League does in the U.S., urged Jews not to support the SIOE protest, as did unnamed rabbis who said the protest’s “only purpose” was “to spread hatred and fear.” Geller accused U.K. Jewish groups like the CST of “aiding and abetting Islamic jihad and Islamic anti-Semitism.” A person familiar with the views of British Jewish leaders, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said mainstream Jewish groups regarded the English Defense League as “politicized football hooligans.”

In an e-mail to Declassified, Geller acknowledged that some epithets that The Telegraph attributed to EDL protesters in Bradford were “in bad taste, although in saying that I am not accepting the accuracy of The Telegraph account, and also understand that words said in anger are not always words the speakers would endorse in moments of reflection.” In a move apparently designed to avoid such embarrassments at her group’s upcoming 9/11 event, she said, “We have already published several notices warning that inflammatory signs will be removed.”

Geller said the EDL itself acknowledged that there may have been neo-Nazi thugs among its ranks: “The left and real neo-Nazis frequently attempt to infiltrate EDL rallies in order to discredit the EDL. This is amply documented. Both have an interest in seeing the EDL fail: the left so that there will be no serious resistance to its agenda, and the neo-Nazis so that there exists no respectable alternative to them in opposing the British elite, and also because the neo-Nazis have generally aligned with the Islamic jihad that the EDL resists.”

She added that while she would not assert that the EDL “can do no wrong, I just refuse to accept accounts of EDL misdeeds from sources that have been proven in the past to have lied about EDL activities.”

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minnesotaconservatives

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Arrested St. Paul Blogger Charged with Disorderly Conduct

Posted on 21 June 2011 by Emperor

Islamophobia from Conservatives? Who’da thunk it?

Arrested St. Paul blogger charged with disorderly conduct

June 20, 2011

St. Paul, Minn. — A St. Paul blogger faces misdemeanor charges after he allegedly harassed two Muslim women last week in downtown Minneapolis.

Minneapolis police say John Hugh Gilmore, 52, who writes a blog called Minnesota Conservatives, caused a scene Thursday night on Nicollet Mall. Sgt. Bill Palmer, a police spokesman, said Gilmore appeared to be drunk when he confronted the two women wearing the Muslim headscarf known as the hijab.

“Mr. Gilmore made some comments that he didn’t believe the women should be in the United States, and that he thought that they were ruining America,” Palmer said.

One of the women, University of Minnesota student Jamila Boudlali, said she’s lived in Minnesota her entire life and has never been hassled about her religion.

Police say several onlookers intervened, and Gilmore allegedly threatened to assault one of the men.

Gilmore was charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing the legal process.

Boudlali said Minneapolis police, who took the man to jail, did the right thing.

“I have to admit I was very surprised that the guy got arrested because we’ve always kind of been afraid, I guess, of the police, and afraid to report things when things happen to us,” Boudlali said. “It made [me] really happy and made me have a lot more trust and confidence in the city of Minneapolis.”

The Muslim women had been attending the liberal NetRoots Nation convention, which was taking place at the same time as the conservative RightOnline conference.

Gilmore didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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From South Lebanon via Queens with Hate… When Hanan met Peter

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From South Lebanon via Queens with Hate… When Hanan met Peter

Posted on 20 June 2011 by Emperor

Brigitte Gabriel

Hanan Qahwaji, better known as Brigitte Gabriel in the Islamophobesphere has been exposed yet again. We wrote about Brigitte a while ago, and brought to fore the hate that her organization ACT! for America regularly engages in. (via. Brigitte Gabriel Review)

From South Lebanon via Queens with Hate… When Hanan met Peter

by Franklin Lamb (Peoples Voice)

Hanan is the Islamophobic Lebanese woman, Hanan Qahwaji who as a child lived in the South Lebanon village of Maryoun overlooking the Lebanon-Palestine border during three years of the on again off again Lebanese Civil War before she became an Israeli collaborator and fled to Israel. Hanan, repackaged as “Rachael”, soon quickly landed a job with Israeli TV and specialized in telling stories about how Muslims terrorized her and her Christian neighbors.

Later, repackaged as “Nour Semaan”, a name she still sometimes uses, Hanan tells American audiences that she became a Middle East “anchor” in Israel. Forgetting to mention that her job was with Pat Robertson’s, Christian Broadcasting Network, working to spread his politically conservative, Pentecostal faith in the Middle East which includes Robertson’s vision of rapture and how righteous Jews will all convert when Jesus comes again. The others will burn in Hell according to the Pentecosts. Hanan is sometimes known as, Nour Semaan, Rachael Cohen, “Dark Angel” and more recently, Bridgitte Gabriel, founder of the anti-Islam Zionist hate group “Act! For America”.

Peter, would be US Congressman Peter T. King, the Republican Islamaphobe from Long Island, NY, who as Hanan’s new partner in saving America from Islam, she sometimes flirtatiously refers to simply as “Petey” or “Petey Chops.”

It’s unknown to this observer whether the couple experienced “un vrai coup de foudre” when Mr. King was Hanan Qahwaji’s first guest earlier this year on a new cable television show that she co-hosts with Guy Rodgers, a Republican consultant who helped expand the Christian Coalition, which used to be a potent political organization on the Christian right and who is ACT’s Executive Director. However, “Petey” and “Bridge” as he calls her sometimes, certainly appear to see potential in one another for saving America from the Muslim hoards, which according to the duo are now in all American neighborhoods and who have infiltrated the FBI, the CIA, the State Department and the White House!

The new team is said by one King staffer to share a vision of “defeating Radical Islam in America and defeating it before it’s too late.” And they intend to show their fellow Americans just how to do it.

This past week in Washington, King held the second of what it planned as a series of “Congressional Hearings” designed to warn Americans about various threats from Muslims in their midst.

Gabriel frequently tells interviewers that “[F]or my first ten years I led a charmed and privileged life. All that came to an end when a jihadist religious war, declared by the Muslims against the Christians, […] tore my country and my life apart. It was a war that the world did not understand.”

What is obvious to the many Lebanese who view Hanan with contempt for misrepresenting and besmirching their country (not to mention her open letter to Israel during the July 2006 war, which she read frequently on TV shows urging Israel to keep bombing Lebanon despite their already killing of more than 1,300 civilians is that it was a war that Gabriel did not understand.

The on again, off again intermittent civil war was not characterized by anything remotely resembling a Muslim “Jihad”. Some Muslims actually fought with Israel and with the Christian Militia. Moreover, the Palestinian organizations were secular nationalists and not remotely Jihadists; plus many were also Christians, while other fighters were communists, Nasserites, and non-religious westerners. Although many combatants were Muslim, perhaps 35% were not. And their fight was with Israel; it was not a religious crusade against Christians. Gabriel’s fundraising speeches among largely uniformed right wing Republican audiences in which she claims she was the target of a religious crusade against Christians is patent nonsense.

“Watching the World Trade Center buildings fall in 2001,” Hanan tells audiences, “I was struck by the same fear that I experienced during the war in Lebanon. As I watched, words instinctively came from my mouth as I spoke to the TV screen: ‘Now they are here.” Gabriel is well aware, as Michael Young of Beirut’s Daily Star has pointed out, that there was nothing remotely comparable between what happened in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, and what she experienced in Marjayoun.

Bridgitte is said to believe that she can help King from deflecting rising criticism of his “hearings” given her own experience with hecklers as she tours the American heartland sounding the alarm.

She is said to resemble a Sarah Palin “mama grizzly” when she senses danger to those she cares about and no sooner than King’s hearing began last week than ACT! pounced with Tweets from the Congressional Hearing Room.

An ACT! staffer twittered live labeling it: “Round 2: House Homeland Security Committee Hearing on The Threat of Muslim-American Radicalization in U.S. Prisons:

“As I watched the discussion during the hearing, I Tweeted about so that our ACT! for America members could see right away what Members of the U.S. Congress are saying and doing about it. While there certainly were not as many “rabble rousers” as there had been for Chairman King’s first hearing on Muslim radicalization, there was some political drama, nonetheless.”

“For example, Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA) falsely alleged that the focus of Chairman King’s hearing “can be deemed as racist and as discriminatory.” The Chairman immediately fired back by saying that “the purpose of this Committee is to combat Islamic terrorism because that is the terrorist threat to this country. Bravo!”

“In response to Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) commenting that “the political correctness in this room is astounding,” Rep. Shiela Jackson-Lee (D-TX) held up a copy of the Constitution replying that the document is where she finds her “version of political correctness.” She went on further to state that there is a parallel between Christian militants and jihadists when it comes to bringing down the Constitution. More nonsense.”

“Rep. Hansen Clarke (D-MI) ranted terribly on for several-minutes about the real problem being the overcrowding of prisons due to unfair sentencing guidelines and claimed that prisoners were turning to Islam to “protect themselves.”

Other witnesses who reportedly left Peter and Bridgette unhappy were:

Deputy Chief Michael Downing, Commanding Officer of the LA Police Department’s Counter Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau, and Professor Bert Useem of Purdue University.

According to ACTS! Tweets:

“Chief Downing repeatedly tried to distinguish “Islam” from what he referred to as “Prislam,” and said that all jihadis had “hijacked” the Islamic faith. As I listened to him, I wondered if he has taken the time to read sharia law, the Qur’an and the hadiths? If he did, I think he would understand that what the “radicalized” Muslims are adhering to is an ideology that is clearly enunciated within Islam’s holy books and has been practiced for 14 centuries. His statements reminded me that a great deal of educating at local, state and federal levels still needs to be done.”

“Professor Useem made several amazingly naïve and plain stupid assertions, one of which was that “correctional leadership (at both the agency and prison-level) has consciously and successfully infused the mission of observing signs of inmate radicalization into organizational practices. Rather than being sitting ducks, waiting for their facilities to be penetrated by radicalizing groups, correctional leaders have fashioned, staffed, and energized the effort to defeat radicalization.”

A few examples of questions from new Members that may have pleased Bridge and Petey were:

  • Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN) asked if Shariah law would supersede the U.S. Constitution for radicalized Muslims. A chorus of “Yes” was heard from most of the witnesses.
  • Rep. Scott Rigell (R-VA) remarked that he was disappointed to see some members of the committee question why a hearing of this nature needed to take place. That the threat of Islamic radicalization in our prisons is clear.
  • Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) commented how remarkable it is that a discussion about the threat of radical Islam appeared to be “off limits.” He also expressed concerns about literature found in U.S. prisons, such as writings by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, that ask: Which do you choose, the flag of Islam or the flag of America?

ACTS! Final Tweet from King’s Hearing last week:

“Action by our grassroots is the fuel that makes the ACT! For American engine run. As we wait for Chairman King’s third hearing on Islamic radicalization it’s really nice to see that the engine is roaring loud and strong.”

In perhaps a personal message of encouragement to the Chairman were the words: “Please keep it up for Round Three!”

One subject being considered for Round Three is: “How to spot an Islamic terrorist in your neighborhood”. An interesting subject since that’s one suggested title for Hanan’s (Bridgitte’s) next book featuring an introduction by none other than “Petey” King.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and can be contacted c/o fplamb@gmail.com

He is the author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon.

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Pastor-Terry-Jones–300×200

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Florida pastor Terry Jones returning to Michigan to protest Islam

Posted on 17 June 2011 by Amago

Someone should tell pastor Terry Jones that all Arabs are not Muslims and all Muslims are not Arabs.

Florida pastor Terry Jones returning to Michigan to protest Islam

Terry Jones, the Quran-burning pastor from Florida, is to lead a three-hour rally against Islam today at Dearborn City Hall followed by a 2-mile walk to the Arab International Festival, where he will further speak out. The three-day festival is the largest outdoor gathering of Arab Americans in the U.S. and is held in Dearborn, known for its sizable Muslim population.

Jones, who led a rally at City Hall in April, gained worldwide attention for his threats to burn the Quran last year on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He didn’t go through with it, but he led a Quran-burning in Florida in March. He tried to protest outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn in April, but a jury ruled he would likely breach the peace, thwarting his plans. Jones has appealed that decision, which was criticized by the ACLU and some constitutional law experts as an infringement of his free-speech rights.

Jones said the decision was an example of sharia, or Islamic law, coming to America, which he said is a growing threat. Today, Jones plans to speak out against sharia again as part of a five-point plan he said will help fight Islam. One point calls for the “monitoring of all mosques to assure that they are places of worship and not of Islamic propaganda.”

Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly Jr. has said repeatedly that the city has never implemented sharia.

In a letter sent this week to residents, O’Reilly said Jones and his supporters “are coming here to promote the concept that Islam is a false faith and that Muslims by teaching and nature are violent. We know that there is no substance to their message — their goal is to promote fear and hatred in others.”

Referring to Jones supporters, O’Reilly said he is urging the public to “ignore them and their empty words. Their goal is to bait and anger us so that they can then misrepresent who we are in order to serve their personal agenda.

“Debating them and confronting them at this event or in our city can produce no positive result for us.”

Contact Niraj Warikoo: 313-223-4792 or nwarikoo@freepress.com

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Europeans Against Islamophobia: Taking a Stand Against Bigotry

Posted on 16 June 2011 by Mooneye

via. Islamophobia-Today

Europeans Against Islamophobia: Taking a Stand Against Bigotry

by Guest

Europe today is the scene of extremely xenophobic anti-Muslim and populist forces bent on confrontation with the continent’s Muslim citizens. The main reason for the continuing rise and growth of this hateful force is the position Europe finds itself in today, a crossroads in which it is grappling with its identity as well as how to deal with its growing minorities.

Javier Solana, formerly the EU’s High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy wrote that in the next forty years Europe’s workforce will decrease by 70 million and migration is the solution to maintaining its economy,

A major challenge that Europe must still face is migration, which will only become a bigger problem over time. Between now and 2050, Europe’s workforce will decrease by 70 million. Maintaining our economy requires migration and open EU borders – and facing down the populist movements in Europe that would shun “outsiders”.

One can assume that a significant percentage of the migrants will be Muslims, this will be especially true if Turkey eventually accedes to the EU. This will have dramatic effects on politics in Europe, one can foresee the rise of many more Geert Wilders and Le Pen’s, as well as organizations such as the EDL, BPE, SIOE, etc.

One of things needed to insure that Europe successfully maintains its economy, strengthens its cohesion while maintaining the universal values it proclaims is for it to overcome the hateful forces pushing nativist tendencies and Islamophobic rhetoric.

As Tariq Ramadan has mentioned this requires a commitment from all citizens and the realization of a new “WE.” One way in which to “face down” the haters is to actively be informed, as well as to participate in combating Islamophobia, racism and bigotry much in the way that thousands of anti-fascist protesters did when they rallied against Robert Spencer and the BPE in Stuttgart, Germany.

In this regard there is a relatively new Facebook page, Europeans Against Islamophobia, which collects up to date and breaking news in regards to anti-Muslim hate, Islamophobia, racism, violence and activities to combat these forces. I suggest everyone like the page, suggest to friends (especially Europeans) and join the discussion there.

Europeans Against Islamophobia is also joined by other Facebook pages that are worth joining:

-We are European non-Muslims and Mosques don’t bother us

-Americans Against Islamophobia

-Christians United Against Islamophobia

-United Shades of Britain

-Brigitte Gabriel Review

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Politico.com: Today, Muslims; Tomorrow, You

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Politico.com: Today, Muslims; Tomorrow, You

Posted on 16 June 2011 by Emperor

A great piece from Roger Simon.

Today, Muslims; Tomorrow, You

by Roger Simon (Politico)

The return of Ask Dr. Politics! A forum for civil exchange in a civil society.

Dear Dr. Politics: Why are you such a jerk? You call Herman Cain “hateful” for wanting to protect Americans from Muslim militants who want to kill us. It’s you who is hateful!

Reply: Let’s look at the record. This is from PolitiFact.com, a Pulitzer Prize-winning, nonpartisan fact-checking organization that examines the statements of public figures. PolitiFact gives Cain its lowest rating, judging his statements on this issue “not accurate” and “ridiculous.”

Let’s start with Cain’s comments in a March 21 article in Christianity Today.

“And based upon the little knowledge that I have of the Muslim religion, you know, they have an objective to convert all infidels or kill them,” Cain said.

On May 26, a blogger for ThinkProgress.org asked Cain: “Would you be comfortable appointing a Muslim either in your Cabinet or as a federal judge?”

“No, I will not,” Cain replied. “And here’s why. There is this creeping attempt, there’s this attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government.”

A few days later, Cain went on “Your World With Neil Cavuto” on Fox News.

“A reporter asked me, would I appoint a Muslim to my administration. I did say, ‘No,’” Cain said. “And here’s why. … I would have to have people totally committed to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. And many of the Muslims, they’re not totally dedicated to this country.”

Then, in Monday’s CNN debate, moderator John King accurately asked Cain about his statement that he would not appoint a Muslim to his Cabinet.

Cain replied that he never said that — only that he would not be “comfortable” appointing a Muslim to his Cabinet. This contradicted Cain’s statement to Cavuto.

“And I would not be comfortable because you have peaceful Muslims and then you have militant Muslims, those that are trying to kill us,” Cain said during the debate. “And so, when I said I wouldn’t be comfortable, I was thinking about the ones that are trying to kill us, No. 1. Secondly, yes, I do not believe in Sharia law in American courts.”

In my column on the debate, I called this not only “incoherent nonsense” but also “hateful, incoherent nonsense.”

But you want to know what’s worse? As an excellent editorial in The New York Times pointed out Tuesday, “None of the other candidates took [Cain] to task for this. Mitt Romney, a Mormon who has himself been the subject of religious slurs, at least mentioned the nation’s founding principle of religious tolerance and respect but missed an opportunity to include Muslims. Newt Gingrich tumbled over the historical cliff with the idea, announcing some kind of loyalty oath to serve in his administration, similar to that used in dealing with Nazis and Communists.”

I don’t know if Monday’s debate will be quickly forgotten, replaced in our memories by a jumble of other debates, but I am going to remember it as the debate in which the entire Republican field to date refused to speak out for Muslim-Americans. They refused to speak out for the ones fighting for America in our armed forces, for the ones serving in Congress and for the ones living peaceful, productive and, yes, American lives.

The silence of these candidates was an act of cowardice.

Keep in mind these famous words when it comes to failing to speak out for people who are unpopular. They are by Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran pastor, and they are famous enough that even Republican candidates for president should know them. Niemoller was speaking of the courage it took to remain a decent human being in Nazi Germany:

“First they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

“Then they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Communist.

“Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Niemoller was arrested in 1937 and sent to Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps for “not being enthusiastic enough about the Nazi movement.” He was eventually liberated by the Fifth U.S. Army on May 5, 1945. He died in 1984 in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Do I regret the remarks I made about Herman Cain? I do not. Anyone who won’t speak out for those unjustly despised is despicable.

You want to live in a country that has a litmus test for Muslims? You want to live in a country that demands loyalty oaths from Muslims?

Fine. Today, it will be the Muslims. Tomorrow, it will be you.

How badly do these candidates want to be president? Badly enough to shred the Constitution to get the job? No job is worth that, not even president.

They should be ashamed of themselves. I certainly am ashamed of them.

Dear Dr. Politics: I notice you are now on Twitter under the name @politicoroger. Don’t you find that Twitter is divorced from reality?

Reply: Twitter is reality. Everything else is an illusion.

Roger Simon is POLITICO’s chief political columnist.

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Sofia Mosque Warden Assaulted, Beaten – Chief Mufti

Posted on 14 June 2011 by Amago

An injured Muslim worshipper holds a towel on his head after suffering a wound in clashes supporters of the Bulgarian ultra-nationalist party Ataka (L) during Friday prayer in front of the Banya Bashi Mosque in Sofia, 20 May. Photo by EPA

(hat tip Euro against Islamophobia)

Sofia Mosque Warden Assaulted, Beaten – Chief Mufti

The warden of the main mosque in downtown Sofia has suffered a brutal assault at the hands of unidentified attackers just minutes before the start of the morning prayer on Sunday, the Chief Mufti‘s Office announced.

“Today we witnessed yet another attack against Sofia mosque. This morning, 20 minutes before the morning prayer, the warden of the mosque in Sofia was cruelly beaten. Unknown people have jumped over the fence of the mosque, beaten the keeper, destroyed the security room and burst into the mosque,” says the statement.

The man was found by worshippers who came to the mosque for the morning prayer, covered in blood and unconcious, it said. He has been taken to the emergency Pirogov hospital.

“Hate crimes, acts of xenophobia and Islamophobia have risen dramatically in recent months,” says the statement of the Chief Mufti‘s Office.

Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry has issued no official information about the incident so far.

The news comes just a month after a Muslim man and five policemen were hurt in clashes between supporters of Bulgaria’s ultra-nationalist Ataka party and worshippers outside the Banya Bashi mosque in Sofia on May 20.

The incident was condemned by authorities and human rights groups as an example of a worrying escalation of xenophobia and religious hatred.

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Sharia-law-in-the-USA-EE5GEE5-x-large

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Amy Sullivan: The sharia myth sweeps America

Posted on 14 June 2011 by Emperor

The boogey monster of a Sharia’ takeover has been sweeping America. Here is a newsflash: Sharia’ law will never replace the Constitution.

Column: The sharia myth sweeps America

by Amy Sullivan (USA Today)

If you are not vitally concerned about the possibility of radical Muslims infiltrating the U.S. government and establishing a Taliban-style theocracy, then you are not a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. In addition to talking about tax policy and Afghanistan, Republican candidates have also felt the need to speak out against the menace of “sharia.”

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum refers to sharia as “an existential threat” to the United States. Pizza magnate Herman Cain declared in March that he would not appoint a Muslim to a Cabinet position or judgeship because “there is this attempt to gradually ease sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government.”

The generally measured campaign of former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty leapt into panic mode over reports that during his governorship, a Minnesota agency had created a sharia-compliant mortgage program to help Muslim homebuyers. “As soon as Gov. Pawlenty became aware of the issue,” spokesman Alex Conant assured reporters, “he personally ordered it shut down.”

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has been perhaps the most focused on the sharia threat. “We should have a federal law that says under no circumstances in any jurisdiction in the United States will sharia be used,” Gingrich announced at last fall’s Values Voters Summit. He also called for the removal of Supreme Court justices (a lifetime appointment) if they disagreed.

Gingrich’s call for a federal law banning sharia has gone unheeded so far. But at the local level, nearly two dozen states have introduced or passed laws in the past two years to ban the use of sharia in court cases.

Despite all of the activity to monitor and restrict sharia, however, there remains a great deal of confusion about what it actually is. It’s worth taking a look at some facts to understand why an Islamic code has become such a watchword in the 2012 presidential campaign.

What is sharia?

More than a specific set of laws, sharia is a process through which Muslim scholars and jurists determine God’s will and moral guidance as they apply to every aspect of a Muslim’s life. They study the Quran, as well as the conduct and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed, and sometimes try to arrive at consensus about Islamic law. But different jurists can arrive at very different interpretations of sharia, and it has changed over the centuries.

Importantly, unlike the U.S. Constitution or the Ten Commandments, there is no one document that outlines universally agreed upon sharia.

Then how do Muslim countries use sharia for their systems of justice?

There are indeed some violent and extreme interpretations of sharia. That is what the Taliban used to rule Afghanistan. In other countries, sharia may be primarily used to govern contracts and other agreements. And in a country like Turkey, which is majority Muslim, the national legal system is secular, although individual Muslims may follow sharia in their personal religious observances such as prayer and fasting. In general, to say that a person follows sharia is to say that she is a practicing Muslim.

How and when is it used in U.S. courts?

Sharia is sometimes consulted in civil cases with Muslim litigants who may request a Muslim arbitrator. These may involve issues of marriage contracts or commercial agreements, or probating an Islamic will. They are no different than the practice of judges allowing orthodox Jews to resolve some matters in Jewish courts, also known as beth din.

U.S. courts also regularly interpret foreign law in commercial disputes between two litigants from different countries, or custody agreements brokered in another country. In those cases, Islamic law is treated like any other foreign law or Catholic canon law.

What about extreme punishments like stoning or beheading?

U.S. judges may decide to consider foreign law or religious codes like sharia, but that doesn’t mean those laws override the Constitution. We have a criminal justice system that no outside law can supersede. Additionally, judges consider foreign laws only if they choose to — they can always refuse to recognize a foreign law.

So if sharia is consulted only in certain cases and only at the discretion of the court, why has it become such a high priority for states and GOP candidates? One answer is that sharia opponents believe they need to act not to prevent the way Islamic law is currently used in the U.S. but to prevent a coming takeover by Muslim extremists. The sponsor of an Oklahoma measure banning sharia approved by voters last fall described it as “a pre-emptive strike.” Others, like the conservative Center for Security Policy, assert that all Muslims are bound to work to establish an Islamic state in the U.S.

But if that was true — and the very allegation labels every Muslim in America a national security threat — the creeping Islamic theocracy movement is creeping very slowly. Muslims first moved to the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, for example, nearly a century ago to work in Henry Ford‘s factories. For most of the past 100 years, Dearborn has been home to the largest community of Arabs in the U.S. And yet after five or six generations, Dearborn’s Muslims have not sought to see the city run in accordance with sharia. Bars and the occasional strip clubs dot the town’s avenues, and a pork sausage factory is located next to the city’s first mosque.

Maybe Dearborn’s Muslims are just running a very drawn-out head fake on the country. It’s hard to avoid the more likely conclusion, however, that politicians who cry “Sharia!” are engaging in one of the oldest and least-proud political traditions — xenophobic demagoguery. One of the easiest ways to spot its use is when politicians carelessly throw around a word simply because it scares some voters.

Take Gerald Allen, the Alabama state senator who was moved by the danger posed by sharia to sponsor a bill banning it — but who, when asked for a definition, could not say what sharia was. “I don’t have my file in front of me,” he told reporters. “I wish I could answer you better.” In Tennessee, lawmakers sought to make following sharia a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison — until they learned that their effort would essentially make it illegal to be Muslim in their state.

During last year’s Senate race in Nevada, GOP candidate Sharon Angle blithely asserted that Dearborn, as well as a small town in Texas, currently operate under sharia law. And Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann used the occasion of Osama bin Laden’s death to tie the terrorist mastermind to the word: “It is my hope that this is the beginning of the end of Sharia-compliant terrorism.”

The anti-communist Red Scare of the 1950s made broad use of guilt by innuendo and warnings about shadowy conspiracies. If GOP candidates insist they are not doing the same thing to ordinary Muslims, they can prove it by explaining what they believe sharia is and whether they’re prepared to ban the consideration of all religious codes from civil arbitration. Anything less is simply fear mongering.

Amy Sullivan is a contributing writer at Time and author of The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats Are Closing the God Gap.

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Neocon flak: Weiner may have converted to Islam

Posted on 13 June 2011 by Emperor

Can these neo-Con Islamophobes stoop any lower? Obviously they can.

Neocon flak: Weiner may have converted to Islam

by Justin Elliot (Salon.com)

We thought everything that could be said about Anthony Weiner’s lewd photo scandal had been said. But Eliana Benador, a former influential neoconservative public relations operative, has proved us wrong.

Writing for the “Communities” section of the Washingtom Times’ website, Benador argues that the Twitter scandal shows that … the Jewish Weiner might have converted to Islam!

Benador, who is currently the U.S.-based “goodwill ambassador” for a group of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, advances an argument that is fairly difficult to follow, but it seems to go like this: Because a New York imam was quoted in the press seeming to take Weiner’s side in the matter, and because Muslims (supposedly) practice deception as part of their faith, it’s possible that Weiner is secretly a Muslim convert who is still presenting himself to the world as a Jew.

She writes:

The Imam of New York has stated: “I would tell her [Huma] to be a little bit patient. In our book, if you think your wife, or husband, is doing something unacceptable, you start by counseling her.”

Counseling? For whom, Huma or Anthony? The Imam’s statement seems to state that Huma is in need.

Regardless, those are words of compromise offered by a leading Muslim Imam trying to make us forget that the Koran actually advocates stoning wives for adultery while turning a blind eye toward the sexual mis-deeds of the husband.

It is also important, when looking at this situation, to remember that observant Muslims practice Taqiyya , an element of sharia that states there is a legal right and duty to distort the truth to promote the cause of Islam. …

Given the defense articulated by the Imam, which would be offered only for a Muslim man, we must believe this opportunity to remove this Muslim woman from a union with an non-believer would be quickly taken. Therefore we must consider that Mr. Weiner *may* have converted to Islam, because if he did not, we have to consider the unlikely, that being that Ms. Abedin has abandoned her Muslim faith, even while she still practices.

(It’s worth noting here that “The Imam of New York” is not an actual title, and she is pretty clearly taking this imam’s quote out of context.)

Benador also wonders in the column if Huma has “been groomed to access leading political movers and shakers to advance the cause of Islam in America, including a politically positioned marriage to Congressman Anthony Weiner?”

Benador is no random blogger. She was the president of the now-defunct Benador Associates, a public relations firm that was active in the run-up to the Iraq war getting media exposure for such influential hawks as Michael Rubin, Richard Perle, Laurie Myrloie, and former CIA director Jim Woolsey. An article in the Guardian described pictures of her at a party with Joseph Lieberman. And one of her clients famously (and falsely) claimed in a 2006 newspaper column that Iran had instituted a Nazi-style dress code for Jews.

The bottom of the “Communities” section notes that “contributors are responsible for this content, which is not edited by The Washington Times.” But an editor did apparently delete one paragraph from Benador’s column, leaving this note: “(Correction: Paragraph removed for inaccuracies.  Apologies are issued and we regret the error.  The Communities).”

I’ve asked the Communities editor for comment on what that error was.

In any case, the fact that Weiner married a Muslim woman has long been the subject of rumblings in certain corners of the right-wing blogosphere.

(Hat tip: Benjy Sarlin)

Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More: Justin Elliott

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Woman weightlifter fights to compete in hijab

Posted on 10 June 2011 by Amago

Woman weightlifter fights to compete in hijab

by Liz Goodwin

A 35-year-old weightlifter is battling to be able to compete in the sport she loves while wearing a hijab instead of the body-hugging uniform that’s required.

Kulsoom Abdullah, who was born in the United States to Pakistani parents, discovered weightlifting at her gym, Crossfit, in Atlanta in 2008. She entered her first open competition last year, and was thrilled to find out that she was actually pretty good in the competitive sport. She can lift 70 kilos (about 154 pounds) to her shoulders, and 60 kilos (or about 132 pounds) over her head, in a move called the “clean-and-jerk.” Last December, she qualified for the American Open Weightlifting Championships, which would have been her first national competition.

But when her coaches asked whether she would be able to wear her modified uniform–which covers everything but her face, hands, and feet–the organizers told told them no.

Abdullah talked to some lawyer friends, who told her that other athletes had won their bids to wear different clothing for religious reasons. So she tried again, this time personally writing to USA Weightlifting with her request, and asking the group if it could compromise on a uniform.

Officials with the group wrote back and said they had to follow the rules of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), which mandates collarless uniforms and doesn’t allow exceptions.

“I was really disappointed because I was really looking forward to it,” she told The Lookout. “I had never thought I would qualify at the national level.”

“It is like saying, if you are different, you can not compete,” she wrote on her web site. “I am not asking people to change, I am just asking to participate and be able to dress the way I do.”

Now, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy group, is taking up Abdullah’s cause, and trying to lobby weightlifting organizations to revise their rules in time for her to compete in a July national competition. CAIR officials are arguing that USA Weightlifting is in violation of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, which forbids sports bodies from discriminating based on “race, color, religion, sex, age, or national origin.” Not allowing Abdullah to wear her hijab is discrimination, CAIR maintains.

USA Weightlifting told The Lookout in a statement that “uniforms must not cover either the knees or the elbows because the judges must be able to see that the lifter has locked out his or her knees and elbows in order for the lift to be deemed completed.” The IWF will discuss Abdullah’s request at a June 26 meeting in Penang, Malaysia. United States Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Jones says the group is committed to being “inclusive” but that it’s up to the IWF to decide if the modified uniform would provide a “competitive advantage.”

While the weightlifting powers-that-be have decided against her for now, Abdullah says she never feels out of place when training six days a week or when in open competitions with other lifters.

“They’re very encouraging,” she says of her fellow weightlifters, who are mostly men. “They’re really nice people and they’re very welcoming.”

As female competitor, “you’re always going to feel a little different,” she said of the traditionally male-dominated sport.

She says her family, who she lives with, is also supportive. “I mean, it is different, so they were [hesitant] … but they said as long as you don’t get hurt that’s fine. Sometimes it’s a little bit scary for my mom but I think she’s used to it now.”

Abdullah has a PhD in electrical computer engineering from Georgia Tech, and still does research at the university. She said what she likes about lifting is ”there’s a lot of technique involved. Someone could be very strong and not be able to lift as much.”

Excelling at lifting “gave me confidence,” she said, adding that she hopes more women will join up if they hear about their story.

Abdullah’s problem is not unique in the world of sports. The Iranian woman’s soccer team showed up to a Olympic qualifying match against Jordan wearing hijabs on Sunday, and officials with the global soccer governing body, FIFA, promptly disqualified them. FIFA banned the headscarves in 2007, citing choking hazards.

This is what a standard weighlifting uniform looks like, as modeled by Mabel Mosquera at the 2004 Olympics:

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Prominent Indian artist MF Hussain dies

Posted on 09 June 2011 by Amago

Maqbool Fida Hussain fled India after the religious right sent death threats for his depiction of Hindu goddesses in the nude. Hussain decided to stay in Dubai, a Muslim country that acknowledged his contribution to the Arts.

In this instance a Muslim dominated country gave sanctuary to an artist and did so specifically to guard freedom of speech. It is not a point that will be heard in many news outlets. Also, imagine if these Hindu nationalists were Muslims, you can bet your money that Islam would be blamed for their death threats and rhetoric.

Prominent Indian artist MF Hussain dies

Maqbool Fida Hussain, the celebrated painter often described as India’s Picasso, dies at the age of 95.

Hussain’s pieces were status symbols for India’s wealthy elite, with price tags worth millions of dollars [GALLO/GETTY]

MF Hussain, an artist who rose to become India’s most sought-after painter before going into self-imposed exile during an uproar over nude images of Hindu icons, has died.

Hussain died at the Royal Brompton hospital in London on Thursday at the age of 95, the CNN-IBN television channel quoted a friend, Arun Vadehra, as saying.

Hussain’s lawyer, Akhil Sibal, confirmed the death to the AP news agency.

Often described as India’s Picasso, Hussain first became well-known in the late 1940s, as part of a group of artists, headed by Francis Newton Souza, who broke with traditional Indian painting styles.

He became especially well known for paintings of horses earlier in his career.

Self-imposed exile

Hussain moved to Dubai in 2006 after receiving death threats from Hindu hard-liners in India over nude pictures he painted of Hindu goddesses.

Some of the artwork that angered the Hindu right had been around since the 1970s but came to their notice in the 1990s.

The most controversial painting shows a nude woman on her knees, creating the shape of India’s geographic borders, often depicted as “Mother India” in popular arts, folklore and literature.

It caused an outcry among hard-line Hindu groups that said associating India with nudity was disrespectful.

Several legal cases were brought against him. His depiction of Hindu goddesses in the nude also provoked anger among some Hindus, especially because Hussain is a Muslim.

MF Hussain spoke to Al Jazeera’s Riz Khan on the programme, One on One, last year

Hussain spoke of a desire to return home during several interviews in recent years. Last year, he was granted citizenship in the Gulf state of Qatar.

The artist, whose full name was Maqbool Fida Hussain, started out as a poster artist for India’s prolific Bollywood film industry.

Decades later, his paintings and even his simple pencil drawings became status symbols for India’s wealthy elite, with his works commanding price tags running into millions of dollars.

Hussain almost never wore anything on his feet. With his free flowing white beard and hair, he was an instantly recognisable figure in India’s art world.

Well-known actress Shabana Azmi, a close family friend of the artist, said that she was “deeply, deeply saddened”, to learn of Hussain’s death.

She described him as an “iconoclastic painter, a wonderful human being and a very good friend”.

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Religious feud leads to attempted murder charges

Posted on 09 June 2011 by Amago

Imagine if a young Muslim teenager got into a religious feud and attempted to murder someone. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer would not stop talking about it and would follow the story down to the very last bit.

Religious feud leads to attempted murder charges

Eyewitness News

NEW CITY, New York (WABC) – A teenager is under arrest in an ongoing religious feud in a small, Hasidic village.

It’s become so bad, police say attempted murder charges are now involved.

This latest incident happening in New Square.

Yesterday police arrested 18-year-old Shaul Spitzer on charges of attempted murderarson and first degree assault. Cops say he tried to set the Rottenberg family home on fire and it’s a location police are very familiar with.

There is a few instances of broken windows, broken windows in the vehicles owned by Rottenberg,” said Chief Peter Brower, Ramapo Police Department.

Investigator say early Sunday morning Aron Rottenberg saw Spitzer on his surveillance cameras as the teen threw a rag soaked with flammable liquid onto the rear porch at his Truman Avenue home. The 43-year-old confronted the teenager and somehow both men caught fire.

Rottenberg suffered third degree burns to 50-percent of his body. Spitzer is also hospitalized with burns to his hands and arm.

No one answered the door at Spitzer’s new square home today.

Police and some residents say the attack centers on a simmering feud between the community’s grand rabbi and a group of men, including Rottenberg who worship at a nearby senior center and not at the main synagogue.

(Copyright ©2011 WABC-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

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Herman Cain Would Require Muslim Appointees To Take A Special Loyalty Oath

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Herman Cain Would Require Muslim Appointees To Take A Special Loyalty Oath

Posted on 08 June 2011 by Danios

(cross-posted from ThinkProgress)

By Scott Keyes on Jun 8, 2011 at 6:41 pm

In March, formers Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain burst onto the presidential scene when he told ThinkProgress that he “will not” appoint Muslims in his administration.

Under intense pressure, Cain’s campaign walked back the candidate’s words, saying that he would appoint “any person for a position based on merit.” However, the next week, Cain hedged his retraction, telling the Orlando Sun Sentinel that he would only appoint a Muslim who disavowed Sharia law, but that “he’s unaware of any Muslim who’d be willing to make such a disavowal.”

On the Glenn Beck Show today, the host asked the Georgia Republican about his refusal to appoint Muslims. Cain told Beck that he would be willing to appoint a Muslim only “if they can prove to me that they’re putting the Constitution of the United States first.” Beck followed up by asking if he was calling for “some loyalty proof” for Muslims. Cain said, “Yes, to the Constitution of the United States of America.” When Beck then asked “Would you do that to a Catholic or would you do that to a Mormon?” Cain told the host, “Nope, I wouldn’t.”:

BECK: You said you would not appoint a Muslim to anybody in your administration.

CAIN: The exact language was when I was asked, “would you be comfortable with a Muslim in your cabinet?” And I said, “no, I would not be comfortable.” I didn’t say I wouldn’t appoint one because if they can prove to me that they’re putting the Constitution of the United States first then they would be a candidate just like everybody else. My entire career, I’ve hired good people, great people, regardless of their religious orientation.

BECK: So wait a minute. Are you saying that Muslims have to prove their, that there has to be some loyalty proof?

CAIN: Yes, to the Constitution of the United States of America.

BECK: Would you do that to a Catholic or would you do that to a Mormon?

CAIN: Nope, I wouldn’t. Because there is a greater dangerous part of the Muslim faith than there is in these other religions. I know that there are some Muslims who talk about, “but we are a peaceful religion.” And I’m sure that there are some peace-loving Muslims.

Watch it:

Cain’s call for a loyalty oath targeted at a specific segment of the population is a historical relic that ought to be confined to the past. Forcing a subset of Americans to prove their loyalty to the United States was as wrong during the era of McCarthyism as it is today.

Cain’s requirement that Muslim nominees take a loyalty oath while Catholics and Mormons would be exempted is not only bigoted, it’s also ironic considering that the same suspicion was once levied at Catholics. During the 1960 presidential election, anti-Catholic sentiment held that if then-Sen. John F. Kennedy were elected president, his Catholic faith would make him beholden to the Pope rather than the United States. Such views were abhorrent when directed at Catholics 50 years ago, and they are abhorrent when directed at Muslims today.

Three months ago, ThinkProgress wrote, “As the Republican presidential nomination process begins, one GOP candidate is making a name for himself as the Islamophobia candidate: Herman Cain.” Unfortunately, we are seeing just how true that prediction was.

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MEQ Report Claims 81 Per Cent of US Mosques Promote “Violent Jihad”

Posted on 08 June 2011 by Amago

A good article from Richard Bartholomew on a “recent” report by Middle East Quarterly (part of Daniel Pipes Middle East Forum) that 81% of US mosques promote violent jihad. This is the same number that Islamophobes have been promoting for years now.

The report is filled with methodological flaws.

MEQ Report Claims 81 Per Cent of US Mosques Promote “Violent Jihad”

by Richard Bartholomew

At the American Thinker and Big Peace, Andrew Bostom discusses  ”Sharia and Violence in American Mosques”, a new article  by Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi published the Middle East Quarterly (Summer 2011, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 59-72). The somewhat inflammatory title is par for the course: Yerushalmi (perhaps best-known as Pamela Geller’s lawyer) is the brains behind the ideologically-driven “Mapping Shariah” project, which has a number of methodological problems that I outlined here. The paper is being published today; it appears that Bostom has been given an advance copy.

According to quotes in Bostom’s post (itself a diatribe entitled “Mosques as Barracks in America”), a number of US mosques were chosen at random,

(a) to observe and record 12 Sharia-adherent behaviors of the worshipers and the imam (or lay leader); (b) to observe whether the mosque contained the selected materials rated as moderate and severe; (c) to observe whether the mosque contained materials promoting, praising, or supporting violence or violent jihad; and (d) to observe whether the mosque contained materials indicating the mosque had invited guest speakers known to have promoted violent jihad.

Findings:

51 percent of mosques had texts that either advocated the use of violence in the pursuit of a Shari’a-based political order or advocated violent jihad as a duty that should be of paramount importance to a Muslim; 30 percent had only texts that were moderately supportive of violence like the Tafsir Ibn Kathir and Fiqh as-Sunna; 19 percent had no violent texts at all.

…The survey found a strong correlation between the presence of severe violence-promoting literature and mosques featuring written, audio, and video materials that actually promoted such acts. By promotion of jihad, the study included literature encouraging worshipers to engage in terrorist activity, to provide financial support to jihadists, and to promote the establishment of a caliphate in the United States. These materials also explicitly praised acts of terror against the West; praised symbols or role models of violent jihad; promoted the use of force, terror, war, and violence to implement the [strange gap here - RB] Sharia; emphasized the inferiority of non-Muslim life; promoted hatred and intolerance toward non-Muslims or notional Muslims; and endorsed inflammatory materials with anti-U.S. views… [O]f the 51 mosques that contained severe materials, 100 percent were led by imams who recommended that worshipers study texts that promote violence.

[M]osques containing violence positive materials were substantially more likely to include materials promoting financial support of terror than mosques that did not contain such texts. A disturbing 98 percent of mosques with severe texts included materials promoting financial support of terror. Those with only moderate rated materials on site were not markedly different, with 97 percent providing such materials.

These results were comparable when using other indicators of jihad promotion. Thus, 98 percent of mosques that contained severe-rated literature included materials promoting establishing an Islamic caliphate in the United States as did 97 percent of mosques containing only moderate rated materials.

Further details on methodology are provided in an Appendix, which has been posted on-line here. The list of “Sharia Adherent Behaviors” includes: “gender segregation during prayer service”, “alignment of men’s prayer lines”, the imam’s beard style, whether the imam has a head covering or not or is wearing Western-style clothing, and whether the imam wears a watch on his right wrist. Also significant is the percentage of men wearing beards or hats, whether boys have head-coverings, and whether girls and women are wearing hijabs or niqabs – “Non-Shari’a-adherent behavior”, we are told, “is to wear the modern hijab (a scarf that does not completely cover the hair) or to not wear any hair”.

For reasons that are not immediately clear, we then segue into the issue of violence, as the list continues:

If the surveyor found the Fiqh as-Sunna or Tafsir Ibn Kathir, but not more extreme materials, then the mosque was categorized as containing moderate-rated material. If the surveyor found the Riyadh as-Salaheen, works by Qutb or Mawdudi, or similar materials, then the mosque was categorized as containing severe-rated materials.

If the surveyor found no violence-positive materials or if the violence-positive materials constituted less than 10% of all available materials, then the mosque was categorized as containing no materials.

…Following the prayer service, the surveyor asked the following question: “Do you recommend the study of: (a) only the Quran and/or Sunna; (b) Tafsir Ibn Kathir; (c) Fiqh as-Sunna; (e) Reliance of the Traveller; or (f) the works of Qutb, such as Milestones, and Maududi, such as The Meaning of the Qur’an?”

If the imam or lay leader recommended studying any of the materials mentioned above except the Qur’an and/or Sunna, then the imam or lay leader was recorded as having recommended the study of texts promoting the rated material.

The “10%” principle here is a welcome nod towards proportionality, but it’s undermined by what follows. The Reliance of the Traveller and the Tafsir Ibn Kathirare both pre-modern compendiums of Islamic law; of course they contain some troubling material, like many other pre-modern texts. But they also contain a lot else: we need to understand why the imams recommend these texts, not just note that they do and therefore chalk up one more extremist. It’s also unclear whether the imams are being asked about their general recommendation practices in relation to these texts or whether they are simply advising the questioner.

Further:

If materials available on mosque premises promoted joining a known terrorist organization, such as “mujahideen” engaged in jihad abroad, then the mosque was recorded as having promoted joining a terrorist organization.

That may seems reasonable so far as it goes, but again it begs a lot of questions. Some general sympathy for a mujahideen group involved in military conflict in somewhere in central Asia is a very different proposition from supporting al-Qaeda, so we need more than just a broad-brush “terrorism” label if we are to understand what is going on and why. And we need to know more about how the materials are made available, and in what ways they are promoted. Are leaflets given out to attendees, or is “promotion” simply an obscure poster pinned to an unmoderated noticeboard somewhere on the premises? There’s scope for various interpretations there.

If materials available on mosque premises indicated that speakers came to the mosque to raise money for specific terrorist organizations, then the mosque was recorded as having openly collected money at the mosque for a known terrorist organization.

…If any of the materials featured on mosque property promoted engaging in terrorist activity; promoted the financial support of terrorism or jihadists; promoted the use of force, terror, war, and violence to implement Shari‘a; promoted the idea that oppression and subversion of Islam should be changed by deed first, then by speech, then by faith; praised acts of terrorism against the West; or praised suicide bombers against Israelis, then the mosque was recorded as having promoted violent jihad.

This raises further questions: are we talking about organisations which are banned under US law, or organisations around which there are suspicions (reasonable or contrived) of links to terrorism?

We all know that some mosques in the USA and elsewhere promote radicalisation and extremism. We also know that others need to do more to ensure that radical elements do not gain a toe-hold. But this kind of inquisitorial and quantitative approach is of very limited value and is probably even misleading. If one wants to know whether a mosque “promotes jihad”, one needs to get a sense of the overall teaching and the general perspectives of those who attend. Simply totting up whether an undercover visitor can spot or elicit something troubling is an insufficient methodology. And what purpose is served by mixing all this in with a list “Sharia Adherent Behaviors”, other than to give Muslim cultural practices a sinister hue?

The Middle East Quarterly has a note on its peer-review process here. Previously, it rejected peer-review on the grounds that most specialists were not interested in “American interests” or were hostile to USA; however:

…In 2009, circumstances have begun to change. This journal finds itself part of a growing community of specialists not hostile to the United States and its allies. As other journals and organizations have joined our ranks, they increased the circle of those with professional and expert knowledge of the Middle East and created a larger pool of reviewers to engage in a constructive process of refereeing.

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Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ Album Banned In Lebanon (Updated)

Posted on 07 June 2011 by Emperor

Should Christianity be blamed for censoring Lady Gaga? If Muslims had censored Gaga’s art, Islam would be blamed.

Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ Album Banned In Lebanon

Lady Gaga’s religious firestorm may have blown over in the United States, but the government of Lebanon found it so enflaming that they’ve banned the popstar’s new album from the country’s stores.

Multiple reports say that the Lebanese government impounded shipments of “Born This Way,” the already-platinum album due to its alleged insults to Christianity and its all around “bad taste.”

The Lebanese government has made clear their distaste in Gaga, having already banned her single “Judas” from the airwaves. That song caused a brief ruckus in the United States, too, as conservative religious leaders, including those from the Catholic League, initially protested the song’s lyrics and pending video.

“This is a stunt… Lady Gaga tries to continue to shock Catholics and Christians in general: she dresses as a nun… she swallows the rosary. She has now morphed into a caricature of herself,” Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement before the video came out.

He then sang a somewhat different tune, waving off the video as a mess and incoherent.

According to Metro UK, the song “Born This Way” was banned from radio play by the government of Malaysia, too. In response to that banning, Gaga, responded, “What I would say is for all the young people in Malaysia that want those words to be played on the radio, it is your job and it is your duty as young people to have your voices heard.”

“Born This Way” went platinum in its first week out, selling 1.1 million copies in the United States alone.

According to one Lebanese blogger, he had already downloaded the album via Amazon, with the songs existing safely in the cloud; so, many Lebanese still have the ability to listen to Gaga’s latest opus.

In a prescient comment, in a recent feature in the British newspaper The Guardian, Gaga decried religion’s impact on government.

“The influence of institutionalised religion on government is vast. So religion then begins to affect social values and that in turn affects self-esteem, bullying in school, teen suicides, all those things,” she told the paper.

Lebanon has a history of banning entertainment they find religiously offensive; in 2004, they banned the Tom Hanks-starring big screen adaptation of “The Da Vinci Code.”

Updated: Reports are now saying that the album has not been banned, from the Daily Star: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Culture/Music/2011/Jun-09/Not-banned-Lady-Gaga-CD-distributed-for-sale-in-Lebanon.ashx#axzz1OkzYlLFy

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Sacramento Man Sentenced for Beating Sikh Cab Driver

Posted on 06 June 2011 by Emperor

Herbehjan Singh, a Sikh cab driver was beaten severely by a man who thought he was Muslim.

Sacramento man sentenced for beating Sikh cab driver

(News10)

SACRAMENTO, CA – A Sacramento man was sentenced to 13 years in prison for beating up a cab driver because he thought that he was Muslim.

Pedro Ramirez made a plea bargain with the prosecutor’s office to get 13 years instead of life in prison, which was possible if he was convicted at trial.

Ramirez, his wife and another couple got a ride home from a Sacramento club last November– and got into a dispute over payment with the cab driver.

The prosecution said Herbehjan Singh was savagely beaten because he wore a turban, which led the attackers to believe he was Muslim.

Ramirez’ wife doesn’t defend her husband’s actions, but said he was not motivated by the victim’s ethnicity or religion. Laura Sanchez said that’s a lot of time for, what she believes, was a simple fistfight.

“My husband, when we went out that night, we wish we could take it all back,” Sanchez said. “We went out for my birthday and we weren’t seeking out any kind of violence or any kind of fight and it wasn’t a hate crime and I just can’t believe it has turned into this.”

The prosecutor said there’s no way in the world to characterize the attack as a “fistfight.” The cab driver was struck at least 10 times, the prosecutor said, the whole time insisting he’s not Muslim.

Singh’s friend Amanpreet Kaur said Singh is driving again.

“He’s still having some memory problems and headaches, but he’s doing a lot better,” Kaur said. “He’s getting back to work.”

The other man who joined Ramirez in assaulting the cab driver was sentenced to a year in county jail because he was considered less culpable in the attack.

News10/KXTV

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Jamie Knowlson: Man who Stuffed Ham in Muslims’ Shoes, Hung Meat Slices Outside Mosque Spared Jail

Posted on 06 June 2011 by Emperor

Drunken man who stuffed ham in Muslims’ shoes, hung meat slices outside mosque spared jail time

BY PHILIP CAULFIELD
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

A drunken British man who stuffed ham inside Muslim worshipers’ shoes and draped meat outside a mosque as they prayed was spared a jail term because he apologized.

Jamie Knowlson, 30, pleaded guilty to racially or religiously aggravated harassment last month and was facing two years in jail for the drunken stunt.

A judge in Bristol, England, let him walk with a six-month suspended term last week because he apologized to mosque officials, The Telegraph reported.

“It is difficult to imagine a more offensive incident,” Bristol Royal Court Judge Carol Hagen said. “Not only the fixing of meat to railings, but aggravated, in my view, by the fact that members of the mosque were inside praying at the time.”

Prosecutors say Knowlson crept into the Al-Baseera mosque at 6:30 a.m. on January 9 and slipped slices of ham into worshipers’ empty shoes, which were lined up outside the prayer hall.

Knowlson also hung some slices on the railings outside the building, where some 2,000Somali Muslims pray each week, prosecutors said.

The plastered Brit returned a short time later and was confronted by a mosque official,Abdi Djmaa, security footage shows.

Djmaa said that Knowlson ranted that “the next visit will be harder” and made slurred threats about “bad meat” and “girls,” The Telegraph reported.

Islamic dietary restrictions forbid Muslims from eating pork.

Knowlson’s lawyer, Ian Halliday, said his client regretted the ham-handed prank.

“This was a brutal, misconceived, drunken prank. He returned to the mosque and offered his apologies in person,” Halliday said.

The judge also also sentenced Knowlson to 150 hours of community service.

After the verdict, mosque officials said worshipers were upset and shocked.

“We don’t eat pork and we are banned by our faith from eating it, as it makes us impure when we are going to our prayers,” said Mubarak Mohamud, an imam at the mosque.

“We don’t hate the man; we just suppose he doesn’t know us,” he said.

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Helpful Tip for Terrorists: Don’t Dress in “Arabian Attire”

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Helpful Tip for Terrorists: Don’t Dress in “Arabian Attire”

Posted on 05 June 2011 by Danios

Georgia Congressman Paul Broun was recently on Fox “News” and expressed his outrage that an elderly white lady was frisked by TSA agents whereas a young man in “Arabic attire” was allowed to go through without any extra screening.  Watch the video (courtesy of The Young Turks) of the interview, along with some spot-on commentary by Ben Mankiewicz and Jayar Jackson:

All the 9/11 hijackers and other terrorists dressed in Western clothing. One would assume that a would-be terrorist would be smart enough not to draw attention to himself by dressing in “Arabian attire”. That’s taught in like Terrorism 101-A at Al-Qaeda University. Duh.

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Rightists in Jerusalem: Muhammad is dead, butcher Arabs

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Rightists in Jerusalem: Muhammad is dead, butcher Arabs

Posted on 02 June 2011 by Emperor

These Right-wing activists are increasing in numbers across Israel. Will they be a majority in 20 years?

Can you imagine if this happened in a Muslim country?

Rightists in Jerusalem: Muhammad is dead, butcher Arabs

(YNet)

Dozens of right-wing activists marching through Jerusalem Wednesday were filmed chanting inflammatory messages and singing provocative songs in the capital, including “Muhammad is dead,” “May your village burn,” “Death to leftists,” and “Butcher the Arabs.”

The disturbing utterances were made during the traditional “Flag Dance” on the occasion of Jerusalem Day, which drew tens of thousands of Israelis to the capital to celebrate its unification following the 1967 Six-Day War.

The offensive chants and songs can be clearly heard in the video, filmed by members of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement. Elsewhere, Arab residents hurled stones at Jewish protestors during the tense day. The Jerusalem Police deployed in the city in force ahead of time in a bid to prevent friction between Jews and Arabs.

During Wednesday’s violent clashes, police detained at least 15 rioters, both Jewish and Arab. A focal point of tension was the Old City’s Damascus Gate, where Jewish marchers and Arab business owners hurled stones and fruit at each other. Some Jews entered the Muslim market in the area and chanted “Death to the Arabs” and “Muhammad is dead.”

More Jewish protestors were arrested nearby after yelling nationalistic chants and attempting to hurt Arabs.

Overall, two Jews and one Arab sustained light wounds as result of stone throwing during the day and received medical treatment.

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John Feffer: Mladic v. Bin Laden: A Tale of Two Raids

Posted on 02 June 2011 by Emperor

Both were responsible for thousands of civilian deaths, one was killed and the other was brought to the international court.

Mladic v. Bin Laden: A Tale of Two Raids

by John Feffer (Huffington Post)

They were both responsible for thousands of civilian deaths in causes they believed were righteous. They both occupied top spots on the World’s Most Wanted list. They were both the subject of raids that were years in the making and required extensive intelligence work.

But in all other respects — and particularly in the messages they sent to the international community — the operations against Ratko Mladic and Osama bin Laden couldn’t have been more different. It wasn’t a foreign power, but the Serbian police that conducted the pre-dawn raid to capture the former Bosnian Serb military general who was responsible for the shelling of Sarajevo and the massacres in Srebrenica. Rather than kill Mladic, the police took him into custody. And instead of dealing with the perpetrator domestically, the Serbian government has announced that it will send him to The Hague to be tried for war crimes — 16 years after his indictment was handed down.

Hollywood is already preparing a movie on the search for bin Laden that will dramatize the targeted assassination of the al Qaeda leader, and thereby amplify the message that this was a just and worthy enterprise. The capture of Mladic was, by contrast, anti-dramatic. A team of special police showed up in the northern Serbian town of Lazarevo and confronted the old man as he was about to go for a pre-dawn walk. He handed over his two guns and gave up without a struggle.

Mladic and bin Laden were responsible for a comparable number of deaths. But Mladic didn’t kill any Americans. So nabbing the war criminal was not a top White House priority, though the CIA spent years tracking the man around former Yugoslavia. Instead it was left to Serbia to choose how diligently to pursue Mladic. Until 2000 and the ouster of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, the war criminal lived more or less in the open, protected by supporters in high places. It took a while, but eventually those who favor the rule of law gained the upper hand in Belgrade.

The timing of the arrest was perhaps a little too perfect. The European Union had been pressing Serbia to clear away this major obstacle to EU membership, with the head of EU foreign policy Catherine Ashton in Belgrade the very day of the arrest. And the ruling party of Boris Tadic was looking at an uphill battle in the 2012 elections.

Regardless of the motivations and the outside pressures, the Serbian government opted to do the right thing. And as Merdijana Sadovic writes at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, the arrest was an opportunity for the Serbian media to take a long hard look at the past: “RTS television showed several documentaries about the crimes committed in Srebrenica in July 1995, the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo, and reels of archive footage showing Mladic as an unpredictable and arrogant commander displaying no respect for the UN troops deployed in Bosnia, no empathy for civilians, and no mercy for his enemies.”

The backlash within Serbia has been comparatively muted. On Sunday, several thousand hardcore nationalists, including soccer thugs and neo-Nazis, rallied in Belgrade, but these numbers pale in comparison to earlier demonstrations of ultra-nationalist fervor. Still, polls from before Mladic’s arrest suggest that opinion was roughly divided between those who approved his arrest (34 percent) and those who regarded him as a hero (40 percent). Tadic was taking a certain political risk by nabbing this half-hero.

Ultra-nationalist Serbs are not the only ones who have rallied behind Mladic. That great Islamophobe Pamela Geller, the force behind the protests around the Park 51 Islamic Center in lower Manhattan, has been trying to rally support for Mladic and his other Serbian colleagues charged with war crimes. “The crime they are all morally charged with — above and beyond anything legal or technical — is daring to fight back when Muslims attacked,” she recently wrote. There were, of course, atrocities committed by Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has indicted several of them. But the aggressors were the Bosnian Serbs, backed by the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic. Geller is not just wrong, but wrong at the level of Holocaust denial.

It was once commonplace for the right wing to accuse the left of implacable naiveté, of willful ignorance of evil. A utopian belief in the perfectibility of humanity suggested to right-wing critics, particularly those coming out of the Christian tradition, that the left and its attempt to remake society failed to acknowledge the fallen nature of mankind. Such utopianism followed a direct line from the guillotine to the gulag to Pol Pot’s attempt to turn Cambodia back to Year Zero.

But the right’s belief in the imperfectability of humanity led to similarly disastrous consequences, from carpet bombing to blindness in the face of genocide. During the unraveling of Yugoslavia, for instance, Secretary of State James Baker justified the U.S. non-response with his famous phrase, “We don’t have a dog in that fight.” We simply stood back and watched evil play itself out.

But perhaps the most insidious U.S. response to evil has been the superhero approach. The world’s lone superpower, like Spiderman or Superman, would go after the world’s bad guys and simply do away with them. Washington targeted rogue leaders (Saddam Hussein), rogue states (North Korea), and just plain rogues (Osama bin Laden). We would cooperate with the international community when we could and, in Bill Clinton’s definition of a la carte multilateralism, act alone “if we must.” This doctrine of superhero-ism is utopian in its own way for its faith in the crusader’s ability to singlehandedly rid the world of bad guys.

Barack Obama has operated firmly in this tradition, most saliently in the targeted assassination of Osama bin Laden. Indeed, as Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) columnist Conn Hallinan points out, the bin Laden operation has formalized a whole new approach that dispenses with the notion of sovereignty and emphasizes the role of secrecy. “What would be the reaction if Cuban armed forces had landed in Florida and assassinated Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch, two anti-Castro militants who were credibly charged with setting bombs in Havana and downing a Cuban airliner?” he writes in The New Face of War. “Washington would treat it as an act of war.” In the comic-book world, only the superhero/superpower can break the rules on behalf of the greater good.

The apprehending of Ratko Mladic offers a different model of behavior. The Serbs ultimately did the job themselves in adherence to international standards of justice. They did so despite considerable public support for Mladic, misgivings about the balance of the ICTY, and frustration over the EU’s carrot-and-stick tactics. Imagine how different the situation in South Asia might have been if Pakistan, through a combination of inside determination and outside pressure, had apprehended Osama bin Laden and sent him to The Hague. It might have taken a few more years to orchestrate. But the benefits would have been enormous.

It is not naïve to prefer justice meted out by the rule of law versus justice meted out by the rule of superheroes. In a very pragmatic way, Serbia’s action strengthened respect for legal practices. Witness theupsurge in support for the Serbian policeman who used not a truncheon against a would-be ultranationalist arsonist at Sunday’s protest but simply the words, “So, you came here to demolish my Belgrade?” The peaceful arrest of Mladic, which signaled that Serbia is ready to become embedded in the web of rules and regulations of the EU, was a rite of passage. In contrast, the United States got its man, but demonstrated that it still hasn’t grown out of its comic-book phase.

Evil rarely comes in arch-villainous packages like The Joker. Evil is systemic, pervasive, and yes, part and parcel of modern U.S. policy from Hiroshima to Iraq. After another Memorial Day of mourning our dead, we should reflect on the Serbian path. It was not easy for Serbs to confront their own bloody history, grapple with their own legitimate grievances, and address the problem of evil in the form of Ratko Mladic. But this arrest helps move us closer to that legitimately utopian project of a world without war than the successful but deeply troubling operation against Osama bin Laden.

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Pat Robertson: Fighting Muslims Is Just Like Fighting Nazis

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Pat Robertson: Fighting Muslims Is Just Like Fighting Nazis

Posted on 01 June 2011 by Emperor

Pat Robertson is at it again.

Robertson: Fighting Muslims Is Just Like Fighting Nazis

(via. Right-wing Watch)

On the 700 Club today, Pat Robertson once again spoke out against American Muslims, singling out the construction of mosques and the purported threat of creeping Sharia law. Robertson likened critics of Muslims to opponents of Nazis and rejected claims that his opposition to rights for Muslims is bigotry, asking, “I wonder what were people who opposed the Nazis, were they bigots?”

“Why is it bigoted to resist Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and to say we don’t want to live under Nazi Germany?” Robertson said. “But oh it’s bigoted if we speak out against a force that slowly but surely is trying to exercise domination over the world.”

Watch:

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Katya Koren: Ukrainian Beauty Queen Killed by Disturbed Classmate not Sharia’ Law

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Katya Koren: Ukrainian Beauty Queen Killed by Disturbed Classmate not Sharia’ Law

Posted on 31 May 2011 by Mooneye

Muslim beauty queen Katya Koren was brutally murdered by a classmate who was obsessed with her, according to police in the Ukraine. Not only was the classmate, Bihal Gaziev, a mentally unstable individual, according to reports he had also developed a deeply “unhealthy” and “unrequited obsession” with Koren.

According to some reports after being arrested, Bihal said he had no regrets because he had fulfilled “Sharia’” –obviously a cynical ploy to deflect from his atrocious and sick actions. Is it Sharia’ to rape, beat with a rock, kill and then dump the body as was done in this case? The answer of course is an unequivocal “no.”

This has not stopped some in the media as well as the Islamophobesphere from going buck-wild and attempting to link this murder with Islam. It is similar in some ways to the allegations of the “Mass Gaza pedophilia wedding,” which turned out to be false.

A closer analogy may be the case of a Christian, named John Thomas, who stoned a gay man, Murray Seidman, to death in Philadelphia and claimed to have done it in the name of the Holy Bible. It was reported at the time that Thomas had personal interests and perhaps even a homosexual relationship with Seidman, these points were made quite clear in the mainstream media, with the AP even going as far as to cite Biblical scholars defending the Bible.

At the time we asked the simple question, “What would happen if John Thomas were Muslim?” and tried to excuse his actions by saying he did it in the name of “Islam” or “Sharia?”

The question is rhetorical, and the tragic death of Koren at the hands of the crazy Bihal further highlights how right we were in asking the question. The double standard is evident.

Robert Spencer wasted no time in blaming Islam writing,

The fact that this was an extrajudicial killing doesn’t let Sharia off the hook.

While wacky Pamela Geller wrote,

And when they come for the feminists, their daughters and their sisters — we will respond in kind. Their silence on the oppression, brutality and subjugation of women  in Islam makes them as guilty as the murderers. Their silence is their sanction.

These quotes are just an example of two of the most prolific Islamophobes, one only has to google search to see the plethora of hate sites and even mainstream media that are taking the line that Islam is or may be to blame.

From the Telegraph, a right-wing UK newspaper:

Muslim teenage beauty queen ‘stoned to death’

by Andrew Osborn

There were conflicting reports of how and why she was murdered. Some local newspapers claimed she had been stoned to death by hardline Muslims upset by her participation in the beauty contest and that police had three suspects in their sights.

But the police said her killing had nothing to do with sectarian violence and that the girl had been killed by a psychologically troubled classmate who had given her a lift on his moped and then robbed and possibly raped her before battering her to death with a rock.

“A student did it, killing his classmate. There is no other underlying reason, neither religious nor linked with inter-ethnic conflicts,” said Sergei Reznikov, a senior policeman involved in the case.

The area is home to more than 250,000 Muslim Crimean Tatars, and although there has been mob violence in the past sparked by perceived historical injustices, cases of Sharia punishment being meted out by stoning are unheard of.

Police said the main suspect, 16-year-old Bihal Gaziev, had a long history of mental health problems and was already in custody. He is understood to have confessed amid reports from his village suggesting he had developed an unhealthy and unrequited obsession with Miss Koren.

Some local media quoted him saying that he killed her to enforce Sharia law and had no regrets, while others said he had confessed to the killing but had been unable to explain his motives. He is now undergoing a series of tests to see whether he is of sound mind or not.

Update (hat tip:BBoyBlue). May be more to the story than we knew:

Surprisingly balanced (by their standards) reporting from the right wing Daily Mail. The comments however are as hateful and ignorant as usual.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1392454/Muslim-girl-Katya-Koren-19-stoned-death-beauty-contest-Ukraine.html

This comment is interesting though.

THE KEY FACTS: 1. Katya is an Orthodox Christian. 2. Bilyal is formally Muslim, just adopted by Muslim man 3. Bilyal is not religious, like his father, even didn’t go to mosque. 4. Murder is not done by stoning. 5. Internal Affairs Dep. announced that murder has no religious roots. 6. Such a news first appeared in pro-Russian media.
- Asan, Crimea, 31/5/2011 16:11

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lmladicfuma

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Pamela Geller Watch: Serbian War Criminal Mladic Caught – Pamela Geller Inconsolable

Posted on 31 May 2011 by Emperor

How do we know that Geller wants Muslims dead? She grieves when genocidal war criminals are caught.

Serbian War Criminal Mladic Caught – Pamela Geller Inconsolable

by Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs)

War criminal Ratko Mladic was arrested yesterday in Serbia, where he was hiding from justice under an assumed name. Time’s Mark Benjamin has this excerpt from Mladic’s indictment, with horrifying details of his massacre of thousands of Muslim prisoners.

Between 12 July and about 20 July 1995, thousands of Bosnian Muslim men were captured by, or surrendered to, Bosnian Serb Forces under the command and control of General Ratko MLADIC. Over 7,000 Bosnian Muslim prisoners captured in the area around Srebrenica were summarily executed from 13 July to 19 July 1995. Killings continued thereafter. From about 1 August 1995 through about 1 November 1995, VRS units under the command and control of General Ratko MLADIC participated in an organised and comprehensive effort to conceal the killings and executions of the Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica by reburying, in isolated locations, bodies exhumed from mass graves.

“The Serbs dared to fight.”It’s important to note that one of the most relentless whitewashers of Mladic’s monstrous crimes is none other than anti-Muslim lunatic Pamela Geller, and the reason is obvious: Mladic slaughtered Muslims, and that makes him an ally of Geller, Robert Spencer, and the rest of their thuggish crowd.

In her usual weasely fashion, Geller tries to have it both ways; she cheers on Mladic for “daring to fight,” but at the same time posts numerous articles at her website denying the genocide at Srebrenica as “a lie.” For example:

CANADIAN PM STEVEN HARPER, LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD, VETOES BOSNIAN LIE RESOLUTION
ISLAMIC BOSNIA: “IT BEGAN WITH A LIE”

It’s easy to make fun of Pamela Geller, because she’s so completely deranged. But there’s absolutely nothing funny about her support for war criminals and mass murderers, or her denial of genocide.

And she continues to defend this butcher, even today: JULIA GORIN: “ROASTING MLADIC”.

Instead of admitting their terrible mistake, the dhimmi Western powers are digging in their heels and further prosecuting the Serbs in their sisyphean and thankless efforts to stop Islamic imperialism.

Look, there are no heroes in the Bosnian conflict, but the Muslim atrocities were far worse. The Serbs dared to fight. That’s what this is all about. As Gorin so succinctly put it, “They are guilty of ….. daring to answer war with war.” The question is, why would the Western powers send in troops and pave the way for a militant Islamic state in the heart of Europe? The catastrophic consequences have not yet manifested themselves, but they will impact the geopolitical landscape in what promises to be a bloody 21st century.

Just disgusting.

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OOTD

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Another anti-Islam protest comes to Dearborn

Posted on 30 May 2011 by Amago

Another anti-Islam protest comes to Dearborn

Another protest over what organizers call “radical strains” of Islam is planned on Saturday in front of Dearborn City Hall.

The Order of the Dragon, a pro-Israeli group, is planning the 3 p.m. demonstration to call attention to the “implementation of Sharia” or Islamic law in some court rulings, said Frank Fiorello, the head of the group’s Michigan chapter.

“We have a lot of people worried about Sharia creeping into family court,” said Fiorello, a Marlette resident. “There are 23 different jurisdictions where Sharia is being implemented in family court.” Fiorello did not provide specifics, but said there are recent cases in Ann Arbor District Court.

Other groups participating in the rally include the American Defense League, ACT! For America and David Horowitz’s Freedom Center’s Palestinian Wall of Lies, Fiorello said.

Fiorello, a Detroit native, was scheduled to host controversial Florida Pastor Terry Jones’ protest in Dearborn on April 22 but Fiorello backed off his protest after meeting with Dearborn Mayor John O’Reilly and a member of an interfaith group.

Jones ended up protesting a week later after being ordered by a Dearborn district judge that he would have to post a peace bond if he wanted to protest outside the Islamic Center of America on Good Friday.

Fiorello also said he backed away from Jones after a difference of option about how the protest should be handled. ”We’re not wanting to be involved in shock tactics,” said Fiorello. “That is not our route.”

Jones, meanwhile, has planned to protest against “radical Islam” at the Arab American International Festival in Dearborn next month.

Detroit News, 25 May 2011

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LW Exclusive: Shocking Video of Geert Wilders Hate Speech on US Soil

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LW Exclusive: Shocking Video of Geert Wilders Hate Speech on US Soil

Posted on 26 May 2011 by Garibaldi

Geert Wilders in Nashville at the Cornerstone Church

The Southern United States and the Midwest have been ravaged by violent forces of nature in the past few weeks; massive flooding has threatened to erase whole communities from Tennessee to Alabama, and over the past few days behemoth-like tornadoes, whipping in fury and frenzy swallowed and spit out whole towns.

The cataclysmic events of the Rapture predicted by Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping may not have come to pass but these tragedies have altered lives forever, and our thoughts and prayers should be with those affected. I encourage everyone to contribute in whatever way they can to relief and support efforts in those regions.

“Heartland USA” as this region is otherwise known is too often ignored, some forget that beyond the confines of our large urban cities there is a whole other America that is rural, conservative and vibrant.

It is here that another force has taken hold and is setting up the perfect storm of intolerance, bigotry, racism, xenophobia and hatred.

This force is a product of the wedding of Islamophobia across the Atlantic, between right-leaning populist politicians and Christian and Israeli/Jewish Zionists that has led to a feverous increase in anti-Democracy and anti-Muslim activity.

This is the real monster that should worry us, not some eight-headed dragon beast that might emerge from the sea and usher in the Second Coming of Christ.

Extremism on our Shores

On May 12, 2011 in Madison, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville, Geert Wilders readily accepted an invitation from the Tennessee Freedom Coalition to speak at Cornerstone Church, a mega church with regular attendance exceeding 3,900 weekly. LW received exclusive video from Rob, a fan of LoonWatch who attended the event and taped the speeches of Wilders, Lou Ann Zelenik and Andy Miller. He was so upset by what he saw that he immediately sent us the footage he captured.

Wilders speech was a diatribe against Islam and Muslims in which all the familiar talking points were rehashed but with a little extra venom, undoubtedly playing to the sentiments of the crowd.

LW Exclusive: Shocking Video of Geert Wilders Hate Speech on US Soil Part 1:

Geert Wilders: “Its Islam Stupid (raucous applause). We must stop the Islamization of our countries, more Islam means less freedom”…”And now, now Europe is looking slowly but gradually like Arabia”…”It was the land of our fathers, it is our land now, it is our values, our values are based on Christianity, Judaism and Humanism and not Islam, it is that simple (applause)”…”and I have a message for all those people who want to rob us from our freedoms, and my message is stay in your own country (loud applause)”…”we are not going to allow Islam to steal our country from us (applause)”…”if Jerusalem falls, Athens, Rome, Amsterdam and Nashville will fall therefore my point is we all are Israel (applause)”…”the only place where Christians are safe in the Middle East is that beautiful country called Israel (loud applause)”…”Make no mistake, please make no mistake, Islam is also coming to America, in fact Islam already is in America. America is facing a stealth jihad, the Islamic attempt to introduce Sharia’ law bit by bit”…”what we need my friends, what we need to turn the tide is a spirit of resistance, what we need I repeat it again is a spirit of resistance”…”we must repeat it over and over again, especially to our children, our Western values and culture based on Christianity and Judaism is better and superior to the Islamic culture (applause), and leaders who talk about immigration without mentioning Islam are blind (applause)”…”we must stop the immigration from non-Western countries and we must forbid the construction of new hate palaces called mosques (applause)”…”the press calls it an Arab spring, I call it unfortunately an Arab winter (applause), Islam and freedom, Islam and democracy are incompatible (applause)”…”the so called Prophet Muhammad was a terrorist worse than Bin Laden ever was (applause)”…”neutrality my friends, neutrality in the face of evil is evil itself (applause).”

Why is a mega-church, an institution that professes to follow the teachings of Christ hosting such a hate-mongerer in the heartland of the USA? What is the Tennessee Freedom Coalition and why is it paying an extremist foreign politician who undermines “freedom” to speak at a Church? What are the ramifications for the rest of the West, the USA in particular when such an extremist is given a platform to incite hate?

Cornerstone Church

This mega-church is a bit like a franchise corporation. It has two locations: one in Bowling Green, Kentucky and the other in Madison, Tennessee. It is led by Senior Pastor Maury Davis,

Pastor Maury Davis was arrested at age eighteen for the crime of first-degree murder. Following his trial and conviction, he served eight and one-half years in the Texas Department of Corrections. During his incarceration, Pastor Davis found his Savior in Jesus Christ and led a revival among his fellow prisoners.

Can anyone imagine what would happen if say Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf had a rap sheet similar to Pastor Davis? Pamela Geller would be doing back flips through Manhattan.

Aside from boasting about its large attendance, the Church also has a Starbucks-esque Coffee shop and other amenities for the Faith-full shopper. It successfully marries capitalism and religion and also adds an ultra-extra helping of Nationalism.

When nearing the Church, the first thing one notices is the strikingly gargantuan American flag in front of the Church:

Inside the Church the backdrop is red, white and blue and the colors surround a white modern looking Cross that reminds one more of the lapel pin worn by Captain Kirk on Star Trek than a cross. I guess they really want you to know they are patriots.

The Church’s philosophy is based on a literal belief in the Bible. They are certainly evangelical and reaffirm the theology of the “millennial reign of Christ,” i.e. the Rapture or the-floating-into-the-sky version of the End Times.

They believe that the Bible, “both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct (2 Timothy 3:15-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Peter 1:21).”

Danios wrote in his “Understanding Jihad” series about how most American Christians believe the above, and it adds further credence to his recent article, “The ‘But that’s just the Old Testament’ Cop-out.”

Tennessee Freedom Coalition

The Tennessee Freedom Coalition, led by Lou Ann Zelenik and Andy Miller is a right-wing organization that can be considered a part of the Tea Party Movement, the base of the GOP. The addition of the TFC to the long list of GOP organizations can be considered one more dark stain in the history of the Tennessee GOP. It was not long ago that their members were making racist remarks about the president:

On top of the racism, homophobia isn’t far behind, the Republican governor of Tennessee has until June 1st to consider an “anti-Gay bill that would prohibit the passage of anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBT individuals.”

Tennessee also happens to be the state where we have seen a rise in hate against Muslims (in fact it is quickly becoming the center of anti-Muslim hate). Courts have been considering whether Islam is a religion, lawmakers are likely to pass a “Ban Sharia’ law” bill inspired by a documented racist and extremist Zionist named David Yerushalmi. It is scene to the Murfreesboro mosque struggle which made headlines this past summer. A year ago Pamela Geller was a headline speaker for the Tennessee Tea Party convention, talk about insane.

For its part the Tennessee Freedom Coalition was passing out this pamphlet at the Church:

How do you promote tolerance by “fighting” a religion? What they really mean to say in light of Wilders speech is, “Promote Religious Tolerance by Working to Stop the Growth of Islam,” which is like saying “promote tolerance by being intolerant.” Obviously this puts Muslims, you know, those who practice Islam in quite the bind.

LW Exclusive: Shocking Video of Geert Wilders Hate Speech on US Soil Part 2:

Conclusion

This is not the first time Geert Wilders has spoken at the pulpit, previously he spoke at Synagogues and at Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller’s SIOA 9/11 hate rally. However his presence amongst 3,000 admiring followers on US soil is not only reprehensible, it is a development that bodes ill for all of us.

It will only increase the radicalization of the anti-Muslim movement which seeks at its fundamental level to curtail freedom of religion and expression, first the rights of Muslims (soft target) and then anyone else they disagree with.

A word must also be said about Wilders obsessive citation of Israel. It is a country which he boasts about visiting over “forty times” and which he cites as a paragon of virtue, freedom, liberty, justice and light. He cites the security of Israel as one of the reasons that the West must fight Islam.

Lets forget the war crimes, human rights violations and apartheid policies in Israel for a second and really look at the hate that is emerging in its name. Individuals and organizations with deep connections to Israel, both network-wise and theologically are calling for the destruction of Islam which they regard as evil incarnate.

Aubrey Chernick (one of the leading funders of Islamophobia), Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Geert Wilders, David Horowitz, Brigitte Gabriel, Allen West, the BNP, EDL, SIOE, SIOA, BPE, JDL, large numbers of Christian and Jewish Zionists and others believe that as long as you are fervently pro-Israel you can be as anti-Islam/Muslim as you want without suffering any consequences. Such a position at the end of the day only harms Jewish moral interests, and this much has been expressed by brave voices such as Not in Our Name, Jews without Borders, Muzzlewatch, Richard Silverstein, Max Blumenthal, our very own loonwatcher Gefilte, Glenn Greenwald and others.

The spectacle of a racist, anti-Muslim Dutch politician arriving on our shores to warn us about Islam is quite ironic, but what is most disturbing is the reception he received from a large audience of Americans. It may seem far-fetched now but one day Geert Wilders or someone like him (Allen West?) may move on from addressing thousands of Church goers to addressing Congress–the question is will he receive as many applauses as Benjamin Netanyahu?

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We don’t want Muslims in America

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Hate message left on US Muslim family’s car

Posted on 26 May 2011 by Amago

Even though they took the time and effort to write the same message in Arabic, they failed to comprehend what an independent sentence is.

Hate message left on US Muslim family’s car

A hate message was left on the car of a Muslim family while they were inside a business in Redmond, the Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-WA) said Tuesday.

CAIR-WA said a Muslim mother reported that she found the message, which said, “We don’t [want] Muslims in America” in English and “We don’t want Muslims in our country, go away”, in Arabic, stuck to the family’s vehicle when she returned to it Monday afternoon after visiting a Redmond Starbucks.

“I can’t believe someone could hate me because of my religious beliefs,” the victim told KIRO 7. She asked us not to use her name or show her face.

The Muslim mother, who was with her 9-year-old daughter at the time of the incident, wears an Islamic head scarf.

Earlier this month, CAIR’s Michigan chapter called on state and national law enforcement authorities to investigate an incident in which a vehicle was vandalized and defaced with a racially-derogatory phrase and profanity.

CAIR-WA Executive Director Arsalan Bukhari said a coalition of some 60 interfaith and community leaders recently asked Everett Community College to drop an “Islamophobic” speaker scheduled to appear Thursday as part of an “Islam in America” lecture series.

Bukhari said that a growing number of hate incidents targeting American Muslims, those perceived to be Muslim and Muslim institutions have occurred in the days since the death of Osama bin Laden.

“Some of the issues we see happening are an increase in rhetoric against Muslims and an increase in mainstreaming of anti-Muslim speech,” Bukhari said.

CAIR-WA held a news conference Tuesday afternoon with the Muslim mother and her daughter to talk about the incident.

The victim said she isn’t angry about the note, but she’s shocked that it would happen in a community she’s grown to love. ”We are just regular people, and I hope this person realizes that they can’t make us afraid to go out and live our lives regularly,” she said.

KIRO TV, 24 May 2011

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116950_m

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Quran-shredding event may occur, but officials condemn it

Posted on 26 May 2011 by Amago

We have seen the Qu’ran burnt, put on trial and now about to be shredded. Is it a shock that this is in Allen West’s backyard?

Quran-shredding event may occur, but officials condemn it

By Rebekah Monson, Sun Sentinel

10:53 a.m. EDT, May 25, 2011

Boca Raton officials have condemned a man’s plan to shred a Quran in a downtown park on Memorial Day, but say they cannot stop the event.

“On behalf of the Mayor and City Council and the city administration, we find the prospect of the deliberate desecration of a sacred text to be abhorrently offensive. We request that you not proceed with this act,” Deputy City Manager George Brown wrote Wednesday in a letter to Mark Rowley, who requested a permit to hold the event in Sanborn Square.

City officials determined that the event does not require a permit because it is a free-speech action, Brown wrote. Rowley’s initial request, to burn a Quran in the park, was denied because the city prohibits fires in parks.

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r-DUTCH-CATHOLIC-CHURCH-PEDOPHILIA-large570

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Dutch Catholic Priest Pedophilia Endorsement Shocks Church

Posted on 23 May 2011 by Emperor

Robert Spencer co-religionist supports pedophilia. Will we be seeing this story on JihadWatch? Imagine if these priests were Muslim, Islam would be blamed instantly.

Dutch Catholic Priest Pedophilia Endorsement Shocks Church

AMSTERDAM — The Dutch Catholic Church and the Salesian order are investigating revelations that a Salesian priest served on the board of a group that promotes pedophilia with the full knowledge of his boss.

The order’s top official in the Netherlands, Delegate Herman Spronck, confirmed in a statement that the priest – identified by RTL Nieuws as 73-year-old “Father Van B.” – served on the board of “Martijn,” a group that campaigns to end the Dutch ban on adult-child sex.

The group is widely reviled but not outlawed.

“Of course we reject this and distance ourselves from this personal initiative” on the part of the priest, Spronck said in a statement. “Membership in such organizations does not fit with the ethos of the Salesian order.”

However, Spronck’s own superior in Belgium said he will investigate both Spronck and Van B., after both men were quoted by RTL Nieuws as saying such relationships aren’t always harmful.

Superior Jos Claes told Belgian television on Saturday he “couldn’t imagine” that both men would not be disciplined, but said he must make sure of the facts first.

“Society thinks these relationships are harmful. I disagree,” RTL quoted Van B. as saying. He served on Martijn’s board from 2008 until 2010, when its founder was arrested for alleged possession of child pornography, a case that is ongoing.

Van B. told RTL he remains a member of Martijn and now lives in a retirement home in eastern Netherlands.

In a second interview, RTL quoted Spronck as saying he was aware of Van B.’s pedophilia and membership in Martijn, and even of two instances where the priest had been fined by police for exposing himself in public. But he said he didn’t think that was sufficient reason to ban him from the order.

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Volen Siderov, leader of Bulgaria’s nationalist party “Attack”, attends protest in front of Banya Bashi Mosque in central Sofia

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Bulgarian National Radio Goes Off Air as Far-right Leader Clashes with Political Opponent

Posted on 22 May 2011 by Emperor

via. Islamophobia-Watch. Are the ultra-nationalists getting more violent?

Bulgarian National Radio goes off air as far-right leader clashes with political opponent

A Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) talk show about the May 20 clash between Ataka and Muslims outside Sofia’s Banya Bashi mosque went off air for some minutes after Ataka leader Volen Siderov and independent MP Korman Ismailov clashed in the studio.

The broadcast of the Nedelya 150 programme on May 22 was replaced by music for about five minutes after matters became heated, with Siderov telling Ismailov: “you are bearers of radical Islam. You are bearers of extremism. You are a danger to the entire Europe”.

There has been widespread condemnation of Ataka for the May 20 incident which led to injuries and arrests after ultra-nationalists protesting against the use of loudspeakers to relay the call to prayer got into a fight with Muslims outside the mosque.

BNR’s Velichko Konakchiev told Bulgarian National Television that Siderov had started the clash with Ismailov, who said that the Ataka leader was ruining Bulgaria’s image. Ismailov said that people at the mosque had simply been defending themselves against assaults by Ataka supporters.

Siderov said that there should be a stop to hypocritical statements about ethnic peace when Sofia’s city was a “nest of Islamists”. It was a mistake to turn a blind eye and it would be too late, according to Siderov, “when one of them blows up the underground railway in Sofia”.

Bulgarian media reported that an online petition had been launched to ask Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev to request Parliament to vote to lift Siderov’s immunity as an MP from prosecution, while in response to an online campaign, people have been visiting Banya Bashi to lay flowers in a gesture of apology to Bulgaria’s Muslims for the May 20 incident.

BNR director-general Valeri Todorov said in a statement that it was unacceptable for the airwaves of the country’s public broadcaster to be used to incite ethnic, religious and national animosities.

Sofia Echo, 22 May 2011

Update: See “Bulgarian nationalists want to strip Turkish leader of MP immunity”, Novinite, 22 May 2011

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Negative image of Arabs tied to rising Islamophobia in the West

Posted on 22 May 2011 by Emperor

Negative image of Arabs tied to rising Islamophobia in the West

(Today’s Zaman)

The lingering perception problem with regard to Arabs in the Western media is very much connected to rising Islamophobia in Europe and in the US, experts at the 10th Arab Media Forum held in Dubai last week said. “Islam has become the new perceived enemy of the West after the fall of the Soviet Union,” said Philip Seib, professor of journalism and public diplomacy at the University of Southern California, during a panel discussion at the forum, which attracted over 2,400 media professionals from 40 countries.

Seib stressed that more continual and balanced news coverage from the region was needed to overcome challenges of stereotyping of Arab citizens. “People want to know about the region, which was reflected when Al Jazeera’s English news website registered a phenomenal increase in the number of hits after Egypt’s revolution,” he added.

Abdullah Bozkurt, Today’s Zaman Ankara bureau chief, also shared Seib’s concerns in his speech and said the anti-Muslim platform in Europe has developed itself from being the agenda of fringe, far-right parties into a mainstream political debate.

“With the minaret ban in Switzerland and the Burqa ban in France, the anti-Muslim rhetoric became part of the law of the land. Islamophobia even became institutionalized with the gains of far-right parties in some European countries, and they are now set to become part of the coalitional governments. This is an alarming development,” he explained.

During the 10th Arab Media Forum there were also discussions on whether or not the recent protest movements that swept the countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa have changed the image of Arabs. It explored whether there were signs of change from references in the Western media of Arabs being “violent, betraying, backward-thinking and women’s rights-snubbing” to that of people who have the same aspirations and expectations as everybody else.

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Vandalism unable to deter group’s faith in community

Posted on 21 May 2011 by Emperor

Tennessee is getting worse.

Vandalism unable to deter group’s faith in community

(DNJ) –Scott Broden

MURFREESBORO — Islamic Center of Murfreesboro volunteers who pick up trash on Bradyville Pike encountered something they can’t clean — black spray paint on their adopt a highway sign.

The culprit covered up the word Islamic on the ICM sign near mile marker 26 on a portion of state Route 99 southeast of Murfreesboro.

“It’s unfortunate that some people have this view toward Islam,” said Imam Ossama Bahloul, the religious leader for the Muslim congregation.

The act of vandalism is the latest in a string of vandalism directed at the congregation and its plans to build a new mosque on Veals Road, which is off Bradyville Pike. In January 2010, a vandal spray painted “Not Welcome” on the congregation’s sign announcing its future site. Another sign on the site was later broken in half and someone torched construction equipment on the site last summer.

The center obtained a building permit Friday to get started onconstruction of its new mosque, beginning with 12,300 square feet.

To make a difference in the community, the ICM entered into a contract with the Tennessee Department of Transportation to volunteer four times this year to clean up two miles of Bradyville Pike between mile markers 24 and 26, said ICM member Ihsan Ansari.

He led a group of seven members in early April in cleaning trash from the road and its ditches even before the state, at no cost to the Muslim congregation, erected a pair of signs acknowledging that the ICM adopted this portion of the highway.

Another volunteer crew will go out sometime during the first two weeks in June, Ansari said.

Community service is something I love doing,” said Ansari, noting that helping the community is a way to purify one’s soul. “Many of our Muslims always give back. Muslims are part of the community and only want to enhance and better the community instead of defacing and tearing it down.”

Only one other sign of spray paint appeared between mile markers 24 and 26 along Bradyville Pike, and it was in blue swirls on a tan wall of what appeared to be an old, abandoned Dilton Store at the intersection of Dilton-Mankin Road.

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May 21, 2011: The End of the World?

Posted on 20 May 2011 by Amago

I am trying to prepare for tomorrow but I might not be ready. What would happen if an Imam went on TV and warned everyone that the rapture was coming?

May 21, 2011: The End of the World?

by Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D

Well, tomorrow, May 21, 2011, is supposed to be the end of the world. Wait, I thought the Mayans said it was supposed to be December 21, 2012? Either way, it gets a lot of publicity. (This post is a good example.)

Christian Family Radio station in Oakland, Calif. has been spending of lot of time, money and effort letting people know that if they step up and believe, they will be beamed to heaven when the giant worldwide earthquake hits tomorrow, while the rest will be left to suffer.

So what’s the truth?

The quick and dirty answer is who knows? But these claims have been made for centuries on end, and each time, the next day comes. So my guess is that the probability of this happening is smaller than I can even imagine.

So what is it about the need to find a definitive date in religious or spiritual teachings when all things will come to an end?

Why strike fear into people’s hearts and minds?

It doesn’t get us anywhere to judge the people who are lighting up this movement, but it is more helpful to get curious about it. My guess is that it’s not intentionally vindictive; there is a deep belief that this is true. If a person who believes is reading these lines right now, it’s highly likely that they think I am ignorant and feel sad for me as I will likely go to hell. They’re sure of this.

But how does that happen? How do these deep, unshakable beliefs come to be, and how is it reconciled when the next day comes?

I think these are all important questions to ask because to some degree, we all have deep-seated beliefs that we aren’t even aware of.

We believe we have to dress and act a certain way to belong. We may believe that deep down we’re unlovable, or that we’ll never be able to write a book, get that job or lose weight. Beliefs are probably the most powerful subconscious thoughts that exist as they color the way we see life and influence our behaviors moment to moment.

We don’t know when beliefs start, exactly, but we do know that from the moment we open our eyes in this world, we are sponges for how things work, and we absolutely buy what we see and hear in our environments. Our brains are in critical stages of formation and the wiring is happening quickly. So we wire together beliefs based on our experience. If you were abused as a child, it’s highly likely that you felt unworthy or unlovable. If you were brought up in a loving and attuned environment, you may believe that you can do anything you set your mind to.

However, beliefs can be brought to light, and if they are unhealthy, they can be shattered.

Certainly many African Americans believed deeply that there would be no way they would see a black president in their lifetime, but it happened, and the glass ceiling disappeared.

Practice:

Consider whether you have any beliefs suggesting you are unlovable or unworthy, or that you just can’t do something. See if you can ride the string back to earlier times in your life and see where that message came from. Then each time you experience those thoughts, let the emotion, whether it’s fear, shame, etc., as it comes up in your body, ground you to the reality of the present moment. Then see if you can see an alternative vantage point.

Try this out as a practice over and again and see if you start to see cracks in your beliefs. It’s through these cracks that the light shines through.

And by the way, if you’re reading this post after May 21, congratulations, we’ve all made it!

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

This piece is adapted from Elisha Goldstein’s publication on Mentalhelp.net.

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Jezebel Turns Osama bin Laden’s Daughter into a Killing Machine

Posted on 20 May 2011 by Emperor

Jezebel Turns Osama bin Laden’s Daughter into a Killing Machine

(MuslimahMediaWatch) -Lara

Though one expects a whopping media event like the death of Osama Bin Laden to produce speculative stories on an industrial scale, it is to be hoped that the speculation is at least based in reality. Blogs engage in wild speculation, but serious media blogs are still behooved to be based on facts; otherwise, we might as well read slash fiction.

None of this quibbling for Anna North at Jezebel, who ponders the future of Osama bin Laden’s 12-year-old daughter, Safiyah, in a recent post. By ponder, I mean indulge in wild speculation with lashings of Orientalist and Islamophobic tropes.

The post, which has united commenters in disgust (one of whom, notably described the post as being written in  “Islamophobinese”), is boldly titled, “The Future of Bin Laden’s Daughter.” The article is inexplicably illustrated by a black and white photograph of a girl’s eyes. The eyes actually appear to be blue (Safiyah’s are likely to be brown), so already the indications are clear that a creepy agenda is ahead.

The first few paragraphs repeat what is known: her age, that she witnessed OBL’s death. From then, the fate of the children is discussed. North misquotes Canadian paper, The Star, stating that some want the children to be sent to madrassas in Pakistan, which would turn them into “jihadis.” What the article actually said was that the notorious Lal masjid had offered the children places, in what is almost certainly a bid for attention. By not making this clear, North perpetuates both the stereotype of madrassas as sinister hotbeds of nascent terrorism (rather than the actual meaning of the word: “schools”) and also the idea that there is a clamour in Pakistan to radicalize these children.

Safiyah’s very name is a cause of suspicion to North, who mentions the OBL quote that he’s named her after a woman who killed a Jewish spy, hence her very name is a “connection to jihad.” A bit of Islam 101 would have revealed that Safiyah (RA) was actually a Jewish convert to Islam and a wife of the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh), hence the popularity of this name amongst Muslims.

Anyway, enough facts! It’s time for some pop culture references, however tasteless they may be when discussing a bereaved teenager. You see, Safiyah’s life is just like the film Hanna, about a girl who is raised and trained as an expert killer. Despite the fact that there is no evidence at all of Safiyah being trained to kill.At all.

However, we are not in a place of facts, truth, or evidence, so North happily states that the whole life imitating art should have Safiyah undergoing super-secret training and then avenging her father’s death, because as we know, the only Arabs/Muslims in films are Reel Bad ones.

From that “if my granny had wheels, she’d be a bus” level of reasoning, North finally concludes it is the role, nay, the “job” of the U.S. to stop this happening.

Right. So the U.S. is now duty-bound to prevent something happening that happens in films, not real life—something that there is no evidence to indicate will happen. There is also the whole issue of national sovereignty and how much right the U.S. has to interfere with the lives of foreign citizens in foreign countries who have not actually committed any crime against the U.S. or anyone else. Admittedly that last issue has often been hazy in practice, but history does not show U.S. intervention to be hugely positive, let alone worthy of encouragement in a supposedly progressive blog.

Therein lies the source of disappointment. From decidedly unpromising beginnings, Jezebel has attempted to improve its coverage of Muslim women, even featuring the work of several MMW writers. Yet someone saw fit not only to write this dreck, but allow it to be published. While recent kerfuffles would indicate that the “New” Jezebel is not massively concerned by reader criticism, such emphatic criticism should surely not be ignored. Until then, in a reversal of the usual statement: skip the post, read the comments.

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Mosque Protester, Police Put Miami Neighborhood On Edge

Posted on 19 May 2011 by Amago

Via IslamophobiaToday

At this point in time the Imams are “accused” of material support for terrorism, that doesn’t mean they are guilty, in this country we sill believe in due process of law. Even if they are convicted it does not mean the mosque or the people who pray in it should be punished, that is guilt by association and collective punishment. Also, when corruption leaks in churches or synagogues do we have people demand the site to be closed? No, we put the accused on trial, not the faith or race. (If you haven’t already, join Americans Against Islamophobia fan page on Facebook)

Mosque Protester, Police Put Miami Neighborhood On Edge

MIAMI (CBS4) – The South Florida Imams accused of terrorism were arrested right in front of their mosques, disrupting the neighborhoods around them. Monday night, one of those neighborhoods saw more commotion.

Mosque protester Mark Dubynsky says standing outside the Flagler Mosque in West Miami-Dade with a sign demanding the mosque be razed to the ground was about self-expression.

“This is not about hate, this is about not keeping a shrine that promotes hate in the neighborhood,” he told CBS4′s Natalia Zea.

Mosque worshipper Samad Nassirya feels differently.

“That’s a threat, he’s threatening us,” he told Zea.

Dubynsky drove from Palm Beach to the mosque to make a statement, after the mosque’s imam Hafiz Khan was arrested and charged with funneling money to terrorists.

“I think if your leader, your church, your mosque is supporting terrorism then I think that building, that mosque needs to be torn down,” said Dubynsky.

Nassirya called police Monday evening, saying Dybynsky and his sign were scaring fellow Muslims away from their evening prayer service.

“People come here five times to pray and now all the women and children are scared to come here and we’re gonna lose all our people,” he said.

Nassirya is especially upset, because he doesn’t believe the allegations against his imam.

“It’s ridiculous. He’s a saintly man, he’s a saintly man.”

Neighbors don’t know who is right, but they do know their once quiet neighborhood is now dealing with police presence, protest, and press.

“Wow man, I had to close my door because of everybody knocking on the door,” said Jorge Gonzalez.

It’s affected neighbor Edna Wright too.

“I usually go walking around the neighborhood,” said Wright. “I just stay in my house now because I don’t know what’s going on.”

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Evolutionary Psychologist Says Black Women are Scientifically Ugly, Advocates Muslim Holocaust

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Evolutionary Psychologist Says Black Women are Scientifically Ugly, Advocates Muslim Holocaust

Posted on 18 May 2011 by Danios

The internet is abuzz with this recent controversy: Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, recently published an article on Psychology Today entitled “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?”  In this racist pseudo-scientific piece, Kanazawa tries to explain why black women are, on average, scientifically uglier than women of other races.  Public outrage forced Psychology Today to remove the article from its website.  (It is still available to view here.)  For a response to the article and why it’s a load of crock, check out Salon’s article here.  (Never does it cross Kanazawa’s mind that perhaps people often tend to be more attracted to people of their own ethnicity, and that therefore if one uses majority white men to rank women that this may influence the outcome?)

This is the same Kanazawa who earlier published articles against Muslims.  In an article entitled “What’s Wrong with Muslims” the crazy psychologist claims that there are “about 120 million ready suicide bombers worldwide”, or about 30% of the world’s Muslim population.  Is it not strange that this comment did not receive even close to the outrage that the “black women are ugly” claim?  He is effectively saying that 3 out of 10 Muslims you meet in your day to day life are soon-to-be suicide bombers.  [See Update I below for issues with the math.]  Imagine if someone said that 3 out of 10 black men are criminals, murderers, or rapists.  Surely, being a suicide terrorist bomber is worse than any of these.

It is strange that a “scientist” like Kanazawa would routinely rely on his own bigoted opinions as opposed to facts.  His writings are full of wild presumptions, devoid of any scientific method.  Even when he states objective “facts”, they are nothing but falsities.  For example, in the same article Kanazawa stupidly says that “most Muslims speak the same language – Arabic – but not all.”  This laughable claim exudes profound ignorance, and places his awareness of Islam and the Muslim world to less than the level of an eighth grader.  After all, isn’t it in junior high or high school that students study world history and find out that “only about 12 percent of Muslims worldwide are Arabs.” With blatant errors like this, one wonders what sort of standards Psychology Today has?

Not only is Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa a racist and bigot: he is a genocidal maniac.  In an article urging Americans to hate Muslims (“the enemy”), Kanazawa argues that it is justified to target civilians including women and children because our enemies are not nation-states:

We have always hated our enemies purely and intensely. They were “Japs,” they were “Krauts,” they were “Gooks.” And we didn’t think twice about dropping bombs on them, to kill them and their wives and children. (As many commentators have pointed out, the distinction between combatants and civilians does not make sense in World War III, and the Geneva Convention — an agreement among nations — is no longer applicable, because our enemies are not nation states.)

(Maybe you didn’t know but we’re actually in World War III already.)

Kanazawa then approves of nuking 35 Muslim countries and killing women and children:

Here’s a little thought experiment. Imagine that, on September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers came down, the President of the United States was not George W. Bush, but Ann Coulter. What would have happened then? On September 12, President Coulter would have ordered the US military forces to drop 35 nuclear bombs throughout the Middle East, killing all of our actual and potential enemy combatants, and their wives and children. On September 13, the war would have been over and won, without a single American life lost.

Yes, we need a woman in the White House, but not the one who’s running.

(That’s the last sentence in the entire article, in case you are wondering if I took that out of context.)

Naturally, Ann Coulter would want to nuke the most well-known cities in the Islamic world, so we could estimate about 10 million per city.  So, Kanazawa is approving of killing 350,000,000 Muslim men, women, and children–almost sixty times as many Jews that died in the Holocaust.  He is advocating for a Muslim Holocaust.

Public pressure forced Psychology Today to remove the “black women are ugly” article from its website, but to this day the articles labeling 3 out of 10 Muslims as “terrorists”–and advocating nuclear annihilation of Muslim cities–continue to grace their website with hardly a peep from the internet world.

Can one imagine the reaction if some prominent Muslim had advocated nuking 35 Israeli cities?  It would be social and career suicide to say such things against Jews (rightfully so) and against black people (again, rightfully so), yet one can say almost anything against Muslims with almost no repercussions.  Muslims are at the absolute bottom of the totem pole of social hierarchy.

Wasn’t it after all Bill O’Reilly who said many years ago that the most attractive women in the world are from Norway and Thailand and the least attractive are women in Muslim countries?  His career did not take any hit from this comment, unlike Kanazawi who is now considered an absolute clown.  Saying black women are ugly is unacceptable, but saying the same for Muslim women is perfectly fine–at least, it is worthy of serious discussion by Serious Pundits.

I’d absolutely hate to be a black woman who is Muslim.  Then I couldn’t attract the stunningly beautiful specimens, those gifts to womankind and Adonis incarnates: Bill O’Reilly and Satoshi Kanazawa.

Update I:

Readers have pointed out some problems with the math above: after rereading Kanazawa’s article, it seems that he meant 30% of 50% of the Muslim population (i.e. the men only)–not 30% of the total Muslim population (as I originally thought he was saying)–are suicide bombers.  So, let me reword what I wrote above: Kanazawa is saying that 3 out of 10 Muslim men are suicide bombers, not Muslims overall.  This hardly mitigates the atrociousness of his claim.

Additionally, he uses an incorrectly low estimate for the total number of Muslims in the world, something that Islamophobes tend to do.

Lastly, I was off by an order of magnitude with regard to the 35 million number–it should be 350 million.  Having said that, one reader pointed out that there are only a few Muslim majority cities in the world that have a population of 10 million or more.  Therefore, let’s ballpark and say something like 150 million people–more than 25 times the number of people killed in the Holocaust.

As readers may have figured out, math is not my strong suit.  The last time I ever studied math was back in the first couple years of college, and it bored the living daylights out of me.  But in all seriousness, it hardly makes any difference to the point of the article whether the number is 35 million or 350 million or somewhere in between: it’s millions of innocent civilians we’re talking about and that’s the bottom line.

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Army Investigation Over False Accusations Ruined Our Lives, Say Muslim Soldiers

Posted on 18 May 2011 by Amago

"I was like, 'What's going on here?' This is not America, that's not why I joined the Army," said one of the men, 34-year-old Khalid Lyaacoubi on the right walking with another Muslim recruit, 27-year-old Yassine Bahammou. (ABC News)

Even while serving in the Army, Muslims suffer harassment and suspicion.

Army Investigation Over False Accusations Ruined Our Lives, Say Muslim Soldiers

By JOSEPH RHEE AND CHRIS CUOMO

May 13, 2011

Five Muslims who joined the Army to work as military translators say their lives and careers were ruined after they were falsely accused of trying to poison their fellow soldiers. In an interview for ABC News, two of the men say an Army investigation into the matter has cast a stigma on their lives, preventing them from gaining citizenship and employment.

“I was like, ‘What’s going on here?’ This is not America, that’s not why I joined the Army,” said one of the men, 34-year-old Khalid Lyaacoubi.

The men are all citizens of Morocco who were permanent “green card” residents of the U.S. They joined the Army in 2009 as part of a special program called “09 Lima” that would train them to work as Army translators in Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the most dangerous jobs in the military. In return for their service, the men would be fast tracked for U.S. citizenship.

“We want to prove to Arabic nations, ‘we are Arabic and we live here. We lived with Americans and socialized with Americans.’ We know they are good,” said Lyaacoubi.

“The United States is known for fighting for other people’s freedom, and I like it and I wanted to help doing that,” said another Muslim recruit, 27-year-old Yassine Bahammou.

Trouble at Fort Jackson

The five men successfully completed basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, which they say was a positive and rewarding experience. However, it was during specialized training as translators at the Advanced Individual Training school on base that they say their lives were upended. They say it all began in November of 2009 when Major Nidal Hassan opened fire on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 31. In the wake of the shooting, Lyaacoubi and Bahammou said some of their fellow soldiers began to turn on them, calling them “terrorists” and “Hajis” behind their backs.

Then in November of 2009, the five Muslim recruits were arrested by the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) over a tip that they were allegedly plotting to poison their fellow soldiers at Fort Jackson. The news of the investigation broke on the Christian Broadcasting Network and quickly became national news.

Without being formally charged with a crime, the men were questioned about the poisoning allegation and accused of larceny, mutiny and conspiracy. The recruits were detained in their barracks building for 45 days and were escorted by guards wherever they went, including the bathroom. They said they were prohibited from speaking Arabic to each other or to family members on the phone. All along, the men said they told investigators they had no idea where the poisoning allegation came from and they vigorously maintained their innocence.

During this time, the men also said they were subjected to anti-Muslim harassment and abuse by authorities. The recruits claim they were told they would be sent to Guantanamo and one of the men said a CID agent told him he would be sent back to Morocco “in a box”.

“They were treating us as a terrorist,” said Lyaacoubi. “I never forget what this agent, she told me. She was like, “We are at war against Islam and you are a Muslim. Well, what are you going to do about that.”

“I see that my religion is the problem, or the part of the world that I am from is the problem,” said Bahammou. “I asked them to take me to church so I can change my religion, if that’s the problem.”

Investigation Lingers On

>> Continue reading: Army Investigation Over False Accusations Ruined Our Lives, Say Muslim Soldiers

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Wave of Horrific Islamophobia in Athens

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Wave of Horrific Islamophobia in Athens

Posted on 18 May 2011 by Emperor

Athens at this point sounds like Geert Wilders idea of heaven. (hat tip: Elizrael)

by Sara (via. her website: Neocolonialism and its Discontents)

I just got back from a study trip to Athens, Greece, and it was definitely an interesting experience. Although my specialization is gender, the trip ended up being more about migration and race-relations in Greece.

Before we went there, we had no idea that Greece is having a huge immigration problem. Some things we found out while we were there:

–Mosques are not allowed to be built in Athens, which means that there are only informal mosques in basements.
–Over the past few years, right-wing Greek people have trapped Muslims inside these informal mosques and then thrown petrol bombs inside, killing everyone.
–The second day we were there, a Greek man was robbed and then killed by 3 “dark-looking people” who were assumed to be immigrants. Later that night, neo-Nazi TV channels (yes) and blogs called for Greek people to go out and attack and beat immigrants.
–The next day over 17 immigrants ended up in the hospital after being stabbed.
–There was also a clash between the left-wing and the police, who are overwhelmingly right-wing (surprise, surprise).
–There is a huge back-log in terms of applications for legal status as a migrant, and some have to wait up to 20 years. Thus they can be arrested at any time, and they are kept in 2-by-2 cells with no toilets, little food, and no dignity.
–There are reportedly 2 million undocumented migrants in Athens, who are now at risk of being attacked.

While Athens is certainly extreme, these discourses can be found all over Europe now, including the Netherlands. Anti-Islam rhetoric has become so widespread and acceptable, it is no surprise that in some countries, like Greece, it has led to violence.

Some feminists criticize porn because they say it leads to violence against women, since it objectifies and dehumanizes them. The same can be said about discourses on Islam in Europe today. By dehumanizing, stigmatizing, and insulting Muslims, violence is only a few steps away.

And why exactly is Greece allowed to have a neo-Nazi channel if it is a member of the EU? Honestly, the EU needs to stop criticizing other countries when it has members who 1) have neo-Nazi media outlets, and 2) do not allow Muslims to build places of worship.
Uffff.


On a positive note, Greek men are very good-looking!

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Lockdown for Queen Elizabeth’s landmark Ireland visit

Posted on 18 May 2011 by Emperor

(hat tip: JD)

There has been a rise in terrorist activity in Ireland from the same type of groups that Rep. Peter King used to support. Imagine if these groups were Muslim?

Lockdown for Queen Elizabeth’s landmark Ireland visit

DUBLIN (AFP) – Queen Elizabeth II starts her historic state visit to Ireland Tuesday amid a massive security lockdown after the threat of Irish republican terrorism resurfaced with a coded bomb threat in London.

The historic four-day trip, the first by a British monarch to the Republic of Ireland since it gained independence from London in 1922, is a landmark moment aimed at normalising relations between the two neighbouring states.

However, a visit intended to underline the progress made following the hard-won peace in Northern Ireland is taking place surrounded by the highest security.

Central Dublin was in a police clampdown amid Ireland’s biggest-ever security operation, while dissident republicans opposed to the peace process and the sovereign’s visit made a coded bomb threat in London on Monday.

Police sealed off roads near Buckingham Palace and carried out a controlled explosion after the first coded warning outside Northern Ireland for 10 years.

Such warnings have traditionally been used by Irish republican paramilitaries before attacks.

Dissidents opposed to the peace process have been resurgent in Northern Ireland in recent months, murdering a Catholic policeman in a car bombing in April.

Opposition to the queen’s visit persists among hardcore and violent republicans, who want Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic.

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Pamela Geller: American patriot or extremist firebrand?

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Pamela Geller: American patriot or extremist firebrand?

Posted on 17 May 2011 by Danios

Robert Chalmers meets the right-wing blogger to find out

(cross-posted from The Independent)

Among the many new things I have learnt from the work of Pamela Geller is that President Obama reputedly used to knock around with a crack whore.

“That,” the author, blogger and broadcaster insists, “is not what I said. You are taking this out of context. The post [on her website atlasshrugs.com] was pointing out how people were reporting lie after lie about Sarah Palin. I said to myself, there is so much about Obama we don’t print. In his youth,” she continues, repeating a story for which there exists absolutely no foundation, “he supposedly liked a girl who was a crack whore. I never reported it as fact. They say all these vile things about Palin but do we ever talk about Obama and the crack whore?”

The incredibly libellous post, entitled: “IT’S TIME TO EXPOSE THE TRUTH ABOUT OBAMA” appeared on 1 August 2009. “Why not tell the truth about Obama and his reported strange sexual predilections?” Geller wrote. “It is well known that he allegedly was involved with a crack whore in his youth. Very seedy stuff … Find the ho, give her a show! Obama allegedly trafficked in some very deviant practices.”

You may not have encountered the writing of Geller, one of the more controversial ascending stars of the American extreme right. Politicised, as she says, by the events of 9/11, she inspired, then orchestrated, opposition to the construction of the planned Muslim cultural centre two blocks away from the former site of the World Trade Center, which Geller named the “Ground Zero Mosque”. A pivotal figure in the so-called “birther” movement, she has – in common with other robustly conservative figures such as Donald Trump, broadcaster Glenn Beck and her writing partner Robert Spencer – tirelessly queried details of President Obama’s ancestry, and hence his entitlement to office. Geller still has many questions in this area, despite the recent release of the “long form” of the president’s birth certificate, proving that he was born in the American state of Hawaii.

A glance at her voluminous blog reveals her disdain for institutions such as the UN (for employing “child-raping peacekeepers”) The New York Times (“Jew-haters”) and other famously subversive voices such as that of our own Sun newspaper (for whom “Jewkilling is OK, everything else is terror”) and Pope Benedict XVI (“Maybe Jew-hating,” she writes with reference to the German pontiff, “obliterates rational thought”). She didn’t like the way Campbell’s Soup went about producing a halal recipe and has described liberal Jews as “self-hating wretches”. An infamous post on Atlas Shrugs suggesting that Barack Obama was the love-child of Malcolm X was, Geller insists, not written by her. The image she posted of Obama urinating on an American flag was “a very well-circulated cartoon – so what?”

“I believe you once said that President Obama ‘wants jihad to win’.”

“I don’t know if he wants it to win, but he is certainly Islamophiliac. He is certainly aiding jihad.”

To help discourage him, Geller has provided a one-click link from her site to what she describes as “pornographic” photographs of Obama’s late mother. These are actually rather sad black-and-white pictures no more offensive than the images on hand-cranked peep-show machines from the early 20th century.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre, the US’s leading political watchdog group, has classified “Stop Islamization of America” (the group she founded with professional partner Robert Spencer) as a hate organisation. She continues to defend Radovan Karadzic, whose trial she has likened to the Nuremberg hearings. Geller speaks fondly of kindred spirits such as the far-right English Defence League (EDL) and the Dutch extremist Geert Wilders, whose rhetoric recently resulted in what she calls a heresy trial.

“Wilders is generally regarded as a racist lunatic, isn’t he?”

He is, Geller insists, a “lovely man. In Pakistan, you speak against Islam and you are put to death. Here in the West, your character is assassinated. You are a racistislamophobe-republicantimuslimbigot.” The speed, not to say pride, with which she delivers what has become a one-word catchphrase, is undeniably impressive. “You get called something enough times,” she smiles, “you say it plenty fast.”

The intensity, if not the ethnic focus, of her views on national identity, recalls the correspondence between H Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling, in the course of which they discuss “the Jewish problem” [ie there are Jews, some of them in England]. On the evidence of her writing alone, you might assume its author to be a male octogenarian in tweeds carrying a 12-bore.

But Geller (whose blog carries video of opponents, referring to what they perceive to be the results of cosmetic surgery, screaming: “whore – your face is melting”) looks younger than her 53 years. She arrives for our meeting at Manhattan’s Four Seasons Hotel wearing tight jeans, boldly luxuriant eyelash extensions and a quantity of mascara and eyeshadow that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the days when, as she recalls, she used to dance to the Cramps at clubs such as CBGB’s.

She occasionally records video blogs wearing a bikini. In one clip, which defends another prominent right-wing activist Ann Coulter, Geller performs an a cappella version of Morrissey’s “Some Girls are Bigger than Others” while stroking a small dog.

A practised and articulate guest speaker on TV channels including Fox News and CBS, she isn’t fond of the American media, dominated as it is by “Obama’s serfs”. Recently, Geller tells me, she declined an interview request from the BBC. She switches on a digital recorder. “Normally,” she says, “I don’t have to use this.” But she’s dealing with “a lefty newspaper” which carries reports by Robert Fisk.

Whatever you might think of Pamela Geller, you can’t accuse her of lacking courage. Her website reproduced cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, first published in 2005 by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which led to an attempt on the life of artist Kurt Westergaard.

“Going through my notes,” I tell her, “I find you quoted as asking: ‘Does Obama know anybody that isn’t wacky, radical, militant, Judeophobe, Socialist, Marxist and Paedophile?’ Next to which I appear to have written: ‘Possibly Diana Krall.’”

“Actually I didn’t say that but I did say something that echoes that, so I don’t have a problem. There is no one in his cabinet that is not radical.”

America, argues Geller (she uses the noun to apply to the United States rather than the whole continent), is at war with evil – a force whose most pernicious incarnation is Islam, or to be more precise, “creeping Sharia”. Towards the end of what turns out to be an animated two-hour conversation I will ask her whether, had her contributions been articulated on a public stage in the UK, she would have been arrested. Under British law, she says she doesn’t know. “In Holland,” she concedes, “probably.”

She recalls how Terry Jones, a fundamentalist minister, achieved international fame after he declared he was going to burn the Koran, an action he performed in Florida, in March. “Who cares if some fringe pastor is going to burn a Koran? You burn a Bible, nobody says ‘Boo.’”

“Can you think of any good Muslims?” I ask her. “Because reading your book – The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America [co-authored with Robert Spencer]– I can’t find any.”

“That’s not true. I love Muslims. I hate an extreme ideology that oppresses women… we have seen a 1,400-year history of 270 million victims of jihadi wars.”

Geller doesn’t mind, she insists, what anybody regards as sacred. “I don’t care if you worship a stone,” she says. “I don’t care if you worship a little rock.”

“How did you know about Gordon?” I ask her. “I left him in the hotel room.”

The writer, who is, remarkably, not without a sense of irony, permits herself a smile.

“I can think of one Muslim of my acquaintance – Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens,” I tell her, “who I don’t believe would hurt a fly.”

“No. But he has said some things.”

“As he’s often explained, he was very naive at that time and he was entrapped by a British newspaper. He’s said that he would not repeat or endorse those statements as reported, and I believe him.”

“OK.”

“So who are the good Muslims that you know?”

“Secular Muslims.”

“Isn’t that a bit of an oxymoron?”

“No. If you adhere to the Koran… the last chapters are very violent.”

“Have you read Deuteronomy? Ask Saladin what he thought about Richard I.”

“But there was an enlightenment. Islam has had no enlightenment. You cannot criticise Islam. You cannot speak candidly of Islam…”

“You seem to be giving it a good go.”

“Listen, you think it’s easy being me, dear? I get threats. I have my contacts at law enforcement.”

Geller has even managed to fall out with former sympathiser Zuhdi Jasser, an Arizona-based critic of what he terms “political Islam”. Jasser, once a lieutenant commander in the US Navy and no shrinking liberal, is a regular guest on shows hosted by attack dogs of conservative broadcasting, such as Sean Hannity – a man who, even Pamela Geller concedes, “is right-wing”.

“Geller and Robert Spencer’s comments… show that they are against any solution from within the House of Islam,” wrote Jasser, who is of Syrian descent, earlier this year. “This only aids and abets all Islamists. But that doesn’t matter if their target includes all Muslims and their only viable solution is conversion of one-fifth of the world’s population.”

Everything in Geller’s motivation comes back to 9/11. One of the many ways in which the United States was changed forever by the atrocity was a more widespread acceptability of the kind of hateful diatribe that had previously been the preserve of a handful of shock jocks.

Five years ago, referring to 9/11 widows who opposed George W Bush, Ann Coulter told NBC’s The Today Show: “They believe the entire country is required to marinate in their personal agony. These broads are millionaires, lionised on TV, k revelling in their status. I have never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.”

In May 2010 Geller began her campaign against the project then called Cordoba House (a title she considered deliberately offensive in its evocation of the Moorish conquest of Spain) and now named Park 51. As currently planned, it would involve the construction of a 13-storey building on the site of a damaged factory a tenth of a mile away from the World Trade Center. Its advocates, such as chief organiser Imam Rauf, assert that – housing as it would a memorial, theatre, swimming pool and baseball court as well as a prayer site – it is neither at Ground Zero, nor a mosque.

The title of her blog on 6 May last year read: “MONSTER MOSQUE PUSHES AHEAD IN SHADOW OF WORLD TRADE CENTER ISLAMIC DEATH AND DESTRUCTION.” She raised funds for posters on New York buses, which depicted an image of the burning towers, with the slogan: “Why There?” Her campaign was supported by the New York Post and resolute conservatives such as Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich.

Geller has recently completed work on a film called The Ground Zero Mosque: The Second Wave of the 9/11 Attack. “The Ground Zero Mosque is deeply insulting, deliberately provocative and offensive,” she argues. “To build a megamosque in a building that was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks is the height of insensitivity.”

Among the people likely to visit the facility, I suggest, “will be honest believers, some of whom lost relatives and fellow Muslims in the attack”.

“I don’t separate the Muslims that died from the non-Muslims. Many moderate Muslims,” she asserts, correctly, “are against it. It is an Islamic pattern to build triumphal mosques on the cherished sites…”

“Pardon?”

“Let me finish, sir. On the cherished sites of conquered lands. There has not been one mosque of reconciliation, ever, on the site of a jihadi attack.”

“Maybe this is a good chance to start.”

“I don’t think you are going to get it from Imam Rauf.”

Geller launches into a swift character assassination of the imam, who said recently: “If I’d known that this would happen; that the project would cause this kind of pain, I wouldn’t have done it.”

“No matter how [Geller mouths the word "fucking"] much we progress, the human condition never changes. The battle is eternal and the battle is between good and evil. I think the fundamental problem today is the inability, or reluctance, to distinguish between good and evil.”

She has carried the fight all over the world, from New York to the Black Country. Geller learnt of reports of clashes in April 2010 between right-wing demonstrators and West Midlands police in Dudley, during protests against an application to build what she blogged was a “Monster Mosque”.

“Senior EDL leadership,” she wrote in the 5 May 2010 issue of the conservative online magazine American Thinker, “informed me that thousands of Muslims began rioting in Dudley… showing the true face of Islam.” Muslims, she went on, in what may come as news to residents in Sue Lawley’s home town, “are policing the streets in cars… and the dhimmi [non-Muslim living under Sharia law] Dudley police are doing nothing about it.”

I tell Geller that I’d assumed that the experience of meeting her would be similar to an uncomfortable afternoon I once spent with Arianna Huffington. That was when the Greek-American thinker was in her right-wing, Newt Gingrich period, before she performed a remarkable volte face and established herself as a prominent liberal and founded the left-leaning news website The Huffington Post. Geller isn’t flattered by this at all, and it’s true that the two women could hardly be more different. Huffington always looked like a Republican vice-president’s wife, and seemed, at least back then, more driven by ambition than ideals. Geller, by contrast – quite amazingly, given the nature of her beliefs – has the ability to laugh at herself and, as I mentioned to a well-known journalist who has studied her ascent, has a strange habit, even at the most intense moments of disagreement, of flashing you a look of what I can only describe as girlish vulnerability.

“Pamela Geller is a Ground Zero in herself,” he replied. “Angry yet fragile. Just occasionally, that flash in her eyes that you mention betrays what I interpreted as a longing to be loved. I sensed a deep insecurity in her; the time I spent with her left me feeling deeply uncomfortable.”

Geller grew up in the affluent New York suburb of Hewlett Harbor, Long Island, the daughter of Reuben, a textile entrepreneur who she describes as “a tough guy from the old school”.

“Like John Wayne?”

“Well… from the Frank Sinatra era. Robert Mitchum. You know: masculine.”

Of her three sisters, two are doctors, one a teacher.

“Do they share your views?”

Politically, Geller says, “we are all on the same page”.

As a young woman, she was heavily influenced by Atlas Shrugged, the 1957 novel by Ayn Rand, which praised the virtues of individualism, as opposed to state intervention.

In the 1980s she worked in marketing at the New York Daily News, then became a senior executive at The New York Observer. Her enthusiasms back then were fashion and music. (Geller, who has four children, left the Observer in 1994 to look after her family.)

Before 9/11, she says, she was “more socially liberal”.

She began blogging on littlegreenfootballs.com, run by the professional musician and software expert Charles Johnson. Between 2004 and 2007, she posted thousands of entries. “She was always as reactionary,” he tells me, “as you see her now.”

Johnson, who, as that remark would suggest, does not share Geller’s opinions, is described as a “mental patient” on Atlas Shrugs.

“I know Pamela Geller often calls me crazy,” he told me. “But I’m not the one who talks about the president’s birth certificate being faked or says that he’s the illegitimate son of Malcolm X, and I’m not the one who defends a war criminal and makes alliances with white supremacist groups. That would be Ms Geller. She has a very long record of absolute lunacy, mixed with bigotry and racism and I am far from the only person to point this out.”

These days, she expresses a view of the superiority of her nation reminiscent of the more entrenched kind of British patriot in the golden age of Empire. “What would be the good,” Geller asks, “of subjecting America to international norms? America has always been a light to the world.”

There is no reason, in other words, for the United States to account for its actions to the International Criminal Court, or the UN.

“I can see how that’s a very attractive view of the world,” I tell her, “but I find it difficult to accept the USA as the embodiment of perfection that all other nations should aspire to” – a recurrent theme in Geller’s writing.

“I don’t care what other nations do. I don’t care about them. I care about America.”

In order to “get America”, she argues, “you have to grow up in America. Obama is missing the DNA of the USA. It’s just not in him,” she adds, like a missionary speaking of a heathen who has never heard the name of Christ. “Through no fault of his own.”

The USA, Geller believes, is unique and superior to any other nation. “America is not an ethnicity, it’s not a creed, it’s not a colour, it’s a shared value system. And in order to get it, you have to have grown up here, or yearn for it.”

“If I was from Bruges and talked like that about Belgium, what would you think?”

“All power to you.”

“I think you’d assume that I’d gone off my rocker.”

“Why?”

“Because I would be elevating respect for a nation beyond what most people would regard as sane.”

“Respect for an ideal is insane?”

“But what you mean by America and what [say] Steve Earle or Randy Newman mean by America are two very different things.”

“That’s the beauty of America.”

The day before we met, I’d entered the words “Pamela Geller” and “mad” into a search engine.

“You come in at 606,000 hits. That’s just behind King George III; he scores 771,000 and he talked to trees.”

“Yeah,” Geller replies, “but he was cured of that, wasn’t he?”

One American she does consider “crazy” is the legendary comedian Dick Gregory: role model for Richard Pryor, diet coach to Muhammad Ali and now a full-time civil-rights activist. “I talked to Gregory recently about Barack Obama,” I tell her, and he said: ‘Imagine what they’d have done to him if he’d been useless.’ Do you see Obama as evil, or stupid?”

“I don’t see him as either. I just don’t see him as a man who loves America. In my book I explain that here is k a man who was raised, from the ages of six to 12 [others say six to 10] in a Muslim country [Indonesia] and who,” Geller claims, “studied Islam. When he came to the States he went [back] to Hawaii, which had only become a state two years before his birth.”

She has asserted that Obama visited Pakistan in 1981 looking for “jihad or drugs”.

“That was a joke.”

On a more serious note, Geller has claimed that: “The only reason there is any semblance of peace around the world is because of the military presence of the US.”

Considering her nation’s recent military excursions to Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, can she point to any place where its intervention can be said to have worked? Libya, she says, was “a disaster. I don’t see what we’re doing there at all.”

“Would it bother you if the Americans had gone in there purely because of the oil?”

“Of course not. Why would it bother me?”

“Thousands of civilian dead?”

“They’re dying anyway. Isn’t that what we’re doing, saving them? Why not get oil at the same time? Why is China getting Iraq’s oil? Our blood,” she adds, in a phrase which might have come from the Crusades, or indeed The Sopranos: “our treasure.”

The phrase “war on terror” I suggest, has been a catastrophe in the way that it’s given carte blanche to any nation with enemies.

“It’s not [a war on] terror. It’s a war on jihad.”

“Where has it worked? In Iraq?”

“Iraq is now a fledgling democracy.”

“It’s a basket case. They have no fresh water; they have no electricity.”

“You telling me Iraq was the height of civilisation prior?”

“If you define civilisation by being able to turn on the tap.”

“Over there,” Geller replies, “maybe that is how they define it.”

“Is there anything Israel has done that you’re ashamed of?”

“Only Oslo,” she says (referring to the 1993 accord which allowed for the creation of the Palestinian National Authority). “And surrendering in instalments.”

“The Jenin Massacre” – a term commonly used to describe the Israeli Defence Force’s April 2002 entry into a West Bank refugee camp, in bulldozers – was, she believes, Palestinian “propaganda”.

“How about Tom Hurndall, the peace volunteer shot by the IDF while he was trying to pull an infant to safety?” Hurndall, who was wearing an orange fluorescent jacket, died in 2004 after spending nine months in a coma; the sniper responsible was sentenced to 11-and-a-half years for manslaughter, of which he will serve eight, by an Israeli court.

“I don’t believe that. I don’t believe the Israelis ever fire where there is no threat.”

Geller would like to see more settlers in the Occupied Territories (though neither of the last two nouns are ones she would recognise).

“It’s not ‘settlers’. It’s the Jewish homeland. Settler is an anti-semitic term.”

“How about Joe McCarthy [the senator responsible for the Communist witch trials of the 1950s]? How do you feel about him?”

“McCarthy was right. He went overboard, but he was right. The Communists were infiltrating and they have been very successful here in America.”

“Let’s talk about people who are white and racist.”

“I don’t know any.”

“[The South African white supremacist] Eugène Terre’Blanche? I’ve seen you described as a supporter of his.”

“He was viciously murdered. I never knew who he was, but when he was hacked to death, I condemned it. I have no interest in his ideology.”

“Can you think of any others, apart from Hitler?”

“No. Because I don’t travel in those circles.”

“I mean from history.”

“I guess the Ku Klux Klan.”

“I guess.”

“No, I’m saying that. But I don’t believe in white supremacism. Islamic supremacism is the threat I see right now.”

Pamela Geller, as you might expect for someone so powerfully attached to certain ideas and theories, has had to suffer her own conspiracy theorists.

“You married [car dealer] Michael Oshry in 1990?”

“Yes.” (The couple divorced in 2007; Oshry remarried, but died of a heart attack the following year.)

There are reports on the web concerning Oshry’s company, Universal Auto World, that offer a scenario worthy of a thriller writer such as James M Cain. A car salesman, Collin Thomas, was killed on the evening of 11 January 2007, with a single bullet, while closing one of the company showrooms, on Long Island. The subsequent police investigation revealed a large-scale fraud perpetrated by employees, who had used credit records of other individuals to obtain finance for luxury vehicles.

“My ex was a very good man,” Geller says. “He had a number of dealerships. In one there was a crook who was part of a gang. Michael was never arrested or indicted. When my ex-husband died, the whole thing was over. The guy went to jail. My ex-husband was a victim in this.”

Geller doesn’t want to say whether she is currently in a relationship. Her priorities are “working 20 hours a day, and raising my family”.

It’s noticeable that no recent developments – not even Obama’s recent tour de force of a satirical speech to the White House Correspondents Association, tormenting Donald Trump and other birthers with a self-deprecating wit and comic timing that would have done credit to Woody Allen in his prime – have diminished her zeal.

Where are Obama’s college records? asks Geller. Where are his medical records? Where is his law practice client list?

And the killing of Osama Bin Laden, on Barack Obama’s watch? “I am thrilled he signed off on it. Could Obama have said no to this operation, and gotten re-elected in 2011?”

Conversation with Geller, unless you share her world view, is invariably confrontational, and this is something you sense she enjoys. Her attitude to critics is that of a woman faced with someone who believes the world to be flat, and obstinately refuses to be persuaded otherwise.

Once she’s no longer speaking for publication, the mood lightens considerably. She sits for a while and enthuses about music: the Ramones, Al Green and Loudon Wainwright III.

There are two well-known songs, I tell her, that kept coming to mind while I was listening to her: Bob Dylan’s defiant hymn to Israel, “Neighborhood Bully” (“I love that”) and, especially, Nick Lowe’s “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love and Understanding”.

“I used to love dancing to that,” she says.

“So what is so funny about it?”

“Nothing. But both sides have to want it.”

Our one point of firm agreement, in what has been an afternoon of sometimes tense discord, is that, given the current climate in America, the political tendency she represents is well-placed to advance. This belief is confirmed by the rising popularity of her blog – currently ranked 28 in the category of US politics – and a resurgence in interest in the novel Atlas Shrugged.

“If that’s all I ever achieved,” she says, in reference to Rand’s book, “I’d be happy.”

Does she see herself as a mirror reflecting pubic opinion, or a beacon for them to turn to?

“Neither. I’m happy that I am influencing the national dialogue, and disseminating information that the media refuses [to publish]. I believe I am providing a very important public service. I see myself as a quintessential American.”

Perhaps the best image of her place in the field of American politics would be as a magnifying glass capturing, focusing and intensifying the blinding prejudices of her compatriots (if such opinions can credibly be compared with sunlight) and directing them towards a pile of kindling. For a woman blessed with so many certainties in her life, you suspect that even she could be surprised at quite how fierce, alarming and widespread the eventual conflagration might be.

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Ruben_Diaz

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Scenes From New York’s Anti-Gay Marriage Rally: ‘Those Who Practice Such Things Are Worthy Of Death’

Posted on 16 May 2011 by Emperor

Sen. Ruben Diaz was present at the rally

Robert Spencer’s co-religionist says “gays are worthy of death” at anti-Gay marriage rally, imagine if a Muslim were to say that? (Hat tip: Om)

Scenes From New York’s Anti-Gay Marriage Rally: ‘Those Who Practice Such Things Are Worthy Of Death’

by Igor Volsky

(Think Progress)

Several thousand people rallied in the Bronx, New York yesterday against the impending push to legalize same-sex marriage. Organizers, including state Senator Reverend Ruben Diaz, several Spanish radio stations and churches, argued that marriage should be defined as a union between “one man and one woman” and urged the state government to abandon their effort or put the initiative up to a vote. “Let the people decide. If the people say yes, we’ll shut up,” Diaz said at the steps of the Bronx court house. “Bring it to the people, bring it to the people…look at the people!” he yelled to the crowd of several thousand Hispanic Americans.

Diaz stressed that he was not condemning gay people, telling a small group of protesters gathered across the court house that his granddaughter — who was taking part in the counter demonstration — was a lesbian. “We respect you and we love you. You’ve never heard from me a word of insult to you. You’ve never heard me say — you never seen me call for homophobia or violence,” Diaz said, as organizers and police brought Erica Diaz to the main podium to stand with Diaz. “This is my granddaughter,” he said, stressing that he had “respect” for her “decisions.” “She does what she wants,” Diaz told the crowd.

And while the march and rally focused on the Christian message of “love,” the event remained deeply homophobic, with speakers routinely condemning gay people as “sinners” and describing same-sex relations as something wholly unnatural or perverse. In fact, just minutes before Diaz took to the microphone to stress his respect for gay people, Rev. Ariel Torres Ortega of Radio Visión Cristiana said that the gay people are “worthy of death”:

Committing sexual acts between man and man. And receiving the retribution of the things that they have done from straying away. And because they did not take God in count. God gave them over to reprimand their mind to do things that are not right, being against all justice, fornication, perversity, aberrations, malignity…those who practice such things are worthy to death, not only do they do it, but those who also practice it. God bless this earth. That is the word of God.

Watch a compilation:

Demonstrators held signs that read “God’s Marriage = 1 man & 1 woman” and “Gay Marriage Is Against the Word of God.”

A group called ‘The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Prosperity’ (TFP) led off the march and provided the musical accompaniment. One member distributed hundreds of flyers to passerbys explaining “why homosexual ‘marriage’ is harmful and must be opposed.” The print-out describes same-sex marriage as “evil,” against “natural law” and argues that allowing gay people to marry would “obscure certain basic moral values, devalue traditional marriage, and weaken public morality.”

“If homosexual ‘marriage’ is universally accepted as the present step in sexual ‘freedom,’ what logical arguments can be used to stop the next steps of incest, pedophilia, bestiality, and other forms of unnatural behavior?” the flyer asks.

For more coverage of the rally, click over to Good As You, LGBTQ Nation, and JoeMyGod.

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DIGIPIX

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Rabbi Convicted of Molesting Soldier on Plane, What if he were Muslim?

Posted on 16 May 2011 by Amago

Rabbi Gavriel Bidany was convicted last week of a fondling 23-year-old Israeli soldier sleeping in the seat next to his on a transatlantic flight.

If this rabbi had been an Imam, every major news source would have been reporting this story non-stop, and the anti-Islam blogosphere would have run amock. (hat tip:Disill)

Offspring of rabbi convicted of molesting soldier on plane begs judge: He has to help us

Don’t lock up our dad – he has to help us get married!

That was the plea from the children of an Orthodox rabbi convicted of molesting an Israeli soldier on a plane.

“I have reached an age [22] where I need to find a groom and start a family,” Eden Bidany wrote in a letter to Magistrate Ramon Reyes.

“And without my father it is very difficult,” she added.

Gavriel Bidany, 48, was convicted last week of a fondling the 23-year-old lieutenant sleeping in the seat next to his on a transatlantic flight.

Gavriel Bidany, a marriage counselor and father of 11, faces up to six months in prison when he’s sentenced Thursday in Brooklyn Federal Court.

His son also begged for mercy.

“Today I am 21 and I need to start my own family … and without my dad it is impossible,” said Avishar Bidany.

“It would hurt my match-making possibilities.”

Another son said if he finds a bride soon, having a father in jail would ruin the wedding.

“I would like to get married properly with my father at my side please,” Ariel Bidany wrote.

Also asking for leniency was U.S. Army Capt. Jonathan Gross, an assistant professor of law at West Point.

In a note written on Department of the Army letterhead, Gross said Gavriel Bidany should be held accountable, but not incarcerated.

Gross, who did not return a call for comment, said the rabbi once helped him and his wife “with a particularly difficult situation.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Sarratt urged the judge to punish the rabbi with several months of jail time for the assault and for perjuring himself on the witness stand by claiming he was asleep at the time of the attack.

jmarzulli@nydailynews.com

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Houston Mosque Set on Fire, Arsonist on the Loose

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Houston Mosque Set on Fire, Arsonist on the Loose

Posted on 15 May 2011 by Danios

KHOU, Greater Houston’s CBS affiliate television station, is reporting that a mosque was most likely set afire by an arsonist who is still on the loose (hat tip: JD):

Authorities investigate suspicious mosque fire in southwest Houston

HOUSTON – Authorities are investigating after a suspect allegedly started a fire at a mosque in southwest Houston on Saturday.

Authorities said the fire started at the Madrasae Islamiah Mosque in the 6665 block of Bintliff Drive around 3:30 a.m.

HFD said the suspect broke a window and poured an accelerant on a rug in one room inside the building. Damage was confined to that one room, officials said.

No injuries were reported.

Authorities said there was surveillance video but it failed to catch a clear image of the suspect.

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America’s Right Wing: YES to Quran-burning, NO to Flag-Burning

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America’s Right Wing: YES to Quran-burning, NO to Flag-Burning

Posted on 14 May 2011 by Danios

When LSU graduate student Benjamin Haas planned to burn the U.S. flag to protest the clamping down of civil liberties and the right of due process for “students and suspected terrorists alike”, an angry mob of over 1,000 people came out to stop him.  Haas “sustained physical and verbal taunting” and in fact received numerous death threats.  Had the police not been there to protect him, Haas might have been seriously hurt.  (Haas backed down from burning the flag.)

Here’s a video of the despicable mob (hint: any time you see Americans wrapped in the flag chanting “USA! USA! USA!” more often than not they are war-mongers):

But how on earth could those Primitive Muslim Barbarians get so angry when the Quran is burned or the image of the Prophet Muhammad is depicted in an offensive way?

This angry mob of American “partriots” lost its mind over a 5 by 8 foot piece of cloth.  That certainly sounds stupider than being upset at someone from a “rival” religion for burning one’s holy book.

Being the uber-liberal that I am, I naturally support the right to burn a flag, a holy book, or a blunt.  (However, my belief in tolerance and good manners would prevent me from supporting a person who burned a flag or holy book.  There is a difference between supporting a person’s right to do something offensive on the one hand, and supporting the offensive act itself on the other.)

This video should explain to incredulous Americans why Muslims in the Islamic world get so riled up when they hear about Americans burning the Quran or disparaging the image of their prophet.  The U.S. flag is not just worth its material value (a piece of cloth) but rather has far greater symbolic value: burning it is a symbolic assault on one’s American identity.  It’s a purposeful provocation.  Likewise, the images of Muhammad were not “just cartoons”; they were a symbolic affront to their Islamic identity, a purposeful provocation and incitement.  It seems to confirm what the Muslims already suspect: they are being attacked, occupied, and killed for their religion.

The burning of the U.S. flag occurred in a certain context: it happened around the emotional time of Osama Bin Laden’s assassination.  Had this flag burning taken place twenty years ago, it would likely not have evoked much reaction.  But in the context of the War on Terror, the flag burning serves to affect Americans on a deeper level.  (Considering that I think the U.S. is waging a War of Terror, I don’t get my panties in a bunch by flag burning.  That is, after all, the same flag that is so proudly planted on the ground of those whose lands we illegally occupy–so, while I certainly don’t condone it, I could understand why people would want to burn it.)

Likewise, the violence in the East sparked by symbolic offenses against Islam in the West come in a certain context: they occur in a time in which the United States is waging multiple illegal wars against several Muslim countries, occupying their lands, and killing hundreds of thousands of Muslims.  If Bin Laden, who has killed three thousand Americans (and that too over ten years ago), could evoke such a visceral reaction from Americans at LSU, just imagine the reaction if Muslims had committed a yearly or monthly 9/11  since 2001?  How do you think Americans would react to flag burning if Muslim terrorists had killed not 3,000 but 300,000 U.S. citizens?  This is the level of death and destruction that our military afflicts in the lands of the Saracen barbarians.

No doubt the Islamophobes will react by arguing that one simply can’t compare the LSU mob with what happens in the Islamic world (actual violence and death, not just water balloons and chest thumping).  But to this, I say: the angry mob would most likely have hurt Haas had the police not been there–and he did receive numerous death threats.  But beyond that, our country is not being militarily occupied by an enemy, nor are hundreds of thousands of Americans being slaughtered.  If Americans had blood lust in their eyes after 9/11 (the nation reacted by waging multiple illegal wars that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents), one can only imagine the hypertrophied reaction that angry mob would have had if we had been at the losing end of a war against us.

Lastly, I’d like to comment on what the belligerent U.S. soldier said to Benjamin Haas: “My brother died for you!” , a phrase he repeated multiple times.  This of course is a common refrain used by U.S. “patriots”: whenever uber-liberals like myself are protesting America’s wars and the military complex, they will say, “you should thank us for defending your right to do so.”  That’s a load of hog-wash, of pure propaganda.  By invading and occupying Muslim lands, the military has done absolutely nothing to protect my own freedom and liberty.  Had the U.S. not invaded or attacked Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, etc., does anyone here think I wouldn’t be free any more?

If anything, our wars abroad have served only to curtail our civil liberties (refer to Glenn Greenwald’s excellent column on Salon.com).  Furthermore, these wars of ours take away from the Muslim populations their right to self-determination, of liberty and the right to be free from military occupation.  How is my right to freedom being supported by taking away the freedom of Muslims abroad?

The sad truth is that America’s young men are dying not “for you”, or for me, or for Benjamin Haas–but for nothing.  For worse than nothing.  That’s one of the reasons our chicken-hawk leaders who order these wars (but don’t fight them) should be stopped from doing so and held accountable.

As the great Muhammad Ali put it: “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Vietcong.”

Update I:

After recounting some of the routine killings of Muslim children in just the last few days (what’s another few Muslim children killed?), Glenn Greenwald says:

Just imagine the accumulated hatred from having things like this happen day after day, week after week, year after year, for a full decade now, with no end in sight — broadcast all over the region.  It’s literally impossible to convey in words the level of bloodthirsty fury and demands for vengeance that would arise if a foreign army were inside the U.S. killing innocent American children even a handful of times, let alone continuously for a full decade.

Update II:

Some right-wingers have criticized me for “defending” Benjamin Haas’ right to burn the U.S. flag, while not doing the same for Pastor Terry Jones’ right to burn the Quran.  One right-wing nut job said: “to LoonWatch.com it’s speech that’s only their speech being protected.”  Moving beyond this right winger’s poor command of the English language (WHY DON’T THESE DAMN IMMIGRANTS LEARN ENGLISH!), it’s just a completely false accusation to begin with: I have clearly said in the article above:

Being the uber-liberal that I am, I naturally support the right to burn a flag, a holy book, or a blunt.

Perhaps he not only has poor grammar but also poor reading comprehension.  In any case, believing in freedom of speech means protecting the right of speech one considers offensive and even odious.  Therefore, although I dislike the idea of burning flags or books (holy books in particular), I believe it is part of freedom of speech to allow it.  This is why I supported Glenn Greenwald’s article against banning the right to burn the Quran.  (Like Greenwald, I believe this whole “we can’t burn the Koran because then those crazy Muslims will kill us” was a smokescreen to hide the real reason “why they hate us”: namely, because we kill them, bomb them, and occupy them.)

I support Terry Jones’ right to burn the Quran as I do Benjamin Haas’ right to burn the U.S. flag, even while I dislike both actions.  This does not mean, however, that I believe there is a moral equivalence between Terry Jones and Benjamin Haas.  Pastor Jones is a mustachioed clown, an uneducated hick of the most vulgar sort, with absolutely nothing to give this world but hate, ignorance, and intolerance.  On the other hand, Benjamin Haas is a thoughtful, educated, and tolerant young man, as his intelligent speech indicates.

One reader commented about Benjamin Haas:

He’s still an idiot just like Terry Jones was.

I beg to differ.  While I don’t ever support flag burning, Benjamin Haas–from what little I have read of his writing–seems like a bright young man.  He’s certainly not to be compared to the ignoramus that is Terry Jones. Furthermore, unlike Terry Jones who did go through with his Quran-burning, Benjamin Haas did not go through with the flag-burning (much to the adulation of the right-wing) and decided instead to simply give a speech.  How then can we compare the two?

Additionally, even though I dislike burning flags, it is less offensive to me than burning holy books.  This does not simply apply to the Quran.  For example, I would find it much more offensive to burn the Talmud than to burn the Israeli flag.  Burning flags has always been a form of protest, whereas burning holy books has a very dark history. Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also.  And historically, where they burned holy books, religious pogroms were not far behind.

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Social Conservative Bryan Fischer: Muslims Are Stupid Because Of Inbreeding

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Social Conservative Bryan Fischer: Muslims Are Stupid Because Of Inbreeding

Posted on 13 May 2011 by Danios

(from TPM)

Social conservative Bryan Fischer said Thursday that centuries of inbreeding has resulted in “an enormous cost in intellectual capacity” among Muslims.

Fischer, the “Directory of Issues Analysis” for the American Family Association, said on his Focal Point radio show that “Muslims have been [inbreeding] for fourteen hundred years and because this is what Muhammad did, they always will do this, they will always defend it, they will always practice it.”

“And this kind of inbreeding results in an enormous cost in intellectual capacity, intellectual quotient among the Islamic people,” he continued. “It’s just a plain fact. You can’t argue with it, it’s just simply the truth. And you get hammered for saying it, but that’s because the truth has now become hate speech, the truth has now become bigotry.”

Watch:

Fischer, aside from being staunchly anti-bear, is also a frequent purveyor of anti-Islam sentiment. He once argued that the U.S. should restrict immigration of Muslims, and deport some of those already in the country. Fischer’s also said that Muslims don’t deserve First Amendment rights, and that the U.S. should havee “no more mosques, period.”

That hasn’t stopped a number of conservatives from appearing on his show (and alongside him at the Values Voter conference), including Michele Bachmann, Mike Huckabee, and Tim Pawlenty.

h/t Right Wing Watch.

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Bomb Attacks on the Rise…in Ireland, What if they were Muslim?

Posted on 12 May 2011 by Emperor

Should we blame Catholicism for this rise in violence? Or Protestantism? If a Muslim nation were to see a rise in such violence you can be sure that Islam would be blamed. (hat tip: Mike)

Bomb attacks double in Northern Ireland

By Ian Graham

BELFAST (Reuters) – Bomb attacks in Northern Ireland have doubled over the last year, police figures showed on Thursday, evidence that dissident pro-Irish nationalists have stepped up activities to try to derail political stability.

A 1998 deal largely ended three decades of violence but small groups of dissidents say nationalists betrayed their cause by entering politics alongside pro-British unionists instead of pressing a fight for full independence from Britain.

A local election last week boosted the status quo when the ruling coalition was returned with a greater majority.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said 99 viable bombs either exploded or were defused by army experts in the year to the end of March, compared with 50 a year ago.

The security threat level stands at severe and police officers — especially Catholics who have been encouraged to join the force — have been targeted.

At the beginning of April, a car bomb killed a 25 year-old Catholic constable. One man has been charged in connection with the bombing and a woman is being questioned by detectives.

Ronan Kerr was the second Catholic officer to be murdered in two years, several more have been severely wounded or had narrow escapes.

Security chiefs fear the dissidents will launch new attacks on either side of the Irish border to coincide with next week’s visit to the Irish Republic by Queen Elizabeth — the first by a British monarch since Irish independence nearly a century ago.

One dissident group, the Real IRA, used an Easter message to oppose the visit, saying she was wanted for war crimes.

The PSNI have loaned a specially adapted bomb and bullet proof Range Rover to the Irish authorities for the Queen to travel in during her four day visit.

Thursday’s police figures show that 188 people were arrested under the Terrorism Act, compared with 169 the year before. Those charged rose to 40 from 36.

As well as bombings there were 72 shooting incidents, 33 casualties resulting from paramilitary style shootings and 81 paramilitary style assaults.

Ordinary crime has hit a 13 year low and Chief Constable Matt Baggott said that was a reflection of the increasing acceptability of the PSNI in largely Catholic areas where the police were traditionally viewed with hostility.

“Despite the challenges we face, policing is working,” he said. “Falling crime shows that we have been embraced by the communities and we will repay the faith they are showing in us by working to sustain and improve our performance.”

(Editing by Carmel Crimmins and Elizabeth Piper)

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Richard Dawkins: “Islam” is an “Unmitigated Evil”

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Richard Dawkins: “Islam” is an “Unmitigated Evil”

Posted on 11 May 2011 by Garibaldi

Richard Dawkins, well known biologist and pop-atheist-guru (add goofball) recently brought up the question of whether or not atheists should support Christian missions in Africa. (hat tip: Rob)

He believes the answer is “still no,” (he doesn’t say why) but since Islam according to him is an “unmitigated evil” and atheism is not going to be making any inroads into Africa anytime soon it is a question worth “raising.”

His logic is based on a crudely partitioned breakdown of religious affiliation in Africa designed by a Christian site:

(Isn’t Dawkins supposed to question these sorts of things?)

Dawkins also believes ‘supporting missions’ may be justified on the basis that ‘the enemy of our enemy is our friend.’ That’s the extent of profundity provided by Dawkins! Such crass and cynical sentiments expose the bankruptcy of ideas and strategy in the leadership of the so-called New Atheists.

The statement is similar to “exposed as a fraud” Ayaan H. Ali’s call for Christian missionaries to evangelize Muslims. Such a call is really just a variation on the well worn Crusader-esque theme best expressed by the likes of Anne Coulter, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” (Or the recent statement by Christian Evangelical Bryan Fischer, “Muslims can either convert, or die”).

Don’t you love how some of these loony-out-for-a-buck-and-some-notoriety atheists are so quick to compromise their principles and sit at the table with the most hardcore Bible Thumpers out there? Does anyone think George Carlin would stand for that? Or Tariq Ali? Or As’ad Abu Khalil? Or Cenk Uygur? It just goes to show you that where you are born, your culture and history do have an impact on the decisions and positions you take, no matter how much you claim to be “objective” and motivated by “reason,” and the “scientific method.”

As for his comments that it is a “given” that Islam is “an unmitigated evil in the world today”…wow. First of all, what does that mean about the practitioners of Islam? Does it mean that they are all or mostly or significantly practitioners of “evil?” Because that is the import of Dawkins’ statement, I mean who else puts into reality what Islam is other then the followers of Islam?

Secondly, is anyone else taken aback by the quasi metaphysical language used here by Dawkins? “Unmitigated evil,” is the type of phrase one would expect in the sermon of a Puritan minister or perhaps as one commenter on Dawkins site asks,

Is the Professor now auditioning for a guest shot on Pamela Geller’s website for the barking mad and openly hostile? Very few things in this world are ‘unmitigated evils’: of all the things that might be unmitigated evils, I can absolutely guarantee that a major world religion practiced in a thousand different ways in a thousand different social and cultural contexts is not one of them. The chances of no good at all coming out of such a diverse multiplicity of contexts and forms of practice (that is, of any ‘evil’ not being mitigated) are almost zero. — CallumM

Thirdly, piggy-backing off of the “multiplicity” mentioned by the commenter, is Dawkins totally oblivious to the Arab Spring for instance? You know that thing sweeping the Middle East for the past 5 1/2 months, that many, including Dawkins’ friend Christopher Hitchens thought would fail or sizzle out?

Is it “unmitigated evil” when protesters in Tahrir Square mobilized in the hundreds of thousands, inspired by and chanting the Quranic verse, “God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves?” Was it “unmitigated evil” when they withstood the worst kinds of state violence and barbarity in prayer together, shoulder to shoulder? Was it “unmitigated evil” when Christians and Muslims united to protect each other?

Dawkins is out of touch with current events, and lets just say he won’t be playing in any Philosophy World Cups any time soon. The man’s field is Biology, he doesn’t know much about anthropology, sociology, history, comparative religions, or philosophy, that is why he and his buddy Sam Harris get their arse handed to them by real intellectuals such as Scott Atran and Robert Pape.

Maybe it is time for Dawkins to spend a little more time humbly learning about Islam and Muslims, engaging with critical intellectuals instead of rabid Islamophobes and probably dissecting a frog or two in the lab he’s been neglecting while pontificating on matters he has no grasp over.

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‘Bomb Making Next Driveway’ Posted Next to Mosque

Posted on 11 May 2011 by Emperor

The neighbor who made the above sign says,

“‘It does not say what driveway. It doesn’t say ‘at the mosque’,” he said. ‘If they feel it’s at them, that’s how they feel.’”

That’s as sincere as Pamela Geller saying she “Looooooves the Moooslims.”

‘Bomb Making Next Driveway’ posted next to mosque

AMHERST, N.Y. — Muslim leaders are upset that a homeowner who lives next door to a newly opened mosque has posted a sign on his front lawn that reads “Bomb Making Next Driveway.”

Michael Heick lives along a heavily traveled road in Amherst, a Buffalo suburb. The next driveway on the same side of the road is the entrance to the Jaffarya Center.

Heick told local media outlets that he put up the sign last weekend because he was frustrated with how the mosque and town officials handled his complaints that the mosque was built too close to his property and that its bright lights violate town code.

“The place is too close. I don’t care what people think. It doesn’t matter what people think,” he told the Buffalo News. “This is a way to get answers now. I get none from the town. The intent was to catch the eye of the people who I have a problem with.”

In an interview with local TV network, WGRZ, Commissioner of Building Thomas Ketchum described Heick’s allegation about the town as “absolutely false.”

He told WGRZ that outstanding issues had caused him to issue a conditional certificate of occupancy for the mosque. It allows the building to be occupied but under the condition that code violations are corrected.

Heick, for his part, insisted the sign was not directed at a particular group.

“It does not say what driveway. It doesn’t say ‘at the mosque’,” he said. “If they feel it’s at them, that’s how they feel.”

Mosque officials said the sign’s message is offensive and that Heick hasn’t responded to their requests for a meeting.

“I would really think it’s an incitement of hatred against Muslims,” said Dr. Syed Jaffri, an Amherst psychiatrist and member of the mosque’s board of trustees. “Law enforcement should take it very seriously. Tomorrow, somebody could say, ‘Oh they have weapons,’ and people believe it.”

Mubarak Abidi, mosque president, said he called Amherst police over the weekend about the sign and was told its posting wasn’t illegal.

“They said there’s nothing in the law that we can do anything about this sign,” he said.

The center planted shrubs along the property line that should grow to six feet in a few years, but Heick said he wants the center to put up a six-foot-tall fence.

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Performance Artist Sentenced To A Year In A Labor Camp For ‘Art Whore’ Exhibition

Posted on 10 May 2011 by Amago

Imagine if an Islamic country sentenced someone to a year in a labor camp for explicit public performance, we will not hear the end how the Muslim world is trying to suppress the Arts.

Performance Artist Sentenced To A Year In A Labor Camp For ‘Art Whore’ Exhibition

Cheng Li, a Chinese performance artist, was sentenced to one year of “reeducation through labor” (NSFW) for an explicit public performance on March 20. Cheng, whose attorney applied for administrative reconsideration last week, had performed “Art Whore,” in which he and a female partner engaged in unsimulated sex acts before a private audience at the Contemporary Art Exhibition Hall in Beijing. The performance included “sex scenes on a balcony and in a basement of the exhibition hall,” reports China’s Global Times (NSFW).

One unambiguous photo of the performance has been circulating, but it is unclear how many people actually saw the acts; Cheng’s case hinges on convincing the notoriously ironhanded Chinese judiciary that his performance, open only to a select group of invited artists, was not intended to create a disturbance and was not harmful to society. The Chinese government has been at the center of another art censorship controversy since April 3, when renowned artist and political dissident Ai Weiwei was taken into custody.

As for Cheng’s message, the artist stated that “the popular trend of commercializing art is nothing but a trade of sex for commercial benefits.”

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Bossier Mosque Vandalized

Posted on 10 May 2011 by Amago

Reportedly, someone left pork on the door handles at a mosque.

Bossier Mosque vandalized

By Brittany Pieper - email

In the wake of 9-11 many Muslims suffered persecution. Today, in the days after Osama Bin Laden’s death, Muslims in the Shreveport -Bossier community feel they’ve been disrespected again.

They reported to police that a white male in a blue pick-up truck tampered with the doors at the Mosque. When he left, they discovered he had left pork on the door handles so people would have to touch it to go inside. Muslims do not eat pork, and try to avoid it because they consider it unclean.

Mosque members are not pressing charges, but reported the incident to police so it would be on file. Police say it could be considered a hate crime.

“It appears that the individual who did this tried to intimidate the individuals at this location,” said Mark Natale, a spokesman for the Bossier City Police Department.

Local leaders from other religions say they were saddened to hear about the incident.

“It’s kind of chilling. I mean, I know that nobody was physically hurt, but psychologically it’s hurtful,” said Susan Gross, the Executive Director of the North Louisiana Jewish Federation.

“It’s not helpful for anyone. Whether you’re Muslim, Jewish, or Christian, it’s not helpful. It doesn’t build bridges,” said Paul Martin, the Assistant Rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Shreveport.

Members of the Mosque say they just hope nothing like this happens again.

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Hasidic newspaper edits Hillary out of Situation Room photo

Posted on 09 May 2011 by Amago

Imagine if Al Jazeera or MAAN News did something along those lines, we would not hear the end of it.

Hasidic newspaper edits Hillary out of Situation Room photo

A publication brushed both women present out of the iconic image

Much ink has been spilled over the now-iconic Situation Room image, showing President Obama, Hillary Clinton and top national security officials watching a brief on Osama bin Laden’s killing.

Particular attention has gone to Clinton’s seemingly emotional expression (which she says may have been due to allergies) and to the one other woman in the shot, Audrey Tomasen, a counterterrorism analyst whom the media had never heard of before.

But instead of analyzing the two female faces in the photo, one Brooklyn-based Hasidic newspaper, Der Zeitung, took a simpler approach: They just photoshopped them out. The Yiddish publication left two empty spaces in place of the two women. According to the Jerusalem Post, the blog Failed Messiah was the first to pick up on Der Zeitung’s radically edited depiction of the Situation Room.

According to Jezebel, “the religious paper never publishes pictures of women, as they could be considered ‘sexually suggestive’.”

Here is the doctored shot in Der Zeitung, as captured by Failed Messiah:

Credit: Failed Messiah

And here’s the original:

Credit: AP Photo/The White House, Pete Souza.

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Muslim Leaders Kicked Off Flight

Posted on 09 May 2011 by Amago

Reportedly, they were heading to an Islamophobia conference.

Muslim Leaders Kicked Off Flight

By RANDALL DICKERSON

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Two Muslim religious leaders say they were removed from a commercial airliner in Memphis on Friday and were told it was because the pilot refused to fly with them aboard.

Masudur Rahman, who is also an adjunct instructor of Arabic at the University of Memphis, said by telephone from the terminal at Memphis International Airport that he and another imam had already been allowed to board their Delta Connection flight to Charlotte, N.C., before they were asked to de-board.

Transportation Security Administration spokesman Jon Allen in Atlanta confirmed the incident and said it was not initiated by that agency.

A Delta Air Lines spokeswoman said the flight was operated by Atlantic Southeast Airlines, which is also based in Atlanta. ASA didn’t immediately respond to telephone calls seeking comment.

Rahman said he was dressed in traditional Indian clothing and his traveling companion was dressed in Arab garb, including traditional headgear.

Rahman said he and Mohamed Zaghloul, of the Islamic Association of Greater Memphis, were cleared by security agents and boarded the plane for an 8:40 a.m. departure.

The aircraft pulled away from the gate, but the pilot then announced the plane must return, Rahman said. When it did, the imams were asked to go back to the boarding gate where Rahman said they were told the pilot was refusing to accept them because some other passengers could be uncomfortable.

Rahman said Delta officials talked with the pilot for more than a half-hour, but he still refused.

The men were taken to a lounge and booked on a later flight.

They called the Council on Islamic-American Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in Washington, D.C.

“It’s racism and bias because of our religion and appearance and because of misinformation about our religion.” Rahman said. “If they understood Islam, they wouldn’t do this.”

He said a Delta manager apologized for the pilot’s actions, but that he and Zaghloul never spoke directly with the pilot.

Ibrahim Hooper, of the Islamic-American organization, said the group will follow up with the airline and with the TSA to help ensure such incidents do not continue to occur.

Hooper said airline officials at Memphis tried to resolve the situation, but the pilot refused.

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A Texas Teacher told a Muslim Student, ‘I Bet You’re Grieving’

Posted on 05 May 2011 by Emperor

Doh! What was this teacher thinking? Probably that all Muslims are alike.

TX Teacher Suspended After Telling Muslim Student ‘I Bet You’re Grieving’

(TPMuckracker)

A Texas high school teacher has been placed on administrative leave following an incident where he allegedly told a 9th grade Muslim girl in his algebra class “I bet that you’re grieving” on Monday following the death of Osama bin Laden.

According to one parent at Clear Brook High School in Houston who spoke about the incident to a local ABC affiliate, the teacher also said, “I heard about your uncle’s death.”

The parent said the student “understood that he was referring about Osama bin Laden being killed and was racially profiling her.”

The name of the alleged victim of the comment has not been released. She is being described as an “American-born girl of Muslim faith.”

The teacher allegedly showed no remorse after Muslim girl reacted to his comments, according to the parent (who requested anonymity from the ABC station because “she doesn’t want any retaliation against her daughter or the girl who experienced the inappropriate comment.”)

“The student ended up crying over what was said to her by the teacher and the teacher asked her why she was crying and another student said it was because of what you said earlier,” the parent told the station. “And his response was, oh, OK, and just kind of smirked and giggled and walked away.”

The Houston Chronicle reports the unidentified teacher “has been placed on administrative leave” following the alleged remark. The Chronicle published this official statement from the school district:

In the Clear Creek Independent School District, we believe diversity strengthens our community and seek opportunities to celebrate the different cultures within our schools and neighborhoods. The sentiments allegedly shared by this teacher are not reflective of the staff at Clear Brook High School or anyone within the Clear Creek Independent School District.In accordance with CCISD policy, the teacher has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of a personnel investigation. The student did the right thing and immediately notified an adult regarding the teachers’ comments. The principal at Clear Brook High School notified the child’s parents and has been in communication with the family.

The alleged incident in Texas is just the latest in a short string of small incidents targeting American Muslims following the death of bin Laden. A mosque in Portland, ME was vandalized in what police there are calling a hate crime and a Muslim unity rally was canceled in Portland, OR after organizers feared reprisals from both non-Muslims upset over terrorism and Muslims who organizers said might be angry by an event that supported the killing of bin Laden.

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Brooklyn man imprisoned woman, chained and whipped her under ”Sex slave rules’: prosecutors

Posted on 04 May 2011 by Amago

John Hopkins pleads not guilty to keeping a woman as a sex slave in his Brooklyn… (Ward for News)

It wasn’t Islam that made him do this. It wasn’t the Arab culture that made him do this, but just imagine if he were Muslim?   (Hat tip: Saladin)

Brooklyn man imprisoned woman, chained and whipped her under ”Sex slave rules’: prosecutors

BY OREN YANIV

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITE

A Brooklyn man accused of raping a woman he kept as a sex slave had a chilling list of penalties for her – including flogging and chaining her to a radiator – if she disobeyed his rules, prosecutors said Friday.

John Hopkins, 45, pleaded not guilty in Brooklyn court to a litany of charges after prosecutors detailed the graphic “master” and “slave” relationship he had with a 27-year-old Midwestern woman who came to live with him last month.

Hopkins “set up slave rules,” prosecutor Christopher Laline said. “He punished her if she disobeyed.”

Aside from flogging and chaining her, the penalties included forcing her to drink water and barring her from the bathroom and sexual molesting her, the prosecutor said. “This is a henious crime,” Laline said of the 62-count indictment.

After a week, the victim, who was working at an elite sushi restaurant, told her mother she was being held captive, prompting a call to police.

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Fight Erupts At NYC Sikh Temple; Seven Charged

Posted on 04 May 2011 by Amago

Sikh on Sikh violence. 7 people were charged with disrupting a prayer service and yet where is the media on this? If this were Muslim on Muslim violence imagine what would have happened.

The HuffPo title actually seems to have gotten it wrong, those weren’t swords but musical instruments that they were using.

Sword Fight Erupts At NYC Sikh Temple; Seven Charged

(HuffPo)

NEW YORK — A brawl involving cricket bats and small swords at a Sikh temple in New York City has led to riot and assault charges against seven people.

Police say the defendants interrupted prayer services at the Baba Makhan Shah Lubana Sikh Center in Queens on Sunday. They were arraigned Monday.

Temple president Jamail Singh told the Daily Newsthat the fight was instigated by a dissident group of followers who are opposed to opening up membership.

The dispute is at the center of a lawsuit in state Supreme Court.

Some of those arrested Sunday also were charged with disrupting a religious service.

Gothamist posted a video of the brawl.

WATCH:

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Temecula: Anti-Islam Group Descends on High School

Posted on 04 May 2011 by Emperor

I found this line heartening,

Many students crumpled up the fliers and threw them on the ground, according to a parent who was present.

Temecula Anti-Islam Group Descends on High School

(TemeculaPatch)

A Temecula-based anti-Islam group handed out fliers to students at a Murrieta high school.

About a dozen members of Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment perched themselves on the sidewalk outside Murrieta Valley High School Tuesday, handing out fliers to students walking by.

A person unaffiliated with the group stood across the street from the high school, holding yellow signs that read, “Islam = Hate,” and, “Say No 2 Islam.”

The letter handed out was the same one the group gave to students outside Chaparral High School in January. To read about that, click here.

Seventh grade students in the Murrieta Valley Unified School District learn about the history of Islam as part of Social Studies. The letter accuses teachers of lying about Islam.

“Did you know you were subjected to some really serious brainwashing when you were in the seventh grade, and that it is continuing even today?” the flier stated. “That means you have been fed a bunch of lies. Lies can mess up your life forever. Do you like being lied to?”

The group could not be reached for comment by publication time. The event did attract media such as ABC 7.

The group also informed school district officials the day before that they planned to hand out the fliers, said Karen Parris, spokeswoman for the Murrieta Valley Unified School District.

The district sent a phone message home to parents, telling them about the outreach.

“Under the first amendment, the group has the right to express their views on Islam and the building of mosques in the United States. Our students have the right to refuse the fliers or to accept the fliers, to engage in conversation, or to continue walking,” the message stated. “School staff and Murrieta police will be on hand to ensure that this is a peaceable exercise, as promised by the Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment.”

School officials also advised the students and gave them the choice of taking an alternative route to leave the school, the message stated.

Many students crumpled up the fliers and threw them on the ground, according to a parent who was present.

“It really was a non-event,” Parris said.

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Debbie Schlussel Calls for Mass Slaughter of 1.8 Billion Muslims

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Debbie Schlussel Calls for Mass Slaughter of 1.8 Billion Muslims

Posted on 03 May 2011 by Emperor

Debbie Schlussel

Debbie Schlussel is on the crazy train again. And to think that Robert Spencer referred to her as a “freedom fighter” once upon a time.

Osama bin Laden Dead: Debbie Schlussel Calls for Killing 1.8 Billion Muslims; Let the Crackpot Raving Begin!

Stephen Lemons (Phoenix New Times)

In the wake of President Barack Obama’s announcement that terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden has been killed by American forces during a firefight in Pakistan, I have a few predictions.

The first is a given: traitorous right-wing nutjobs will not grant the Obama administration any credit for the kill.

They also will argue that bin Laden is irrelevant, that former President George W. Bush should get all the credit, and they will question the credibility of the report itself, helping to spawn insane conspiracy theories on both the left and the right.

After all, if the Tea Party types can’t be convinced — even with the release of Obama’s long form birth certificate — that he is an American citizen by birth, do you really believe they can be convinced that bin Laden is kaput? Hell, like a crazed mass of doubting Thomases, they’ll want to put their fingers in the bloody bullet holes themselves.

Even then they wouldn’t buy it.

For instance, “Chuck” over at SeeingRedAZ is already barking at the moon with this comment,

“Now Obama is confirming bin Laden’s death. That makes me have some doubts about the veracity of the report.”

Yeah, if I were Chucky, I wouldn’t stick my last name up there, either, lest it become a byword for IDIOT.

What about GOP self-loathing immigrant-hater Michelle Malkin? How does she react to Obama’s historic announcement? By quoting the President and mocking him:

“We must remain vigilant at home and abroad.”

Make it more than lip service.

But it’s wingnut loon Debbie Schlussel who garners the prize for full on “woo,” as my friend Pat Curley over at the Screw Loose Change blog, would say. Never to be outdone, Schlussel first argues that it’s no big deal, then calls for the mass murder of 1.8 billion Muslims.

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debbieschlussel.com

Um, like, wow. It’s not often that someone of the Jewish faith calls for pogroms or a different sort of Holocaust altogether. Sounds like Schlussel is ready to fire up the ovens herself.

Indeed, Schlussel’s bio states that she’s the grandkid of Shoah survivors. Bet they’re proud, or rolling over somewhere.

I know that not all Republicans think this way. However, even the mainstream GOP has been catering to a hatred of Obama on the right that seems to know no bounds. These conservative wackjobs regard Obama as illegitimate, a traitor, a Marxist, a fascist, similar to Hitler, similar to Stalin, a liar, and so forth.

Hell, if they could blame the guy for the 9/11 attacks, the tsunami in Japan, or the tornado rampage in the South, they would.

Watch-out for the lefty loonies as well. Though the so-called 9/11 “truthers” have been ground into complete obscurity with their “9/11 was an inside job” bull, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them revivified by the report of bin Laden’s death, while asserting that it’s all a hoax.

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Arab victim ‘stabbed 10 times by haredim’

Posted on 03 May 2011 by Amago

 

If an Arab Muslim or Christian perpetrated such an act Islam or so called “Islamic culture,” whatever that means, would be the center of attention. Here we have Haredim, Orthodox Jews stabbing Arabs in a racist assault, what if they were Muslim?

Arab victim ‘stabbed 10 times by haredim’

by Hassan Shaalan from Israel News

Christian Arab assaulted near Safed says ‘Jews’ racism against us has reached point of real violence’

Alber Halul, who was stabbed Saturday night by a group of masked men he claims are haredim, recounted the attack Sunday. “They threatened to shoot us if we resisted and stabbed me 10 times – in my head, my leg, and my neck,” he told Ynet.

Halul, a 22-year old Christian Arab from the Galilee town of Gush Halav, was assaulted while with a group of friends at Ein Zeitim forest, near Safed.
He says that at around 12:30 am two vehicles arrived at their gathering place and eight masked men alighted, and attacked them. Halul is currently being treated for wounds in his back, head, and legs at Ziv Hospital in Safed.

“At around 12:30 five masked drove up in a Nissan jeep and began driving in circles near us. Then they left and came back with another vehicle, and came closer,” he recalled from his hospital bed.

“They threw stun grenades and fired in the air. Then eight masked men got out of the car and began to attack us. The guys I was with ran away but I stayed to protect a girl who was with us. They stabbed me 10 times in my head, my leg, and my neck until they hit me hard and I fell to the ground.”

Halul says he knows the men were ultra-Orthodox Jews although they wore masks. “While they were attacking us one of the said that if we dared to resist they’ll shoot us and we knew from their accent and their clothes that they were ultra-Orthodox,” he said.

It wasn’t the first time the 22-year old was attacked due to his race. “I won’t return to the forest again. The Jews’ hatred and racism against us has reached a point of real violence that threatens our lives,” he said.

I don’t want to blame anyone and hope that the police will reach the people behind this attack because such people shouldn’t be walking the streets – they are a menace to the Jewish and Arab public.”

But police have not yet made any arrests in the case, and say they have no suspects. “The case is still being investigated,” police said in a statement.

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Graffiti on Portland mosque under investigation

Posted on 02 May 2011 by Amago

Officer Gavin Hillard writes down contact information at a mosque on Anderson Street in Portland today where someone spray painted graffiti on the wall in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death. The writing says "Osama today Islam tomorow (sic)," and "Long live the West." Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Jirde Mohamed walks past the front of a mosque on Anderson Street in Portland today where someone spraypainted graffiti on the wall in the wake of Osama Bin Laden's death. Bin Laden and Islam are not the same thing, said Mohammed, a member of the mosque who has lived in Portland 10 years. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Fall out from the Bin Laden murder coupled with the anti-Islamic sentiment.

Graffiti on Portland mosque under investigation

PORTLAND — Portland police are investigating anti-Islam graffiti painted onto the Maine Muslims Community Center on Anderson Street.

The graffiti included: “Osama today, Islam tomorow (sic),” “Long live the West” and “Free Cyprus.”

The letters were written in maroon paint on the mosque’s gray cement block wall. The graffiti was written sometime between late Sunday night and about 7:15 a.m. today, when it was discovered by Portland Housing Authority workers on Anderson Street.

A crew from Graffiti Busters was called in this morning to remove the graffiti, and it had finished the task by 10:45 a.m.

Officials with the community center said they recently completed purchase of the building, where they’ve been since 2007, for close to $1 million.

They said they’re disappointed by the graffiti and concerned about the impact it will have on children.

The mosque, or masjid, caters to a predominantly Somali Muslim community in greater Portland and is the largest Muslim community in the city. Members say it is the first time, the center has been defaced with graffiti.

“It makes me feel like I’m not welcome,” said the group’s treasurer, Abdiaziz Mohamed, who said his wife and four children were born here.

Original post: Graffiti on Portland mosque under investigation

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Bryan Fischer: Muslims Can Either Convert…or Die

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Bryan Fischer: Muslims Can Either Convert…or Die

Posted on 01 May 2011 by Emperor

Looks like the Crusades are on again. Imagine if Fischer were some Mullah instead of a Christian?

From RightwingMediaWatch:

The only thing that will give us a shot at building a democracy in an Islamic land is a mass conversion of its people to biblical Christianity. So that means if we want to see freedom come to those darkened, benighted lands, we should be sending missionaries in right after we send in the Marines to neutralize whatever threat has been raised against the United States. So we say to them, look, if you don’t want our missionaries, fine, that’s your choice, we’ll take our missionaries and our Marines, we’ll take them home, but we’re gonna let you know we have no hesitation about returning with lethal force if the forces in your country threaten us again. This time it’s Marines and missionaries, next time it’ll be Marines and missiles.

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GANTS HILL: Racist attack on mosque

Posted on 01 May 2011 by Amago

An attack on any holy place is horrendous. But just imagine if these attackers were Muslims and they were attacking a church instead, how much time would  the media invest in this story?

GANTS HILL: Racist attack on mosque

By James Ranger

RACIST abuse was shouted at worshipers at a busy mosque.

Police were called to Eastern Avenue in Gants Hill after reports of a group of men causing damage to parked vehicles in the road.

Six men were seen heading in the direction Redbridge roundabout towards Redbridge Islamic Centre, also in Eastern Avenue.

As they reached the mosque they shouted racial abuse and threw bricks at the building, which broke glass in the front doors.

The incident occurred at around 7.45pm on Thursday (March 24), near the start of evening prayers.

A number of worshippers had already entered the mosque but there were still some people outside the building when the attack occurred.

One man suffered a minor head injury but did not need any medical treatment.

Six men were arrested by police and remain in custody at Ilford Police Station.

Chief Inspector Stan Greatrick, of Redbridge police, said: “We would appeal for anyone who was in the Eastern Avenue area and saw the group of males to contact us.

“We have spoken to a number of people in the area and continue to liaise closely with members of the Redbridge Mosque.

“We have already secured additional patrols for Eastern Avenue and we would like to reassure the local community, and those who worship at the Redbridge Mosque, that we are treating this case extremely seriously.”

Anyone with information should contact Redbridge CID on 020 8345 2632.

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Bijendra Kumar India Beheading

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Bijendra Kumar Beheads his Girlfriend, What if he were Muslim?

Posted on 29 April 2011 by Emperor

Remember the Muslim man who behead his wife? It was all over the news and Islamophobes made big hay out of it. Turning a tragic case of domestic violence into a Crusade against Islam. Bill Maher also attributed the act to Islam.

Now we have a case of a man named Bijendra Kumar, likely Sikh or Hindu who beheaded his girlfriend in front of her classmates. Will we blame Sikhism or Hinduism now? No, that would be wrongheaded and illogical but just imagine if he were Muslim!

hat tip: Daniel

Bijendra Kumar, India Beheading Suspect, Accused Of Cutting Girlfriend’s Head Off With Knife

(Huffington Post)

PATNA, India — Police say that a man armed with a large knife beheaded an 18-year-old woman at her school in front of her horrified classmates in eastern India.

The attacker later told police he was in love with the victim but her parents wouldn’t allow them to marry.

Police official Pravin Kumar Singh said Thursday that officers arrested Bijendra Kumar on suspicion of killing Khushbu, who uses only one name. He allegedly attacked her a ceremonial curved weapon called a khukri as she was leaving her classroom Wednesday in the eastern city of Ranchi.

Authorities say the blade sliced her head off and she died instantly. Kumar was quickly mobbed by the other students and handed over to the police. Singh says Kumar told the police that he had also intended to kill himself.

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Scotland: ‘Lethal Nail Bomb’ Sent to Soccer Team, What if they were Muslim?

Posted on 29 April 2011 by Emperor

Can you imagine the ramifications if a Muslim had done this? These packages were designed to “maim and kill,” but for the haters out there only Muslims can be terrorists.

Celtic Manager Sent ‘Lethal’ Nail Bomb

(SkyNews)

Police are hunting a nail bomber who has sent several potentially lethal devices to prominent people connected with Celtic Football Club – including manager Neil Lennon.

The devices were addressed to the team boss, a high-profile lawyer and also to a member of the Scottish Parliament.

Fears former Labour minister and Celtic director Brian Wilson had also been targeted after he received a suspicious parcel proved to be a “false alarm”.

Strathclyde Police say the packages, sent through the post, were designed to “maim or kill”.

They contained a combination of nails and high explosives.

It is believed devices have been sent on at least three separate occasions.

It is understood that the package did reach the office and an employee raised the alarm when nails were seen protruding from it.

Mrs Godman is the outgoing Deputy Presiding Officer in the Scottish Parliament.

Recent media coverage told of how she had worn a Celtic top underneath her jacket whilst on duty during a recent sitting of the Scottish Parliament.

The latest incident was on April 15, when a device was sent to Paul McBride QC at the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh.

It was intercepted at a Royal Mail sorting office.

The high-profile barrister works for Celtic and has been an outspoken critic of the Scottish Football Association in its recent dealings with the club.

Although no-one was injured by the three devices, they were handed over to police and were the subject of controlled explosions.

Counter-terrorism officers have contacted public figures they believe could fall into the category of potential targets.

High-profile Catholics are also being warned to be vigilant, including the leader of Scotland’s Catholics, Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

SNP leader and First Minister Alex Salmond said he hoped Scotland would “unite to condemn those who abuse football with their pathetic and dangerous prejudices”.

“We will not tolerate this sort of criminality in Scotland,” he said.

“We’ve got to galvanise ourselves to eradicate this evil from attaching itself to the wonderful game of football.”

Officers are visiting the mail rooms of broadcasters in Scotland as a precaution, to advise staff on how to handle suspect packages.

The hunt for the nail bomber is being concentrated in Scotland.

Investigators are following a line of inquiry relating to the bomber being a rogue supporter of the rival Rangers team.

A spokesman for Strathclyde Police told Sky News: “We believe we are dealing with someone who is Scotland-based. There’s every chance someone from a Loyalist background is involved.”

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Jihad Watch Reader Wants to Annihilate Muslim Holy Places

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Jihad Watch Reader Wants to Annihilate Muslim Holy Places

Posted on 28 April 2011 by Emperor

In an article from April 18, 2011, titled Iran’s Thug in Chief blames West for Middle East Unrest, another one of Robert Spencer‘s outspoken Zombie-like followers calls for the West to destroy Muslim holy sites:

Melouis wrote:

All this underscores the need for the West to apply the lessons of WW2 to the Islamisist threat. The lesson was that when we destroyed the false gods of the Japanese Imperial fascists, and when we destroyed the false gods of the Germans and discredited their ideology, then and only then were millions of Japanese and millions of Germans capable of adopting a new world view. As a result, they are today, our allies and friends,(for the most part, we are not talking Utopia here)whereas before they were committed to our destruction.

We can achieve the same results by using overwhelming force to destroy the three holiest sites of Islam,(the Mosque in Mecca, Medina, and the Dome of the Rock), in one night with satellite guided missiles and then pose the question to the Moslems, “If Mohamed and Allah could not prevent the destruction of the three holiest sites of Islam, perhaps you should reconsider your world view. The five pillars of Islam would vanish and so would Jihad. (emphasis mine)

It is quite a fetish for anti-Muslims to dream of destroying Mecca, Medina and the Dome of the Rock. We’ve had looniest blogger Pamela Geller, Krazy Joe Kaufman, Michael “Weiner” Savage, someone named Bob Beers, Tom Trancredo, etc call for nuking or destroying Muslim countries and holy sites in the past. Robert Spencer himself says he is opposed to nuking Mecca, not out of any sort of principled stand (this is the guy who supports the Genocide of Turks after all) but because it wouldn’t be a good ‘tactical move’ –which makes you wonder if he is really against the idea?

The Nuclear Card option forwarded by the Spencerite is the wet-dream of all wacko Islamophobes, and is probably the reason that Robert Spencer didn’t moderate it and similar comments.

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Pamela Geller Fights On For Detroit Anti-Islam Bus Advertisements

Posted on 27 April 2011 by Amago

Geller is hanging on by the very last threads and by doing this, she is hoping to remain relevant.

Pamela Geller Fights On For Detroit Anti-Islam Bus Advertisements

 

Conservative activist Pamela Geller says the first amendment protects her right to run anti-Islam advertisements on Detroit buses. The local transit authority disagrees. Cue a year-long battle over free speech, with the ball now (temporarily) back in the hands of the bus company.

The saga of the bus banner ads began last May when Geller’s group, American Freedom Defense Initiative, submitted a request to the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) in Detroit to run a banner ad on their vehicles offering support for Muslims seeking to leave Islam.

The banner ad reads: “Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got questions? Get answers! RefugeFromIslam.com.” Visitors to the website are told not to tell friends or family about their plans to leave the faith and suggests they may be killed. “If you are thinking of leaving Islam, be wary, be careful,” it reads. “The Qur’an commands your death for leaving Islam… and Muhammad is explicit in a hadith: “If anyone changes his religion, kill him.”

While Geller has described the ads as a resource for Muslims, opponents criticize them as a little more than a vehicle for depicting Islam as a violent religion. The ads faced similar controversy when introduced to New York City and Miami.

SMART rejected Geller’s request on grounds that the bus company bars advertisements that are political in nature, or that are “likely to hold up to scorn or ridicule any person or group of persons.”

In response, Geller associate David Yerushalmi and the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) filed a lawsuit against SMART on behalf of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, seeking to reverse the bus authority’s refusal to display the ads.

Continue reading: Pamela Geller Fights On For Detroit Anti-Islam Bus Advertisements

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Obama Birth Certificate Released By White House (PHOTO)

Posted on 27 April 2011 by Amago

Islamophobes and birthers here is your evidence. Are you happy? I know you won’t stop here, but if this is what you want to see, here it is.

Obama Birth Certificate Released By White House (PHOTO)

WASHINGTON — Per his directive, the White Housereleased on Wednesday President Barack Obama’s “long form” birth certificate, the document whose absence has long been at the heart of the conspiracy-riddled discussion over Obama’s legitimacy to serve as the nation’s commander in chief.

(SCROLL DOWN FOR PHOTO OF BIRTH CERTIFICATE AND VIDEO OF OBAMA’S RESPONSE)

The move came as a surprise to the press corps, many of whom had not shown up for Wednesday’s early-morning White House briefing. By the time word had spread that Obama would be making a 9:45 a.m. statement on the matter, however, the top anchors at all the networks had scurried into the briefing room.

Once there, they received a presidential scolding for their concern with “silliness.” Obama began his five-minute statement with the complaint that he wouldn’t be able to get the networks to break into their regularly scheduled programming for a speech on policy proposals.

“I know that there is going to be a segment of people for which no matter what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest,” Obama said. “But I am speaking for the vast majority of the American people as well as for the press. We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.”

“We are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted, we are not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other … if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers,” the president declared earlier.

The document released by the White House differs from the one that Obama’s aides made public during the 2008 presidential campaign. Instead of a “certification” of live birth, this was a “certificate,” clearly recording that the president was born on Aug. 4, 1961 in the Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu.

For years, Obama’s circle of aides had resisted calls to make the latter form public, noting that a certification is legally sound and what any citizen of Hawaii receives upon requesting documents of birth. And indeed, for some time, that explanation — supported by a a wide swath of other contemporaneous evidence – seemed to suffice.

But some who challenged the president’s citizenship remained unsatisfied, and in recent weeks they found a high-profile megaphone for their cause: business tycoon and presidential flirt Donald Trump.

“This issue was resolved in 2008. It has not been an issue,” White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said during a morning briefing in which he and other officials took care not to mention Trump’s name. “None of you have asked about it, called about it or reported on it until the last few weeks … [not releasing it] would probably be good for the president politically. Despite that, the president said he was struck by how this was crowding out the debate.”

Last Friday, the president himself wrote Loretta J. Fuddy, the director of health at the State of Hawaii, requesting “two certified copies of my original certificate of live birth.” Fuddy complied. Shortly thereafter, the president’s counsel, Judith Corley of the firm Perkins Coie, flew to Hawaii to pick up two copies of the form. The trip was not taxpayer funded but, rather, paid out of the president’s personal account. Corley returned on Tuesday at roughly 4 p.m. with the copies. The White House announced a “morning gaggle” for reporters shortly thereafter. One aide explained that they did not want to “hold” on to the documents for release on a later date.

Many members of the press confessed to being “stunned” as it became clear what was about to be discussed. White House press assistants handed out a six-page stapled packet of photocopies showing the new and old birth certificates as well as the White House’s legal correspondence with Hawaii’s Department of Health.

And yet it was the press that played a large role in forcing the administration’s hand. CNN’s Ed Henry had pressed White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on the issue just one day earlier, despite the fact that his own network had done a thorough investigation debunking the claims of the conspiracy theorists.

“There will always be some selection of people who will believe something. That is not the issue,” Pfeiffer said when asked if Wednesday’s move would silence the doubters. “This issue is, this is not a discussion happening just among conspiracy theorists. It is happening here in this room, on all of the networks, and it is something that every major political figure of both parties — instead of talking about real issues — is being asked about this. So the president decided to release this.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Three Coptic brothers accused of killing sister, her husband and child for converting to Islam

Posted on 25 April 2011 by Amago

Coptic Orthodox Cross Reads: Jesus Christ, the Son of God

This is sad news, it will only lead to more sectarian tensions in Egypt. Killing anyone because of their conversion is horrendous.

Imagine if the scenario was flipped around: three Muslims killed their family for converting into Christianity, how would the world react? How many discussions of “shame,” or “honor killing” or “humiliation” would we be hearing?

Three Coptic brothers accused of killing sister, her husband and child for converting to Islam

Three Coptic brothers are arrested on suspicion of murdering their sister, her husband and five-year-old son, allegedly as punishment for her conversion to Islam.

Three Coptic brothers have been arrested on suspicion of murdering their sister, her husband and five year-old son in what seems to be a sectarian hate crime.

The couple’s six year-old daughter, Nada, was the only survivor, even though she sustained neck wounds. The outrageous murder took place in the Cairo district of Boulaq Al-Dakrour.

Salwa Atallah, 33, converted to Islam over six years ago and reportedly that’s the reason why her siblings decided to finish her off, according to initial investigations.

Over the past few years Atallah’s three brothers, two manual labourers and a driver, paid regular visits to their sister without showing any signs of hostility.

Husband, Khaled Ibrahim, was still alive when the police arrived on the crime scene. He was rushed to Boulaq Al-Dakrour Hospital where he was pronounced dead after succumbing to his fatal injuries.

However, police say he was able to give a testimony before his demise at 48.

Ibrahim said his late wife’s younger brother Momen, 22, paid them a visit and stayed till the crack of dawn, before the other two arrived to carry out their murders.

Police have given the following transcript of Ibrahim’s deathbed testimony:

“I was hesitant to open the door but he [Momen] told me ‘open it I am with you’” (meaning that he’s got his back) said Ibrahim.

“I went to the kitchen to bring a knife to defend myself… when I opened the door my wife started to scream.”

“Her elder brother followed her to the bedroom while Raafat [third broteher] punched me in the face and stabbed me many times.”

“Momen also snatched my knife to stabbed me… I lost control, I tried to get up more than once but I was bleeding heavily.”

“After killing my wife, Raafat brought a scarf and wrapped it around my son’s neck. He squeezed till he died.”

The three men reportedly confessed their crime upon being held captive by neighbours.

Atallah converted to Islam on 15 March, 2005.

The crime is expected to contribute to sectarian tensions, which have been rampant in the southern province of Qena since the appointment of Christian Emad Mikhail as governor.

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Donald Trump Says Something in Koran Teaches a ‘Very Negative Vibe’

Posted on 25 April 2011 by Amago

Donald Trump is at again. First with Obama’s birth certificate, and now this.

Donald Trump Says Something in Koran Teaches a ‘Very Negative Vibe’

In an exclusive interview with The Brody File, Donald Trump expresses concern about the teachings of the Koran saying, “There’s something there that teaches some very negative vibe.”

Watch below. The transcription is below as well.

I spoke with Trump in New York a few days ago. My full six-minute piece aired across the country on “The 700 Club” this morning. If you missed it, you can watch it again tonight at 11 p.m. on the ABC Family Channel or here anytime of day.

Trump will also be the sole focus of this week’s 30-minute Brody File Show where you can see a lot more of the interview. (The show will be released Wednesday morning along with more, never-before-seen clips)

Transcription:

David Brody: Radical Islam: to Evangelicals, this is a bread and butter issue. You said there’s a Muslim problem in this country. What do you mean by that exactly?

Donald Trump: Bill O’Reilly asked me is there a Muslim problem? And I said absolutely, yes. In fact I went a step further. I said I didn’t see Swedish people knocking down the World Trade Center. It was very interesting. I thought that was going to be a controversial statement and somebody, I think it was Dennis Miller introduced me, he was doing like an analysis of me, he said, I love it.

The guy said what the truth is. He didn’t mince his words. He didn’t say, ‘Oh, gee, no there’s not a Muslim problem, everybody’s wonderful.’ And by the way, many, many, most Muslims are wonderful people, but is there a Muslim problem? Look what’s happening. Look what happened right here in my city with the World Trade Center and lots of other places.

So I said it and I thought it was going to be very controversial but actually it was very well received. I think people want the truth. I think they’re tired of politicians. They’re tired of politically correct stuff.

I mean I could have said, ‘Oh absolutely not Bill, there’s no Muslim problem, everything is wonderful, just forget about the World Trade Center.’ But you have to speak the truth. We’re so politically correct that this country is falling apart.

Brody: With some evangelicals there are some problems with the teachings of the Koran. Do you have concerns about the Koran?”

Trump: Well, I’ll tell you what. The Koran is very interesting. A lot of people say it teaches love and there is a very big group of people who really understand the Koran far better than I do. I’m certainly not an expert, to put it mildly. But there’s something there that teaches some very negative vibe.

I mean things are happening, when you look at people blowing up all over the streets that are in some of the countries over in the Middle East, just blowing up a super market with not even soldiers, just people, when 250 people die in a super market that are shopping, where people die in a store or in a street. There’s a lot of hatred there that’s some place.

Now I don’t know if that’s from the Koran. I don’t know if that’s from some place else. But there’s tremendous hatred out there that I’ve never seen anything like it.

So, you have two views. You have the view that the Koran is all about love and then you have the view that the Koran is, that there’s a lot of hate in the Koran.

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Tom Coburn: Norquist is “chief cleric of sharia tax law.”

Posted on 25 April 2011 by Amago

What the hell does this even mean?

Tom Coburn: Norquist is “chief cleric of sharia tax law.”

by David Safier

Wow. I repeat. Wow.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) is so pissed at No New Taxes guru Grover Norquist, Coburn called the guy the “chief cleric of sharia tax law.”

I thought they reserved that kind of language for Democrats.

Do I sense trouble in paradise? Are some conservatives, even those with impeccable credentials,feeling the constraints of the ideological straitjackets put on them by the farther-than-far Right?

Coburn wants to get rid of a $5 billion ethanol subsidy. Norquist says that’s only OK if there are $5 billion in tax cuts to keep it revenue neutral. Which prompted Coburn to call Norquist the “chief cleric of sharia tax law.”

Look at this list of some of the other “renegades” wanting to break free of the No New Taxes shackles.

These include stalwart conservatives such as Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. And on the ethanol issue, Coburn has drawn support from the Heritage Foundation.

Fight among yourselves,guys. Play “More conservative than thou.” Keep up the good work.

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Mother Jones: Anti-Sharia Bill Sponsors Are Kind of Clueless

Mother Jones: Anti-Sharia Bill Sponsors Are Kind of Clueless

Posted on 23 April 2011 by Rousseau

Non-existant Sharia is such a burden in America, riiiiight.

More idiocy on the anti-Sharia front.

Mother Jones: BREAKING – Anti-Sharia Bill Sponsors Are Kind of Clueless by Tim Murphy

On Wednesday, members of the North Carolina House debated HB 640, a bill to ban the use of Islamic Sharia law in state courts. This is nothing new: Since the beginning of 2009, two dozen states have considered such proposals, stemming from concerns that unless serious action is taken, American citizens will be forced to adhere to a draconian interpretation of Sharia. That’s the argument, at least, but through each of these bills, there’s been one nagging flaw—no one can explain, when pressed, why such legislation is necessary.

At this point, the drill is getting kind of familiar. How familiar? Well, here’s Laura Leslie, of Raleigh’s WRAL:

Rep. Verla Insko asked [State Rep. George] Cleveland twice for an example of a case that would show a need for the bill. “I do not have any specific examples off the top of my head,” Cleveland finally replied.

Hey, that sounds similar to the scene on Tuesday when the Missouri House voted on a bill to ban Islamic law from state courts:

[State Rep. Jamilah] Nasheed called on [State Rep. Paul] Curtman to provide a list of cases in which international law had been used in American courts but Curtman was unable to provide an example of such a case.

Missouri in March:

“I don’t have the specifics with me right now but if you go to—the web address kind of escapes my mind right now. Any Google search on international law used in the state courts in the U.S. is going to turn up some cases for you.”

Alabama last month:

[State Sen. Gerald] Allen could not readily define Shariah in an interview Thursday. “I don’t have my file in front of me,” he said.

Georgia in February:

[State Rep. Mike Jacobs] acknowledged that he was not aware of any instances in Georgia where a plaintiff or defendant asked the court to apply Sharia law but believes it has happened elsewhere.

Alaska in March:

In a hearing before the House State Affairs Committee, [State Rep. Carl] Gatto’s chief of staff, Karen Sawyer, said Sharia is an example of the type of transnational law that has appeared in family law, divorce and child custody cases nationally, though she knows of [no] instances of it appearing in Alaska courts.

South Carolina on Wednesday:

None of the senators nor Kevin A. Hall, a Columbia attorney who testified in support of the bill, were aware of any examples in South Carolina where courts upheld sharia law over the U.S. Constitution.

South Dakota in February:

[I]n testimony this week, proponents of a Sharia ban could not produce a single South Dakota case in which Islamic law had been a problem.”

Oklahoma last November:

Mr. Boughton acknowledged that he did not know of an instance in which Shariah law had been invoked by the courts.

Ok, I’ll stop. But maybe you’ve noticed a trend? America’s got some issues. If you’re looking for a way to doing something about them, you’re probably better off praying for rain.

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Jesus Loves His Enemies…and Then Kills Them All

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Jesus Loves His Enemies…and Then Kills Them All

Posted on 23 April 2011 by Danios

This article is part 5 of LoonWatch’s Understanding Jihad Series. Please read my “disclaimer”, which explains my intentions behind writing this article: The Understanding Jihad Series: Is Islam More Likely Than Other Religions to Encourage Violence?

Anti-Muslim demagoguery relies on the demonization of the Prophet Muhammad, who is characterized as being especially violent and warlike.  This idea has certainly gained currency in the “Judeo-Christian West”.  When it is pointed out that the Biblical prophets–including Moses, Joshua, Samson, Saul, David, among many others–were far more violent and warlike (and even engaged in religiously sanctioned genocide), anti-Muslim pro-Christian ideologues will respond by disregarding or downplaying the Old Testament and will instead focus on the personality of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

Didn’t Jesus preach nonviolence and “loving one’s enemies”?  The anti-Muslim ideologues use this idea to assault the religion of Islam with.  For example, the Catholic apologist Robert Spencer compares Islam to Christianity by juxtaposing carefully selected quotes from Jesus to Islamic texts.  In his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), Spencer includes a “Muhammad vs Jesus” section.  He cites the following sayings of Jesus in the Bible:

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”

“If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”

“Blessed are the peacemakers”

“Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy”

“But love your enemies, and do good”

These “peaceful” verses of the Bible are compared to select violent-sounding Quranic verses.  The violent verses of the Bible “don’t count” and are craftily excluded from the comparison (“that’s just the Old Testament!”).  To tighten the noose, peaceful verses of the Quran are also excluded from the heavily biased analysis: these “don’t count” since they are supposedly from when Muhammad was still in Mecca.

To understand the last point, one needs to have a basic understanding of the Prophet Muhammad’s biography: he first declared his prophethood in the city of Mecca.  Only a very small segment of society accepted him (mostly the weak and poor), whereas the masses–especially the powerful leaders of the city–not only rejected him but actively persecuted him.  The chapters of the Quran that were revealed during this period are known as the Meccan chapters.  Eventually, Muhammad fled to the city of Medina, whose people accepted him as their ruler.  He went from persecuted prophet to ruler and commander-in-chief of a fledgling city-state.

The anti-Muslim ideologues claim that the peaceful and tolerant verses of the Quran come from when Muhammad was weak and persecuted in Mecca.  These verses are “canceled”, they argue, by the violent-sounding verses in the Medinan chapters.  Robert Spencer writes in  his book:

Islamic theology divides the Qur’an into “Meccan” and “Medinan” suras [chapters]. The Meccan ones come from the first segment of Muhammad’s career as a prophet, when he simply called the Meccans to Islam.  Later, after he fled to Medina, his positions hardened.  The Medinan suras [are]…filled with matters of law and ritual–and exhortations to jihad warfare against unbelievers.  The relatively tolerant verses quoted above and others like them generally date from the Meccan period, while those with a more violent and intolerant edge are mostly from Medina. [1]

The Islamophobes portray Muhammad as opportunistic: when he was weak and under the rule of the pagans, he called for peace.  Without being in a position of authority, Muhammad was hardly in a position to do otherwise.  As soon as he came to power, however, he waged “jihad warfare” (what a strange phrase!) against them. This is why, they argue, the peaceful verses of the Quran simply “don’t count”.

The merits of Spencer’s claims about the Prophet Muhammad will be critiqued in a future article of this Series.  For now, however, we will demonstrate that, using such logic, it is equally possible to invalidate the “peaceful” sayings of Jesus Christ.  While he was a persecuted prophet, Jesus advocated nonviolence and peaceful resistance.  He was hardly in a position to do otherwise, right?  Once in power, however, this changes dramatically and violent warfare becomes the new modus operandi.

The Messiah

Just as Muhammad’s biography can be divided into a Meccan and Medinan period, so too can Jesus’s lifestory be divided into a First and Second Coming.  (Likewise can Moses’ lifestory be divided into pre- and post-Exodus: prior to Exodus, Moses was largely peaceful, but after Exodus, Moses became the leader of the emerging Jewish state–and subsequently engaged in holy wars and even genocide against other nations.)  In the First Coming of Christ, only a small segment of society (mostly from the weak and poor) accepted Jesus, whereas the leaders and authorities persecuted him.  During this time period, Jesus advised his followers to engage in nonviolent resistance only, perhaps even pacifism.  Jesus advised his followers to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  According to the Bible, this didn’t stop his Jewish and Roman persecutors from crucifying him.

Yet, the Second Coming of Christ is a central theological belief of Christianity.  When Jesus returns to earth, the gloves will be off: no longer will he practice nonviolence or pacifism.  Enemies will be mercilessly killed, not loved.  In this manner, Jesus will fulfill the messianic prophecies found in the Bible–both in the Old and New Testaments.  To Christians, Jesus is the Messiah (the Greek word “Christ” has the same meaning as the Hebrew word “Messiah”)–the same Messiah that the Jews had been in anticipation of.

It is important to understand how the concept of Messiah developed.  According to the Bible, Moses and his followers fled persecution in Egypt to find refuge in the land of Canaan.  They believed that God had bequeathed this land to them, which would come to be known as Israel. Unfortunately, there were already peoples who lived in Canaan, a problem that Moses and his followers rectified via military might.  The native Canaanites were subsequently occupied, exterminated, or run off their ancestral lands.  When the natives fought back, the Israelites attributed this to their innate and infernal hatred of the Jewish people.

After ruling the “promised land” for a time, the Israelites were themselves conquered by outsiders.  The Babylonian Empire captured the Kingdom of Judah and expelled the Jews.  Though the Israelites felt no remorse over occupying, slaughtering, and running off the native inhabitants of Canaan, they were mortified when they received similar (albeit milder) treatment.  In exile, the Jews prayed for vengeance, as recorded in a divine prayer in the Bible:

Psalm 137:8 O Babylon, you will be destroyed. Happy is the one who pays you back for what you have done to us.

137:9 Blessed is the one who grabs your babies and smashes them against a rock.

(We can hardly imagine the glee that an Islamophobe would feel had such a violent passage, one that blesses those who smash infidel babies against rocks, been found in the Quran instead of the Bible.)

It was during the time of exile that the Jewish concept of Messiah was first born.  Dutch historian Jona Lendering writes:

The word Messiah renders the Aramaic word mešîhâ’, which in turn renders the Hebrew mâšîah. In Antiquity, these words were usually translated into Greek as Christos and into Latin as Christus, hence the English word Christ. All these words mean simply ‘anointed one’, anointment being a way to show that a Jewish leader had received God’s personal help.

It was believed that the Messiah (the Anointed One) would receive God’s personal help against the enemies of Israel; the Messiah would defeat the Babylonians and reestablish the Jewish state of Israel.  Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, fulfilled this role by conquering Babylon and releasing the Jews from exile.  Israel Smith Clare writes:

After Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, had conquered Babylon, he issued an edict permitting the Jews to return to their own country and to rebuild the city and Temple of Jerusalem. [2]

Prof. Martin Bernal of Cornell University writes:

The first Messiah in the Bible was Cyrus, the king of Persia who released the Jews–at least those who wanted to leave–from Exile in Babylon. [3]

As for this passage in the Bible:

Psalm 137:8 O Babylon, you will be destroyed. Happy is the one who pays you back for what you have done to us.

137:9 Blessed is the one who grabs your babies and smashes them against a rock.

Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible comments on this verse:

This was Cyrus, who was chosen of God to do this work, and is therefore called happy, as being God’s agent in its destruction.

The Jews thereby returned to the promised land and rebuilt their nation.  According to Jewish tradition, however, this did not last long: the Roman Empire conquered the land, destroyed the Temple, and exiled the Jews once again.  As a result, as Lendering puts it, “the old prophecies [about Messiah] became relevant again.”  Although in Jewish tradition there is a messiah for each generation, there is also the Messiah, which is what is commonly thought of when we hear the word.  The Messiah would fulfill the task of destroying all of Israel’s enemies.

JewFaq.org says of the Messiah, which they spell as mashiach (emphasis is ours):

The mashiach will be a great political leader descended from King David (Jeremiah 23:5). The mashiach is often referred to as “mashiach ben David” (mashiach, son of David). He will be well-versed in Jewish law, and observant of its commandments (Isaiah 11:2-5). He will be a charismatic leader, inspiring others to follow his example. He will be a great military leader, who will win battles for Israel. He will be a great judge, who makes righteous decisions (Jeremiah 33:15).

KosherJudaism.org states:

The Messiah will defeat and conquer the enemies surrounding Israel.

The Second Coming of Christ

Around 4 B.C., a prophet by the name of Jesus was born.  He claimed to be the Messiah, and some Jews followed him.  The followers of Christ eventually split into numerous sects, and eventually one triumphed over all others.  These became what are today known as Christians.  As for the majority of Jews, they rejected Jesus.  Why? The Jews rejected (and continue to reject) Jesus because he did not fulfill the prophecies pertaining to the Messiah.  How could Jesus be the Messiah when he not only did not defeat or conquer Israel’s enemies, but he never even led an army into a single war?  On the contrary, didn’t Jesus preach nonviolence and “loving one’s enemies”?

Instead of rejecting these militaristic aspects of the Messiah, Christians attribute them to Jesus during his Second Coming.  No longer will Jesus be a weak and persecuted prophet.  Instead, he will hold governmental authority, and is depicted as powerful and mighty.  This Jesus will certainly not love his enemies or turn the other cheek to them. In fact, the Bible tells us that Jesus will wage violent warfare against his enemies, and he will mercilessly kill them all.

Many Christians talk about how Jesus Christ will bring peace to the world, once and for all.  But they often neglect to mention how this world “peace” is obtained.  It is only after slaughtering his opponents and subduing “the nations” (the entire world?) under the foot of the global Christian empire that the world will have “peace”.  Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible explains:

There shall be no more war; horses and chariots shall be no more used in a hostile way; but there shall be perfect peace, all enemies being destroyed, which agrees with Micah 2:3 Zechariah 9:10.

In other words, there will be peace for the simple reason that there will be nobody left to fight, all opponents having been slaughtered or subdued.   This world “peace” is the same “peace” that any conqueror dreams of: after utterly defeating and conquering all of one’s neighbors and enemies, what is there left but “peace”, insofar as the non-existence of violence?  In the accidentally insightful words of the Evangelist Wayne Blank: “Put another way, humans aren’t going to have anything left to fight about.”  Following conquest, a foreign occupier would obviously want the occupied peoples to be peaceful, as this would eliminate the nuisance of having to fight off freedom-fighters.  The absence of violence would allow the conquering force to effortlessly sustain its occupation.

The events of the Second Coming of Christ are found in the Bible, including the Book of Revelation–which is the last book in the New Testament.  Jesus will “judge and wage war” (Rev. 19:11), his robe will be “dipped in blood” (19:13), and he will be accompanied by “armies” (19:14) with which he will “strike down the nations” (19:15), including “the Gentiles” in general and “the nations that were opposed to him” in specific.  This will result in the “utter destruction of all his enemies”. Furthermore: “in his second coming[,] he will complete their destruction, when he shall put down all opposing rule, principality, and power.”

Once he conquers the infidels, Jesus “will rule them with an iron rod” (19:15).  Wayne Blank writes:

The good news is that The Return Of Jesus Christ is going to happen. The even better news is that this time He’s not coming to be sacrificed by the world, but to rule it, along with those who have been faithful and obedient to Him. The world is going to know true peace, and genuine justice, in a way that it has never known before…

How Will World Peace Happen?

…[This will] not [be] by pleading and debate, but with a rod of iron. Those who choose to love and obey Him will be loved, while those who choose to rebel and hate Him will know His wrath.

Jesus will “will release the fierce wrath of God” (19:15) on them, and “he shall execute the severest judgment on the opposers of his truth”.   Because of this, “every tribe on earth will mourn because of him” (Rev. 1:7), and they will “express the inward terror and horror of their minds, at his appearing; they will fear his resentment”.  Just as the people of Canaan were terrified by the Israelite war machine, so too would the unbelievers “look with trembling upon [Jesus]”.  This is repeated in the Gospels, that “the Son of man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn” (Matthew 24:30).  “All the nations of the world shall wail when he comes to judgment” and the enemies of Jesus “shall mourn at the great calamities coming upon them”.

Far from the meek prophet of the First Coming, Jesus on his return will command a very strong military force that will “destroy[] every ruler, authority, and power”.  Not only is this consistent with the legacy of conquests by the Biblical prophets, it is actually a fulfillment or completion of the task that Moses initiated: holy war and conquest in the name of God.  In First Corinthians (part of the New Testament) it is prophesied that instead of loving his enemies, Christ will subdue and humble them under his feet:

1 Corinthians 15:24 [Jesus] will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having destroyed every ruler and authority and power.

15:25 For Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies beneath his feet.

Pastor and Biblical scholar Ron Teed explains that Jesus Christ brought “comfort and salvation at His first coming” but will bring “vengeance on God’s enemies” during his Second Coming.  There are thus “two comings of Christ, the first to save, the second to judge”–yet in debates with Muslims it seems that Christians play up the First Coming and completely ignore the Second.  The popular Teed Commentaries explains how “vengeance” is for Christ’s enemies (the “unbelievers”) and “comfort” only for his followers (the believers):

The Messiah will bring both comfort and vengeance. He will take vengeance on God’s enemies and bring comfort to His people. This is a summary of the mission of Christ. He brought comfort and salvation at His first coming during His earthly ministry according to Luke…

However, He said nothing of taking vengeance on God’s enemies at that time, for that part of his mission will not be fulfilled till He returns triumphant…

[There are] two comings of Christ, the first to save, the second to judge.

In His First coming He did the things mentioned in Isaiah 61:1-2; in His Second Coming He will do the things in verses 2-3. When He returns He will bring judgment on unbelievers. This will be the day of God’s “vengeance.”

The ever popular Evangelical site GotQuestions.org sums it up nicely:

Jesus’ second coming will be exceedingly violent. Revelation 19:11-21 describes the ultimate war with Christ, the conquering commander who judges and makes war “with justice” (v. 11). It’s going to be bloody (v. 13) and gory. The birds will eat the flesh of all those who oppose Him (v. 17-18). He has no compassion upon His enemies, whom He will conquer completely and consign to a “fiery lake of burning sulfur” (v. 20).

It is an error to say that God never supports a war. Jesus is not a pacifist.

Will the Real Messiah Please Stand Up?

Whereas the Second Coming of Christ is curiously forgotten in debates with Muslims, it is conveniently remembered during debates with Jews.  One of the primary (if not the primary) functions of the promised messiah in the Judeo-Christian tradition is, after all, vengeance against Israel’s enemies and global dominance.  Indeed, the entire concept of Messiah emerged following the conquest of Jewish lands with the subjugation and exile of its inhabitants.  The Messiah stood as hope for the redemption of Israel as well as revenge against her enemies.

Jewish polemical tracts against Christians reveal to us how militarism is a fundamental characteristic of the Messiah.  The Christian response in turn reveal how Jesus Christ will indeed be militaristic (during his Second Coming).  David Klinghoffer, an Orthodox Jewish author, writes in his book Why the Jews Rejected Jesus:

There were certainly those among [Jesus'] followers who saw him as the promised Messiah.  This was natural.  The first century produced messiahs the way our own time produces movie stars.  There was always a hot new candidate for the role emerging from obscurity, whose glory faded either as he was slaughtered by the Romans or as his followers lost interest when he failed to produce the goods promised by the prophets. [4]

“The goods” refer to the military conquest of Israel’s enemies and world domination.  The fact that Jesus failed to produce these “goods” proves that he is not the promised messiah.  Klinghoffer continues:

Let him do what the “son of man,” the promised Messiah, had been advertised as being destined to do from Daniel back through Ezekiel and Isaiah and the rest of the prophets.  Let him rule as a monarch, his kingship extending over “all peoples, nations, and languages.”  Let him return the exiles and build the Temple and defeat the oppressors and establish universal peace, as the prophets also said…

Let Jesus come up with the real messianic goods–visible to all rather than requiring us to accept someone’s assurance that, for example, he was born in Bethlehem–and then we’ll take him seriously. [5]

This point is reiterated in his book numerous times:

Hearing Jesus preach, a Jew might reasonably have crossed his arms upon his chest and muttered, “Hm, intriguing, but let’s see what happens.”  After all, the scriptures themselves common-sensically defined a false prophet as someone whose prophecies fail to come true.  According to Deuteronomy, this was the chief test of a prophet. [6]

Klinghoffer writes elsewhere:

The Hebrew prophets describe the elements of a messianic scenario that could not easily be overlooked: an ingathering of the Jewish exiles, the reign of a messianic king, a new covenant with the Jews based on a restored commitment to observance of the commandments, a new Temple, the recognition of God by the world’s peoples.  The future Davidic king was expected to radically change the world. [7]

The “radical change” involves the “subjugation” of the nations:

The Messiah would be a military and political leader. Philo, whose views have sometimes been taken as foreshadowing Christian teachings, is clear on this: “For ‘there shall come forth a man’ (Num. 24:7), says the oracle, and leading his host of war he will subdue great and populous nations.”

The Gospel writers thus faced the challenge that Jesus never raised an army, fought the Romans, returned any Jewish exiles, ruled over any population, or did anything else a king messiah would do. [8]

The subjugated nations would then “prostrate” themselves to the Messiah and “serve” him (perpetual servitude?):

The promised royal scion of David, the Messiah, would surely inspire veneration and awe beyond that accorded even to David himself…The nations will “prostrate” themselves before God, says one psalm; but so will they “prostrate” themselves (same Hebrew verb) before the Davidic king, says another psalm…As Daniel puts it…“[The Messiah] was given dominion, honor, kingship, so that all peoples, nations, and languages would serve him.” [9]

Klinghoffer defines the Messiah as he “who conquers and rules the nations and liberates the Jews” and describes him as a mighty warrior”.  He rhetorically asks:

Was there in Jewish tradition any room for a dead Messiah?  Didn’t Jesus’s death tend to cast doubt on his ability to accomplish all the world-transforming things the Messiah was supposed to do? [10]

Again, the “world-transforming things” include violent holy war against the heathen nations and their subjugation under his rule.  Klinghoffer answers his own question:

But was Jesus a ruler over Israel?  On the contrary, the younger Kimchi pointed out, “He did not govern Israel but they governed him.” [11]

Christians reply by arguing that Jesus will fulfill these prophecies, just during his Second Coming.  The Good News, a Christian magazine with a readership of nearly half a million subscribers, responds to the Jewish criticism by arguing that Jesus returns “a second time” as a “conquering King” who will “slay the great armies of those who opposed Him”.  Jesus will be “the promised Messiah whom the prophets claimed would rule all nations ‘with a rod of iron’” and “all nations would come under His rule”.

Klinghoffer, our Orthodox Jewish interlocutor, cries foul:

Christians respond by saying that “the famously unfulfilled prophecies (for instance, that the messianic era will be one of peace) apply to the second and final act in Jesus’s career, when he returns to earth.  This is a convenient and necessary dodge: The Bible itself never speaks of a two-act messianic drama. [11]

The interesting dynamic is thus established: Jews accuse Jesus of not being militaristic enough, and Christian apologists respond by eagerly proving the militaristic nature of Jesus during his Second Coming.

Christians Affirm Militant Old Testament Prophecies

Far from saying “it’s just the Old Testament!”, Christians routinely–and as a matter of accepted fundamental theology–use the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah to validate their belief in Jesus–prophecies that have militaristic overtones.  The Book of Isaiah, for example, has numerous prophecies in it that Christians routinely attribute to Jesus Christ.  For example:

Isaiah 35:4 Say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

Matthew Henry’s commentary of this verse says:

Assurance is given of the approach of Messiah, to take vengeance on the powers of darkness, to recompense with abundant comforts those that mourn in Zion; He will come and save. He will come again at the end of time, to punish those who have troubled his people; and to give those who were troubled such rest as will be a full reward for all their troubles.

This will be “a day of vengeance, a year of retribution, to uphold Zion’s cause” (34:8) against the “nations at enmity with the church” and “those found opposing the church of Christ”, which will result in “the destruction of [the church's] enemies.” Likewise do Christians claim that the Book of Micah foretells the Second Coming of Christ:

Micah 15:5 I will execute vengeance in anger and fury on the heathen, such as they have not heard.

One Biblical commentary helpfully explains this verse:

Christ will give his Son either the hearts or necks of his enemies, and make them either his friends or his footstool.

[NassirH, a reader of our website, astutely commented: I suppose this is what JihadWatch writer Roland Shirk meant when he said “Islam is a religion of fear and force, and its adherents can only be at your feet or at your throat.”]

Another Biblical commentary notes: “Here no mention is made of Mercy, but only of executing vengeance; and that, with wrath and fury.”  Yet another states that this is “a prophecy of the final overthrow of all the enemies of pure and undefiled religion” and that this is “a threatening of vengeance to the Heathens”.

When we published articles comparing the Judeo-Christian prophets of the Hebrew Bible to the Prophet Muhammad, an anti-Muslim bigot by the name of Percey (formerly known as Cassidy) claimed that the genocides of the Old Testament were “not supported by Christ’s teachings.”  This hardly seems the case, however, when we consider that Jesus will bring to a climax the holy war first initiated by Moses against the enemies of Israel.  Jesus will fulfill, not repudiate, Old Testament holy wars against Israel’s foes.  In fact, the war will be expanded to heathen nations in general, or at least those that reject Jesus.

Conclusion

We could reproduce violent Christian texts ad nauseum…What is clear is that the Christian conception of Jesus can very easily be characterized as violent.  Prof. Melancthon W. Jacobus writes in A Standard Bible Dictionary:

[Jesus] excluded from the Messiah’s character the main elements of the popular ideal, i.e. that of a conquering hero, who would exalt Israel above the heathen, and through such exclusion He seemed to fail to realize the older Scriptural conception.  The failure, however, was only apparent and temporary.  For in the second coming in glory He was to achieve this work. Accordingly, His disciples recognized a twofoldness in His Messiahship: (1) They saw realized in His past life the ideal Servant of Jehovah, the spiritual Messiah, the Christ who teaches and suffers for the people, and (2) they looked forward to the realization of the Davidic and conquering Messiah in His second coming in power and glory to conquer the nations and reign over them. [12]

How then do we reconcile the seemingly peaceful and pacifist sayings of Jesus with the violent and warlike Second Coming of Christ?  There are numerous ways to do this, but perhaps the most convincing is that Jesus’ peaceful and pacifist sayings were directed towards a resident’s personal and local enemies–usually (but not always) referring to fellow co-religionists.  It did not refer to a government’s foreign adversaries, certainly not to heathen nations.  Prof. Richard A. Horsley of the University of Massachusetts argues:

The cluster of sayings keynoted by “love your enemies” pertains neither to external, political enemies nor to the question of nonviolence or nonresistance…The content of nearly all the sayings indicates a context of local interaction with personal enemies, not of relations with foreign or political foes…

“Love your enemies” and the related sayings apparently were understood by [Jesus'] followers…to refer to local social-economic relations, largely within the village community, which was still probably coextensive with the religious community in most cases…[although sometimes referring] to persecutors outside the religious community but still in the local residential community—and certainly not the national or political enemies. [13]

This is consistent with the ruling given by the Evangelical site GotQuestions.org, which permits governments to wage war whilst forbidding individuals from “personal vendettas”:

God has allowed for just wars throughout the history of His people. From Abraham to Deborah to David, God’s people have fought as instruments of judgment from a righteous and holy God. Romans 13:1-4 tells us to submit ourselves to government authorities and that nations have the right to bear the sword against evildoers, both foreign and domestic.

Violence occurs, but we must recognize the difference between holy judgment on sin and our own personal vendettas against those we dislike, which is the inevitable outcome of pride (Psalm 73:6).

As for the “turning the other cheek” passage, it is known that the slap on the cheek that was being referred to here was in that particular culture understood as an insult, not as assault.  The passage itself has to do with a person responding to a personal insult, and has nothing to do with pacifism.  In any case, The Wiersbe Bible Commentary clarifies:  “Of course, He applied this to personal insults, not to groups or nations.” [14]

Some Christians maintain that fighting the enemies on the battlefield does not exclude loving them.  This begs the question: how absolutely irrelevant is this strange form of “love” for enemies that does not proscribe killing them?

Whatever the reason for the contradiction between loving enemies on the one hand and killing them on the other, the point is that the comparison between a supposedly peaceful Jesus and violent Muhammad is not just a vapid oversimplification but pure falsity.  It is only through a very selective and biased analysis–a carefully crafted comparison between the most peaceful sounding verses of the New Testament (a handful of quotes from Jesus that constitute a small fraction of the Bible overall) with the most violent sounding verses of the Quran (those too out of context, as we shall see in future parts of this Series).

Anything that doesn’t fit this agenda simply “doesn’t count” (and indeed, the anti-Muslim pro-Christian readers will furiously rack their brains to figure out ways to make the violent Jesus verses “not count”).  The Islamophobic logic is thus: If we exclude all violent verses from the Bible and all the peaceful verses from the Quran, then aha!  See how much more violent the Quran is compared to the Bible! Anti-Muslim Christians scoff at Islam and exalt their religion by informing Muslims of how Jesus, unlike Muhammad, loved his enemies.  Let the Muslims reply back ever so wryly: Jesus loved them so much that he kills them.

Addendum I:

Anti-Muslim Christians often chant “Muhammad was a prophet of war, whereas Jesus was the Prince of Peace”.  A few points about this are worthy of being mentioned: first, Muhammad never used the title “prophet of war” nor is this mentioned in the Quran or anywhere else.  In fact, one of the most common epithets used for Muhammad, one found in the Quran no less, was “A Mercy to All Humanity”.  (More on this in a later part of the Series.)  Jesus, on the other hand, will be a “Warrior King” and a “Conquering King.”  Should it then be “Muhammad is A Mercy to All Humanity, whereas Jesus is the Warrior King”?

As for Jesus being the Prince of Peace, this epithet comes from Isaiah 9:6:

Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

9:7 There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen.

One Christian website paraphrases this succinctly: “Israel’s enemies will be destroyed. Peace will flow to the four corners of the earth, as the Prince of Peace rules and reigns.”  Again, this is the “peace” that conquerers dream of.  Jesus is the Prince of Peace because he declares war, slaughters and subjugates all possible enemies to the point where nobody is left to fight, and voila! there is peace!

This brings us to the commonly quoted (and oft-debated) verse of the Bible, in which Jesus says:

Matthew 10:34 Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth.  I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Most debates focus on whether or not the word “sword” here is metaphorical or not.  Leaving aside the fact that even if this is a metaphor it is certainly a very violent sounding one, it would actually behoove us to focus on the word “peace” in this verse.  Jesus told the Jews: “do not think I have come to bring peace on earth” as a way to explain his failure to produce “the goods”: “the Jews believed that when the Messiah comes, there would be a time of world peace.”  Naturally, this world “peace” would be brought about through war.  Of course, in his Second Coming will Jesus bring this “peace on earth” (and by “peace”, what is meant is war, slaughter, and subjugation).  As we can see, this verse confirms the militant nature of the Messiah (and thus Jesus), regardless of if it is metaphorical or not.

Addendum II:

Here is another hotly debated verse, in which Jesus says:

Luke 19:27 But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and kill them in my presence.

Robert Spencer dismisses this verse, saying: “These are the words of a king in a parable.”  Yes, this was a parable that Jesus told his disciples.  But what was his intention in narrating this parable?  Gill’s Explanation to the Entire Bible explains that it was to explain what will happen to the Jews “when Christ shall come a second time”:  Jesus will “destroy the Jewish nation” for rejecting him “and then all other enemies will be slain and destroyed” as well.  Death and destruction will be the fate of whoever does not accept Jesus’ reign as Warrior King.

This was hardly an innocuous story.  It reminds us of a scene in the movie Gladiator when the evil Roman emperor Commodus tells his nephew a story about an “emperor” who was betrayed by his sister (“his own blood”) and how he “struck down” her son as revenge.  (Watch it here.)  The story was a thinly veiled threat, as was Jesus’ parable.

One can only hardly imagine how Islamophobes like Robert Spencer would react had it been the Prophet Muhammad who had used such a violent parable, threatening to return to earth in order to “slay” anyone who “did not want me to reign over them”!  This would certainly “count” since all violence in the Quran “counts” whereas whatever is peaceful in the Quran “doesn’t count”, and whatever is violent in the Bible “doesn’t count” and whatever is peaceful in the Bible “counts”.  Heads I win, tails you lose.

Footnotes

refer back to article 1. Spencer, Robert. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). Washington, DC: Regnery Pub., 2005. 24. Print.

refer back to article 2. Clare, Israel S. The Centennial Universal History: A Clear and Concise History of All Nations. P. W. Ziegler, 1876. 33. Print.

refer back to article 3. Bernal, Martin. Black Athena. Vol. 1. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ., 1996. 125. Print.

refer back to article 4. Klinghoffer, David. Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: the Turning Point in Western History. New York: Three Leaves/Doubleday, 2006. 61. Print.

refer back to article 5. Ibid., p.71

refer back to article 6. Ibid., p.64

refer back to article 7. Ibid., p.62

refer back to article 8. Ibid., p.63

refer back to article 9. Ibid., p.69

refer back to article 10. Ibid., p.161

refer back to article 11. Ibid., p.204

refer back to article 12. Jacobus, Melancthon Williams., Edward E. Nourse, and Andrew C. Zenos. A Standard Bible Dictionary. New York & London, 1909. 543. Print.

refer back to article 13. Swartley, Willard M. “Ethics and Exegesis: ‘Love Your Enemies’ and the Doctrine of Nonviolence.” The Love of Enemy and Nonretaliation in the New Testament. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1992. Print.

refer back to article 14. Wiersbe, Warren W. The Wiersbe Bible Commentary. Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2007. 21. Print.

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Chuck Norris Jump Kicks onto the Loon Band Wagon

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Chuck Norris Jump Kicks onto the Loon Band Wagon

Posted on 22 April 2011 by Greeneye

I liked Chuck Norris. I really did. I can still remember the scene from Invasion USA where Chuck heroically saves a school bus of innocent children from a dastardly terrorist bomb plot. Oh, how we look up to our childhood heroes! How we admire their selfless bravery! But alas, the truth is stranger than fiction.

I once thought Mr. Norris was pretty level headed when I heard him challenge Steve Emerson on Fox News, saying:

Don’t you believe that only 2% of the Muslim world are extremists? That 98% of the Muslims want, believe that the Koran teaches a tolerance for other religions?

That’s my hero! So understandably I was quite surprised and disappointed when I saw Mr. Norris’recent article published on the notorious conspiracy mongering website, World Net Daily, a.k.a. the “biggest, dumbest wingnut site on the Web.” For those of you unaware of the site’s “journalistic standards,” WND editor and CEO Joseph Farah admits the site knowingly peddles misinformation if it supports their political goals. And this is the absurd context in which Chuck Norris has chosen to warn Americans about the alleged pernicious influence of American Muslims.

Chuck begins by paying homage to the uncontestable dogma of the anti-Muslim conspiracy movement:

There’s no mystery that radical Islamists intend to use the freedoms in our Constitution to expand the influence of Shariah law.

And what is Chuck’s smoking-gun-proof for sounding the alarm? None other than the completely paranoid and discredited book, Muslim Mafia, authored with the help of David Gaubutz, an anti-Muslim crazy who claimed in all seriousness that he found Saddam’s WMD, that President Obama is a “crack head,” and who belongs to an organization claiming White Christians deserve special distinction for creating America. Gaubatz is the former employee of the rabidly racist hate group, Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), who promoted blatant anti-Muslim bigotry on their website:

Whereas, adherence to Islam as a Muslim is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the US. [sic] Government through the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the US Constitution and the imposition of Shari’a on the American People…It shall be a felony punishable by 20 years in prison to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Islam.

So this is the inSANE man whose work Chuck recommends for reliable information on Sharia law. Not exactly befitting a Texas Ranger, I must say. But then Chuck has the brassiness to claim he welcomes Muslims:

First, let me categorically state that I’m not an Islamaphobe. I welcome the plurality of religions in America and am a firm believer in the First Amendment.

Chuck, you say you are not an Islamophobe, so why are you citing one? Why do you get your information from a racist Islamophobe? Why are you arguing that Americans should fear normal law-abiding Muslims? Honestly, I think (I hope!) Chuck means well in his heart of hearts, but it should be clear here that he has been thoroughly duped by WND’s orchestrated misinformation campaign, only a modest part of which are Islamophobic conspiracy theories.

Anyhow, after admitting that there is a plurality of interpretations of Sharia Law, from ultra-conservative to ultra-liberal, he then proceeds to contradict himself by essentializing (generalizing) about Sharia in the most negative way, saying:

The main point here is this: Where Muslim religion and culture has spread, Shariah law has shortly followed.

Of course, many Americans watch on video a Middle Eastern woman allegedly caught in adultery, buried in the ground up to her head and being stoned to death, and think, “That could never happen in America.” But they fail to see how Shariah law has already been enabled and subtly invoked in our country, and that any such induction like it is brought about by understated lukewarm changes, like a frog boiled in a kettle by a slow simmer.

Thus, Chuck thinks that we should be afraid of “Muslim religion and culture” because “Sharia law” will surely follow. According to him, the essence of Sharia law is stoning women, yet he seems not to realize that stoning laws are not found in the Quran (the primary source of Sharia law) but, ironically enough, stonings are explicitly and repeatedly endorsed in his own holy scriptures:

Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.

[Deuteronomy 21:21]

(See also Leviticus 20:2, 20:27, 24:16, 24:23; Deuteronomy 13:10, 17:5, 21:21, 22:23-24; Numbers 15:36; Joshua 7:25; and 1 King 21:10)

That’s somewhat like the pot calling the kettle black, no?

Before you know it, the Moozlims will start stoning American girls left and right, up and down, all around the town! Back in reality, however, the truth is that if stonings ever take place in America, they are much more likely to be carried out by our own homegrown Christian dominionists.

So if America is on the brink of destruction due to Sharia law, what is the proof? Chuck cites three bogus examples, all of which are actually proofs against his argument. As Tim Murphy of Mother Jones explained:

Of course, each of these points has its self-refuting flaws. Judges turn cases over to pre-selected religious arbitrators all the time, for instance, and not just for Muslims. None of the state legislators in question have produced a single example of Sharia being forced upon their states. And as for the argument that Sharia has been “oversimplified,” I would just point you to the fact that a quasi-mulleted martial arts actor from the mid 1990s feels qualified to explain to a national audience what Sharia is.

It only makes sense if you give weight to the fanatic conspiracy theories at WND. Apparently, for an aging action star, kooky internet goons are better sources of information than peer-reviewed scholars who spend years actually studying these things under other peer-reviewed scholars. Regardless, Mr. Norris intends to publish more articles on this topic, most likely including the same misunderstanding of basic facts and logic. We’ll be looking forward to see what he comes up with.

What happened, Chuck? You were such an American hero. You were MY hero.

Why did you decide to jump kick it on the Loon Band Wagon?

Comments (44)

Piss_Christ_Protest

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Piss Christ Art Work Destroyed by Protesting Christians, What if they were Muslim?

Posted on 21 April 2011 by Emperor

The famously distasteful artwork by Andres Serrano titled “Piss Christ,” caused quite a stir when it was first shown. Now Christians protesting the artwork in Paris have slashed the painting. Imagine if they had been Muslim? Does this mean Christianity can’t live with offense? Does this mean that Christianity is opposed to free speech?

Serrano Piss Christ Slashed

Angelique Chrisafis, Paris

April 20, 2011

ANDRES Serrano’s Piss Christ has been destroyed by Christians who broke into a French gallery and slashed the photograph after weeks of protests.

The New York photographer’s controversial work shows a small crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist’s urine.

It outraged the US religious right in 1987, when it was first shown. It was vandalised in Melbourne in 1997, and neo-Nazis ransacked a Swedish show by the artist in 2007.

The work has previously been shown without incident in France, but for the past two weeks Catholic groups have campaigned against it, culminating in hundreds of people marching through Avignon on Saturday in protest.

On Sunday morning, four people in sunglasses entered the gallery. One took a hammer from his sock and threatened security staff. A guard restrained one man but the others managed to smash an acrylic screen and slash the photograph with what police believe was a screwdriver or ice pick.

Last week the gallery complained of ”extremist harassment” by Christians who wanted the image banned.

The Archbishop of Vaucluse, Jean-Pierre Cattenoz, called the work ”odious” and said he wanted ”this trash” taken off the gallery walls. Saturday’s street protest against the work gained the support of the far-right National Front.

The owner of the work, Yvon Lambert, had complained he was being ”persecuted” by religious extremists who had sent him tens of thousands of emails. He likened the atmosphere to the Middle Ages.

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand condemned the vandalism as an attack on the fundamental freedoms of creation and expression.

The gallery’s director, Eric Mezil, said he would keep the exhibition open to the public with the destroyed work on show ”so people can see what barbarians can do”.

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Christopher Hitchens: No “Arab Spring” If Saddam Still Ruled Iraq

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Christopher Hitchens: No “Arab Spring” If Saddam Still Ruled Iraq

Posted on 21 April 2011 by Garibaldi

The Arab Revolutions are a unique moment in the history of the world for a number of reasons. Chief amongst these important reasons is the shattering of age old Orientalist myths that Arabs and Muslims are impervious to Democracy, the language of rights, etc. These talking points are usually further essentialized by the view that what is holding Arabs and Muslims back is the retrograde force of Islam.

Yet, there are attempts to steal these revolutions. Attempts to deny the indigenous, organic nature of the transformation happening before our eyes. “How could the natives rise against their dictatorships without our help,” the thinking goes.

Christopher Hitchens comes to mind. The militant atheist, morose humorist, man of letters, convert from the ranks of International Socialism to neo-Conservatism, who, terming the revolutions “Arab uprisings” believes they would never have happened if it weren’t for the Iraq War.

Hitchens was an early skeptic of the revolutions, he wrote that he “won’t be surprised” if the “exemplary courage and initiative of the citizens of Tahrir Square slowly ebb away.” The revolutions put him and others like him in a tough spot, he supported the Iraq War, claiming that Iraqis could only be freed from Saddam through Western intervention. He denied that the war was ever only about the threat of WMD’s, but rather about overthrowing a ruthless dictator.

He didn’t believe in the ability of Iraqi people, which is surprising considering the frequency with which Hitchens extols the founding fathers who wrote a document based on natural law that made the bold claim that liberty was an unalienable right for all mankind,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Either we believe that all mankind is equal and thirsts to realize its unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness or we don’t. Either we believe that all mankind has the ability to throw off the shackles of oppression without dubious intervention, unending occupation or we don’t.

Hitchens writes,

Can anyone imagine how the Arab spring would have played out if a keystone Arab state, oil-rich and heavily armed with a track record of intervention in its neighbors’ affairs and a history of all-out mass repression against its own civilians, were still the private property of a sadistic crime family? As it is, to have had Iraq on the other scale from the outset has been an unnoticed and unacknowledged benefit whose extent is impossible to compute.

It is pitiful to see Hitchens try to cover his ass now. Such a great man of letters, reduced to writing like some glorified assistant to Donald Rumsfeld, justifying the unjustifiable.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died due to the conflict in Iraq. Many more lives have been upended, destroyed and ravaged, including the lives of many American soldiers.

Now, beaming onto our television and computer screens are the inspirational, brave, victorious people of Tunisia and Egypt, who proudly let it be known that they toppled their despots.

Instead of worrying about his legacy or what the obituary in the New York Times will read, can Hitchens overcome his hubris and polemical nature, and give credit where credit is due?

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Terry Jones: Mustachioed Yosemite Sam Going to Dearborn

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Terry Jones: Mustachioed Yosemite Sam Going to Dearborn

Posted on 19 April 2011 by Emperor

The loon’s at it again.

Update: As’ad Abu Khalil mentions that the portion about the supposed death threat against Jones from Hizbollah is a fabrication:

Seeking fame and publicity, kooky pastor, Terry Jones said that Hizbullah put a bounty on his head.  It is made up.  There is no evidence of that whatsoever.  But then again: you can say anything about Muslim and Arab organizations and you don’t need proof, especially if those organizations are opposed to Israel.  Like if I say that Hamas stole my car here in California, the media would report that and would not even bother with asking me to provide evidence.

Quran-burning pastor, Terry Jones, still coming to mosque

DEARBORN — Pastor Terry Jones preaches the Gospel for a living, but the second holiest day in Christianity just slipped his mind.

The Quran-burning provocateur, who is expected to protest in Dearborn next week, said he didn’t realize before he committed to coming here that the protest is planned for Good Friday.

“This might be hard to believe,” Jones said, “but honestly we didn’t realize (it was Good Friday) or that Sunday was Easter.”

Oversight now recognized, Jones said he still plans on coming and that he would be traveling with about five associates for the protest, which tentatively is planned for outside the Islamic Center of America. The location, he said, was chosen because of its symbolism as one of the largest mosques in North America.

The protest originally was organized by a Port Huron militia group known as “Order of the Dragon,” but has very much become the Terry Jones-show since he announced his intention to join.

Asked whether he thinks Dearborn’s Muslim community is jihadist or wants to institute Sharia – Islamic law similar to Christianity’s Canon law – Jones said he is uncertain.

“I don’t know Dearborn’s Muslims so I can’t say,” said Jones, who acknowledges never having read the Quran. “But when you see what’s happening in Europe in Muslim-dominated countries, it wouldn’t surprise (me).”

Jones has said in press statements about the protest that he has no problem with Muslims or Islam; rather the extremist interpretation terrorist groups have embraced. He does, however, say he disagrees with Sharia, saying, “it discriminates against women.”

Jones’ small Gainesville, Florida-based church, Dove World Outreach Center, gained notoriety last fall for widely condemned plans to burn Qurans on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Facing pressure to cancel the event coming from as high up as President Barack Obama, the plan was scrapped. But in late March Jones put the Quran “on trial.”

With his congregants as jury, the holiest book in Islam was found guilty and the sentence was burning.

While the media largely ignored the event, Jones and others released videos of the burning online. The imagery sparked widespread violence against Western forces in Afghanistan and numerous death threats against Jones, including a $2.4 million bounty issued by the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah, which is designated a terrorist organization by the United States government.

“We get the threats and we pass them along to the FBI,” he said.

As for the violence Jones’ stunt precipitated, he said he doesn’t bear responsibility.

“Yes, we were warned,” he said of the exhortations against burning the Quran for fear it might provoke violence.

“But there is no excuse for what happened in Afghanistan, and we do not believe we are responsible. People are responsible for their own actions. If anything this proves there is a radical element to Islam.”

Jones is aware his trip to Dearborn is being met mostly with opposition. Interfaith leaders from across Metropolitan Detroit have criticized his plans and at least six groups have formally requested permits for counterdemonstrations, Police Chief Ronald Haddad said.

“We know there will probably be a lot more people there against us than for us,” said Jones, who was unsure how many more people would join him aside from the group he is traveling with.

Also still unclear is whether the protest will even be granted the necessary permit. Haddad, who is responsible for determining whether a demonstration permit is granted or not, previously said he hoped to have a decision by Friday. But because of the numerous counter-protest permit requests and other new, undisclosed developments related to the event, Haddad said he now hopes to have his decision by early next week.

“There are some late developments that we need to take into consideration,” said Haddad. “My primary concern is security and making sure everyone is safe.”

Undoubtedly playing into Haddad’s decision is that Altar Road, where the Islamic Center is located, will be bustling with activity that day. In addition to the mosque, Altar Road is home to several Christian churches that will be holding Good Friday services.

J. Patrick Pepper covers public safety and politics in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights as well as Dearborn government affairs. He can be reached at (734) 246-2702 or at jpepper@heritage.com.

Comments (38)

Cartersville-Islamic-Center-vandalised

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Cartersville, Georgia Mosque Vandalized

Posted on 19 April 2011 by Emperor

Islamophobes will say it means nothing.

Cartersville, Georgia: FBI investigating vandalism at mosque

Members of the Muslim community are concerned that their place of worship has been the target of an apparent hate crime for the second time in less than a month.

The Islamic Center of Cartersville was vandalized earlier this week, according to a Bartow County Sheriff’s Department incident report. Deputies were dispatched to 71 Maple Ridge Drive Tuesday morning shortly after Bilal Mahmood reported the damages.

Mahmood told the deputy he was the last person at the center Monday night and everything was intact.

When he returned Tuesday at 6:30, he saw three front glass entrance doors with large holes in them. He also saw one window pane on the front of the building with a large hole. ”Bilal allowed me to enter into the building where I retrieved four large rocks that were used to damage the window and doors,” the deputy wrote in the report.

Amjad Tausique worships at the mosque and helped start that location; he said he’s very concerned. ”We’ve been working and reaching out in the community for a long time,” he said. Tausique said Muslims have been in the city for close to 40 years. ”We are tax-paying, peaceful, law-abiding citizens,” he said. “It’s totally not right for someone to come and destroy the place of worship.”

The center was also vandalized in March, and BCSO investigator Jonathan Rogers said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is handling the case and have leads.

Besides the damages to the door and windows, Tausique said nothing was stolen. During the last vandalism, a stink bomb was thrown into the building, which Tausique said smelled for days. Meanwhile, security cameras were installed and an extra patrol in the area at nights was requested.

Tausique said they just want to be treated like everyone else in the community. “We have families like anyone else, kids in school, jobs and business,” he said. ”Just because we are Muslim and we worship one God, doesn’t mean we’re not American.”

Daily Tribune News, 15 April 2011

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N_Ireland_Bomb

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Army defuses N. Ireland van bomb, What if They Were Muslim?

Posted on 10 April 2011 by Amago

The IRA, a terrorist organisation that Peter King supported financially and politically through the 80′s and recently in 2005, has been quite active in recent weeks. Imagine if the bomb that was found was left by a Muslim, we would not hear the end of it. The question one should ask is: why are Muslims being put on trial?

Peter King must be happy to hear about the Homeland Security hearing in Manhattan. King started something “revolutionary,” putting Muslim Americans and Islam on trial and now his minions are following.  But King felt it was important to give praise to one special minion, Greg Ball

Here is a good summary from AlJazeera on the IRA and their recent surge in activity.

Hat tip: Europeans Against Islamophobia

Army defuses N Ireland van bomb

(AlJazeera)

Police say device was likely set by dissident Republicans to cause disruption ahead of election campaign.

Army bomb-experts in Northern Ireland have defused a 225-kilogramme van bomb near the Irish border.

The bomb, hidden underneath a motorway bridge near the main Dublin-Belfast road, was rendered inactive on Saturday following an 18-hour operation.

Police said that the bomb had been set by dissident Republicans to cause “huge devastation” in the nearby town of Newry ahead of Northern Ireland’s election campaign.

They said that it had likely been abandoned short of its target and before it could be detonated.

Two warning calls were made to police about the bomb on Friday.

“In this case, this bomb may have been on its way to the centre of the town,” David McKittrick, Ireland correspondent for the UK’s Independent newspaper, told Al Jazeera.

“The security forces were successful in stopping that happneing, but at the same time they weren’t successful in preventing the making of the bomb and there were hold-ups, once the bomb was discovered, in clearling the area.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bomb, but police said a phone call to warn about the bomb used a code word previously used by dissident Republicans.

Impatient motorists

Police shut the road following the discovery of the bomb, but impatient motorists unwilling to take a diversion moved the traffic cones and “road closed” signs.

BBC Northern Ireland footage showed dozens of cars driving directly past the van before police reinforced the barriers.

The bomb was double the size of those used in a number of bombings last year by Irish Republican Army (IRA) dissidents, none of which caused serious injuries.

Recent weeks have seen a surge in activity by IRA dissident groups opposed to the 1998 peace agreement which largely ended three decades of violence that killed more than 3,600 people.

A week ago Ronan Kerr, a 25-year-old police constable, was killed when a bomb exploded under his car in Omagh, an attack police suspect was organised by IRA dissidents to scare Catholics from joining the north’s police force.

The killing prompted a public outcry in Ireland.

Detectives said they had detained a 33-year-old near Omagh on Friday night in the third arrest connected with the murder.

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Peter King Proud of his Bigoted Partner, Greg Ball

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Peter King Proud of his Bigoted Partner, Greg Ball

Posted on 08 April 2011 by Amago

New York State Senator Gregory Ball speaks during a hearing on Homeland Security.

Peter King must be happy to hear about the Homeland Security hearing in Manhattan. King started something “revolutionary,” putting Muslim Americans and Islam on trial and now his minions are following.  But King felt it was important to give praise to one special minion, Greg Ball:

“This is a first rate hearing,” King said. “I hear some rumblings from people opposed to it. I just wish the Muslim community and the leadership would be much more cooperative on these hearings, not see everything as being an attack on them.”

The same old tired line, when is King going to stop with the baseless accusations of Muslim American non-cooperation, something contradicted by law enforcement, a group conspicuously absent (excepting Lee Baca) from King’s last hearing?

King of course is infamous for saying that 85% of mosques are run by radicals, and now he’s changing up the numbers:

Mr. King prefaced his comments by noting that “99 percent” of Muslims in the United States are “outstanding Americans” and not terrorists.

It seems he can’t make his mind up? Or maybe he realized that people were catching onto the fact that what he said was full of B.S.? At the end of the day watch him squirm and try to claim that he is right on both (contradictory) statements.

If you didn’t catch Loonwatch’s live tweets of the hearings, here is a decent summary:

Hearing on Terror Includes Heated Debate on Islam

By THOMAS KAPLAN (NYTimes Blogs)

In a local reprise of a polarizing Congressional hearing last month on the question of Islam and terror, state lawmakers warned in grave terms on Friday of the threats facing the New York area, while other lawmakers and interfaith groups criticized the proceedings as anti-Muslim and incendiary.

The hearing, which was convened by the State Senate’s homeland security committee, was something of a spectacle: Security was ramped up at the office building in Lower Manhattan where state legislators have work space, and television cameramen easily outnumbered lawmakers.

Adding to the theatrics, the hearing began to great fanfare with testimony from the lawmaker who convened the Congressional hearing, Representative Peter T. King, a Long Island Republican, who has promised further federal inquiries into what he describes as the radicalization of American Muslims.

Mr. King prefaced his comments by noting that “99 percent” of Muslims in the United States are “outstanding Americans” and not terrorists.

“But the fact is: The enemy, or those being recruited by Al Qaeda, live within the Muslim community, and that’s the reality we have to face,” Mr. King said. “This is not to put a broad brush over a community, but you go where the threat is coming from, and that’s the reality today.”

Mr. King testified at the invitation of Senator Gregory R. Ball, a Putnam County Republican who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs. Mr. Ball was criticized by Muslim and interfaith groups as well as a group of Senate Democrats for his inclusion of Islamic law as one of the hearing’s topics; they accused him of exploiting the threat of terrorism to incite a fear of Muslims among the broader public.

But on Friday, as reporters crammed into a low-ceilinged meeting room for the daylong hearing, Mr. Ball defended the scope of the committee’s inquiry, saying that he asked lawmakers to propose other witnesses but received very little input.

“There are some who are more concerned about the front-page press than today,” Mr. Ball said. “I understand politics. But we cannot allow our homeland security to become a political football.”

Among the witnesses whose scheduled testimony provoked the most criticism was Nonie Darwish, an Egyptian-born American who is president of a group called Former Muslims United, and Frank Gaffney, a former Defense Department official who has often criticized Islam.

Ms. Darwish testified on Friday that young people in the Arab world are taught as children to hate America and to look favorably on terrorism. “The education of Arab children is to make killing of certain groups of people not only good,” she said. “It’s holy. It becomes holy in our culture.”

Her testimony was met with an angry rebuke from Senator Eric Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat, who held up a Koran and said that Ms. Darwish was “bringing hate and poison” to the hearing. Mr. Ball tried to quiet Mr. Adams, and their back-and-forth descended into a shouting match, with Mr. Adams suggesting that Mr. Ball was condoning bigotry and Mr. Ball accusing him of pandering to the news media.

“I’m glad that nobody is between those TV cameras and you, because that’s the most dangerous place in New York City right now,” Mr. Ball snapped.

In his testimony, Mr. Gaffney decried Sharia law as a threat to the United States and said that American efforts to prevent future acts of terrorism have been “hobbled, frankly, by what we consider to be politically correct blinders.”

He added that the Muslim community center and mosque proposed to be built near ground zero “fits the profile of triumphalist mosques built on sacred ground of defeated people elsewhere around the world.”

“I believe it should not be allowed to happen here,” Mr. Gaffney said.

While the testimony on Islam offered the most drama, the bulk of the hearing was spent discussing matters far less politically charged. A parade of law enforcement officials and counterterrorism experts offered what amounted to a verbal encyclopedia of terror threats, and legislators added their own possibilities, too.

Senator Martin J. Golden, a Brooklyn Republican, wondered whether someone could shoot down an airplane using a heat-seeking missile. Mr. Ball asked about the safety of the AirTrain system at Kennedy Airport. And Mr. King worried about an attack on the New York City subway system or the use of a dirty bomb.

“I would just say that as we approach the 10th anniversary, not for people to look upon Sept. 11 as just some historical moment like Gettysburg or Pearl Harbor or Bunker Hill,” Mr. King said. “It was the first battle in a war which is still being waged.”

At times, however, those at the hearing seemed less than interested in the technical discussion that dominated most of the session. During the testimony of Richard Daddario, the New York Police Department’s top counterterrorism official, at least three people in the audience were fast asleep.

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Legislators introducing anti-Sharia bills don’t know anything about Sharia

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Legislators introducing anti-Sharia bills don’t know anything about Sharia

Posted on 07 April 2011 by Rousseau

Loon Lawyer David Yerushalmi is behind the surge of anti-Sharia bills

It might be a good idea for us LoonWatchers to begin to contact these state senators and representatives and provide them with information about the Loons who are behind these proposed anti-Sharia bills. Sure, they may not care, but at the very least I think it could lead some of these officials to reconsider sponsoring these bills once they find out that 1) there is no threat posed by Sharia to our legal system, and 2) that the people pushing these bills are wacked out crazies who foam at the mouth at the mentioning of Islam and Muslims (i.e. they’re bigots).

Salon.com – The sharia panic factory by Justin Elliot

One of the more striking things about the current anti-sharia craze is how often state legislators who introduce anti-sharia bills can’t answer basic questions about Islamic law or why they see it as a threat.

In Alabama, for example, when the state senator who sponsored an anti-sharia bill was asked by a reporter to simply define sharia, he responded: “I don’t have my file in front of me.” In Florida, anti-sharia bill sponsors couldn’t name a single case where Islamic or international law had been used in a troubling way in U.S. courts. When, on Wednesday, I interviewed a Nebraska state senator behind a similar bill, I asked him about what cases were causes of concern to him. He responded: “I’m not in my office to look them up.”

How could all these legislators be so uninformed about their own bills? A big part of the reason is that most of them did not actually write the legislation in question. Rather, many of the anti-sharia bills being considered around the country are either based on or directly copied from model legislation created by an obscure far-right Arizona attorney and activist named David Yerushalmi.

The Nebraska case is instructive. State Sen. Mark Christensen introduced a bill(.pdf) in January to bar the use of any foreign law in Nebraska courts. When I spoke to Christensen on Wednesday, he acknowledged he did not have a deep understanding of the issue, referring me back to his office when I asked him what cases involving sharia or foreign law were troubling to him.

He summed up his reason for sponsoring the bill: “This is America. We use America’s law.” (For more on what sharia actually is, see here and here.)

It turns out Christensen introduced the bill after his office was approached by the head of the local chapter of the anti-Muslim group ACT! for America, Christensen aide Dan Wiles told me. ACT! for America is a Florida-based group led by Brigitte Gabriel. In a profile last month, the New York Times detailed Gabriel’s strategy of selectively quoting the Quran to paint most or all Muslims as violent extremists.

“They came and talked to several different senators, and Sen. Christensen decided to introduce the bill,” Wiles said, adding that he was presented with model legislation. “It pretty much was exactly what was drafted and introduced,” he said. “Everything substantive was the same.”

The model legislation in question originates with Yerushalmi, the Arizona lawyer who is associated with several organizations including the American Public Policy Alliance. The model anti-foreign law bill on the Public Policy Alliance’s website has been used in states including Florida, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri and South Dakota. It is called “American Laws for American Courts.”

Who is Yerushalmi? His background leaves little doubt that these anti-”foreign law” bills are designed to target sharia.

He has written, for example, that “The Muslim peoples, those committed to Islam as we know it today, are our enemies.” A group he founded, the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), has reportedly advocated for a law making it a felony “punishable by 20 years in prison to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Islam.” The Anti-Defamation League has also called out Yerushalmi for his “anti-black bigotry.” (Mother Jones also has a good profile of Yerushalmi here.)

So next time the sponsor of an anti-sharia bill can’t answer basic questions about Islamic law, it’s a good sign Yerushalmi’s role deserves more scrutiny.

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Geert Wilders: Racist Gets Crazier with Article on Prophet Muhammad

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Geert Wilders: Racist Gets Crazier with Article on Prophet Muhammad

Posted on 07 April 2011 by Garibaldi

Geert Wilders, the racist, anti-Muslim, Islamophobic Dutch politician is upping the anti-Islam rhetoric in the face of his incitement to hate trial. Wilders and his supporters and patrons claim that Wilders is not a racist and that his trial is an attack on free speech. One thing for sure though is that Wilders is definitely a racist:

Recently, Wilders, in a bid to get more attention attacked the Prophet Muhammad in an article using tired and old Orientalist/Christian missionary arguments that Muhammad suffered from “schizophrenia” (Did Wilders travel back in time with a psychiatrist to evaluate Muhammad?), and other baseless claims that we have grown accustomed to from the anti-Muslim crowd.

The Telegraph (Conservative UK paper) reported on Geert Wilders’ increased anti-Islam rhetoric though they failed miserably in critiquing the haters Wilders cited in his Muhammad article, even calling them “academics”:

The leader of hard-Right Dutch Freedom Party will be prosecuted in an Amsterdam court on April 13 for previous comparisons of Islam to Nazism.

On Thursday he fuelled the controversy surrounding his anti-Muslim politics and trial by publishing an article citing academics who accuse Islam’s founder of crimes ranging from child rape to murder.

Who are some of the “academics” Wilders cites?

Ali Sina: He is familiar to most of us as a nobody, rabid anti-Muslim polemicist, a far less popular male version of Pamela Geller. He believes Muslims are “satan worshippers” who follow a “demon prophet,” and that Muslims have “sold their soul to Satan” and therefore are “destined for hell.”

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff: Her claim to fame is that she believes “Muslims rape children” and that Muslims are “destroying Austrian culture.”

Theophanes: Byzantine Christian from the late 8th and early 9th centuries, venerated as a saint. No bias there?

Masud Ansari: An Iranian dissident who claims to hold a BA in Law, an MA in Political Science and claims to have received his doctorate in “hypnotherapy” from what was then known as American Pacific University (now Kona University) which specializes in “distance learning.” His book “Psychology of Mohammed” carries an illustration on its cover that shows a Qur’an with a bloodied sword superimposed over it.

Not biased in the least I suppose?

These individuals are either hard core anti-Muslims with racist tendencies or ancient individuals, as in the case of Theophanes, who not only has been dead for a while but also had an axe to grind against Islam and Muslims, considering the waning power of Byzantium and the rise of Muslim power at the time.

The Telegraph goes on to mention that Wilders’ hate incitement trial will move forward:

In a ruling on Wednesday, an Amsterdam court ruled that Dutch prosecutors were entitled to indict Mr Wilders, if found guilty, he could face up to a year in jail or a £6,700 fine.

First off it does not matter to most people what Wilders says or does, they recognize that free speech, even that of a cretin such as Wilders is important and insures their own liberty, which ironically many Islamophobes hypocritically seek to curtail. Secondly, this underscores the point that Wilders is a demagogic inspiration for racists, neo-Nazis and virulent anti-Muslim groups that are a true danger to the freedom, peace and security of our societies. What Wilders is doing is similar to yelling “fire” in a crowded theater (if not worse). In this scenario, the theater is filled with mostly scared, disgruntled and angry White Europeans, neo-Nazis, EDL and SIOE types and Wilders is yelling “the Mooslims! They’re heeree!” Finally, if there is a strong argument that he is inciting violence or harm he can be tried so as to reduce the harm he potentially may inflict upon Dutch/European society.

However, as we have stated previously no matter what the outcome of any trial, Wilders is already guilty in the court of public perception.

*Update: First of all I want to express my gratitude to Danios, Rousseau, and Inconnu who graciously brought up their point of view on free speech, its value and protection. Upon revisiting my sentence, I can see how it may be misinterpreted and also how my own evaluation of the context of the case was askew.

We have to be clear that free speech is invaluable, it is something we take for granted that once lost is hard to regain. If Wilders’ trial is merely about his despicable, repellent, offensive statements and ideas then I for one think it should not go forward. I also agree with Mosizzle’s point that we don’t want to make Wilders out to be a martyr, I would add that we also wouldn’t want an unintended consequence of this case to be increased poll ratings. An important distinction however would be if the issue at hand is not concerning the above, but rather  incitement to hate and violence– I believe a case can be made on these grounds.

The profound irony, as pointed out by some is that Wilders himself infringes on free speech by calling for the banning of the Quran, yet fancies himself a warrior for free speech. Lastly, I will say free speech is not absolute, and the deeper conversation (which goes beyond the space afforded here) is how do we walk the fine line of preventing harm and violence while at the same time not infringing or taking away from our civil liberties? In our increasingly  complex world answers to that question are not so simple.

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New York Senate to Host Infamous Islamophobic Bigot at Security Hearing, Interfaith Groups to Challenge

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New York Senate to Host Infamous Islamophobic Bigot at Security Hearing, Interfaith Groups to Challenge

Posted on 06 April 2011 by Greeneye

Nonie giving a passionate anti-Muslim lecture

For years now, the U.S. government has left counter-terrorism training dangerously unregulated such that millions of dollars were spent on private contractors who present Islam as an inherently violent religion and all Muslims as suspects. This is no shock to Loonwatchers who’ve been watching fake scholars like Robert Spencer brag about their bogus presentations before government security agencies. Unfortunately, the problem still persists and officials continue to receive training in Islamophobic doctrine rather than real counter-terrorism skills, all courtesy of the U.S. tax-payers.

In the latest round of hate-for-hire, the New York State Senate will hold a hearing entitled, “Reviewing our Preparedness: An Examination of New York’s Public Protection Ten Years After 9/11” starring none other than loon-at-large, caught-in-a-pool-of-lies Nonie Darwish (Peter King will also make a cameo).

Like most in the anti-Muslim business, Nonie has a greatly exaggerated personal sob-story backed up by book deals and speaking engagements in all the typical “hating on Muslim” venues. She sells herself as a “human rights activist,” as do so many other virulent Muslim-bashers, though she doesn’t seem to care too much about the human rights of Muslims. This time, however, she will be using the pseudonym “Nahid Hyde,” perhaps as a not-so-clever way of avoiding government inquiry into her association with other bigots and white supremacists. Yet, even a cursory view of her ridiculous book titles should cause any serious security official to question her credibility as a fair and impartial witness.

The reviewer of her latest book, “Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law,” (which sells for a whopping $28.99) stated:

In her estimation, Islam is a backward and authoritarian ideology that is attempting to impose on the world the norms of seventh-century Bedouin life. For Darwish, Islam is a sinister force that must be resisted and contained.

It must be difficult to pack so many stereotypes into 272 pages, but Ms. Darwish has done it, making such bold generalizations and demonstrably false claims as:

Sharia is incompatible with any state that has as a foundational principle the equality of the sexes before the law.

Perhaps she should “educate” the Grand Mufti of Egypt, who recently remarked:

Egypt’s religious tradition is anchored in a moderate, tolerant view of Islam. We believe that Islamic law guarantees freedom of conscience and expression (within the bounds of common decency) and equal rights for women. And as head of Egypt’s agency of Islamic jurisprudence, I can assure you that the religious establishment is committed to the belief that government must be based on popular sovereignty.

But disclosing some enlightening and nuanced facts about contemporary Islam or the multivalent, non-monolithic view and relationship Muslims have with Islamic Law would ruin her book sales and speaking tours, wouldn’t it?

Like other Islamophobes, she is careful to make a distinction between Islam and Muslims, so as not to appear like the plain bigot she is:

Darwish is careful to distinguish between people and ideas: “The purpose of this book is not to spread hatred of a people but to tell the truth about the wickedness of Islamic Sharia law.”

Such distinctions are disingenuous, pro-forma statements that only fool the naïve into thinking she isn’t a professional hate-monger. (Right, just like how Pam Geller loves those Moozlims so much she wants to drop nuclear bombs on them, out of love, of course.)

Contrary to her assertion, Ms. Darwish regularly engages in dehumanizing rhetoric about all Muslims, not just extremists. She even told the New York Times:

A mosque is not just a place for worship. It’s a place where war is started, where commandments to do jihad start, where incitements against non-Muslims occur. It’s a place where ammunition was stored.

That was one of her tamer statements dressed up before a liberal audience. Such sweeping outright lies have been instrumental in the spread of anti-Muslim, anti-Sharia, and anti-Mosque hysteria in our country, materializing in over 800 documented cases of anti-Muslim violence and discrimination. When confronted about her lies, she will likely attempt to dismiss her critics as agents of the Mad Mullah Conspiracy, rather than owning up to the falsity of her claims.

So I don’t believe her for a second when she says she is not spreading hatred. She is spreading hatred, blatantly, and making a buck while doing it, this time at the expense of hardworking New Yorkers’ taxes. In less than a week she is going to tell the New York Senate that basically every Muslim is a suspect, thereby misdirecting valuable law enforcement resources away from violent extremists and onto the majority of peaceful, law-abiding American Muslim citizens. We will all be less safe as a result.

The citizens of New York deserve better than this. The American people deserve better. They have the right to know why the government is funding clearly biased, hateful individuals who have absolutely no credibility. For this reason, a coalition of civil rights and interfaith organizations will hold a news conference on the steps of City Hall in Manhattan to challenge this expected anti-Islam bias in the State Senate, Thursday, April 7th, at 1pm.

The American people deserve testimony from impartial security experts, not this Islamophobic nonsense about stealth Jihad and Islamic boogeymen hiding under every bed. It’s time for the government to be held accountable and to stop playing these dangerous political games with our security.

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Richard Silverstein: David Yerushalmi Threatens Defamation Lawsuit

Posted on 06 April 2011 by Amago

Richard Silverstein takes David Yerushalmi to task. Yerushalmi threatened him with a lawsuit, it didn’t work out for old Yeru.

David Yerushalmi Threatens Defamation Lawsuit

by Richard Silverstein (TikkunOlam)

NOTE: I originally published this post in reply to a threat of a defamation lawsuit from David Yerushalmi.  I temporarily withdrew it in order to consult with counsel.  I post this now.

But before I do, since I wrote this, the Anti Defamation League, a group with whom I often disagree, has published a strong denunciation of Yerushalmi’s views under the headline “Extremism,” which is worth noting:

One of the driving forces behind Shari’a-related conspiracy theories and growing efforts to ban or restrict the use of Shari’a law in American courts is David Yerushalmi, an Arizona attorney with a record of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black bigotry.

…Yerushalmi has not only actively promoted his conspiratorial vision of Shari’a law, but has also sought to portray all Muslims as a threat. In one March 2006 article, for example, Yerushalmi even went so far as to claim that “Muslim civilization is at war with Judeo-Christian civilization…The Muslim peoples, those committed to Islam as we know it today, are our enemies.”

That same year, Yerushalmi founded the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), a “think tank” that has published anti-Muslim, anti-immigration and anti-black materials, as well as New World Order-style conspiracy theories.

…Yerushalmi’s main instrument, SANE, is also openly hostile to undocumented migrants in the United States. It advocates somehow sealing all American borders and building “special criminal camps” to house undocumented migrants…

…Yerushalmi [has] defend[ed] people accused of anti-Semitism such as Mel Gibson and Pat Buchanan because they “have the potential to save the West from itself and from Islam.”

The statement doesn’t at all deal with Yerushalmi’s Kahane-like pro-settler views about Israel, which is understandable since the ADL’s difference with him on this subject might be more nuanced.  But such as it is, the statement should gain broad visibility and further reinforce Yerushalmi’s reputation as a far-right anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim bigot.

My original post follows:

A short time ago I published a post about David Yerushalmi’s leadership of various state campaigns to ban Sharia law.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a few years you’ll remember back to 2007 when I wrote several posts about Yerushalmi’s leadership role in the campaign against New York’s Khalil Gibran Academy and the accompanying demonization and forced removal of principal Debbie Almontaser (which was later found wrongful by an EEOC ruling).  I reviewed his then publicly-accessible website, Saneworks, for the overtly racist rhetoric it contained.  I called him then a “Jewish white supremacist.”

Mother Jones recently published its own profile of Yerushalmi’s efforts to ban Sharia law and called him simply a “white supremacist.”  Apparently, he didn’t like that.  Didn’t like it one bit.  As a result he sent Mother Jones a message saying that he was compiling a record of the magazine’s coverage of him as part of a legal brief.  Not exactly a threat of a lawsuit, but not far from one.

To me he was far more explicit.  He sent this to a lawyer representing me in my current libel suit which will be heard in Los Angeles in the coming days:

I am reluctantly forced to revisit the statements your client, Richard Silverstein, has made about me on his blog. When he first attacked me personally and stated that I was a fascist, racist, and Kahanist, I ignored them, even as others of his ilk provided these baseless statements “legs” allowing countless more “eyes” the opportunity to read what your client understood and represented to be carefully calculated factual statements about me.  These statements are demonstrably false and your client made them knowing they were false or acting recklessly in this regard.  This recklessness I believe was established in his deposition testimony in the Neuwirth case.

I ignored these publications because your client uses this kind of ad hominem invective on a regular basis and I was just one of many people he attacked personally without any real factual basis.

Unfortunately, your client has republished the original articles via links in a most recent piece stating that I am a white supremacist. I might still have ignored this except for the fact that it has now concretely and specifically injured me in my legal profession in Arizona. I have now lost an African American client who was prepared to retain my firm but for your clients defamatory publications, because he could not afford to be associated with someone accused of such beliefs even though he knows I do not hold these beliefs. Much of his business is in public relations and this charge by your client was for him too much to sustain.

My staff and family have prevailed upon me to sue your client for defamation. Again, I am reluctant given the First Amendment issues, but I believe there is a strong basis to assert that his wholly unfounded, false, and defamatory statements, which have now led to concrete damages that I can measure minimally in excess of $100,000 suggests to me that my staff and family have the better argument.

The suit will be brought in Arizona.  An interesting and related case is Yetman v. English, 168 Ariz. 71, 811 P.2d 323 (1991).

I certainly understand your client will raise the standard First Amendment defenses: opinion, hyperbole, no actual malice.  If we get past these, your client will have the opportunity to test “truth” as a defense. It is to that end and to that purpose I am now drafting my complaint.

Your client may avoid the suit by deleting all articles published on his blog or other forum that refer to me in the defamatory ways described.

I am providing this to you confidentially.  If you client chooses to make this public, and he certainly may, this settlement offer is rescinded.

Thank you.

David Yerushalmi

Law Offices of David Yerushalmi, P.C.:

Washington, D.C., New York, California & Arizona

I’ve debated how to address this threat and of course I’ve engaged pro bono legal case in the event he follows through on it.  But I will not be cowed by a bully.  I stand by the posts I’ve written by him.  I will not remove them.  I will gladly meet him in court or anywhere in defense of both my right to speak and publish, and the truth of the statements I’ve written about him.

David Yerushalmi is a fraud.  His claims about Islam are false, as anyone with any real knowledge of the religion will tell you.  His game is political opportunism to advance a strident right-wing anti-Muslim agenda.  An earlier iteration of his anti-jihad campaign involved a colleague, Dave Gaubatz, who did a “James O’Keefe” and infiltrated Virginia mosques posing as a new member.  They published their supposedly shocking accounts of radical jihadist activity which turned out to be “sky is falling” nonsense.  Gaubatz, for those of you who may not remember, was recently successfully sued for arranging for his son to pose as a CAIR intern, whereupon he stole internal organization documents for the purposes of discrediting CAIR.  The court ordered Gaubatz to return the documents.

Even Yerushalmi’s name is fake.  His family birth name is Beychok, born of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants to America.  To be clear, I’m not saying that Yerushalmi’s legal name isn’t that.  I’m talking about the underlying motivations regarding Jewish nationalist identity that are involved in such a name change.  Yerushalmi means “from Jerusalem.”  Yerushalmi is as much a resident of Jerusalem as I am.  He doesn’t live in Jerusalem nor do I.  Let me make clear that I have no problem with Jewisholim changing their name once they move to Israel, taking Hebrew names such as Yerushalmi.  But to do so when you live in America is pure preciousness.  He wants to tell you that he supports the settler concept of the eternal inviolability of Jerusalem as a Jewish city and capital.  He wants to tell you he believes in the whole nine yards of ultra-Orthodox extremism regarding God’s sacred gift of all of the Land of Israel to the entire Jewish people in perpetuity.

Yerushalmi denies he is a white Jewish supermacist, yet writes in his website and other online venues nonsense like this:

…Our constitutional republic was specifically designed to insulate our national leaders from the masses,democracy has seeped up through the cracks and corroded everything we once deemed sacred about our political order. Prior to the Civil War, the electorate, essentially white Christian men, had access to local government. It was here, where men shared an intimacy born of family ties, shared religious beliefs, and common cultural signposts, that representative government was meant to touch our daily lives. With the social and cultural revolution which followed the emancipation, man’s relationship to political order was radically nationalized and democratized.

And believe me, Yerushalmi doesn’t use the term “democratized” in a flattering way.  Here he clarifies that he isn’t opposed to the paternalistic democracy of the Founding Fathers in which selection of senators and even the president was not given directly to the people (or as he calls them, “the masses”):

The founding fathers themselves of course opposed “democracy” in its simple form and created a wonderfully elaborate system to shield government from mass democracy

Here he expounds on the perniciousness of:

Raw or radical democracy where all men and all ideas and all cultures are deemed equal and given equal voice. That is of course the agenda of the Left…

Yerushalmi of course opposes Israeli democracy as well, or at least the current version which accords rights to Israeli Palestinian citizens.  Larry Cohler Esses, in a series he wrote for Jewish Week on the Stop the Madrassa campaign led by Yerushalmi, noted that the latter called for Israel to “cast off the yoke of liberal democracy.”

It should be noted that Meir Kahane maintained precisely the same dismissive attitude toward Israeli democracy, saying that if given a choice between the latter and a Jewish state he would choose the latter.  In fact, Kahane was perfectly comfortable with a Jewish state that was not democratic.  It should come as no surprise that during a session in which he deposed me for the libel lawsuit I mentioned above, he revealingly referred to Kahane with the honorific, “the Rov” (or “Rabbi”), a traditional Jewish way by which yeshiva students refer to an honored teacher.

Cohler Esses also notes that Yerushalmi believes that left-wing Jews:

…Destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite…One must admit readily that the radical liberal Jew is a fact of the West and a destructive one. Indeed, Jews in the main have turned their backs on the belief in G-d and His commandments as a book of laws for a particular and chosen people.

Most Israelis are raging Leftists, and this includes the so-called nationalists who found a home in the ‘right-wing’ Likud political bloc or one of the other smaller and more marginal right wing parties.

What’s extraordinary here is that even the far-right secular nationalists of Likud come under withering condemnation.  The only true Jews and true Zionists can be the ultra-Orthodox like himself.

In a recent NPR interview, he either dissembles regarding his true views or he has radically reversed himself since he published earlier statements I’ve quoted previously in this blog.  Here are some of his earlier legislative proposals regarding Islam in American life:

…Islam requires all Muslims to actively and passively support the replacement of America’s constitutional republic with a political system based upon Shari’a.

…Adherence to Islam as a Muslim is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the US Government through the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the US Constitution and the imposition of Shari’a on the American People.

HEREFORE, IT IS RESOLVED THAT: It shall be a felony punishable by 20 years in prison to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Shari’a.

The Congress of the United States of America shall declare the US at war with the Muslim Nation.

He has clearly soft-pedaled such extremist views in order to win acceptance for them in the context of this current anti-Muslim national legislative campaign.  But compare the following claim about his legislation (from the NPR interview) with the above views and judge for yourself whether this leopard has changed its spots:

The law does not even criminalize the absolute practice of Shariah. In fact, you could go to Times Square and you could print out: I advocate Shariah, I even advocate, in theory, jihad against America and my statute does not touch you. The statute says the attorney general simply designates someone who practices a Shariah with terrorism component.

Given what I quoted above, you tell me whether or not the following statement from the interview is a lie:

Q:…Is your view of the measure [the anti-Sharia law bill] motivated in part by a view that Islam is inherently violent and that its adherents are inherently predisposed to violence because of their commitment to religious Islam?

Mr. YERUSHALMI: No.

And in this statement, he doesn’t exactly lie, but he deliberately deceives the listener into believing in his pro-Muslim altruism, which is in truth anything but:

I have represented pro bono Muslim-Americans.

He is indeed representing, as far as I know, three Muslim-Americans who were allegedly legal clients of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  They are suing CAIR.  David Yerushalmi is on a political jihad against CAIR, which he views inaccurately as a pro-jihadi Muslim extremist organizations.  So yes, he’s representing a grand total of three Muslim-Americans in a single case, but only because he believes it will advance his own anti-Muslim political agenda.

Let’s examine this statement too in light of what I quoted above:

I have stated on the record, the pietistic worship of the divine through Islamic worship, Jewish worship, Christian worship, atheistic worship or humanistic, is protected and absolutely sacrosanct in our system.

How can you claim the above, when you’ve also called for the U.S. Congress to declare war “on the Muslim nation?”  There may be a poorly drawn distinction he is trying to make here between Islam as a religion and what he considers radical Islam which professes, again according to him, Islam as a political system.  But you’d have to forgive most lay people for missing that distinction and believing he’s at war with all Islam.

In the interview he also makes the statement:

I…certainly can’t be a white supremacist, only because I’m an orthodox Jew…

That’s why I called him a “Jewish white supremacist” since that conveys that he isn’t the same as Richard Butler or the Aryan Nation.  Nevertheless, his views, especially those regarding Islam, are not that dissimilar.  Yes, he’s dressed up his ideology (or should I say, theology) with a certain level of intellectual rigor lacking in most white supremacists.  But the fact that he is a racist cannot be denied without doing violence to the truth.

Of course a Jew can be a white supremacist if he denounces “liberal democracy,” disdains minorities, and believes in waging “war against Islam,” as he has said.

Let me also make absolutely clear, my quarrel with David Yerushalmi is purely political.  It is a quarrel among Jews about the meaning of Jewish identity and the role of Israel in Jewish life.  It is a battle over ideas.  If he wants to have such a battle in a courtroom or any other venue, I’m prepared.  Of course, Yerushalmi prefers to hold the battle in the courtroom because he doesn’t trust the rude democracy of the blogs and internet.  He knows his ideas will lose in a free and fair debate as our founding fathers envisioned.  So he resorts to legal threats.  It’s really a reverse form of the term beloved by far-right pro-Israel advocates like Alan Dershowitz, lawfare.  That is, it’s a form of political harrassment through abuse of the legal system to bring purely political arguments which should be resolved in the traditional American way such things are resolved; and instead attempting to bankrupt or otherwise intimidate the victim into silence.

Some people also call these legal actions SLAPP (Strategic Limitation Against Public Participation) suits which are often used by companies and other well-heeled individuals to limit discussion of issues sensitive to them.

The anti-jihadi lawyer’s claim of damage or losing business is a twisted version of what he attempts to do to his enemies.  He knows how difficult it is for an individual blogger to retain pro bono legal counsel and take the years that such cases can involve.  So he holds this over one’s head as a cudgel to stifle free speech and debate.  Well, not this blogger.  Not now.  Not ever.

Finally, I have no personal malice whatsoever against Yerushalmi.  I don’t know him personally.  I don’t want to know him personally.

NOTE: Yerushalmi has withdrawn his lawsuit threat in a note he sent to my counsel.

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Rampant Sexual Harassment of Women…in the West

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Rampant Sexual Harassment of Women…in the West

Posted on 05 April 2011 by Garibaldi

Anti-Muslim bigots such as Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Geert Wilders and co. love to trot out the talking point that Muslims (due to Islam of course) are unique in harassing and oppressing women. According to them, anytime a Muslim man harasses or otherwise assaults a woman it is considered a result of Islam or somehow encouraged by “Islamic behavior.”

This belief, however, is not limited to anti-Muslim bigots but has also crept into the popular imagination and perception of the mainstream. This was evident during the Egyptian Revolution when reporters, pundits and opinion-makers latched onto the Lara Logan incident as a marker for Arab and Muslim societies, viewed as monoliths that are separately “unique” when it comes to the treatment of women.

Take for example Bill Maher, who took the incident as an opportunity to explain why “our culture” is better than “theirs” (Arabs, Muslims). We reported on Maher’s comments at the time:

On his last show Bill Maher went on a speel undermining the Democratic character of Revolutions sweeping across the Arab world. Amongst his ludicrous statements he claimed “women can’t vote in 19 of 22 Arab countries,” that “women who have dated an Arab man, the results aren’t good,” that “Arab men have a sense of “entitlement,” etc. He also went onto forward the argument that “we are better than them,” justifying it by implying he is not a “cultural relativist.”

Such statements not only defy facts and logic, not only are they racist but they serve to undermine the truth about the status of women in the world today. Maher’s all too typical tirade covers up the fact that what is at the heart of the problem is not a clash of cultures or civilizations (the familiar “us vs. them” paradigm), or a simple difference in the degree of harassment.

Reality asserts that at the end of the day, women are mistreated across the globe, across cultures, races, and religions at unfortunately high and gross levels.

The website Stopthestreetharassment.com deals with the issue of harassment, and in its category on statistics does away with the myth that somehow “harassment” and “assault” are unique to men from the Middle East or Muslim countries. The report indicates that this is a world-wide pandemic ranging from such divergent places as India, Europe, Egypt, Latin America and of course…the USA.

In its report on Statistics, stop the street harassment informs us:

In one of the first street harassment studies ever conducted, Carol Brooks Gardner, associate professor of sociology and women’s studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis, interviewed 293 women in Indianapolis, Indiana, over several years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The women were from every race, age, class, and sexual orientation category of the general population in Indiana and the United States. She oversampled women of color to better represent their experiences. Gardner found that every single woman (100 percent) could cite several examples of being harassed by unknown men in public and all but nine of the women classified those experiences as “troublesome.”

Using a national sample of 12,300 Canadian women ages 18 and older from 1994, sociology professors Ross Macmillan, Annette Nierobisz, and Sandy Welsh studied the impact of street harassment on women’s perceived sense of safety in 2000. During their research, they found that over 80 percent of the women surveyed had experienced male stranger harassment in public and that those experiences had a large and detrimental impact on their perceived safety in public.

Laura Beth Nielsen, professor of sociology and the law at Northwestern University conducted a study of 100 women’s and men’s experiences with offensive speech in the California San Francisco Bay Area in the early 2000s. She found that 100 percent of the 54 women she asked had been the target of offensive or sexually-suggestive remarks at least occasionally: 19 percent said every day, 43 percent said often, and 28 percent said sometimes. Notably, they were the target of such speech significantly more often than they were of “polite” remarks about their appearance.

During the summer of 2003, members of the Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team in Chicago surveyed 168 neighborhood girls and young women (most of whom were African American or Latina) ages 10 to 19 about street harassment and interviewed 34 more in focus groups. They published their findings in a report titled “Hey Cutie, Can I Get Your Digits?” Of their respondents, 86 percent had been catcalled on the street, 36 percent said men harassed them daily, and 60 percent said they felt unsafe walking in their neighborhoods.

In 2007, the Manhattan Borough President’s Office conducted an online questionnaire about sexual harassment on the New York City subway system with a total of 1,790 participants. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents identified as women. Of the respondents, 63 percent reported being sexually harassed and one-tenth had been sexually assaulted on the subway or at a subway station. Due to collection methods used, the report “Hidden in Plain Sight: Sexual Harassment and Assault in the New York City Subway System” is not statistically significant, but it suggests that a large number of women experience problems on the subway system.

The author’s own studies support the pervasive and widespread nature of the problem of harassment that exists in the USA,

Nearly every woman I have talked to about this issue has been harassed by men in public. Further, every woman can cite strategies, such as avoiding going in public alone at night, which she uses to avoid harassment and assault. To learn more about women’s harassment experiences I conducted two informal, anonymous online surveys about street harassment: one in 2007 for my master’s thesis at George Washington University and one in 2008 as preliminary research for a book. Between both surveys, there were 1,141 respondents. Similar to the other studies conducted on street harassment, nearly every female respondent had experienced street harassment at least once.

In my first online survey, conducted during the spring of 2007, I asked the 225 respondents: “Have you ever been harassed (such as verbal comments, honking, whistling, kissing noises, leering/staring, groping, stalking, attempted or achieved assault, etc) while in a public place like the street, on public transportation, or in a store?” Ninety-nine percent of the respondents, which included some men, said they had been harassed at least a few times. Over 65 percent said they were harassed on at least a monthly basis.

Over 99 percent of the 811 female respondents (916 respondents total) of the second informal survey I conducted in 2008 said they had experienced some form of street harassment (only three women said they had not). In one question they could indicate the types of interactions they have had with strangers in public, here is a sampling of their responses.

  • Leering
    Ninety-five percent of female respondents were the target of leering or excessive staring at least once, and more than 68 percent reported being a target 26 times or more in their life.
  • Honking and whistling
    Nearly 95 percent of female respondents were honked at one or more times and 40 percent said they are honked at as frequently as monthly. Nearly 94 percent of female respondents were the target of whistling at least once and nearly 38 percent said it occurred at least monthly.
  • Kissing noises
    Just over 77 percent of women said they were the target of kissing noises from men and 48 percent said they’ve been the target at least 25 times in their life.
  • Making vulgar gestures
    Nearly 82 percent of female respondents were the target of a vulgar gesture at least once. About twenty percent said they had been a target at least 51 times.
  • Sexist comment
    Over 87 percent of women said they were the target of a sexist comment, and about 45 percent said they’ve been a target of a sexist comment in public at least 25 times in their life.
  • Saying sexually explicit comments
    Nearly 81 percent of female respondents were the target of sexually explicit comments from an unknown man at least once. More than 41 percent have been the target at least 26 times in their lives.
  • Blocking path
    About 62 percent of women say a man has purposely blocked their path at least once and 23 percent said this has happened at least six times.
  • Following
    Seventy-five percent of female respondents have been followed by an unknown stranger in public. More than 27 percent have been followed at least six times.
  • Masturbating
    More than 37 percent of female respondents have had a stranger masturbate at or in front of them at least once in public.
  • Sexual touching or grabbing
    Nearly 57 percent of women reported being touched or grabbed in a sexual way by a stranger in public. About 18 percent said they have been touched sexually at least six times.
  • Assaulting
    About 27 percent of women report being assaulted at least once in public by a stranger.

These jarring statistics of abuse, harassment and assault upon women in the “enlightened, culturally superior” West should give us pause and a heavy dose of perspective on the meaning of that age old adage, men are pigs.

Once and for all let us quit the holier-than-thou hypocritical obfuscation of the facts and realities on the ground when it comes to women and harassment. Women do not feel safe on Western streets, not because of the “evil Mooslims” but because too many men are unable or unwilling to control themselves.

To rectify this pandemic we must not divert the truth but face it head on. Instead of resorting to racist diatribes, innuendo, hate speech and efforts to destroy a race, religion and culture, organize to stop the harassment and aid in creating a safe space for women in our societies as opposed to the present status quo on our streets.

I encourage everyone to visit StoptheHarassment.com and check out how to End It.

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Students on trip to IDF base simulated shooting targets with Arab headdress

Posted on 04 April 2011 by Amago

Herzliya’s Hayovel School. Activities included target practice on silhouettes wearing keffiyehs. Photo by: Nir Keidar

Students on trip to IDF base simulated shooting targets with Arab headdress

Incident took place during at a military base where students were being escorted as part of an ‘IDF preparation’ project, sanctioned by the Education Ministry.

By Or Kashti

Twelfth-grade students from Herzliya’s Hayovel High School took part in a simulated shooting attack in which the targets were figures decked out with the Arab keffiyeh headdress, Haaretz has learned.

The incident took place at a military base last week during the annual 12th grade trip. The students were being escorted to a commanders’ base in the Negev as part of an “IDF preparation” project, which is sanctioned by the Education Ministry.

According to a person familiar with the details, the event was tantamount to “educating toward hatred of Arabs.”

“Some citizens of the State of Israel wear keffiyehs,” the source said. “Now they are viewed as legitimate targets for a shooting simulation.”

The trip concluded on Thursday. In a notice that was sent to parents, the school said that “the course of the trip is an inseparable part of the educational curriculum in general, and the ‘IDF preparation’ in particular.”

The first day of the trip included “activities with soldiers in commanders’ school,” according to the notice. The students met with soldiers on the base and heard lectures about the army and the importance of conscription.

During one of the discussions, the students were told that whoever does not serve in a combat unit “does not perform meaningful service.”

During the visit to the base, some of the students took part in an “electronic shooting range,” a computer-generated simulation that recreates a setting in which a soldier uses a laser-guided weapon to shoot targets. According to sources, the images in the electronic shooting range were outfitted with keffiyehs.

“From what I understood, the boys were more excited about this visit than the girls, some of whom preferred not to take part,” said the parent of one student on the trip. “I don’t think that it’s the education system’s job to train students to shoot.”

The “IDF preparation” project usually entails the visit of army officers to schools as well as occasional class trips to army bases for educational and instructional activities. This is believed to be one of the first times a visit to an army base has included students’ participation in a military activity. Children who are eligible for conscription usually undergo introductory military training as part of “Gadna Week,” which is not under the purview of the school system.

A school official said that the use of an electronic simulator that depicted a target wearing a keffiyeh “is certainly problematic, but this is a wider and more fundamental issue than our visit to the base. We have no intention of teaching the students to shoot people with keffiyehs.”

The Education Ministry did not issue a comment as of press time.

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AmericanMuslim.img_assist_custom

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The Truth About American Muslims

Posted on 04 April 2011 by Amago

More statistical evidence on the anti-Muslim wave post-9/11.

The Truth About American Muslims

At the Justice Department, it’s called the post-Sept. 11 backlash — the steady stream of more than 800 cases of violence and discrimination suffered by American Muslims at the hands of know-nothing abusers. These continuing hate crimes were laid bare at a valuable but barely noticed Senate hearing last week that provided welcome contrast to Representative Peter King’s airing of his xenophobic allegation that the Muslim-American community has been radicalized.

Offering federal data rather than mythic scapegoating of an easy political target, the Senate hearing focused on the fact that while Muslims make up 1 percent of the population, they are victims in 14 percent of religious discrimination cases. These range from homicides and mosque burnings to job, school and zoning law abuses, according to the Justice Department.

In running the hearing, Senator Richard Durbin tried to set the record straight about the patriotism of a vast majority of American-Muslim citizens and the continuing assaults on their civil rights. He warned against the “guilt by association” whipped up by Mr. King’s broadsides — that there are “too many mosques” in the nation, that most of them are extremist, and that American Muslim leaders have failed to cooperate with law enforcement against home-grown terrorism.

It was former President George W. Bush who first warned against turning on Muslim Americans after Sept. 11, 2001, stressing the fact that Islam is “a faith based upon love, not hate,” regardless of the religious veneer the fanatics of 9/11 tried to attach to their atrocities. Since then, American Muslims have served as the largest source of tips to authorities tracking terror suspects, according to a recent university study.

The Senate hearing was not designed as a full refutation of Representative King’s wild thesis, but it put a more human and factual face on a community that has been badly slurred. Mr. King is promising more committee haymakers. This is unfortunate. At least Mr. Durbin’s hearing made clear that the nation’s struggle against terrorism is best served by information, not dark generalizations.

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America_Cross_Flag

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“America Should Be Governed By Biblical Law”: David Barton

Posted on 03 April 2011 by Inconnu

Senior Research Director Chris Rodda chronicles the proceedings of a Conservative conference, the Rediscover God in America conference, in which its belief is that America should be governed by “Biblical law”:

While most eyes were on the Conservative Principles Political Action Committee conference in Iowa on Saturday, many of us who follow the religious right were more interested in another conference, also held in Iowa, on Thursday and Friday. This other conference was the Rediscover God in America conference, where all the same potential 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls that appeared at the Saturday’s Conservative Principles PAC conference told us what they really think — that America should be governed by biblical law.

One of the principle proponents of this view is David Barton, a much-loved “historian” featured by Glenn Beck and other right-wingers. In fact, potential Republican Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said at this conference that Americans should be forced, at gunpoint, to learn from David Barton. This statement, according to Rodda, was edited out of the webcast:

But the most outrageous statement by far came from Mike Huckabee, who expressed his admiration for Barton by saying that he “almost wished” that “all Americans would be forced — forced at gunpoint no less — to listen to every David Barton message.”

Now, I wasn’t watching the Rediscover God in America conference live on Thursday when Huckabee said this. I had planned on watching and recording the whole conference when it was webcast again on Saturday, so that’s when I saw Huckabee’s speech. I was quite surprised a few days later to come across a video clip from this conference on the People for the American Way (PFAW) Right Wing Watch blog with the headline “Huckabee: Americans Should Be Forced, At Gunpoint, To Learn From David Barton.” I had watched Huckabee’s speech. How on earth could I have missed a statement like that? Well, I didn’t. It had been edited out of the webcast that I had watched.

What if this was a Muslim? Would the Right, especially “Police Blotter Bob,” be silent? While lawmakers are in search of the “threat” from Sharia, there are Americans who are actively seeking to supplant our secular, Constitutional system with Biblical law, and Mike Huckabee thinks we Americans should be forced to learn about this under threat of death. Wow.

But, they are not Muslim, so no worries…

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wor_ivorycoast

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Muslims face growing attacks in Ivory Coast crisis

Posted on 03 April 2011 by Amago

In this photo taken on March 22, 2011, people pay there respects to Imam Souleyman Sissouma and his family at the Bilal Mosque during a funeral service in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Souleymane Sissouma was the third imam slain this month in a wave of anti-Muslim attacks so brutal his surviving family members were too afraid to attend his funeral. At least 10 mosques across Abidjan have been burned, and another was abandoned after attackers threw a grenade through a window during prayers. (AP)

What if the Muslims were attacking churches and killing innocent people, this would reach American channels quicker than we would realize. In the Ivory coast Muslims have been facing attacks for a while but recently these attacks are on the rise.

Muslims face growing attacks in Ivory Coast crisis

By MARCO CHOWN OVED | AP

As dozens of mourners gathered at a mosque, the twisted wreckage of a burned car lay outside — another sign of the growing campaign of violence against Muslims who widely support Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of November’s presidential election.

Ouattara, who is Muslim, is locked in a battle with the entrenched president Laurent Gbagbo for power, and their conflict is veering dangerously toward sectarian violence.

At least 10 mosques across Abidjan have been set ablaze, and another was abandoned after attackers threw a grenade through a window during prayers.

“Us Muslims, we’re not safe. We are the object of every kind of violence. We’re afraid. We don’t know how this is going to end,” said Imam Idriss Koudouss, president of the National Islamic Council. “And we aren’t even involved in politics.” Ouattara supporters also have been beaten to death with bricks, even doused with gasoline and burned alive. Cell phone videos of the horrors are traded on the street and broadcast on state television along with calls to arms.

“It’s the political manipulation of ethnicity,” said Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch.

“The root of the conflict is competition for political power and the fault lines are drawn along religious, ethnic and national lines.”

November’s presidential election was supposed to reunite the country after a 2002-2003 civil war split it into a rebel-controlled north and a loyalist south. But when Gbagbo refused to recognize UN-certified results showing that he lost, Ivory Coast was plunged back into a cycle of violence.

The UN says up to 1 million people have fled the fighting and at least 462 people have been killed, though Ouattara’s camp puts the toll at 832. The vast majority of these deaths were Ouattara supporters who were abducted and killed by Gbagbo-allied security forces, human rights groups say.

“We’re afraid. Everyone’s leaving,” said Abdias Goita, a father of two who waited outside the Malian embassy for evacuation Friday. “My brother had his door broken down by pro-Gbagbo militias. He gave them all the money he had — about 200,000 francs ($430) — but they slit his throat anyway.” During the presidential campaign, little was made of the fact that Ouattara would be Ivory Coast’s first Muslim president, drawing much of his support from the north. In the aftermath though, pro-Gbagbo police and militias have been widely accused of targeting Muslims because they are perceived as being defacto Ouattara supporters.

Last week, riot police showed up at Imam Sissouma’s mosque, arresting him and his son and taking the offering box. A fellow imam immediately called the interior minister to plead for their release and thought everything would be fine when Sissouma’s wife called to say they were back at home, safe and sound.

But Sissouma’s wife called back a half hour later to say the riot police had executed him and five other people, including his elderly mother.

Interior Minister Emile Guirieoulou acknowledged receiving the call, but refused to confirm the arrests or the killings, because the investigation is ongoing.

“In Ivory Coast, there have never been religious problems, Christians and Muslims live side by side. This tragic incident is a pure result of the political crisis,” said Imam Moussa Drame, whose own mosque was attacked in December.

Some 38.6 percent of Ivorians are Muslim, and 32.8 percent are Christians, according to the CIA World Factbook. An inter-religious council, made up of Christian and Muslim leaders is one of the country’s most respected institutions.

But xenophobia has long been a problem in this country, which has attracted millions of immigrant laborers from neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso. They came to work on plantations, especially cocoa farms that produce the raw material that goes into much of the world’s chocolate.

Resolving who would even be allowed to vote in the presidential election took years.

Now armed youth who support Gbagbo are stopping and threatening people at makeshift roadblocks across Abidjan.

Those with northern or Muslim names are accused of being pro-Ouattara rebels, and are beaten or killed, activists say.

Human Rights Watch reported dozens of ethnically and religiously motivated killings earlier this month, often carried out by the police or by pro-Gbagbo youth with police consent. Ouattara supporters were beaten to death “with bricks, clubs, and sticks, or doused them with gas and burned them alive.” Cell phone videos of the incidents have been posted on YouTube and Facebook, often accompanied by dehumanizing and anti-Muslim comments.

Fueling the fire is a relentless campaign of what the UN has called “lies” and “propaganda” on Gbagbo-controlled state television. The Radio-Television Ivorienne (RTI) is referred to by some foreign journalists as TV Mille Collines, in reference to the radio station that encouraged the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

In one report aired last week, the anchorman smiled as he described a dozen alleged rebels killed by pro-Gbagbo soldiers in central Abidjan as “culled like little birds.” Graphic images of their bloodied bodies were interspersed with images of soldiers giving each other high five and cheering crowds.

“The future Gbagbo proposes for his country is war, anarchy and violence, with ethnic, religious and xenophobic dimensions,” wrote Louise Arbour, president of the International Crisis Group, in an open letter this week.

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ray_gun

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Muslamic Ray Guns Being Used in Stealth Jihad

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Emperor

Well it is green you know?

Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller’s heroes, the EDL at it again, lets watch this genius:

Obviously the bloke is a little drunk…at least I hope he is. At the end of the day this group is a nativist, racist organization that doesn’t want to see any non-Whites or Muslims around.

Of course you know that it had to be autotuned:

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Daily-Star-001

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Daily Star Reporter Quits Over Fictional Anti-Muslim Stories

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Emperor

This is pretty bad even for a tabloid.

Daily Star reporter quits in protest at tabloid’s ‘anti-Muslim’ coverage

The Daily Star has been accused of printing fictional stories by a disgruntled reporter who has resigned over its “hatemongering” anti-Muslim propaganda.

In a resignation letter, Richard Peppiatt said he was leaving after the Star gave sympathetic coverage to the far-right English Defence League last month.

Peppiatt admits producing a number of fictional stories about celebrities during his two years at the tabloid, a practice he implies was sanctioned by his seniors.

The reporter, who was once made to dress up in a burqa, now accuses the paper of inciting racial tensions and Islamaphobia. “You may have heard the phrase ‘the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil sets off a tornado in Texas’,” Peppiatt wrote to the proprietor, Richard Desmond, in a letter seen by the Guardian.

“Well, try this: ‘The lies of a newspaper in London can get a bloke’s head caved-in down an alley in Bradford.’ If you can’t see that words matter, you should go back to running porn magazines.”

Desmond’s media empire has included pornographic magazines and adult TV channels as well as Express newspapers, Channel 5 and celebrity magazines. Desmond has said he was not consulted before the decision to publish the front-page story and editorial about the EDL.

Peppiatt tells him in his letter: “The weight of your ownership rests heavy on the shoulders of everyone, from the editor to the bloke who empties the bins.”

Peppiatt, who handed in his resignation this week, said the “incendiary” suggestion the EDL was planning to field election candidates was known to be an exaggeration. “But further up the newsprint chain it appears a story, too good to allow the mere spectre of reality to restrain, was spotted,” he wrote.

The EDL story is one of a number of prominent articles published by the Star that Peppiatt claims were made up, including some of his own. The reporter was recently involved in stories claiming Rochdale council had spent taxypayers’ money on “Muslim-only squat-hole loos”. In fact, the toilets were neither paid for by the local authority or “Muslim-only”.

“I was tasked with writing a gloating follow-up declaring our post-modern victory in ‘blocking’ the non-existent Islamic cisterns of evil,” Peppiatt wrote. The Press Complaints Commission later ruled the story was inaccurate and misleading.

The reporter also quotes Kelly Brook, who recently complained about the number of fabricated stories she reads about herself on the internet. She said: “There was a story that I’d seen a hypnotherapist to help me cut down on the time I take to get ready to go out. Where do they [journalists] get it from?”

Peppiatt wrote: “Maybe I should answer that one. I made it up. Not that it was my choice: I was told to.” He said he had “plucked” the story about Brook’s experimentation with hypnotherapy from his imagination, adding: “Not that it was all bad. I pocketed a £150 bonus.”

In a list of “my other earth-shattering exclusives” for the Star, Peppiatt recalls producing articles about Michael Jackson, the pop star Robbie Williams and Katie Price which he said had no factual basis.

He also admits making up a story suggesting that Matt Lucas was on suicide watch following the death of the comedian’s former civil partner. Lucas won substantial damages in court. Peppiatt criticises the Star’s editorial judgment in his letter, accusing it of hypocrisy, and “arranging the day’s news based on the size of the subjects’ breasts”.

He adds: “On the awe-inspiring day millions took to the streets of Egypt to demand freedom, your paper splashed on: JORDAN … THE MOVIE. A snub to history? Certainly,” he writes. “An affront to Journalism? Most definitely.”

As a young reporter desperate to make his name in Fleet Street, Peppiatt concedes he took to his commissions “with gusto”, but now questions the ethics of what he was required to do, suggesting he was at times promoting an anti-Muslim agenda.

“On order I dressed up as John Lennon, a vampire, a Mexican, Noel Gallagher, St George (twice), Santa Claus, Aleksandr the Meerkat, the Stig, a transvestite, Alex Reid. When I was ordered to wear a burqa in public for the day, I asked: ‘Just a head scarf or full veil?’ Even after being ambushed by anti-terror cops when panicked Londoners reported ‘a bloke pretending to be a Muslim woman’, I didn’t complain.

“Mercifully, I’d discovered some backbone by the time I was told to find some burqa-clad shoppers (spot the trend?) to pose with for a picture [with me] dressed in just a pair of skin-tight M&S underpants.”

Peppiatt’s letter concludes by criticising Desmond for not providing greater resources. “When you assign budgets thinner than your employee-issue loo roll there’s little option but for Daily Star editors to build a newspaper from cut-and-paste jobs off the Daily Mail website, all tied together with gormless press releases.

“But when that cheap-and-cheerful journalism gives the oxygen of publicity to corrosive groups like the EDL … it’s time to lay down my pen.”

The Daily Star rejected Peppiatt’s claims, implying he may hold a grudge against his employer after being “passed over” for several staff positions. It said: “Regarding the paper’s coverage of Islam, he never voiced any disquiet over the tone. For the record, the Daily Star editorial policy does not hold any negativity towards Islam and the paper has never, and does not endorse, the EDL.”[Peppiatt] refers to a Kelly Brook story – in fact he approached and offered the newspaper that story, vouched for its accuracy, and then asked for and received an extra freelance fee for doing so,” the statement said.

The Star also claimed that Peppiatt had been warned by senior reporters after suggesting he would make up quotes.

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donald-trump31

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Donald Trump Says there is a Muslim Problem, Wants Obama’s Birth Certificate

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Emperor

Donald Trump is gearing up to run for president and is attempting to play to the uber-Conservative base of the Republican party. He questions Obama’s birth certificate, says “it might say he’s Muslim,” and also thinks there is a “Muslim problem,” to buttress this point he says he has been opposed to the “Ground Zero” mosque since the beginning. Talk about opportunist, if you look in the dictionary it might have Donald Trump’s sleaze ball face next to the definition.

Trump: World Has a ‘Muslim Problem’

by Hiram Reisner (Newsmax)

O’Reilly asked Trump whether there is a Muslim problem in the world.

“Absolutely, absolutely — I don’t notice Swedish people knocking down the World Trade Center,” Trump said. “I came out very strongly against the mosque being built virtually across the street.

“The fact is, it was so insensitive when they announced the mosque in that location,” he said. “Don’t forget, that’s my territory — Manhattan. When they announced the mosque in that location, I couldn’t believe it.”

Trump said although there is a world Muslim problem, it does not reflect on all Muslims.

“And that’s the sad part about life, because you have fabulous Muslims — I know many Muslims, and they are fabulous people, they’re smart, they’re industrious,” he said. “Unfortunately, at this moment in time, there is a Muslim problem in the world.”

Turning to the issue of Obama’s birth, Trump said at first he hadn’t contested the president was born in Hawaii, but circumstances made him think twice. He also said it is wrong to demonize people who question the need for Obama to produce proof.

“People have birth certificates . . . now, he may have one, but there is something on that birth certificate — maybe religion, maybe it says he’s a Muslim — or he may not have one,” Trump said. “But I will tell you this: If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.”

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88196193AW012_FBI_Director_

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Robert Mueller: Somali-Americans “Very Cooperative”

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Emperor

Contrary to the “testimony” of one witness at the Peter King Hearings and Islamophobes who continuously bash Muslims and the Somali community as uncooperative, FBI director Mueller states that they have been “very cooperative.”

Mueller said members of the Minnesota Somali-American community have been “very cooperative” with the FBI in its efforts to root out terrorism.

He also said that we have a “very good relationship” with the Muslim community. That’s interesting isn’t it? Especially considering that the FBI is being sued by the ACLU and CAIR for its entrapment and agent provocateur methods.

Read more at MainJustice.

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Robert Spencer’s Co-religionist had Sex with Boys to Cure their Homosexuality, What if He was Muslim?

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Robert Spencer’s Co-religionist had Sex with Boys to Cure their Homosexuality, What if He was Muslim?

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Greeneye

Most of us in America learned something about prejudice and stereotypes in school. We know it’s wrong to misrepresent whole groups of people by highlighting only the worst behavior amongst them. Anyone can easily “prove” their religion, ideology, or culture is the most supreme by cherry-picking the worst examples of their opponents and “comparing” it to their highest ideals. Stereotyping, quite frankly, is cheating in the discipline of comparative religion/ideology/culture. But for Robert Spencer, stereotyping isn’t a social evil to be resisted. It’s a career.

Well, let’s turn the tables on him. A former youth pastor in Council Bluffs, Iowa, says he had sex with teenage boys because it was his pastoral duty “to help (the teen) with homosexual urges by praying while he had sexual contact with him.

Earlier this month, Brent Girouex, 31, was arrested on 60 counts of suspicion of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist, reported The Daily Nonpareil

Court documents indicated Girouex told investigators the most sexual contact he had was with one teen over a four-year period, starting when the boy was 14 years old. Calling the contact “mutual,” he said it had occurred between “25 and 50 times” during that period…

“When they would ejaculate, they would be getting rid of the evil thoughts in their mind,” Girouex allegedly told detectives.

Truly a bizarre, counter-intuitive, and horribly disturbing account of a Christian leader exploiting his position of authority and trust to sexually gratify himself at the expense of innocent minors. This is certainly not the first time a priest or minister has abused children. If we were running an anti-Christian hate site (similar to Spencer’s anti-Muslim hate site), this incident would make a fine addition to our police blotter propaganda. We could make a strong case for the weak-minded that Christianity is a sex-with-boys religion. After all, Mr. Girouex appealed to Christian theology and scriptures to justify his misdeeds. This sort of thing happens all the time! What more evidence do you need? Case closed.

Or is it? We’re not running an anti-Christian hate site. We know the vast majority of Christians reject this kind of behavior. Neither does Mr. Girouex’s action agree with the spirit of Christianity. It’s common sense. Rather, we promote the American values of tolerance and pluralism. We have stated this repeatedly. Yet, if you’re Robert Spencer, whatever a Muslim does wrong, no matter how aberrant or outside the mainstream, it must have happened because of Islam and no other reason, even if the perpetrator is mentally ill.

So here’s my question, Mr. Spencer. Is it fair to label Christianity a religion of sexual perversion? Is it fair to blame Christian theology and texts for these crimes? Should we hold senate hearings to protect little boys from their Churches? Shouldn’t we stop being “politically correct”? Aren’t all Christians collectively guilty for not speaking out enough? Aren’t we justified if we gather together to shout obscenities outside the local church of the raping-boys religion?

Of course, Spencer won’t accept that any of these suggestions are fair, but when it comes to Islam there is a different standard. And this, as we learned in grade school, is the essence of stereotyping. Not only does Spencer consistently violate the Golden Rule (“do unto others what you would have done unto yourself”), in which he claims to believe, but also, as Senator Durbin recently said, his hateful rhetoric violates “the spirit of our Bill of Rights.

Your Islamophobic House of Cards is falling, Bob. Keep working on that résumé.

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ADL: Hate-monger David Yerushalmi a Driving Force Behind Anti-Sharia Efforts

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ADL: Hate-monger David Yerushalmi a Driving Force Behind Anti-Sharia Efforts

Posted on 30 March 2011 by Emperor

The ADL calls out David Yerushalmi, a pretty good expose:

David Yerushalmi: A Driving Force Behind Anti-Sharia Efforts in the U.S.

(ADL 3/25/11)

One of the driving forces behind Shari’a-related conspiracy theories and growing efforts to ban or restrict the use of Shari’a law in American courts is David Yerushalmi, an Arizona attorney with a record of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black bigotry.

In recent years, Yerushalmi has created a characterization of Shari’a law (i.e., Islamic law) that declares there are “hundreds of millions” of Muslims who are either “fully committed mujahideen” or “still dangerous but lesser committed jihad sympathizers” who, because of Shari’a law, would be willing to murder all non-believers unwilling to convert, in order to “impose a worldwide political hegemony.”  Meanwhile, Yerushalmi asserts, the U.S. government itself has consciously chosen to turn a blind eye to this threat.

To combat this alleged threat, Yerushalmi has vigorously opposed all perceived “inroads” of Shari’a law in the United States, even entirely innocuous measures such as American financial institutions creating financing packages designed to be compatible with Islamic restrictions against loaning money at interest.

“American Laws for American Courts”

Yerushalmi’s latest weapon is model anti-Shari’a legislation he has titled “American Laws for American Courts,” developed for a group called the American Public Policy Alliance (APPA). The group claims that “one of the greatest threats to American values and liberties today” comes from “foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines,” including “Islamic Shari’ah law,” that have been “infiltrating our court system.”

Yerushalmi’s proposed legislation, which claims to “protect American citizens’ constitutional rights against the infiltration and incursion of foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines, especially Islamic Shari’ah Law,” has been the basis for anti-Shari’a measures introduced by state lawmakers in several states in recent years.

For example, a bill introduced by Sen. Alan Hays and Rep. Larry Metz in Florida to outlaw Shari’a (and other non-secular or foreign laws) in March 2011 is strikingly similar to Yerushalmi’s model legislation. Both Tennessee and Louisiana actually passed variations of Yerushalmi’s legislation in 2010.

On its Web site, the APPA cites 17 cases where it claims that Shari’a has been introduced in state courts; this is its evidence of “creeping” Shari’a law within the United States.

Yerushalmi has testified in support of the anti-Shari’a legislative efforts based on his proposal. For example, in a hearing before the Alaska House State Affairs Committee in March 2011, Yerushalmi claimed that “today, we are far more likely than ever before to have foreign laws in American courts…There are plenty of occasions in which foreign law informs what Alaskan law could be.”

Demonizing Islam

Yerushalmi has not only actively promoted his conspiratorial vision of Shari’a law, but has also sought to portray all Muslims as a threat. In one March 2006 article, for example, Yerushalmi even went so far as to claim that “Muslim civilization is at war with Judeo-Christian civilization…The Muslim peoples, those committed to Islam as we know it today, are our enemies.”

That same year, Yerushalmi founded the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), a “think tank” that has published anti-Muslim, anti-immigration and anti-black materials, as well as New World Order-style conspiracy theories. In 2007, SANE, declaring itself “dedicated to the rejection of democracy and party rule and a return to a constitutional republic [of the original founders of the US],” launched a campaign fueled by suspicion of all Muslims.

That campaign, “Mapping Shari’a in America: Knowing the Enemy,” sought to determine exactly what type of Shari’a every single mosque and Muslim religious institution in the U.S. was advocating. A June 2007 press release announcing the campaign indicated that SANE would work to “test the proposition that Shari’a amounts to a criminal conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government” by investigating and ranking the adherence to Islamic law of mosques and their associated day-schools throughout the U.S. The statement also promised to “advocate for the criminalization of Shari’a” if it felt its targeted investigation into mosques and Islamic day schools proved such a measure necessary.

SANE also proposed legislation that furthering or supporting adherence to Shari’a “shall be a felony punishable by 20 years in prison.” It called on Congress to declare war on the “Muslim nation,” which it defined as “Shari’a-adherent Muslims,” and further asked Congress to define Muslim illegal immigrants as alien enemies “subject to immediate deportation.”

Yerushalmi’s Allies and Associates

Since founding SANE, Yerushalmi, who received his law degree from Arizona State University College of Law, has been involved with several notable anti-Muslim groups and campaigns, often providing legal services for them:

  • Yerushalmi works closely with Pamela Geller, head of the anti-Muslim Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). For example, in September 2010 Yerushalmi represented Geller and Florida attorney John Stemberger when Omar Tarazi, a Columbus, Ohio, attorney sued them for allegedly saying he had contacts with terrorists. Tarazi had represented the parents of Rifqa Bary, a Christian teenager who fled to Florida, saying she feared harm from her Muslim mother and father. In his lawsuit, Tarazi said Geller wrongly linked him to Hamas. Yerushalmi reportedly incorporated the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), the non-profit organization through which Geller and Robert Spencer publish their blogs. He also defended AFDI ads on New York City buses opposing a planned mosque near Ground Zero that juxtaposed an image of an airplane headed toward the burning World Trade Center with another building labeled “WTC Mega Mosque” and the words “Why There?” Yerushalmi and Geller were also involved in a bus ad campaign in Miami that read: “Fatwa on your head? Is your community or family threatening you?”
  • Yerushalmi was the attorney for the Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition in New York City, which lobbied for the Bloomberg administration to shut down the Khalil Gibran International Academy, an Islamic school, and requested the firing of its founding principal, Debbie Almontaser.
  • In December 2008, the Thomas More Law Center filed suit against the federal government, claiming the government’s loan to American International Group (AIG) was illegal because the insurance company had financial products that the group claimed promote Islam and are anti-Christian. Yerushalmi handled the case for the Center.  In an article written around the same time, Yerushalmi even went so far as to suggest that U.S. companies that offer Shari’a-compliant finance measures might violate the Sedition Act.
  • Yerushalmi is General Counsel to the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, founded by Frank J. Gaffney. Gaffney has been active in opposing mosque construction and has made several statements about Islam that raise concerns. For example, in a 2009 article in the Washington Times, Gaffney claimed that “there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself.” In 2010, the Center for Security Policy published the book Shari’ah: The Threat To America, An Exercise in Competitive Analysis, Report of Team ‘B’ II, co-authored by Yerushalmi. The book repeated Yerushalmi’s theories about a vast Shari’a threat to America.
  • Yerushalmi has for many years been associated with the Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies (IASPS), a right-wing think tank based in Israel and the United States, even serving as its chairman for five years, as well as writing a number of articles for it.  IASPS now primarily supports the projects of SANE.

Other Hostile Views

Yerushalmi’s main instrument, SANE, is also openly hostile to undocumented migrants in the United States. It advocates somehow sealing all American borders and building “special criminal camps” to house undocumented migrants, where they would serve a three-year detention sentence, then be deported.  SANE also argues that the “immigration debate” should take into account that America was “founded and made strong by immigrants from western European countries with Judeo-Christian roots.”

Yerushalmi has also claimed, as he wrote in a 2006 article, that the United States is in trouble because it “rejected its Christian roots, the Constitution and federalism,” and because it “embraced democracy” and multi-culturalism. This has rendered it “incapable” of “overcoming the World State ideology of the Liberal Elites.”  These beliefs have caused Yerushalmi to defend people accused of anti-Semitism such as Mel Gibson and Pat Buchanan because they “have the potential to save the West from itself and from Islam.”  Liberal Jews, on the other hand, according to Yerushalmi are “the leading proponents of all forms of anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Christian movements, campaigns, and ideologies,” and to argue otherwise one would have to be “literally divorced from reality.” Liberal Jews, according to Yerushalmi, have also destroyed “their host nations like a fatal parasite.”

Nor has Yerushalmi neglected the subject of race. Articles Yerushalmi has written for the SANE Web site argue that the “most of the fundamental differences between the races is genetic.” In a 2006 essay for SANE entitled, “On Race: A Tentative Discussion,” Yerushalmi claimed that “some races perform better in sports, some better in mathematical problem solving, some better in language, some better in Western societies and some better in tribal ones.” He also contended that African-Americans are a “relatively murderous race killing itself.”  For Yerushalmi it was obvious: “If evolution and the biologists who espouse the theory are correct, then the idea that racial differences included innate differences in character and intelligence would[,] it seem[,] be more likely than not.”

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Alaska: Why is anti-Muslim Hater Pamela Geller Allowed in front of Legislature?

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Alaska: Why is anti-Muslim Hater Pamela Geller Allowed in front of Legislature?

Posted on 29 March 2011 by Mooneye

I would ask Alaska to keep Pamela, but one more crazy lady  is just too much to wish upon a state. Pamela “kookoo for Cocoa Puffs” Geller is bragging that she will be testifying in favor of an anti-Sharia’ bill in Alaska where the Mooslim hordes are around100-200 strong. Don’t-chya-know the Mooslims had the temerity to open up Alaska’s first mosque a few months ago!!

Pamela writes,

Heads up — I will be testifying  in favor of anti-sharia legislation, HB88 Alaska on Wednesday the 30th at 1 PM AST (that’s 2 PM West coast and 5 PM East coast). Tune in to the live feed at: http://www.alaskalegislature.tv/

Use Of Foreign Law Sponsored by Rep. Carl Gatto Co-Sponsors: Rep. Bob Lynn, Rep. Wes Keller

Alaskan legislators are not only misguided in their choice of Geller as a speaker but they are complicit in her hate because they are essentially giving validity to a person and her organization (SIOA) that has been labeled a hate group by the SPLC.

Instead of focusing on real threats to Alaska, like Global Warming, or Separatists and militants (five of which were arrested for attempting to kidnap and murder state troopers), officials are battling the good old fight against non-existing threats.

Nice way to deflect from real problems plaguing Alaska!

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Why Dick Durbin is Right, and Peter King is Wrong

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Why Dick Durbin is Right, and Peter King is Wrong

Posted on 28 March 2011 by Danios

Much has been said of the so-called “Muslim Radicalization” Congressional Hearings headed by Rep. Peter King: they were rightfully condemned as “un-American”, “discriminatory”, and “Islamophobic”.  These hearings unjustly singled out the Muslim-American community, an already embattled minority, and amounted to a modern-day witch hunt. King’s hearings will be included in the dark chapter of U.S. history alongside the McCarthy hearings and the internment of Japanese-Americans.

One courageous senator, Dick Durbin of Illinois, decided to take a heroic stand against these hearings, and responded by announcing that he would hold his own committee hearings on the civil rights of Muslim-Americans.  Many have understood this as a “check” or “counter-balance” to King’s hearings, and–considering the timing–it is not difficult to see the connection.  It seems fair to say that this was Sen. Durbin’s attempt to reach out to the Muslim-American community, as if to say: “I’m there for you.”

Naturally, the right-wing went absolutely bonkers when they heard of Durbin’s hearings.  The genocidal Pamela Geller, a sweetheart of conservatives, called Durbin a “useful idiot”, and more absurdly, a “dhimmi”.  (To Geller, any non-Muslim who doesn’t revile Islam is by definition a dhimmi.)  But more importantly, Rep. Peter King himself responded to Dick Durbin’s hearings.

King must have thought himself very witty for coming up with the following retort:

Why not have a hearing on everyone’s civil rights? Since they told me I should have my hearings on not just Muslim radicalization but radicalization in all communities, I would say why doesn’t the Senate have a hearing on everyone’s civil rights?

The New York Observer wrote a title entitled “King Turns the Tables on Durbin’s Muslim Hearings”.  But did he?  Even though King was no doubt beside himself for his cunning comeback, the reality is that his response was nothing but 100% Weak Sauce.  Here’s why:

(1) Yes, we–and many others–argued that if radicalization hearings were deemed to be necessary, then they ought to have been held about all communities, not just Muslims.  The reason we were opposed to making them “Muslim-only” was because this would be singling out, targeting, and demonizing one community.  Tell me, Mr. King, which community is singled out, targeted, or demonized by Durbin’s hearings about Muslim civil rights? Durbin’s hearings, unlike King’s anti-Muslim hearings, do not single out, target, or demonize any one community.  Therefore, King’s attempt at striking an equivalence fails miserably.

(2) We’d have absolutely no problem with holding hearings about the civil rights of all communities.  We’re liberals, and we love protecting civil rights.  We wouldn’t get our panties in a bunch like King did over his hearings not being able to single out one community in specific. But…

(3) …Since King already held the congressional hearings about Muslim radicalization–and not about radicalization in all communities–then it makes all the sense in the world to hold the civil rights hearings about Muslims.  This is, after all, a check and counter-balance to the anti-Muslim madness.  How about we hold congressional hearings on civil rights for all communities once King holds his hearings on radicalization of all communities–including the Irish-American community he comes from?

(4) King has tried turning the question around on us, but we can equally turn this around on him: if King had no problem holding Muslim-only hearings about radicalization, then he should have no problem holding Muslim-only hearings on civil rights, right?

King then tried to downplay the issue of Muslim civil rights, citing the FBI database:

King noted that the F.B.I.’s numbers show anti-Semitic attacks outnumbered instances of hate crimes against Muslims in the U.S. last year by about nine to one, and that attacks on Christians and Muslims were about equal. (Of course, Christians far outnumber Muslims in the U.S., and there are about three times as many Jews as Muslims.)

And yet, during his own hearings Rep. King ignored the FBI’s numbers about terrorism.  According to the official FBI database, only 6% of terrorist acts on U.S. soil from 1980-2005 were from Islamic extremists.  This was less than from Jewish extremists.  King is able to see that more anti-Semitic hate crimes occur than anti-Muslim hate crimes, but then becomes blind when it comes to the fact that more acts of Jewish terrorism have occurred than Islamic.  Latinos accounted for over 40% of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil: should we hold hearings against the Latino population?  (We shouldn’t give Republicans any ideas, since they would love to target Latinos.  Nothing scarier to a Republican than a gay Latino Muslim.)

Peter King’s attempt to downplay the assault on Muslim civil rights has echoed throughout the right wing blogosphere.  Said King:

I’m not trying to excuse it, I’m just saying in the overall context it’s sometimes more dangerous to be Jewish than Muslim.

These right wing nuts act as if civil rights begins and ends with hate crimes.  During the 1960′s, hate crimes were just one indicator of discrimination.  It is not the end-all be-all.  For example, job discrimination was a major issue for blacks (and continues to be so)…It is also a problem that Muslim-Americans face today: do you know how hard it is to get a job with the name Muhammad Ahmad Abdul Basit?  No wonder Pakistani-Americans often pose as Indians to get hired.

And is it Muslim-Americans or Jewish-Americans who face severe opposition to building houses of worship–not just a few blocks from Ground Zero but anywhere in the United States?  But amazingly, Peter King doesn’t hold this to be a form of prejudice (let me guess, it’s about parking!):

A press release from Durbin’s office cited “restrictions on mosque construction,” as an example of rising anti-Muslim sentiment, King denied that opposition to new mosques—including his fierce opposition to the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” in downtown Manhattan—should be considered an example of prejudice.

Of course, none of this “counts”.  All acts of terrorism by people of other religions “don’t count” and all acts of prejudice against Muslims “don’t count”.  Meanwhile, even a Muslim-American quietly farting in the corner of his room certainly counts (it is after all a biological weapon–and the fact that he did it silently is surely a form of “stealth jihad”).  This is similar to the arguments about the Quran and the Bible: everything violent in the Quran “counts” and everything violent in the Bible “doesn’t count”.

Aside from discrimination in the workplace and with regard to houses of worship, there are even more sinister breeches of Muslim civil rights during the War on of Terror.  The Patriot Act and other un-American legislation have eroded the civil rights of all Americans, but Muslims have been at the forefront.  Here are some civil rights that Muslim-Americans have lost recently: the right not to be the victim of warrantless wiretapping, the right not to be entrapped by law enforcement, the right not to be subject to illegal surveillance,  the right to habeas corpus, the right to be protected from illegal search and seizure, the right to an attorney, the right to face one’s accuser, the right not to be tortured, and the right not to be assassinated at the order of the president.

Most Americans could care less about these affronts to civil liberties so long as it is those Dark-Skinned Foreign-Looking Moozlems with Weird Sounding Names who bear the brunt of these un-American laws.  But that’s why a congressional hearing aimed at protecting the rights of Muslim civil rights would benefit all Americans: once this erosion of civil rights is given precedent (even if it be just against Muslims), it will be institutionalized and could be used against every single one of us.

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Bryan Fischer Says Muslims Don’t Have First Amendment Rights

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Bryan Fischer Says Muslims Don’t Have First Amendment Rights

Posted on 26 March 2011 by Rousseau

Bryan Fischer is a loony anti-Muslim bigot

The anti-Muslim rhetoric continues to increase amongst the right-wing.

Talking Points Memo: Bryan Fischer: Muslims Have No First Amendment Rights by Jillian Rayfield

Bryan Fischer, the “Director of Issues Analysis” for the social conservative group the American Family Association, says that when it comes to Islam, the First Amendment is a privilege, not a right. “Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam,” Fischer wrote today.

“The First Amendment was written by the Founders to protect the free exercise of Christianity. They were making no effort to give special protections to Islam. Quite the contrary,” Fischer wrote on his Renew America blog.

He continued:

Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment.

Fischer took it a step further, calling Islam a “treasonous ideology” and adding that “from a constitutional point of view, Muslims have no First Amendment right to build mosques in America. They have that privilege at the moment, but it is a privilege that can be revoked.”

Fischer, also known for his frequent anti-gay, anti-bear rhetoric, has previously called for the U.S. to have “no more mosques, period,” because “every single mosque is a potential terror training center or recruitment center for jihad.” He’s also suggested that we should “handle Muslims just like we handle neo-Nazis.”

And his show is a frequent stomping ground for conservative politicians, including potential 2012 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, and actual 2012 candidate Tim Pawlenty.

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GOP Presidential Candidate “Resents” Muslim-Americans

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GOP Presidential Candidate “Resents” Muslim-Americans

Posted on 25 March 2011 by Inconnu

GOP Presidential Candidate Herman Cain says that he “resents” when Muslims try to convert other people to Islam. In an interview with Christianity Today, Cain said:

The role of Muslims in American society is for them to be allowed to practice their religion freely, which is part of our First Amendment. The role of Muslims in America is not to convert the rest of us to the Muslim religion. That I resent. Because we are a Judeo-Christian nation, from the fact that 85 percent of us are self-described Christians, or evangelicals, or practicing the Jewish faith. Eighty-five percent. One percent of the practicing religious believers in this country are Muslim.

And so I push back and reject them trying to convert the rest of us…

I find this hilariously ironic, because Mr. Cain is, himself, an associate minister at Antioch Baptist Church North in Atlanta. If you look on the front page of the Church’s website it says: “Fellowship. EVANGELISM. Doctrine. Stewardship.” [Emphasis mine].

What is the definition of evangelism?

The preaching or promulgation of the gospel;

In other words, trying to convert other people to the Christian faith. Indeed, that is one of the main missions of Evangelical Christianity. So, according to Mr. Cain, who is considering a run for the Presidency in 2012, Christians can try to convert other people, but Muslims need not apply. In fact, he will “push back and reject” any sort of Muslim evangelizing, because that is “not their role” in American society.

One would scratch their head in utter amazement at the hypocrisy of this man, but when one reads the interview, it is not surprising why he would have such a view. Mr. Cain himself admitted he had little knowledge about Islam, but it did not stop him from making sweeping judgments and stereotypes:

And based upon the little knowledge that I have of the Muslim religion, you know, they have an objective to convert all infidels or kill them.

Well, then, it makes sense that he would “resent” Muslim evangelism. In fact, it is patriotic of him to do so! Of course, Christians have never converted people under threat of death…(cough)…The Inquisition…(cough).

What’s more, he doesn’t even try to hide his bias against Muslims. He recounts his story battling cancer, and he said that when he found out his surgeon’s name was Dr. Abdallah (a presumptive Muslim), he was uncomfortable. When he was told, “Don’t worry, he’s a Christian,” Cain says, “he felt a whole lot better.” Wow.

Apparently, in the eyes of Herman Cain, all Americans are equal:

People use the race card, they use the class warfare card, to divide us. And the biggest challenge we face is for more and more people to be educated and not fall for those tricks and divide this nation. Do people still discriminate in some small ways against certain people because of their color or their religion? Yes. But it is nowhere near where it was 235 years ago.

It seems that Cain is trying to say that a little discrimination is OK.

When it comes to Muslims, some Americans are just more equal than others…

Addendum I:

If any Muslim candidate had said this about Jews, his career would be over faster than he could scarf down a halal beef-pretending-to-be-pepperoni pizza.  And rightfully so.  Yet, Cain says these statements with relative impunity.  Contrast this lack of reaction from the public to the hysteria that surrounded Alexandra Wallace, the UCLA girl who ranted against Asians in the library.  It’s strange that a random YouTube girl gets her academic career destroyed by such comments, whereas Cain’s political career is not over even though his comments were even more odious than hers…and even though he–unlike Ms. Wallace–never apologized for them.  He didn’t need to apologize because the public never demanded him to.  Truly, prejudice against Muslims and Arabs is the last socially acceptable form of bigotry in America.

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USA_Kill_Teams3

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“Kill Teams” in Afghanistan Targeting Civilians

Posted on 24 March 2011 by Emperor

New revelations from the forgotten wars. US soldiers who are part of Kill Teams are murdering Afghan Civilians for “sport.” How many more are there? Afghan human rights groups want an investigation.

But you don’t understand they fight us because of our freedoms!

Afghans Urge Investigation Into ‘Kill Teams’ In Wake Of Sentencing, Photo Scandal

by M. Siddiqui

Leading independent human rights campaigners in Afghanistan have welcomed the sentencing of a U.S. soldier accused of killing Afghan civilians for sport in 2010, but have called for a deeper probe into alleged “kill teams.”

Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 22, is the first of five U.S. soldiers charged with staging combat situations to kill unarmed Afghan civilians to be sentenced. At the start of the court-martial hearing on March 23, Morlock testified that “the plan was to kill people.” He was subsequently found guilty on three counts of premeditated murder and sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Military Judge Lieutenant General Kwasi Hawks said he intended to sentence Morlock to life in prison with the possibility of parole but was bound by Morlock’s plea deal.

Morlock is a key figure in a war-crimes probe that implicates a dozen members of his platoon and has raised some of the most serious criminal allegations stemming from the war in Afghanistan. He was accused of taking a lead role in the killings of three unarmed Afghan men in Kandahar Province in January, February, and May 2010.

Mounting Uproar

The German magazine “Der Spiegel” this week published several photos related to the killings, one showing Morlock crouched grinning over a bloodied corpse as he lifts the dead man’s head by the hair for the camera. The expected release of thousands of similar pictures is expected to create fierce resentment in Afghanistan, where the issue of civilian casualties is already the source of a highly charged debate.

The investigation and the publication of the pictures prompted Afghan human rights organizations to call for a thorough investigation of such abuses. “The U.S. government needs to immediately launch comprehensive investigations in all its military units, Special Forces, private security contractors, local mercenaries, and affiliated irregular armed groups in Afghanistan to ensure that no more criminal ‘kill teams’ exist,” the independent human rights watchdog, Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM), urged this week.

Speaking to RFE/RL from the Afghan capital, Kabul, ARM director Ajamal Samadi says that Morlock’s sentencing was a welcome sign. But Samadi presses Washington to further investigate similar incidents to bring an end to the “criminal immunity” that he says is available to a wide array of Afghan and international forces, armed contractors, and private militias.

“It is extremely difficult to attribute the crimes that take place in Afghanistan to certain military groups. That is the biggest problem,” Samadi says. “If you travel to parts of Afghanistan where conflict is more intense, people will tell you all sorts of stories: crimes committed by foreign soldiers, by Afghan forces, [and] by the militias. So we believe the environment is extremely criminalized in Afghanistan in a way. All sorts of crimes are happening and the civilians are paying a very, very high price in this conflict.”

Accountability

Afghan observers say the sentence is likely to raise Afghan hopes for answers to their calls for accountability of all armed actors in their country. On March 23, military Judge Hawks also ruled that Morlock will be eligible for parole in about seven years. Morlock will be dishonorably discharged from the army.

Earlier, Morlock read a statement apologizing to the victims’ families and the “people of Afghanistan,” adding, “I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on how I lost my moral compass.”

Abdul Rahman Hotaki, the head of Afghan Organization of Human Rights and Environmental Protection, says that Morlock’s sentence is not equal to his confessed crime of killing unarmed civilians. Nevertheless, he says, it shows Afghans that their blood is not cheap and that abuses committed by international forces are being addressed.

“We hope that people who have committed human rights abuses by torturing prisoners in Bagram or have killed and tortured people in other provinces will be similarly brought into international and American courts,” Hotaki says. “This will serve as a lesson for forces still operating in the theater.”

Hotaki says that efforts to address abuses by international forces could raise the esteem of Afghans and help bridge a widening gulf with the administration in Kabul.

Afghan presidential spokesman Wahid Omar has offered similar sentiments. Speaking to RFE/RL Radio Free Afghanistan, he streses the need for continued greater accountability on the part of international troops.

“If the United States of America wants to be friendly with Afghan people and government and wants to have a presence in this country,” Omar says, “then they should put an end to operations which result in civilian casualties.”

More pics from Der Spiegel:

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Spencer’s Radicalized Mosque Claim Gets Debunked

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Spencer’s Radicalized Mosque Claim Gets Debunked

Posted on 24 March 2011 by Rousseau

Reza Aslan debunks Robert Spencer's claim

Robert Spencer is still trying to peddle the myth that 80% of American mosques are radicalized. In a heated post on JihadWatch on March 19, Spencer said the following in reply to Reza Aslan’s claim that all of the studies Spencer cited to support the claim that 80% of American mosques are radicalized have been debunked:

In any case, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani’s 1998 study was not based on his personal opinion, as Aslan claims. Kabbani actually visited 114 mosques in this country before giving testimony before a State Department Open Forum in January 1999 that 80% of American mosques taught the “extremist ideology.” Has Reza Aslan investigated 114 mosques in the U.S.? Then there was the Center for Religious Freedom’s 2005 study, and the Mapping Sharia Project’s 2008 study. Each independently showed that upwards of 80% of mosques in America were preaching hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity ultimately to impose Islamic rule.

Let’s break this down one by one. Kabbani said in 1999 that extremists “took over more than 80% of the mosques that have been established in the US.” How did he come up with this number? He didn’t say in his testimony. After the testimony Kabbani began to feel heat from many who were curious as to how he arrived at this “figure” and that is when he finally decided to offer up some “evidence” for his claim.

An under-fire Kabbani explained in 1999 exactly what he meant when he told the State Department that 80 percent of American mosques had been taken over by extremists. His point, he said, was that a “few extremists” were taking over leadership posts, despite a “majority of moderate Muslims,” thus “influencing 80 percent of the mosques.”

Today, he sticks even closer to his guns and adds embellishing data: Kabbani visited 114 mosques in the United States. “Ninety of them were mostly exposed, and I say exposed, to extreme or radical ideology,” he said.

Kabbani bases his exposure conclusion on speeches, board members and materials published. One telltale sign of an extremist mosque, said Kabbani, was an unhealthy focus on the Palestinian struggle.

Alright – let’s be real here. This is not a “study” as Spencer claims. It’s an insult to actual studies out there to call what Kabbani did a “study,” it doesn’t even reach the basic standard of research, documentation or analysis. He conducted a subjective investigation of American mosques, plain and simple. Mosques he went to and where he found or heard things he didn’t agree with were labeled “extremist.” Just because there was a “focus on the Palestinian struggle” at a mosque doesn’t mean it’s “extremist.” What type of absurd methodology is that? It’s remarkable that Spencer would try to pass this off as a “study.” I know, it’s hard to prove that Muslims in America are bloodthirsty jihadists, but even Spencer should be ashamed of himself for trying to pass off Kabbani’s flawed investigation as a “study” to bolster his claim that 80% of mosques are run by extremists.

The next study that Spencer claims proves that 80% of American mosques are radicalized is from the Center for Religious Freedom. What is the methodology and scope of this study?

In undertaking this study, we did not attempt a general survey of American mosques.  In order to document Saudi influence, the material for this report was gathered from a selection of more than a dozen mosques and Islamic centers in American cities, including Los Angeles, Oakland, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Washington, and New York. In most cases, these sources are the most prominent and well-established mosques in their areas. They have libraries and publication racks for mosque-goers. Some have full-or part-time schools and, as the 9/11 Commission Report observed, such “Saudi-funded Wahhabi schools are often the only Islamic schools.”

From their own words, the Center for Religious Freedom says that it “did not attempt a general survey of American mosques.” The study itself was designed “to document Saudi influence.” They went to fifteen mosques to complete this “study.” Fifteen mosques! According to the Pluralism Project at Harvard University, there are at least 1,600 mosques and Islamic centers in the United States. This, too, is not much of a study.

Further eroding Spencer’s point, this study does not even claim that 80% or even a high percentage of American mosques are radicalized in any way. Let me repeat that – the study makes NO claim that 80% or some other percent of American mosques are radicalized. It simply does not say what Spencer claims it says. Spencer is making it up. He is lying. But LoonWatchers shouldn’t be surprised by that.

Spencer’s deception and lack of intellectual integrity in this instance is blatant, he not only cites the Center’s “study” as proof of the 80%-percent-of-mosques-are-extremists-conspiracy-theory, but he also fails to mention that the only semblance of what he claims in the study is a regurgitation of Kabbani’s (false and discredited) assertion,

Sheikh Kabbani, perhaps the U.S.’s leading moderate Muslim leader, says that a substantial percentage of American mosques have Wahhabi-funded Imams

Isn’t this interesting? What sort of credible “study” perfunctorily sites the non-evidentiary based assertions of a lone individual without questioning his methodology? The language in the above sentence is also cause for alarm, anytime a claim such as “the U.S.’s leading moderate Muslim leader” is made we should view it not only with caution but skepticism. This sort of heavily biased and subjective language is employed now by Right-Wingers and Republicans to describe “Zuhdi Jasser” the Islamophobes favorite Muslim.

Spencer’s last piece of evidence to back up his bogus claim comes from the Mapping Sharia Project led by the loony racist anti-Muslim lawyer David Yerushalmi, David Gaubatz and conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney. The only thing I could find on this “study” was a Jihad Watch link reporting the findings of the Mapping Sharia Project. The Jihad Watch article reports that “An undercover survey of more than 100 mosques and Islamic schools in America has exposed widespread radicalism, including the alarming finding that 3 in 4 Islamic centers are hotbeds of anti-Western extremism…”

Spencer relying on “undercover survey’s” by radical Islamophobes with pseudo-racist beliefs? Just par for the course.

Firstly, there is no web page allowing us access to examine the methodology employed by this study. When I went to the link to the Mapping Sharia Project, I was taken to the web site for David Yerushalmi’s organization, SANE (Society for American National Existence). To gain access, I had to become a member. I did not want to join this loony web site’s membership list, as I am spammed enough as it is. So Spencer’s third study does not even exist, at least out in the public. Even the link he places for the Mapping Sharia Project just takes you to another JihadWatch web page reporting the findings of the study. Guess we’ll just have to take Yerushalmi, Gaubatz, Gaffney and Spencer’s word for it that 80%… err, three out of four American mosques are radicalized.

Actually, we won’t. Spencer tried his best it seems to pass off these “studies” as evidence to support Rep. Peter King’s claim that 80% of American mosques are radicalized. None of these “studies” does that.

Kabbani’s “study” is based simply on his own opinions of the mosques and their leadership, not any objective metric gauging radicalism. If he did not agree with the viewpoints of the mosque, then he deemed them radical. That’s not a study. Spencer, someone who went to graduate school, should know better than that.

The Center for Religious Freedom study says itself that it “did not attempt a general survey of American mosques.” So how does Spencer cite this study as evidence that 80% of American mosques are radicalized? Because he’s not interested in the truth – he just needs something to cite to so he can bamboozle those who won’t actually check his sources. Sorry, Robert, but we did. And this so-called “study” does not even say what you claim it does.

The final piece of evidence Spencer clings to is the Mapping Sharia Project’s “study,” which apparently does not exist in the public domain. But considering its authors – David Yerushalmi, David Gaubatz and Frank Gaffney – I would venture to say that this “study” will not only not be very academic but thoroughly bigoted and prejudiced. Just consider some of the proposals Yerushalmi and his friends at (in)SANE have come up with:

WHEREAS Islam requires all Muslims to actively and passively support the replacement of America’s constitutional republic with a political system based upon Shari’a.

Whereas, adherence to Islam as a Muslim is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the US Government through the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the US Constitution and the imposition of Shari’a on the American People.

HEREFORE, IT IS RESOLVED THAT: It shall be a felony punishable by 20 years in prison to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Shari’a.

The Congress of the United States of America shall declare the US at war with the Muslim Nation.

If these “studies” and individuals are the evidence that Spencer claims back up the myth that 80% of American mosques are radicalized, then Spencer has no evidence. For a great source on the history of this myth, see Media Matters’ Zombie Lie: Right Still Clinging To Decade-Old Fabrication About Radicalized Mosques.

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Abu-Ghraib-prison-007

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US Army ‘kill team’ in Afghanistan Posed for Photos of Murdered Civilians

Posted on 24 March 2011 by Emperor

Oh no but I thought they attacked us for our freedoms?

(hat tip: Saladin)

US Army ‘kill team’ in Afghanistan posed for photos of murdered civilians

by Joe Boone (Guardian)

Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of “trophy” photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.

Senior officials at Nato‘s International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.

They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.

Some of the activities of the self-styled “kill team” are already public, with 12 men currently on trial in Seattle for their role in the killing of three civilians.

Five of the soldiers are on trial for pre-meditated murder, after they staged killings to make it look like they were defending themselves from Taliban attacks.

Other charges include the mutilation of corpses, the possession of images of human casualties and drug abuse.

All of the soldiers have denied the charges. They face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted.

The case has already created shock around the world, particularly with the revelations that the men cut “trophies” from the bodies of the people they killed.

An investigation by Der Spiegel has unearthed approximately 4,000 photos and videos taken by the men.

The magazine, which is planning to publish only three images, said that in addition to the crimes the men were on trial for there are “also entire collections of pictures of other victims that some of the defendants were keeping”.

The US military has strived to keep the pictures out of the public domain fearing it could inflame feelings at a time when anti-Americanism in Afghanistan is already running high.

In a statement, the army said it apologised for the distress caused by photographs “depicting actions repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States“.

The lengthy Spiegel article that accompanies the photographs contains new details about the sadistic behaviour of the men.

In one incident in May last year, the article says, during a patrol, the team apprehended a mullah who was standing by the road and took him into a ditch where they made him kneel down.

The group’s leader, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, then allegedly threw a grenade at the man while an order was given for him to be shot.

Afterwards, Gibbs is described cutting off one of the man’s little fingers and removing a tooth.

The patrol team later claimed to their superiors that the mullah had tried to threaten them with a grenade and that they had no choice but to shoot.

On Sunday night many organisations employing foreign staff, including the United Nations, ordered their staff into a “lockdown”, banning all movements around Kabul and requiring people to remain in their compounds.

In addition to the threat from the publication of the photographs, security has been heightened amid fears the Taliban may try to attack Persian new year celebrations.

There could also be attacks because Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is due to make a speech declaring which areas of the country should be transferred from international to Afghan control in the coming months.

One security manager for the US company DynCorp sent an email to clients warning that publication of the photos was likely “to incite the local population” as the “severity of the incidents to be revealed are graphic and extreme”.

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manufacturing-muslim-menace

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PRA: “Manufacturing the Muslim Menace” by Thomas Cincotta

Posted on 23 March 2011 by Amago

First off I want to apologize for the last post, I actually had not looked closely at the images which were as many of you pointed out, “needlessly offensive” and in fact prejudiced. Thank you for the input and oversight, Emperor informed me of the comments and of my error, I am a new contributor and I hope this does not put me out of favor with the loonwatch family.  –Amago

Now the actual study, entitled “Manufacturing the Muslim Menace: Private Firms, and the Threat to Rights and Security,” is well worth the read. It recounts the pervasive atmosphere of Islamophobia and reliance on Islamophobes at the most and ignorance at the least amongst security officials, trainers and others and the corrosive effect in can have on our rights and national security.

Here is an excerpt from the “Executive Summary” of the report:

“Manufacturing the Muslim Menace: Private Firms, and the Threat to Rights and Security”

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks by al Qaeda Homeland Security Professionals Conference,on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the fed- eral government has mobilized law enforcement agencies at all levels into a coordinated national defense against future terror attacks. To meet this challenge, the growing ranks of the domestic security apparatus—including local police, transit, port, and other agencies not traditionally involved in counterterrorism—require training. The George W. Bush administration’s declaration of “war on terror” bolstered a private counterterrorism training industry that offers courses on topics ranging from infrastructure reinforcement to terrorist ideology.

A nine-month investigation by Political Research Associates (PRA) finds that government agencies responsible for domestic security have inadequate mechanisms to ensure quality and consistency in ter- rorism preparedness training provided by private vendors; public servants are regularly presented with misleading, inflammatory, and dangerous informa- tion about the nature of the terror threat through highly politicized seminars, industry conferences, trade publications, and electronic media. In place of sound skills training and intelligence briefings, a vocal and influential sub-group of the private counterterrorism training industry markets conspiracy theories about secret jihadi campaigns to replace the U.S. Constitution with Sharia law, and effectively impugns all of Islam — a world religion with 1.3 billion adherents—as inherently violent and even terroristic.

Walid Shoebat, a popular “ex-Muslim” speaker used by multiple private training firms, recently told the audience at an International Counter-Terrorism Officers Association (ICTOA) conference, “Islam is a revolution and is intent to destroy all other systems. They want to expand, like Nazism.”1 Another private sector counterterrorism trainer, John Giduck, told a Homeland Security Professionals Conference “Going back to the time of Mohammed, Muslims’ goal has been to take over the world.”2 Walid Phares, who teaches for The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies and the National Defense University, argues that “jihadists within the West pose as civil rights advocates”3 and patiently recruit until “[a]lmost all mosques, educational centers, and socioeconomic institutions fall into their hands.”4 These “jihadists” put off militant action, Phares claims ominiously, “until the ‘holy moment’ comes.”5 Solomon Bradman, CEO of the training firm Security Solutions International (SSI), likewise claims that a Muslim stealth jihad threatens the United States from within. Such assertions are far from benign. Asked by a PRA investigator what she understood to be Shoebat’s solution to the Islamic threat he described at the ICTOA event previously mentioned, one audience member responded, “Kill them, including the children. You heard him.”6

Islamophobic statements like those above have the effect of demonizing the entirety of Islam as dangerous and “extremist,” denying the existence of a moderate Muslim majority, or regarding Islam gen- erally as a problem for the world.7 The private sector speakers and trainers PRA investigated routinely invoke conspiracy theories that draw upon deeply- ingrained negative stereotypes of Muslim duplicity, repression, backwardness, and evil.8 Islamophobia is “an outlook or world-view involving an unfounded dread and dislike of Muslims, which results in prac- tices of exclusion and discrimination” and may include the perception that Islam is inferior to the West and is a violent political ideology rather than a religion.9

The notion that a generalized Muslim menace poses an existential threat to the United States and western democracy contradicts official national secu- rity doctrine and undermines both domestic security and the constitutional rights of our citizens and resi- dents. Nonetheless, PRA’s investigation finds that public resources are being used to propagate this dangerous falsehood to the nation’s first responders, intelligence analysts, and other public servants.

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minnesota

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Pastor who gave controversial Senate prayer bought anti-Muslim ads

Posted on 23 March 2011 by Mooneye

There is no problem with anyone calling to their Faith, or trying to win converts, that is part of Freedom of Religion. Unfortunately both Rep. Arlon Linder and Pastor Campbell have crossed the boundaries of interfaith harmony and peace in to the territory of bigotry. Imagine if this were a Muslim Imam and Rep. Keith Ellison saying such words, you would never hear the end of it from Islamophobes. We would be inundated with threats that our Constitution was being desecrated and that the evil Mooslims were trying to take over and must be stopped.

Pastor who gave controversial Senate prayer bought anti-Muslim ads

By Andy Birkey

The Associated Press reports that a Christian prayer on the Minnesota Senate floor on Monday made non-Christian members of that body uncomfortable. Pastor Dennis Campbell’s prayer was highly Christian, as opposed to the nonsectarian prayers that were commonplace under DFL control. It’s not Campbell’s first controversy; last summer he took out ads in the St. Cloud Times that were viewed as anti-Muslim.

“We pray, lord, that you help us show reverence to the Lord Jesus Christ,” Campbell prayed. “Jesus said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ our savior, we pray.”

That prayer sparked non-Christian members of the Senate to cry foul, the Associated Press reports.

The controversy mirrors that of one in 2000, when the Republicans last took over the Minnesota House. Previously, the DFL has allowed non-sectarian prayer in the House, but when Republicans took control, many of the chamber non-Christians protested the overtly Christian prayers.

Rep. Arlon Lindner, instead of acquiescing, instead attacked those members.

“You know, we’re told there’s one God and one mediator between God and man. That man is Jesus Christ. And most of us here are Christians. And we shouldn’t be left not able to pray in the name of our God… And if you don’t like it, you may have to like it. Or just don’t come. I don’t come sometimes for some prayers here… We have that privilege, and you need to exercise it. But don’t impose your irreligious left views on me.”

Following that statement, an ethics complaint was filed against Lindner, one of many in his career in the Minnesota Legislature.

Pastor Campbell came under fire for religious intolerance last summer when his church took out ads in the St. Cloud Times.

“What happens when Moslems take over a nation?” asks Campbell in the ad. “They will destroy the constitution and force the Moslem religion on the society, take freedom of religion away, and they will persecute all other religions.”

The ad also said, “Moslems seek to influence a nation by immigration, reproduction, education, the government, illegal drugs and by supporting the gay agenda.”

He later said he is not a racist and that he was simply trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.

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Kamal_Saleem

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Kamal Saleem: Fake “Ex-Terrorist” Wants Sharia’ Banned in Missouri

Posted on 23 March 2011 by Emperor

Kamal Saleem looks scared

The last time we visited the “Grand Wazir” Kamal Saleem it was for our “Three Stooges” piece about the profound loonieness of the “ex-terrorist” racket which consists of a bunch of middle aged men whose only claim to fame is that they speak Arabic. Their personal bios are all uncorroborated and in many instances have been shown to be outright false, filled with logical inconsistencies, blatantly based in Evangelical polemics, horrendously racist, hysterical and genocidal.

Now a days Kamal is trying to pass himself off as an expert to the Missouri legislature, unfortunately in the following piece “St.Louis Today” takes Saleem’s story at face value without questioning it or corroborating it,

Former terrorist urges legislators to ban Sharia law in courts

(STL.Today)

A former terrorist, Kalam Saleem, phoned in to a House committee today, urging legislators to ban Sharia law in state courts.

Saleem was formerly associated with the Palestinian Liberation Organization and later with Saddam Hussein, according to the biography he offered by phone to members of the House Judiciary Committee.

During the call, he offered support for a bill sponsored by Rep. Don Wells, R-Cabool, which proposes changing the state constitution to block courts from making decisions based on foreign laws – specifically Sharia law, the religious code of Islam.

Saleem, who now practices Christianity, said that Sharia law should not be allowed in state courts because it is restrictive and oppressive, and that it discriminates against women and homosexuals.

Wells took a similar stance, if a less subtle one: That Islamic law is a dangerous influence on secular judicial proceedings.

“This is to protect the people of America,” Wells said of his bill.

He went on to compare Sharia law to a disease, like polio. Rep. Jason Kander, D-Kansas City, stopped him to confirm.

“Sharia law is like polio?” Kander asked.

“Absolutely, as far as I’m concerned in this country,” Wells responded.

Kander, who spent time in Afghanistan gathering intelligence for the military, said he found that “offensive.”

Wells’ bill is one of two measures currently under consideration by the Judiciary Committee that would ban foreign laws in Missouri courts.

The reality about Kamal Saleem is that he doesn’t know much about Islam and most likely is involved in fraud, as we wrote then,

Kamal Saleem claim’s to be the descendant of someone called the “The Grand Wazir of Islam,” which  Hedges points out is ”a title and a position that do not exist in the Arab world.” It can be further noted that the religion of Islam has no clerical hierarchy similar to the Catholic Church with defined positions such as the Pope, Bishops, Priests, etc. Kamal’s blooper in his bio is either a result of an ignorance of Islam and its structure or an attempt to manipulate the ignorance of his audience.

I can see Kamal’s claim to fame running out soon, kinda like the disgraced pastor Ergun Caner. A website by the name www.muslimwatch.com, a project of CAIR-Michigan has more analysis on Kamal’s story and why it doesn’t add up (hat tip: Daveed):

Saleem claims to be from a Lebanese Sunni Muslim family, which is a descendant of the “Grand Wazir of Islam,” and that he was a terrorist with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).Furthermore, Saleem states that his terrorism affiliation with the PLO inspired by Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood ended after receiving the “Holy Ghost” and accepting Jesus Christ (Peace Be Upon Him) in his life. Saleem’s story like his other wannabe “ex-terrorist” comrades, however, just does not add up.

For starters as author Chris Hedges points out, there is no such title as the “Grand Wazir of Islam.”Saleem’s “Grand Wazir” lineage claim is also bizarre due to the fact that the adjective “grand” would not be used in front of the term wazir (advisor) to begin with. Even the title “Grand Wazir” was not bestowed upon Aaron (Peace Be Upon Him), who was a prophet and the wazir of Moses (Peace Be Upon Him) according to the Qur’an!

It’s also very interesting that Saleem claims to have been a terrorist inspired by Islam as a member of the secular, Marxist influenced PLO, whose long time executive committee member and long time spokeswoman, Hanan Ashrawi, was a Christian. Saleem wants us to believe that Ashrawi, George Habash and the countless others from Christian backgrounds in the secular PLO were also inspired by Islam as he claims was his “terrorist” motive in dealing with the pesky problem of illegal Israeli occupation.

Furthermore the Muslim Brotherhood, who Saleem claims he had dual affiliation with, was averse to the secular, Marxist leaning PLO during the time that he claimed to have been a member. In fact, it is also well known that the Muslim Brotherhood inspired Hamas was supported by Israel to be an “Islamist” counter to the secular PLO/Fatah. To this day, Hamas and the PLO have been at odds with each other to the point of killing each other in the streets of Palestine in recent years. Hence, Saleem’s claim of being an “Islamist” terrorist in the PLO while having felicity to the Muslim Brotherhood is utterly preposterous.

The reality is that Saleem has made a nice career for himself collecting honorariums, writing a book and getting exposure from the hyper-Islamophobic Aramaic Broadcasting Network (ABN) since the tragedy of 9/11. If he were indeed an “ex-terrorist,” I’m sure that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would have deported him by now for fraud because people with terrorism ties cannot get entry visas much less obtain American citizenship. And the FBI does not simply let “ex-terrorists” walk the streets because they claim to have received the “Holy Ghost” without detaining them for questioning. Changing idelogies does not absolve persons under American law from terrorism ties that they admit to.

The unfortunate part about Saleem’s bogus career is not his snake oil peddling but that there are so many individuals who do not care about the truth and lack intellectual honest that provide him a platform.

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Terry Jones Actually Burns a Qur’an and No One Notices

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Terry Jones Actually Burns a Qur’an and No One Notices

Posted on 23 March 2011 by Emperor

Crazy old Terry Jones went ahead with his Qur’an burning which he dubbed as an “International judge the Koran Day” after he said he wouldn’t “burn a Koran.” 30 people showed up and they burnt one Koran…and then…everyone went home.

Koran burnt in Florida church

GAINESVILLE, Florida — A controversial US evangelical preacher oversaw the burning of a copy of the Koran in a small Florida church after finding the Muslim holy book “guilty” of crimes.

The burning was carried out by pastor Wayne Sapp under the supervision of Terry Jones, who last September drew sweeping condemnation over his plan to ignite a pile of Korans on the anniversary of September 11, 2001 attacks.

Sunday’s event was presented as a trial of the book in which the Koran was found “guilty” and “executed.”

The jury deliberated for about eight minutes. The book, which had been soaking for an hour in kerosene, was put in a metal tray in the center of the church, and Sapp started the fire with a barbecue lighter.

The book burned for around 10 minutes while some onlookers posed for photos.

Jones had drawn trenchant condemnation from many people, including US President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, over his plan to burn the Muslim holy book in September.

He did not carry out his plan then and vowed he never would, saying he had made his point.

But this time, he said he had been “trying to give the Muslim world an opportunity to defend their book,” but did not receive any answer.

He said he felt that he couldn’t have a real trial without a real punishment.

The event was open to the public, but fewer than 30 people attended.

Life in the normally quiet city of Gainesville is centered around the University of Florida. And while there were public protests against Jones’ 9/11 activities, this event was largely ignored.

Jadwiga Schatz, who came to show support for Jones, expressed concern that Islam was growing in Europe.

“These people, for me, are like monsters,” she said. “I hate these people.”

Jones said he considered this event a success.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” he said.

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Pastor jailed for trafficking African child ‘slaves’; What if she were Muslim

Posted on 22 March 2011 by Amago

Just imagine if a Muslim was caught doing this. This would fill up Spencer’s and Geller’s blog quicker than we can fathom. (hat tip: Ibn Rushd)

Pastor jailed for trafficking African child ‘slaves’

A church pastor has been jailed for 11 and a half years after being found guilty of trafficking children into the UK for use as domestic “slaves” at her home in Barking, east London.

Lucy Adeniji brought two children and a 21-year-old woman to the UK from Africa illegally and used them as servants.

She was convicted of 17 different counts at Isleworth Crown Court.

The mother-of-five is the first person to be jailed for trafficking children into the UK for domestic servitude.

In a case that has been likened to modern-day slavery, Adeniji smuggled the three victims into Britain on false passports, and used them as servants at her home in Ray Gardens, Barking.

An illegal immigrant herself, Adeniji, 44 – originally from Nigeria – had told the victims’ parents they would have a better life in the UK, but instead viciously beat them if they failed to please her.

Benefits inquiry

The abuse only came to light when one of the victims escaped from Adeniji’s home after being beaten.

Adeniji was convicted last month of assault, child cruelty and facilitating illegal entry into the UK of a child.

She also admitted six counts of obtaining false passports for herself and her own children and two counts of facilitating illegal entry.

Adeniji faces a separate investigation into money she claimed in benefits for her own children.

Det Insp Gordon Valentine, of the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Paladin – which targets child trafficking – said the case could be the tip of the iceberg.

“The people who are using this form of slavery in their households know it is wrong,” he said.

“This case is very important because it shows victims that we can have successful prosecutions and that they can find justice.”

The case has echoes of the maltreatment of Victoria Climbié who died at the hands of her guardian, Marie Therese Kouao. She and her boyfriend Carl Manning were found guilty of Victoria’s murder in 2003.

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Frank Gaffney: Muslims Practicing Sharia Should Be Prosecuted for Sedition

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Frank Gaffney: Muslims Practicing Sharia Should Be Prosecuted for Sedition

Posted on 22 March 2011 by Emperor

Frank Gaffney

Gaffney appears with Brigitte Gabriel of ACT, I mean Hate! for America and calls for Muslims to be prosecuted for sedition if they practice Sharia’. This is even more quixotic when considering today’s feature on the man who chose to stone his gay friend after reading the Bible. Robert Spencer and other anti-Muslims also support this sort of legislation.

Frank Gaffney: Muslims Practicing Sharia Should Be Prosecuted for Sedition

(Little Green Footballs)

Here’s Frank Gaffney of the anti-Muslim Center for Security Policy, calling for Muslims who practice any version of sharia law to be arrested and prosecuted for “sedition.”

Gabriel: But a lot of people say that Sharia law is a religious practice, and maybe it should be protected by the First Amendment. Can you please tell us, is it compatible with the Constitution? Should it be protected by the First Amendment as a religious practice?

Gaffney: It is the law of the land in Saudi Arabia and Iran, and anyone who thinks that what life is like in either of those two countries is the same as life in America obviously doesn’t know anything about either Saudi Arabia or Iran. In fact, it is absolutely antithetical, Sharia is, to our Constitution, and the pursuit of it as you said in your comment, Brigitte, is incompatible with the Constitution’s Article VI, and therefore, far from being a protected religious practice, it is an impermissible act of sedition, which has to be prosecuted under our Constitution.

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Shocking Stoning in Philadelphia of Homosexual, What if they were Muslim?

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Shocking Stoning in Philadelphia of Homosexual, What if they were Muslim?

Posted on 22 March 2011 by Emperor

Oh no it looks like a Sharia’ takeover!! Hide your kids, hide your wife and your gay neighbors too because they’re coming to get you!! A 70 year old man was stoned to death by 28 year old Muslim Christian, John Thomas. What was his motivation? Could it be the Quran? Sharia’ Law?

No it was THE BIBLE. Does this mean that the Bible should be banned? Do we need to enact laws which ban the creeping spread of Biblical Law in the United States? This underscores the fact that the greatest theocratic threat to our Constitution does not come from a bunch of Muslims who make up roughly 1% percent of the population but in fact the Bible Thumpers who wish to re-cast the USA as a Christian nation.

Philadelphia Man Blames Bible for Stoning Death

by Candace Chellew-Hodge (Religious Dispatch)

A 28-year-old Philadelphia says he stoned a 70-year-old friend to death “because the Bible refers to stoning homosexuals.” John Thomas said he killed Murray Seidman with
stones inside a sock after the older man made “unwanted sexual advances.” From the APreport:

According to the complaint, “John Thomas stated that he read in the Old Testament that homosexuals should be stoned in certain situations. The answer John Thomas received from his prayers was to put an end to the victim’s life. John Thomas stated that he struck the victim approximately 10 times in the head. After the final blow, John Thomas made sure the victim was dead.”

But the full story reveals that Thomas’ “the Bible made me do it” excuse may just be that. Thomas had another, far older, motive for the killing: money. He was the sole heir to Seidman’s estate.

Yet Thomas’ excuse that the Bible supposedly sanctioned his horrific act should not be taken as a reason to dismiss the Bible wholesale. Gay blogger John Aravosis — like Thomas, not a theologian – agrees with the confessed killer that the Bible orders death for gay people and wonders: “How Christians get away with selling the Bible with those quotes still inside is beyond me.”

Both Thomas and Aravosis are right that the Bible (Leviticus 20:13, to be precise) prescribes death for homosexual acts between two men (never between two women because women, being property, were pretty much ignored). However, Thomas is incorrect about the method of death. The Bible never mentions stoning gay men.

Both arguments, though, miss the point. Bibles don’t kill people, ignorant Bible readers kill people.

Aravosis may find some solace from theologian Stanley Hauerwas who wrote a few years ago in his book Unleashing the Scripture, “The Bible is not and should not be accessible to merely anyone, but rather it should only be made available to those who have undergone the hard discipline of existing as part of God’s people.”

Which is to say that many people, like Thomas, who justify their conduct with a single quote from the Bible frequently don’t know what they are talking about. When one reads the Bible and takes the English version at face (and literal) value, they do terrible violence to the text. The Bible is not meant to be a book of answers where you can just open it up and find out exactly what to do next. It is not a Ouija board or a divining rod. Instead, it is a collection of writings from wildly different times, cultures, and points of view. In fact, it contradicts itself from book to book, and sometimes from chapter to chapter. To say, “the Bible says …” as if it settles an argument once and for all is a terribly naïve way to read a very complicated text. Instead, one must be trained to actually read the Bible in a responsible manner – preferably, as Hauerwas states, within a community dedicated to taking the Bible seriously.

As Jennifer Wright Knust writes in her latest book, Unprotected Texts, “The only way the Bible can be regarded as straightforward and simple is if no one bothers to read it. The Bible was not a collection of policy statements that had to be obeyed or a weapon designed to enforce particular views about morality, but an invitation to think about who God might be and what it means to be human.”

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Masjid Al-Hidayah graffiti

Hate Crime: Masjid al-Hidayah hit with Racist Graffiti

Posted on 22 March 2011 by Emperor

Hat tip: Europeans Against Islamophobia

British Columbia: Islamic centre sprayed with racist graffiti

Neighbours of the Masjid Al-Hidayah and Islamic Cultural Centre are reeling after racist graffiti was scrawled across the front of the Port Coquitlam mosque Wednesday night. The word “sandniggas” was spray-painted onto the front of the building and was visible to drivers and local businesses along the Kingsway Avenue industrial strip.

Bill Thomson, a worker at Boyd Autobody and Glass across the street from the mosque, said it is the first time he has seen any vandalism on the neighbouring property since it opened six years ago. ”We were going to go over and wash it off,” he said. “It’s absolutely disgusting.” Thomson said the employees at the auto body decided against cleaning up the mess, believing it could create issues with the mosques insurance company.

Tri-City News, 10 March 2011

Anyone with information is asked to call Coquitlam RCMP at 604-945-1580. Anyone who wants to remain anonymous can contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at www.solvecrime.ca.

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What if the Anti-Asian UCLA Girl had Ranted about Arabs?

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What if the Anti-Asian UCLA Girl had Ranted about Arabs?

Posted on 20 March 2011 by Danios

So by now, most of you have seen the now viral youtube video of Alexandra Wallace, a UCLA student, ranting about Asians:

Here’s a transcript for those of you who can’t stand her voice:

Okay, so here at UCLA it’s finals week.

So we know that I’m not the most politically correct person so don’t take this offensively. I don’t mean it toward any of my friends I mean it toward random people that I don’t even know in the library. So, you guys are not the problem.

The problem is these hordes of Asian people that UCLA accepts into our school every single year, which is fine. But if you’re going to come to UCLA then use American manners.

So it used to really bug me but it doesn’t bother me anymore the fact that all the Asian people that live in all the apartments around me — their moms and their brothers and their sisters and their grandmas and their grandpas and their cousins and everybody that they know that they’ve brought along from Asia with them – comes here on the weekends to do their laundry, buy their groceries and cook their food for the week. It’s seriously, without fail. You will always see old Asian people running around this apartment complex every weekend. That’s what they do. They don’t teach their kids to fend for themselves. You know what they don’t also teach them, is their manners.

Which brings me to my next point. Hi, in America we do not talk on our cell phones in the library. I swear every five minutes I will be — okay, not five minutes, say like fifteen minutes — I’ll be in like deep into my studying, into my political science theories and arguments and all that stuff, getting it all down, like typing away furiously, blah blah, blah, and then all of a sudden when I’m about to like reach an epiphany… Over here from somewhere, “Ooooh Ching Chong Ling Long Ting Tong, Ooohhhhh.”

Are you freaking kidding me? In the middle of finals week? So being the polite, nice American girl that my momma raised me to be, I kinda just gave him what anybody else would do that kinda like, [puts finger up to lips in a "shh" motion]. “You know it’s a library, like, we’re trying to study, thanks!” And then it’s the same thing five minutes later. But it’s somebody else, you know — I swear they’re going through their whole families, just checking on everybody from the tsunami thing. I mean I know, okay, that sounds horrible like I feel bad for all the people affected by the tsunami, but if you’re gonna go call your address book like you might as well go outside because if something is wrong you might really freak out if you’re in the library and everybody’s quiet like you seriously should go outside if you’re gonna do that.

So, thanks for listening, that was my rant. I just — even if you’re not Asian you really shouldn’t be on your cell phone in the library but I’ve just never seen that happen before so thank you for listening and have a nice day.

The reaction to her disastrous video was quite amazing: the public was (rightfully) outraged, and went after her with pitchfork in hand.  The three minute rant ruined her reputation, her career, and perhaps her life.

My question is: what if she had similarly ranted against Arabs?  What if the rant had been not about Asians at UCLA but Arabs in Dearborn, Michigan?  What do you think would have happened?

*crickets chirping*

Yep, nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

Or if anything, maybe she would get a show on Fox News.

Alas, Arabs and Muslims face the last form of acceptable bigotry.

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alaska

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Terrorists Charged in Plot to Kidnap and Kill Troopers

Posted on 18 March 2011 by Emperor

I wonder if Rep.Peter King will bringing this clear terrorists case in Alaska up at the hearings? Can you just imagine if these five were Muslim? It would be lock ‘em up and throw away the key, press conferences and daily bulletins on their interrogations, etc.

Five charged in alleged plot to kidnap or kill troopers, judge

By CASEY GROVE casey.grove@adn.com (Anchorage Daily News)

Five people in the Fairbanks area were arrested Thursday by state and federal law enforcement on charges connected with an alleged plot to kidnap or kill state troopers and a Fairbanks judge, according to the Alaska State Troopers.

Francis “Schaeffer” Cox, Lonnie Vernon, Karen Vernon, Coleman Barney and Michael Anderson are accused of conspiring to commit murder, kidnapping, and arson, as well as weapons misconduct, hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence, according to trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters in a written statement late Thursday.

An investigation “revealed extensive plans to kidnap or kill Alaska state troopers and a Fairbanks judge,” the statement said. The plans included “extensive surveillance” on the homes of two Fairbanks troopers, the statement said.

“Investigation also revealed that extensive surveillance on troopers in the Fairbanks area had occurred, specifically on the locations of the homes for two Alaska state troopers,” the statement said. “Furthermore, Cox et. al. had acquired a large cache of weapons in order to carry out attacks against their targeted victims. Some of the weapons known to be in the cache are prohibited by state or federal law.”

U.S. Attorney Karen Loeffler said Lonnie Vernon, 55, was arrested for threatening to kill a federal judge. She said more information about federal charges would be released today Fairbanks Police Chief Loren Zager said the operation involved multiple police actions related to Fairbanks-area members of the “sovereign citizen” movement.

The operation was complete by evening, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Anchorage.

Alaska State Troopers had earlier shut down a road near Cox’s home, according to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. The 26-year-old militia leader is a self-described “sovereign.”

An arrest warrant for Cox was issued last month when he failed to show up for a court appearance on a weapons charge.

Cox, a vocal proponent of Americans’ right to bear arms, had earlier vowed to defy what he described as an illegitimate and overbearing government.

The News-Miner reported a state trooper carrying a rifle blocked off an intersection near Cox’s listed address Thursday afternoon. A neighbor who lives on the same road said it was not blocked as of 5 p.m.

Along with troopers and Fairbanks police, the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service carried out the arrests, according to troopers.

An update posted on Cox’s Facebook page at about 7:30 p.m. said: “Schaeffer has been taken into custody by the FBI. Please pray for his safety and the safety of his family.”

The sovereign citizen movement is characterized by a rejection of U.S. laws and taxes. In general, participants believe that federal, state and local statutes and laws do not apply to them.

The investigation continues, troopers said.

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Pilots lock down cockpit after 3 passengers perform Jewish prayer on flight

Posted on 18 March 2011 by Emperor

You have to wonder if the ignorant passengers or crew thought these Orthodox Jews were Muslim?

Pilots lock down cockpit after 3 passengers perform Jewish prayer on flight

LOS ANGELES, CALIF.—Pilots on an Alaska Airlines flight locked down the cockpit and alerted authorities after three passengers conducted an elaborate Orthodox Jewish prayer ritual during their Los Angeles-bound flight.

Airline spokeswoman Bobbie Egan says the crew of Flight 241 from Mexico City became alarmed Sunday after the men began the ritual, which involves tying leather straps and small wooden boxes to the body.

FBI and customs agents, along with police and fire crews, met the plane at the gate at Los Angeles International Airport.

Airport police say two or three men were escorted off the plane, questioned by the FBI, and released. No arrests were made.

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When Anti-Muslim Websites Use Bogus Translations…and Then Try to Cover it Up!

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When Anti-Muslim Websites Use Bogus Translations…and Then Try to Cover it Up!

Posted on 16 March 2011 by Danios

by: Dawood and Danios

The Translating-Jihad site is one of the newest additions to the anti-Muslim blogosphere.  Its creator, Al-Mutarjim (The Translator), defines his site’s goal as translating Arabic documents into English in order to “expose this darkness” of Islam and to “to open the eyes of those already enslaved by Islam.”

The fact that Islamophobes routinely use bogus translations and out-of-context quotes is well-known.  But as if only to prove our case, the Translating-Jihad website challenged us to “refute this translation”, referring to an Arabic fatwa that he “translated” on his website. We accepted this challenge and exposed his “translation” as completely bogus.  Al-Mutarjim had completely mistranslated words and purposefully neglected to translate 4/5ths of the fatwa, including the mufti’s conclusion–a conclusion which directly contradicts what Al-Mutarjim claimed the fatwa said (and which he incidentally chose as the title of his article!).

Eventually, Al-Mutarjim was forced to reply to our site.  Instead of admitting fault, he issued an “updated” translation in which he attempted to “explain away” his academic dishonesty.  Al-Mutarjim whined:

First of all, I have no desire or need to take anything about Islam out of context. This is the tired old accusation that CAIR-types like to drag out whenever anybody in the West points out some of the objectionable material inherent in Islam.

Both Al-Mutarjim and his anti-Muslim colleague Staring at the View (SATV) use “whenever” and “anybody” arguments quite frequently.  Whenever anybody in the West…”  LoonWatch is not talking about “anybody”.  We’re talking about one particular person and one particular site here: Al-Mutarjim specifically and his site specifically.

Just as Al-Mutarjim quite stupidly chose to use a bogus translation when he challenged us to “refute this translation”, once again he quite stupidly validates “the tired old accusation” –namely, that Islamophobes take Islamic texts out of context.  Think, McFly, think! Al-Mutarjim ends up unknowingly validating the “the tired old accusation” by “translating” a fatwa completely out of context, which is evident for everyone to see!

Nikah as “Sexual Intercourse” or “Betrothal/Marriage”?

Al-Mutarjim mistranslated the following:

فيؤخذ من الآية جواز نكاح البنت قبل البلوغ”

As this:

we can take from this verse that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl.

When it actually translates as:

and from this verse we take the permissibility of betrothal/marriage (nikah) with pre-pubescent girls.

In Al-Mutarjim’s response, he bumbles:

That being said, Loonwatch is being dishonest when they say that the Arabic word nikah, which they translated as ‘marriage/betrothal’, “does not mean sexual intercourse at all.” The truth is, nikah can mean either ‘sexual intercourse’ or ‘marriage.’ (Need proof? Plug نكاح into Google Translate.)

Al-Mutarjim accusing LoonWatch of being dishonest? How rich!  Once again, Al-Mutarjim is guilty of “half-quoting”, splicing up quotes to support his argument.  In fact, what LoonWatch actually said was (emphasis added):

The word nikah here does not mean “sexual intercourse” at all.

Notice the key word “here”, which Al-Mutarjim leaves out.  Even if–for argument’s sake only–we conceded that “nikah” could sometimes mean “sexual intercourse”, can this meaning work in the sentence above?  For example, the English word “sex” can refer to intimate relations in one sentence, but gender in another.  The meaning “intimate relations” cannot be used to explain the meaning of sex in the following sentence:

Please state your name, sex, and age.

Would Al-Mutarjim have a case if he were to claim that the word “sex” above could also mean “intimate relations”?  Of course not.  And neither does he have a leg to stand on when he claims that “nikah” means “sex” in the sentence reproduced from the fatwa.  Even his primary “academic” proof–Google Translator–does not back his claim: when we enter the entire Arabic sentence into it, here’s what Google says:

We are of course not surprised that Al-Mutarjim invoked “Google Translator” since we have long since suspected–based on noticeable similarities–that Al-Mutarjim’s and Robert Spencer’s translations are simply “cleaned up” versions of Google Translator.  Again, this speaks to the profound academic qualifications of the self-appointed experts of Islam.  Perhaps The Translator ought to change his name to The Google Translator.

How about we rely on some real academic sources, instead of Google Translator?  Here’s what Al-Mawrid, arguably the most commonly used Arabic-to-English and English-to-Arabic lexicon, says:

As can be clearly seen above, the highlighted areas dealing both with nikah and nakaha (the verb/root nikah comes from), all relate to marriage. In fact, the compiler of the dictionary equates nikah with zawaj, which Al-Mutarjim himself translates as “marriage” in the fatwa.  Similarly, the verb nakaha is equated to tazawwaj, which means “to be married”.

The authoritative Hans Wehr dictionary, regarded as an essential tool for the English-speaking student of Arabic, says:

Notice that every single word the dictionary gives from the root letters “n k h”–including nikah–all refer to marriage.

When we look at Al-Mu‘jam al-Wasit, which is an established and popular Arabic-Arabic dictionary (similar to the Oxford English Dictionary in English, for example), we find likewise:

The underlines within the red box show the word zawaj (marriage) as being synonymous to nikah–and in fact to all the various words from the root “n k h”. In other words, all refer to marriage, marrying and the procedure of marriage.

Nowhere do we see the meaning of “sexual intercourse” in any of these dictionaries!  It is the reader’s decision whether to rely on Google Translator in its beta form or to refer to actual academic sources.

Al-Mutarjim whines:

I concede that the Mufti could have meant marriage, but he also could have meant sexual intercourse.

No, he couldn’t have.  If Al-Mutarjim had not used ellipses (…) everywhere to mask the fatwa’s real meaning, he would have noted this immediately above:

ومن المهم كذلك أن نعرف أن الفقهاء وإن أجازوا تزويج الصغيرة فإنهم منعوا زوجها أن يطأها حتى تطيق الوطء ، وهذا يختلف باختلاف الأزمنة والأمكنة والبيئات.

And it is important for us to know that even though the jurists approved betrothing a child, they prevented her husband from having intercourse with her until she could bear it [lit. intercourse], which can differ according to the time, place and environment.

What is amazing is that Al-Mutarjim himself–in his updated version–is forced to translate the passage above, which he renders as:

It is also important that we understand that the scholars, while they permitted marrying off young girls, they forbade her husband from having intercourse with her until she could bear it

This sentence in and of itself completely invalidates his “translation” of the sentence (“we can take from this verse that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl”) as well as the title given to his article (“It Is Permissible to Have Sexual Intercourse with a Prepubescent Girl”).  This is the case even using his own translation!  The Mufti could not possibly mean “sexual intercourse” in the sentence translated, since he clearly states that the jurists forbade/prevented it.

What the mufti was saying, quite clearly, was:

(1) Betrothal/marriage of young (prepubescent) girls is technically permitted.

(2) However, this does not mean that sexual intercourse may take place.

(3) Later on in the fatwa, he states that the ruling permitting such early betrothals/marriages is archaic and does not apply to today’s situation.

Al-Mutarjim’s deceitful manipulation of the fatwa changed (1) above to say that sexual intercourse is permitted, and completely omitted points (2) and (3).  If this is not academic dishonesty, then what is?

Yet, Al-Mutarjim says:

Translation is an art, not a science, and translators can and do argue over the correct translation of certain words and phrases.

In this case, the only art that Al-Mutarjim has mastered is the art of deception!  (Yet another example of how the Islamophobes are guilty of projection when they cry about taqiyya.)

Al-Mutarjim continues to build a case against himself, explaining why he chose “sexual intercourse” instead of “betrothal/marriage”:

In this case, I went with ‘sexual intercourse’ because from the context, it seems clear to me that the Mufti is not just talking about signing a marriage contract without consummating it. Right after that statement he talks about how Muhammad not only married ‘A’isha but then had sex with her when she was only nine years old, i.e. a prepubescent girl.

Here, Al-Mutarjim’s lack of educational qualifications and profound ignorance of Islam come to the fore!  Here’s what the fatwa said, which he refers to:

وقد صح أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم عقد على عائشة وهي بنت ست سنين إلا أنه لم يدخل بها إلا وهي بنت تسع سنين، رواه البخاري.

And it is verified that the Prophet (peace be upon him) had contracted with Aisha when she was six years old, but he did not have intercourse with her, until she was 9 years old, as narrated by Bukhari.

Does he not see that this is a great proof against his claim!?  The mufti is saying that Aisha was betrothed/married to the Prophet Muhammad at the age of six, but sexual intercourse did not take place for three years.  This three year delay supports the idea that the mufti was permitting betrothal/marriage of prepubescent girls (hence, the marriage at the age of six) but forbidding sexual intercourse (for three years in this case), until the girl was able to bear it without harm coming to her, which he says is “the age of puberty.”

Although many reformist Muslims question the age of Aisha, the traditionalist opinion has been that Aisha had passed through puberty at the age of nine, which is why sexual intercourse was–according to this opinion–permissible.  Clearly, the mufti’s invocation of Aisha is wholly consistent with the idea that betrothal/marriage was permitted before puberty, but sexual intercourse allowed only after it.  Traditionalists believe that Aisha was betrothed before puberty, and that the marriage was consummated after puberty.

“Sexual Intercourse” is a “Tropical Meaning”

The primary, well-known, and common meaning of nikah is “betrothal/marriage”.  This is the meaning that any competent Arabic translator would know to use.  As for the meaning of “sexual intercourse”, this is considered an unusual translation of the word.  In fact, Lane’s Lexicon–widely considered the best classical Arabic-English dictionary in the world–notes that such usage is a “tropical expression”, something outside the normal range of meaning. [Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon (1968), Vol. 8, p. 2848]

This fact is something very easily verifiable by simply asking any (neutral) Arabic speaker.  And this is certainly confirmed by the images of the dictionary pages we have reproduced above, where we do not even see the meaning given!  That is how obscure that definition is!

Furthermore, using the translation “sexual intercourse” is even stranger in the context of a fatwa (religious verdict).  It is well-known that fatwas use Islamic legalese.  Religious terms that are used in Islamic law have very specific meanings.  Words like halal, haram, caliph, imam, zina, sahih, etc…These are all religious terms that even non-Arabic speaking Muslims will know, because they have special religious significance.  The word nikah is most definitely one such “religious term”, used for example even by Pakistani Muslims who don’t usually speak Arabic.

The well-known religious meaning of the word is found in the Quran itself.  Prof. Joseph Schacht, who is considered by many to be the pioneer of Islamic legal studies in the West, notes in the Encyclopedia of Islam (2nd Edition) that while “sexual intercourse” is a meaning, “in the Kur’an [it is] used exclusively for the contract of marriage.”  Wherever the word nikah is used in the Quran, it means the contract of betrothal/marriage–not sexual intercourse.  (For the record, Prof. Schacht is hardly known to be sympathic towards Islam, and his work is routinely cited by the Islamphobic polemicist Ibn Warraq.)

This trend is found in the books of hadith and the Islamic legal literature as well. For example, the hadith collection known as Sahih al-Muslim has a chapter entitled “Book of Marriage (Kitab al-Nikah)”–in it are sayings regarding marriage, i.e. who should marry, who one can marry, who one can propose marriage to, conditions of marriage, etc. etc.  Nary a soul would dare claim it is the Book of Sex, since its topics are far more wide-ranging than that.

As for Islamic legal literature, we can cite a book that Islamophobes love to cite, The Reliance of the Traveler, that also has in it a “Book of Marriage (Kitab al-Nikah)”–which cannot possibly be understood to be the Book of Sex.  The examples we could cite are numerous.

It is quite telling that Al-Mutarjim invoked a “tropical definition” to a term that Arabic speakers–even non-Arabic speaking Muslims–know immediately as meaning “betrothal/marriage.”  Additionally, the mufti uses three different words to clearly refer to sexual intercourse:

يدخل عليها (he enters into her)
الوطء (mounting)
الجماع (coming together)

There is no ambiguity here.  But to top off the absurdity of using a “tropical meaning” is the fact that the context of the fatwa itself–as noted in the above section–would completely negate such an unusual usage.  The desire to do so can only be born out of a specific agenda.

Conclusion

We must reiterate here that we do not agree with the IslamOnline fatwa.  Therefore, we do not see the need to defend its substance.  (Future articles will tackle the dispute about Aisha’s age, the minimum age of marriage in Islam [although it was briefly discussed here], etc.)  The focus here ought to be Al-Mutarjim’s misleading and dishonest translations. Our readers simply need to compare the original “translation” he provided to the updated translation he was forced to publish after we exposed his original. The dramatic difference–between his own initial translation and the new one we forced him to provide–speaks volumes!

Al-Mutarjim argues:

Regardless of whatever personal (and vague) advice the Mufti gives much later in his fatwa, the case is already closed per the Qur’an and Sunnah.

We are not going to argue what the Quran and Sunna say regarding the matter, as that is another topic altogether.  The fact that the mufti himself does not understand the Quran and Sunna to imply what al-Mutarjim states it implies, is itself telling. The issue here is that Al-Mutarjim translated a fatwa from an IslamOnline mufti, making it seem as if the mufti was perfectly fine with sexual intercourse with prepubescent girls.  But here is what Al-Mutarjim purposefully excluded from his “translation”:

(1) The mufti forbade sexual intercourse before puberty, arguing that “at the very least” puberty should be the minimum age for marriage.

(2) The mufti noted that sexual intercourse with prepubescent girls should be prevented because it can cause severe “negative physical and emotional ramifications that would stay with her for the rest of her life.”

(3) Betrothal/marriage of prepubescent girls is, according to the mufti, a thing of the past and no longer applicable.

All of this was hidden in those ever so strategic ellipses.  Al-Mutarjim’s response seems to imply that our criticism of his translation revolved solely around that one word (nikah) and that one sentence. 

Yet, even if we pretend, for argument’s sake only, that he translated it correctly (which he didn’t), this does not change the fact that he has produced a highly misleading and dishonest translation.  He purposefully deleted all three points above (and 4/5ths of the fatwa), a deception that is even greater than simply mistranslating one sentence.

The fact that Al-Mutarjim and his defenders are trying to make it all about one word and one sentence indicates their desire to obfuscate the issue.  So let’s be very clear: Al-Mutarjim’s translation is fraudulent not just because of one sentence but because he purposefully omitted key information from the fatwa.

This begs the question: why?  Why did Al-Mutarjim hide these very important points?  Why did he neglect to translate 4/5th’s of the fatwa?  Why was there even a need for an “updated version” of the translation, which magically only appeared when we criticized his first one?  Had his first translation been an honest one, why the need for an update?  We think the reasons for this are patently obvious.

To conclude: Al-Mutarjim had “translated” a fatwa making it seem as if it permitted sexual intercourse with prepubescent girls, even though it said the exact opposite–namely, that the age of puberty is to be considered the minimum age “at the very least.”  Using ellipses, the Translating-Jihad site manipulates texts…kind of like if we rendered Al-Mutarjim’s words like so:

I previously produced an excerpted translation…deliberately taking things out of context…

My goal…is being dishonest.

Addendum I:

SATV’s dishonesty can be gauged by his conciliatory comment on our site:

I believe that much of your response to Translating-Jihad was also quite good. I won’t speak for him, but I agreed with much of your grammatical analysis. Where I disagree is your assumption that people critical of Islam deliberately mistranslate Arabic.

and his completely opposite attitude on his blog.  Would SATV like to be honest and state on his blog that he agrees with our grammatical analysis of Al-Mutarjim’s “translation”?

Also, note here the invocation of a “whenever” and “anybody” argument once again: “your assumption that people critical of Islam deliberately mistranslate Arabic“.  Here, we are talking about one particular person and one particular site.  Each stands on its own merits. Al-Mutarjim specifically and Translating-Jihad specifically are deliberately mistranslating and obfuscating Arabic.  The evidence speaks for itself, and SATV’s refusal to admit this speaks to his own dishonesty.

Update I:

Staring at the View (SATV) has issued a response to our article, saying (emphasis added):

I have carefully read Loonwatch’s grammatical analysis of the Fatwa that caused this duststorm, and I can say that I agree with that analysis. I agree that the primary meaning of the word Nikah is marriage, and I agree that the Mufti who issued the Fatwa was not advocating sex with young girls.

We must give credit where credit is due.  It is pretty stand up of him to admit this.

Of course, the fact that even SATV agrees with our analysis of Al-Mutarjim’s flawed translation does not fare well for Al-Mutarjm and the Translating-Jihad website.  What’s interesting though is that SATV himself seems to be connected to the Translating Jihad website; Al-Mutarjim introduced SATV on his website as follows:

My buddy over at Staring at the View has agreed to start cross-posting his excellent articles here at Translating Jihad.

It’s just barely a stretch then to say that even Translating Jihad doesn’t think Translating Jihad is reliable!

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UK: Planned Muslim Community Center Burned to the Ground by Arsonists

Posted on 12 March 2011 by Emperor

Is this a case of if you want to pray there we will burn it down?

Video & gallery: Huge fire at St Michael’s Church in Ipswich ‘suspicious’

FIRE investigators are “99 per cent sure” that a blaze which ripped through a church in Ipswich was started deliberately.

The fire at St Michael’s Church in Upper Orwell Street has left the Victorian building structurally unsafe.

An inspection of the remains of the vacant church by experts has revealed the roof is too unstable for fire investigators to enter the building.

A spokeswoman for Suffolk police said at this stage it is thought the fire started in the rear of the church shortly after 10pm on Monday.

She said: “The roof is very unstable and so it is too dangerous to enter the building at this stage.

“It looks like the fire was started at the rear of the church and spread straight to the roof.”

Today the owner of the dilapidated Victorian church said the community’s “dream is over”, after 25 years of savings and fundraising “went up in flames”, revealing his has no insurance.

Muhammad Manwar Ali, chief executive of Jimas, the organisation that owns the building, was at the forefront of plans to transform the church into a £1million Muslim-run community centre.

Dismayed, Mr Ali returned to the scene this morning as fire investigators and a building inspector assessed the extent of the damage.

The roof is completely destroyed and parts of the church were still burning, according to firefighters.

Tragically, the site was not insured and owner Mr Manwar Ali is set to lose the £350,000 he paid for the church last year out of his own life savings, fundraising and loans from friends.

And plans to spend up to £1 million over the next few years on transforming the run-down site have been shelved as the building teeters on the brink of collapse.

But incredibly, Mr Manwar Ali said that even if the police did manage to track down those responsible, he would rather invite them round for a cup of coffee than see them go to prison.

He said: “The foolish things is we hadn’t insured it. Hopefully there is nobody who has been harmed or hurt – there could have been somebody inside.

“I will forgive them (those responsible) and let them know I don’t want to see them in prison.

“They can come and have free coffee in our shop.”

He stressed that the church would have become a community centre, not a mosque, and that it would have been open to everyone in Ipswich.

He said: “We were not doing it for business or to make money for ourselves, even if people find that hard to believe.

“It wasn’t a Muslin or Asian thing – it would have been a fantastic place for Ipswich.”

If you were in the area and saw or heard anything suspicious, or if you have information about how the fire started please call Ds Michael Brown at Ipswich CID on 01473 613500.

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Kevin Harpham, White Supremacist Left “Sophistacted Bomb” at MLK Parade

Posted on 09 March 2011 by Emperor

Kevin Harpham is suspected of leaving a sophisticated bomb at an MLK Parade in Washington. We didn’t hear much about this individual but if he were Muslim we might be holding Congressional hearings on the Radicalization of American Muslims…oh wait we are.

MLK Day Parade Bomber Suspect Arrested

SPOKANE, Wash. — A man accused of leaving a sophisticated bomb along a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade route in Spokane is known to an organization that tracks hate groups.

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center tells The Associated Press that Kevin Harpham was a member of the white supremacist National Alliance in 2004. But Potok says his organization doesn’t know when he joined or if he has left the group.

The 36-year-old Harpham is from the Colville area in northeastern Washington. He was arrested Wednesday and is expected to appear in federal court at 3:30 p.m. on charges of trying to use a weapon of mass destruction and possession of an unregistered explosive device.

It wasn’t clear if Harpham has a lawyer.

The bomb was discovered before it went off and no one was injured.

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Brigitte Gabriel’s ACT! for America Draws Crowds with Anti-Muslim Message

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Brigitte Gabriel’s ACT! for America Draws Crowds with Anti-Muslim Message

Posted on 08 March 2011 by Emperor

Brigitte Gabriel

We have been reporting on “Brigitte Gabriel” and her hate organization ACT! for America since we began our site a few years ago. It seems now people are speaking out more against her extremist hate due to recent flagrant Islamophobic events such as the one in Yorba Linda.

Brigitte Gabriel’s personal story is a crock, what she presents to her ignorant crowds is a crock, she presents a black and white world in which Muslims are the enemies of humanity, Christianity and Civilization.

For more on her read: A Case Study in Sincere Hypocrisy: Brigitte Gabriel

ACT! for America is Better Known as Hate for America!

Drawing U.S. Crowds With Anti-Islam Message

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN (New York Times)

FORT WORTH — Brigitte Gabriel bounced to the stage at a Tea Party convention last fall. She greeted the crowd with a loud Texas “Yee-HAW,” then launched into the same gripping personal story she has told in hundreds of churches, synagogues and conference rooms across the United States:

As a child growing up a Maronite Christian in war-torn southern Lebanon in the 1970s, Ms. Gabriel said, she had been left lying injured in rubble after Muslims mercilessly bombed her village. She found refuge in Israel and then moved to the United States, only to find that the Islamic radicals who had terrorized her in Lebanon, she said, were now bent on taking over America.

“America has been infiltrated on all levels by radicals who wish to harm America,” she said. “They have infiltrated us at the C.I.A., at the F.B.I., at the Pentagon, at the State Department. They are being radicalized in radical mosques in our cities and communities within the United States.”

Through her books, media appearances and speeches, and her organization, ACT! for America, Ms. Gabriel has become one of the most visible personalities on a circuit of self-appointed terrorism detectors who warn that Muslims pose an enormous danger within United States borders.

Representative Peter T. King, Republican of Long Island, will conduct hearings Thursday in Washington on a similar theme: that the United States is infiltrated by Muslim radicals. Mr. King was the first guest last month on a new cable television show that Ms. Gabriel co-hosts with Guy Rodgers, the executive director of ACT! and a Republican consultant who helped build the Christian Coalition, once the most potent political organization on the Christian right.

Ms. Gabriel, 46, who uses a pseudonym, casts her organization as a nonpartisan, nonreligious national security group. Yet the organization draws on three rather religious and partisan streams in American politics: evangelical Christian conservatives, hard-line defenders of Israel (both Jews and Christians) and Tea Party Republicans.

She presents a portrait of Islam so thoroughly bent on destruction and domination that it is unrecognizable to those who study or practice the religion. She has found a receptive audience among Americans who are legitimately worried about the spread of terrorism.

But some of those who work in counterterrorism say that speakers like Ms. Gabriel are spreading distortion and fear, and are doing the country a disservice by failing to make distinctions between Muslims who are potentially dangerous and those who are not.

Brian Fishman, a research fellow at both the New America Foundation in Washington, and the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point, said, “When you’ve got folks who are looking for the worst in Islam and are promoting that as the entire religion of 1.5 or 1.6 billion people, then you only empower the real extremists.”

Ms. Gabriel is only one voice in a growing circuit that includes counter-Islam speakers like Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Walid Shoebat. What distinguishes Ms. Gabriel from her counterparts is that she has built a national grass-roots organization in the last three years that has already engaged in dozens of battles over the place of Islam in the United States. ACT! for America claims 155,000 members in 500 chapters across the country. To build her organization, Ms. Gabriel has enlisted Mr. Rodgers, who had worked behind the scenes for the Christian Coalition’s leaders, Ralph Reed and the television evangelist Pat Robertson. (Ms. Gabriel herself was once an anchor for Mr. Robertson’s Christian television network in the Middle East).

As national field director, Mr. Rodgers planted and tended Christian Coalition chapters across the country, and is now using some of the same strategies as executive director of ACT! Among those tactics is creating “nonpartisan voter guides” that rank candidates’ responses and votes on issues important to the group.

Just as with the Christian Coalition’s voter guides, the candidates whose positions most often align with ACT!’s are usually Republicans. Mr. Rodgers previously served as campaign manager for Patrick J. Buchanan’s presidential run in 1996, and as a consultant for John McCain in 2008.

Ms. Gabriel and Mr. Rodgers declined to be interviewed in person or over the telephone, but agreed to respond to questions by e-mail. They permitted interviews with only their national field director and two chapter leaders they selected, though half a dozen other interviews were conducted with chapter leaders before they were told not to talk.

Ms. Gabriel says she is motivated not by fear or hatred of Islam, but by her love for her adopted country.

“I lost Lebanon, my country of birth, to radical Islam,” she wrote. “I do not want to lose my adopted country America.”

She insists that she is singling out only “radical Islam” or Muslim “extremists” — not the vast majority of Muslims or their faith. And yet, in her speeches and her two books, she leaves the opposite impression. She puts it most simply in the 2008 introduction to her first book, “Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America.”

“In the Muslim world, extreme is mainstream,” she wrote. She said that there is a “cancer” infecting the world, and said: “The cancer is called Islamofacism. This ideology is coming out of one source: The Koran.”

In what ACT! is calling “Open a Koran” day this September, the group plans to put up 750 tables in front of post offices, libraries, churches and synagogues and hand out leaflets selectively highlighting verses that appear to advocate violence, slavery and subjugation of women.

In the last year, the group played a key role in passing a constitutional amendment in Oklahoma banning the use of Shariah, a body of Islamic law derived from the Koran and from the Muslim prophet Muhammad’s teachings, sayings and acts. Most Muslims draw selectively on its tenets — in the same way that people of other faiths pick and choose from their sacred texts.

But group members and their allies have succeeded in popularizing the notion that American Muslims are just biding their time until they gain the power to revoke the Constitution and impose Shariah law in the United States.

“We can’t let Shariah law take hold,” said Susan Watts, who leads a large chapter in Houston.

ACT! members are challenging high school textbooks and college courses that they deem too sympathetic to Islam. A group leader in Eugene, Ore., signed up to teach a community college course on Islam, but it was canceled when a Muslim group exposed his blog postings denouncing Islam and denying the scope of the Holocaust.

A chapter in Colorado recently featured a guest speaker on “How to minister to Muslims,” and “Conversion success stories.” Mr. Rodgers said in a written response that ACT! does not encourage such activities.

Ms. Gabriel’s approach and her power appear rooted in her childhood trauma in the civil war in southern Lebanon. The war was a chaotic stew in which ever-shifting alliances of clan-based militias made up of Christian, Shiite, Sunni, Palestinian and Druse made war on one other, often with the backing of other countries. But in the rendering Ms. Gabriel shares with her American audiences, it was black and white. As her father explained to her, “The Muslims bombed us because we are Christians. They want us dead because they hate us.” (The refrain became the title of her first book.)

She moved to Israel in her early 20s to work for Middle East Television. Ms. Gabriel often mentions in lectures that she was an anchor for the network, but does not reveal that Middle East Television was then run by Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network to spread his politically conservative, Pentecostal faith in the Middle East.

On air as a reporter, Ms. Gabriel used the name Nour Saman. She married an American co-worker and in 1989 moved to the United States. They started a film and television production company, which says it has produced programs on terrorism for “Good Morning America” and “Primetime.”

She said she uses a pseudonym, voted on by her organization’s board, because she has received death threats.

Ms. Gabriel has given hundreds of lectures, including to the Heritage Foundation and the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va. Her salary from two organizations she founded, American Congress for Truth and ACT! for America, was $178,411 in 2009. And the group’s combined income was $1.6 million.

In Fort Worth, Ms. Gabriel spent nearly an hour after her speech signing books and posing for pictures with gushing fans.

“She really opened up my eyes about Islam,” said Natalie Rix Cresson, a composer, clutching a signed copy of Ms. Gabriel’s book. “I didn’t realize it was so infiltrated in the schools, everywhere.”

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Anti-Muslim Hate Rally Organizer Eliezrie to Teach “Kabbalah of Love” at Jewish Federation Vegas Mega-Event

Posted on 07 March 2011 by Mooneye

This Rabbi has since attempted to distance himself from protesters and his involvement though he was a leading organizer in the event. Jewish leadership needs to stand up to his radical voice and shun his presence at their gatherings. Already individual Jews have called out the Rabbi including Blumenthal in this report below.

Anti-Muslim Hate Rally Organizer Eliezrie to Teach “Kabbalah of Love” at Jewish Federation Vegas Mega-Event

(Max Blumenthal)

It should be clear to anyone who has seen the video of the anti-Muslim hate rally in Yorba Linda that the organizers of the event are extremely dangerous and demented people. If their pathological racism was not apparent before the video surfaced, then it is confirmed now. So why is the Jewish Federation and a who’s who of established Jewish organizations, from Birthright Israel to the New Israel Fund to JDate (even Rock The Vote is involved somehow), hosting one of the hate rally’s key organizers this weekend at a major gathering in Las Vegas billed as “an entertaining, interactive and educational celebration that will draw over 1,500 Jewish young adults (ages 22-45) from across North America?”

Last week, Rabbi David Eliezrie of the Yorba Linda chapter of Chabad was among a mob of local extremists who screamed racial epithets at immigrant families. On Monday, however, the rabbi will lead a session at “Tribefest” on “the Kabbalah of Love.” “Love has always been a central theme in Jewish teachings,” the event description reads. “In an interactive experience we will explore the mystical and classical sources about love.” How touching.

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Max Blumenthal: Anti-Muslim hate rally summons the ghosts of Jim Crow

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Max Blumenthal: Anti-Muslim hate rally summons the ghosts of Jim Crow

Posted on 07 March 2011 by Mooneye

Max Blumenthal on the anti-Muslim rally and its parallels to the Jim Crow era.

Anti-Muslim hate rally summons the ghosts of Jim Crow

(Max Blumenthal)

While watching the unforgettably hideous (and now viral) footage of the recent anti-Muslim demonstration in Yorba Linda, California, I could not help but think of Elizabeth Eckford, the African-American student who was forced to walk through a phalanx of violent white racists chanting “Lynch her! Lynch her!” during the federal government’s first attempt to integrate Little Rock Central High School. This iconic image was immediately recalled by the video of Muslim-American children walking through a crowd of protesters calling them terrorists, threatening them, and chanting “Go home!” as they proceeded towards a local community center for a charity event. Eckford was badly scarred by her experience; the trauma affected her life for decades. I wonder how the children who had to be marched through the gauntlet of racists in Yorba Linda will remember their experience.

Billed as a “Patriotic Rally,” the anti-Muslim demonstration was organized by official hate group leader Pam Geller, Tea Party outfits including the North Orange County Conservative Coalition and We Surround Them OC 912; and Rabbi David Eliezrie of the Yorba Linda chapter of Chabad-Lubavitch, a messianic Orthodox Jewish group. Though Chabad does not make its political positions explicit, I have learned through first hand experience how extreme its leadership is, especially in Southern California.

In 2002, I took a Hebrew class with a rabbi (I wanted to improve my very poor reading at the time), who led the West L.A. Chabad chapter and was supposedly a renowned teacher of the Kabbalah. At some point, the rabbi invited me and some other students over for a shabbat dinner which, given Chabad’s mission to proselytize within the Jewish community, would eventually lead to some form of pressure to join the organization. The rabbi’s father, who was also a rabbi, led off dinner with a bold prediction: “Within five years, the Palestinians will be eliminated by nuclear energy!” I was shocked and did not know what to say. At first, I attempted to politely register my displeasure. But nothing would stop him. “Either we use nuclear energy or we transfer them all!” he said. No one at the table seemed to have any problem with these wishes for genocide. “So will you use cattle cars to transfer them?” I asked. “We can use camels. Whatever,” he responded. Several of the men at the table chuckled at this remark. I excused myself from dinner soon after and would never have contact with Chabad again.

Rabbi David Elriezie at the Yorba Linda hate rallyCorrection: This photo does not show Rabbi David Eliezrie, however, Eliezrie has admitted to participating in the rally

Chabad’s Rabbi Eliezrie appeared at the Yorba Linda hate rally with an Israeli flag in one hand and an American flag in the other. Other participants displayed the Israeli flag as well. In fact, the Israeli flag seemed to be peeking out from a cluster of American flags that formed the backdrop for speakers including Republican Rep’s Ed Royce and Gary Miller, who both railed against the Muslim presence in Orange County. At 4:06 in the video, the crowd can be seen hectoring a Muslim couple with the chant, “We support Israel!” As even Haaretz has noticed, the Israeli flag is becoming a key symbol for a trans-Atlantic neo-fascist axis that thrives on violent resentment towards Muslim and Arab immigrants. Given the ethnocratic basis of the Israeli state and the country’s settler-colonial ethos, the trend is not ironic or very surprising.

Back in 1957, in Little Rock Central High, an awkward, acne scarred boy sat behind Elizabeth Eckford every day in class, muttering in a low drone, “Nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger.” Harassment from him and scores of white students would eventually drive Eckford to attempt suicide several times. Fifty years later, that awkward student, whose name is Charles Sawrie, expressed deep contrition for what he had done. “It was all kind of stupid,” he told journalist David Margolick. “I just wanted to get a name for myself. I don’t remember anything about her except she was black and my job was to make it as rough for the blacks as I could.”

Demonstrators celebrate their intimidation of Muslim familiesDemonstrators celebrate their intimidation of Muslim families

On the Facebook page of the North Orange County Conservative Coalition, adults who behaved just as Sawrie did as a high school student in the Jim Crow South are overflowing with pride. “This was a great opportunity to speak out against an oppressive threat to us all. The speakers were GREAT as were the Patriots who joined us,” remarked someone named Gibbs Carol. Another protester named Desare Ferraro commented: “Americans are finally waking up to the dangers of multi-culturalism and putting out the “NOT WELCOME” sign to terrorist supporting fundraisers in our communities.” “What a great rally yesterday in Yorba Linda!” said Neil O’Brien.

Below are two videos. The first is of the Arab American Institute’s congressional briefing on Rep. Peter King’s upcoming hearings on radicalization in the Muslim community, which will essentially function as a congressional legitimization of the anti-Muslim crusade. I speak at about 32:00 and describe the trans-Atlantic Islamophobic axis:

The second video contains my appearance on Viewpoint with Jim Zogby, where I discuss the Islamophobic axis in further detail with Maya Berry:

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Allen West Practicing Taqiyya?

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Allen West Practicing Taqiyya?

Posted on 07 March 2011 by Rousseau

We have done our fair share of coverage of the loony House representative from Florida, Allen West, but this guy is just amazing sometimes in the nonsense he spits out. West has made some seriously Islamophobic remarks in the past, arguing in point blank statements that Islam is not a religion, but an ideology:

“We already have a 5th column that is already infiltrating into our colleges, into our universities, into our high schools, into our religious aspect, our cultural aspect, our financial, our political systems in this country. And that enemy represents something called Islam and Islam is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology, it is not a religion. It has not been a religion since 622 AD, and we need to have individuals that stand up and say that.”

So said West back then, in the company of other right-wing loons, that “Islam is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology, it is not a religion.” It seems pretty clear to anyone with half a brain that he was not trying to say “radical Islam” is wrong, or that he is against “extremist” versions of Islam, or “Islamism” or anything else. He makes it very clear in that speech he is against Islam, period. He also makes it clear that he does not think Islam is a religion.

In early February 2011, West was contacted by religious leaders who became aware of West’s rhetoric against Rep. Keith Ellison, one of two Muslim Congressmen in the House of Representatives. West said that Ellison represented “the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established”:

Several religious leaders told South Florida Congressman Allen West on Wednesday they have “deep concern” over his recent comments about a Muslim colleague in Congress and about “your tendency to offer intemperate comments about Islam.”

In contrast to the blunt comments about Islam he made during the right-wing program mentioned above, West changed his tune:

“It is the extremist, radical element that has hijacked Islam that presents a dangerous threat to both our country and our allies throughout the world,” West said in a return letter. “This radical jihadist movement has no place in the United States of America or anywhere on earth.”

So now it was the “extremist, radical element” that had “hijacked Islam” that West was concerned about. I would like to offer a more cogent and intellectual analysis of West’s statements, but let’s be real here folks. It isn’t required. He is changing his tune because he does not want to appear to be the bigot that he clearly is. West was speaking from his heart to his like minded loons last year at that right-wing program where he said that “Islam is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology.” But when respected religious leaders contacted him after his verbal attack on Rep. Ellison, West backtracked to save face. West, it could be argued, is practicing the definition of “taqiyya” that so many anti-Muslim loons claim that Muslims practice. West is hiding his true beliefs about Islam from civil society because he knows it can only serve to make him look like a bigot. Meanwhile, the Congressman ramps up the anti-Islam rhetoric once he’s in front of his fellow Muslim-bashing compatriots.

However, West’s true face was shown once again when he felt pushed into a corner about his views on Islam. On Monday, Feb. 21, West got into a heated exchange with the director of CAIR Florida, Nezar Hamze. Hamze had the audacity to question West’s knowledge about Islam. How dare he! It’s quite obvious that someone of West’s stature, being a Congressman and all, would have the requisite knowledge to speak about Islamic theology and history. I mean, don’t most U.S. Congressmen and Congresswomen know a whole lot about Islamic theology and history? Isn’t that why they are elected to Congress – because they know a lot about Islam?

Well, of course not. But, Hamze stood before the bigoted Congressman and asked West to point out where in the Qur’an it says to attack Americans or innocent people. This gave West the opportunity to show how prolific his knowledge of Islamic history was (and how big of a wise guy he is). West told the lowly Muslim that of course there’s no mention of attacking Americans in the Qur’an because America was not even around when the Qur’an was written.

Duh, you stupid Muslim!

West then made mention of certain battles in early Islamic history. LoonWatch is currently working on a lengthy response to West’s dubious claims, one that he and other Islamophobes constantly refer to in order to argue that Islam is violent. Stay tuned for that response – it will be posted soon. However, make no mistake that West’s alleged understanding of Islamic law and history is way off base, as is his understanding of the Muslim American community today.

In response to the question Hamze asked, West alleged that Maj. Nidal Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” when he killed those innocent people at Fort Hood and that the 9-11 hijackers also yelled “Allahu Akbar” when they flew planes into the Twin Towers, as if to show that these people represent Islam. Of course, West is attempting to link all Muslims to what Nidal Hasan and the 9-11 terrorists did through the use of common Islamic terms. Just because some extremists shouted out a religious term when committing acts of violence against innocent people does not mean that others who also use those religious terms share in the guilt of those atrocities or that Islam somehow would condone these actions because these murderers attempted to “Islamicize” these heinous actions. West is treading on a slippery slope. One that will make him fall on his face. Which brings us to his final statement at the town hall event that fateful evening.

Hamze told West that he was ashamed that West was attacking his religion, whereupon West burst out and yelled “You attacked us! You attacked us!”

Wow.

This is a United States Congressman? This is not only an absurd statement to make, because for one Hamze obviously had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks, but two, West is essentially laying guilt for 9-11 on every single Muslim American. By saying “You attacked us,” West is telling us what he truly believes. That Muslim Americans, like Nezar Hamze, are co-conspirators in the 9-11 attacks. That Muslim Americans are guilty people (sounds like West is applying Robert Spencer’s definition of dhimmi on Muslim Americans).

And you know what that means. It means West’s followers will associate every Muslim living in America with terrorism and make them worthy of ridicule, contempt, distrust, and then eventually this type of thinking will lead to violence against innocent Muslims in America. You can already see the type of vitriol that is being practiced against Muslim Americans when viewing the anti-Muslim protest in Orange County, CA.

This is disgusting behavior on the part of a U.S. Congressman. West is not clever. He’s not smart. He doesn’t know squat about Islam or Islamic history. He’s the worst of what America has to offer. He is a disgrace to his constituents and a danger to law-abiding Muslim Americans who simply want to live a normal life in America. He is simply an un-American fake tough guy who loses his temper when questioned about things he knows nothing about. The fact that this jerk is a U.S. Congressman speaks volumes about the state of Islamophobia in America today. He’s also clearly practicing “taqiyya” by saying one thing to his right-wing constituents about Islam and then saying another thing to religious leadership in order to hide his bigoted views of Islam and Muslims. But never fear, Loon Watch is here – to expose loony frauds like Allen West and put them in their rightful place of shame.

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Lord's Resistance Army

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Lord’s Resistance Army Murders Nun in Sudan, What if they Were Muslim?

Posted on 07 March 2011 by Emperor

It looks the LRA, a Christian terrorist militia which is seeking to structure society based on the Ten Commandments is becoming more active in South Sudan. Imagine if they were Muslims? You can be assured that the Islamophobes would be covering this in depth.

Sudan: Lord’s Resistance Army murders nun

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a brutal group that has moved into southern Sudan after compiling a bloody record of human-rights abuses in northern Uganda, has murdered a 37-year-old nun, according to Bishop Edward Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambio.

“Each day that goes by without a solution to the LRA problem is another day of terror and pain for those of us living under constant threat of renewed attacks,” the bishop told Aid to the Church in Need, as he discussed a recent rash of kidnappings and murders in recent weeks. “The threat of violence widening could stress any new government in South Sudan, ruining the resources of a young nation as it fights to protect its citizens and prevent others from being drawn into the struggle.”

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Marine Le Pen Poll Rating Shock for French Politics

Posted on 06 March 2011 by Emperor

Marine Le Pen is very anti-Muslim.

(hat tip: Europeans Against Islamophobia, a new Facebook page. I suggest everyone Like the page.)

Marine Le Pen poll rating shock for French politics

(BBC)

An opinion poll suggesting far-right leader Marine Le Pen could win the first round of next year’s presidential election has caused a shock in France.

The survey for Le Parisien newspaper puts the National Front leader, who took over from her father Jean-Marie in January, ahead of all other candidates.

It gives her 23% of the vote, 2% ahead of both President Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist leader Martine Aubry.

However, some analysts question the accuracy of the online poll.

Online surveys are arguably less reliable than telephone polling, and Le Parisien’s poll assumes Ms Aubry will be chosen as the Socialists’ candidate, while the party has yet to decide.

Jean-Marie Le Pen was the shock runner-up in the first round of the 2002 election, only to be massively defeated in the second against Jacques Chirac.

Unwise to ignore

Nonetheless, for the new far-right leader to be ahead of both President Sarkozy and Ms Aubry is an astonishing result, the BBC’s Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.

A story on the website of the left-of-centre daily Liberation says “politicians are hesitating between prudence and panic after the poll”.

On the basis of this opinion poll of 1,618 people, Ms Le Pen would automatically qualify for the second round run-off with one or other of the two mainstream party leaders.

In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen achieved second place, not first, in the first round, and his poll ratings were never as high as his daughter’s are now, our correspondent notes.

Marine Le Pen, 42 , has proved a canny successor to her father.

Where he was a brash provocateur with a devoted but clearly circumscribed following, her trump card is a kind of woman-on-the-street ordinariness which potentially has an even wider appeal among working and middle class voters, our correspondent says.

She has been at pains to junk some of the more overtly offensive aspects of the National Front’s programme.

She is riding high on the sense of dissatisfaction that is not so much a wave as a permanent condition in France, our correspondent says.

As this poll suggests, there is in the country an entrenched appetite for anti-establishment, curse-on-all-your-houses populism – which the mainstream parties would be most unwise to ignore.

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Washington Monthly: How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam

Posted on 05 March 2011 by Mooneye

How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam

(Washington Monthly)

By Meg Stalcup and Joshua Craze

On a bright January morning in 2010, at Broward College in Davie, Florida, about sixty police officers and other frontline law enforcement officials gathered in a lecture hall for a course on combating terrorism in the Sunshine State. Some in plain clothes, others in uniform, they drifted in clutching Styrofoam cups of coffee, greeting acquaintances from previous statewide training sessions. The instructor, Sam Kharoba, an olive-skinned man wearing rimless glasses and an ill-fitting white dress shirt, stood apart at the front of the hall reviewing PowerPoint slides on his laptop.

As he got under way, Kharoba described how, over the next three days, he would teach his audience the fundamentals of Islam. “We constantly hear statements,” Kharoba began, “that Islam is a religion of peace, and we constantly hear of jihadists who are trying to kill as many non-Muslims as they can.” Kharoba’s course would establish for his students that one of these narratives speaks to a deep truth about Islam, and the other is a calculated lie.

“How many terror attacks have there been since 9/11? Muslim terror attacks,” Kharoba asked the room. Silence. “Let’s start the bidding.”

“Over a hundred,” someone volunteered.

“I got a hundred,” Kharoba called back. Another audience member, louder now, suggested three hundred.

“Three hundred!” Kharoba declared.

“Over a thousand,” offered another voice in the audience.

Kharoba stopped the bidding. “Over thirteen thousand,” he said. “Over thirteen thousand attacks.” He paused to let the statistic sink in.

Kharoba belongs to a growing profession, one that is ballooning on the spigot of federal and state dollars set aside for counterterrorism efforts since the attacks of September 11, 2001. He is a counterterrorism instructor to America’s beat cops, one of several hundred working the law enforcement training circuit. Some are employed by large security contractors; others, like Kharoba, are independent operators.

Kharoba was born in Jordan, and he likes to intimate that members of his family are important tribal leaders. This lends a veneer of insider credibility to classroom remarks that might otherwise seem like off-color jokes. He showed the class some photographs taken in the Gaza Strip. “This is the Arab version of a line,” Kharoba told the students, gesturing to a photo of Palestinians rushing toward a passport agency. Then he showed a YouTube video of two uniformed men beating a nameless prisoner. “This is what Miranda rights are in the Arab world,” he said.

Fortunately for an adept American police officer, Kharoba said, jihadists telegraph their extremist intentions in altogether predictable ways. One only has to learn the signs. Take Mahmoud—Kharoba’s preferred name for a generic Muslim. Kharoba can tell whether Mahmoud is a Wahhabi (a member of a fundamentalist Islamic sect from Saudi Arabia) just by going through Mahmoud’s trash. There will be no pre-approved credit card offers, because interest is forbidden in Islam. There will be no brown wax fried-chicken bags, because fried chicken isn’t halal. For Kharoba, extremist Muslims are as easy to spot as American gang members.

“When you see a bunch of guys in red, what do you know?” Kharoba asked.

“They are Bloods,” responded the audience, many of whom deal with gangs regularly.

“When you have a Muslim that wears a headband, regardless of color or insignia, basically what that is telling you is ‘I am willing to be a martyr.’” There were other signs, too. “From the perspective of operational security, there are two things I am always looking out for: a shaved body and moving lips,” he explained. “Some of the Pakistani hijackers shaved their whole bodies in a ritual of cleanliness. If their lips are moving, these guys are praying. As they are walking through an airport, every second they’re going to be praying.”

America today is too politically correct to acknowledge the reality of Islamic fanaticism, Kharoba said. “Would Islam be tolerated if everyone knew its true message?” he asked the class. “From a Muslim perspective, do you want non-Muslims to know the truth about Islam?”

“No!” came the audience reply.

“So what do Muslims do?” Kharoba demanded.

“Lie!”

Kharoba strode forward to the front of the room, his voice slower now, more measured. “Islam is a highly violent radical religion that mandates that all of the earth must be Muslim.”

The class broke for lunch.

That afternoon, Kharoba offered more tips on how to detect violent Muslims. “You remember the Alligator Alley incident?” he asked.

He was referring to the events of September 13, 2002, when three Middle Eastern men at a Shoney’s restaurant in Calhoun, Georgia—one Jordanian, one Pakistani, and one Egyptian—were overheard talking about “bringing it down” to Miami. A nearby diner, one Eunice Stone, became alarmed and contacted the Georgia highway patrol. In what became a terrorist scare with national coverage, the police pulled the three men over on Alligator Alley, the long section of Interstate 75 that cuts west across Florida. For thirteen hours, the police combed the vehicle for explosives.

Kharoba projected a picture of Ayman Gheith, one of the arrested men, onto the screen. “The first thing is facial hair,” Kharoba said. “Do you see how the moustache is trimmed, and the beard is in a cone shape? It is very common to have this beard, and the moustache will always be the same, just like Muhammad.”

There is only one problem with the Alligator Alley case—a problem Kharoba never mentioned to the class. The incident was a false alarm. The “terrorists” turned out to be medical students on their way to a conference in Miami. They were innocent. After thirteen hours of interrogation, the police released them. Kharoba, however, taught the class that Ayman Gheith was a “textbook case” of Islamic fanaticism.

While his views are entirely his own, the fact that Kharoba is teaching this course at all reflects a sweeping shift in America’s official thinking about law enforcement and intelligence gathering. In recent years, the United States has become more and more committed to the idea of bringing local police forces into the business of sniffing out terrorists. In 2002, the National Joint Terrorism Task Force was set up to coordinate existing collaborative efforts among federal, state, and local law enforcement. And since 2006, the Department of Justice has been developing a program called the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, through which local cops are meant to act as intelligence gatherers on the ground, feeding reports of suspicious activity to a network of data “fusion centers” spread out across the country. The system is scheduled to be up and running in all seventy-two of the nation’s fusion centers by the end of this year. But in order for the cops to play a role in counterterrorism, the thinking goes, they need to be trained. And that’s where Kharoba and his ilk—counterterrorism trainers for hire—come in.

The very idea of integrating local police into the nation’s counterterror intelligence efforts is a subject of debate among security experts. People at the highest level of law enforcement and intelligence—to say nothing of civil liberties groups—have concerns about the strategy. While the premise is perhaps intuitively appealing—particularly in a place like Florida, where several of the 9/11 hijackers took flying lessons—one danger is that the system will be flooded with bad leads. An increase in incidents like the mistaken arrests on Alligator Alley would only degrade police work, obscure real threats, and spoil relations between America’s cops and America’s Muslims—who have thus far volunteered some of the most fruitful leads in preventing domestic terror attacks.

It might be theoretically possible to ward off such an outcome if police could be provided with impeccable training. But one of the central problems is that the demand for training far exceeds the supply of qualified instructors. Even the CIA and FBI have had trouble finding people with the key skills to fill their ranks. For state and local law enforcement departments, the scarcity is even more acute. Into the void, self-styled experts have rushed in.

While expertise in counterterrorism training may be in short supply, money for it is not. Each year the federal government directs billions of dollars (no one knows exactly how much) in terrorism-related training grants to state and local governments. These funds cascade down into myriad training programs like the one at Broward College, where instructors like Kharoba ply their trade with only minimal supervision.

am Kharoba came to the United States from Jordan when he was seventeen to study computing at Louisiana State University. When the 9/11 attacks happened, he was working as a programmer. Noticing that the hijackers used multiple aliases, he became convinced that the American intelligence community was unequipped to deal with the multiplicity of Arab names. Kharoba quit his job and began work on a database of every jihadi website and name that he could find. “For nine months, I worked developing this database, with no income. I knew I could do it,” he told us. “It would be the best thing. I would solve a critical problem for the intelligence community, and then I’d call the Bureau, call the CIA, sell it for five million, and I’m done. I did my patriotic duty, and lived my American dream.”

Neither the CIA nor the FBI showed much interest in the database, though. Ten years later, Kharoba is still working on it. He fell into teaching by chance, in 2002, when the Community Oriented Policing Services Program in Louisiana invited him to give a talk. Kharoba had no professional experience in law enforcement, no academic training in terrorism or national security, and is not himself a Muslim. But as a Jordanian-born Christian he was able to turn his place of birth into a selling point. When we asked the dean of the Institute of Public Safety why she recruited Kharoba to teach there, her answer was that Kharoba “put the flavor of Middle Eastern culture into it.”

Kharoba is an especially colorful character, but he is in some ways typical of the kinds of people who have migrated into the police counterterrorism training business. Many have limited background in U.S. counterterrorism and domestic law enforcement, and little patience for the rules and conventions that govern both fields.

Quite a few have found their way into the profession by using their military experience to teach courses in how to respond to terrorist attacks. The trainer Joe Bierly, based in Riverside County, California, served twenty-two years in the Marines, “and another ten plus years in the black world, doing operations.” Bierly has a shooting range at his house, and practices every day. Most cops, he said, only go to the range, “what, once a year?” He doesn’t think American law enforcement is ready for the next terrorist attack. At the end of the day, he said, the question is this: “Can you run fifteen yards on a blood-slicked floor, take aim, and still hit the target?”

Richard Hughbank, another counterterrorism trainer, is a fourth-generation combat veteran on his father’s side. “Honestly, I kinda fell into it,” Hughbank told us when we interviewed him in November 2009. “I think most of us did.” The idea that fighting terrorism was a mission that might extend beyond his military career began to sink in when Hughbank was in Afghanistan. “A man I very much respect, with whom I turned the first five hundred people in to Guantanamo Bay, told me, ‘Richard, this is your future, this is your enemy.’;” Hughbank went on to found and became president of Extreme Terrorism Consulting, which provides counterterrorism training to law enforcement.

John Giduck was a practicing lawyer in the 1980s. Then, he says, during the late Gorbachev era, the American Bar Foundation dispatched him to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), where he met the head of the KGB for Leningrad. (“Putin’s boss,” he says.) They became fast friends, and Giduck began traveling frequently to Russia. He claims to have trained with multiple Russian special forces units, and to be certified by the “Vityaz Special Forces Anti-Terror School.” In 2004, Giduck traveled to Russia immediately after the Beslan school massacre and wrote a book called Terror at Beslan. It was published in 2005, and it raised Giduck’s profile, earning him a guest appearance on the Glenn Beck show in the fall of 2007. Among the book’s most sensational allegations is that the terrorists at Beslan systematically raped their hostages, a claim that no other primary source account has made. In the meantime, Giduck has also become an in-demand counterterrorism trainer.

Some trainers do have roots in law enforcement. In a major recent report on America’s efforts to use local police to monitor the population for terrorist threats, the Washington Post’s Dana Priest and William M. Arkin spoke to a counterterrorism trainer named Ramon Montijo, a former Los Angeles police detective and Army Special Forces sergeant. Like Kharoba, Montijo made sweeping generalizations about Muslims. “They want to make this world Islamic. The Islamic flag will fly over the White House—not on my watch!” he said. “My job is to wake up the public, and first, the first responders.”

Despite their different backgrounds, the counterterrorism trainers we interviewed have a remarkably similar worldview. It is one of total, civilizational war—a conflict against Islam that involves everyone, without distinction between combatant and noncombatant, law enforcement and military. “Being politically correct inhibits you,” Hughbank said. “I know Islam better than my own religion. Some things need to be called a spade.”

In Terror at Beslan, Giduck recounts giving a presentation on the 2002 hostage crisis at the Nord-Ost Theater in Moscow. After most of the terrorists were knocked unconscious by the gas that security forces pumped into the building, Spetsnaz, the Russian special forces, came through, methodically shooting each of the terrorists once in the back of the head. Giduck is convinced that as Americans we could do better: we could shoot them twice. Giduck writes of being alarmed when a policeman came up to him after the talk and said that not one of the cops in the room would ever have considered doing this. “I think the first thing we need to do is pass federal legislation exempting law enforcement from any civil or criminal prosecution, any liability at all, for what they do if there is a terrorist attack on U.S. soil,” Giduck writes. “In attempting to prepare the American psyche for the worst possible terrorist act—the taking and killing of children—we must all shed the veil of civility and luxury in which we conduct our lives.”

“The former military guys [working as trainers] are always looking at this thing from a battlefield perspective,” explains Jack Cloonan, a twenty-five-year veteran of the FBI who worked in the Osama bin Laden special unit from 1996 to 2002. “They are always looking at it as a U.S. military operation. But what does that have to do with sitting in the Bronx? Or trying to blend into society to carry out an attack? It’s just not related.”

And yet these trainers reach a considerable swath of law enforcement personnel. Of the half-dozen instructors we spoke to, most estimated that they had individually trained between 10,000 and 20,000 students over the course of the past five to six years. There are about 800,000 police officers in total in the United States.

hen I look at the life of Muhammad, I get a very nasty image,” said Kharoba, pausing to look around the auditorium. The audience was silent. “I am talking about a pedophile, a serial killer, a rapist,” Kharoba said. “And that is just to start off with.

“Anyone who says that Islam is a religion of peace,” he continued, “is either ignorant or flat out lying.”

Frustration seemed to be burning in the air, and a cop—looking grim, anguished—spoke up. “From a law enforcement standpoint, what can we do?” he asked. “What do we do to deal with these people?”

“The best way to handle these people is what I call legal harassment,” Kharoba answered. “Start to identify who is coming into your area.” Go to the DMV and see who has applied for a driving license. Look at the owners of convenience stores. Corner stores are one of the principal ways Hezbollah launders money in the United States, he said. (The claim is not true.) “You only need one precedent,” Kharoba said. “Health inspectors, alcohol trade officers, these guys can turn a convenience store upside down without a warrant.”

Eventually the discussion turned to Islamic names, a subject in which Kharoba claims a specialty. There are two types of Muslim immigrants, Kharoba told the class: honest ones who Americanize their names, and those who use long Arabic names as a smokescreen. “If I pull someone over at a traffic stop,” said Kharoba, “I’ll ask for a couple of IDs. And if I see different spellings of a name, my Christmas tree is lit up. That’s probable cause to take them in.”

As a law enforcement officer in the audience pointed out, this is hardly true. People have different names for all sorts of reasons. Arabic names often include a long chain of references to ancestors, occupations, places, and relatives, and don’t readily fall into the pattern of first, middle, and last names common in the Christian West. A Muslim name on a passport might be rendered one way by an immigration clerk, and quite another by a desk agent at the local DMV. These differences are not illegal.

Kharoba was undeterred. He pointed out a laminated reference card that he had included in the course materials. With this card, an officer could see if a driver’s name follows the standard naming pattern for the Arabic world. If the police officer remained in doubt, he should call Kharoba, who has an unusual hobby: he collects phone books. Kharoba has a collection of Jordanian phone books right up until 1992. If a cop were to call up with a Jordanian name not shown in the phone book, Kharoba’s advice would be unequivocal. “Fingerprint him. Take him to prison.”

Kharoba reiterated the need to fight ruthlessly, sharing a story about the government of Syria quelling an uprising in Aleppo by shelling the city and killing more than 7,000 people. It’s a terrible story—but no such thing happened in Aleppo. It happened in Hama, a city about ninety miles to the south, in 1982.

Similarly, when we examined his manual, A Law Enforcement Guide to Understanding Islamist Terrorism, we found the claim that when the Muslim population of a country exceeds 80 percent, one should expect “state-run ethnic cleansing and genocide.” The examples given were Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Neither state has ever been involved in genocide. In fact, large sections of Kharoba’s guide turned out to be word for word the same as open-source materials found online—everything from publicly available Facebook pages to anonymously authored PDFs.

hough the federal government covers much of the cost of counterterrorism instruction, it has surprisingly little control over who is chosen to conduct the training. Structural problems abound. There is no unified system of expert evaluation or regulatory authority to impose quality control. The Tenth Amendment, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” has been interpreted to mean that police powers, and officer training, are the preserve of the states. By design, state and local law enforcement is not the responsibility of the federal government, and neither is officer training. While the Department of Homeland Security offers certification, this only means that approved courses are eligible for DHS funds. If the course is paid for by other means—by a regional source, or by another federal department—DHS accreditation isn’t necessarily required. Even DHS money, once received by a state or local police department, can often be used for trainers without DHS accreditation.

Another theoretical gatekeeper to the world of training is at the state level. In many states, entities called Police Officer Standards and Training (POST) boards determine what should be taught both in basic training and in continuing education courses. However, POST approval does not entail evaluation of the content of each course. If an instructor submits a syllabus that lists appropriate topics and concepts, teaching accurate course content is that instructor’s job. Approval of the instructor, in turn, is usually done on the basis of a resume.

This is the case even with stricter states. Instructors in California must submit a course description, an expanded outline of the material covered, a budget, and—if the course involves such skills as firing a weapon—a safety plan. Under these criteria, Kharoba was deemed qualified.

There are also private accrediting agencies that supposedly vet trainers for competence and expertise and offer a kind of seal of approval. But many of these organizations sprang up after 9/11, and they often consist of little more than websites and a few names.

One of these accrediting organizations is called the Anti-Terrorism Accreditation Board, or ATAB, founded in 2001. ATAB promises that if you pay $695 for their certification (or $495 with a fee waiver), you will receive forty PowerPoints and over eight hundred books. Among ATAB’s promotional materials is a PowerPoint slideshow outlining current al-Qaeda tactics. One of the slides features a grainy picture of someone swinging a golf club and warns of “Golf Course Assassinations,” and the possibility of grenade attacks on the carts.

Richard Hughbank, of Extreme Terror Consulting, has taken ATAB’s more advanced course and become a certified master anti-terrorism specialist (CMAS). He provides ATAB with a glowing reference on its website, as well he might, because although the website doesn’t mention it, Hughbank is also the chairman of ATAB’s Standards Committee.

The certification chairman for ATAB is a man named Keith Flannigan. Flannigan claims numerous qualifications: a BA from Kent State University in 2008, an MA in psychology from the University of Frankfurt, likewise in 2008, and a PhD in philosophy from Northfield University—once again in 2008. However, the National Student Clearing House, a degree-verification service, was unable to find record of Flannigan at Kent State, nor did the University of Frankfurt find any evidence of attendance. When queried, Flannigan claimed that we couldn’t find his records because Keith Flannigan is not his legal name. Flannigan may well have a doctorate, for what it’s worth, from Northfield University, as it is run by the University Degree Program, described by Chronicle of Higher Education as “the granddaddy of diploma mill operations.”

None of this has stopped ATAB from gaining some important clients. For example, the U.S. Navy pays its personnel to get certified with ATAB. Why? “Any certification agency whose subject matter matches 80 percent or more of what the sailor does becomes eligible,” explained Keith Boring at the Navy’s credentials office. “Once the learning center and Navy leadership approves it, then we can pay for the exams.” To date, more than 2,000 Navy personnel (each presumably at the rate of at least $495, for a total of nearly $1 million) have been certified by ATAB.

Another way to gain authority as a counterterrorism expert is to publish a book. Richard Hughbank just published his first, The Dynamics of Terror and Creation of Homegrown Terrorism. John Giduck told us that his career got a significant boost from his book Terror at Beslan, which purports to be the most “complete and accurate” story of the Beslan school siege. We asked Giduck to clarify the sources for his most sensational charge: that scores of rapes occurred during the siege. Who were the alleged rape victims, and when exactly did these alleged incidents occur? In an email to us, Giduck didn’t provide much in the way of clarification but alleged there has been a public cover-up by both the terrorists and the Russian government. He did not explain why no other journalist among the dozens assigned to cover Beslan had managed to unearth such accounts.

“Who was raped? Give me one name and date,” said C. J. Chivers, a New York Times reporter and former Marine who published an 18,000-word narrative reconstruction of the school siege for Esquire magazine and won a 2007 National Magazine Award for his work. Chivers says he interviewed scores of hostages immediately after the event and in the following months and specifically examined Giduck’s allegations of rape. “There were no rapes at Beslan,” he says.

When we wanted to know more about Giduck’s time with the Russian special forces, Giduck wrote back to say that he had done a “series of trainings with Vityaz [a unit of Spetsnaz, the Russian special forces] at their special forces compound and training school on the Balashikha Army Base about 30 miles east of Moscow from 1999 to 2004” and had had close access to a series of elite Russian units, including Rus, another Spetsnaz division. When we made inquiries at the Russian Interior Ministry, we were informed that Giduck had not trained with Vityaz. Instead, he took a commercial course in extreme survival skills, with no counterterrorism component. Representatives from Rus said they had never heard of Giduck.

ven organizations cited for their high standards lack an adequate system for screening trainers. The best example is the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, known as FLETC. FLETC has been around since 1970, and it provides training to more than eighty federal law enforcement agencies—all of them, in fact, except for the DEA and the FBI. Its course development process, according to former FLETC curriculum developer Les Jenson, is stringent. “Subject-matter experts tear apart course proposals,” says Jenson. “They look at handouts, lesson plans, textbooks, and then they say to an instructor, We can accredit you if you make these changes.” FLETC can readily call on both in-house experts and outside contractors to evaluate course proposals and materials. In short, FLETC represents the gold standard for rigor in curriculum evaluations.

So did Sam Kharoba make the cut? Indeed he did. In 2004, Kharoba says, a FLETC training coordinator happened to hear him speak at a counterterrorism conference and was so impressed she invited him to teach sessions to law enforcement agents at FLETC headquarters in Glynco, Georgia. His courses were so well received that Kharoba was soon invited to teach senior instructors at FLETC. Those instructors then began, on an ad hoc basis, incorporating Kharoba’s curriculum into the courses they taught at agency-specific academies at FLETC. Kharoba told us that on March 15, 2005, he received an email from FLETC stating that they wanted to include his materials in the center’s basic curriculum.

As things turned out, though, the students of FLETC wound up being more skeptical than the school’s course evaluators. The same month that Kharoba was being invited to incorporate his material into the FLETC curriculum, FLETC received a complaint from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official named Muhammad Rana. Rana had been angered by course materials that included a handout describing “fundamentalist Muslims” as people with “long beards and head coverings” who, while “we call them radicals … are practicing true Islam.” Eleven out of fifteen members of the class submitted a letter in support of Rana’s complaint, and Rana took his case to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which ruled in his favor.

Perhaps embarrassed by the Rana incident, FLETC suspended the official incorporation of Kharoba’s course into the standard curriculum. However, once core FLETC classes are completed, officers and agents attend additional classes specific to their agencies, and as Les Jenson explained, “If an agency hired someone, it would be up to a specific agency to do the quality control.” Via this loophole, Kharoba continued to teach at FLETC for at least a year, from 2005 to 2006. The FLETC website continued to list “Islamic Culture and Names,” which is the name of Sam’s course, in its Fundamentals of Terrorism Training Program until January 22, 2010. That day, we telephoned to inquire about Sam Kharoba and received no answer. By the next day the information had disappeared from the website. Despite the fact that online archives show “Islamic Culture and Names” as part of the curriculum through 2008, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request about the course, FLETC maintains it has “no records.”

Though he is no longer a presence at FLETC, Kharoba continues to teach in other places. In November 2010, the St. Petersburg Times reported that the sheriff in Pasco County, Florida, planned to spend $45,000 of a $361,000 training budget teaching local officers how “radical Muslims groom their facial hair and wear their pants, as well as a ‘behavioral analysis technique to distinguish visually between moderates and radicals.’;” Those classes held at Pasco-Hernando Community College will be taught by Sam Kharoba.

n law enforcement training, student feedback is supposed to act as a check on questionable trainers. Positive course evaluations from police officers are central to the steady employment of those who would train them. The trouble is that most of the terror trainers stay in business precisely because their audience members, few of whom have any background in Islam, report favorably on the instruction they’re receiving.

Police attend classes like Kharoba’s for a variety of reasons. Local and state law enforcement officers must meet annual or biannual training requirements, a certain number of hours of which are slated for maintenance of “perishable skills”: things such as driving and shooting. Officers or their departments can generally pick the rest. Often, departments need a “go-to” person, someone who is a source of information on a subject such as counterterrorism. Attendees tend to be self-selected, motivated by an awareness of how little they know about Islam or a heightened concern about Islamic terrorism, and this can make them more inclined to be receptive to an instructor like Kharoba.

It also helps that the terror trainers are often entertaining. They engage their audience with questions, jokes, stories, and visuals. Like other trainers, Kharoba has a useful stage presence. “He kept an audience of police chiefs captivated,” said Phil Ludos of the Florida Police Chiefs Association. “That is not an easy thing to do.”

When we spoke to students from Kharoba’s class in Florida, many were enthusiastic. Olga Gonzalez, who is a TSA officer in Miami, told us she had taken several of Kharoba’s courses. “This guy is brilliant,” she said. “I can’t believe it: just like gang affiliations, you can distinguish between secular and jihadist Muslims.”

Such enthusiasm was echoed by dozens of Kharoba’s students and former students. On one occasion, we asked a student whether gangs—a more conventional subject of police attention—weren’t a more pressing issue for cops than terrorists.

“Yeah, the gangs are a threat,” answered the officer. “But they don’t have 1.5 billion members.”

Sam Kharoba says that in seven years of teaching he has done only one marketing function, because each training session leads to further invitations. Other trainers said similar things. If you are popular with cops, the word spreads; if you are not, you won’t last long. “It’s a very closed community,” Kharoba told us. “Cops are not going to read an advertisement, they are going to listen to friends.”

Were any cops skeptical of Kharoba’s teachings? Some certainly were. David McKaig, a deputy with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, enjoyed Kharoba’s class but noted that its lessons were not always applicable. “We have to uphold the rights of citizens,” McKaig noted. “You can’t violate the constitutional rights based on a hunch.”

But that doesn’t mean that trainers like Kharoba aren’t influential. “Now that I know these people might hate ‘the infidel,’ and be doing whatever they can to undermine the civilized world, I am somewhat leery of dealing with Muslims,” McKaig told us. “I go into their residences respectful but wary, which is not good in my position.”

When we attended one of Kharoba’s seminars in California, the training coordinator happened to sit in with us on the class. He too had serious reservations about the course, which he expressed to us and in a memo he later sent to his superior. His superior privately contacted some of his peers; to date, Kharoba has not been invited back to teach in California. But for both the coordinator and his superior, complaining to the agency that had provided Kharoba’s class—the Florida Regional Community Policing Institute of St. Petersburg College—was out of the question.

That’s because the course had been provided free of charge, through funding from the Department of Justice to the Florida Regional Community Policing Institute, and training coordinators around the country rely on such free courses to supplement state offerings. “Look, if we decide to say that he is full of shit, it would mean that we’re never going to get another class from those guys, because that is how cops are,” the California coordinator told us. “They’d say, ‘That rotten son of a bitch, after we’ve been so good to him and his friends.’;”

ow to clean up the mess? Federal control is not the answer. For one thing, federal standards aren’t especially high. For another, constitutionally, law enforcement is the preserve of the states.

Moreover, there is no one-size-fits-all package for training. “What is relevant in a major city like Los Angeles may be entirely different than in Portland, Maine,” says Mike Rolince, who spent more than thirty years at the FBI, some of it working in counterterrorism. “And if you’re from NYPD or a Chicago PD and you have squads of officers and detectives working something, your budget and your training is significantly different than if you’re one of the majority of departments in the country that have less than thirty sworn officers.”

No matter what size the department may be, though, police need clear guidelines. Officers have to make decisions every day about when and how to apply the law, and when guidelines are bad or lacking, officers can go astray. In 2005, for instance, the Homeland Security and Intelligence Division of the Maryland State Police began secretly infiltrating a wide variety of activist groups—death penalty opponents, bicycle lane advocates, even a citizens group protesting utility rate hikes. Though not a single member of these groups was ever found to pose a security threat, troopers labeled dozens of them as “terrorists” and placed their names and files in a database shared by other regional law enforcement agencies. Perhaps worse, a subsequent state investigation found that no one in the Maryland State Police chain of command “gave any thought whatever to the possibility that its covert surveillance of these groups … was in any way inappropriate.” It is not hard to imagine that under the new Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, countless innocent Muslim Americans could similarly wind up being questioned, documented, and even arrested by local and state authorities, and their names, fingerprints, and other personal information entered into FBI databases, where they would sit for years.

This is a civil liberties issue, but it is also a matter of police effectiveness. As Bill Bratton, who headed up the police departments of both New York and Los Angeles, explains, “There is a real risk as you educate people that you do not, in fact, educate—whether it is law enforcement officers or community—to the degree that you misinform or create a fear or bias that should not be there.”

Indeed, having a bunch of ill-trained local cops sleuth around for jihadists could jeopardize the very counterterrorism efforts the government is supposed to be conducting. For one, it is likely to generate a lot of white noise, forcing analysts to spend precious time sifting through useless information. It could also “dry up important sources of information,” warns Matthew Waxman, an associate professor of law at Columbia University, who has written extensively on the role of local and state law enforcement in counterterrorism.

In counterterrorism, as in most areas of intelligence and law enforcement, vital information often comes from those closest to the suspected perpetrators—from neighbors, friends, even family members. It was an anonymous handwritten note from an Arab American in Lackawanna, New York, a small city outside Buffalo, that led the FBI to arrest six men accused of comprising a sleeper terrorist cell in that city in 2002. In another case last fall in Portland, Oregon, a tip from the Muslim community led federal authorities to arrest in a sting operation a nineteen-year-old Somali-born American for intent to set off a bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Ham-handed and overly aggressive behavior by local police toward the Muslim community could break the trust necessary for this kind of information to flow.

The demands placed on police will only increase in the coming years. The Nationwide Suspicious Activities Reporting Initiative asks law enforcement to interpret everyday incidents and decide whether they are indicators of terrorist activity. These decisions are then fed into a nationwide system. Merle Manzi, from the Michigan State University Intelligence Program, argues that requiring line officers to specify that a suspicious activity is probably related to terrorism doesn’t make sense: “The thing about checking a box about terrorism is that, is the officer on the street going to know it is about terrorism? Or will they just know that it is a peculiar thing, something out of the ordinary?”

None of this is to say that state and local police and other first responders cannot play a role where terrorism is concerned. It’s crucial that they be well trained to cope with terrorist incidents once they occur—for instance, to detect and cordon off areas that have been hit by radiological weapons. But intelligence gathering is another matter. Paradoxically, the best thing the police can do in the struggle against terrorism may be to not do “counterterrorism” but simply perform the duties they are already mandated to perform: serve the communities they live in, keep their eyes open for suspicious activities of all sorts, and build the links that result in tip-offs like the one that led to the arrest of the men in Lackawanna.

But regardless of what role cops on the streets should or should not play in fighting terrorism, the fact is that rivers of federal training dollars are already flowing, many of them straight into the pockets of instructors like Sam Kharoba. The training system clearly needs reform. Again, federal control is not the solution, but a first step would be for the federal government to issue voluntary guidelines on how states can best reform their oversight of counterterrorism training—since the most robust reforms will need to happen at the state level. State accreditation should be made mandatory for counterterrorism training courses—it often isn’t—and the accreditation process itself must also be toughened. There should be subject-matter experts who evaluate courses, and they should sit in on classroom sessions anonymously. If such a system of state-based oversight worked properly, then bad trainers would have their state accreditation revoked, and they would no longer be allowed to teach in the state. If states agreed to share lists of bad trainers, then the trainer would effectively be banned nationwide. Time is of the essence. Within the next year, the Department of Justice plans to implement the Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative nationwide, and this will amplify the effects of the bad training being provided—unless the system is reformed quickly. It also behooves us to ask the fundamental question of what role beat cops should play in counterterrorism. But instead of a broader discussion, what we have now is a system that fails to police the ranks of those who train our frontline officers, while no one is paying attention. Apart, that is, from the police.

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pentagon2

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Why Did The Pentagon Fund Paranoid, Anti-Muslim Economic Research?

Posted on 05 March 2011 by Emperor

Why Did The Pentagon Fund Paranoid, Anti-Muslim Economic Research?

Earlier we mentioned a new report funded by the Pentagon, which argues that economic terrorists were behind the collapse of the economy (and that they’re not through).

Not only is the pure rubbish, but the report also appears to be anti-Muslim.

Not only does it claim that Sovereign Wealth Funds had a major hand in the crash, it makes a big point of their being “Shariah Complaint.”

The report seems to draw a lot of inspiration from this nonsense (.pdf) titled “The Fifth Generation Warfare (5Gw Shari’ah Financing and the coming Ummah.”

It writes:

The United States and the West cannot win the war against radical Islam merely with the most sophisticated military strategies. Winning requires understanding the role of shari`ah and the Muslim Brotherhood in developing a global ideological and political movement supported by a parallel “Islamic” financial system to exploit and undermine Western economies and markets. This movement is the foundation and the major funding source for the political, economic, and military initiatives of the global Islamic movement.1

Shari`ah finance is a new weapon in the arsenal of what might be termed fifth-generation warfare (5GW).2 The perpetrators include both states and organizations, advancing a global totalitarian ideology disguised as a religion. The end goal is to impose that ideology worldwide, making the Islamic “nation”, or ummah, supreme.

So yeah, why is the government funding this kind of thing?

BTW, here’s the chart used in the presentation showing how these Sovereign Wealth Funds interact with US companies?

SWF

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zuhdijasserbeck

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Who Is Zuhdi Jasser, Star Witness For Rep. Peter King’s Muslim Radicalization Hearings?

Posted on 04 March 2011 by Emperor

Expect Zuhdi to tell the Islamophobes what they want to hear.

Who Is Zuhdi Jasser, Star Witness For Rep. Peter King’s Muslim Radicalization Hearings?

By Brian Powell (Media Matters)

Rep. Peter King (R-NY), chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, has officially scheduled the committee’s already infamous hearings on “the extent of radicalization in the American Muslim community and that community’s response” for next Thursday morning, March 10.

King has called three witnesses for the hearing, none of which has any expertise in terrorism, law enforcement or homeland security. The first will be Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a physician by trade who moonlights as a self-described “expert in the contest of ideas against Political Islam.” The others are two unnamed “American Muslims with family members who became radicalized.” The testimony of the latter two will be anecdotal in nature, so a great deal of weight will be given to Jasser’s testimony as the only “expert” fielded before the committee.

With no relevant credentials to speak of, Jasser’s authority in conservative circles as an “expert on radical Islam” seems to be derived from his willingness to frequently attack the Obama administration (whose terrorism advisor Jasser says “deserves honorary membership in the Muslim Brotherhood”) and Muslim-American civil rights groups (“front organizations” for the Muslim Brotherhood, according to Jasser).

Jasser is also conspicuous in his willingness to appear on Fox News to mitigate the effects of their pundits’ anti-Islamic rhetoric. After Fox host Bill O’Reilly went on The View and declared that “Muslims killed us on 9-11,” triggering a walk-off of the show’s hosts, he turned to Jasser, who declared that he was “absolutely not” offended by O’Reilly’s comments and actually thanked the Fox host for making them. Likewise, after NPR fired Juan Williams for his own controversial comments about Muslims, Fox hosted Jasser, who was again “absolutely not” offended.

Given these facts, it should be no surprise that Fox News’ Glenn Beck has dubbed him the “one Muslim that we were all searching for after 9-11″ and said he is “a voice that I trust.” Jasser has appeared on Beck’s show to provide “expert” validation of Beck’s zany apocalyptic conspiracies in the wake of recent unrest in the Middle East.

Before members of Congress rely on the testimony of this so-called “expert” to help shape policy, they should take the time to learn more about Jasser’s credentials and agenda. Unfortunately, between his right-wing rhetoric and his close relationship with Glenn Beck and other right-wing media figures, King’s key witness seems neither credible nor objective — and neither, as a result, do these hearings.

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TPM: Tension amongst anti-Sharia’ Islamophobes and More Shocking Video

Posted on 04 March 2011 by Emperor

Ryan J. Riley of TPMuckracker reported on two anti-Sharia’ protests being led by Islamophobes Terry Jones and Frank Gaffney in Washington D.C. The protests were supposed to be in response to a “pro-Sharia’” rally by goonish buffoon and well known media whore Anjem Choudary. Choudary canceled his rally, but the anti-Sharia advocated went ahead with their rally. Of course it turned into a bit of a joke with the usual anti-Islam and anti-Muslim message.

Gaffney, Jones Fight For Soul Of Anti-Sharia Movement At Rally By White House (VIDEO)

Rev. Terry Jones, the man who rose to national prominence last fall when he announced (but later backed off of) a plan to burn copies of the Koran, was clad in a beat-up black leather jacket when he showed up to a park across the street from the White House a few minutes before noon on Thursday.

His black sunglasses resting a few inches above his signature handlebar mustache, Jones hopped up on a bench in Lafayette Park and announced that his organization Stand Up America was holding a rally.

An aide to Frank Gaffney, the founder and president of the American Center for Security Policy, didn’t take kindly to that and quickly told the National Park Service that Jones wasn’t a part of their group and didn’t have a permit for his rally. So Jones and his crowd, many of them decked out in biker gang gear, set up shop in the midst of Pennsylvania Avenue.

The common enemy of both groups was radical Muslim Anjem Choudary, a London-based preacher who has been dubbed a “media whore” and has already made the rounds on Fox News promoting his “Sharia4America” rally, which was postponed just a few hours before it was supposed to begin on Thursday.

Jones claimed credit for Choudary’s decision not to show up. But the Gaffney team apparently wasn’t eager to have their event usurped by the mustachioed pastor from Florida.

“I don’t know who they are. We were just going to stand there on the bench, seemed like a good place to speak, but I guess they had reserved that,” Jones told TPM. “Then I heard somebody jump up and say ‘they’re not associated with us!’ So I honestly don’t know who they are.”

Gaffney told TPM after his press conference that he “didn’t see any squabble” when Jones showed up to the park, but said Jones “is not associated with us” and “didn’t have a permit.”

“I have no association with him at all,” Gaffney said, adding that he “was not inclined to share” his view on Jones.

So despite their common enemy, there is a ideological and tactical divide between the Gaffney and Jones camps.

“It’s a difference of approach, and some of it is territorial,” said one member of team Gaffney who requested anonymity. “One is more comprehensive and professional — he’s got his whole group behind him — whereas Terry just has his biker crew. One is more intellectual, the other is more agitated. One is based on patriotism and constitutional law, the other is based on theology.”

The formal events had both ended but attendees were still hanging around by the time a Muslim man holding a Starbucks cup and wearing a bluish winter coat with writing on the back began chanting Arabic prayers in front of the White House. That’s when attendees of both rallies merged around the man soon breaking into chants of “U.S.A.” and “Jesus” and renditions of “Amazing Grace.” Those throwing tiny crosses at the man’s feet appeared to be from the Jones camp.

“Is he yelling U.S.A.?” asks one man in the crowd. “It doesn’t matter — he’s anti-women, he’s anti-freedom,” one woman said. “Take it back to your own country!” said another man. “No Sharia law!” shouted another.

As the man kept worshipping and the crowd thinned out, Jones ran into Randall Terry, the militant anti-abortion activist who has been churning out the type of media coverage Jones’ Koran burning stunt got for years.

“You should’a burned the Korans by the way, you blinked. You should’a burned them,” Terry said.

Thanks to a “International Judge the Koran” event Jones and his group have in the works for March 20, he may get a shot to do just that — provided that’s how the people vote on his website. If the people decide the Koran deserves to be burned, that’s just what they’ll do.

“We’ll definitely do it, yes,” Jones said.

I don’t know where this Muslim man came from, from the report below it seems he was not there for the Choudary rally but actually shows up every couple of days to pray near the White House. Why? I have no idea. He also has something written on his back which I can’t quite make out, but the video below shows him being subjected to something along the lines of what happened at Yorba Linda. He is peaceful and non-confrontational and the crowd levels heavy amounts of invective his way. Maybe he was trying to send a message of defiance, that “I don’t care what you think, and that this is a free country”?

Here is the report from Riley on the Muslim man who was praying:

Anti-Muslim Protestor Throws Crosses At Feet Of Man Praying By White House (VIDEO)

A group of anti-Sharia protestors who planned to counter-protest the planned pro-Sharia rally by the radical provocateur Anjem Choudary in front of the White House on Thursday found themselves without an opponent to debate.

The counter rally planned by Frank Gaffney in response to Choudary’s pro-Sharia demonstration was left without a raison d’etre after Choudary failed to show up as he’d previously announced (and promoted on Fox News). That left Gaffney and his group preaching to the choir so to speak as they denounced Sharia law to their followers as well as media and curious onlookers.

But just as the rally was dying out, a Muslim man who showed up to pray in front of the White House. He was quickly surrounded by a large group of protestors who shouted an array of insults at him: mocking him for drinking Starbucks coffee, telling him to go back to his country and even throwing tiny crosses at his feet as he prayed. I captured the scene in the video below.

He’s still worshipping as I write this, but the anti-Sharia crowd is beginning to thin out. A police officer on the scene told me the man showed up to pray at the White House every couple days.

I’ll have more on the counter protest this afternoon.

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Shocking anti-Muslim Hate Video in Orange County, California

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Shocking anti-Muslim Hate Video in Orange County, California

Posted on 04 March 2011 by Mooneye

A shocking and vitriolic display of hate against Muslims attending a charity event for battered women in Yorba Linda, California. They are abused with calls of “Go home,” and “terrorist,” little children are subjected to it as well. A Villa Park Councilwoman named Deborah Pauly echoes the rhetoric of Pamela Geller and even calls for the murder of participants (who she labels “Terrorists”) at the charity event. In an ironic moment she justified her statements by saying, “I don’t even care, I don’t even care if you think I’m crazy anymore.” Ummm, yeah…someone get her a straight jacket because she might not care but we do.

There was also somebody sounding a Shofar (Ram’s horn) which while being used for prayer was also used in Biblical Times to call to War, and in this context it seems quite clear that it is being used as a call to war and intimidation. Why the hell would someone bring a shofar to protest a Muslim charity event?

Do we need any clearer evidence that Islamophobia exists?:

These hatemongers are ACT! for America (we’ve been exposing them as a hate group for quite some time) and the ideological children of Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller and David Horowitz.

We Need a Campaign to Expose These Politicians and Question Their Participation in this Hate-Fest:

Ask Congressman Gary Miller why he participated in this event, ask him to distance himself from these goons and condemn them,

Washington, DC
Write or visit:
2349 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202-225-3201
Fax: 202-226-6962

Hours: Monday through Friday, 9:00am to 5:30pm Eastern, or anytime the House is in session (Current House Floor Proceedings).  Closed federal holidays.

Brea, CA
Write or visit:
1800 E. Lambert Road
Suite 150
Brea, CA 92821

Phone: 714-257-1142
Fax: 714-257-9242

Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00am to 6:00pm Pacific.  Closed federal holidays.

Mission Viejo, CA
Write or visit:
200 Civic Center
Mission Viejo, CA 92691

Phone: 949-470-8484

Hours: Second and fourth Tuesday of each month, 9:00am to 5:00pm Pacific.  Closed federal holidays.

Residents of California’s 42nd Congressional District can send me an email by first entering their zip code below. If you’re unsure of your congressional representative, visit www.house.gov/writerep.

Ed Royce was also at the event espousing strong nativist sentiments and sounding very Geert Wilders-ish by decrying “multi-culturalism.” Message to Ed, “This isn’t Europe buddy.”

Contact him:

DISTRICT OFFICE
1110 E. Chapman Ave, Suite 207
Orange, CA 92866
T (714) 744-4130 F (714) 744-4056

WASHINGTON, DC OFFICE
2185 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
T (202) 225-4111

Deborah “Don’t care if I’am crazy” Pauly can be contacted at dpauly@villapark.org.

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md_horiz

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Salon.com: Fox’s Favorite Muslim radical

Posted on 03 March 2011 by Emperor

Elliot’s main point echoes a lot of what we were saying in our article, Islam and the Media in the Age of Islamophobiapalooza.

Fox’s favorite Muslim radical

By Justin Elliot

On Thursday, the radical Muslim and veteran provocateur Anjem Choudary plans to hold a demonstration in front of the White House calling for an extreme form of sharia to reign in America.

Whether the protest actually goes forward — there’s a real chance it won’t, if Choudary’s past stunts are any guide — doesn’t really matter. Choudary, who is known for applauding terrorism and calling for stonings of gay people and the overthrow of democratic governments, has already logged several appearances on Fox and CNN, generated a bunch of articles in the right-wing press, and even prompted a member of Congress to demand that he be banned from the country. All that in the last month.

Choudary is a London-based preacher who has over the past decade become the face of radical Islam in the British press — especially in the tabloids, and even more especially the right-wing papers owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. — despite having no religious credentials and virtually no public support. In fact, according to those who have tracked his career in Britain, Choudary is wholly a press creation.

“He’s a media whore,” says Mehdi Hasan, a senior editor at the New Statesman who has covered Choudary. “There are real Islamist groups that can get crowds together but his is not one of them. He doesn’t have the numbers to make good on his claims. What he does have is a media that’s very happy to play the game with him.”

Now, Choudary, 43, is using the same formula — making deliberately offensive statements and trumpeting plans for provocative demonstrations — in the United States, where the media has proved all too willing to accommodate him. He can be understood as the Muslim analogue of Terry Jones, the obscure Florida preacher who created an international controversy last year with plans for a “Burn the Quran Day.” He is a radical with minuscule public support, but one who can, given enough free airtime, do real-world damage.

Last month on Fox Sean Hannity had a sparring match with the preacher that ended with Hannity calling him “one sick, miserable, evil SOB.” (It’s worth noting that Fox has the same parent company, News Corp., as some of the U.K. tabloids that obsessively cover Choudary.) Here’s a taste of the exchange:

Two weeks later, Choudary was back on the network, where an angry Gretchen Carlson told him that “I can tell you one thing, Americans don’t want sharia law.” Adam Serwer has argued that Choudary is, for Fox, a “cartoonish buffoon who can be counted on to confirm every stereotype about Islam and Muslims.”

But it’s not just Fox. Late last year Eliot Spitzer had Choudary on CNN and heroically derided him as a “violent and heinous terrorist.” In February, Spitzer hosted him again to argue that the revolution in Egypt was an “Islamist uprising.” Choudary has also been on programs with ABC’s Christiane Amanpour and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.

So where did Choudary come from? Born and raised in Britain, his rise to prominence came as the right-hand man of Omar Bakri, a founder of the extremist group Al Muhajiroun. Like Choudary today, Bakri was a press-hungry provocateur, but he also played a role “in the radicalization of some young men,” according to the BBC. Bakri left the U.K. for Lebanon after the 7/7 bombings in 2005. The British government has since barred him from re-entering the country, and Bakri has been charged in Lebanon with forming a militant group to undermine the government there.

In Bakri’s absence, Choudary became the leader of Al Muhajiroun’s successor group, Islam4UK. Both were proscribed in 2010 under a British law that allows for groups to be banned if they “unlawfully glorify the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism.”

(Choudary has not always been so devout. The Daily Mail published an exposélast year revealing that, while he was student at Southampton University, he had been a hard-partier who gambled, drank, used drugs, looked at porn and had sex with Christian women. The paper had pictures to prove most of the charges.)

When I spoke to Choudary Tuesday, he refused to discuss how many followers he had, beyond claiming that he can attract 150 people to his lectures. “I’m not going to give you details of our administration,” he said. But according to Inayat Bunglawala, a Muslim commentator who is involved in combatting extremism in Britain, Choudary’s record for getting large numbers of people to turn out to events is thin. Bunglawala points to a 2009 demonstration at a parade in the town of Luton in which Choudary and his cohort held signs assailing British troops returning from Iraq as “butchers” and “terrorists.”

Choudary and some of his followers had advertised the event by leafletting for a week among the 20,000-strong Muslim population in the town, says Bunglawala, who has closely tracked Choudary’s career. But the turnout was vanishingly small. “Literally only 20 people showed up and yet they got the front pages of just about every right-wing tabloid the next day. Even the BBC gave them a lot of coverage on that.” Bunglawala observes: “It’s almost a symbiotic relationship between Choudary and the right-wing papers.”

Choudary also has a long history of publicizing demonstrations that never actually happen. In 2009, for example, he planned a “March for Sharia” in central London that drew widespread press attention. The promotional effort included Photoshopped images of what Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square would look like under Choudary’s vision of the caliphate, with minarets and the like. But at the last minute, he canceled the event, claiming threats from right-wing groups.

None of this has stopped the tabloids from regularly calling Choudary to weigh in on pretty much anything in the news. There is, for example, this typical lead from a recent Daily Star piece: “Hate preacher Anjem Choudary last night urged a Muslim uprising against the royal wedding … He said it would be against Islam for Muslims to celebrate the nuptials.”

Choudary does his part by making himself extremely easy to reach; his mobile phone number is posted all over his website and he responded to my e-mail seeking an interview in just a few hours. He even once agreed to have a bull session over milkshakes with Vice Magazine, which noted his favorite flavor is chocolate.

Now, in advance of the planned “Shariah4America” demonstration in Washington, Choudary is following a familiar script. His group has postedimages online of the White House with minarets and the Statue of Liberty wearing a veil. It’s not hyperbole to say that everything he does is for media consumption. When I asked him about a 2003 episode in which Al Muhajiroun unveiled posters hailing the Sept. 11 hijackers as the “Magnificent 19,” Choudary was candid: “It was a media ploy in order to attract the attention of the media and the general public about why such things take place.”

Whether or not the demonstration actually happens Thursday, the Choudary phenomenon is at least as much about the laziness — and, arguably, irresponsbility — of the media as it is about Islam. Says terrorism analyst Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: “One lesson from our experience with would-be Quran burner Terry Jones is that when fringe or relatively fringe figures … are given a great amount of media exposure, it generally increases their power rather than diminishing it. Unfortunately, the media either has not absorbed that lesson, or else does not want to.”

Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More: Justin Elliott

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Two Men Sentenced in Mosque Graffiti Incident

Posted on 02 March 2011 by Emperor

I guess Islamophobia doesn’t exist?

Two men sentenced in mosque graffiti incident

(MidHudsonNews)

HUDSON – Two of three men involved in spray painting a City of Hudson mosque Tuesday were sentenced in city court.

Christopher Osborne, charged with a felony, was sentenced to six months in jail and five years probation by Columbia County Court Judge Jonathan Nichols.

A second man, James Glover III, charged with two misdemeanors, was given 60 days in the county jail.

At the time of the September incident where a racial slur was painted on a wall of the Hudson Islamic Center, authorities labeled it a hate crime.

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Proof that Robert Spencer’s JihadWatch.org Relies on Bogus Translations

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Proof that Robert Spencer’s JihadWatch.org Relies on Bogus Translations

Posted on 02 March 2011 by Danios

Robert Spencer

Translating-Jihad is one of the newer anti-Muslim blogs to make its debut to the world wide web.  The site’s creator, Al-Mutarjim, fancies himself as a professional Arabic translator and states that his objective is to translate Arabic texts into English in order “to expose [the] darkness [of Islam].”

Robert Spencer, director of JihadWatch.org (arguably the internet’s most popular anti-Muslim website), was absolutely delighted by the emergence of Translating-Jihad.  Spencer gushed about Al-Mutarjim:

You are great. I love your work… Thank you so much for doing what you’re doing.

On January 14th of 2011, Al-Mutarjim posted a supposed translation of an Arabic fatwa on his website; he entitled his translation as follows: Fatwa: “It is Permissible to Have Sexual Intercourse with a Prepubescent Girl”.  Guess who reproduced this “translation” on his website?  None other than Robert Spencer.  See JihadWatch.org: Fatwa: “It is Permissible to Have Sexual Intercourse with a Prepubescent Girl”.  Spencer opined:

Here is evidence that mainstream Muslims…consider child marriage to be completely justified by the Sharia.

This “translation” by Al-Mutarjim’s Translating-Jihad blog was the “evidence” that the fake scholar Robert Spencer gives to justify his claims.

We here at LoonWatch investigated the matter and discovered that Translating-Jihad’s “translation” was utterly bogus.  Read our expose: Translating-Jihad’s Completely Fraudulent Translations.  To summarize, Al-Mutarjim claimed that the fatwa says: “It is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl”, when in fact the fatwa says the exact opposite. The fatwa forbids sexual intercourse with prepubescent girls, and warns:

It is clear that the marriage of children has health concerns, because their reproductive organs are not ready for sexual intercourse yet, nor are they emotionally prepared for sexual intercourse, especially the female child who will most likely be physically damaged. This is especially if her husband is an old man! Sexual intercourse might cause negative physical and emotional ramifications that would stay with her for the rest of her life and affect her sexual future!

Not only did Al-Mutarjim not translate the above (all tactfully hidden in those ever so strategic ellipses), but he also purposefully omitted to translate the fatwa’s conclusion: “In view of medical grounds, we admonish against marriage before puberty at the very least.

Translating-Jihad’s translation is the epitome of academic dishonesty,  and Al-Mutarjim is a fraud, cheat, and liar.  But, Robert Spencer has no problem with that, so long as Al-Mutarjim is anti-Muslim.  Not only does Al-Mutarjim get high praises from Spencer, but the bogus “sex with prepubescent girls” translation was reproduced on JihadWatch.  It can still be found here.  As of yet, Spencer has not removed it or issued a correction of any sort.

There can be only a few reasons why Robert Spencer reproduced such a bogus translation on his website:

(1)  Robert Spencer is lying when he claims the ability to read and understand Arabic fluently.  In that case, maybe he couldn’t understand the fatwa.  If that is the case, then he is a liar for falsely pretending to read the language.  How can anyone rely on a liar as a credible source?

(2)  If #1 is not the case, then maybe Spencer reproduced the translation without bothering to click the link to the original fatwa.  If that is the case (which is highly unlikely), then what kind of editorial standards and vetting process does JihadWatch.org have!?  What kind of a “scholar” would reproduce something like that without bothering to check the original (which is just a click away)?  How reliable can a site be that just believes anything on the internet?

(3) But the most likely explanation is that Robert Spencer is completely dishonest and has absolutely no problems reproducing bogus translations to further his anti-Muslim agenda.  Would you really rely on such a guy for your knowledge of Islam?

We wouldn’t be surprised, however, if Spencer comes up with one of his classic explanations about how someone else logged into his user name and posted it, without him first taking a look, yadda yadda yadda.  This sort of explanation–which Spencer has used in the past (remember the whole “I got tricked into joining a genocidal facebook group” thing?)–is just about as believable as the teenage kid telling his mom that the marijuana or porn under his bed is really his friends.

Whatever the case, will Robert Spencer have at least the academic honesty to issue a correction?  Will he take back his glowing praise of Al-Mutajim and the Translating-Jihad blog? We sincerely doubt it.

It is troublesome to think that Robert Spencer is considered an “expert” on Islam, when clearly he is merely a pro-Christian anti-Muslim fanatic–just like Al-Mutarjim of Translating-Jihad is a religious wing nut.  It is frightening to think that Spencer–who has no problems using absolutely bogus translations to further his Islam-bashing ideology–was even used to educate the FBI.  No wonder the FBI is completely misguided in its “war on terror”.  This country is in trouble when it relies on complete frauds and liars to learn about the world’s second largest religion.

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Radical Zionists Encourage the Murder of Millions of Innocent People with Nuclear Weapons just because they are Arabs or Muslims

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Radical Zionists Encourage the Murder of Millions of Innocent People with Nuclear Weapons just because they are Arabs or Muslims

Posted on 01 March 2011 by Greeneye

Nuclear_Holocaust

Nuclear weapons are the most terrible weapons ever invented. The initial explosion is as hot as the sun, capable of instantly vaporizing an entire city. Afterward, the survivors are certain to suffer from the fall-out and die from radiation poisoning. Generations to come will experience genetic mutations, not to mention the tremendous damage done to the environment itself. Innocent people are guaranteed to be victims for many years after the blast. But none of these horrors are too much for the radically Islamophobic wing of Zionism.

The website Israeli Insider has republished “by popular request” perhaps the most dehumanizing anti-Muslim hate piece I have ever read. Our Zionist author proposes the “Samson Strategy” (named after the biblical figure) which can only be described as the unrestrained (and unprincipled) massacre of innocent people, Muslims and non-Muslims, in retaliation for attacks against Israel. Other like-minded Zionists argued after 9/11 that Islam’s holy sites should be destroyed if Israel is harmed by Muslim extremists. Our author, however, has a different plan:

I disagree with his prescription. It doesn’t go nearly far enough.

Destroying the holy sites of all 1.5 billion Muslims in retaliation for the acts of a few extremists is undoubtedly a heinous war crime under article 33 of the Geneva Convention:

No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

The Israeli Defense Force has been regularly accused of collective punishment in its wars with its neighbors. Many human rights lawyers, including Israeli scholars, consider the IDF’s actions a form of state terrorism. Yet, it appears our author’s hatred of Muslims as a collective is so great that he isn’t satisfied with regular run-of-the-mill war crimes. Rather, he would release Israel’s secret nuclear arsenal against literally millions and millions of innocent people who, in reality, are fellow Children of Abraham that have absolutely nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

Our only choice is to hit them first, to hit them so hard that they will not be able to realize their murderous aims…And that’s why the best use of Israel’s presumed arsenal of nukes should be pointed not so much at the population centers of our enemies but at their symbolic centers.

Yes, Mecca. And Medina. Najaf and Qum. Mount Arafat and Baalbek. And, not to be neglected: Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

I wonder, did he mean to imply he wanted to “nuke” the Temple Mount as well? Or perhaps war crimes using conventional weapons are sufficient in Jerusalem (so as not to damage the sacred site of the Third Jewish Temple)?

In any case, his genocidal fury is predicated on the demonstrably false assumption that all Muslims everywhere (without exception) are single-mindedly bent on murdering everyone in Israel:

So there can be no doubt that if the Muslims should ever get the bomb, they will do anything and everything to try to assert their till-now impotent pseudo-manhood (expressable [sic] now only by murdering women who assert their independence and by turning non-Muslims into dhimmis) by launching a missile in our direction and, they hope, maybe getting lucky.

It’s a shame our author sees no room for peace with Muslims, though many Muslims and Jews enjoy friendship together. Even the late ultra-conservative Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia has argued, citing the Qur’an (verse 8:61), that reaching a peace agreement with Israel is beneficial to Muslims. Still, none of these facts keep our Zionist author from targeting all Muslims.

We have already debunked the anti-Muslim canards concerning women and dhimmitude. It is not surprising that a radical Zionist should essentialize Islam in this way (i.e. “All Muslims hate women and Jews!”). However, I was shocked by this line:

Allah bows down before the Lord of the Jews, just as Hagar and Ishmael were cast out into the desert, unwanted and discarded, by father Abraham. Vibrant, successful, ethical and freedom-loving Israel is proof that Ishmael is culturally castrated and spiritually corrupt.

This is some serious multi-layered ignorance here. Allah, as we have said many times before, is simply the Arabic word for God used by Jews. It is completely nonsensical to say Allah bows down to the Lord of the Jews because Allah is the Lord of the Jews! That is, of course, unless one has a xenophobic superiority complex, which incidentally is revealed in our author’s second sentence. Jews, we are told, are “vibrant, successful, ethical, and freedom-loving” while Arabs are “culturally castrated and spiritually corrupt.” Can you get more explicitly racist than that? I fail to see how the author can credibly claim to be spiritually superior while advocating the cold-blooded murder of innumerable innocent people, women and children. In my mind, pure anti-Arab racism is at work here.

Too often does the news media cover stories about scary radical Muslims who burn American and Israeli flags, but not covered are stories (like this one) about equally scary radical Jews (Zionists) who likewise subscribe to a supremacist, murderous religio-political ideology. For this reason, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has continued to rage for decades, not because of some inherent evil in Arab/Muslim DNA, but because Israeli extremists (and their Arab counterparts) have consistently prevented a fair, balanced solution from emerging.

Jews and Arabs will only be able to live in peace together, in the holy land, when both sides reign in their extremists and prepare (and educate) their populations for peace and social justice. But this will never happen so long as the allies of Israel continue to ignore or downplay the Israeli side of the equation.

Time for solving the crisis is running out. For all we know, a group of Zionist fundamentalists have already infiltrated the Israeli army and are just waiting to unleash the “Samson Strategy.” Who is watching the watcher?

God help us all…

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Suit Claims FBI Told Mosque Informant To Get Dirt On Sex Lives, Drug Use Of Worshipers

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Suit Claims FBI Told Mosque Informant To Get Dirt On Sex Lives, Drug Use Of Worshipers

Posted on 28 February 2011 by Emperor

One commenter summed it up best, FBI means “Famous but Incompetent.”

Suit Claims FBI Told Mosque Informant To Get Dirt On Sex Lives, Drug Use Of Worshipers

(TPMuckracker)

The FBI allegedly told an informant who infiltrated a California mosque to dig up dirt on the immigration status, sexual activities, business problems and drug use of members of the community. A discrimination lawsuit filed against the Bureau this week charges that they hoped to use the information to convince those members to become FBI informants.

Craig Monteilh, whose aggressive tactics as an informant in 2006 led worshipers at the Islamic Center of Irvine to file a restraining order against him, is now cooperating with the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that accuses FBI agents of violating the constitutional rights of hundreds of Muslims.

The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on behalf of three Muslim plaintiffs, claims that the FBI violated the constitutional rights of Muslims by targeting them indiscriminately because of their religion. It requests unspecified damages and a court order to return or destroy all the information that Monteilh gathered.

“The trust within the community has been broken,” Ameena Mirza Qazi, a lawyer from CAIR representing the plaintiffs told TPM in an interview. “The community feels under psychological siege at this time.”

Qazi said she hoped the lawsuit would shine a spotlight on how the FBI spies on the Muslim community. “The overall scenario is not unique to Southern California,” she said. ‘What is unique is that in this case we have confirmation of what went on, because of the informant.”

“We want a court to say that it’s wrong to target a community because of religious affiliation when there is no link to criminal activity,” she said.

The lawsuit says FBI Special Agent Kevin Armstrong and FBI Special Agent Paul Allen of talked with Monteilh about obtaining dirt on members of the Muslim community — “immigration issues, sexual activity, business problems, or crimes like drug use” — that could be used to convince them to become informants.

“Agents Armstrong and Allen instructed Monteilh to pay attention to people’s problems, to talk about and record them, including marital problems, business problems, and petty criminal issue,” the suit says.

“Agents Armstrong and Allen on several occasions talked about different individuals that they believed might be susceptible to rumors about their sexual orientation, so that they could be persuaded to become informants through the threat of such rumors being started,” the lawsuit claims.

Monteilth also “attended religion classes given in Arabic even when he did not speak Arabic, and questioned 17 and 18 year olds about religious doctrine and politics,” according to the suit.

One of the plaintiffs in the suit is a well-known Imam in the area; the other two are worshippers who were tasked with teaching Monteilh about the Islam faith.

An ex-con, Monteilh began working for the FBI in 2003. In 2006, he was asked to infiltrate the popular Islamic Center of Irvine, where he started attended prayers five times a day and donning an Islamic robe.

In May 2007, Monteilh recorded a conversation in a car with two worshipers, in which Monteilh suggested blowing up buildings. In the tape, one man agrees with Monteilh. But a few days after the conversation, the two worshipers contacted the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and reported Monteilh as a potential terrorist. Other worshippers told mosque leaders that they were scared of Monteilh and felt as though he was trying to entrap them. In June 2007, the mosque obtained a restraining order against the informant.

His relationship with the FBI deteriorated shortly afterwards and, after threatening to go public, Monteilh says he signed a non-disclosure agreement in exchange for $25,000. In December 2007, Monteilh was arrested on a grand-theft charge and went to jail for 16 months.

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Richard Silverstein: David Yerushalmi, Jew as White Supremacist

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Richard Silverstein: David Yerushalmi, Jew as White Supremacist

Posted on 28 February 2011 by Emperor

Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein’s excellent blog post on the paradox known as David Yerushalmi.

YERUSHALMI: JEW AS WHITE SUPREMACIST

(Richard Silverstein)

I know. It sounds too preposterous to be true. But read on.

Earlier today, Fadi of Kabobfest linked in a comment here to a Muslim Link post by Tariq Nelson about David Yerushalmi’s “infiltration” of a Virginia mosque for the purposes of unmasking its alleged jihadi agenda. Since I know Yerushalmi based on his strident Israeli nationalist views I was having a hard time crediting Nelson’s claims that he espoused “white supremacist” views.

But Larry Cohler Esses has set me straight and proven that a Jew can indeed by a white supremacist as proven by this Yerushalmi essay in Conservative Voice:

While our constitutional republic was specifically designed to insulate our national leaders from the masses, democracy has seeped up through the cracks and corroded everything we once deemed sacred about our political order. Prior to the Civil War, the electorate, essentially white Christian men, had access to local government. It was here, where men shared an intimacy born of family ties, shared religious beliefs, and common cultural signposts, that representative government was meant to touch our daily lives. With the social and cultural revolution which followed the emancipation, man’s relationship to political order was radically nationalized and democratized. Today, there is simply no basis to resist “democracy” and the “open society”.

Note Yerushalmi’s distinction between national and local government. White men were supposed to enjoy democracy only in New England style town meetings with their neighbors, while the affairs of state were to be handled by national leaders free from the messy pressures of the unwashed “masses.” And you’ll notice who Yerushalmi blames for the deterioration in our body politic, Abe Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. That’s right, letting the darkies get the vote was the worst thing those “white Christian men” ever let happen to the Republic.

Fadi also turned me on to some eye-popping Yerushalmi legislative proposals regarding the Arab-American “menace:”

WHEREAS Islam requires all Muslims to actively and passively support the replacement of America’s constitutional republic with a political system based upon Shari’a.

Whereas, adherence to Islam as a Muslim is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the US Government through the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the US Constitution and the imposition of Shari’a on the American People.

HEREFORE, IT IS RESOLVED THAT: It shall be a felony punishable by 20 years in prison to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Shari’a.

The Congress of the United States of America shall declare the US at war with the Muslim Nation.

If you spend any time at a Yerushalmi site you feel like you’ve traveled through the Looking Glass where every notion about this country you ever cherished becomes reviled and every notion you ever detested about this country is lauded. It is definitely “through a glass, darkly.”

I’ve wondered whether Yerushalmi’s background as a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant could figure in this. [UPDATE: Yerushalmi is NOT an immigrant but born in the U.S. His ancestors were born in the Ukraine. My errror was due to the misunderstanding of a comment my informant made about Yerushalmi's background.] Observers of the Israeli political scene note that many Russian immigrants entering politics are either outright anti-democratic or so far right as to be virtually anti-democratic. Avigdor Lieberman is one example and Natan Sharansky is not far behind. Something in the Communist system has so warped these people’s minds toward democracy that they view it as a debased system, a trick designed to harm their interests. Of course, Russia is also known for its right-wing racialist politics and neo-Nazi activism. Witness Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

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Translating-Jihad: The Holy Spirit Inspires Me to be an Intolerant Bigot

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Translating-Jihad: The Holy Spirit Inspires Me to be an Intolerant Bigot

Posted on 27 February 2011 by Danios

"Don't take away our guns!"

This is a follow-up article to this here.

In his response to our site, Al-Mutarjim (creator of the anti-Muslim website Translating-Jihad) exposed himself to be a religious wing nut, saying:

…This country and its constitution were founded by the hand of God, and that it was His destiny for His children that we should be free to worship Him according to the dictates of our consciences…

Being familiar with the teachings of Christ and the influence of His Holy Spirit, I was able to discern between the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the darkness of these sacred texts of Islam. With this knowledge, I resolved to work to expose this darkness, in order to defend this country and its inhabitants, and also to open the eyes of those already enslaved by Islam…

I know that the Lord has given me a gift to be able to learn Arabic. I do not understand all the purposes of the Lord, but I do believe that He has a purpose for me in this work. So I will press on, and continue to work tirelessly to help the non-Arabic-speaking audience understand what Islam really teaches.

Al-Mutarjim has set himself to the task of exposing the intolerant, violent, and totalitarian faith of Islam. Yet, in fighting the envisioned monster, he has become the monster. Al-Mutarjim is certainly intolerant: one can simply insert the word “Christianity” for “Islam” and see that. For example, he says in his response that “there was something very dark about the teachings of Islam itself…” and called the religion of Islam “violent, intolerant, and totalitarian.” If Al-Mutarjim came across the words of some mufti who said the exact same of Christianity–if this mufti said that “there is something very dark about the teachings of Christianity…” and that Christianity is “violent, intolerant, and totalitarian”–it would be on Al-Mutarjim’s blog the very next day (with the help of Google Translator of course)! In fact, he has already done so! Al-Mutarjim posted a fatwa in which a mufti stated that Christianity is “vain and perverted”. Al-Mutarjim cannot see that he is the mirror image of the Islamic crazies he rants against!

More importantly, however, we don’t really see the point of his site. He has endeavored, in his own words, to translate Arabic texts into English because:

It is common to hear these doctrines expressed candidly by Muslims when they are speaking to other Muslims in Arabic, but it is not so common to hear them expressed freely by Muslims speaking to Western audiences.

Islamophobes believe in this conspiracy theory: those “smooth-speaking Muslim spokesmen” say one thing in English to “gullible” non-Muslim audiences, but meanwhile–when they are amongst their own evil selves–they sing another tune in Arabic. This adds another lair to the conspiracy. It also adds to the novelty of the Islam-basher: “I am going to translate Muslim stuff that they don’t want you to see!” With that as a selling point (“leaked Arabic documents reveal…!!!”), the reader is drawn in to see what is so secretive.  More importantly, this accomplishes the task of making the Mooz-lums seem even more villainous–”you just can’t trust them!”

But the truth is that there is no such conspiracy. To the chagrin of many Muslims, there is no shortage of Islamic crazies saying all sorts of nutty things in the English language. Al-Mutarjim hardly had to go to an Arabic website to find Islamic fundamentalists saying it’s OK to marry off a girl at a young age. Has he never heard of the Saudi Wahhabi fatwa site Islam-qa.com or the even crazier Taliban and Usama bin Ladin-supporting fatwa site Ask-Imam.com? Both websites provide endless ammunition to Islam-bashers, making the need to translate “secretive” Arabic documents hardly necessary. This is all a gimmick invented by Islamophobes. Both English-speaking websites (see here and here) say similar to the Arabic fatwa that Al-Mutarjim “translated” for us. Indeed, even the English section of the IslamOnline website has fatwas that say exactly the same thing as Al-Mutarjim’s selection from the Arabic section. (This becomes apparent once we corrected his false translation.) So again, we wonder: what is the point of his site?

Robert Spencer of the nefariously anti-Muslim website JihadWatch.org has made a living out of documenting the Islamic crazies in order to falsely portray them as representative of all Muslims–which is why we call him the police-blotter “scholar”. Al-Mutarjim has simply used the same strategy using Arabic sources. Because his audience does not read Arabic (and he barely does either), nobody is the wiser to the fact that he is very selectively choosing material. He assiduously avoids reproducing liberal voices from the Arabic-speaking world. But at the end of the day, Al-Mutarjim adds nothing new to the discussion, since we have never denied the presence of the Islamic crazies. Our disagreement with the anti-Islam blogosphere is that they define the entire Muslim community by the crazies, not that the crazies don’t exist (or don’t need to be intellectually opposed).

Response to Staring at the View

Al-Mutarjim has posted a second (and third) response from a blogger who goes by the name of Staring at the View (good thing this blogger didn’t make the mistake of going by the name of “Starred at the View”). We’ll call him SATV for short. SATV tries downplaying Al-Mutarjim’s mistake by saying it’s just the error of using a fatha instead of a kasra. It’s just an error in one vowel! Big deal, right?

The example I gave before–of a Chinese immigrant applying for the position of fifth-grade English teacher–applies here. If the applicant were to say “I work as professional translated”, he wouldn’t get the job. He could certainly protest that “it’s only the difference between two letters!” To a person who doesn’t speak English fluently, the difference between the word “translator” and “translated” seems minuscule. It is, after all, just the difference between -or and -ed. But, to one fluent in English, this mistake is huge! Similarly, the difference between the two vowels (fatha and kasra) is huge in Arabic.

SATV tries to downplay the issue even more, saying:

I can’t tell you how many times I have been listening to an Arabic lecture or interview and heard the speaker self-correct as in, “wal-mutarjam la la, al-mutarjim” – “and the Mutarjam…no, I meant to say the Mutarjim.”

Certainly everyone misspeaks once in awhile. Had Al-Mutarjim simply said “and the Mutarjam…no, I meant to say the Mutarjim”, there would have been no issue. The problem arises in that it wasn’t simply misspeaking or a typo or even “hastily speaking”. It was a consistent error that went on for a year. For Pete’s sake, it was his user name! Show me a fluent Arabic speaker that would keep his user name as Al-Mutarajjam! Show me! The idea that fluent Arabic speakers say Al-Mutarajjam instead of Al-Mutarjim is as false as saying that fluent English speakers say The Translated instead of The Translator.

Furthermore, even if we accept that Arabic speakers might say “and the Mutarjam…no, I meant to say the Mutarjim”, they certainly wouldn’t say “and the Mutarajjam…”.  Al-Mutarjim did not simply make a mistake of one vowel. He used the name Al-Mutarajjam–a word that simply does not exist. It was only after we allowed him leeway in transliteration that we even get to Al-Mutarjam (The Translated). Therefore, it is not true that it is simply a one vowel mistake that Al-Mutarjim made. Rather, it is the error in a vowel as well as the addition of an extra letter–a shadda. Al-Mutarjim didn’t just make the error of writing Al-Mutarjam, but Al-Mutarajjam–which should have been Al-Mutarjim!

SATV issued a second response (or one can count this as Translating-Jihad’s third response, depending on how one is counting), in which he pointed out several English grammar mistakes in our original article. By so doing, SATV is trying to invoke a Sarah Palin-esque defense. When Palin was questioned about her invented word “repudiate”, she and her defenders pointed out other “misspeaks” from leading politicians. For example, Joe Biden made several speaking gaffes, so can’t we call it even? Yet, the truth is that Biden’s slip-ups were in no way comparable to that of Palin’s masterful “refudiate”. Had SATV found a “refudiate” equivalent error in LoonWatch’s writing, then perhaps he would have a case to make.

Similarly, LoonWatch’s petty grammar mistakes in English are in no way comparable to Al-Mutarjim’s epic fail in Arabic. Ours were just typos or–as SATV himself says–a case of “writing hastily”. But can Al-Mutarjim’s error be attributed to “writing hastily”? Not at all. He has been using this user name for a year now. He has posted numerous times on various websites, each time repeating this error. For Pete’s sake, it’s his name that he chose for himself! Therefore, it’s not an equivalent comparison between minor slip-ups in our articles and Al-Mutarjim’s name. On the other hand, if LoonWatch had been written as LoonWach (with the ‘t’ missing), and if we repeated this mistake for over a year whenever we sign off, then that would be equivalent. And in that case, you would be justified in laughing at our English speaking abilities all you want. But even in that case, it’s not really relevant since our site is not an English translation site. If you wished to have your documents translated, wouldn’t you steer far away from a company that got its name dead wrong!?

We didn’t write an article pointing out the minor mistakes in Al-Mutarjim’s translations (which are plentiful), because those are certainly different than getting his name completely wrong for a year! It is even more comical when that name was meant to be The Translator. Surely SATV appreciates the humor in that.

Naturally, if someone cannot speak a language properly, that doesn’t mean they have nothing worthy to say. SATV is claiming that this is what we are saying. To bolster his case, he provides an example, which he likens to us:

I came across a scathing review by a Muslim Arabic-speaking professor of a State Department diplomat who had delivered a lecture in Arabic. The criticism was not directed at the ideology of the diplomat, nor the content of his lecture. What aroused the ire of the professor was that the speaker had misprounced an Arabic word; he had pronounced it with a fatha (the short “a” vowel), when it should have been a kesra (the short “i” vowel). “What could he possibly have to say of value,” fulminated the professor, “When he cannot even speak Arabic properly?”

Yet, his example of the diplomat is hardly analogous to that of Al-Mutarjim. The diplomat was simply giving a talk in Arabic; he was not claiming to be a professional Arabic translator. Had Robert Spencer made the mistake of writing Al-Mutarajjam instead of Al-Mutarjim, we might have passingly mentioned the error, but we certainly wouldn’t have made such a big deal of it. The reason it is a big deal here is only because Al-Mutarjim claims to be a professional Arabic translator. More than that, his very name is The Translator! Had the diplomat in the example claimed that he was a professional Arabic translator–and if he had said in Arabic that he was a professional Arabic translated (instead of translator)–then everyone would be quite justified in having a good laugh at him. The fact that SATV doesn’t see the difference between these two very different situations is telling.

Furthermore, the diplomat made one mistake–we all do from time to time. But going around saying you are The Translated–using it as your user name–is truly something quite funny! Again, imagine a Chinese immigrant advertising his translation skills, using the pseudonym of The Translated. That’s totally different than a Chinese professor of science mistakenly slipping on an English word or two when speaking of science–something that has no relation to translation.

In any case, we were hardly trying to prove that Al-Mutarjim has nothing worthy of saying simply because he got the word “Al-Mutarjim” wrong. What we are trying to say is that he is not a qualified Arabic translator, which is what his whole website is geared around. What we here at LoonWatch were trying to prove was that Al-Mutarjim–like the whole list of Islamophobes we cited (including Al-Mutarjim’s hero, Robert Spencer)–is not academically qualified. These are not scholars, experts, or academics. No real scholar, expert, or academic would rely on Al-Mutarjim for translation.

Al-Mutarjim has nothing to do with academia. And his response to us reveals something even worse: he learned about Islam not through academic sources but through Robert Spencer’s joke of a book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)–and of course, “self-study”. Why is it that not a single one of these leading Islamophobes studied Islam in a proper academic environment? Why do academic scholars reach far more sober conclusions about Islam than the childish ones reached by these wikipedia educated “Islam experts”? Why do they use Bat Ye’or’s instead of real scholars?

There is another interesting nugget from SATV’s response to us, as follows:

…Loonwatch then mocked the fact that after he recognized his grammatical faux pas he went back and corrected it. Hello? Is anybody home? That is what makes America great. When we make mistakes we correct them.

The issue is that he tried to cover up his mistake, as we painstakingly show with our snapshots of his ever changing site. Admitting and correcting mistakes might be what “makes America great”, but covering up mistakes is only American in the sense of trying to crush Wikileaks to hide the truth from getting out. First, Al-Mutarjim tried to deny the importance of his error, by saying “so what?” On the other hand, he went back and deleted all evidence of his mistake. He quickly removed the comments critiquing his name, and disabled comments altogether from his website. If he was simply correcting a mistake, why did he remove all the comments criticizing his name!? Is this what “makes America great”?

Even now, Al-Mutarjim pretends that it was someone other than Dawood who pointed out his mistake. Yet, somehow magically the timing worked out that exactly after Dawood pointed it out on LoonWatch, suddenly Al-Mutarjim changed his user name, his website, his contact address, his About section, removed and disabled comments, etc. (In fact, after we published our featured piece on his site, he changed his About page once again, removing altogether the troublesome “About the Name” section.) All of this cover-up, denial, and lying is hardly something laudable–it’s dishonest, deceitful, and fraudulent. These are not good qualities to have in a translator.  Al-Mutarjim’s translations are exactly that: dishonest, deceitful, and fraudulent–as we clearly saw here.

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Translating-Jihad’s Completely Fraudulent Translations

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Translating-Jihad’s Completely Fraudulent Translations

Posted on 26 February 2011 by Danios

By: Dawood (guest contributor) and Danios

The smoking gun against Al-Mutarjim, creator of the Translating-Jihad blog

We recently published an article criticizing the anti-Islam website known as Translating-Jihad.  The owner of this website, Al-Mutarjim (the blogger formerly known as Al-Mutarajjam), parades around as a qualified and reliable Arabic translator.  Our article questioned his Arabic language skills, and we showed that he can’t even translate the word “translator”–which he kept as his user name for months on end.  For an entire year, he was calling himself The Translated (Al-Mutarajjam) instead of The Translator (Al-Mutarjim)…he only changed it after we pointed out the error (and then he scrambled to cover up his mistake).

Al-Mutarjim issued a rebuttal.  The gist of his response is that he made a mistake (“so what?”) but that doesn’t change the fact that his translations are accurate.  He argued that we are focusing on this “minor mistake” because we can’t deal with the substance of his translations.  Al-Mutarjim challenged us (emphasis added):

Translating Jihad

I started this blog in winter 2010 to expose the violent, intolerant, and totalitarian doctrines of Islam. It is common to hear these doctrines expressed candidly by Muslims when they are speaking to other Muslims in Arabic, but it is not so common to hear them expressed freely by Muslims speaking to Western audiences.

A perfect example of this comes in a fatwa posted on the Arabic-language section of Islamonline.net, which was founded by Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, regarding the Prophet Muhammad having intercourse with his prepubescent wife ‘Aisha. An excerpt of my translation follows:

…it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl. The Qur’an is not like the books of jurisprudence which mention what the implications of things are, even if they are prohibited. It is true that the prophet (PBUH) entered into a marriage contract with A’isha when she was six years old, however he did not have sex with her until she was nine years old.

A fatwa on the same topic on the English side of the site smooths over this uncomfortable bit of Islamic history:

As for the Prophet’s condition before this marriage, it clearly explained what we’ve said that it was a purely sublime aim and purpose that motivated him to marry `Aisha. That’s why the marriage was not consummated until sometime after the emigration to Madinah, when she had reached maturity.

The author of the [LoonWatch] article which calls me a fraud was unable to refute this translation, or any of my other translations. He spent hours on my site over several days, scrutinizing every piece of it. If he could have refuted any of them, he would have. I take pride in my work, which is to produce accurate translations exposing the violent and intolerant doctrines of Islam to the English-speaking audience. I invite all to come and scrutinize my work.

We are delighted to accept Al-Mutarjim’s challenge.  The only reason that [Dawood] did not criticize this translation before was that Al-Mutarjim had disabled comments after [Dawood] refuted him.  Al-Mutarjim says that [Dawood] “was unable to refute this translation, or any of my other translations…”  Well yes, since Al-Mutarjim disabled commenting, it was not possible to post rebuttals! [Danios], on the other hand, has been M.I.A. from the LoonWatch site for several months and just returned.

But now that Al-Mutarjim has challenged us, we are but compelled to expose him.  Al-Mutarjim, remember how you said in your response that you never received any formal schooling to learn Arabic?  Well, sit back and relax, because you are about to get some schooling today.

In his response to us, Al-Mutarjim has claimed that the Arabic version of IslamOnline.net permits sexual intercourse with prepubescent girls, whereas the English version misleadingly avoids mentioning this.  As proof, Al-Mutarjim claims that the Arabic fatwa on IslamOnline says “it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl.” This line is critical to Al-Mutarjim’s claim, so surely he translated it correctly, right?

In fact, Al-Mutarjim’s translation is completely fraudulent.  The proper translation of this line is actually as follows: “and from this verse we take the permissibility of betrothal/marriage (nikah) with prepubescent girls.”  The word nikah here does not mean “sexual intercourse” at all.   In fact, the mufti issuing the fatwa says the exact opposite: namely that although a girl may be betrothed when she is prepubescent, no sexual intercourse ought to occur until (1) at least after she passes puberty and (2) she can physically bear it without any harm to her.

To understand the duplicity of Al-Mutarjim’s claims, let’s review: Al-Mutarjim claims that the fatwa says that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with prepubescent girls, but in reality the fatwa actually says that sexual intercourse may occur only after puberty and once the female can bear it without any harm to her.  Quite simply, the fatwa says the exact opposite of what Al-Mutarjim claims!

Here is the original Arabic:

فيؤخذ من الآية جواز نكاح البنت قبل البلوغ”

which Al-Mutarjim translated as:

we can take from this verse that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl.

When it actually translates as:

and from this verse we take the permissibility of betrothal/marriage (nikah) with pre-pubescent girls.

Al-Mutarjim’s dishonest translation becomes even more apparent when we look at the rest of the fatwa.  But first, let’s look at the way his blog, Translating-Jihad, translated the fatwa:  Fatwa: “It is Permissible to Have Sexual Intercourse with a Prepubescent Girl”.  (This is the original blog post that Al-Mutarjim was referring to in his response to us–the one we supposedly couldn’t refute.)

Notice how he uses ellipses (…) everywhere.  As with other authors in the anti-Islam blogosphere, the use of ellipsis is of strategic importance, purposefully placed to mislead the reader and to superimpose false meanings onto the text.  Al-Mutarjim’s translation is under 400 words long, whereas the actual fatwa on IslamOnline [when translated in full] is just under 2,000 words.  In other words, his “translation” is less than 1/5th the actual length of the fatwa.  The other 4/5ths of the fatwa is tactfully hidden within the ellipses.  Most troubling is the fact that Al-Mutarjim hid the mufti’s final verdict regarding the issue, which directly contradicts Al-Mutarjim’s claims.

So what exactly did Al-Mutarjim hide inside those ever so helpful ellipses?

The following key part was mysteriously not translated by Al-Mutarjim:

. ومن المهم كذلك أن نعرف أن الفقهاء وإن أجازوا تزويج الصغيرة فإنهم منعوا زوجها أن يطأها حتى تطيق الوطء ، وهذا يختلف باختلاف الأزمنة والأمكنة والبيئات.

And it is important for us to know that even though the jurists approved betrothing a child [before puberty], they prevented her husband from having sexual intercourse with her until she could bear it, which differs according to the time, place, and environment.

Al-Mutarjim’s deceit becomes quite clear from this!  The fatwa states that sexual intercourse before puberty would not be proper as it would bring great harm to the female.  It says (editor’s note: we’ve broken down the English text into two paragraphs just for ease in reading, though in Arabic it appears as one paragraph):

ولا يخفى بأن زواج الصغار لا يخلو من محاذير صحية ، لأن أجهزتهم التناسلية لا تكون مهيأة للجماع بعد ، كما أن الصغار لا يكونون مهيئين نفسياً لممارسة الجنس ، وبخاصة البنت الصغيرة التي يغلب أن تتضرر جسدياً ولاسيما إذا كان زوجها رجلاً كبيراً ! فقد يسبب جماعها مضاعفات نفسية وجسدية سيئة ترافقها طوال حياتها وتؤثر في مستقبلها الجنسي ! ولهذا ذهب الفقهاء إلى أن الزوجة الصغيرة التي لا تحتمل الوطء لا تُسلَّم إلى زوجها حتى تكبر وتصبح في سـن تتحمل فيه الوطء ، حتى وإن كان الزوج عاقلاً أميناً وتعهد ألا يقربها ، لأن هيجان الشهوة فيه قد يحمله على وطئها فيؤذيها

It is clear that the marriage of children has health concerns, because their reproductive organs are not ready for sexual intercourse yet, nor are they emotionally prepared for sexual intercourse, especially the female child who will most likely be physically damaged. This is especially if her husband is an old man! Sexual intercourse might cause negative physical and emotional ramifications that would stay with her for the rest of her life and affect her sexual future!

And that is why the majority of jurists say that the child wife who cannot bear sexual intercourse must not be given to her husband, until she is grown and is of age in which she could bear sexual intercourse, even if the husband was intelligent and trustworthy and promised not to touch her, since the force of the sexual need in him might compel him to have intercourse with her and harm her.

Oh, how convenient that all of this was removed from the Translating-Jihad translation!  And yet Al-Mutarjim has the gall to say to us:

The author of the [LoonWatch] article which calls me a fraud was unable to refute this translation, or any of my other translations. He spent hours on my site over several days, scrutinizing every piece of it. If he could have refuted any of them, he would have. I take pride in my work, which is to produce accurate translations…

The mufti asks:

إذا كان من يريدون ذلك يبحثون حقا عن المصلحة العامة فلماذا لم يكتفوا بسن البلوغ؟ وهل يقول الأطباء : إن وطء البالغة مضر بها؟

If they really were looking for public interest, then why not suffice with the age of puberty [as the minimum age for sexual intercourse in marriage]? And do doctors say that intercourse with a girl that had reached puberty brings harm to her?

This is a rhetorical question he is asking, and he means to say that sex after puberty is not harmful.  (This is where the mufti is sadly mistaken, but the point is that the fatwa does not at all permit sexual intercourse with prepubescent girls, as Al-Mutarjim claims.)  The IslamOnline mufti argues that puberty ought to be the absolute minimum age for sexual intercourse.  In his concluding paragraph, the mufti issues his final verdict:

ونحن بدورنا ننصح من الوجهة الطبية بعدم الزواج قبل البلوغ على أقل تقدير؛ لأن البلوغ مؤشر فطري يدل على أن الجسم أصبح مهيأً للمعاشرة الزوجية ، كما أن الإنسان بالبلوغ يصل إلى درجة مقبولة من الوعي الاجتماعي الذي يساعده على تكوين الأسرة .. علماً بأن معظم القوانين المعمول بها في البلدان الإسلامية وغير الإسلامية تمنع الزواجَ قبل سِنِّ الرُّشْدِ ، أو سنِّ ثماني عشرة سنة .

In view of medical grounds, we admonish against marriage before puberty at the very least, because puberty is an intuitive sign which indicates that the body is ready for marital intercourse, and because humans at puberty reach an acceptable degree of social awareness that would help them in forming a family unit, especially since most applied laws in Islamic countries and non-Islamic countries prohibit marriage before the age of puberty or before the age of eighteen.

Amazing how the mufti’s conclusion did not appear anywhere in Al-Mutarjim’s translation!  All of this hidden in those magical ellipses.  As we stated before, Al-Mutarjim deceitfully translated the fatwa as follows:

we can take from this verse that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl.

which should read:

and from this verse we take the permissibility of betrothal/marriage (nikah) with prepubescent girls.

Not only does the mufti forbid sexual intercourse before puberty, he also speaks against marriage before puberty (even if the married couple abstain from intercourse).  The IslamOnline mufti explains that the permissibility to betroth prepubescent girls is a thing of the past, due to the societal needs of a time gone by.  The mufti argues that hundreds of years ago, the vast majority of people were illiterate.  Without schooling in the way, it was the norm for early marriage to occur.  But today, most people are educated for several years, and early marriage would interrupt this.  Therefore, it is not proper to betroth/marry off a child.  Says the mufti (again, not translated by our dishonest Translating-Jihad translator):

ولا ننسى كذلك أن الثقافة وقتها كانت محدودة، فقد كان بمقدورها أن تحيط بها في سن صغيرة، ولم يكن الحال كما هو عليه الآن من أن الولد ذكرا، أو أنثى يظل يتعثر في القراءة والكتابة حتى يجاوز العاشرة.

And we should not forget also that the culture at the time was quite limited, and so she could easily be familiar with it [i.e. get to know everything she would need to know for adult life] at a young age, and things were not the way they are now, in which the child, male or female, remains stumbling through schooling [lit. reading and writing] beyond the age of ten.

In another IslamOnline fatwa–also in Arabic–it says:

ومعنى هذا … أن زواج الصغار جائز من حيث الأصل، ولكن قد يمنع من باب المصلحة ، والسياسة الشرعية.

The meaning of this [is that] the marriage [note: betrothal, not sexual intercourse] of youngsters is permissible in terms of theoretical principle; however, it may be better to prevent it so as to guarantee the well-being of the community and [conformity with] Islamic societal policies

He argues that although there is a theoretical permissibility, in actuality it would be harmful in today’s day and age.  Therefore, it would go against the maslaha (public welfare), and the ruler is permitted in Islam to ban it and ought to do so.

And the fatwa concludes:

We admonish against marriage before puberty at the very least.

The original fatwa, mistranslated by Al-Mutarjim, concludes that betrothal/marriage and sexual intercourse ought not to be initiated until at least after puberty.  Yet, if one were to read Al-Mutarjim’s translation of the fatwa, one would get a completely different understanding of the text.  Al-Mutarjim is wholly unreliable, completely dishonest, and indubitably fraudulent.

This topic–minimum age of marriage in Islam–is a hefty one and one which [Danios] will write on in the future.  Unfortunately, many misconceptions circulate the internet regarding this issue.  For example, it is commonly assumed that traditional Sharia dictates that the consummation of marriage may take place at puberty, and that the onset of puberty is considered to be menarche (the start of a female’s menstrual cycles).  This is not true.  Traditional Sharia did not dictate a specific age of the consummation of marriage and only dictated that a “woman may be able to bear it (i.e. sexual intercourse)” without any harm coming to her from it.  Prof. Suad Joseph of U.C. Davis writes on p.57 of the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures:

From cases that were brought to court we learn that muftis and qadis would ensure that the minor girl was able to “endure” intercourse (tutiq al-wat’).  This explains why there was no need to mention to mention a “minimum age” [of consummation of marriage]: It was the girl’s physical appearance (“plump and boxom”) that signaled whether the marriage could be consummated without undue harm [to the female].

In other words, consummation of marriage was to be permitted only if the female’s body had developed, undergoing pubertal changes such as the development of breasts and other womanly features.  The very dictum regarding a minimum age of marriage is exactly opposite of what is commonly assumed about Islam: it requires the female to have the body of a woman, not a child.  Islamic jurists abstained from specifying a specific age, as they reasoned that different girls matured at different ages.  Instead, they argued that each case should be judged individually on a case by case basis.  Furthermore, clerics point out that the average age of puberty can vary from one generation to another and from one location to another.

It should of course be noted that we here at LoonWatch don’t agree with the mufti’s fatwa and find many things objectionable in it. However, what Al-Mutarjim and the other Islamophobes do is pretend that the IslamOnline mufti’s opinion is the only one in the Islamic world.  In fact, many Islamic clerics have argued that the age of marriage ought to be eighteen, regardless of any other factors.  Even in the ultraconservative Saudi Arabia, there are clerics like the prominent Mohsen al-Obaikan and the Justice Minister Mohammed al-Eissa (both links are from none other than IslamOnline) who are pushing to ban marriage below the age of eighteen.

These clerics argue that Islam does not specify a specific age for marriage, but rather leaves it up to each society and generation to adjust it according to the needs of the time.  More specifically, a female may not be married (and certainly may not engage in sexual intercourse) “until she could bear it, which differs according to time, place, and environment”.  These quoted words appear in the same IslamOnline fatwa that Al-Mutarjim translated (if we can call it a translation), except that these other clerics would argue that a girl who is post-pubertal but still young would not be able to “bear it (i.e. sexual intercourse)”.  Indeed, the medical evidence is overwhelming that such marriages are harmful to girls.  Since the only requirement under Islamic law for ascertaining a minimum age of marriage is that no harm come to the female, the conclusion then is that marriage ought to be prohibited before eighteen years of age.  Furthermore, they argue that instead of issuing such rulings on a case by case basis (which has a large potential for abuse by forceful men), the government should pass a general law, since generally it is harmful for a female to marry before the age of eighteen.

Their opponents–both Islamic and anti-Islamic–would argue that it would not be permitted in Islam to place an arbitrary age of marriage like this, since the Islamic scriptural sources do not seem to mandate it.  How can Muslims prohibit what God didn’t?  However, the more reform-minded Islamic clerics argue that a temporal ban is permitted in Islam.  They argue that Islam leaves the question wide open so that each generation and society can adjust the minimum age of marriage to their needs.  Therefore, it might make sense to ban marriage under the age of eighteen in the modern day United States, but it may not have been appropriate for a pre-industrial society on the remote outskirts of Africa one hundred years ago.  If times change again, then the age can be adjusted as well, either up or down.

In essence then, the fact that Islam does not specify a specific age for marriage is a blessing and part of the leeway given to the people by the Merciful God.  The permission to marry before the age of eighteen is not a requirement (i.e. a female is not obligated or commanded to get married at this time; it is not sinful for her to postpone marriage until she is older); therefore, it would not be forbidden to issue a temporal ban on it, in order to fulfill one of the higher ethical objectives of Islamic law, i.e. the right of a female to obtain happiness, the removal of harm, etc.  Indeed, not placing such a restriction–in an attempt to maintain rigid fidelity to the letter of the law–would end up destroying the spirit of the law.  By prohibiting marriage before the age of eighteen, the ruler is upholding the higher objective of the Sharia in an ever changing time.  Such a restriction would only be prohibited if the ruler were to argue that this is a divine and immutable law, instead of a temporal and adjustable one.

Mohammad Hashim Kamali writes on p.227 of Shari’ah Law: An Introduction:

Government decisions are not always based on legal text [scriptural texts and fatawa] and principle. Legal text as well as political and economic considerations, custom and even exceptional conditions all play a role and constitute the premises of decision-making. Siyasah shar‘iyyah aims at securing benefit for the people and efficient management of their affairs, even if the measures so taken are not stipulated in the [religious] text…It also enables the state to change the operative rules, law and policy as the conditions of the society may demand.

He concludes on p.229:

Essential harmony with the spirit of the Shari‘ah may at times even justify a certain departure from its letter.

Heavy stuff, right?  Not for wikipedia-educated “experts on Islam”, no doubt.

The fact is that amongst the religious establishment in Islam, there is a lively debate about what the minimum age of marriage should be. The IslamOnline website itself gives two differing opinions on the issue.  A questioner asks the site:

Recently, we have heard about some Muslim countries issuing laws stating a minimum age for marriage.  Is there a minimum age for marriage in Islam?  Is enacting such laws permitted?

The fatwa site responds:

As far as the issue of enacting laws specifying the minimum age of marriage , this issue is subject to debate among Muslim scholars. Some of them say that the ruler cannot enact such a law, while others say the ruler is entitled to issue such laws as long as the public interest of the society is maintained.

They give both opinions by two separate clerics; the second opinion, by the former Head of the Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee, rules:

I think that enacting some laws to specify the age of marriage as done by some governments, is a good step. However, these governments should take into consideration all the circumstances relating to the subject and specific to the society. Obeying the ruler in following such laws is surely an obligation so long as they bring about benefit to the whole society.

The fatwa concludes:

Based on the above fatwas, it can be said that the issue of enacting laws specifying the age of marriage is governed by the public interest of the Muslim society taking into consideration the Shari`ah-based objectives in this regard.

In other words, it is permitted to enact laws specifying the minimum age of marriage as eighteen.

One might be bothered by the fact that there exists no shortage of clerics who think it’s OK for really young girls to get married, and that’s a legitimate gripe that we share.  But it would be dishonest to say that no other views exist in the Muslim world.  Many Islamic clerics think otherwise, and most Muslims in general would never marry their daughters off at a young age.  The last point is the most relevant, since–contrary to what Islamophobes and conservative Muslims believe–Islam is not limited to its religious establishment, which–like other religions–is generally far more conservative than the lay follower.

Had Al-Mutarjim limited his website to the criticism of fundamentalist, extremist, and/or ultraconservative Islam, we’d have no problem with his site.  But to place all of Islam–and all Muslims–into one box, is just not right.  It’s just not honest.  Not only are there other views about this topic in the Islamic world, there are other views on the topic even on the IslamOnline website itself!  If the website itself is not a monolith, then why would one think that the entire Muslim world is?

Jewish and Christian Views

In his response to us, Al-Mutarjim reveals himself to be a religious wing nut:

…This country and its constitution were founded by the hand of God, and that it was His destiny for His children that we should be free to worship Him according to the dictates of our consciences…

Being familiar with the teachings of Christ and the influence of His Holy Spirit, I was able to discern between the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the darkness of these sacred texts of Islam. With this knowledge, I resolved to work to expose this darkness, in order to defend this country and its inhabitants, and also to open the eyes of those already enslaved by Islam…

I know that the Lord has given me a gift to be able to learn Arabic. I do not understand all the purposes of the Lord, but I do believe that He has a purpose for me in this work. So I will press on, and continue to work tirelessly to help the non-Arabic-speaking audience understand what Islam really teaches.

Surprise, surprise–another leading Islam-basher just happens to be either a hawkish Zionist Jew or a fervent Christian proselytizer!  But of course Robert Spencer will reassure us that his being Catholic has absolutely nothing to do with his criticisms of Islam.  This, even though Spencer has penned the proselytizing book entitled Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t.  That Spencer and Al-Mutarjim are Christian proselytizers is ignored in an attempt to portray them as neutral “analysts” and “terrorism experts”.

It is a bit troubling that Al-Mutarjim thinks the Holy Spirit divinely inspired him to become a bigot.  But, since he invoked the Judeo-Christian tradition, and because in his response he specifically compared the “light” of Christianity to the “darkness” of Islam (“I was able to discern between the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the darkness of these sacred texts of Islam”)–it seems completely fair and fitting to apply the same standards he uses against Islam to the Judeo-Christian tradition he exalts.  As I stated in my previous article, Islam is hardly the only religion that has “uncomfortable” traditional opinions.

Both the Torah and Talmud permit child marriage of girls, which includes sexual intercourse.  If Al-Mutarjim will cite the IslamOnline fatwa site, let us cite a Jewish “fatwa” site.  Rabbi Naftali Silberberg of AskMoses.com (which boasts that it is the “world’s most popular Jewish website”) issued the following religious verdict:

What is the minimum age of marriage according to Jewish law?

…Technically speaking, a girl may be betrothed the moment she is born, and married at the age of three.  A boy may betroth and marry at the age of thirteen.

Following the example of Al-Mutarjim, we could leave it at that, using our ellipses as strategic weapons of misinformation.  However, unlike Al-Mutarjim and Translating-Jihad, we’re honest–so we’ll fill in what the website is actually saying:

There is the technical rule, and then there is the proper, practical, and wise thing to do. The Talmud, too, agrees that technically according to Torah law a girl can be married at a very young age, but the rabbis imposed a prohibition on such an unwise practice.

And here’s what we hid in the ellipses:

Our Sages state that it is forbidden for one to marry off his daughter until she is an adult and says ‘this is the one I want to marry.’

Under Jewish law (Halacha), a female becomes an “adult” at puberty, estimated to be twelve years of age: the same website, AskMoses, says: “a girl is considered to reach adulthood at 12.”  When we consider that IslamOnline says that Islamic law requires the consent of the female for marriage, we find that the traditional (and now orthodox) views in Judaism and Islam are virtually identical–both websites (AskMoses and IslamOnline) say that technically marriage before puberty is permitted (keep in mind that unlike Al-Mutarjim’s claim, IslamOnline still forbids sexual intercourse), but practically it (marriage) must be done after puberty. JewFaq.com says: “The minimum age of marriage under Jewish law is 13 for boys, 12 for girls; however, the kiddushin can take place before that, and often did in medieval times.”  The kiddushin is the equivalent of the nikah; according to the same website, it means that the “woman is legally the wife of the man.”

Al-Mutarjim’s own religion, Christianity, is hardly any better.  The Catholic Encyclopedia states:

The marriageable age is fourteen full years in males and twelve full years in females, under penalty of nullity (unless natural puberty supplies the want of years).

Although we do not claim to be experts of Christianity, the words in parenthesis seem to mean that a girl can be married off before the age of twelve if she goes through puberty before that (“natural puberty supplies the want of years”).  Prof. Cathy Yandell confirms this, saying on p.37 of Carpe Corpus that although twelve years old was the general rule, “if one is capable of carnal cohabitation before this age, marriage is permitted.” A Christian man who married underage girls avoided punishment if he already had sexual relations with her, this fact proving that her body was in fact mature enough for marriage.

Child Marriage: A Muslim-Only Problem?

Our opponents will quickly switch their argument to “well, nowadays Jews and Christians no longer engage in child marriage, whereas Muslims still do.”  Then, they’ll reproduce a few stories of child marriage in the Islamic world.  Yes, it is true that child marriage is a major problem in many parts of the Muslim-majority world.  Yet, it is hardly a Muslim-only problem. According to UNICEF, forty percent of the world’s child marriages occur in Hindu-majority India.  Traditional Hindu texts permit marriage of girls at the age of seven or eight.  Should we now demonize Hinduism?  But you will find that the anti-Islam bashers will single out Islam and Muslims alone, which is what prompted our series entitled “What if they were Muslims?”

Meanwhile, only 5% of child marriages take place in the Middle East and North Africa combined.  On the other hand, double this number (10%) of child marriages take place in Latin America and the Caribbean (where the majority of inhabitants are Christian, not Muslim). Over 91% of child marriages take place in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, East Asia, and the Pacific.  Even if we account for the fact that there are some Muslim majority regions in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, it would hardly be the case that child marriage would be a Muslim-only problem.  It is a global problem, and tied to poverty and lack of education.  Religion is a lesser factor.

As always, our anti-Islam opponents wish to compare Europe, the U.S, Canada, and Israel–all part of the “First World”–with the impoverished “Third World” Muslim countries in South Asia and Africa.  Yet, it would be far more reasonable to compare Christian parts of Africa with the Muslim majority world (or alternatively to compare the Christian-majority parts of Africa with the Muslim-majority parts of Africa).  Once we do this, it seems that the matter has less to do with religion and more to do with socio-economic factors.  But the truth is that the Islam-bashers who speak about Islam and child marriage have absolutely no interest in actually saving girls from child marriage; rather, they just want to exploit the suffering of these girls to further their hateful agendas and use it to score proselytizing  points, giving Team Jesus one more point against Team Muhammad.

Conclusion

Al-Mutarjim’s translations are dishonest, deceitful, and fraudulent.  We’ve shown that he completely manipulated the fatwa on IslamOnline, purposefully misleading his audience to further his pro-Christian anti-Islam agenda.  He entitled the fatwa as “It is Permissible to Have Sexual Intercourse with a Prepubescent Girl”, even though the fatwa says the exact opposite. Al-Mutarjim’s translation could not possibly have been more dishonest and misleading.

What makes this truly remarkable is the fact that he chose to use this particular translation of his in his response to us, taunting us by saying we are “unable to refute this translation” and challenging us by “invit[ing] all to come and scrutinize my work.”  This religious wing nut was dense enough to give us an absolute freebie by posting such a dishonest translation when he challenged us. We didn’t even need to search.  For this, we should thank him.

Certainly, it is a horribly fraudulent translation, and had Al-Mutarjim actually been in academia, our critique of his “translation” would have ended his career.  He would rightfully be condemned to the academic waste bin along with plagiarists, cheats, and frauds.  But even in the internet world–which unfortunately sets a very low bar for “expert”–we think Al-Mutarjim is done for.  No amount of damage control can repair his reputation after this article is published.  His translation is just too dishonest, misleading, and fraudulent.

Or would Al-Mutarjim have us believe that his fraudulent translation of the IslamOnline fatwa is simply a case of a fatha instead of a kasra?

(Read an addendum to this article here.)

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SPLC: SIOA is a Hate Group

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SPLC: SIOA is a Hate Group

Posted on 25 February 2011 by Garibaldi

For quite sometime now we have been pointing out that the SPLC should add SIOA as an anti-Muslim hate group to its list of hate groups. Now they have done that and it is official, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller are in the same league as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. Check out our piece: SIOA is an anti-Muslim Hate Group

Update: I forgot to add, I request all you to go to NY Daily News and vote, they have a poll asking whether SIOA is a hate group.

Southern Poverty Law Center lists anti-Islamic NYC blogger Pamela Geller, followers a hate group

Manhattan blogger Pamela Geller and her posse of anti-Islamic protesters have been branded a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Stop the Islamization of America was included in the civil rights organization’s annual roundup of extremist groups – a rogue’s gallery that includes everything from the Ku Klux Klan to white supremacists and Nazis.

Geller’s group was one of the most vocal opponents of the proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero.

The group was also behind ads that were placed on city buses urging Muslims to leave “the falsity of Islam.”

Geller, who runs a blog called Atlas Shrugs, dismissed the Law Center as an “uber left” group that has “failed to address the greatest threat to our national security.”

“My group is a human rights group,” she said. “And these people are taken seriously? This is the morally inverted state of the world.”

An Islamic organization that has been a frequent target of Geller’s barbs said it was not surprised she made the bigot list.

“One need not go beyond the name of this hate group, Stop the Islamization of America, to recognize the validity of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s designation,” said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Bill Keller, a fire-and-brimstone Florida preacher who led a crusade against the Islamic Center in lower Manhattan, also made the Law Center’s list.

csiemaszko@nydailynews.com

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Craig_Monteilh

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Lawsuit contends FBI violated rights of hundreds of Muslim Americans

Posted on 24 February 2011 by Emperor

The ACLU and CAIR are suing the FBI.

Lawsuit contends FBI violated rights of hundreds of Muslim Americans

(LATimes)

The FBI violated the 1st Amendment rights of hundreds of Muslims by using a paid informant to target and monitor several Southern California mosques based solely on religion, according to a federal class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Filed on behalf of three Muslim plaintiffs, the suit accuses the FBI and seven of its employees, including Director Robert Mueller, of paying Irvine resident Craig Monteilh to go undercover, infiltrate mosques and record conversations in order to root out potential terrorists.

Over the course of 14 months beginning in 2006, the FBI used Monteilh to “indiscriminately collect” personal information on hundreds or even thousands of Muslim Americans, the lawsuit alleges.

Through this “dragnet” operation, the agency “gathered hundreds of phone numbers, thousands of e-mail addresses, hundreds of hours of video recordings that captured the interiors of mosques, homes and businesses, and … thousands of hours of audio recordings,” the lawsuit alleges.

Monteilh, who has served prison time for forgery, has previously told The Times that he was recruited by the FBI in 2004 to infiltrate drug-trafficking groups. In 2006, Monteilh said, he was asked to assume the identity of a Muslim convert and go undercover to identify extremists and gather intelligence.

The lawsuit comes a year after Monteilh filed suit personally against the FBI, accusing his law enforcement handlers of endangering his life and violating his civil rights. His claims of working for the FBI in some capacity were confirmed in 2009 when a West Covina judge unsealed court recordsthat showed the agency intervened in 2007 to terminate Monteilh’s parole on a theft charge early.

The FBI declined to comment on the case Tuesday night, citing ongoing legal proceedings. Spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said in an e-mail, however, that the FBI does not target houses of worship or religious groups but does focus on “people who are alleged to be involved in criminal activity, regardless of their affiliations, religious or otherwise.”

ACLU lawyer Peter Bibring said members of the Muslim community grew suspicious after Monteilh habitually asked probing and invasive questions about their religious beliefs, political views, loyalties and became “increasing aggressive about denouncing U.S. foreign policy.”

“Ironically, the operation ended when members of the Muslim communities of Southern California reported the informant to the police because of his violent rhetoric and ultimately obtained a restraining order against him,” the lawsuit alleged.

Bibring dismisses the idea that the FBI may have been targeting individuals already suspected of criminal activity.

“That simply doesn’t fit with the behavior that the entire community observed,” he said. Monteilh “didn’t focus on individuals or small groups of people. He probed a wide range of people.”

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, class-action status and the destruction of all materials that Monteilh collected and handed over to the FBI.

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India-Chana-has-39-wives-500×316

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Christian Man Has 39 Wives…What if he were Muslim?

Posted on 23 February 2011 by Inconnu

A 66 year old man in Guwahati, India has 39 wives, 94 children, and 33 grandchildren…and he’s not done yet! According to Reuters [emphasis added]:

The more, the merrier is certainly true for Ziona Chana, a 66-year-old man in India’s remote northeast who has 39 wives, 94 children and 33 grandchildren — and wouldn’t mind having more.

They all live in a four storied building with 100 rooms in a mountainous village in Mizoram state, sharing borders with Myanmar and Bangladesh, media reports said.

“I once married 10 women in one year,” he was quoted as saying.

His wives share a dormitory near Ziona’s private bedroom and locals said he likes to have seven or eight of them by his side at all times.

The sons and their wives, and all their children, live in different rooms in the same building, but share a common kitchen.

The wives take turns cooking, while his daughters clean the house and do washing. The men do outdoor jobs like farming and taking care of livestock.

The family, all 167 of them, consumes around 91 kg (200 pounds) of rice and more than 59 kg (130 pounds) of potatoes a day. They are supported by their own resources and occasional donations from followers.

“Even today, I am ready to expand my family and willing to go to any extent to marry,” Ziona said.

“I have so many people to care (for) and look after, and I consider myself a lucky man.”

Ziona met his oldest wife, who is three years older than he is, when he was 17.

He heads a local Christian religious sect, called the “Chana,” which allows polygamy. Formed in June 1942, the sect believes it will soon be ruling the world with Christ and has a membership of around 400 families.

What if he were Muslim? What if this was some Bedouin in Saudi Arabia? The Islamophobes would be all over it, claiming Islam takes away women’s rights, treats women as chattel, etc. etc. Indeed, some Muslims do just that. But, their crimes cannot be projected upon Islam. Polygamy is found in every culture and every religious tradition. But Islam-haters like “Police Blotter Bob” Spencer would never tell you that…

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Spokane_Terrorism

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Salon.com: The Terrorist Attempt You’ve Never Heard Of

Posted on 23 February 2011 by Emperor

The terrorist attempt you’ve never heard of

(Salon.com)

One month ago, a bomb was found along a Martin Luther King Day parade route in Spokane, Wash., an area with a troubled history of violence by white supremacist groups. The FBI quickly announced that the backpack bomb, which was found by chance not long before marchers were scheduled to walk by, was sophisticated and could have caused “multiple casualties.” Authorities even used the phrase “domestic terrorism” to describe the incident.

Despite all that, the Spokane bomb has drawn little sustained coverage from the national media, let alone attention on Capitol Hill. One reason for the lack of coverage, no doubt, is that the incident does not fit into the reigning narrative of Muslim terrorism.

Take the example of the fake bomb plot by a Somali-born Muslim man in Portland, Ore., in November. This was one of several recent FBI stings in which an informant coaxed the suspect into launching an attack and even provided a fake bomb. A search for the Portland plot on the Nexis news archive, a blunt but fairly effective instrument for measuring the volume of media coverage, came up with 420 hits in the week after the incident. A similar search for the Spokane bomb plot came up with just 139 hits — even though the bomb in Spokane was real and the device in Portland was fake.

To get an update on the Spokane bomb and where the investigation stands, I spoke with Thomas Clouse, a legal affairs reporter with the Spokesman-Review in Spokane. He has been covering the story more closely than any other reporter in the country. The interview has been edited slightly for length and clarity.

So set the scene, what is this parade like?

There are usually several hundred folks who come out on Martin Luther King Day for what they call a “unity march.” They have members of the black community and black pastors who come and speak about the message of hope and the message that Dr. King lived. They have a route that we publish every year, and it ends up in downtown in River Park Square, where they have speeches.

Where along the parade was the backpack with the bomb found?

About three blocks from the end; it was found right next to or on a park bench. It was found by three contract maintenance workers about an hour before the march. They saw what appeared to be wires coming out of it, so they opened it and became suspicious. They called 911. The police consulted with each other and made the decision that they would not be able to determine whether it was a real bomb or not by the time the march was supposed to go by, so they decided to re-route the march. People were already gathering for the march when the backpack was discovered; it was found 40 minutes or so before people were supposed to walk by.

How was the bomb made?

Most of what we know is from sources who have not been willing to be named. The FBI is trying to preserve details of the case so if someone comes forward trying to take credit, the authorities will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. From what I’ve learned, it was a metal cylinder with some type of explosive inside. It also had a specific type of shrapnel and a substance that they believe was designed to be an anticoagulant, and that was rat poison. We also reported that it had a remote detonating device, meaning the bomb could be detonated remotely. It had an electronic receiver very much like the automatic key entry in a car. That means that the person had to have been nearby to detonate the device.

We’ve learned that they did get surveillance video of a subject nearby but the video was of such low quality that they weren’t able to determine who it was. I’ve learned that they’ve sent that to the FBI trying to enhance that video, but I’ve not heard back that they were able to glean anything from it.

Is there a sense of how much damage the bomb could have done?

They’ve said that it could have caused multiple casualties, though it’s obviously tempered by the amount of explosives one can fit in a backpack. It was placed near a four-foot-tall, two-foot-thick brick wall that would have directed the blast directly out into the street where the marchers were.

Have they said anything about the motive?

They publicly have said that they believe it was a thwarted attempt at domestic terrorism, and that it cannot be lost that it had political and social motives because of the timing and the location — along the path of a Martin Luther King unity march. But there was no note prior to, and no one took credit for it after the fact.

Can you explain the history of racial tensions in the area that you explored in one of your recent articles?

We’ve had several bombing incidents in the Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, area [about 30 minutes from Spokane]. There was some activity there in the 1980s. And we had three bombing incidents here in Spokane in 1996. The suspects or the people arrested in all of those cases were either Aryan Nations or some type of white supremacist. There’s been a lull recently in that type of activity.

We have been seeing a lot more racist literature left on cars and in homes. We had a hate crime that made it to federal court in Coeur d’Alene in which some guys scratched out a swastika in the dirt on the side of their rig. Two of the three I believe were convicted of malicious harassment of a Hispanic man in the area. But things really have wound down since 2004 when Richard Butlerdied. He was the founder and leader of the Aryan Nations.

But it’s not as if any of these groups are a constant, visible presence?

No. Into the late 1990s, the Aryan Nations would have an actual parade down Main Street in Coeur d’Alene, with swastikas and boot-stepping and the whole nine yards. But we haven’t seen that since 1998 or 1999.

So where do things stand now in the investigation?

The FBI has not even so much as put out a description of a suspect. Yet, I interviewed a restaurant owner who said the day after the incident an agent with Homeland Security came by, and he got the impression from the questions that the agent had somebody specific in mind. The authorities said that there were interviews done the day of the discovery, and that there was no immediate threat of a second device. That leads me to believe that they have more idea of who is behind this than they’re letting on.

Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More: Justin Elliott

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Epic Arabic 101 Fail: “Translating-Jihad” Arabic Translator Can’t Translate the  Word  “Translator”

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Epic Arabic 101 Fail: “Translating-Jihad” Arabic Translator Can’t Translate the Word “Translator”

Posted on 23 February 2011 by Danios

By: Dawood (guest contributor) and Danios

So-called “experts and acclaimed scholars of Islam” rely on Arabic 101 level translator for their “anti-Jihad” work.

Translating-Jihad, a new blog purporting to expose “Islamic totalitarianism and intolerance by translating it from Arabic into English”, has recently appeared online. The site has received glowing praise from such Islamophobic luminaries as Robert Spencer, Nonie Darwish, and Andrew Bostom. The site’s creator, Al-Mutarajjam (more regarding this choice of name later), boasts on one anti-Muslim website:

[M]y blog is already regularly read by experts on Islam such as Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and Dr. Andrew Bostom, and nearly half of my translations have been featured on the highly-popular website jihadwatch.org

The controversial blog aims to become the premier translation wing of the so-called “anti-jihad” movement, and was created by someone who openly states that he works as a professional Arabic translator. As always, the anti-Islam bloggers seek to portray themselves as bona fide experts of the field. But is Al-Mutarajjam, the site’s creator, really an expert in the Arabic language?

The evidence suggests otherwise. His Arabic language abilities are consistent with the level of an Arabic 101 student. (Arabic 101 is the introductory class to the language.)  His “epic Arabic 101 fail” speaks to that: he chose his pseudonym to be “Al-Mutarajjam”.  When he chose this alias, he thought it meant “The Translator.” It doesn’t. Even if we account for a “slip” in transliteration, it would mean: “The Translated.”

This word is the passive participle (ism maf3ul) and means the object translated (see Hans Wehr, p. 93)—not “translator” (which would be al-mutarjim). This is an issue of very basic Arabic grammar, something learned very early on in Arabic language study. To understand how truly basic this is, we see that it is one of the very first words learned in the near-standard text used in American universities to teach Arabic: Al-Kitaab fii Ta’allum al-‘Arabiyya.  That’s an Arabic 101 textbook.

The word “mutarjim” (translator) on p. 19 of standard Arabic 101 textbook (Al-Kitaab fii Ta’allum al-’Arabiyya)

When this error was pointed out to the blog’s creator [by Dawood], he responded to this critique with “so what?” The “so what” is of course that it’s a huge mistake, understood best if we give an English equivalent. Just imagine if a Chinese immigrant applied to be a fifth grade English teacher in Texas and if he stated that “I was official translated at other school I work for.” Immediately the employer would know that this applicant has very poor English and would not be appropriate for the position of English teacher. If this is the case for an elementary school position, shouldn’t the standard be at least as high for the official “translation wing” for so-called “experts and acclaimed scholars of Islam”?

The difference between “the writer” and “the written” is clear, as is the difference between “the translator” and “the translated”. Calling yourself “the written” or “the translated” instead of “the writer” or “the translator” is almost something worthy of being featured on Engrish.com (a website that documents humorous English language gaffes in Asian countries). For someone attempting to portray himself as a competent Arabic translator, this is a huge mistake. It certainly calls into question the credentials of a person who has taken on such a lofty role as anti-Jihad translator extraordinaire.

Al-Mutarajjam’s Reaction

Al-Mutarajjam’s blunder was pointed out on LoonWatch.com here [see comment by Dawood]:

First of all, I am not entirely sure how strong your Arabic is. For a state your name “Al-Mutarajjam” (by which I think you mean “al-mutarjam”) is the passive participle (ism maf3ul), and means the object translated—not translator (which would be “al-mutarjim”). See Hans Wehr, p.93

To which Al-Mutarajjam responded:

(…Yes, I know that the correct transliteration of ‘translator’ is al-Mutarjim—so what? It’s just an alias.)

His reaction is reminiscent of Sarah Palin’s tweets explaining her usage of the word “refudiate”.   In any case, Al-Mutarajjam attempted to make it seem as if the critique of his name did not faze him, or that it did not warrant sufficient attention. He responded with “so what?” But Al-Mutarajjam’s actions belied his words. He in fact had a frenzied reaction and immediately removed his name (Al-Mutarajjam) from the blog.  If you go to his website now, the error has disappeared into oblivion. He changed his name and even his email address.

Here’s what his site looked like before we pointed out his epic fail (we’ve circled the relevant parts):

Then Al-Mutarajjam quickly took the incriminating error off his site and changed his contact info as well:

After a few days had passed, Al-Mutarajjam quietly fixed his name and put the corrected name up.  As of today, his site looks like this now (notice the dramatic change):

He also corrected the mistake on other sites where his articles were found, such as Andrew Breitbart’s site.  (We’ll ignore the fact that Al-Mutarajjam’s work features on a site like Andrew Breitbart’s website which lost what little credibility it had by posting manipulated videos of Shirley Sherrod and ACORN.)  This means Al-Mutarajjam was so worried about his blunder that he went through the effort of frantically contacting Breitbart’s site.  Here is what Breitbart’s site looked like before the change:

And here is what it looked like after Al-Mutarajjam attempted to do damage control:

Most importantly, he immediately shut down the comments section—all the previous comments critiquing his choice of name vanished.

Here is what the Translating-Jihad blog looked like before the vanishing comments:

After the comments [by Dawood] criticizing Al-Mutarajjam’s name were posted, suddenly the comments were removed and commenting on the site was banned altogether:

Such a dramatic reaction–making the comments on the entire site vanish and disabling commenting altogether–belies the “so what?” response.  So what indeed!

Not satisfied with the So What Defense, Al-Mutarajjam started to think of ways to explain away his mistake.  This is similar to how Sarah Palin later came out and stated that she simply made a typo.  No doubt aware of the catastrophic nature of his mistake, Al-Mutarajjam came up with the “likely” story that he chose his user name long time ago during his earlier days of Arabic study.  In other words, the mistake was supposedly made when he was a newbie to the Arabic language, but now he is a seasoned veteran.  Not only did he post this explanation in the comments, but he also felt the need to add an “About the Name” section to his website:

Note that this “explanation” only appeared on his website after his name was critiqued on LoonWatch.  (In fact, the explanation appeared right after we questioned him about it.)  Prior to us bringing up this issue, not only was there no explanation about the curious choice of “Al-Mutarajjam” but in fact there was no “About” section to his website at all.  Here is what his site looked like before the change (notice no “About” section in the top right hand corner):

But after we pointed out the error, suddenly he found the need to create an “About Me” section:

All of these changes–from changing his pseudonym altogether, changing his contact address, scrambling to contact other friendly websites to correct the mistake, adding an About section, etc.–show how concerned he was about his epic fail.  His explanation that this was simply a mistake of the past is hardly believable.  If he later learned that his pseudonym was incorrect, why didn’t he have an explanation on his website (the About Me/About My Name) section?  Why did that only appear right after we pointed out to him this error?  If this was indeed a “so what?” problem, then why did he find the need to scramble to make changes right after being exposed on LoonWatch? Al-Mutarajjam was quite happy to use the name ever since the creation of the blog…until after the critique came up on LoonWatch. Why did he delete all the comments made on his website about this topic?  It seems far more likely that he had no clue about this mistake until it was pointed out to him.  Then he tried to cover it up.

It seems that Al-Mutarajjam thinks that he has gotten away with his mistake, since now he has removed the explanation from his site altogether. Here’s what the About Me section looked like shortly after we pointed out his mistake and his subsequent name change to Al Mutarjim:

After some time had passed and he was hopeful that his mistake was forgotten, Al-Mutarajjam carefully deleted the sentences about his previous name–hoping no doubt to remove any evidence of his initial gaffe:

In any case, even if we believe Al-Mutarajjam’s “likely” story, then this does not exonerate him.  His explanation was that “he mistransliterated the name way back when he first began blogging.”  Well, when was “way back”?  In fact, his very first blog posting was only one year ago (on Feb. 21, 2010).  So in just one year he went from being an Arabic 101 level student to a professional full-time Arabic translator!?  This is reminiscent of Pamela Geller’s claim that she became an “expert on Islam” after just one year of reading anti-Islam books.  The fact that these jokers think they can become “experts” after a year indicates their disdain for true academia.

Additionally, this raises another issue: why was he parading around on the internet as “The Translator” during his early days of Arabic study (just one year ago)? If at that time he didn’t even know the basics of Arabic 101, why was he feeling confident enough to call himself The Translator? The fact is that whenever he made the cocky name of “The Translator”, he didn’t even know how to translate the word “translator”! Whether he was guilty of this mistake now or before (the difference being only one year), it shows that he is a complete fraud who has no qualms in pretending to be what he is not.

The Frauds and Hucksters of the Anti-Muslim Blogosphere

This of course means that Al-Mutarajjam (who is now Al-Mutarjim) fits right in with the anti-Islam blogosphere, which is full of frauds pretending to be experts on Islam. Similarly does Robert Spencer’s website boast that Spencer is “the acclaimed scholar of Islam.” This, even though Robert Spencer has not obtained a single degree in an Islam-related subject from any recognized university. Al-Mutarajjam’s standards of what constitutes an “expert” can be ascertained by the fact that he considers Robert Spencer one of the “experts on Islam” (see above quote). Interestingly enough, Spencer doesn’t even have Al-Mutarajjam’s “concentration in Middle Eastern Studies” (noting of course that a “concentration” in something is not equal to a degree in it).

One could go down the list of notable Islamophobes and not find a single scholar amongst the entire lot, even though they all claim to be erudite scholars and esteemed experts in the subjects they propound. From Andrew Bostom who is a professor of Islam medicine to Pamela Geller who spent a whole year reading anti-Islam books to become an expert on the subject, one cannot find a scholar. The same is the case with the legion of other Islamophobes: Bat Ye’or, Brigitte Gabriel, Debbie Schlussel, Walid Shoebat, Joe Kaufman, Wafa Sultan, etc. The notable exception is Daniel Pipes, but he doesn’t count since he retired from academia in the 1980′s. (In his own unusually honest words: “I have the simple politics of a truck driver, not the complex ones of an academic. My viewpoint is not congenial with institutions of higher learning.”)

The lack of academic qualifications of these so-called “Islam experts” is apparent in their usage of an Arabic 101 level speaker as a source.  Robert Spencer, who uses Al-Mutarajjam’s work (and had gushing praise of Al-Mutarajjam’s site) never noticed the glaring mistake in Al-Mutarajjam’s alias. Spencer has repeatedly claimed to be fluent in Arabic. The fact that Spencer didn’t pick up on this grave mistake speaks volumes. Imagine, for example, if an anti-American Iranian website claimed to have an expert English translator, and how much fun we would poke if that “expert English translator” went around claiming he was “The Translated”. Wouldn’t we notice the mistake immediately? Well, why didn’t Robert Spencer ever notice that Al-Mutarajjam’s name was completely off? It seems like Al-Mutarajjam is not the only one faking his Arabic abilities!  This indicates the completely unprofessional and sophomoric nature of the self-proclaimed “Islam experts” of the internet.

Why Translating-Jihad and Other Islamophobic Websites are not Taken Seriously By Academics

The absolute lack of qualifications and credentials of the Islam-bashers is something we’ve harped on again and again. Robert Spencer and the other Islam-bashers diligently try avoiding the topic. Their minions on the other hand will say “so what?” or “their qualifications or lack thereof does not impact the content of what they are saying.” Of course, we know this is not true by the fact that the Islam-bashers wouldn’t be seeking to portray themselves as “experts and the acclaimed scholars of Islam” if it were not important to be so.

But more than this, the anti-academic background of these people has very real consequences in the substance of what they argue. While their arguments may appeal to non-academic minds (like their vitriolic foaming-at-the-mouth fans who comment on their sites), these arguments would be ripped asunder by actual scholars. This is certainly the case with Al-Mutarajjam’s website. For example, he earlier debated with us about a fatwa (religious edict) he translated about Muslims being forbidden from transporting Christians to church. Al-Mutarajjam posted this fatwa following a bomb blast in Alexandria, Egypt (after which many Egyptian Muslims called for solidarity with the Christian community). Al-Mutarajjam posted:

Lest all the calls of Muslim-Christian solidarity from smooth-speaking Muslim spokesmen in the wake of the Alexandria bombing fool you, here comes this fatwa from the highly-popular Islamic website Islamweb.net ruling that Muslims are not allowed to drive Christians to church, as that is tantamount to “support[ing] them in their vain and perverted rites and religion.” Apparently Muslim-Christian outreach and understanding is only one-sided.

Notice how he uses the term “smooth-speaking Muslim spokesmen”, implying that they are being deceitful and lying. To “prove” this, he cites a fatwa that implies the exact opposite of solidarity. Thus, he concludes, these Muslim spokesmen must have understood solidarity as only one-sided. The non-academic Islam-haters nod in agreement and wonder in amazement at their great discovery.

Yet, such a line of argumentation would hardly be taken seriously in an academic setting. No scholar—no person with even an above average intelligence—would take this seriously. Obviously, the problem with Al-Mutarajjam’s argument is that the “calls of Muslim-Christian solidarity from smooth-speaking Muslim spokesmen” did not come from the mufti who issued the fatwa on the Islamweb site. The fact that Muslims are not the Borg—one singular organism where what one Muslim says or does means another Muslim is also responsible for that—is lost on Islamophobes.

There are over a billion Muslims in the world; one mufti issuing one fatwa doesn’t represent the views of them all. Some Muslims would support solidarity with Christians, while others would oppose it. Similarly, some Christians support solidarity with Muslims, and others oppose it. Would finding one Muslim from the second group prove that the first group is lying? What odd logic!

The “Fatwa Team” on the Islamweb site consists of “a group of licentiate graduates from the Islamic University, Al-Imaam Muhammad Bin Sa’oud Islamic University in Saudi Arabia.” The fact that the site has nothing to do with Egypt (remember, it was Egyptian Muslims calling for solidarity with Christians) means nothing to Al-Mutarajjam. The fact that the fatwa site belongs to the ultraconservative Wahhabi (Salafi) sect of Islam—which only a very tiny percentage of Egyptian Muslims follow—means nothing to him. Somehow they are all interchangeable, so when an Egyptian Muslim spokesman says one thing and a Saudi Wahhabi cleric says something else, then aha!, I told you they can’t be trusted!

The Wahhabi (Salafi) mufti makes clear at the end of his fatwa that transporting Christians anywhere except to church or religious festivities is absolutely permissible. Considering that this represents the hardline approach of Wahhabi Islam, it goes without saying that more liberal Islamic interpretations would differ.  This is especially true since no clear Quranic support can be found for such a restriction, nor even in the more nebulous Prophetic traditions (Sunnah).  In light of this fact, no Islamic cleric can compel a Muslim to do or not do anything.  Fatwas–contrary to popular misconception in the Western world–are considered completely non-binding on the Islamic faithful.  They are just opinions, and Muslims can look for other fatwas with completely differing conclusions.  Even hundreds of years ago, the Hanafi school of thought permitted transporting Christians to church and their religious festivals. If that was the case then, one can imagine the liberality with it now.  Indeed, it takes place all the time in the Islamic world, such that it is only the rare exception that a cab driver would refuse such a service.  The fact that this type of situation happens in real life all the time in the Middle East shows that the mufti is projecting an imagined reality into the world, instead of dealing with the facts as they are.

Also absent from Al-Mutarajjam’s sensationalist analysis is the fact that such views are hardly singular to Islam: one only need look at Orthodox Judaism’s views towards interaction with unbelievers to see similar (and often times harsher) restrictions.  While for instance we are talking about cab drivers, let’s take a look at this interesting Orthodox Jewish rule in Halacha (Jewish Law, which is the Jewish equivalent of the nefarious Sharia); Jewish-American professor Dov S. Zakheim (who has served under various posts in the Department of Defense) explains how peaceful Jewish interaction with non-Jews is

based on Jewish self-interest…[something] that continues to resonate in contemporary halakhic literature.  For example, in discussing whether a Jewish taxi driver must compensate his non-Jewish counterpart for damages caused in an accident, Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, when still residing in Johannesburg, argued that the primary criterion is whether the non-Jewish taxi driver is aware that his vehicle was damaged by a Jew.  If he knows this was the case, the Jew must pay damages…If the non-Jew is unaware that the Jew was the actual cause of the accident, however, Rabbi Sternbuch ruled that there is no need for the Jew to pay anything. (Dov S. Zakheim on p.499 of War and Peace in the Jewish Tradition)

But perhaps the Jewish taxi-driver might at least be able to drive the injured non-Jew to church if that’s where he happened to be going…?  (Actually, Orthodox Jews are not allowed to step foot inside churches–and since we don’t fancy ourselves as experts of Jewish law–we hope our more informed readers might let us know if Orthodox Jews are allowed to drive Christians to church.)  In any case, one can only imagine how the Islam-bashers would use this divine Hit-and-Run Law against Muslims had this been part of Islamic and not Jewish law.  Islam is certainly not alone in having uncomfortable opinions found in its hundreds year old religious tradition and honored by its ultraconservative followers in the modern day; one can easily find similar examples in Judaism and Christianity.  Such revelations, which provide proper contextual understanding to scholars, are dismissed by anti-Islam ideologues as “tu quoque fallacies” that shouldn’t get in the way of bashing Islam.  Meanwhile, the most fundamentalist, ultraconservative, and extremist views of Islam should be cited as proof that Muslims with more tolerant, pluralistic, and liberal views are being deceitful and lying.

In any case, the “calls of Muslim-Christian solidarity” were heeded by Egyptian Muslims and were certainly not understood by them as being “one-sided.” Just as Egyptian Christians sought to protect Muslims with their lives, so too did Egyptian Muslims act as “human shields” to protect the lives of Christians praying in churches. That seems like pretty reciprocal solidarity to us.  But to the fraudster—The Translated—these hundreds of Muslims risking their lives for Christians are just putting up an act—those “smooth-speaking Mooz-lums” just can’t be trusted!

Trusting an Arabic “translator” who can’t even translate the word “translator” on the other hand? No problem with that.

Comments (99)

lib_0

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Loonwatch Stands by the Libyan Protesters who are being Mercilessly Massacred

Posted on 22 February 2011 by Emperor

Gaddafi is killing his people, he has taken JihadWatch’s Roland Shirk’s advice for a “Tienanmen Square option.” No one knows what the end game will be, how this will all end but we know Gaddafi is weakened, his regime is tottering on the edge, diplomats and military officials have defected from the regime. God protect the Libyan people, they are seeking justice, an end to tyranny, a chance to choose their leaders, and freedom.

Also, I want to mention that there are a number of loonwatchers in Libya and I hope that they are safe and sound. One more thing Loonwatch also supports those who are peacefully assembling and seeking Democratic and economic change across the Arab and Muslim world. Algeria, Morocco, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran all are worthy of support and recognition. They are putting their lives on the line for a better future.

Live Blog – Libya Feb 22

(AlJazeera)

Blog: Feb17Feb18Feb19Feb20Feb21

AJE Live StreamTwitter Audio: Voices from LibyaBenghazi Protest Radio (Arabic)

(All times are local in Libya GMT+2)

February 22

8.22pm: William Hague, British Foreign minister, said there are many indications that Gaddafi’s government is headed towards collapse, with diplomats resigning and the government in crisis.

8.20pm: The Brazilian Government called on Libyans to seek a solution to the crisis through dialogue and reiterated its repudiation to the use of violence.

8.18pm: Oliver Miles, the former British Ambassador to Libya, told Al Jazeera Gaddafi’s speech was “meant to make our blood run cold”. He said he would not rule out Gaddafi sticking it out to the very end.

8.15pm: Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal at Sidi Barani, a town on the Egyptian side of the border with Libya, said Egyptians were still returning home. He also said doctors carrying blood and other medical aid were crossing the border carrying supplies over into Libya.

8.11pm: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called Gaddafi’s speech “very very frightening” and said he had declared war on his own people..

8.08pm: The Arab League put out an official statement condemning the events in Libya, but Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros reported from Cairo that leading Egyptian political figure Mohamed ElBaradei said he was disappointed that the League did not take a stronger stand against the injustices.

8.02pm: In his defiant speech, Gaddafi said he will “cleanse Libya house by house” if protesters did not surrender.

7.59pm: Libyan state television is still showing pictures of government supporters following Gaddafi’s speech:


7:57pm: Libya is suspended, immediately, from the Arab League. More details to follow.

7:51pm: We’re expecting a closed UN meeting at 8pm GMT. Any UN member can attend – and the plan is/was for Libya’s Deputy Ambassador to also give a briefing.  However, the surprise appearance of Libya’s ambassador  – who has been remarkably absent in the past few days – at late notice could cause a problem, our UN correspondent tells us.

UN protocol suggests they would have to defer to the ambassador for a briefing, whose position is in sharp contrast to the deputy ambassador, who told us yesterday that Gaddafi should face trial. Ambassador Abdel Rahman Shalgam to an earlier press conference:

I am with Gaddafi but I want the bloodshed to stop. I am not calling on him to step down.  If one Libyan has been killed – not ten or 20 – but one-  this is a crime. Gaddafi is brave, he will make a decision.  There is confusion – I have spoken to a relative in Libya and there has been no airbombing.

7.49pm: Reports from our contacts on the ground tell us military vehicles and helicopters are headed toward towns outside Tripoli. Jeeps started rolling immediately the speech ended, we understand.

7.46pm: Gaddafi called on “all those who love Gaddafi” to come out and demonstrate in his support tomorrow. State TV shows uhge crowds waving green flags and holding pictures of Gaddafi. Much as with the YouTube videos we’ve been sent over the past few days, with limited media access to the country, there’s no way to independently verify when or where the pictures were recorded.

7.44pm: More reports emerging of protesters, quite literally, torn limb from limb durnig the past few days.

7.34pm: In case you missed it – the backdrop to Gaddafi’s speech – a piece of artwork showing a clenched fist crushing a US fighter jet, in front of the words “Allahu Akbar” [God is the greatest].

7.30pm: After the EU suspends its Libya Framework Ageement, and amid international condemnation of Gaddafi, where is President Obama? Rosalind Jordan, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Washington DC explains:

You didn’t need the translation to see how much Gaddafi was trying to blame this on the US, among others. So the White House doesn’t want to make any public speeeches – they’re very aware of how that could be seen across the country.

Gaddafi asked, in his speech: ‘Do you want the Americans to come and occupy you like in Afghanistan and Iraq?’ If the president weighs in now, the Libyan authorities may well use that against the protesters.

US senator John Kerry wants the UN to step in – and for the African Union to investigae alleged use of mercenaries.

7.29pm: Analyst Ashur Shamis tells Al Jazeera: “There is no doubt Gaddafi will follow through on his threats against the people of Libya.”  Looking over the past 24hours of our Live Blog updates, we’ve had some incredibly violent reports already.

7.27pm: Following Gaddafi’s speech, online reports of gunfire being heard throughout Tripoli.

7.25pm: Earlier on Tuesday, Al Jazeera spoke to Yasmine, a Libyan student in the UAE. She said she had spoken to a friend who lives in Benghazi:

As we were speaking, she said there was an old lady that just walked out onto her balcony that was immediately shot at and died. She didn’t do anything, she didn’t protest, she didn’t even open her mouth and she was shot immediately.

People are very very scared and they are still out in the streets protesting because everybody is angry and they are fed up and they want a change and they don’t want this guy to lead the country anymore, neither him or his sons, nobody wants them anymore.

They have been suffering for 43 years in silence. this is out of fear and now they have had enough. They are angry they are willing to risk everything, their lives, absolutely everything to get this guy out of the country.

7.21pm: Ashur Shamis a Libyan journalist told Al Jazeera that Gaddafi will go down fighting. He saidthere was no way the Libyan people would take note of Gaddafi’s speech. “I don’t think people are frightened anymore, but those were serious threats of force,” he said.

In his speech, Gaddaafi said “when they are prosecuted they will be begging for mercy”.

7.19pm: All eyes are now on the Libyan military. Will we see another situation as we did in Egypt? Tonight?

7.18pm: He offered a new constitution, to be put in place from tomorrow.  Offers the pople “whatever form of government they want”.

7.16pm His main point was an attempt to blame “drugged youth” and foreign imperialists.  He used the chilling example of the 1989 massacre at Tianenman Square: “The integrity of China was more important than those in Tianenmen Square.

7.14pm So, he’s not stepping down – and will “die a martyr”, he says.

7.12pm: Gaddafi’s speech has finally finished.  He gets his hand kissed by a loyalist and waves to what appears to be about half a dozen senior officers still listening.  State TV now showing thousands of people cheering…

7.07pm: Talking about Gaddafi’s address on state television, Ibrahim Jibreel, a Libyan political analyst told Al Jazeera “we just watched a lunatic rant and rave for the last hour and a half”.

“There was no substance to this [speech].. There was really no message to this besides the threats”.

“The interesting thing is that Libya has no constitution but he has threatened the death penalty for people who fail to follow the constituion,” Jibreel said.

6.55pm: Carlos Latuff posted this image of “courageous Libyan people” on Twitpic:

6.52pm: Britain said it planned to send a charter plane to Libya to bring out British nationals and was dispatching a Royal Navy frigate to waters off Libya in case it was needed to help Britons.

6.50pm: French Prime Minister Francois Fillon on Tuesday said he was “horrified by the explosion of violence” in Libya.

6.48pm: Al Jazeera’s Nazanine Moshiri reports from Tunisia that 4000 people crossed the border at Ras Jedir on Tuesday, according to Tunisian border police, the majority of them Tunisians.

6.45pm Social networks were a-buzz during Gaddafi’s speech on state television. Here are some responses recorded on Twitter:

Mona Eltahawy @monaeltahawy

The “head of the Popular Revolution” is being overthrown by the real Popular Revolution in #Libya. I love it. #Gaddafi desperation beautiful

Jeel Ghathub @Libyan4life

#Gaddafi doesn’t mean dignity

sunnkaa @sunnkaa

#gaddafi wants civil war. he wants #libyans to kill libyans

Shadi Hamid @shadihamid

If there was any doubt before, there is no longer: Qaddafi has unequivocally declared intention to massacre his own ppl #Libya

Libyan Dude @ChangeInLibya

Guys, can you see the irony? What he’s telling people to do is what is being done AGAINST HIM… What a madman… #libya #feb17

Ali Abunimah @avinunu

We can laugh, but never forget this is a sinister man who is threatening Libyans with even more massacres if they don’t do his bidding.

6.20pm: In his second television address since the start of the current unrest, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi says he will not leave Libya and will die a martyr. He criticised ‘Arab media’, saying it painted an insulting picture of Libyans.

Gaddafi says Libya has resisted Britain and the US previously, and it will not surrender now.

He also said:

Muammar Gaddafi is not the president, he is the leader of the revolution. He has nothing to lose. Revolution means sacrifice until the very end of your life

We challenge America with its mighty power, we challenge even the superpower

Muammar Gaddafi is not a normal person that you can poison.. or lead a revolution against

I will fight until the last drop of blood with the people behind me

I haven’t even started giving the orders to use bullets – any use of force against authority of state will be sentenced to death

They are just imitating Egypt and Tunisia

Protesters want to turn Libya into an Islamic state

If you love Muammar Gaddafi you will go out and secure Libya’s streets

Watch Al Jazeera’s Livestream and follow @AJELive on Twitter.

5.59pm: Muammar Gaddafi gives a speech on Libyan State Television:


Watch Al Jazeera’s Livestream for more.

5.49pm: Qassem Najaa, a former Libyan airforce colonel, tells Al Jazeera that the country’s army has been oppressed by Gaddafi for years, and is now turning against him.

5.39pm: Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, says international sanctions against Libya will be inevitable if the country’s regime continues to put down protests violently.

5.32pm: Libyan soldiers in Tobruk told Reuters news agency that protesters are now in control of the city.

This map, posted on yfrog apparently shows other areas under citizen control:


5.28pm: Libyan anti-government protesters from across the UK have gathered outside Downing St in London. Protesters are angrily calling for Gaddafi to step down. One protester, Mohamed Maklouf,  commented on the “hypocricy” of the West:

They don’t care about the Arabs, they don’t care about the Libyans, they only care about the oil.”

5.17pm Al Jazeera’s Cal Perry reports from Malta that the Italian navy is monitoring a Libyan naval vessel stalled in waters just off the coast of Malta. There are possible allegations that the vessel may have defected. More details are being sought.

“Malta has become a departure point and entry point for people trying to flee Tripoli [Libya's capital],” Perry said, “As the situation develops, it’s also becoming a place perhaps where we’ll see more and more Libyan officials coming here to defect, because it’s just geographically close.”

5.08pm The Italian Foreign minister has condemned the events in Libya, saying: “I strongly deplore, all violence against the demonstrators and the deaths of civilians in Libya”.

I call for, as does the Council of the European Union, an immediate end to the use of force against the demonstrators. And I underscore that the Libyan authorities must respond, through dialogue, to the legitimate aspirations and demands for reform voiced by the people. A dialogue that must be open, full, significant and national, and which must lead to a constructive future for the country and for its people.

The country’s defence minister, Ignazio La Russa, has also denied the news reported on some blogs and social networking sites of alleged raids by Italian fighter planes in Libya. He said:

I can deny the allegations in the firmest manner. Somebody is clearly not aware of the ethics of the  Italian Government and  Armed Forces

4.58pm: Ibrahim Jibreel, a Libyan political analyst, spoke told Al Jazeera the international community needs to take active steps in protecting the rights of the Libyan people.

“[Gaddafi] needs to feel the heat from the international community in one way or another,” he said.

He added that a no-fly zone around Libya was a good thing, but it was not enough. “We need troops on the ground to protect the people, and also to record what is happening on the ground.”

4.52pm: Libya’s side of the border with Egypt is in the hands of anti-government protesters. Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal at Sidi Barani, a town on the Egyptian side of the border reports that hundreds of Egyptians living in Libya continue to flee the country.

4.44pm Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is expected to speak shortly. Watch Al Jazeera’s Livestream for more.

4.25pm Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, spoke to Al Jazeera about the recent events in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, saying:

The events in each country have been up to the people of that country …

From the standpoint of determining their own future, of meeting their needs in the future, that is principally up to the people in each country”.

He added:

The US, as every country throughout the world,  would look to how to engage to see how we can support this kind of change in a way that is meaningful, but it is up to the people of the country to make the decisions about their own future.

4.11pm Twitter user Carlos Latuff posted this image of Gaddafi “drowning in the blood of martyrs” on Twitpic:


3.50pm Mona Rishmawi, legal adviser to UN high commissioner on human rights,  told Al Jazeera they were extrememly concerned by allegations of the use of “hired guns” against civillian protesters in Libya. She said intergovernmental bodies must show a united front and send a clear message that what is going on in Libya must stop right now.

Rishmawi added:

Any measures taken to protect the civillians in Libya are very important at this stage … if there are planes, if there are snipers, if there are civillians being killed indiscriminately.. it has to stop.

… Allegations of gross violations of human rights, allegations of crimes against humanity are extremely serious.. I think it is very important for this situtaion to stop now.

3.40pm The Arab League is to hold an emergency meeting in Cairo on Tuesday, to discuss the unrest in Libya. Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros, reporting from Cairo, said Amr Moussa, the League’s secretary-general, expressed concern about recent events, saying the Libyan people have a right to sk for regime change.

The Arab League is made up of leaders from other countries, some of which are also experiencing unrest, including Yemen, Algeria and Bahrain. Tadros noted:

It will be interesting to see exactly how they word that bit of the statement regarding regime change.

3.38pm Sources have told Al Jazeera that the bombing from warplanes on Monday had targeted ammunition depots in Libya. The aim was to apparently stop protesters getting hold of weapons.

3.26pm Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington DC, said there is “widespread horror among the Libyan diplomatic core” about what is currently happeninig in the country, with many resigning and some even calling the government’s actions “genocide”.

Speaking about the resigned diplomats, Jordan said:

Certainly while they have been stepping aside from their official government roles, it is not clear whether or not they would be able to have any impact on events inside Libya, because if they are saying they now represent the people and not the Gaddafi government, it may very well be difficult for them to try to mobilise any sort of action on behalf of the people, other than from the images we have been seeing on television

3.01pm Libya’s ambassador to the United States has resigned from what he calls a “dictatorship” regime.

The Reuters news agency reported amabssador Ali Aujali, speaking to ABC’s “Good Morning America,” saying:

Let me start by saying that I resign from serving the current dictatorship regime, but I will never resign from serving our people until their voices reach the whole world, until their goals are achieved

2:47 pm A YouTube video uploaded today shows Benghazi “after the victory against Gaddafi”:

2:11 pm The first report from the Egyptian border with Libya by Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal:

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shootingelaraqib2

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The Real Ramifications of Extremist Christian End Times Lunacy

Posted on 21 February 2011 by Emperor

Remember it is all projection, the true threat from fundamentalist who want to usher in the End Times is from the likes of these Christian Right-wingers. Shame on the Jewish National Fund for enabling such activities:

via. Max Blumenthal

Tell the Jewish National Fund to stop the pogrom against Al Arakib. Call them now.

Yesterday morning, the Bedouin village of Al Arakib withstood the 18th pogrom against it by the Jewish National Fund and Israeli riot police. I mentioned in mylast post that I would begin promoting actions to hold the Jewish National Fund accountable for violently ethnic cleansing Al Arakib in order to build the GOD TV Forest of Hate. Now here is something everyone who reads this blog (minus the professional hasbara trolls) can and should do: Join the Jewish Voice for Peace call in campaign to demand that the JNF cease demolishing villages like Al Arakib. Tell your local JNF office to stop the pogroms against the indigenous population of the Negev. To be sure, this is a minor action that will probably yield only dismissive responses from JNF representatives, but it is important to apply pressure and get them on the record. Something, however small, has to be done.

Here are the contact details courtesy of JVP:

JNF National Office (international callers add 001 to beginning of US Phone numbers): (212) 879-9300

Jerusalem Office (from US)  011-972-2-563-5638

Regional Offices:

Florida

West Coast, Central, and Northern Florida: (727) 536-5263 or (813) 960-5263

Tampa: (407) 804-5568

South Florida (561) 447-9733

Miami/Dade (800) 211-1502 or (561) 447-9733

Greater New York (212) 879-9300

Greater Los Angeles (323) 964-1400

MidAtlantic

Baltimore/ Delaware: (410) 486-3317

Washington, DC (301) 589-8565

Midwest

Chicagoland (847) 656-8880

Michigan (248) 324-3080

Midwest States (Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota) (888) 563-0099

Northern Ohio (216) 464-3888

Southern Ohio (513) 794-1300 or (888) 563-0099

Western Pennsylvania (412) 521-3200

Wisconsin (414) 963-8733

New England (617) 423-0999

Northeast

Eastern Pennsylvania (215) 832-0690

New Jersey (973) 593-0095

West

Arizona (602) 277-4800

Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming & Utah (303) 573-7095

Northern California and Pacific Northwest (415) 677-9600 or (888) JNF-0099

Orange County, CA (949)-260-0400

San Diego (858) 824-9178

Palm Springs (760)864-6208

Las Vegas (702) 434-6505

South (404) 236-8990

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Glenn Beck: Off the Rails and into the Abyss with Joel Richardson and Zuhdi Jasser

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Glenn Beck: Off the Rails and into the Abyss with Joel Richardson and Zuhdi Jasser

Posted on 19 February 2011 by Garibaldi

Glenn Beck recently has been harping on and on about the impending doom of Armageddon, and he has figured out who the Anti-Christ is, an “Islamic figure” known as the “12th Imam” or “Mahdi.” To help promote his pseudo-religio-apocalyptic propaganda he had Joel Richardson (fundamentalist Christian) and Zuhdi Jasser, token Muslim beloved by Neo-Cons and wacko Islamophobes.

Beck claims he has been studying this “issue” for nearly five or six years, which is hard to believe when he can’t distinguish between Shi’as and Sunnis:

This hysteria is quite revealing. The Christian right-wing has always scapegoated or somehow cast America’s perceived “enemies” at one time or another as the Anti-Christ. During the Cold War the Soviet Union and its Premieres were the Anti-Christ, during the Gulf War it was Saddam Hussein, at various points throughout history it has been the Pope, and Jerry Falwell thought it obvious that the Anti-Christ was a “male Jew.”

It would almost be an exercise in futility (since they are so obvious) to rebut the horrendous, blatant factual inaccuracies regarding Islamic Eschatology here, but a brief response is necessary.

In the first instance it must be noted that Islamic Eschatology is a debated topic with various theological opinions amongst scholars, and both Sunni Islam and Shia’ Islam have different views of the events and also place different levels of importance on these End Times characters/scenarios. For Shia’ Twelver Islam the Mahdi is a central figure of their Faith whereas amongst Sunnis he is not central to the Faith.

Before we approach this subject it must be made abundantly clear that Muslims believe that no one, not the Prophets, Saints nor the Angels know when the Last Day/End Times will begin. This knowledge belongs only to God because he is the one who has decided it:

“They ask you about the Hour (Day of Resurrection): ‘When will be its appointed time?’ Say: ‘The knowledge thereof is with my Lord (Alone). None can reveal its time but He. Heavy is its burden through the heavens and the earth. It shall not come upon you except all of a sudden.’ They ask you as if you have a good knowledge of it. Say: ‘The knowledge thereof is with God (Alone), but most of mankind know not.’”

[al-‘Araf 7:187]

2 – God says:

“People ask you concerning the Hour, say: ‘The knowledge of it is with God only. What do you know? It may be that the Hour is near!’”

[al-Ahzaab 33:63]

Ibn Katheer (3/527) said:

God tells His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) that he has no knowledge of the Hour and that when the people ask him about that, he should refer the matter to God.

Al-Shanqeeti said (6/604):

It is known that the word innama (translated here as “only”) has the effect of limiting or restricting the meaning, so what the verse means is: No one knows when the Hour will come except God alone.

3 – God says:

“They ask you (O Muhammad) about the Hour — when will be its appointed time?

You have no knowledge to say anything about it.

To your Lord belongs (the knowledge of) the term thereof

You (O Muhammad) are only a warner for those who fear it”

[al-Naaz’iaat 79:42-45]

al-Sa’di said:

Because knowing the time of the Hour serves no spiritual or worldly purpose for people, rather their interests lie in it being concealed from them, the knowledge of that has been kept from all of creation and God has kept it to Himself. “To your Lord belongs (the knowledge of) the term thereof.” (via. IslamQA)

It also must be made abundantly clear that according to Islamic doctrine no one, I repeat no one has the ability to hasten the Last Day/End Times. The logic goes: How can one hasten something God has already decided? Nothing any Muslim or non-Muslim does or doesn’t do has one iota of an effect on hastening or bringing closer the End Times. This is completely and utterly in the power of God. To believe otherwise is considered disbelief and counter to Orthodox Islamic teaching amongst all Sunni groups and schools of thought, and I would venture to say most Shia’ groups and schools of thought as well (Shia’ readers feel free to add comments).

Furthermore, Islamic ‘Aqeeda, belief that Allah knows everything and all things happen through His power and Will is so profound and deeply ingrained that the idea of hastening the Last Days never occurred as a theological possibility, it was unimaginable! There is not much said about it over 1400 years of Islamic history precisely because it was inconceivable and absurd from an Islamic viewpoint.

In fact, throughout history individuals who have claimed to have been mahdis or messiahs have generally not had a very happy end: they have either been persuaded to repent, forced to repent, jailed, killed or castigated as false pretenders. (hat tip: Ahmed)

The cult of Juhayman al-Otaibi is a case in point. He is the famous mastermind behind the siege of the Grand Mosque of Mecca in 1979. He was forwarding the concept that his brother-in-law was the awaited Mahdi. To do so — amongst other things — he attempted to fulfill some of the “signs of the Last Hour” mentioned in Hadith. Juhayman and 67 of his followers were (after being captured) summarily executed.

What we are really seeing from Glenn Beck and the Christian Right crowd that he is pandering to with these insane antics is a classic case of PROJECTION. It is in fact many in the Christian Right who believe that the End Times, the Last Days can be hastened. They actually believe they have a role in bringing Jesus Christ back to Earth!

One of the violent consequences of this disastrous theology is that they believe the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque must be destroyed and the Third Jewish Temple be built for Jesus to return to earth. Imagine the repercussions if they are successful in this mad dash to instigate cataclysm?

The one piece of evidence that Islamophobes, Beck and his ilk use to try to instill fear in the populace is their de-contextualized recital of a hadith (saying of the Prophet Muhammad) and its variations that says, ‘the Last Day will not arrive until the Jews fight the Muslims and the Muslims defeat them.’

Beck and company want to pass off and interpret these ahadith as somehow calling for a hastening of the End Times. Not only is this interpretation antithetical to Islamic creed, not only is it an interpretation NEVER forwarded in the 1400 years of Islamic history by any of the hadith commentators (I have Fath al-Bari by Imam Ibn Hajar al-’Asqalani, Sharh Sahih Muslim by Imam Nawawi, and other commentaries open in front of me right now), but it exposes a profound and disgustingly immense historical amnesia.

Why wouldn’t Muslims over the course of 1400 years, at a time when Christian Europe was murdering and enslaving Jews under the doctrine of Perpetual Servitude have exterminated Jews if Beck and his cohorts are right? Why were Jews thriving in the Muslim world? Why were they being appointed as Viziers, Advisors, Diplomats, Physicians to the Caliphs, Sultans and Amirs? Why was the Golden Age of Jewish thought and culture, the revivification of Hebrew (a previously near dead language) in lands ruled by Muslims? (I am currently writing a book review for LW on The Oranament of the World by Maria Rosa Menocal).

No doubt these ahadith have been used in a bellicose and bigoted manner over the past 80 or so odd years due to the political situation in the Middle East, i.e. the conflict between the creation of Israel and occupation and repression of Palestinians. But can the anti-Muslims who forward the claim that Muslims are using these ahadith to hasten the End Times bring one shred of evidence in which these ahadith have been used to instigate or incite pogroms or to usher in the Last Days over the last 1400 years? Maybe Bernard Lewis can help in this regard?

What Beck and co. are saying would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that it was so dangerous. Some nut or group of nuts is going to see his show and start arming himself against the evil Mooslims and think to himself that he has to get the Mooslims before they get him.

Comments (66)

Uttar_Pradesh_India

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India: Two Honour Killings, What if They Were Muslim?

Posted on 19 February 2011 by Emperor

The Caste system provided the impetus for these murders. Imagine if it had been Muslims, it would be top news across the Islamophobesphere.

(hat tip: Ahmed)

2 teen girls killed for honour in UP

(Times of India)

KANPUR/KAUSHAMBI: Two girls were killed by their relatives for the sake of “honour” within 24 hours in the state. While a 19-year-old girl was axed to death in Kanpur on Tuesday by her grandfather over relationship with a boy from another caste, a youth in Kaushambi shot dead his sister on Monday for having eloped with her lover. With this, the state has reported three honour killings in the one week.

The first incident took place at Sarojini Naidu Nagar where Babulal killed his granddaughter Malti with an axe for having a relationship with a boy of another caste and surrendered before the police, ASPAtul Sonkar said.

In the second case, 18-year-old Meena Devi was shot dead by her brother Sanju in Manauri village of Kaushambi on Monday. Police said Meena had gone to Allahabad three days ago with a youth and had returned on Monday after which her brothers Satish and Sanju questioned her.

Comments (38)

Hajo_Meyer

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Holocaust Survivor’s Planned Talk Angers Jewish Leaders

Posted on 17 February 2011 by Emperor

Does a Holocaust survivor have the right to speak his mind and say ‘what happened to me during the Holocaust, I see it happening again to Palestinians, Never Again for Anyone.’ Should he be labeled an anti-Semite for such statements?

Holocaust survivor’s planned talk at mosque angers Sacramento Jewish leaders

By Stephen Magagnini

(Sacremento Bee)

Sacramento’s carefully cultivated interfaith bonds are being stretched to the limit by an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor who is scheduled to speak at a local mosque about the Nazi Holocaust and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer makes the 11th stop on his national “Never Again for Anyone” tour at the Sacramento League of Associated Muslims Islamic Center at 7 p.m. tonight.

Meyer has equated the Holocaust to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, drawing intense fire from Sacramento’s Jewish community and the Anti-Defamation League.

“Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is repugnant, anti-Semitic and defiles the sacred memory of millions who perished during the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Reuven H. Taff, president of the 13-member Board of Rabbis of Greater Sacramento, in a civil but emotional exchange of letters with SALAM’s Imam Mohamed Abdul Azeez.

The Board of Rabbis praised Azeez for his bridge-building with other communities of faith, but asked him to either boycott the event or stop it from happening at SALAM. If he doesn’t, Taff said in a letter to him, “then all the good work you are doing to foster relations with the interfaith community will be severely undermined.”

“The event is not going to be canceled,” said Azeez, who encouraged “any of our friends in the Jewish community to attend, ask questions and engage the speakers.”

Azeez noted that eight national organizations and nine local organizations are sponsoring it, including the Florin Japanese American Citizens League and the local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Azeez said that a member of American Muslims for Palestine reserved the hall and the event is not sponsored by SALAM. He said SALAM’s board investigated the speakers, who in addition to Meyer include UC Berkeley political scientist Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian American.

“You have a Holocaust survivor talking for the first time to the Muslim community about the Holocaust and putting it in a modern context that the rights of all people should be respected,” Azeez said. “The world is changing, and it’s time for us to have more dialogue about these untouchable idols,” such as the Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

Azeez agrees that the rabbis raise a legitimate concern – “any attempt to equate the Holocaust with what is happening in Palestine is an atrocity.”

Azeez said SALAM’s management will not allow the speakers to compare Israel to the Nazis.

But Taff said Meyer’s views are intolerable to the Jewish community, and added that the rabbis could produce Holocaust survivors to talk to Muslim Americans without inciting Muslim-Jewish hostility.

Rabbi Nancy Wechsler-Azen of Congregation Beth Shalom said Meyer’s speeches and writings are “most offensive – the program promotes hate. It’s an attempt to de-legitimize Israel and Judaism, as opposed to having a meaningful discussion over a political policy.”

Wechsler-Azen said the event isn’t the way to heal people “who have such profound wounds between them … we have forged a very meaningful relation with SALAM, and we’re heartsick about this.”

Meyer, in an exclusive interview with The Bee, said he survived 12 years under Hitler and 10 months in Auschwitz.

“I have a number on my arm and they dare to call me an anti-Semite?” he said.

Because he was not allowed to attend high school in Nazi Germany, Meyer said, “I can identify with those Palestinians who undergo slow-motion genocide when they are not allowed to go to their schools,” which have been bombed.

“Nearly all Jewish religious organizations in the world have mixed up Judaism – which is universal, humanistic and friendly to anybody – with Zionism,” said Meyer, who defined Zionism as an ideology based on a well-defined Arab enemy that must be destroyed.

Jon Fish, president of Sacramento’s Interfaith Service Bureau representing major faiths in the region, said Palestine is a social issue, not a religious one.

“The rabbi and the imam have to work it out,” Fish said, “But this might be a no-win situation.”

Taff said he welcomes a discussion between Jews and Muslims “in an atmosphere of collegiality and respect.” But if SALAM hosts an event that Taff believes is “clearly anti-Semitic,” he said, “it makes it very difficult to sit down at the same table with anyone who supports or endorses a program of hate.”

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/16/3406350/holocaust-survivors-planned-talk.html#ixzz1EEagFbNE

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rachel newcomb

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“Blame the Muslims”: Violence Against Women in Egypt

Posted on 17 February 2011 by Emperor

The struggle to see through the obfuscation, racism and Islamophobia.

“Blame the Muslims”: Violence Against Women in Egypt

by Rachel Newcomb

(Huffington Post)

As soon as CBS announced yesterday that correspondent Lara Logan had been sexually assaulted while covering the Egyptian protests, the media sprang alive in search of a scapegoat. Two disturbing lines of commentary have emerged: one that cites irrelevant details about Logan’s beauty or her past sexual history, the other blaming Muslims or Egyptian culture for the assault. In theWashington Post, Alexandra Petri noted that this happened to a “known, blonde white woman.” And on her blog, Debbie Schlussel wrote that “she should have known what Islam is all about.” “This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled,” opined Schlussel.

But we would be wrong to assume that in controlling Egyptians, Mubarak somehow also kept women safe. In fact, state-sanctioned violence against women was widespread and well documented. For years Egypt has been cited by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for using rape, torture, and sexual assault to threaten and intimidate female activists who criticized the regime. These tactics were also used against female family members of dissidents. There is also considerable evidence that members of Mubarak’s security forces ordered the assault of female protesters during the recent demonstrations.

In times of conflict, the perpetrators of sexual violence cross religious and ethnic lines. An estimated 20-50,000 Muslim women were raped during the conflict in Bosnia in the 1990s. Closer to home, yesterday a class action lawsuit was announced by 17 American servicewomen who reported being raped by fellow members of the military. And in searching for spurious links between “American culture” and violence against women, we do not have to look toward military settings or exotic, war-torn locales. Take the most recent Super Bowl. Allegations of rape have hovered over both teams, while news agencies reported a disturbing increase in the sex trafficking of girls and women around the time of the Super Bowl. But we would chafe at allowing outsiders to generalize that all Americans exhibit violent tendencies toward women.

To be sure, sexual harassment is endemic in Egypt. And for the most part, we are fortunate to be able to walk down the street in the United States without the verbal and physical harassment that Egyptian women face on a daily basis. A 2005 Egypt Demographic and Health survey revealed that one third of Egyptian women are victims of domestic violence. Yet a 2010 study by the Population Reference bureau alsopoints out that poor women are twice as likely in Egypt to be victimized. Similar studies in U.S. society have shown correlations between poverty and violence against women. And across all social classes, the statistics are grim. A U.S. Justice Department study showed that 1 in 6 of all American women will be raped during their lifetimes. 50% of all murders of women in the U.S. are committed by a romantic partner. Muslim countries hardly have the monopoly on violence against women.

To read this brutal attack as emblematic of Egyptian culture or Islam does a disservice to all those in Egyptian society who are working actively to end violence against women, women like physician Amal Abd El-Hadi, whose New Woman Foundation is dedicated to ending gender-based violence, and Dr. Aida Seif El Dawla, a psychiatrist who has created programs to rehabilitate victims of violence and torture. There is no excuse for what happened to Lara Logan, but explanations for violence should not be found in a religion, or in broad generalizations about Egyptian culture. Rather than blaming religion, we should work to end underdevelopment, poverty, and a lack of education, problems whose eradication is crucial to a prosperous and healthy society anywhere, whether in Egypt or here at home.

Rachel Newcomb is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rollins College and the author of Women ofFes: Ambiguities of Urban Life in Morocco.

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Rep. Peter King to Call Walid Phares, Former Lebanese Forces Militiaman at Muslim Hearings

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Rep. Peter King to Call Walid Phares, Former Lebanese Forces Militiaman at Muslim Hearings

Posted on 16 February 2011 by Garibaldi

Walid Phares, ex-Terrorist

Rep. Peter King, slated to hold hearings on the threat of “terrorism in the American Muslim community” is well known for his checkered past in regards to terrorism as well as outlandish and overtly bigoted statements against Muslims.

For instance Peter King has claimed that “85% of Muslim leadership in America are enemies among us,” though when pressed he has not provided one shred of evidence on how he arrived at this number. King has also expressed his belief that there are “too many mosques in America.” This is on top of the fact that Rep. King was one of the staunchest supporters of the IRA at a time when they were targeting non-combatants in bombing campaigns, kidnappings and shootings.

Now it has come to light that amongst those expected to address the “Muslim hearings” will be a former Lebanese Forces militiaman and spokesman, Walid Phares. The Lebanese Forces were responsible for some of the most horrific slaughters and pogroms during the Civil War in Lebanon, amongst them the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

As’ad Abu Khalil of angryarab.net reported on Phares’ involvement with the Lebanese Forces as well as the Guardians of the Cedar whose slogan during the civil war was, “Kill a Palestinian and you Shall Enter Paradise,” way back in 2007. (hat tip: Akkad)

Walid Phares and the Lebanese Forces

(angryarab.net)

by As’ad Abu Khalil

I am aware that Phares now likes to deny his past role with the Lebanese Forces (the right-wing, sectarian Christian militia that–among other war crimes–perpetrated the Sabra and Shatila massacres). Somebody yesterday posted a comment challenging my statement about Phares and his association with the Lebanese Forces. These are only two of many newspaper clips that I have in which his affiliation is clearly noted. In the top one, (As-Safir, 12/6/1987), it said that “Member of the Command Council of the Lebanese Forces, [and] head of the Lebanese Immigration Apparatus in the Lebanese Forces, Walid Phares, lectured on “the Role of Free Christianity in Lebanon and the Middle East.” In the lecture, he also “criticized the mechanism of the development of Lebanse Christian resistance over 12 years.” In the second one above, (As-Safir, 27/8/1991), Phares was identified as the “vice-chair” of the Extraordinary Emergency Committee for the Lebanese Front (the political leadership committee of the Lebanese Forces) (the chairperson was Etienne Saqr (who founded the Guardians of the Cedar, which during the civil war raised the slogan “Kill a Palestinian and you Shall enter heaven,” and he now resides in Israel). And it has to be said that his rise in the Lebanese Forces took place at a time when it was aligned with the regime of….Saddam Husayn. (emphasis mine)

Even before Abu Khalil’s revelatory post, Iviews.com reported on Walid Phares’ activities and association with Etienne Saqr, founder of Guardians of the Cedar in 1999. In a piece about ties between an American Jewish Organization and Lebanese Terrorists that is well worth the complete read we learn that:

Walid Phares, who founded the WLO and is now a professor at Florida Atlantic University left Lebanon for the United States in 1990. But during the Lebanese civil war he was himself a Christian militiaman. (12) Phares told iviews.com that he was in charge of foreign affairs for the Lebanese Front, the political directorate of the Lebanese Forces. The Lebanese Forces was an umbrella coalition of several right wing militias, including Saqr’s Guardians of the Cedar and the Phalange, perpetrators of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The current chairman of the Lebanese Front is Etienne Saqr. (13)

Asked about the atrocities attributed to Saqr, Phares replied, “Everybody did silly stuff, on both hands…but amazingly enough, the Guardians of the Cedars have been the most moral fighters.”

The Jerusalem Post reported that Saqr is a “leading member” of the WLO, (14) but Phares denies this. “The WLO had a strong alliance with Saqr, not anymore though, because Saqr had been advocating extreme positions, asking the Israelis to intervene directly in Lebanese affairs,” said Phares. Asked when the WLO cut off ties with Saqr, Phares replied, “No, there’s no cut-off, but I would say about six months ago, seven months ago.”

But in June of this year, Phares joined Saqr, Baraket, and an Israeli professor at a symposium in Israel to do just what he says caused him to end his “strong alliance” with Saqr. (15) The four urged Israel to set up an independent Lebanese Christian “entity” in South Lebanon, to be controlled by a “vastly expanded and strengthened [Lebanese Christian] militia.” (16) The aim, they said, was to “revitalize ties with Israel at a time when there is a trend of loosening those bonds.”

“If Israel leaves Lebanon, it has an obligation towards us, we have been faithful allies,” Phares said at the symposium. (emphasis mine)

These are not small revelations, they highlight the fact that this hearing is an absurdity. Led by someone whose own hands are muddied in support of foreign terrorists, we are now expected to hear from a so-called expert, Walid Phares, a former member of a terrorist militia that slaughtered thousands of innocents.

The profound irony should not be lost on anyone, these hearings are going to be McCarthyist to its core. The point will not be to effectively combat extremism or domestic terrorist threats, but to intimidate the American Muslim community while inspiring fear amongst the general population. It has all the recipes of a disaster waiting to happen. I call on Loonwatchers to contact their local congressmen, representatives or embassies to expose the sham that this hearing is going to be.

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Debbie Schlussel Exults in Lara Logan’s Suffering, Calls Muslims Animals

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Debbie Schlussel Exults in Lara Logan’s Suffering, Calls Muslims Animals

Posted on 16 February 2011 by Mooneye

Debbie “getting-more-irrelevant-by-the-day” Schlussel is lashing out for attention once again. This time she is celebrating the suffering of CBS reporter Lara Logan who was surrounded by a “dangerous element” amongst celebrators at Tahrir Square.

Lara Logan suffered sexual assault and a brutal beating, she was saved by “20 women and a group of Egyptian soldiers” and is now back in the United States where she is recuperating. It is unfortunate that Schlussel is so extremely vile that she would take this incident to bash Lara and call all Muslims “animals” but it’s not surprising.

One wonders if Schlussel is human:

How Muslims Celebrate Victory: Egypt’s “Peaceful, Moderate, Democratic” Protesters

by Debbie Schlussel

As I’ve noted before, it bothers me not a lick when mainstream media reporters who keep telling us Muslims and Islam are peaceful get a taste of just how “peaceful” Muslims and Islam really are. In fact, it kinda warms my heart.  Still, it’s also a great reminder of just how “civilized” these “people” (or, as I like to call them in Arabic, “Bahai’im” [Animals]) are:

islamiccrescent.jpg

Alhamdillullah [Praise allah], Islam Fan Lara Logan Gets a Taste of Islam

And remember this is the person that Robert Spencer alongside Pamela Geller described as a “freedom fighter.”

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1829315705

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Haaretz: Mubarak’s Departure Thwarted Israeli Strike on Iran

Posted on 16 February 2011 by Emperor

Netanyahu afraid of an “Islamic Revolution” hopes for a “Turkish” outcome in Egypt. So I guess he will be apologizing for the Mavi Marmara incident sometime soon?

Mubarak’s departure thwarted Israeli strike on Iran

by Aluf Benn (Haaretz)

Most Israelis were either born or immigrated to this country during the period in which Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt. This is the reality they know. And this is the significance of the stability that Mubarak provided them with.

In all the upheavals that took place in the Middle East over the past three decades, the Egyptian regime appeared to be a powerful rock. The leaders of Israel knew that their left flank was secure as they went out to war, built settlements and negotiated peace on the other fronts. The friction in relations between Jerusalem and Cairo, however frustrating it was at times, did not undermine the foundations of the strategic alliance created by the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement.

The resignation of Mubarak following 18 days of protests in Egypt ushers in a new era of uncertainty for the entire region, and for Israel in particular. The long reign of the Egyptian leader was not unusual for the Middle East. Hafez Assad led Syria for 30 years, like Mubarak in Egypt; King Hussein and Yasser Arafat ruled for 40 years. But when they stepped off the stage, their legacy was secure. Hussein and Assad passed the reins on to their sons, and Arafat was replaced by his veteran deputy, Mahmoud Abbas. This is why the changing of the guard in Jordan, Syria and the Palestinian Authority were perceived by Israel as natural, arousing no particular concern. After all, the familiar is not all that frightening.

But this is not the situation in Egypt today. Mubarak was thrown out, before he could prepare one of his close aides or his son to take over as president. The army commanders who took over are trying to calm the Egyptian public and the international community with promises that they have no intentions of setting up a new junta in Cairo, but rather, plan to pass to transfer authority to a civilian government through free elections. But no one, including the generals in the Supreme Council of the Armed forces, knows how and when the regime transition will play out. History teaches us that after revolutions, it takes a number of years of domestic infighting before the new regime stabilizes.

This uncertainty troubles Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His reactions during the first days of the revolution exposed deep anxieties that the peace agreement with Egypt might collapse. He tried to delay Mubarak’s end as long as possible, but to no avail, and on Saturday he praised the Egyptian military’s announcement that all international agreements would be respected, including the peace treaty with Israel.

Netanyahu is afraid of the possibility that Egypt may become an Islamic republic, hostile to Israel – a sort of new Iran but much closer physically. He hopes this doesn’t happen and that Egypt will follow Turkey’s footsteps, preserving formal ties with Israel, embassies, air connections and trade, even as it expresses strong criticism of its treatment the Palestinians.

The best case scenario, in his view, even if it is less likely, is that Egypt will become like Turkey before the era of Erdogan: a pro-American country, controlled by the military.

Netanyahu shared with Mubarak his concerns about the growing strength of Iran. Egypt played a key role in the Sunni, the “moderate,” axis, which lined up alongside Israel and the United States against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his allies in Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip.

The toppling of the regime in Cairo does not alter this strategic logic. The revolutionaries at Tahrir Square were motivated by Egyptian national pride and not by their adoration of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Whoever succeeds Mubarak will want to follow this line, even bolster Egyptian nationalism, and not transform Egypt into an Iranian satellite. This does not mean that Mubarak’s successor will encourage Israel to strike the Iranian nuclear installations.

On the contrary: they will listen to Arab public opinion, which opposes a preemptive war against Iran. Israel will find it difficult to take action far to the east when it cannot rely on the tacit agreement to its actions on its western border. Without Mubarak there is no Israeli attack on Iran. His replacement will be concerned about the rage of the masses, if they see him as a collaborator in such operation.

Whoever is opposed to a strike, or fear its consequences – even though they appear to be in favor, like Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak – now have the ultimate excuse. We wanted to strike Iran, they will write in their memoirs but we could not because of the revolution in Egypt. Like Ehud Olmert says that he nearly made peace, they will say that they nearly made war. In his departure Mubarak prevented a preemptive Israeli war. This appears to have been his last contribution to regional stability.

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art.alwan.cnn

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Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war

Posted on 16 February 2011 by Garibaldi

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi lied about WMD’s. After millions of deaths and injuries and a fractured country he is still proud of what he did. He shows no remorse, but the fact is that if Rafid al-Janabi didn’t exist, Cheney and gang would find another Rafid. I wonder if Lieberman is still going to claim their were WMD’s in Iraq?

Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war

(Guardian)

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

“Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right,” he said. “They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy.”

The admission comes just after the eighth anniversary of Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations in which the then-US secretary of state relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the German secret service, the BND. It also follows the release of former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s memoirs, in which he admitted Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction programme.

The careers of both men were seriously damaged by their use of Janabi’s claims, which he now says could have been – and were – discredited well before Powell’s landmark speech to the UN on 5 February 2003.

The former CIA chief in Europe Tyler Drumheller describes Janabi’s admission as “fascinating”, and said the emergence of the truth “makes me feel better”. “I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now,” said Drumheller.

In the only other at length interview Janabi has given he denied all knowledge of his supposed role in helping the US build a case for invading Saddam’s Iraq.

In a series of meetings with the Guardian in Germany where he has been granted asylum, he said he had told a German official, who he identified as Dr Paul, about mobile bioweapons trucks throughout 2000. He said the BND had identified him as a Baghdad-trained chemical engineer and approached him shortly after 13 March of that year, looking for inside information about Saddam’s Iraq.

“I had a problem with the Saddam regime,” he said. “I wanted to get rid of him and now I had this chance.”

He portrays the BND as gullible and so eager to tease details from him that they gave him a Perry’s Chemical Engineering Handbook to help communicate. He still has the book in his small, rented flat in Karlsruhe, south-west Germany.

“They were asking me about pumps for filtration, how to make detergent after the reaction,” he said. “Any engineer who studied in this field can explain or answer any question they asked.”

Janabi claimed he was first exposed as a liar as early as mid-2000, when the BND travelled to a Gulf city, believed to be Dubai, to speak with his former boss at the Military Industries Commission in Iraq, Dr Bassil Latif.

The Guardian has learned separately that British intelligence officials were at that meeting, investigating a claim made by Janabi that Latif’s son, who was studying in Britain, was procuring weapons for Saddam.

That claim was proven false, and Latif strongly denied Janabi’s claim of mobile bioweapons trucks and another allegation that 12 people had died during an accident at a secret bioweapons facility in south-east Baghdad.

The German officials returned to confront him with Latif’s version. “He says, ‘There are no trucks,’ and I say, ‘OK, when [Latif says] there no trucks then [there are none],’” Janabi recalled.

He said the BND did not contact him again until the end of May 2002. But he said it soon became clear that he was still being taken seriously.

He claimed the officials gave him an incentive to speak by implying that his then pregnant Moroccan-born wife may not be able to travel from Spain to join him in Germany if he did not co-operate with them. “He says, you work with us or your wife and child go to Morocco.”

The meetings continued throughout 2002 and it became apparent to Janabi that a case for war was being constructed. He said he was not asked again about the bioweapons trucks until a month before Powell’s speech.

After the speech, Janabi said he called his handler at the BND and accused the secret service of breaking an agreement that they would not share anything he had told them with another country. He said he was told not to speak and placed in confinement for around 90 days.

With the US now leaving Iraq, Janabi said he was comfortable with what he did, despite the chaos of the past eight years and the civilian death toll in Iraq, which stands at more than 100,000.

“I tell you something when I hear anybody – not just in Iraq but in any war – [is] killed, I am very sad. But give me another solution. Can you give me another solution?

“Believe me, there was no other way to bring about freedom to Iraq. There were no other possibilities.”

Egypt and Tunisia have just proven you wrong Rafid, there is another way, peaceful and sustained protests that break the fear barrier and overwhelm the dictators.

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Grisham

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Amarillo: Quran Burning Leader Wants to Run for Mayor

Posted on 16 February 2011 by Emperor

This guy is wacko but does that mean he has no chance to win?

Quran Burning Leader Running For Amarillo Mayor

(Newschannel6)

A Texas man who tried to organize the burning of a Quran last September 11th is running for mayor of Amarillo.

David Grisham, leader of “Repent Amarillo,” filed his papers Monday.

Grisham says he wants to lead the city in a new direction.

“If the government authorities are to be ministers of God, then ministers of God need to be running for the offices of the governing authorities, makes sense to me,” Grisham said.

Grisham also made news for calling for the boycott of the city of Houston because it elected a homosexual mayor.

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Mr. Shirk Cannot Stand by His Own Words, Too Cowardly to Name Loonwatch

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Mr. Shirk Cannot Stand by His Own Words, Too Cowardly to Name Loonwatch

Posted on 15 February 2011 by Greeneye

Originally posted at Spencerwatch

Recently, we published a devastating exposé of the typical anti-freedom hate speech being pumped out everyday at Jihadwatch. I called out Mr. Roland Shirk for suggesting that all Muslims (without exception) should be forced into “enclaves” and endure various forms of religious discrimination. In case you think I twisted his words, he ended his piece with this Islamophobic call to arms:

Islam is a religion of fear and force, and its adherents can only be at your feet or at your throat.

Now, Mr. Shirk has responded to us (albeit indirectly) at Jihadwatch. Mr. Shirk gloats about how his writings have been picked up by various media outlets, including Loonwatch, who he refuses to name except with ad-hominem attacks (such as calling us “Islamic supremacists” or “stealth jihadists”). This follows a regular pattern of desperation at Jihadwatch, as Loonwatch has published numerous devastating rebuttals of Spencer’s hateful anti-Muslim conspiracy theories.

In this very weak response to Loonwatch, Mr. Shirk cites my offending passage:

Lately, Spencer has posted articles by the mysterious Roland Shirk, someone we know nothing about, probably because he is another one of Spencer’s pen-names (like Hugh Fitzgerald). Apparently, Mr. Shirk is a mouthpiece for JihadWatch’s more belligerent attacks on the constitutional freedoms of indigenous law-abiding Muslims.

Mr. Shirk has a problem not with my accusation that he wants to force Muslims into segregated, ghettoized communities or that he incites direct calls for violence against Muslims on the site. No, rather, Mr. Shirk is upset that I suggested he might just be another one of Spencer’s pseudonyms. His entire article ignores my central point: his “belligerent attacks on the constitutional freedoms of indigenous law-abiding Muslims.”

Mr. Shirk, I don’t care if you are Robert Spencer or not. That one line was not the point of my article. What I care about is that you write to dehumanize Muslims and deny their fundamental human rights based solely on Spencer’s deliberate self-servingdistortions of Islamic religious beliefs. Only in the comments section, after someone else repeatedly called you out, do you attempt to address my point:

I never said anywhere the Muslims should be confined by the state to ghettos. I proposed that they should be politically neutralized, prevented from migrating into Europe, and prevented from using the European welfare state to breed at the expense of native residents. To do that, I proposed dismantling that state for everyone. At no point did I suggest that Muslims receive unequal treatment at the hands of the law.

This comment smacks of disingenuous insincerity. You never said anything about dismantling the welfare state for everyone. Your original piece argues clearly that MUSLIM immigration should be stopped, not all immigration. Your article decries the “demographic treason committed by Western leaders who admitted so many Muslims.” You never said anything about limiting Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, or other immigrants; only Muslims. Are you having a hard time swallowing what you wrote?

Second, no, you didn’t outright say Muslims should be confined to ghettos. You just strongly implied it by saying, “Islam is a religion of fear and force, and its adherents can only be at your feet or at your throat.” How you plan to make Muslims live “at your feet” without supporting unequal legal treatment is impossible. You want to force law-abiding people out of your country, take away their political rights, and impose austerity on them? Perhaps you do not understand that preventing lawful migration, forcing people to be “politically neutralized,” and denying welfare are three factors that form ghettoes.

Third, if you are going to write a hateful article against all Muslims, then at least stand by what you wrote instead of dishonestly pretending you were against immigration as a whole. We called you out and you have not responded meaningfully to any of our points.

Next time you want to respond to us, have the courage to address the substance of our points rather than veering off into the nether realm of obfuscation and semi-coherent apologia.

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Pamela Geller Watch: Arabic Language not to be Trusted or Taught

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Pamela Geller Watch: Arabic Language not to be Trusted or Taught

Posted on 15 February 2011 by Emperor

Pamela Geller

Pamela Geller was on Fox Business News, or as some know it Circus TV advocating her wacky conspiracy theories. Her response might have elicited the Pamela Geller Quote of the Year or at least a candidate (the year is still young),

“Well Bob, there is conspiracy theory and then there is conspiracy fact, there is a global Jihad, (mumble)…Robert Spencer’s book, (mumble), there is a stealth Jihad, there is a war and you can avoid reality Eric but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”

Pamela Geller, Bob Beckel, Eric Bolling and others on Fox Business/Circus News:

Islamophobia Today has a good rebuttal of the tripe from Geller on this subject:

Pamela Geller: Islamophobia/Arabophobia

Written by Admin of IslamophobiaToday.com

Pamela Geller’s Islamophobia has gotten so bad that she assumes the Arabic language is inherently “radical Islam” despite its existence well before Islam.  By this, she is implying that Arabs are only Muslims. I am not sure if Geller forgot or if she is plain ignorant but there are more Arab Christians in America than Arab Muslims:

Based on Zogby International Survey (200)

Not only does Geller exalt in her bigotry against Islam and Muslims (as the website LoonWatch has documented), but she is clearly manifesting her racist tendencies:

Good job, freedom lovers. You fought back against mandatory Arabic Classes in Public Schools in Texas.

“It shows how we mischaracterized, we willfully misunderstand Islam. Yes, on the face of it, yes, Arabic is a language. In a sense there would be no difference between opening a foreign language school — a Spanish language school or a french language school — but in fact Arabic is more than a language. It is explicated the language of Islam, so in that sense it is part of the Islamic religious imperial project. Radical Islam advances through the Arabic language. And you go all kinds of places that aren’t in the Arab world now, like Pakistan, Indonesia, Central Asia, the Balkans, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Canada and the United States, and you will here those Imams preaching in Arabic. Arabic is not just another language like French or Italian, it is the spearhead of an ideological project that is deeply opposed to the United States.”

In Geller’s post, she selectively quotes from Mandatory Arabic Classes in Public School In Texas, omitting the fact that Arabic is not only the language being taught at the school:

The University of Texas, working with the Mansfield district, identified Cross Timbers Intermediate as a target since 10 percent of the district’s Arabic-speaking population attends the South Arlington school.

“The federal government sees Arabic, Chinese and Russian as critical,” Escovedo said. “Our country has a deficit in Arabic speakers and people who understand the Arabic culture.”

The Mansfield district also offers Chinese and Russian, among other languages. Students may begin taking language classes in middle school to fulfill their high school requirement of two years of foreign language.

Geller does not make any comment about learning Russian, Chinese, or any other language, but for some reason, Arabic is the language of terrorists. So her logic, or as I like to call it the Gellerian/Spencerian logic is as follows:

1)       Muslims are Evil

2)      They speak  Arabic

3)      Arabic is Evil

The semi-coherent ramblings of the uber-racist Pam Geller once again, betray her false claims towards being an advocate of freedom, equality, and justice. For Geller, Arabic equals Islam and Islam equals total absolute evil and therefore by extension Arabic speakers are likewise evil.

Arabic is a rich, classical language like Latin and Greek, branding it as an ideology is beyond ridiculous, it is a call to prepetual ignorance where by Geller wishes to deprive the coming generations of an experience that not only will enrich their lives, increase their knowledge but will also prove useful in their future careers. In reality what she is afraid of is the normalization of Arabs and Muslims in American society, and she will go to any lengths to ghettoize the former.

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School Muslim Headscarf Ban, Only if Education Under Threat

Posted on 10 February 2011 by Emperor

School Muslim headscarf ban, only if education under threat

(Dutch News)

Religious schools in the Netherlands may not ban Muslim pupils from wearing headscarves simply if it contradicts their core values, the cabinet said on Tuesday in answer to questions from the anti-Islam PVV.

‘The freedom of education refers primarily to the process of giving education. Special schools can place demands on the participation in that education, if this is necessary to realise their core values,’ home affairs minister Piet Hein Donner and education minister Marja van Bijsterveldt said in a statement.

In addition, the argument that the wearing of headscarves shows a lack of equality between men and women gets equally short-shrift from the ministers. ‘Fashion dictates all sorts of differences between the way men and woman dress,’ the ministers said.

Meanwhile, a Muslim girl at the centre of a row over her headscarf at a Catholic school in Volendam has agreed to cover her head in the assembly hall and in school corridors only, the Telegraaf reports.

© DutchNews.nl

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In Other News: Patriot Act Defeated!

Posted on 10 February 2011 by Emperor

Huge news. This happened a few days ago.

House GOP Leaders Blindsided By Patriot Act Defeat

(NPR)

If the House’s new Republican leaders were going to fail to pass any particular piece of legislation, you wouldn’t expect it to be an extension of several Patriot Act provisions.

The Patriot Act, a Bush Administration legacy, has typically been more strongly supported by Republicans than Democrats.

But the House leadership was blindsided Tuesday evening when a Patriot Act extension was defeated.

Several new GOP lawmakers from the Tea Party wing who, in principle, are suspicious of federal power, joined other Republicans as well as House Democrats to torpedo the extension.

The legislation failed on a 277-148 vote, coming seven votes shy of the two-thirds margin needed to pass bills under House rules normally reserved for non-controversial legislation.

It was the biggest defeat for the House’s new GOP managers since they took charge last month.

House Republicans vow to bring the bill up again under chamber rules that would require just a simple majority. The Obama Administration supports the extension.

As NPR’s Carrie Johnson who covers the Justice Department reported:

The FBI’s authority to conduct some kinds of surveillance and get business records expires at the end of February.

So the defeat of a House plan to extend the deadline until the end of the year threatens to throw the law enforcement community into disarray.

A GOP aide blamed the situation on new lawmakers who don’t understand the Patriot Act and on Tea Party favorites who reject broad federal powers.

The Senate will try to push forward its version of the plan next week.

Now the question is whether Republicans in the House can work with Democrats in the Senate with only two weeks of room to maneuver.

Aides to Republican leaders also blamed Democrats who had voted for such an extension during the last Congress but didn’t this time.

They also blamed House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) whose job it is to count the votes before the actual vote and twist enough arms to gain passage.

From National Journal:

“I am surprised that so many Democrats who supported an extension of these very same provisions last Congress suddenly changed their votes,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas. “President Obama supports a reauthorization of these important national security tools. And the House bill provides Congress with the opportunity to engage in a thorough review of the provisions as we consider a longer reauthorization. It’s unfortunate that partisan politics seems to have prevented so many Democrats from doing what’s best for America’s national security.”

GOP aides, however, were pointing the finger at House Majority WhipKevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Aides said McCarthy failed to whip the vote, which led to the embarrassment of the bill falling short and leaders being caught off guard.

For Democrats, it was an opportunity for a little payback, to bloody the noses of the House’s new GOP managers.

But the vote also demonstrated the impact of the House losing so many of its more centrist Democrats. Some of those who were defeated in the mid-terms or retired would have likely provided the necessary votes to pass the extension. But they weren’t there.

Instead, the House Democrats who remain are more liberal. And they could hardly contain their joy at the House leadership’s failure to pass the bill.

An excerpt from The Hill:

Veteran Democratic Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.) exited the House chamber boasting that the GOP unsuccessfully held the scheduled 15-minute vote open for a total of 35 minutes to twist enough Republican arms to change the outcome.

“They didn’t have the votes! They kept trying to get them to switch, but couldn’t get them,” Frank exclaimed as he walked through reporters in the Speaker’s Lobby, which is just off the House floor.

Democratic Rep. Lacy Clay (Mo.) laughed as he told The Hill, “We’re so happy, I’m so happy. I voted against it. They tried to get enough Rs to switch their votes, because the Tea Party voted ‘no’ also… but it wasn’t enough.”

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Explaining the Egyptian Revolution to Americans

Posted on 09 February 2011 by Mooneye

A joke on us Americans. Seriously this is quite creative and funny:

Also while we are on the topic of Egypt, here is an excellent rebuttal from Alex Pareene on the thoroughly repugnant Richard Cohen who thinks Egyptians can’t handle Democracy:

Richard Cohen: Egyptian democracy will be “a nightmare”

(Salon.com)

Nothing saddens Richard Cohen more than the sight of hundreds of thousands of Egyptians peacefully protesting. The longtime Washington Post columnist is sad because those childish Arab Muslims might end up with a democracy, but they don’t know how democracy works. Here is how democracy works: We like it unless “the people” want something that complicates our current foreign policy objectives.

Cohen is just broken up about this. “Egypt, once stable if tenuously so, has been pitched into chaos.” “The dream of a democratic Egypt,” he says, “is sure to produce a nightmare.” It is sure to. Such a nightmare it will be. Just not anywhere near as pleasant as these last 30 years of “stability” have been, for everyone.

Cohen is totally an expert on Egypt and Muslims, because he is a longtime opinion columnist for the Washington Post, and not at all a blinkered idiot. Egypt “lacks the civic and political institutions that are necessary for democracy,” he tells us. And you can’t argue with that. I mean, do Egyptian newspapers even run syndicated Richard Cohen opinion columns? Do they have “Dancing With the Stars,” to teach them how voting works?

My take on all this is relentlessly gloomy. I care about Israel. I care about Egypt, too, but its survival is hardly at stake. I care about democratic values, but they are worse than useless in societies that have no tradition of tolerance or respect for minority rights. What we want for Egypt is what we have ourselves. This, though, is an identity crisis. We are not them.

No. We are not them, at all. Because they are Muslims. We all know Americans could handle democracy because we were super good at respecting the rights of minority groups. But the Egyptians are sometimes resentful of or even violent against minority groups, so no democracy allowed for them. (While some Coptic Christians worry that a more Islamic Egyptian government would be less friendly to Copts, demonstrators are stressing an inclusive, nationalist message, and there’s evidence that Christians are themselves involved in the protests. The right-wing CBN has even filed a report on the growing “bond” between Christians and “their Muslim neighbors” in Egypt.)

Cohen is concerned that the Muslim Brotherhood — which “runs the Gaza Strip” under the name “Hamas,” he tells us — will take control of Egypt and attack Israel, at which point “the mob currently in the streets will roar its approval.” That “mob” certainly does seem pretty bloodthirsty. They clearly want all-out war with the region’s sole nuclear power. Pretty sure that’s what these demonstrations are about. “I’m actually pretty cool with Mubarak but I really wish we were waging war against Israel right now” — An Egyptian protester.

Cohen seems to understand that the Brotherhood, while involved in the demonstrations, did not organize them, and he has been told that the majority of the demonstrators have no ties to the group, but he thinks that might just be because they are sneaky. “It has been underground for generations — jailed, tortured, infiltrated, but still, somehow, flourishing. Its moment may be approaching.” Scary!

And why should we all be super-scared of them? “The Islamists of the Brotherhood do not despise America for what it does but for what it is.” Thanks, Richard Cohen, for explaining who these Islamists are, and what they despise about us. It’s not our lengthy history of propping up the dictator who brutally repressed them — they hate us for our freedom. (You may compare Richard Cohen’s history of the Muslim Brotherhood to that an an actual expert on the subject, if you wish.)

This column is so full of winning lines, I have to stop myself from quoting the entire thing. There is literally an “I like democracy, but” part: “Majority rule is a worthwhile idea. But so, too, are respect for minorities, freedom of religion, the equality of women and adherence to treaties, such as the one with Israel, the only democracy in the region.”

I’m sorry, I can edit that one to more clearly express Cohen’s actual point: “Majority rule is a worthwhile idea. But so, too … [is] respect for… Israel….”

These are the last lines:

America needs to be on the right side of human rights. But it also needs to be on the right side of history. This time, the two may not be the same.

The “right side of history” might not be the “right side of human rights.” Got it? Sometimes you have to be on the “wrong side” of “human rights,” and history will totally understand.

Poor Egypt. Maybe you will be grown-up enough in the eyes of Richard Cohen to handle a democracy someday, but right now, it’s just not in the cards.

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World Net Daily worries that if you eat “halal” food you’re eating food sacrificed to idols

Posted on 09 February 2011 by Emperor

WND, the wacky right wing Evangelical website is forwarding the myth that halal food is sacrificed to idols. They also peddle the conspiracy that Americans are going to be forced to eat halal food. The piece from God Discussion is an excellent rebuttal.

World Net Daily worries that if you eat “halal” food you’re eating food sacrificed to idols

(God Discussion)

Pastor Mark Biltz over at World Net Daily worries that you might inadvertently eat “halal” food in the good old US of A–a country of many cultures—food he says is sacrificed to idols, and “catch” Islam like a virus.    Ignorance of Islam is at its highest in this comment by Pastor Biltz:

At issue, says Mark Biltz of El Shaddai Ministries in Bonney Lake, Wash., is eating food that’s “halal,” in other words “lawful” or “permitted” for the Muslim diet.

Muslims join many Jews and some Christians in avoiding the consumption of certain animals such as pigs and birds of prey, but those of the Islamic faith also have their meat blessed in the name of their god, Allah.

“From the Christian standpoint, Allah would be an idol,” Biltz told WND.”

From a faith standpoint, “Allah” IS God, NOT an idol.  Allah.org states:

Allah is the personal name of the One true God. Nothing else can be called Allah. The term has no plural or gender. This shows its uniqueness when compared with the word god which can be made plural, gods, or feminine, goddess. It is interesting to notice that Allah is the personal name of God in Aramaic, the language of Jesus and a sister language of Arabic.

The One true God is a reflection of the unique concept that Islam associates with God. To a Muslim, Allah is the Almighty, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, Who is similar to nothing and nothing is comparable to Him. The Prophet Muhammad was asked by his contemporaries about Allah; the answer came directly from God Himself in the form of a short chapter of the Quran, which is considered the essence of the unity or the motto of monotheism. This is chapter 112 which reads:

“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
Say (O Muhammad) He is God the One God, the Everlasting Refuge, who has not begotten, nor has been begotten, and equal to Him is not anyone.”

The Quran also condemns the worship of idols, same as the Christian God:

The Quran reminds us of the falsity of all alleged gods. To the worshippers of man-made objects, it asks:

“Do you worship what you have carved yourself?” (37:95)

“Or have you taken unto you others beside Him to be your protectors, even such as have no power either for good or for harm to themselves?” (13:16)

Moreover, the term “Allah” is used by Arabic speakers of all Abrahamic faiths (let us not forget that Islam is a branch from the same tree as Christianity and Judaism).  That means that Mizrahi Jews, Eastern Catholics,  Ba’hai’s, and Eastern Orthodox Christians, as Arabic speakers, use the word “Allah.”

As for WND’s and Pastor Biltz’ worry that you and I are eating “halal” food unawares, every day we eat Jewish kosher food and it hasn’t hurt anyone. World Net Daily can’t even get the halal process right.  The halal process goes like this:

Halal Meat – The Process
The slaughtering rules (dhabh in Arabic) for Halal, which are based on Islamic teachings, ethics and jurisprudence need to strictly follow the guidelines below:
-
The premises, equipment and machinery must be classed according to Islamic Shariah (Law) before any production takes place
A trained Muslim man should slaughter the animal in a licensed slaughter house with the implementation of all the hygiene and animal welfare regulations
The slaughterman must be a mature and pious Muslim of sound mind who fully understands the fundamentals and conditions relating to Halal slaughter and must be licensed by the Meat Hygiene Service
The animal/bird must be fed and grown on natural vegetarian diet
The animal/bird must be alive, healthy and free from any disease or injury at the time of slaughter. This should be certified and checked by a veterinary surgeon
The animal’s skin or fur and bird feathers must be clean prior to slaughter and free from faeces, dirt or other unhygienic substances
The animal/bird should be fed and should not be hungry or thirsty before slaughter
The animal should not be slaughtered in front of other animals and no blood seen so that no stress or discomfort has been caused to the animal
The animal should be handled gently and individually
The knife should be very sharp and clean and should not be sharpened in front of any animal before slaughter
The Muslim slaughterman says the following before slaughtering: in the name of Allah, Allah is greatest (Bismillah, Allah Akbar)
The cut to be done in the right anatomical position in the throat by cutting the two carotids, the two jugulars, the windpipe and the gullet, but without cutting the spinal cord
All blood should be allowed to be drained from the carcass
A specific time should be allowed till the animal ceases any movement
De-feathering, de-skinning and evisceration can be done afterwards
Any unlawful meat like pork should not contaminate Halal meat. Separate knives, equipment and utensils should be used for Halal meat

So don’t worry, folks. Eating halal meat isn’t going to make you a involuntary Muslim anymore than eating kosher food unawares makes you an involuntary Jew.

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Jewish Voice for Peace Chief Threatened for Being “Pro-Palestinian”

Posted on 09 February 2011 by Emperor

No word from Spencer on this yet. Imagine if a Muslim had done this, there would be cries about the intolerance of Muslims and how inherently Islam cannot deal with dissension.

Jewish Voice for Peace chief threatened over pro-Palestinian campaign

(Haaretz)

The head of the pro-Palestinian organization Jewish Voice for Peace received a threatening poster at her Los Angeles area home this weekend for her involvement in the organization.

Estee Chandler, the organization leader on the West coast, said she found a poster on her front porch last week reading “WANTED for treason and incitement against Jews.”

According to Chandler, the poster displayed her picture, her workplace, other personal details and names of her relatives.

The poster charged her with using “her own presumed Jewishness as a weapon against the Jewish People and the Jewish State of Israel while conspiring with other well-known anti-Israel groups to assist in Israel’s destruction and to otherwise engender hatred and incite further violence against the Jewish People and the Jewish State of Israel.”

In a statement responding to the threat published on the organization’s website, Chandler said  “I was forewarned about extremists when I first decided to start a Jewish Voice for Peace chapter here in my hometown of Los Angeles. I went into it with my eyes open. While I didn’t think anything would happen this soon, i cant say it wasn’t something I didn’t anticipate. Ultimately I think these people really are cowards, and not really to be feared.”

“We are the silent majority of American Jews and its time for us to stop being silent. if we raise our voices a fraction of the level of these people- we will become the message, too many people who are with us are afraid. ultimately nonviolence is the only thing that has ever won out,” she added.

In October last year, the Anti-Defamation League named the Jewish Voice for Peace — which champions the rights of Palestinians and is considered an anti-Israel organization by many Americans, especially after calling to boycott companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza – among the top 10 anti-Israel groups in America.

The organization, however, maintains the stand that they are not fighting against Israel or challenging its right to exist, but rather questioning the Israeli government’s policies and actions in the Palestinian territories.

The distributors of the threatening poster have yet to be found, according to the JVP.

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Pamela Geller Watch: Support for the Genocide of the Chechens

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Pamela Geller Watch: Support for the Genocide of the Chechens

Posted on 08 February 2011 by Mooneye

Recently Pamela Geller put up a post on her hate blog about the suicide bombing at  Moscow’s airport. Amidst her usual anti-Islam/Muslim diatribe Geller sided with Joseph Stalin’s genocidal policy after World War 2 in which he relocated the entire indigenous populations of Chechnya and Ingusethia to Siberia:

Islamic Terror Attack Homicide Bomber Kills At Least 31 Human Beings

UPDATE: Frank the Great:

“The Kremlin is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus, and rebels have repeatedly vowed they will take their battle to the Russian heartland.”-from the article

This region (North Caucasus) was a big source of the Muslim Waffen SS Divisions during World War II. The Waffen SS Divisions fought with the Nazis against the Russians on the eastern front during WW2. For that reason Stalin relocated most Muslims in the region to Siberia. Khrushchev brought them back in 1956. Khrushchev made a mistake in doing that.

Most people today don’t know that the Muslim world was allied with the Nazis, especially in the Middle East (Iraq e.g.-where the British invaded to overthrw a pro-Nazi govn’t) and the Caucasus. The Cold War hid all that till the collapse of the USSR in 1990.

As William Faulkner said: “The past is never really past.”

Geller updated her blog to include the above statement from someone named “Frank the Great” obviously she agrees with everything he says. Unfortunately what he says is a gross distortion of history, an approval of genocide and extremely disgusting.

It is true that Stalin blamed Chechens for aiding the Germans during the War and this is how he justified their transfer to Siberia. The real reason that Stalin transferred the Muslim populations of Chechnya and Ingusethia was due to a revolt led by Khasan Israilov from 1940-44 against the Soviet state for independence:

Khasan is regarded as the most influential Chechen guerrilla leader during the Second World War, and he is considered a national hero for many Chechens. He was infamous to the Soviets, and is to many Russians, for his 1940-1944 uprising, which many Russians connected to an abortive German plot to undermine Soviet control over the North Caucasus (in reality, however, relations between Israilov’s Chechen partisans and the Germans were tense at best, hostile at worse).

Khasan himself was a Communist, here is his letter to the Chechen Communist Party:

“I have decided to become the leader of a war of liberation of my own people. I understand all too well that not only in Checheno-Ingushetia, but in all nations of the Caucasus it will be difficult to win freedom from the heavy yoke of Red imperialism. But our fervent belief in justice and our faith in the support of the freedom-loving peoples of the Caucasus and of the entire world inspire me toward this deed, in your eyes impertinent and pointless, but in my conviction, the sole correct historical step. The valiant Finns are now proving that the Great Enslaver Empire is powerless against a small but freedom-loving people. In the Caucasus you will find your second Finland, and after us will follow other oppressed peoples.”

“For twenty years now, the Soviet authorities have been fighting my people, aiming to destroy them group by group: first the kulaks, then the mullahs and the ‘bandits’, then the bourgeois-nationalists. I am sure now that the real object of this war is the annihilation of our nation as a whole. That is why I have decided to assume the leadership of my people in their struggle for liberation.”

In reality the Chechens never fought for Hitler on the Eastern front, that is a BOLD-FACED LIE. Attempts at forming an alliance with Chechens floundered because of mutual distrusts, conflicting ideologies and Germany’s alliance with the Cossacks, who were the avowed enemies of Chechens.

In reality Chechens fought with the Red Army to liberate Russia and Eastern Europe but instead were treated like sub humans by the Soviets:

Stalin alleged that the peoples of the North Caucasus were responsible for mass collaboration with the Germans, despite the fact that an estimated 157,000 Chechen and Ingush conscripts had fought in the Red Army against Nazi Germany, and many had fought all the way to the liberation of Berlin. On the night of February 23, 1944 Lavrentiy Beria personally carried out the Chechevitsa, the forced deportation of the Chechens and Ingush to Central Asia. Beria went on to issue a verbal order that any Chechen or Ingush found ‘untransportable should be liquidated’ on the spot, and under this pretext thousands were summarily executed. Victims of typhus, which had reached epidemic proportions, were immediately executed, as were pregnant women and the elderly; another example of Soviet excesses came in the Chechen village of Khaibakh, where more than 700 Chechens were locked in a stable and burnt alive. Chechen literature and manuscripts were also burned by the Soviets, and food and water supplies were poisoned to eliminate any that stayed behind.

The tragedy of this transfer of Chechens from their ancestral home is mocked by Geller and her friends, and why should we be surprised as Geller supports the same thing for Palestinians. The transfer of Chechens led to over a quarter of the population dying. That Geller would side with Stalin only confirms her long list of not only anti-Freedom beliefs but also support for murder and genocide.

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Alex Pareene Takes the WaPo On Faith Blog to Task

Posted on 08 February 2011 by Emperor

Pareene calls out the Washington Post.

Washington Post “On Faith” contributor: Christianity rules, Islam drools

by Alex Pareene (Salon.com)

Last time we checked in on the Washington Post’s “On Faith,” a silly group religion blog run by the reliably embarrassing Sally Quinn, it had just run a piece arguing that Barack Obama had only himself to blame for the fact that many old white people think he’s a Muslim. That post, along with blatantly bigoted entries from other contributors, led me to believe that “On Faith” would run any old nonsense. But apparently not!

According to Pajamas Media, the Post spiked an “On Faith” contribution from Baptist minister Willis E. Elliott. The post, which Pajamas Media runs in full,makes the argument that Christianity is good and Islam is bad. Because that’s a really useful and important thing for grown-ups to argue about in newspapers. Islam sucks! (I have some great pitches for the Post. America: Better than France! “Washington Post’s ‘On Race’ blog: White people are better than Asians.”)

Elliott makes his case in listicle form, like Martin Luther, or Cracked.com. Item one: Christians are quiet and respectful but Muslims are mean and violent:

Blasphemy (irreverent speech or action against a deity or religious person/belief/object) is currently in the news only when Muslims become violent, or threaten violence, when they feel offended: when we Christians feel offended, almost never do we become violent, and almost always we suffer the disrespect in silence.

Tell it to the Westboro Baptist Church, or the monster who assassinated George Tiller! Wait, sorry, it’s unfair to tarnish all Christians by blaming their religion for the extremism of kooks. It is only fair to do that to Muslims.

There are a lot of jaw-dropping assertions in this awful piece (“Muslims don’t know how to behave when they are not in power,” “Muslims are now more aggressive blasphemers against Christianity,” etc.) but my favorite bit is this little story:

Americans don’t have to go to Muslim lands to hear our religion blasphemed by Muslims. In a Christian church in Portland, OR, I heard an imam (an immigrant from Yemen) say to the post-worship assemblage, “God has no son.” (Not, “We Muslims believe that God has no son.”) When I yelled, “Blasphemy!” the assemblage was shocked to silence and he was so unnerved that he initiated a handshake with me seven times before he left the church.

What a really awesome minister this guy is, bravely screaming “blasphemy” at a Muslim, then writing about it for the Washington Post.

The Post probably rejected this piece because it was so stupid and insulting — which made it the perfect amount of stupid and insulting for conservative blogs — but then it ran a new submission from Elliott the day after Pajamas Media published this spiked diatribe. The new one is about how America is better than China, and it is also presented in list form.

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Soldiers Forced to See Chaplain After Failing Army’s Spiritual Fitness Test

Posted on 08 February 2011 by Garibaldi

(hat tip: Eric Allen Bell)

Soldiers Forced to See Chaplain After Failing Army’s Spiritual Fitness Test

(TalkToAction)

by Chris Rodda

After failing a recently implemented mandatory Army-wide “Spiritual Fitness” test, soldiers are given the following message on their computer screens:

“Spiritual fitness is an area of possible difficulty for you. You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life. At times, it is hard for you to make sense of what is happening to you and others around you. You may not feel connected to something larger than yourself. You may question your beliefs, principles, and values. Nevertheless, who you are and what you do matter. There are things to do to provide more meaning and purpose in your life. Improving your spiritual fitness should be an important goal. Change is possible, and the relevant self-development training modules will be helpful. If you need further help, please do not hesitate to seek out help from the people you care about and trust — strong people always do. Be patient in your development as it will take time to improve in this area. Still, persistence is key and you will improve here if you make this area a priority.”

This mandatory online test, called the Global Assessment Tool (GAT), is part of the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) program, a program that puts spiritual fitness on par with physical and mental fitness.

Upon flunking the “Spiritual Fitness” section of the GAT, and receiving the above message telling them that “Change is possible” and that “you will improve here if you make this area a priority,” the spiritually deficient soldiers are directed to training modules to correct this problem with their “fitness.”

Nothing at this point in the CSF program tells the soldiers that the online training modules that follow the GAT test are not mandatory, so the soldiers naturally assume that the training modules they’re immediately directed to upon failing the test are also mandatory.

Ever since complaints about the GAT, which can only be described as an unconstitutional “religious test,” began to surface a few weeks ago, the Army has been bending over backward insisting that that spirituality doesn’t mean religion; that nothing in the CSF’s “Spiritual Fitness” training is mandatory; and that no soldier is being forced to do anything whatsoever if they flunk the test. But these claims from the Army are far from what the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is hearing from soldiers who have failed the Spiritual Fitness section of the test.

Just read the following account from one soldier about what happened to the GAT-identified spiritually unfit solders in his unit.

Subject: I Am A “Spiritual Fitness Failure” ……Before I tell you, Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF of my total outrage at the U.S. Army for grading me as a “Spiritual Fitness failure”, I will tell you a few things about myself. My name is (name withheld) and I am an enlisted soldier with the rank of (rank withheld) in the United States Army stationed at Ft. (military installation withheld). I am in my early-to-mid twenties. I have been deployed downrange into Iraq and Afghanistan 6 times. I will deploy again for my 7th time very soon; to Afghanistan and more combat. All of my deployments have been very heavy combat assignments. I have been wounded 4 times including traumatic brain injury. I have earned the Combat Action Badge, the Bronze Star and multiple Purple Hearts. I have fought in hand-to hand- combat and killed and wounded more than a few “enemy combatants.” M religion? I was born a Methodist and guess I still am one. I’m not very religious but consider myself to be a Christian. I don’t go to chapel services that often although I go every now and then. I can’t stand the chaplains as most of them are trying to always get me and my friends to “commit to Christ” and be far more religious as well as they try to get more and more soldiers to get more and more soldiers to be the same type of “committed Christian”. I cannot count the number of times that these chaplains and my own chain of command has described this war we fight as a religious one against the Muslims and their “false, evil and violent” religion. I am a Christian and therefore neither an agnostic nor an atheist though many of my fellow soldiers are such. Now to the point. I, and everyone else who is enlisted in my company, was ORDERED by my Battalion Commander to take the GAT’s Spiritual Fitness Test not very long ago. Let me make this CLEAR, we were all ORDERD to take it. After we did, our unit’s First Sgt. individually asked us all how we did on the test. There was NO “anonymity” at all. None of us were ever told that we did NOT have to take this Spiritual Fitness Test nor that we did NOT have to tell our FIrst Sgt. what our results were. A bunch of us “failed” the SFT and when we told that to our First Sgt., per his disclosure order, he further ordered us to make immediate appointments with the chaplains so that we would not “kill ourselves on his watch”. None of us wanted to do it but we were scared. None of us wanted to get in the shits with our First Sgt. who can and will make life miserable for anyone who might have said no to him. They keep saying that this is all to stop us soldiers from killing ourselves but THIS degrading SFT “failure” only makes it worse. Two of my battle buddies who I KNOW are thinking of ending it all were a million times worse off after failing this SFT and being called a “spiritual failure” and then ordered to go see the chaplains. I felt like a total coward for not standing up to my First Sgt. but I did what he told me to do. I was scared to tell him no. So I went to see the chaplain. When this chaplain told me that I failed the SFT because it was “Jesus’ way of personally knocking on my door as an invitation for me to come to Him as a born again ‘REAL’ Christian” so that I could be saved and not burn forever in Hell for rejecting him, I thought of 3 things. First, I thought of the fact that I was already born a Christian and did not need to be born again. Second, I thought of my battle buddy (name and rank withheld) who took a bullet for me in his face during the Battle of (name of Iraqi battle withheld) and that he was the same kind of Christian as me and this chaplain is telling me that my battle buddy (name and rank withheld) is burning in hell for all time. Third, I thought how I wanted to blow that fucking chaplain’s head right off. Thank you, Mr. Weinstein and MRFF for listening and standing up. A bunch of us saw you on MSNBC. We also read about the enlisted guy at Ft. Bragg. Please tell Sgt. Griffith at Fort Bragg that he speaks for many of us who can’t handle the consequences if we spoke out. We have all read the letter you sent to tell the Army to stop this Spiritual Fitness Test. It cheered us up alot because that making us take that test is WRONG and using it to send us to the chaplains against our will is also WRONG. Please tell your lawyers at that big law firm company not to forget about those of us who want to speak up and thank them all but cannot. (Name, rank, combat MOS, military unit, military installation withheld)

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Shameless Political Exploitation, Academic Hypocrisy at Front Page Magazine

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Shameless Political Exploitation, Academic Hypocrisy at Front Page Magazine

Posted on 07 February 2011 by Greeneye

Just because a person has a PhD in one field does not make them an authority in another field. For example, a person with their PhD in Chemistry does not make them an authority in Physics, even if they know a lot about Physics. This is because academia has a system of checks and balances through peer-reviewed scholarship that makes sure the university or organization is presenting the most authentic information possible. In our case, many anti-Muslim loons come from a variety of academic fields but they cannot speak with authority on issues involving Islam and Muslims. Simply, they do not possess the requisite knowledge.

For our latest example, observe Jamie Glazov, the editor of Front Page Magazine (part of the same Horowitz-Spencer closed information system). He boasts of his “PhD in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy.” He must really know what he is talking about when it comes to Muslims, right? But is he fluent in any classical Islamic language: Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu? Is he proficient in at least two or three of them, as required by many Islamic studies departments in the United States? Is he proficient enough in a European research language (French, German) to be able to consult what prior scholars of Islamic studies have said? From the look of his daily Muslim-bashing, the answer is no.

Recently, Glazov exploited the tragedy of an Iraqi woman, Noor Almaleki, to use the generic Islamic villain as a stick to bash the Democrats:

The honor killing trial begins in Phoenix today (Monday, Jan.24) of Faleh Hassan Almaleki, an Iraqi Muslim immigrant who killed his 20-year-old daughter, Noor Almaleki, on October 20, 2009, because she had become too Westernized…

After killing his daughter, Almaleki himself boasted that he had to take Noor’s lifebecause she had dishonored his family by her “Western” behavior. Evidence reveals that Almaleki had tried to impose strict Islamic codes on Noor and that he had attempted to force her into an arranged marriage when she was 17…

Almaleki was trained from birth to see the world through the lens of Islamic misogyny, where women are the property of men. Under the vicious and sadistic system of Islamic gender apartheid, women’s autonomy must be suffocated on all levels.

First, notice from the outset that Mr. Glazov makes no distinction between different interpretations of Islam; between the extremist acts of a single individual and what many mainstream Muslim scholars, leaders, and institutions have said on the issue of honor killings, specifically Muslim women scholars, specifically in Iraq.

Second, Glazov forgets to remind his readers that the citizens of Iraq are not living under normal conditions like most people. Perhaps he forgot about the ongoing Iraq War, the military occupation, and, among other things, the chaos unleashed by private military contractors. Glazov wants you to think that Iraqis are living normal, comfortable lives; therefore, their erratic behavior, such as this case, can only be explained by Islamic teachings,  rather than the complex reality-based mix of social, economic, cultural, and historical factors (studied by sociologists) which shed light on why people do things. Glazov would rather just explain this tragedy as just another manifestation of the monolithic Islamic “monster” (his expression, not mine).

Third, to suggest that women are viewed as “the property of men” is just a flagrant canard. It belies what the Quran clearly states:

The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practice regular charity, and obey Allah and His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise. [Quran 9:71]

O you who believe, it is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will. Nor should you treat them with harshness, that you may take away part of the dower ye have given them, except where they have been guilty of open lewdness; on the contrary live with them on a footing of kindness and equity. If you take a dislike to them it may be that you dislike a thing, and Allah brings through it a great deal of good. [Quran 4:19]

It further ignores an objective history of early and contemporary Islam. Again, I am curious to see how he explains the fact that a Muslim country like Pakistan, allegedly under “Islamic gender apartheid,” has twice elected a woman Prime Minister.

Fourth, the fact that he “had attempted to force her into an arranged marriage” is a violation of a basic tenet of Islamic jurisprudence on marriage. As recorded in the Prophet’s traditions:

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, “A matron should not be given in marriage except after consulting her, and a virgin should not be given in marriage except after her permission.”

[Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7 Book 62 Number 67]

If he really wanted to force her into marriage, then this is strong evidence that the man was acting against Islamic teachings, not in accord with them. But remember Spencer’s Islamophobic indoctrination principle: whenever a Muslim does something evil, that is true Islam; but when Muslims speak out against evil, they are acting against Islam.

Glazov is following Spencer’s manual to the letter, and then it starts really going downhill:

It is in the Left’s interest that the murders of thousands of innocent Muslim girls like Noor, Aqsa and the Said girls, and the monstrous Islamic ideology that engendered such murders, are pushed into invisibility. For the Left, it is crucial that historical amnesia is imposed on these uncomfortable matters (i.e. the extermination of Muslim girls), for the truth about Islamic honor killing makes it difficult for the Left to pursue its top priority: waging war on capitalism and on its own host society. Indeed, if an adversarial culture and religion turns out to actually be evil, then we might have to admit that there is something good and superior about our own civilization and that it is worth defending. This notion is anathema and unfathomable to the Left — and it explains why leftist feminists like Naomi Wolf engage in a romance with the burqa.

This was the whole point in the first place: to attack the Left (i.e. Democrats). It is all part of the evil Left-Moozlim alliance. The Left is part of the murdering Islamic machine, we are told. The Left is waging war on everything you hold dear, we are warned. No nuance, qualification, specification, or clarification. It is simply Us vs. the Left (and Islam). So, really it’s all about dirty far-right politics as usual; demonizing the enemy, don’t give them an inch.

After examining Glazov’s article in light of the facts, this can be taken as another example of Muslim-bashing with a false academic veneer. We have already seen how fake scholar Robert Spencer, whose masters degree is in early Christianty, makes him in no way an authority on Islam. He cannot stand up to peer-reviewed scholarship (i.e. for his anti-Muslim theories to actually be scrutinized by facts); even his own professor warns about him. Similarly, Glazov’s seemingly impressive credentials in no way validate anything he says. He does not speak the primary languages; it seems he has not even checked sources in English.

I find it offensive that Glazov exploits this tragedy for politics as usual. I have a very hard time believing Glazov really cares about Muslim women when he spends his days and nights bashing them for political gain. Today it is Noor Almaleki; tomorrow it will be the next anti-Muslim story (with Noor’s case all forgotten). I don’t buy it.

Nevertheless, what should we expect from someone who thinks “just nuke ‘em” Pamela Geller is a “modern-day freedom fighter”?

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Sam Ebadi Stabbed for Saying He’s a Muslim

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Sam Ebadi Stabbed for Saying He’s a Muslim

Posted on 07 February 2011 by Emperor

Islamophobia? What Islamophobia? The hordes of anti-Muslim Islamophobes will probably blame Sam Ebadi for saying he was a Muslim and getting stabbed.

Deputies: St. Pete man stabbed victim because he’s Muslim

(ABCActionNews)


ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – A St. Petersburg man is charged with a hate crime after he allegedly stabbed another man because he’s a Muslim.

“He simply made the mistake of stating he was a Muslim, and it almost cost him his life.” said Ali Ebadi, the son of victim Sam Ebadi.

According to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, 52-year-old Bradley Strott and Ebadi had been talking about religion when the man told Strott he was a Muslim.

He then became upset, grabbed the victim by his shirt and stabbed the man in the neck with his pocket knife, according to Strott’s arrest affidavit.

Strott said that “Muslims are the root of the problems,” the report states.  Ebadi was taken to an area hospital where he has remained since the attack. ”He tried to murder my father and he spent a day in jail, I do not want another muslim family to have to go through what I go through.” said Ali.

Strott has been charged with aggravated battery and was booked into the Pinellas County Jail late Friday night.  He bonded out Saturday.

The Tampa Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations have stepped in and are talking with the FBI about this attack.

According to spokesperson Ramzy Kilic with the organization, the FBI is working with local law enforcement to see if they can upgrade the charges to a hate crime.  Ebadi is expected to be released from the hospital on Monday.

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$5 million lawsuit targets Jimmy Carter for ‘attacking Israel’

Posted on 07 February 2011 by Emperor

Is this Freedom of Speech? What if Muslims were suing for “misleading” statements about Islam, you can be sure that the Islamophobes would be in a tail-spin.

$5 million lawsuit targets Jimmy Carter for ‘attacking Israel’

WASHINGTON – Former President Jimmy Carter has become the target of a class action lawsuit over ostensibly mean things he said about Israel in his best-selling 2006 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

The lawsuit, filed in New York by an Israeli firm, alleges that the book “contained numerous false and knowingly misleading statements intended to promote the author’s agenda of anti-Israel propaganda and to deceive the reading public instead of presenting accurate information as advertised.”

The five American plaintiffs, two of whom are dual citizens of the US and Israel, seek $5 million in damages over the book (which is being sold for less than $10 on Amazon) on the basis that its criticisms of Israel violated consumer protection safeguards.

The plaintiffs alleged in a press release that the 39th US president and Nobel Peace Prize winner “violated the law and, thus, harmed those who purchased the book” by unfairly “attacking Israel.”

Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said her clients’ lawsuit “will expose all the falsehoods and misrepresentations in Carter’s book and prove that his hatred of Israel has led him to commit this fraud on the public.”

Publishing company Simon & Schuster, which is also targeted in the lawsuit, dismissed it as a frivolous act and a “chilling attack on free speech that we intend to defend vigorously.”

“This lawsuit is frivolous, without merit, and is a transparent attempt by the plaintiffs, despite their contentions, to punish the author, a Nobel Peace prize winner and world-renowned statesmen, and his publisher, for writing and publishing a book with which the plaintiffs simply disagree,” Simon & Schuster spokesman Adam Rothberg told the Washington Post.

A copy of the complaint can be viewed here.

[h/t Matt Yglesias]

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Tariq Ali: Bernard-Henri Lévy Indicted!

Posted on 07 February 2011 by Emperor

An entertaining article by Tariq Ali. Bernard-Henri Levy certainly should be indicted in the mind of public opinion. I agree with most of the indictment though I would contend that Bernard-Henri Levy is not guilty of merely promoting “Zionism” which on its own may not be an indictable offense but of promoting “extremist Zionism” in which he apologizes for land grabs and racist state apparatuses within Israel. I wonder how the trial went?

Bernard-Henri Lévy Indicted!

(CounterPunch)

On January 28, activists belonging to the PIR (Parti des Indigènes de la République) are organizing a trial of Bernard-Henri Lévy in the old PCF/CGT stronghold of Saint Denis. Norman Finkelstein and myself are the only non-French who are giving evidence against BHL.  The trial will commence at 6.30pm at the Bourse du Travail de St-Denis. 9-11 rue Génin, Saint Denis. Metro  13 – Porte de Paris.

More of my views on Bernard-Henri Lévy may be found below, but first, the Indictment:

“Order for the  indictment of Bernard-Henri Lévy before the Assize Court, and for  his arrest:

We have determined that whereas investigation has established the following facts concerning the accused:

- His unrelenting promotion of imperialism and Zionism,

- His intellectual fakery, symptom of philosophical nullity amid the accumulation of capital and power,

- His leveling of false accusations and calumnies against Iran,

- His warmongering and advocacy of “humanitarian imperialism,”

- His aiding in the creation and promotion of SOS Racisme to smother autonomous immigration movements,

- His dissemination of false news likely to sow social and eligious discord between Christians and Muslims.

For these reasons, we rule that  there is sufficient evidence against Bernard-Henri Lévy that he  committed such acts, punishable under the Criminal Code, in regard to Articles 175, 176, 181, 183 and 184. We order the indictment of Bernard-Henri Lévy, to be lodged at the Court of Assizes of the department of Seine- Saint-Denis to be tried according to law.”

Executed in Chambers, December 18, 2010.”

I’ve always regarded BHL as a comic figure. On the two occasions — in Berlin and New York– that I’ve shared a platform to debate him he reminded me of a puffed up peacock in heat (hence, I thought, the permanently unbuttonedbhlshirt). In France, however, more than a few citizens find him more sinister than comic. He is the Republic’s most visible and most vain mediatic intellectual. A veritable Tintin no less. Ready for adventures whenever he’s needed to strike a pose. Kabul falls to NATO. Off goes Tintin and returns to inform us that in order to help the Afghans he has launched a new magazine in Kabul.  Its name?Nouvelle Kabul. Of course. How could it be anything else. This was in 2002, but every Afghan I’ve asked swears on the Koran that no such magazine exists, not even in Kabul’s fortified green zone. Was it pure fantasy? Possible. The dividing line between reality and non-reality is never clear when Tintin is involved. I got a strong whiff of this when I reviewed his appalling book on the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl that was largely fantastical. I wrote at the time:

“He has written a strange hybrid of a book about his adventures in Pakistan, a country whose language he doesn’t speak and whose people he seems to hate, despite the last-page invocation of a ‘gentle Islam’, firmly placed in the medieval period and counterposed to the ‘madmen of Peshawar’… Half fiction, a quarter speculation, one-eighth film script (with BHL as himself?) and one-eighth regurgitated newspaper articles, this book gives narcissism a bad name. Is there anything of value in it? I searched in vain, hoping that his ‘diplomatic connections’ might have helped out with some previously unknown facts. Nothing. Given the absence of real content, style becomes all; and it is pure pastiche. At times, ‘my dear Sartre’ is invoked for no apparent reason, except to make it clear that Lévy is the only true heir. At another point, he is reminded of his old tutor at the Ecole Normale:

‘Latent homosexuality. Or, if not, perhaps no sexuality at all, pleasure is a sin, the purpose of relations with a woman is to procreate. Omar [Pearl’s assassin] . . . has probably never slept with a woman . . . he is a 29-year-old virgin. Is this the key to the psychology of Omar? . . . Asexuality, and the will to purity that goes with it, as possible sources of the moral standards of the religion of fundamentalist crime? . . . But I remember, I cannot help but remember, a great French philosopher, Louis Althusser, still a virgin at 30 and who . . . No. Out of bounds, precisely. Because truly blasphemous. And too flattering to Omar.’”

There is nobody quite like him in the States or elsewhere in Europe. Hitchens, in healthier times, could have come close to this status had he been provided a regular column in the NYT and a book show on one of the networks. CH would have had many an advantage, since unlike BHL he can both write and read, though ill-health, sadly, has meant a confused imagination such as detecting a ‘moral core’ in Tony Blair and flattering Ben Ali, the toppled despot of Tunis.

His dominant media position makes BHL a powerful enemy of the Left, of the kids in the banlieues, of anyone who dares question Israel’s moral superiority to everyone else, but especially its victims. He supports most of US policies abroad. Unsurprisingly he arouses a great deal of anger, hatred and contempt.

On  January 28, activists belonging to the PIR (Parti des Indigènes de la République) are organizing a mock trial in the old PCF/CGT stronghold of Saint Denis. Norman Finkelstein and myself are the only non-French who are giving evidence against BHL. It should be good fun. Nobody is quite sure whether Tintin will be in Paris or entertaining the King in his huge villa in Morocco … he should beware the Maghreb now. The times they are a-changing.

Tariq Ali’s latest book “The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad’ was published by Verso last fall.

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Robert Spencer Opposes Egyptian Democracy, Smears Obama

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Robert Spencer Opposes Egyptian Democracy, Smears Obama

Posted on 03 February 2011 by Greeneye

Robert Spencer cannot stand that democracy is at the doorstep of the Arab world. In his latest hit piece, Spencer follows the lead of Frank Gaffney’s paranoid fearmongering by greatly exaggerating the role of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest Islamist organization:

Game over: Barack Obama has endorsed a role for the Muslim Brotherhood in a new, post-Mubarak government for Egypt.

Game over! The end is neigh! The sky is falling! Why? Because President Obama’s spokesperson Robert Gibbs said that a post-Mubarak Egyptian ruling group “has to include a whole host of important non-secular actors that give Egypt a strong chance to continue to be [a] stable and reliable partner.” In other words, the Obama administration would no longer like to continue the undemocratic policies of Hosni Mubarak that outlawed peaceful democratic opposition to his pro-torture regime.

This is the nature of democracy. Everyone should be allowed to participate peacefully in a free and fair election, even candidates or parties we disagree with. For the record, the Muslim Brotherhood has officially and consistently renounced terrorism and embraced democracy. However, Islamophobes like Spencer have always been very selective and self-serving in their advocacy of freedom.

Nevertheless, Mohamed Elbaradei, the noble-prize winning nuclear watchdog and a possible key leader in the new interim government, completely rejects the arguments of those who exploit fears of the Brotherhood to stifle Egyptian democracy:

ElBaradei himself says he is willing to work with the Muslim Brotherhood, denying that they want to replicate Khomeini’s Iran.

“The Muslim Brotherhood has nothing to do with the Iranian model, has nothing to do with extremism as we have seen it in Afghanistan and other places. The Muslim Brotherhood is a religiously conservative group. They are a minority in Egypt,” he told CNN.

“I have been reaching out to them. We need to include them. They are part of the Egyptian society, as much as the Marxist party here,” he said.

He rejected the idea that Islamic fundamentalists are set to undermine Egypt.

“This is a myth that was sold by the Mubarak regime — that it’s either us, the ruthless dictators, or… the al Qaeda types,” he said.

In reality, Obama is simply putting America’s democratic rhetoric into practice. The Muslim Brotherhood has a right to peacefully participate in Egypt’s new political landscape, even if you strongly disagree with their platform. Let the voters decide. That’s democracy!

However, even if the Brotherhood is the “prototypical Islamic supremacist, pro-Sharia group of the modern age,” rather than a conservative religious group, as Spencer claims, the reality is that the organization is simply too weak to overtake the secular opposition.

Analyst Abulhimal is convinced Egyptians would not let the Muslim Brotherhood seize power — not least because the military would stand in its way.

“Neither the people nor the secular leaders would allow the Muslim Brotherhood to take it, and more importantly the army would never allow the Muslim Brotherhood to take it,” he said. “If the army said, ‘We would support the people in the street and we would have a deal with President Mubarak to have an orderly transition,’ as the Americans said yesterday — this would definitely not include the Muslim Brotherhood.”

A similar sentiment is repeated in Justin Elliot’s excellent interview at Salon with Nathan Brown, a political science professor at George Washington University and director of its Institute for Middle East Studies:

We’ve got a big headache in Egypt. The regime in its current form is toast. Our regional policy has been based on a very close working relationship with the Egyptian government since 1974, so we’ve got fundamental rethinking to do. The Brotherhood is part of that headache. It’s not the biggest part. Is there cause for concern? Yes. Is there cause for fearful reaction? Absolutely not.

So, on both theoretical and practical grounds, Spencer has misrepresented the Islamist Brotherhood boogeyman to quietly push for the dictator’s victory in Egypt. Anshel Pfeffer of Haaretz calls it like it is:

The late Arab-American scholar Edward Said appears to have been right. We’re all suffering from Orientalism, not to say racism, if the sight of an entire people throwing off the yoke of tyranny and courageously demanding free elections fills us with fear rather than uplifting us, just because they’re Arabs…

People are scaring us with talk of an Islamist takeover of our big neighbor. The Muslim Brotherhood will certainly play an important role in any political democratic structure that emerges in Egypt, and that has to be dealt with. But then, we also have religious fundamentalists in the [Israeli] government. That is the price of a parliamentary democracy. And the previous U.S. administration was intimately linked to fundamentalists, but that’s okay too, because evangelical Christians love Israel.

Of course, Spencer’s double standards concerning democracy and the presence of fundamentalists in government abound (Jewish/Christian fundamentalists good, Muslim fundamentalists bad). What about the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel? This is a legitimate concern, but it appears the worst case scenario is avoidable. Pfeffer continues:

Hundred of Egyptians who were asked about that [peace treaty] this week on the streets of Cairo said that they support continued diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt. Even among supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, it was difficult to find someone calling for the Israeli Embassy to get out of the country, though there were a few.

It is clear that democracy is on the march in Egypt and the Arab world, despite armies of fake democrats like Spencer who feed us specious arguments about why unelected dictators who torture are better for America’s security than a free and fair Egypt. Ultimately, whatever happens will determine what the future holds not only for Egypt, but for America and the world.

At this moment America has an important decision. As Dr. Maher Hathout expressed it in the L.A. Times:

The United States today has a clear choice. It can stand with the people or with the dictator.

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new-jersey-county-map

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Anti-Mosque Response in New Jersey

Posted on 02 February 2011 by Emperor

Racist reaction to mosque plan a too-familiar public response

Editorial

Let’s be honest — the fervent opposition to a proposed mosque in Bridgewater is being fueled in significant part by racism.

There’s no point in pretending otherwise. There’s no reason to jump through rhetorical hoops to suggest that it’s really about traffic or quality of life or noise or any of the other complaints that usually accompany new projects.

No, this is about American fears of Muslims and their “strange” religious beliefs and the terrorist acts of a small subsection of Islamic fanatics. One resident said the mosque “represents a coming in and taking over an entire community by the Islamic World.”

Not exactly an enlightened comment, although that only highlights the thoughts of one person. Still, is anyone going to try and argue that such apparent prejudice is an anomaly, a unique bit of ugliness in a community that would otherwise widely embrace a mosque? Where the only project concerns are about logistics and infrastructure?

We’ve seen this kind of resistance before in Central Jersey and we’ll see it again, whenever a proposed new “foreign” house of worship emerges. It even happened in Bridgewater recently when the Sri Venkateswara Hindu temple on Route 202/206 generated resistance in the township and from neighboring Raritan Borough.

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Frank Gaffney Equals Paranoid Fearmongerer

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Frank Gaffney Equals Paranoid Fearmongerer

Posted on 01 February 2011 by Emperor

Frank Gaffney

Gaffney Still Fearmongering About Sharia In U.S.

On Fox News’ Fox & Friends, right-wing pundit and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney baselessly claimed that “Muslim Brotherhood front organizations” are influencing the U.S. government and are pushing “subversive techniques” to impose Sharia law in the U.S. Gaffney has a history of using Fox News to push his conspiracy theories about Sharia law.

Gaffney Baselessly Suggests “Muslim Brotherhood Front Organizations” Are Infiltrating U.S. Govt., Institutions

Gaffney Baselessly Claims “Muslim Brotherhood Front Organizations” Have “Intensive Influence” On U.S. Government’s View Of Muslims. During the January 31 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson discussed the recent protests in Egypt with Frank Gaffney, President of the American Center for Security Policy. After talking about the possible extent of the Muslim Brotherhood’s role in the Egyptian protests, Gaffney went on to further suggest that “councils of the United States government…have been subjected to intensive influence operations by known Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in this country to believe that these guys are somehow nonviolent.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/31/11]

Gaffney Fearmongers Over “Sharia-Compliant Finance” And “Insinuations Of Sharia Into Our Courts.” Gaffney also told Carlson:

GAFFNEY: I think as we say in our book, it’s much more the case that [Muslim Brotherhood front organizations] are pre-violent [rather than nonviolent]. They will use violence when the circumstances are right and in the meantime, they’re using subversive techniques of various kinds, including Sharia-compliant finance and various kinds of insinuations of Sharia into our courts and other ways to try to accomplish their ultimate objective, which is to bring Sharia about worldwide. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/31/11]

Gaffney Refers To Gaza As The “So-Called Palestinian Area.” Responding to one of Carlson’s questions about the extent of the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in the Middle East, Gaffney referred to the Gaza Strip as the “so-called Palestinian area.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/31/11]

Gaffney Has A History Of Incendiary And Islamophobic Attacks

Gaffney: “The Left” And “The Islamists…Are Advancing The Takedown Of America.” On the August 23, 2010, edition of Fox News’ The Glenn Beck Show, Gaffney told host Glenn Beck:

I think there’s a commonality of interests between folks who embrace what we’ve talked about before, as kind of the transnational agenda of the left and the transnational agenda of the Islamists … They are working in concert in a lot of different ways that are advancing the takedown of the America, the mutation, or fundamental transformation of America in ways that will, I’m afraid, make it much more difficult for us to stop either of these agendas at our expense. [Fox News, The Glenn Beck Show8/23/10]

Gaffney: Obama Administration “Has Exhibited A Sympathy…For The Agenda…Of The Muslim Brotherhood.” Also on the August 23, 2010, edition of The Glenn Beck Show, Gaffney told Beck, “I think this administration has exhibited a sympathy, and the president particularly, a sympathy for the agenda of folks who are, in fact, under one front organization or another of the Muslim Brotherhood, seeking to promote Sharia in America.” Gaffney went on to claim, “Virtually any Muslim-American organization in this country, of any prominence, is a Muslim Brotherhood front,” and referenced the Holy Land Foundation case. In fact, the organizations Gaffney is referencing donated to the Holy Land Foundation before it was uncovered that the organization was secretly funneling money to terrorists. [Fox News, The Glenn Beck Show8/23/10Media Matters2/18/107/27/10]

Gaffney Wrote That Signs With “‘Sharia’ Lettered In Dripping, Blood-red Ink” Were “Informed Opposition” To The Park 51 Mosque. On August 26, 2010, Gaffney wrote in an op-ed in theWashington Times that protesters of the Park 51 mosque “had come together … in informed opposition to the impetus behind that mosque: Sharia.” As an example of “informed opposition,” he pointed to “signs [throughout the crowd] with just the word ‘Sharia’ lettered in dripping, blood-red ink.” [Washington Times8/26/10]

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Roger Stockham Arrested With Explosives Outside Major U.S. Mosque

Posted on 31 January 2011 by Emperor

Roger Stockham Arrested With Explosives Outside Major U.S. Mosque

DETROIT — A 63-year-old Southern California man who was traveling with explosives in his vehicle with the intention of blowing up one of the nation’s largest mosques where mourners had gathered for a funeral was arrested in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan authorities said Sunday.

Dearborn police said Roger Stockham was arraigned Wednesday on one count of making a false report or threat of terrorism and one count of possessing explosives with an unlawful intent. Stockham had a large but undisclosed quantity of class-C fireworks including M-80s, which are outlawed in Michigan, Chief Ronald Haddad said.

“I was comfortable with the fact that we had taken him off the street – he isn’t going anywhere,” Haddad told The Associated Press Sunday afternoon. “I think the society he wanted to impact is safe.”

Haddad said Stockham was arrested Monday evening without incident in the parking lot of Islamic Center of America, while a large group was gathered inside. He said police received a 911 call from a resident.

Haddad said authorities believe Stockham was acting alone but still take him “very seriously.” He said Stockham has “a long history of anti-government activities,” though he declined to elaborate.

The chief said he called the mosque leader, Imam Hassan al-Qazwini, early Tuesday to let him know of the arrest, and later met with Qazwini and mosque board members. He said members shared concerns about copycat crimes if the arrest was publicized, and Haddad said he understood.

“We never want to put something out there that gives someone the ‘how-to,’” Haddad said.

Qazwini informed worshippers about the incident during his sermon on Friday. The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Michigan chapter issued a news release Saturday night and the police followed Sunday morning.

Stockham remained jailed Sunday on a $500,000 bond. A preliminary examination is scheduled for Friday.

Police didn’t know whether Stockham had an attorney. A public records search did not turn up a listed number for Stockham, though Haddad said he lives in Imperial Beach, near San Diego.

Dearborn, located about 10 miles west of Detroit, is the capital of the Detroit area’s Arab-American community, which is one of the largest in the U.S.

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Loonwatch Stands with Protests for Freedom in Egypt

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Loonwatch Stands with Protests for Freedom in Egypt

Posted on 28 January 2011 by Garibaldi

Loonwatch, like many around the world has been glued to events in Egypt. Will it go the way of Tunisia, full blown revolution, or will brutal repression quell the revolt as happened in Iran?

Only time will tell. You can follow the live stream of what is happening in Egypt at AlJazeera’s Live Stream.

The governments of the West in general and the US in particular have given luke warm platitudes about their support for peace, rights etc. Hillary Clinton in the beginning stages of the protests this week left a sour taste in the mouths of the protestors when she essentially extended her support for the Mubarak regime,

I urge all people to exercise restraint. I support the fundamental right of expression, but our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people

This is realpolitik speak that translates to “we want the status quo” and the Egyptian people know it and they resent it because it exposes the hypocrisy of the so-called beacon of “democracy and freedom.”

Vice President Joe Biden blurted out some hours ago what perhaps may be the true sentiments/wishes of the US government:

Mubarak is no dictator, he shouldn’t step down…

How out of touch is Biden? Is he blind? Does he think we are children?

Today Hillary Clinton came out with a statement that on its surface seems to contradict Biden’s revelatory position,

“People in the Middle East, like people everywhere, are seeking a chance to contribute and have a role in decisions that will shape their lives…The Egyptian government needs to understand that violence will not make these grievances go away”

While these statements indicate an improvement in rhetoric they fall far short of a condemnation of the violence and repression perpetuated by the Mubarak regime.

The events in Tunisia and Egypt have all but thrown a wrench in the stereoptypes perpetuated by anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racists and Islamophobes.

It proves that regime change need not come at the point of a gun, and that Democracy can be born in the Middle East through organic change from the grass roots as opposed to the Bush Doctrine.

It proves that the stereotype that Arabs and Muslims are incapable of change unless it be either theocratic or despotic is a racist lie. These protests are for better living conditions, jobs and DEMOCRACY!

It also proves that despite attempts at enflaming sectarian division between Muslim and Christian Egyptians by extremists in both the extremist Muslim and anti-Muslim camps they are more united than ever. During protests Egyptian Copts protected their Muslim brethren as they prayed and vice versa!

It exposes quite clearly the hypocrisy and double standards of many in the West who give zero credit to the Arab and Muslim peoples, it also exposes their close link and dealings with decadent despotic regimes. We can’t help but notice the difference between the reaction to protests in Iran and these protests, can it be that denunciations are affected by how friendly or adverse one is to the regime in question?

The Egyptian people have tasted liberation, have tasted the idea that they can take destiny into their own hands and bring about –real change– that can lead to a brighter future, may they succeed in transitioning to Democracy.

Update #1: Tear gas canisters are…drum roll…MADE IN THE USA:

Update #2: From mp11,

“Spencer is having a hard time turning the protests in Tunisia and Egypt into a Jihad.

In his latest offering he tells his stupid readers that when Muslims call for democracy and freedom they are in fact calling for Shariah.

“Calls for democracy effectively amount to calls for Islamic rule.”

Update #3: Some 2,000-3,000 people thronged around a military vehicle near Cairo’s Tahrir square, a Reuters witness said. They climbed on it, shaking hands with the soldiers, and chanted: “The army and the people are united” and “The revolution has come”. (AlJazeera English)

Update #4: Mubarak breaks his silence, attempts to look defiant. Is he adding fuel to the fire?

Update #5: King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia speaks, “No Arab and Muslim human being can bear that some infiltrators, in the name of freedom of expression, have infiltrated into the brotherly people of Egypt, to destabilize its security and stability and they have been exploited to spew out their hatred in destruction, intimidation, burning, looting and inciting a malicious sedition,’” the news agency said.

Some autocratic ally of ours is scared isn’t he?

Update #6: “‘Democracy is something beautiful,’ said Eli Shaked, who was Israel’s ambassador to Cairo from 2003 to 2005, in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE. Nevertheless, it is very much in the interests of Israel, the United States and Europe that Mubarak remains in power.‘”

Update #7: “Which would I rather have, the autocrat or the Islamic radical Democracy,? I don’t know, that’s a question that’ll keep me up at night” –Geraldo Rivera

Rivera should keep looking for Al Capone’s secret safe and not talk about things he has no knowledge of makes him sound really stupid.

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Pamela Geller Watch: Loonwatch is Libelous Smear Machine and Hate Site

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Pamela Geller Watch: Loonwatch is Libelous Smear Machine and Hate Site

Posted on 26 January 2011 by Garibaldi

Loon extraordinaire, Pamela Geller and likewise her bosom buddy Robert Spencer have been staying mum on Loonwatch as much as they can. After initially crying about us being some insidious plot of the famed George Soros (we’re still waiting for our check), or a Liberal-Islamist conspiracy, for the most part Pamela and Spencer have fled from debate or addressing any number of our fact-based refutations and exposes of their bigoted and shallow view of Islam and Muslims.

Occasionally they have been forced, due to LW being cited in the mainstream media or by activists challenging their assertions to spew their vitriolic ad hominem attacks at LW, and it is no different this time.

In a post carrying her usual hyperbolic style titled, “ONSLAUGHT OF ACADEMIC ISLAMIZATION: BROOKLYN COLLEGE HIRES PRO-HOMICIDE BOMBER PROFESSOR” Geller writes:

The onslaught of the islamization of our universities and the indoctrination of our most precious resource, America’s young minds, continues apace.

Everything Geller writes about is some sort of fantastical conspiracy theory, she is like some Alex Jones wannabe on steroids. In fact this is more projection by Geller, as in reality it is her, Spencer and Spencer’s boss David Horowitz who are truly attempting to indoctrinate the minds of America’s youth…(all be it not as successfully as Snookie from Jersey Shore.)

Horowitz for instance is the founder and president of Students for Academic Freedom (SAF), an Orwellian organization that aims to fire professors who he feels are too “liberal” or who don’t provide a Conservative view of things…perhaps like teaching Creationism  in Biology class?

Horowitz also is the founder of the anti-Muslim Islamo-fascism Awareness Week, which if viewed or attended is like a highlight reel of the most ardent anti-Muslim Islamophobes on the scene today.

Geller continues:

I am not talking about the Edward Said chairs, the oppression of Jewish students on campus, the historically inaccurate textbooks and whitewashing of Islam, the millions from the Saudis to Harvard, Georgetown et al, the blacklisting of former Muslims and Islamic scholars from speaking at universities and colleges, etc.

We are far beyond that. I am fielding questions from a student at OSU who is taking a class in “islamophobia.” I kid you not. And the University of Toronto is using the notorious libelous smear machine and hate site, Loonwatch, as a source. A source.

We are witnessing a virtual tsunami of propaganda, oppression of free speech and clampdown on the free exchange of ideas — in other words, we are witnessing the enforcing of Islamic law (sharia).

A little over the top there Pam? She informs us that the University of Toronto is using Loonwatch as a source. They are probably doing this because though we are a satirical site we are a fact based one that analyzes the broad and small of Islamophobia and and anti-Muslim bigotry.  She responds to this with horror and goes on to call us a “notorious libelous smear machine and hate site.” We have to remind Pamela that we are not the ones being sued for libel, that happens to be you at the moment.

Coming from Geller this is like a profound badge of honor because the slander with which she describes us is really a projection. Geller must know that she is a liar who invents things whole clothe and routinely borders on the insane with her (retracted) proclamation of Obama being the love child of Malcolm X or Campbell soup aiding in the secret stealth creeping Jihad take over of the United States.

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Roberta Moore: JDL’s New Pamela Geller

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Roberta Moore: JDL’s New Pamela Geller

Posted on 26 January 2011 by Remora

How long til Roberta is posing with Pamela Geller?

Just when you think that the bizzaro world of Islamophobia could not get any more loopy than the Geller/Spencer alliance there springs yet another vitriolic figure to make the lives of peaceful citizens that tad bit more intolerable.

Roberta Moore, the newly appointed head of the UK branch of the Jewish Defence League (JDL), a committed ally of the English Defence League (EDL).

How two such juxtaposing ideologies managed to align with each other is surprising but not difficult to comprehend. They have a common “enemy”: Islam and Muslims. The coalition aims to single out Muslims in Britain, scrutinize and suffocate their existence, and cause restless violence.

Little is known about Moore, but in an expose and interview with Israeli news giant Haaretz what is prominent are Moore’s hard-line Kahanist and radical Zionist views. She may not project Pam Geller’s ‘zombied-out fascist-loon star’ look, but hey, do not be fooled, the lady is Britain’s answer to Geller.

Roberta Moore is a Brazilian born Jew, who joined the Israeli Army at the Age of 18, and reportedly carved a business career for herself in Israel. She describes herself as a non-practicing Jew, but an ‘unrestrained Kahanist’, (follower of racist JDL founder Rabbi Meir Kahane), and believes in engaging in a racial war with the Muslim world, especially Palestinians, in order to reclaim the Holy land of Israel in the name of ‘Kahanism’.

So, let us analyse the many ramblings of the JDL priestess:

‘We believe that if we call the enemy by his name, we will be able to fight him. We single out organizations that discriminate against Jews and anti-Zionist organizations, and try to explain there is no difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. We send them letters and wait for a response, and then we take action to expose them.”

Moore’s hatred of anything remotely Islamic is linked to her radical and neo-fascist beliefs. Roberta Moore really should not be quick to engage in Muslim bashing, seeming as though she herself has a very disputable agenda and political affiliations.

Let us delve deeper into the violent warmongering world of ‘Kahanism’.

‘Kahanism’ is a far-right, nationalist ideology, viewed by many as a radical, extremist fringe group. It is a fundamentalist theory that encourages acts of terrorism and violence against Muslims and Arabs.

Kahanism was the brain child of ultra-racist Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the USA Jewish Defence League (JDL). JDL is listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States of America, where the group is described by the FBI as a ‘right-wing terrorist group’ plotting terrorist attacks in the US, and is cited as a hate group engaging in ‘anti-Arab terrorism’, by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Kahanist offshoot parties, ‘Kach’ and ‘Kahane Chai’, are also listed as terrorist groups by the USA, Israel, Canada, and the European Union.

The JDL/Kahanist ideology was also responsible for the murder of American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Regional Director, Alex Odeh in 1985, a plot to kill US Congressman Darrell Issa in 2001, and for the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre, where JDL member Baruch Goldstein, gunned and killed 29 Palestinian worshippers, and  left 125 wounded.

This act of murder was met with condemnation and support of Goldstein in the Jewish World.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, described Baruch Goldstein as, a ‘degenerate murderer’, and ‘a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism’.

The JDL maintained that the act of murder by Goldstein was ”a preventative measure against yet another Arab attack on Jews”.

Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba praised the massacre, “Goldstein could not continue to bear all the cases he was seeing as a doctor; he might have gone insane from all he went through” further adding “since Goldstein did what he did in God’s name, he is to be regarded as a Righteous Man” and asserted that Goldstein was “a martyr of God”; “His hands are innocent, and his heart is pure.’

Mike Guzofsky, a Jewish militant and spokesperson for Kahane Chai in New York praised Goldstein,”He wanted to stop the peace process dead. He couldn’t have picked a better day – Purim, when Jews fight back.”

Does this make Moore a terrorist or a terrorist supporter?

“We are not anti-Muslim,” Moore emphasizes. “We are anti-Islam, as everyone should be. Islam is not a religion, but a cult. It has all the features of a cult, like the religions of Jim Jones and David Koresh. It’s exactly the same. But people don’t understand that.”

Moore echoes Wilders here, stating that Islam is not a religion, that it should not be afforded the status of religion. How exactly does “anti-Islam” translate itself into a practical idea? When it comes from the mouths of bigots and not critics it is nothing less than hate speech.

The reality is that Kahanism is in fact a cult which deliberately recruits Jews, brainwashes them to commit violent acts, uses them as tools for political gain, and then praises the murders and massacres of innocents in the name of God, sound familiar?

Moore clearly is subjective and selective in her approach to Islam, only highlighting the extremist interpretation, whilst completely neglecting the moderate and peaceful majority. However, what is most disconcerting is Moore’s hatred and religious stereotyping, which is responsible for the misinformation and moral panic that is spread by her hate group.

Moore goes on to continue her Islamophobic speel:

“In Britain we are critical of the Muslims because they come here and get government support and then have the temerity to hurt the country and its citizens. They say, ‘We will attack you, we will inflict a holocaust on you’ – all that rubbish. Why should I be silent?’

Moore’s constant use of the term ‘they’, to refer to Muslims, only confirms her isolationist mentality of apartheid and colonisation towards Islam.

So what about all the tax paying, law abiding, peaceful Muslim citizens who contribute billions in revenue to the UK? Are they merely a fairy tale or a hologram? Moore’s hatred of Muslims leads her to repeat the well worn charges leveled at immigrants and those despised as the “other” that they are “leeches on the State.”

If Roberta Moore is so concerned about British society and its security, she should care to mention the need to tackle drug gangs, knife gangs and crime, sex trafficking, the UK arms trade, gang warfare, child abuse and paedophile gangs, the broken judicial system, and the list could continue.

According to Roberta Moore, only Muslims are paedophiles and drug addicts, and commit crimes, no one else.

Roberta Moore claims that Muslims want to kill, destroy her, and eradicate Israel by inflicting a Holocaust on the Jews. Must I remind her who was really responsible for the Holocaust, the Nazis, White Supremacists who still scathingly despise the Jews and many of their adherents are in the EDL, the group she has decided to ally with.

“There is no solution. We have to do what we did with the Nazis – fight back! They are harming and insulting us, and we have to become stronger, to fight and that’s all. Then there will be peace. It has to be made clear that anyone who touches Israel will be attacked in return: an eye for an eye. When that happens, we will no longer be in the situation in which we find ourselves today.’

It really irks me when radicals such as Moore compare Islam  and Muslims to Nazism and Nazis. The difference is that Muslims did not create Jewish suffering and murder six million Jews; the Nazis committed the heinous crime and unbelievably she is now in bed with the cretins who are the progeny of the hateful ideology of Hitler.

It makes as much sense as Barney and Friends getting the lead role in Saw 4.

Completely illogical.

That Nazi elements are prevalent in the EDL has been well documented by many news outlets, activists, and commentators.

The EDL leader Tommy Robinson is a former member of the British National Party (BNP) an extreme racist and violent political group in the UK, famous for its anti-Semitic views and Holocaust denial. Robinson also was convicted for the assault of an off-duty police officer, and served a 12 month prison term.

EDL-Stoke

Many of the EDL demonstrations have consisted of its supporters bearing Nazi salutes. Many of the EDL supporter hail from thug gangs and football hooliganism.

I wonder how long this EDL/JDL honeymoon alliance will last? I mean, when Kahanists and Nazis start working together, bad things are bound to happen.

In Early January, Rabbi Nekrich of Brandenburg, Germany, issued a warning to German Jews to stop wearing traditional Jewish clothing and symbols that would clearly identify them as Jews to fascists. This was due to the recent rise in Anti-Semitic attacks against Jews in Germany, and also from the Rabbi’s personal experience in a train, where he was harassed due to his identifiable clothing.

‘Formerly from Russia, Rabbi Nekrich said he had been accosted on a train in Brandenburg by drunks three years ago.

‘I’m not saying that they were neo-Nazis,’ he told a Berlin newspaper. ‘But they had very short hair.

‘I had started to read a prayer book when one of the men approached me, asked if it was written in Hebrew and then threw it on the ground.’ (Daily mail)

This proves that the neo-Nazis are still as dangerous and existential a threat to Jewish existence that they were in 1933, when the Holocaust began and instead of teaming up with them as Roberta Moore has done she should urge Jews and other concerned citizens to fight the threat they pose.

Roberta goes on to claim,

“I had a Muslim boyfriend for four years, but he wasn’t religious. He drank and ate pork like everyone else. I have many Muslim friends from Pakistan and Iraq, and also people with whom I have business connections. I get along with them very well because they do not try to impose anything. The problem is that they are being brainwashed and believe they are superior to everyone else. They have the right to think that, but don’t try to force your opinions on me and tell me the clothes I wear or the music I listen to are bad. Or that my beliefs are inferior and I must not do this or that. Why do we women have to cover anything?”

Roberta Moore is offering this revelation as a means of detracting from her racist ideologies. Her claims are a mass of contradictions.

She further claims that she has many friends from Muslim backgrounds, yet in her quotes she happily labels and stereotypes, referring to Muslims as ‘they’, criminals, Palestinians as her enemy, accusing all Muslims of being welfare scroungers, brainwashed, accusing all Muslims of wanting to kill her and spark a genocide, and some other really schizophrenic ramblings.

Why would any Muslim want to be her friend, when Roberta Moore views them as the scum on her shoe? It really defies basic human understanding.

In conclusion, Roberta Moore, an incredibly puzzled woman is a terrorist endorsing, media obsessed, attention seeking anti-Muslim Islamophobic sell-out, who is marred with fascist and xenophobic qualities, and has aligned with dangerous fringe extremist groups to further a warped agenda — a description that mirrors to a tee her American doppelgänger Pam Geller.

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Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali: “Change the Constitution to Eliminate Muslim Rights”

Posted on 25 January 2011 by Emperor

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s quite radical anti-Muslim statements are not only coming to light but people are realizing that she is really a neo-Con…finally! She supports the curtailing of our civil liberties and imperial adventures to “civilize” the Mooslims.

While Josh writes an excellent piece, he nonetheless shows that he was overcome by the same beliefs of Ayaan’s “oppression and victimization” before his post that many others have been duped into believing. Ayaan’s story has in large part been proved to be false. She never witnessed war in Somalia, she was never forced into a marriage with her cousin, nor was she threatened by her relatives with an honor killing.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali should not testify before Rep. Peter King

by Josh Rosenau

I started writing this post hoping to craft an argument that Ayaan Hirsi Ali – a Somali-born atheist (formerly Muslim), a former member of the Dutch Parliament, a screenwriter threatened with assassination for helpng Theo van Gogh (who was assassinated) criticize Islam’s treatment of women, a feminist critic of Islam who has won acclaim across the political spectrum in the US and Europe – ought to avoid testifying in forthcoming hearings on Islamic terrorism out of enlightened self-interest. The hearings have never been about anything but attacking Muslims in America, continuing the crusade against the Murfreesboro mosque and the lower Manhattan Muslim community center (not at Ground Zero, not a mosque), and committee chairman King is a widely-reviled bigot.

I wanted to observe that the noted feminist would be speaking at the behest of an opponent of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. I wanted to argue that committee chairman Rep Peter King (R-NY) was a torture advocate, self-described as “most fervent fan” of the civil liberties-choking Patriot Act, and was so friendly to the IRA before they foreswore violence that he proudly called himself “the Ollie North of Ireland.” He told Politico in 2007: “We have – unfortunately – too many mosques in this country,” and surely she wouldn’t want to be associated with his regressive, repressive, illiberal agenda!

I wanted to say that no one who had survived the horrors of Somalia, who had been through enormous difficulties in escaping an arranged marriage and immigrating to a western democracy could want to support the reactionary, repressive, anti-immigrant buffoon who would be inviting her to testify. However nuanced and thoughtful her opposition to Islam, I wanted to argue, Hirsi Ali’s words would be twisted by the committee and by press coverage and used to justify scapegoating moderate American Muslims, including those who havehelped foil terrorist plots (which King denies ever happens). I wanted to push back againstThink Progress’s description of her as a reactionary on par with King.

I wanted to echo Christopher Hitchens’ summary of her views, and to say that Rep. King would not be interested in promoting this message:

Hirsi Ali calls for a pluralist democracy where all opinion is protected but where the law does not—in the name of some pseudo-tolerance—permit genital mutilation, “honor” killing, and forced marriage.

I wanted to say that King’s agenda is a monomaniacal crusade against Muslims, ignoring terrorist attacks like the bomb detected before detonation at Spokane’s Martin Luther King Day parade, the Glen Beck-inspired kooks who have launched multiple murderous attacks,anti-abortion terrorism, the attack on Rep. Giffords, Oklahoma City, the “Minutemen” vigilantes, and other decidedly non-Muslim terrorists. I wanted to say that Hirsi Ali would not possibly support such a distraction from real terrorist threats, and I wanted to note that someone who has lived in the US for longer, and has more experience with violent extremists here, would be a more effective messenger in that effort to broaden the hearing’s scope. I wanted to respect her as much as many of my favorite bloggers seem to do.

Alas, I made the mistake of researching Hirsi Ali before posting, and my lines about her nuanced and sophisticated take on the situation, my attempts to see the best in her view, were consistently foiled by her actual words. I simply cannot say that Hirsi Ali’s views would be twisted to match King’s, because I think they are already aligned.

Here, for instance, is an interview with libertarian magazine Reason‘s Rogier van Bakel:

Reason: Should we acknowledge that organized religion has sometimes sparked precisely the kinds of emancipation movements that could lift Islam into modern times? Slavery in the United States ended in part because of opposition by prominent church members and the communities they galvanized. The Polish Catholic Church helped defeat the Jaruzelski puppet regime. Do you think Islam could bring about similar social and political changes? Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims. Reason: Don’t you mean defeating radical Islam? Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace. Reason: We have to crush the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, “defeat Islam”? Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they’re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, “This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.” There comes a moment when you crush your enemy. Reason: Militarily? Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don’t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.

(All emphasis original.)

I don’t claim to fully understand the path she’s describing, in which Islam is defeated – all of it (but not really the peaceful moderate part that apparently doesn’t exist) – then some part that wasn’t entirely defeated comes back to reform Islam’s legacy. It’s weird and self-contradictory, but let’s ascribe this to the difficulty of laying out complex ideas on the fly. Regardless of details, though, her message is clear: Islam must be defeated, crushed, with muscle, with the military, as an idea, and in the minds and bodies of 1.5 billion Muslims.

We’ve talked a bit about violent rhetoric lately, and I have a hard time seeing how the already threatened Muslim populations in the US are going to be safer when – in a House committee with CSPAN cameras and other media crowded around – a woman who looks like part of their community says that Islam is America’s enemy, that it must be “crushed,” that “you” (America? Americans?) must “flex your muscles” and “you” say “this is a warning” to Islam and to all Muslims. I think a lot of American Muslims already see their neighbors flexing muscles at them and giving these sorts of ill-defined threats. I can only see harm to my friends and neighbors coming from such rhetoric, and I’m sure it’s exactly what Peter King will want to hear.

I think he’ll also want to hear her reactionary views on civil liberties:

Hirsi Ali: The Egyptian dictatorship would not allow many radical imams to preach in Cairo, but they’re free to preach in giant mosques in London. Why do we allow it?Reason: You’re in favor of civil liberties, but applied selectively?

Hirsi Ali: No. Asking whether radical preachers ought to be allowed to operate is not hostile to the idea of civil liberties; it’s an attempt to save civil liberties. A nation like this one is based on civil liberties, and we shouldn’t allow any serious threat to them. So Muslim schools in the West, some of which are institutions of fascism that teach innocent kids that Jews are pigs and monkeys—I would say in order to preserve civil liberties, don’t allow such schools.

Reason: In Holland, you wanted to introduce a special permit system for Islamic schools, correct?

Hirsi Ali: I wanted to get rid of them. …

Reason: Well, your proposal went against Article 23 of the Dutch Constitution, which guarantees that religious movements may teach children in religious schools and says the government must pay for this if minimum standards are met. So it couldn’t be done. Would you in fact advocate that again?

Hirsi Ali: Oh, yeah.

Reason: Here in the United States, you’d advocate the abolition of—

Hirsi Ali: All Muslim schools. Close them down. Yeah, that sounds absolutist. I think 10 years ago things were different, but now the jihadi genie is out of the bottle. I’ve been saying this in Australia and in the U.K. and so on, and I get exactly the same arguments: The Constitution doesn’t allow it. But we need to ask where these constitutions came from to start with—what’s the history of Article 23 in the Netherlands, for instance? There were no Muslim schools when the constitution was written. There were no jihadists. They had no idea.

Reason: Do you believe that the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights—documents from more than 200 ago – ought to change?

Hirsi Ali: They’re not infallible. These Western constitutions are products of the Enlightenment. They’re products of reason, and reason dictates that you can only progress when you can analyze the circumstances and act accordingly. So now that we live under different conditions, the threat is different. Constitutions can be adapted, and they are, sometimes. The American Constitution has been amended a number of times. With the Dutch Constitution, I think the latest adaptation was in 1989. Constitutions are not like the Koran—nonnegotiable, never-changing.

Every reactionary movement and every anti-democratic demagogue through history has made claims like “we have to destroy the Constitution to save it” or “we must restrict civil liberties to preserve them.” And yeah, that includes Rep. King, as it includes his hero“Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy. I cannot take seriously anyone who would argue with a straight face: “Asking whether radical preachers ought to be allowed to operate is not hostile to the idea of civil liberties.” It’s the very archetypical attack on civil liberties!

Like Hitchens, I wanted to believe Hirsi Ali just wants “a pluralist democracy where all opinion is protected,” but she doesn’t. She wants a pluralistic democracy where opinions like her own are protected, and that’s a problem, because then it stops being a democracy, and it isn’t pluralistic. Her right to get up and speak in Washington can only exist when a radical imam can speak freely down the street. I wanted to believe her claim that she is not against Muslim people, but against Islam – especially against Islam as a political movement. I don’t believe that any more. Maybe she and King deserve each other.

Similarly, I wanted to believe that Hirsi Ali would not wish to lend her support to Peter King’s anti-immigrant agenda, since she herself has seen how hard it is to get refuge in the West from repressive regimes, and she shows how much an immigrant can achieve under such circumstances. And yet I find that she worked with a reactionary, anti-Muslim Dutch politician to restrict immigration from the Muslim world, and continues to advocate for restrictions on immigration.

I wanted to see the good in her that so many liberal secularists do, but I can’t.

I think she and Rep. Peter King deserve each other.

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Woman Killed Dog for Chewing Bible; What if They Were Muslim?

Posted on 25 January 2011 by Emperor

Miriam Smith Killed Dog For Chewing On Bible: Nephew’s Pit Bull Hanged From Tree, Burned To Death

(Huffington Post)

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Authorities have charged a South Carolina woman with felony animal cruelty, saying she hanged her nephew’s pit bull from a tree with an electrical cord and burned its body because the dog chewed on her Bible.

Animal control officers said Monday that 65-year-old Miriam Smith told them she killed a female dog named Diamond because it was a “devil dog” and she worried it could harm neighborhood children. Authorities said bond wasn’t immediately set for Smith, who remains jailed in Spartanburg County after her weekend arrest.

Officials said she didn’t have an attorney yet.

She faces 180 days to five years in prison if convicted.

Authorities say the remains of the dog were found under a pile of grass with part of an electrical cord around its neck.

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Allen West Says Keith Ellison is the “antithesis of American values”

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Allen West Says Keith Ellison is the “antithesis of American values”

Posted on 24 January 2011 by Mooneye

Allen West is on a crusade, no doubt about it. The video for his interview with Shalom TV is insane, it seems as though he puts Israel first even ahead of America.

Allen West: Keith Ellison ‘The Antithesis Of Principles’ Upon Which Country Was Founded (VIDEO)

(Huffington Post)

Freshman Tea Party-backed Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) recently got personal in an attack on one of the House’s two Muslim representatives, declaring that Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) represents “the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established.”

During an interview with “The Shalom Show,” West also said that he plans to “defeat” Ellison, an outspoken Democrat who “supports Islam,” according to host Richard Peritz, “intellectually in debate and discourse.”

As ThinkProgress notes, West has repeatedly sought to connect Islamic religious beliefs to supposedly anti-American views.

At a town hall meeting during his campaign, West claimed that people who display the popular “Coexist” bumper stickers, which use various religious symbols as font, are those who would “give away our country” and “our rights and freedoms and liberties because they are afraid to stand up and confront that which is the antithesis, anathema of who we are.”

If the connection between the bumper sticker and Islam wasn’t made clear by that statement, West went on to drive home his claim that Islam is a “very vile and very vicious enemy that we have allowed to come in this country because we ride around with bumper stickers that say ‘coexist.’”

For more on West’s controversial views of Islam, check out ThinkProgress’s report here.

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Crazy Frank Gaffney in Ultra Fear-mongering Mode

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Crazy Frank Gaffney in Ultra Fear-mongering Mode

Posted on 24 January 2011 by Emperor

Frank Gaffney

Even loyal Bush aides are not free from the Islamophobic machine. Suhail Khan debates Frank Gaffney on Anderson Cooper’s 360 and makes Gaffney look like a wacko.

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NYPD’s Muslim Horror Flick Sparks Outcry

Posted on 24 January 2011 by Emperor

Did Spencer sneak into the room or something?

NYPD’s Muslim Horror Flick Sparks Outcry

A major city Islamic organization is putting a few tough questions to the NYPD about how a loony Muslim-bashing movie came to be shown to city cops, as reported in this week’s Voice.

“Our nation’s battle against terrorism is only made more difficult whenever security officers are taught to view all Muslims, and the faith of Islam itself, with suspicion,” saidCouncil on American-Islamic Relations-New York Board President Zead Ramadan. “We call on Commissioner Kelly to order an internal probe of how this propaganda film came to be used and to put policies in place to ensure that NYPD training is not biased by agenda-driven materials — or trainers — targeting any religious or minority community.”

Ramadan said he has asked for a meeting with NYPD officials to find out how cops came to view “The Third Jihad” — a blood-splattered 72-minute feature suggesting that even moderate Muslims are engaged in a conspiracy to put America under radical Islamic rule. The Voice asked police officials the same question after a cop complained that he and others undergoing anti-terror training were made to sit through the film this month at a police training facility in Coney Island.

Deputy police commissioner Paul Browne initially said the film had never been shown to cops, but later confirmed that the movie was shown at least twice. The screenings were a mistake, Browne said.

Makers of the movie, a secretive right-wing nonprofit group called the Clarion Fund, are still ducking their own questions about how they got so lucky to get their flick screened by impressionable young law enforcement officers.

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TPM: Just Before Hearings, King Will Appear On Anti-Muslim Group’s TV Show

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TPM: Just Before Hearings, King Will Appear On Anti-Muslim Group’s TV Show

Posted on 21 January 2011 by Emperor

So these hearings aren’t an anti-Islamic witch hunt? Funny way to show that King.

Just Before Hearings, King Will Appear On Anti-Muslim Group’s TV Show

(TPMuckracker)

Just before he holds hearings on the “radicalization” of Muslims in America, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) will appear on the new TV show for a group that believes Muslims are the enemies of America.

In early February, King, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, will appear on the debut episode of a TV show produced by the group Act! For America. The group’s founder, Brigitte Gabriel, believes that Muslims can’t be trusted to serve in the U.S. armed forces; that “tens of thousands of Islamic militants now reside in America … attending our colleges and universities, even infiltrating our government;” and that Americans must unite to “defeat radical Islam.”

Who counts as a radical Muslim to Gabriel?

“Every practicing Muslim is a radical Muslim,” she says.

King will be the first guest on Gabriel’s new cable show, according to a press release. Gabriel will be the host.

“We are especially grateful to Rep. King for appearing on our debut episode to discuss the kinds of issues Congress and America need to face if we are going to defeat the threat of radical Islam,” Gabriel said in the release. “I commend Rep. King for his decision to convene hearings on the issue of Muslim radicalization and the rising threat of homegrown terrorism.”

King’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

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Gohmert

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Louie Gohmert: I’m Going to be Pushing for Hearings on “Creeping Sharia’”

Posted on 20 January 2011 by Emperor

Does it get anymore hick then Gomert?

Rep. Louie Gohmert: ‘I’m Going To Be Pushing…To Have Some Hearings’ On The Creeping Threat Of Sharia Law

When pollsters ask Americans what the most important issues facing the country are, “creeping Sharia law” barely competes with the margin of error (and only does so by generously grouping it with “other”). But this hasn’t prevented Republicans from tripping over themselves to make combating Sharia law a central focus of their legislative agenda.

In November, Oklahoma became the first state to ban the cipher threat of Sharia law. (Native American law may have been inadvertently affected as well.) Next month, Republicans will again target Muslims when Rep. Peter King (R-NY), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, holds hearings on the threat posed by radical Islam. King, who has said that Muslims aren’t “American” when it comes to war, is already compiling a radical rightwitness list for the hearings, including Dutch critic Islam Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who believes that “Islam is a cult,” that “there is no moderate Islam,” and that “we are at war with Islam.”

This week, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) joined the growing chorus of Republicans clamoring for hearings to look into the threat of “creeping Sharia law.” Appearing on Frank Gaffney’s radio show (Gaffney is of course the chief architect of the “creeping Sharia” threat), Gohmert told the host he hoped they would “have some hearings” and that he would “be pushing for them”:

GOHMERT: The biggest shock out of all of this is that the women’s liberation groups have not just gone berserk over this creep into our society that diminishes women as it does.

GAFFNEY: This creep of Sharia law you’re talking about, Congressman Louie Gohmert. You’re absolutely right, they’re nowhere to be seen as this is such an affront to everything that they supposedly hold dear. It’s really extraordinary and it’s why we’re so delighted that you are in place in the United States Congress and that you will be holding forth I know as the Judiciary Committee begins its deliberations this session to look at the creep of Sharia law.

GOHMERT: I’m hoping we’re going to have some hearings because I’m going to be pushing for them. To discuss this issue because it does diminish the Constitution when you bring any law in that doesn’t allow women to be full equal citizens of the United States.

Listen here:

This is not idle banter. As chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, Gohmert has the power to hold such hearings. Rep. Allen West (R-FL), who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, has also said that the 112th Congress should prioritize the threat of “infiltration of the Sharia practice” in the United States. Between King, Gohmert, and West, three separate House committees could decide to spend valuable congressional time combating a phantom threat. Unfortunately, this Muslim scapegoating will do nothing to make America a more free, secure, or just society.

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David Horowitz’s Blog Spouting Propaganda as Usual

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David Horowitz’s Blog Spouting Propaganda as Usual

Posted on 19 January 2011 by Greeneye

David Horowitz

David Horowitz’s NewRealBlog is (like FrontPageMag) a lightning rod for people who want to justify their preconceived prejudices about Islam and Muslims. Today, we find an article by Paul Cooper, a pastor, which allegedly purports to expose the reality of women under Sharia law. Of course, we’ve come to expect the usual dose of anti-Muslim bias from David Horowitz’s cash for hate scheme which regularly dehumanizes Palestinians and inspires right-wing terrorists.

Mr. Cooper exposes the “left-leaning” (what most call mainstream moderate) journalists who refuse to describe Sharia law in terms of pure evil:

Every week new articles come out from left-leaning journalists about how great Sharia law is and how we have nothing to fear. Yet we at NewsReal have written on many sad cases of how children are treated under Sharia all over the world. You don’t hear the whole story of the dangers of Islamic law unless you see how it affects women. This past week in Pakistan, for example, two women were falsely accused of blasphemy and almost beaten to death.

Cooper follows classic far right-wing tactics by using Islam as a political wedge issue; that is, to divide Americans according to their position on Islam. I’ve written before about right-wing activists using Islam as a stick to bash the Left. One wonders if his primary target is his political enemies (Democrats), not necessarily Muslims themselves.

Historically, Muslims had done away with harsh blasphemy laws in 1839 during the Reformation of the Ottoman Empire, specifically by a decree known as the Noble Edict of the Rose Chamber. For Mr. Cooper, though, a small troublesome detail like that need not prevent him from claiming that such severe laws are essential Islamic traditions practiced all over the Muslim world.

Admittedly, there are problems with Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law. But Muslims have been voicing their criticism of the Pakistani government’s heavy hand for quite some time. Yursil Kidwai, in an excellent piece for the Huffington Post, describes how so-called Sharia laws are actually tactics used by corrupt governments to distract people from their endemic corruption:

It seems more than coincidental that these ‘Sharia’ incidents occur in states that are run by atheistic/communist dictators (i.e. Saddam Hussein) or ridiculously corrupt ‘Islamo-democratic’ governments.

In Pakistan’s case, the International Crisis Group provided a report last year stating:

“Decades of mismanagement, political manipulation and corruption have rendered Pakistan’s civil service incapable of providing effective governance and basic public services. In public perceptions, the country’s 2.4 million civil servants are widely seen as unresponsive and corrupt, and bureaucratic procedures cumbersome and exploitative. Bureaucratic dysfunction and low capacity undermine governance, providing opportunities to the military to subvert the democratic transition and to extremists to destabilize the state.”

Ridiculous distractions such as modern ‘Islamic’ states opinions on blasphemy, adultery, and theft allow Islamophobes to target their favorite religion, while allowing corruption and real problems to go under the radar. These laws today serve a purpose that they never had in what was the most authentic Islamic state (now only a memory): a means to prove a government’s religiosity in a midst of lies, deceit, money and total corruption which make up most of its actual administration.

Yursil is correct that the misguided policies of unelected dictators to enforce only the most harsh Sharia laws are nothing more than superficial attempts to legitimate illegitimate governments. Islamophobes like to focus on these irregular examples as a typical day of Sharia law. However, this belies the sophisticated Ottoman legal system which, using Sharia’s own internal mechanisms (such as ijtihad and istihsan), had done away with severe punishments like stoning and blasphemy. Yursil continues:

Islamic laws which reward charity, promote honesty, promote tolerance have been forgotten in these states, while a handful of ‘Shariah’ punishments were mixed in with brand-new torturous and oppressive policies and procedures.

Interestingly enough, these selected ‘Sharia’ punishments were frowned upon under the centuries of Ottoman rule and by its end had become completely unpracticed. In Ottoman lands where Sharia was the be-all, end-all official state law, these laws were unenforced as a matter of practice. This was not through denouncing or revising Islamic Law, but by putting into practice the complete and holistic set of checks and balances built into Islamic Sharia.

Of course, most Muslim law makers are following precedents similar to the Ottoman reforms. Yet, all this history and context is simply too much information to consider before David Horowitz and company declare Sharia law a threat to all women. After recounting in detail a single anecdote from Pakistan, Cooper concludes that such events are representative of the entire Muslim world (over 1 billion people):

Sadly such stories are common in many Islamic regions. Yet news agency [sic], women’s groups, and human rights organizations continue to turn a deaf ear. Despite their indifference, some of us are listening and committed to getting the word out on the true dangers of Sharia law.

We are left to believe that women everywhere in the Muslim world, without exception, are suffering every day under Sharia law. I am curious to see how Mr. Cooper explains the fact that Pakistan, allegedly under misogynist Sharia law, has twice elected a woman Prime Minister. But what do you expect from someone who links his article to Nonie Darwish, among others, as his “resource” for Sharia?

Mr. Cooper, perhaps those “news agencies, women’s groups, and human rights organizations continue to turn a deaf ear” because they don’t pay attention to exaggerated politically self-serving claims about women and Sharia law from non-experts like yourself.

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Did Muslims Fight in the Continental Army?

Posted on 18 January 2011 by Mooneye

Contrary to what many allege in the Islamophobe sphere, Muslims have been a part of America since the very beginning.

Muslims played role in nation’s history

Thomas Bonner (Herald Online)

Did Muslims fight on the Continental side in the Revolution? I do not know; however, it is possible. One veteran of the battles of Concord and Bunker Hill was a freed slave named Peter Salem, who is alleged by some historians to have been Muslim, based on his last name, which is similar to the Arabic name Saleem. Other Continental soldiers with Islamic names include Salem Poor, Yusuf Ben Ali, Bampett Muhamed, Francis Saba and Joseph Saba. In 1777, Morocco was the first nation to recognize our fledging country following the Declaration of Independence. In recognition of Morocco’s friendship, in 1790, South Carolina’s Legislature granted special legal protections to a group of Moroccans stranded in our state.

Did Muslims fight in the Civil War in order to end slavery? At least one is known to have done so. Muhammad Ali ibn Said (also known as Nicholas Said), formerly enslaved in the Middle East, immigrated to the U.S. in 1860 and enlisted in the famed all-African-American 55th Massachusetts Regiment in 1863, where he rose to the rank of sergeant before war’s end.

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Sweet Home Alabama: Governor, Only Christians Are My Brothers And Sisters

Posted on 18 January 2011 by Emperor

Gov. Bentley says only Christians can be his brothers and sisters.

New Alabama Governor: Only Christians Are My Brothers And Sisters

(TPM)

Speaking on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the very church where Dr. King once pastored, new Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley gave a speech in which he said that those who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior are not his “brothers.”

Bentley spoke at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church in Montgomery just minutes after taking the oath of office on Monday. The new governor, who has been a deacon at First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, first said that though he ran as a Republican, once he took office he “became the governor of all the people.”

“I am color blind,” Bentley said, according toThe Birmingham News.

But Bentley then said that only those who are Christians and “saved” like he is are his brothers and sisters.

“There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit,” Bentley said. ”But if you have been adopted in God’s family like I have, and like you have if you’re a Christian and if you’re saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister.”

Bentley stopped just short of calling for non-Christians to accept Jesus Christ.

”Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters,” he said. “So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.”

Asked by The Birmingham News afterwords if his words where meant to insult other faiths, Bentley said, ”We’re not trying to insult anybody.”

”He is the governor of all the people, Christians, non-Christians alike,” Rebekah Caldwell Mason, Bentley’s communications director, told the News.

[TPM SLIDESHOW: America Celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr. Day]

Dr. King was pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church from 1954 to 1960. Early Civil Rights activity, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, was directed by King from his office in the church. The church was designated a national historic landmark in 1974, and, in 1978, its name was changed to Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church.

TPM’s initial attempt to contact Bentley was unsuccessful.

(h/t Ben Smith)

In “Birmingham they love the Governor?”:

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Randy_McDaniels

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State turns ACT! Jacksonville president’s debt to collections agency

Posted on 18 January 2011 by Emperor

Randy_McDaniels

Looks like ACT has to get its act together.

State turns ACT! Jacksonville president’s debt to collections agency

Florida is facing a $3.6 billion budget deficit, but, despite his sizeable debt to the state, bookkeepers should not expect Randy McDaniels to help fill that gap anytime soon.

The head of ACT! Jacksonville, a local chapter of a national anti-Islamist group, was fined $624,000, including collections fees, by the state between 2006 and 2008, related to his time as a contractor. Documents indicate he accepted $170,316 in partial, up-front payments for jobs he never started or didn’t finish to satisfaction. The state fined McDaniels, whose license was revoked, for 10 of those incidents, records show. His largest individual fine is $123,129.

McDaniels has yet to make any payments, and last week the matter was turned over to a third-party collections agency.

ACT! Jacksonville took a very public stance last year against University of North Florida professorParvez Ahmed’s nomination to the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission. The group’s efforts brought attention to what is usually a routine process, and helped persuade six City Council members to oppose Ahmed’s nomination to the volunteer commission.

In an e-mail to the Times-Union, McDaniels said his business went belly-up due to a bad economy, and he criticized the newspaper’s coverage of his group.

“I and thousands of other businesses in Florida failed … during the recent economic downturn,” he wrote. “Each story you run and attack you make while favoring Parvez Ahmed swells our membership and support in the city, thank you.”

The newspaper first reported McDaniels’ troubled past as a contractor in December, when a state official characterized the harm done to McDaniels’ customers as “quite significant.”

ACT! opposed Ahmed’s nomination because it says that the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the organization Ahmed chaired for three years, is a propaganda arm for Hamas, which the federal government has designated a terrorist organization. CAIR has denied those claims.

McDaniels, who characterized the Times-Union’s stories as a “witch hunt,” said the work was not fulfilled because his company folded after contracts were signed.

“It is regretful that some of our clients were hurt,” he wrote. “Regarding the fines, had I been more concerned with my personal position and that of the company and taken time and precious monies to hire an attorney and leave working projects, our violations and fines may have been lower.”

He gave no indication that he planned on paying the fines, and the state probably will not be able to force payment.

“There is a certain percentage of debtors who have no assets, and nothing to be gotten. At that point it’s a loss,” said Fran Landau, who has been a collections attorney for 31 years, and owns Accelerated Receivables Management. She was speaking in generalities, not specifically about McDaniels’ case.

She said a lot of letters will be sent, phone calls will be made, and, if payment is not made, it will hurt McDaniels’ credit rating.

“For some, credit rating matters, for others it really does not mean a whole lot,” Landau said.

Sandi Copes, a spokeswoman for the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, said if the state does not see the money it will have to write off the debt.

“This would be taken into consideration,” she said, “if Mr. McDaniels ever applied to reinstate his license.”

matt.dixon@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4174

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Fisher Price: Islam is the Light Baby Doll?

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Fisher Price: Islam is the Light Baby Doll?

Posted on 17 January 2011 by Mooneye

A blast from the past. Around Christmas time 2008 a doll was being sold by Fisher Price that cooed and gaga’d but through the power of suggestion some started to believe that the doll was saying, “Islam is the light,” but if you listen closely you could make it out to say anything:

Spencer and other Islamophobes jumped on this at the time and put it forward as another instance of the insidious creeping Jihad. One of Texas’s finest, Pastor David Grice extrapolated that the doll was a sign of “us” being “under attack religiously,” strangely he also saw a foreign Chinese conspiracy involved as well:

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Joe Kaufman O-Meter #4: Paying Homeless Folk to Attend his “Protests”

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Joe Kaufman O-Meter #4: Paying Homeless Folk to Attend his “Protests”

Posted on 16 January 2011 by Emperor

Joe Kaufman

What did we expect from Joe “nuke the Mooslims” Kaufman? For years now the gum-shoe “investigative journalist” has been gathering his handful of protesters to demonstrate at the conferences, gatherings, festivals and events of American Muslim organizations or leaders.

By now most in the American Muslim community and otherwise view Kaufman and his handful of protesters as curious sideshow distractions, oddities, mere nuisances and objects of fitful laughter, kinda like the Westboro Baptist Church people or Pastor Terry Jones.

Kaufman’s crew recently had one such protest on Jan, 08, 2011 at an ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) event in his home state of Florida:

Here’s a sampling of some of the…”Interesting”…messages:

"What's Next, Fort Hood?" and "Don't Tread on Me" flag

Granma’s scared of Mooslims:

"No Islam" and "Obama evil Mooslim"

If they weren’t holding signs claiming that “Obama (the “b” is replaced to read Osama) chooses Muslim needs to show victory over Americans…” and other general wacky anti-Muslim conspiracy theories you’d think a group of senior citizens had gathered on the corner waiting to be picked up to go to their weekly bingo game.

This in it self would be comedic gold, but it doesn’t stop there, a source who wishes to stay anonymous informed us that Kaufman and his buddies are asking homeless people to join their protests in return for pizza and spare change.

"Red" is on the bike

After Kaufman’s most recent protest ended our source noticed that they left one of their fellow protesters behind, a local homeless man who goes by the name “Red.”

Red we are told is a very nice man, he told our source that he was “paid in pizza to help in the protest” and he was also given some “spare change.” He didn’t know what the protest was about, but he was hungry and wanted to eat. So he helped!

The source also mentioned homeless people in photos of previous protests that Joe Kaufman and Americans Against Hate held, such as the one at the Islamic Center In Pompano Beach. He was told by Muslim neighbors of the Center that the people at Joe Kaufman’s protest are local homeless people.

For Kaufman this may be a new low, trying to up his pathetically low numbered “protests” by paying homeless folk. I can’t say I am surprised at Kaufman’s sleazy antics, just astonished that there are even a handful wasting their retirement. I guess the moral of the story is if you’re ever hungry and near a Kaufman protest you can assure yourself some Dominoes pizza…but unlike the homeless individual who was truly hungry you might be selling your soul, and we all know how hard it is get your soul back once you sell it for yummy food:

Who is he?:

Joe Kaufman, has been on the Anti-Muslim scene for quite a while now and is dubbed by the far Right-Wing FrontPageMag as, you guessed it…another one of their ”Investigative Journalists.”  That he has been influenced by Meir Kahane and the Kahanist ideology is well documented, as is his love and angst for Kahane.

In the past he has been accused of contributing to the terrorist organization founded by Kahane known as JDL (Jewish Defense League) while others accuse Kaufman of at the very least holding views that parallel JDL positions.

Kaufman’s unsavory associations and views are quite real and they are only dangerous to America if you’re stupid enough to swallow his conspiracy theories but other than that he is simply a half-baked paranoid conspiracy theorist, some what along the lines of the “9/11 Truthers.”

In every nook and cranny there is a “Mooslim”…hiding and ready to get ya…so beware and be afraid. Be veryyyy afraid goes his story.

In this special LoonWatch series we will detail the exploits and punchlines that Krazy Kaufman throws out there and attempts to pass on as serious journalism, commentary and investigation.

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Missouri: Vandalism at Islamic Center costly to clear

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Missouri: Vandalism at Islamic Center costly to clear

Posted on 14 January 2011 by Mooneye

A strange sort of hate crime in Missouri. Spencer is probably scratching his head, “Islamophobia, what Islamophobia?”

Vandalism at Islamic Center costly to clear

(News-Leader)

A spokesman for the Islamic Center of Springfield says removing the graffiti left on the group’s building late Friday or early Saturday could cost $1,000 to have sandblasted off.

Joseph Pollpeter said the graffiti was discovered on three outside walls when members showed up for the 6 a.m. prayer Saturday morning. Those who attended prayer Friday night did not see any.

Pollpeter said he contacted the Springfield police, as well as the FBI. He believes the messages constitute a hate crime.

He described graffiti left on the building at 2151 East Division St. as including: a phallic symbol near the door where women enter; phrases saying “gay insurrection,” “gay is ok” and a reference to Allah being gay; profane four-letter words; and the words “You bash us in Pakistan we bash you here;” a pentangle; and a Star of David.

“I don’t know if the people happened to be gay or bisexual or not, or if they were just using terms to be insulting,” said Pollpeter. “There is no one we have our fingers pointed at. We are on good terms with all our neighbors.”

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LA_Police

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Gangster’s bullet hit Deputy Mohamed Ahmed

Posted on 14 January 2011 by Emperor

I guess Muslims are actually putting their lives on the line to make America safer.

Gangster’s bullet hit a rising star deputy

Mohamed Ahmed was new to the streets. Nestor Torres was a far more familiar, some say infamous, presence when their lives collided at a dark East Los Angeles intersection.

Ahmed was a deputy in training, just a few weeks on the beat, learning the ropes in a rough stretch of the Eastside with a veteran deputy. A Somali immigrant, the 27-year-old Ahmed was seen as a promising young deputy in the department, and supported his six younger siblings and his mother with his salary.

Torres was well-known to deputies as a Lott Stoners gang shot-caller. He’d been arrested more than 20 times, prosecutors said, and in 2004 was convicted for his role in the shooting of two gang rivals in a liquor store after they complimented one of his many tattoos.

What began Tuesday night as a routine check on Floral Drive devolved into a shootout that left Torres dead and Ahmed in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the face.

“You have two very different extremes,” Sheriff Lee Baca said Wednesday, reflecting on the random encounter.

Baca said he saw Ahmed as a future leader in the Sheriff’s Department, noting that his Muslim background could help build bridges. He said Ahmed believed in the “American dream” and preached religious tolerance, volunteering his time at local Islamic community centers and doing outreach for the Sheriff’s Department with the Muslim community.

On Wednesday, doctors at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center were treating Ahmed’s wounds as investigators pieced together what happened at the intersection. Ahmed’s condition is not considered life-threatening, but doctors said he suffered a severe wound to one of his eyes and to other parts of his face.

When he awoke Wednesday morning, his mother told officials that he asked about the condition of his partner and the welfare of his brothers. He also asked when he could return to work.

A handful of deputies are typically wounded in shootings most years. But in 2010, only one was wounded.

Authorities said Ahmed and his training officer were on patrol near Floral Drive and North Brannick Avenue in a residential district of aging bungalows below the hills of City Terrace. They saw Torres and a woman inside a vehicle parked in a red zone.

Torres was recognized by the training officer. Knowing he was a parolee, the deputies decided to talk to him. As they got out of their cruiser, Torres got out too, pulling a gun and shooting Ahmed in the face, authorities said. Torres then turned the gun to the training officer’s chest, but before he could shoot the officer deflected the weapon and used his own gun to shoot and kill Torres, authorities said. Officials have declined to name the training officer.

For Torres, a reputed gang member who went by the monikers “Demon” and “Neto,” it was the last in a long history of run-ins with the law. Court records show that in 2004, he ran into two members of the rival gang Stoners 13 at a liquor store.

“I don’t think you should be talking to me,” he told the gang members when they complimented the “LOTT 13″ tattoo. He challenged the men to come outside and fight — an offer they refused, according to authorities, because they knew Torres and another gang member waiting outside were armed. Soon after, shots rang out, with Torres’ companion unloading his gun at the men still in the liquor store.

Torres was sentenced to seven years in state prison in that case.

Born in Somalia, Ahmed immigrated when he was 7. His father died last year, sheriff’s officials said, leaving Ahmed to support his mother and six younger siblings. The Orange County resident joined the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department in 2007. Most deputies must start their careers working in the county’s jail system. Such stints can last several years, but Ahmed was able to move to patrol work in only two years.

Colleagues held vigil along with Ahmed’s family at the hospital Wednesday. Capt. Mike Parker said colleagues swapped stories about his sense of humor and high energy.

“By all accounts, the deputy injured in the incident is an extraordinary young individual, the kind of deputy sheriff we all want to see serving Los Angeles County residents and businesses,” said Steve Remige, director of the L.A. County deputy’s union. “We’re hopeful of his quick recovery.”

Baca said people who worked with Ahmed were impressed by his work ethic and his willingness to volunteer his time to help with Muslim community outreach.

“He’s an ideal ambassador,” the sheriff said. “The thing we are proud of is he can serve as law enforcement, protecting people, defending people and putting himself at risk of his life, as this incident proves.”

Ahmed was scheduled to go into surgery Wednesday, and doctors were not sure whether he would lose sight in his injured eye. But no matter the outcome, Baca said he hopes Ahmed will still have a bright future with the department.

“I still see larger things for him and my hope for him is that he will come back to work. We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

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America’s Pain, Pamela Geller’s Gain

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America’s Pain, Pamela Geller’s Gain

Posted on 14 January 2011 by Remora

The more Geller gets attention, the more her looniness is exposed

The first piece from our newest Geller-watcher and EDL specialist Remora

America is experiencing a painful period of social disharmony and political discourse, yet the vomitous Islamophobic hatemonger, Pamela Geller is desperately finding amoral, unethical, and distasteful ways of keeping the spotlight firmly fixed on her fascist cause, by making false and ludicrous claims.

America is grieving, and Geller pounces on this opportunity to promote her usual anti-Islamic, extreme Zionist rhetoric, yet again blaming Muslims, but this time for the tragic Arizona Massacre.

Muslim Basher Pamela Geller, cannot make her mind up about the political leanings of the deranged sociopath who murdered so many, including a 9- year girl, so she has accused him of everything’ left-wing’ and ‘jihadist’ so far.

Geller is claiming that Arizona shooter, Jared Loughner was secretly a left wing, radical socialist, anti-Semitic, Hitler loving Muslim, who subscribed to communist manifestos and Hitler’s Mein Kampf book, and not to mention, his apparent link to white supremacist publication ‘American Renaissance’. Is it possible to be so many political extremist ideologies in one? Is that not usually referred to as schizophrenia?

Pointing out his mental health is interesting and paramount, since there have been widespread media reports detailing his mental/psychological decline.

Mein Kampf material is usually not a liberal trait, quite the opposite actually, Pamela. Where is the logic to state, that just because Loughner possessed books on the ideologies of Hitler, and communist manifesto’s, he is immediately a Taliban supporting extremist?

Dangerous, delusional misleadings, by a dangerous delusional woman. Pamela Geller is desperate to spark an Islamophobic race war.

Geller is smugly parading the controversial video ‘America: Your Last Memory in a Terrorist Country,’ on her blog, as evidence of victory over her claims of Loughner’s apparent ‘Muslim’ links.

The video does not outline any political convictions of the shooter; it is merely a product of Loughner’s anger at the political, judicial establishment, and his own general failure in life, a fact he blamed on external forces. If anything, Loughner’s political leanings appear coded, and ambiguous.

Let us analyse the grotesque and outlandish world of Jared Lee Loughner, which led him to engage in this heinous crime, and freeze a nation in state of horror.

‘Nihilistic Atheist’

Loughner, was a 22 year old drop out, described by former classmates as an ‘nihilistic atheist’. This would mean that he belonged to no religion, no beliefs, no cause and no God. He deemed human existence and living life as insignificant. This repudiates the claim of Geller that Loughner apparently demonstrated support for ‘Islamism’ in his flag burning video:

‘The friends’ comments paint a picture bolstered by other former classmates and Loughner’s own Internet postings: That of a social outcast with nihilistic, almost indecipherable beliefs steeped in mistrust and paranoia.’

There is much speculation about Loughner’s previous ‘liberal’ convictions that many right-wing institutions and figures such as Geller, have tried to use as a political means of exploitation to justify his actions.

Former classmates cite that Loughner was ‘very liberal’, as detailed by a former class fellow Caitie Parker. She recollects her memories of Loughner, and his then political leanings.

What is clear is that Loughner was never a character who favoured human interaction, and was a famed loner at his high school. His obsessions were an indication of his philosophy, which were anti-authoritarian, from the beginning.

‘@antderosa As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal. & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy. @antderosa he was a pot head & into rock like Hendrix,The Doors, Anti-Flag. I haven’t seen him in person since ’07 in a sign language class @antderosa He was a political radical & met Giffords once before in ’07, asked her a question & he told me she was “stupid & unintelligent.’

It is also stated that Loughner mentioned his intense dislike for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.He labelled her ‘stupid’, and ‘unintelligent’.This is a classic case of a failure demeaning those in power, in order to make their own self worth appear relevant.

Washington Post reported that Loughner was a registered Independent voter in 2006, according to the Pima County Registrar of Voters. He also voted in 2006 and 2008 but did not vote in last November’s mid-term elections, which also is indicative of his political stance. The fact that he is not a registered Republican or Democrat suggests a clear breakdown of trust in the mainstream governmental system, seeking answers in alternative political elements, which can always be a cause for concern.

Pam Geller manages to mention that on Atlas Shrugs:

‘Loughner’s decision to affiliate as an independent rather than a Republican or Democrat would seem to affirm the sense that while he targeted Giffords in the attack, it was not a decision born of a set of deeply held political beliefs that fit neatly into either party.’

How very irresponsible of Pam Geller? Backtracking are we?? First she labels Loughner a ‘certified left wing nut’, and then she insinuates that Loughner has Islamist ties, and then she states that he was apolitical. It really would have been easier to just not say anything at all, but hey, who am I kidding, its Pam Geller, she thrives on spreading propaganda and lies.

Liberal or not, it is very possible for an individual to retract from their beliefs and adopt the opposite views, or engage in a 360 degree turn in terms of political ideology.

Ultra rightwing racist, extreme Zionist radio host, Michael Savage, is a famous case in point. Savage himself stated he was once a ‘liberal’, who shifted in his beliefs, due to disillusions with the welfare system when he was a social worker. Witnessing an incident, how he delivered checks to welfare recipients who were given funds to furnish their apartments, while his own abode was empty with nothing but card boxes, was the final nail in the coffin for him to convert. Savage went from partially sane to, spewing hatred against blacks, immigrants, gays, liberals, Muslims, and inciting murder and ethnic violence. Yup, it is possible.

Loughner simply converted to other extremist beliefs, possibly triggered by his lack of success in life, and a lack of answers in the mainstream. Again, there is no ‘Islamist’ connection. The attack was apparently not religiously motivated, but an attack based on the killers personal conflictions and demons.

Pam you got that?

Descent into madness:

Unemployed Loughner, was fired and dismissed from many jobs, due to erratic behavior and a refusal to take orders from the top of the hierarchy. This was also the time his mental health began to wither away.

It has also emerged that; the end of his relationship with his high school sweetheart may have snapped rationality within Loughner. Kelsey Hawkes stated that this love split may have caused Loughner to psychologically deteriorate:

‘The high school sweetheart of the Arizona gunman has said his descent into madness began after she broke up with him.

Kelsey Hawkes described how Jared Loughner, whom she dated for a year in 2005 when she was 15, turned from a normal person into a ‘psycho’ when she ended their relationship.

Many of the people who interacted and met Loughner, neighbors, classmates, and now former girlfriend, have stated that he was seemingly normal, and then turned into a crazed deviant.

Other factors also may have contributed to the insanity of Loughner.He tried to enlist in the Military in 2008, however, due to a failed drug test which is mandatory, he was rejected. This was evidently an unprecedented blow to his ego, and could possibly have been motivation, to rage against, and blame the upper governmental system,

Loughner was also suspended from Pima Community college, after a series of disruptive events:

‘Jared Loughner, the suspected gunman in a Tucson shooting rampage, had five run-ins with Pima Community College campus police and was placed on suspension for violating the student code of conduct, which later led to his withdrawal from the school.’

This included campus, classroom and library disruptions. All this behavior was not at any time sparked by religion or political beliefs. Those who knew Loughner state that he was averse to religion in all its forms.

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a leaked memo has stated that there may be a white supremacist connection in this case.

It is reported that Loughner may have had links to the extreme right wing publication ‘American Renaissance’, a white survivalist magazine that has argued in the past, that not all races have the same intelligence, and mental wavelength, and has described the recent success within the Republican Party as the ‘Great white wave.’ It has also been accused of Anti-Semitism.

This has been strongly denied by the founder of the magazine, Jared Taylor, who has denied any involvement with Loughner.

Paranoia, it seems also played its part. It is reported that Loughner believed that the US government was responsible for the 9/11 atrocities, believed in a New World Order, was obsessed with the 2012 Prophecy, believed that Banks and bankers were responsible for the war on terror, and was staunchly anti-government.

This is clearly a case of a mentally disturbed, discombobulated and disillusioned young man, unable to control his own life, and behavioral problems. Blaming the failures on the upper establishment was a means of justification to Loughner, reasoning for his deranged mental state.

The metamorphosis of Loughner would prove deadly.

Sinister Youtube rants:

The many blurred and philosophically vague video posts by Loughner, beg many to question the actions that occurred in the massacre.

In a series of YouTube posts, Loughner makes startling and sweeping statements that are still obscure, to say the least. Loughner emphasizes his distrust of the government and their ‘oppressive’ agenda.

The other videos also have an anti government, anti American undertone to them:

“This video is my introduction to you! My favorite activity is conscience dreaming; the greatest inspiration for my political business information. Some of you don’t dream – sadly.” “The majority of citizens in the united states of America [sic] have never read the United States of America’s constitution. You don’t have to accept the federalist laws,”

“In conclusion, reading the second United States constitution, I can’t trust the current government because of the ratifications: the government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar. No! I won’t pay debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver! No! I won’t trust in God!”

The bizarre rants do not have any political undertones, actually, what the rants and rebelling demonstrate is a lack of political convictions, anti-religion, anti-establishment, anti-currency, anti-constitution, it is pattern to reject the system that is handed to us as citizens, to assert individual power over the very institution that governs us. Loughner’s specific rant about the illiteracy rates, brainwashing and currency suggest that he was locked in a mental battle of fallacy and isolation.

Loughner’s emphasis on ‘conscience dreaming’, elaborates on his detachment and rejection of reality, and the formation of an alternative world, his own world, functioned by his own control and emotions.

Geller points out that Loughner in his last video, ‘America: Your Last Memory in a Terrorist Country’, is wearing a ‘Burka’ like outfit, and burning the American Flag, so BANG! He is a Mooslim!

Geller writes:

‘UPDATE: This is Jared’s “music video” — this flag burning madness. This is Jared, dressed as a terrorist in the video burning the flag. (FOX confirmed this is Jared in the burka-like get-up.)’

I will explain what I see. A psychopath, wearing a mask and a garbage bag to conceal his identity. Simple. How Geller interprets this as remotely ‘Islamic’ is a pure wonder.

Interpretation and Symbolism sure are not Geller’s strongest intellectual qualities, but thankfully they are mine.

Loughner intended this video to shock and perplex its viewers, and he employs tactics that would inflame the left and the right, from his preference for communist manifesto’s to his link with supremacy, and then eerie hidden video messages.

The video symbolizes barren land, which Loughner is trying to present as the USA, himself as the faceless skeleton, and the burning flag as his response to the concept of America and the Constitution. Flag burning is a very contentious issue, and it is a clear message from Loughner about his position. Flag burning is viewed As Un-American, disloyal, an absence of respect, and that is exactly what Loughner intended. The faceless, silent, skeleton is symbolic of the masses of Americans who abide by the Constitution and law, who do what they are told, and who trust in God and Government, in Capitalism and currency. It is a rejection of nationality, patriotism, and identity.

Shame on Pamela Geller:

The answer is simple: Jared Loughner encompasses a lack of humanity, possesses no moral conscience, and can be defined as a self entitled sociopath.

Loughner was frustrated with his failings in life, and lack of relevance to society, which led to deviance. He held a bitter grudge against Congresswoman Giffords, which translated into violence, a buildup of resentment, which was engineered towards the establishment. Giffords was attacked for being a powerful public figure, attacked for what she represented, not necessarily based on her Jewish faith, but a need for Loughner to exercise power and control.

Loughner is a terrorist. Not a “Jihadist,” or “Islamist,” “pro-medieval Sharia” supporting terrorist, but a crazed, vindictive, homegrown, terrorist. His obsession with Nazi and socialist material, frames his desperation to fit into an ideological mould, which proved to be ineffectual to him.

Geller is desperate to detract from Loughner’s ‘white’ American ethnicity, and somehow, in a weird and bigoted parallel universe, make him appear a ‘Muslim’, even though Islam has no correlation to Loughner, his irrationality, and the events that lead to the massacre. I have never crossed a right-wing nut so obsessed with Islam!

Terrorism comes in all forms, from all religious and political backgrounds, and Pam Geller is afraid that America will see that, it is not just Jihadists that create terrorism, America too can create terrorists.

Pamela Geller’s racist rhetoric and Islamophobic connotative tone, seeks to debase the situation at hand, the Arizona shootings, and promote her own violent agenda, making slanderous and gross assumptions, which are prejudiced and discriminatory. America’s pain, should not be Pam Geller’ gain.

It is appalling that during times of such national hardship, Geller is stirring the pot of fascism, in a typical self-serving manner.

Truly incorrigible.

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EDL_Flag

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Jewish-British anti-Muslim event in Toronto draws protests, arrests

Posted on 13 January 2011 by Mooneye

The wacky alliance of skinhead EDL and Kahanist JDL continues, and remember this is a group that Spencer and his pal Pamela Geller openly support.

Jewish-British anti-Muslim event in Toronto draws protests, arrests

(Haaretz)

Dozens of anti-racist activists demonstrated in front of a Zionist community center in Toronto, Canada on Tuesday to protest a public event organized by Jewish and British anti-Muslims. Four protestors were arrested in the fracas, and at least one police officer suffered a broken rib, according to The Globe and Mail.

The local chapter of the Jewish Defense League, an extreme-right organization founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, broadcasted a live speech by English Defense League founder Stephen Lennon, otherwise known as Tommy Robinson, drawing the ire of demonstrators.

The two groups on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean have found common cause in nationalist pride and Islamophobic rhetoric. Both groups claim that they do not promote prejudice against others, only pride in their own respective ethnicities, but critics accuse them of spreading hate against Arabs and other Muslims.

One group of demonstrators maintained a vigil across the intersection from the Zionist building, while a separate group of demonstrators marched towards the community center to confront the JDL. Police on foot and on horseback intervened and corralled the protestors, The Globe and Mail reported.

Toronto police said that one of their officers was had been taken to hospital with a broken rib after he was hit with a flagpole. At the end of the demonstration, police noticed that one of their squad cars had been vandalized, its windows smashed.

Anti-Racist Action, which organized the second group of protestors, claim that police responded violently, kicking one demonstrator in the face. Officers confiscated the cameras of activists videotaping the arrests and wiped their memory cards clean, say the ARA.

The EDL website says that the group’s aims are to oppose what it calls the application of Sharia law in the U.K. “The root cause of the problem is the Koran, it’s Islam,” Lennon told the BBC in November. “And no one has got the balls to admit it and say it and talk about it. We will.”

“The EDL has organized violent street marches that target Arab and Muslim people,” read an open letter signed by the organizers of Tuesday’s protest. “They are part of an alarming rise in fascist, racist and neo-Nazi organizing in Europe over the last few years, including attacks on Muslims, immigrants and Roma people.”

“JDL supports the EDL,” says an announcement on the JDL Canadian website. “Now is the time to step forward and stop Political Islam. The British Establishment is following the appeasement policies of Neville Chamberlain,” it reads, a reference to the British prime minister who tried to placate Adolf Hitler, implying that Muslims represent a threat of Nazi proportions.

In Israel, the Kach political party established by JDL founder Rabbi Meir Kahane was banned from running for the Knesset in 1992, due to its racist platform, but in recent years Kahane’s followers have entered the Knesset under different names, and some of Kahane’s proposed policies are now unabashedly espoused by ministers in the current government.

Bernie Farber of the establishment Jewish organization Canadian Jewish Congress, said of the JDL on the CJN website, “As long as they maintain the peace, as long as they do not engage in racist language or hate or violate Canadian law, they have the right to exist.”

Farber said he was disappointed that the JDL would support the EDL because of its record of violence. But, he told the National Post, “Islamic fundamentalism is a real threat.”

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Gainesville pastor Terry Jones wants to put Quran on trial

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Gainesville pastor Terry Jones wants to put Quran on trial

Posted on 13 January 2011 by Garibaldi

Looks like Pastor Terry Jones is getting desperate for some attention once again. One wonders if he has ever bothered to read the Quran?

Gainesville pastor Terry Jones wants to put Quran on trial

GAINESVILLE —

The Gainesville pastor who ignited international outrage after announcing plans to burn the Quran now says he wants to put the holy book on trial.

Pastor Terry Jones wants to hold an event inside his Gainesville church and judge the Islamic holy book.

“My first reaction was, ‘Here we go again,’” said Imam Muhammad Musri, from the Islamic Society of Central Florida.

Musri played a big role in trying to help diffuse the dynamite Jones lit in September after announcing his plans for “International Burn a Quran Day.”

“What Terry Jones has done in the past, and is attempting to do again, is to incite violence,” said Musri.

It’s potential violence the Gainesville Police Department wants to be ready for, should the need arise.

A Gainesville police representative told News 13 they are “very aware” of Pastor Jones’ newest plans, and have sent officers to speak with him.

“He’s trying to stir a pot,” said Musri.

“The issue became a very political issue,” said Lawrence Walters, a First Amendment lawyer. “The media spotlight shined very brightly on Pastor Jones and his church.”

The media attention, according to Imam Musri, is what Jones wants the most.

Walters said it has perpetuated Jones’ actions.

“It’s caused a lot more people to pay attention to his speech, and has resulted in consequences and actions to the speech that otherwise would have never happened if the statements were not given the attention that the media provided,” he said.

“I think the media should deny him that attention, because there’s nothing good he’s trying to say,” said Musri. “He’s trying to create controversy.”

Musri said Jones’ freedom of speech comes with a high price: It hurts the U.S. image across the world.

In the News 13 newsroom, we have been engaged in extensive discussions on how to best cover Pastor Jones as we move forward.

As a media organization, we are certainly not in the business of censorship. But we are in the business of doing what’s responsible.

Ignoring what could become another event in Central Florida that ignites international outrage would not be responsible of us.

However, giving an open microphone to a religious leader whose views and actions advocate intolerance would not be responsible of us, either.

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Hate-crime suspect arrested, placed on immigration hold

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Hate-crime suspect arrested, placed on immigration hold

Posted on 13 January 2011 by Emperor

Islamophobia, what Islamophobia?

Hate-crime suspect arrested, placed on immigration hold

A Gresham man accused of harassing and threatening a local Muslim woman is behind bars for allegedly violating an anti-stalking order.

Gresham police arrested Martin Cervantes-Gracida, 30, of Gresham at his home in the 17400 block of Southeast Stark Street at 6:37 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 9.

He also is being held on a United States Immigration hold at the Multnomah County Inverness Jail.

The arrest comes a month after the alleged victim, a 52-year-old woman who lives in the same apartment complex, was granted a protective order against the man.

A Muslim advocacy organization – The Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations – also requested on Dec. 21 that the FBI investigate a series of alleged hate crimes that led to the anti-stalking order being issued.

FBI Special Agent Craig Mueller is investigating the case after the woman alleged local police did not take seriously her complaints of verbal threats and physical intimidation.

According to court documents, the threats began in early November when the suspect, Cervantes-Gracida, reportedly pushed the woman, trapping her with his body against a wall in their apartment complex’s laundry room.

Two weeks later, he allegedly threatened to shoot her dog and rape her “while you pray with your head on the ground,” the woman reported. He also reportedly confronted her in the parking lot and threatened to kill her, adding, “You snitch, called the cops on me.”

The woman had lived at the complex for a year without any problem until she converted to Islam and began wearing a headscarf.

She also expressed concern that while police helped her, they did not arrest Cervantes-Gracida. She alleges that one police officer told her she should consider not wearing her religious headscarf to avoid angering the neighbor.

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whosnexthol06

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Lone nuts and convenient definitions of “terrorism”

Posted on 13 January 2011 by Emperor

An insight into the convenient definitions of “terrorism” and the bold double standards it highlights.

Lone nuts and convenient definitions of “terrorism”

by Alex Pareene (Salon.com)

“Columbine” author Dave Cullen wrote yesterday that most media figures compulsively — and incorrectly – assign all killers to one of two binaries: Crazy or political. Right-wing commentators do the same thing, for the most part, though they tend to say killers are either crazy or terrorists. And while they’ll usually freely admit that Tim McVeigh counted as a terrorist, for the most part they reserve that term for Muslims who kill.

There is, for example, Charles Krauthammer’s classic column on Nidal Hasan,who killed 13 people at Fort Hood. Krauthammer is a former practicing psychologist — he’s also a former practicing liberal — and he used his considerable skill to argue that because he did not think Hasan was crazy, to call him crazy was dastardly political correctness. The correct diagnosis, according to Krauthammer, was that Hasan was a Muslim. He was driven to kill by Extremist Islamic rhetoric. He had, after all, e-mailed Anwar al-Awlaki, who sympathizes with al-Qaeda. He had even said frankly nutty things to his colleagues about nonbelievers having hot oil poured down their throats.

It’s not just that Krauthammer made a point of highlighting the influence of radical Islamism on Hasan’s crime — Krauthammer mocked those who thought there might be a psychological component to a formerly well-adjusted American suddenly falling under the sway of extremist rhetoric and shooting dozens of people.

Jared Loughner, though? He’s just nuts. Seriously, classic nutcase, end of story. It’s frankly irresponsible to speculate as to whether or not he had a political motivation when he attempted to assassinate a member of Congress.

Jonah Goldberg yesterday attempted to directly answer the question of why it’s “Islamic terrorism” when a Muslim does it and lone nuttery when a white American does it:

The difference is that most of the relevant Muslim mass-murderers in recent years have in fact either taken orders or meaningful encouragement from actual Jihadist organizations and individuals. The Times Square bomber did. The Fort Hood shooter did. The DC sniper didn’t, but he seems more of an exception than the rule.

First of all, “meaninful encouragement” is a wonderfully vague phrase that allows Goldberg to call people who never had any meaningful contact with terrorist groups “terrorists,” but even with that helpful bit of vague nonsense he is unable to justify the inclusion of one of his examples of terrorism, and is forced to consider it an “exception” to the rule he is in the process of inventing.

Did Hasan receive “meaningful encouragement” from al-Awlaki? Sure. But we have no idea whom Loughner may or may not have received “meaningful encouragement” from. We don’t have his e-mails. We don’t have his private conversations.

Goldberg goes on:

The “obvious” distinction is that there are a number of Islamist groups who are calling for violent attacks on America (which is why we are legally at war with them). Those that align with their cause are simply murderous traitors and terrorists. The Fort Hood shooter, we quickly learned, was in contact with Anwar al Awlaki. Loughner, we’ve quickly learned, was not in contact with Sarah Palin, had a grievance with Giffords that predates Palin’s prominence and the rise of the tea parties, and that he was simply out of his gourd.

It was nice of him to put “obvious” in scare quotes himself, thus saving me the trouble. But the fact is that there are plenty of extremist groups that are wholly American-grown and non-Islamic. (And if it’s only “terrorism” when we’re “legally at war” with the specific group who “meaningfully encouraged” the act, then very few things are terrorism anymore.)

But this paragraph, if you strip away the bit that’s clearly Goldberg thinking out loud, actually does explain the world-view succintly: It’s because thosekillers are Islamic. Yeah, Loughner wasn’t inspired by Sarah Palin’s Tweets. But Goldberg doesn’t say what he was inspired by. He was just “out of his gourd.” QED.

I don’t have a detailed psychological evaluation of either man, but based on the facts as we know them, it seems reasonable to argue that Nidal Hasan is a disturbed loner influenced to kill by extremist rhetoric that appeals to crazy people, and Jared Loughner is a disturbed loner possibly influenced to kill by extremist rhetoric that appeals to crazy people. The fact that Hasan was an increasingly devout Muslim meant that radical Islamic rhetoric appealed to him. The fact that Loughner was an increasingly disturbed young white American man meant that Ayn Rand and possibly David-Wynn: Miller and whatever else he got his hands on appealed to him. And any dangerous extremist supplements his bizarre beliefs with bad misreadings of non-extreme texts — the Koran, in Hasan’s case, and the various dystopian works of fiction on Loughner’s reading list.

The decision to murder innocent people is seldom one made by well men. If we’re going to argue that there’s something fundamental about Islam itselfthat causes it, when Muslims do it, it’s bald bigotry not to make the same argument when a non-Muslim commits a similarly incomprehensible crime.

If we define terrorism as violence committed by non-state actors aimed at achieving political goals, a case could be reasonably made for either, both, or neither or these men as terrorists. But when you start from the position that the Muslim is the “Terrorist” and the white guy is the “lone nut,” you’re have to work backwards to come up with a much more convoluted definition.

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bilde

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Blogger Schlussel renames organization after CAIR lawsuit

Posted on 13 January 2011 by Emperor

Schlussel's Gained a few pounds

Update on the eccentric has-been’s trademark infringement trial.

Blogger Schlussel renames organization after CAIR lawsuit

By DAVID ASHENFELTER
Free Press Staff Writer

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has won a partial victory in its trademark infringement lawsuit against lawyer and conservative blogger Debbie Schlussel.

During the weekend, Schlussel renamed the identically named organization she created last year to Council of American-Israel Relations to head off a legal battle with CAIR, the nation’s largest Islamic civil rights group.

Because of that, U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn declined Monday to formally order Schlussel to stop using CAIR’s full name. He also refused to prevent her from using CAIR’s acronym in Internet domain names she created.

He said he would review that issue in the coming weeks if CAIR pursues it.

“We largely got what we wanted,” CAIR attorney Gadeir Abbas said after the hearing in federal court in Detroit. He said he would file court papers within 10 days in hopes of stopping Schlussel from using CAIR in her Internet domain names.

Schlussel’s lawyer also claimed victory.

“They didn’t get anything they wanted,” said attorney Andrew Kochanowski. “They wanted a restraining order and they didn’t get it.”

CAIR sued Schlussel last week, saying she stole the group’s name and trademark last year by creating identically named organizations in Michigan.

It accused her of using the name to cause confusion among CAIR supporters and to siphon off its charitable donations.

Schlussel countered that CAIR gave up its right to the name by failing since 2001 to file legally required reports with the State of Michigan.

Schlussel told one of her Web site followers that she registered CAIR’s name and named herself executive director “to drive the Muslims crazy.”

CAIR says Schlussel spews anti-Islamic hatred on her Web site, www.debbieschlussel.com . She says she exposes the intolerance of Islam and how it infringes on the American way of life.

Contact David Ashenfelter: dashenfelter@freepress.com

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Imran Garda: Never-ending Cartoon Chaos

Posted on 13 January 2011 by Emperor

A thought provoking piece about the cartoon debacle by AlJazeera’s Imran Garda.

Never-ending cartoon chaos

by Imran Garda (AlJazeera)

At a meal of halal pasta at a Johannesburg restaurant in 2004 , I found myself defending my one-time work colleague, Graeme Joffe, at a table of young Muslim men, after a joke he had made on a local radio station.

“Even if he thinks he’s funny, this was insulting to us, and the brothers are right to launch a complaint,” said one.

“They should fire him. Do you even know what he said? ‘What do you call a Bangladeshi cricketer with a bacon sandwich on his head? Ham’head. And if he has two bacon sandwiches? Mo’Ham’head!’ Disgusting!”

I tried to interject diplomatically, “I know Graeme, he’s one of the most polite, least offending, self-deprecating people you can meet. It’s a light-hearted radio show, come on. I worked with him at Supersport; if anything they should fire him because the joke was so bad!”

“Garda, you don’t understand”, insisted the most annoyed. “No matter how harmless the intention” and, with the surest of conviction, he continued: “When it comes to the prophet, there are no jokes.”

Joffe and the radio station were censured after South Africa’s Broadcasting Complaints Commission saw his joke as “hate speech” that violated the constitution. And yes, it has been no joke since late 2005, when 12 cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten seemed to ignite frenetic flames of fury that just wouldn’t die down.

The very depiction of Prophet Muhammad was an affront to Muslims, who do not depict him for fear of idolatry, among numerous other theological reasons. He has been depicted before, to the annoyance of many Muslims, but not much more. What seemed to tip the saga into the epicly dangerous territory that it has occupied since is that a substantial number of the images of him had sometimes tacit, sometimes overt references to Muhammad and misogyny, Muhammad and violence, Muhammad and terrorism.

Manufacturing anger?

But was that it? Was there merely an impulsive, collective rising up, a synergy of the insulted? Had the outcry been devoid of any larger outside forces prodding, pricking, planning – manufacturing anger?

The recent WikiLeaks revelations suggest otherwise. They show that the US charge d’affaires in Damascus, Stephen Seche, believed that Syria actively encouraged violent protests in which the Danish and Norwegian embassies were attacked. The leak reminded me of another meal in another African country, Egypt, in 2008.

“Mashallah, you’re from South Africa? I do a lot of work there; we are training 600 da’ees (Muslim missionaries) to approach fans during the World Cup in 2010.”

Imam Fadel Soliman paused for another spoonful of molokhiyya, an Egyptian soup dish. He was hungry – he had been fasting all day. We shared our Ramadhan iftaar before recording an Inside Story programme later that night, where he appeared as one of our guests.

A big, friendly man, who seemed permanently out of breath, with an engaging presence, Imam Fadel was bursting with a faith he was keen to share; he later dished out DVDs on Islamic guidance to our film crew and producers, in multiple languages to boot. He was like an ambassador for Islam, but it was what he told me about another ambassador which was of infinite interest to me:

“Do you know our Egyptian ambassador to South Africa, Mona Attiah?” he asked as he wolfed down some more Iftaar.

“I can’t say I do.”

“Mashallah, she’s a good sister, has done a lot for Muslims. She doesn’t wear hijab, but she’s a good woman.”

He continued.

“Are you sure you don’t know her?”

“I’m sorry”, I said. I wasn’t sure whether it was my South African or Islamic credentials which were beginning to wane in his eyes.

“She was in Denmark before South Africa. She was the ONE ambassador who really stood up to the Danish government, and insisted on a meeting with them over those cartoons about our prophet sallalahu alayhi wasallam (peace be upon him). And when they said they didn’t want to meet and can’t stop ‘freedom of expression’, she stood firm! She was the one who got the other ambassadors on board to go the Arab League in Cairo together to show our united condemnation, that the cartoons were unacceptable! Mashallah.”

It was what he said next that I’ll never forget:

“If it wasn’t for her, we may never even have heard of those cartoons.”

Two Danish imams carried the cartoon “dossier” throughout the Middle East with some extra cartoons thrown into the mix – images that were never published in Jyllands-Posten. One wasn’t even a cartoon, but a photocopied photograph of a picture lifted off the internet of a man wearing a pig-snout.

Ever since the outbreak of the crisis, it has been noted that many usually undemocratic governments, often brutal in their suppression of mass protests which call for political reform, or rally against the price of bread – suddenly wholeheartedly embraced (and maybe even sponsored) the protest fever.

CCTV footage from the building that housed the Danish embassy in Beirut shown in Karsten Kjaer’s film Bloody Cartoons even suggests that the Lebanese army allowed protesters to converge on the building, Molotov cocktails in hand.

Does it come then as any surprise that years later, with over a hundred dead since the first spasm of violence, three men have recently been charged with plotting to mow down the staff of Jyllands-Posten with machine guns?

In early 2006 even mainstream scholars, like Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, hated by many hardliners for his liberal and forward-thinking opinions on issues of Islamic jurisprudence, called for a “day of anger” around the Muslim world in response to the cartoons. He said Muslims are not “donkeys to be ridden on” but “lions that roar”.

In context, seen along with his and other scholars’ calls for an economic boycott of Denmark and strong political lobbying against the country and the newspapers that published the cartoons, many would interpret his call to “roar” metaphorically. As a call for a stern but peaceful response against a provocation from Jyllands-Posten that smacks of goading, demeaning and ostracising Muslims.

But (and it’s a big but) an obvious, glaring problem is with the rise of the far-right in Europe, where issues of Muslims veils and minarets, anti-immigration and integration dominate the discourse: will every offended Muslim interpret the call that way? Much of the post-cartoon rhetoric left ample room for subjective interpretation. Are we not seeing the fallout continuing to unfold before our eyes?

Freedom of Expression

“Freedom of Expression” – it has a post-modern, sacrosanct, warm-fuzziness about it. But are those who claim it entirely consistent?

The editor responsible for the cartoons, Flemming Rose, pledged to Christiane Amanpour in an interview that Jyllands-Postenwas attempting to make contact with the Iranian newspaper that ran cartoons about the Holocaust, and hoped to publish them too. He reneged on his promise, and was put on a short “leave of absence” by the paper.

At the time, cat-eyed Anders Fogh Rasmussen was the Danish prime minister. His devotion to “Freedom of Expression” and “Freedom of the Press” in his country was indisputable and was tested from multiple corners, diplomatic and otherwise.

He cannot have been too impressed when he went from being the head of a friendly, isolated Scandinavian country to seeing effigies of himself burnt on the streets of Pakistan.

But now, as the secretary-general of NATO, the most powerful fighting force history has ever known, RSF (Reporters Without Borders) claims his NATO forces in Afghanistan have treated “journalists working in difficult provinces … like dangerous criminals”.

Afghan journalists, like Al Jazeera cameraman Mohammed Nader, have found themselves arrested and later released without charge, on suspicion of having links with the “enemy” because of alleged links to the Taliban and their spokespersons.

This dovetails with an Afghan government order in March 2010 banning all coverage of “insurgent attacks” in the country with the threat of prosecution of any journalist who does – an ominous message to journalists there.

Is the dedication of men like Flemming Rose and Anders Fogh Rasmussen to “Freedom of Expression” relative to an ideological worldview? Are they dedicated to a complete freedom of expression only of the “good guys” - but heaven forbid you let the “bad guys” express themselves.

As Noam Chomsky put it – “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”

Blame

Who’s to blame? Jyllands-Posten? The Danish government? Global Islamophobia and its racist defenders or global Islamism and its idealogues? Or the governments who may have actively encouraged their citizens to get angry?

In the five-year long cartoon crisis, anger ebbs and flows, condemnation bursts and retreats and worldviews collide. Art meets politics, satire meets the sacred, and provocation cries crocodile tears when it meets a response it claims it never expected.

Maybe, just maybe, the seemingly never-ending cartoon chaos was epitomised by the guy who held up the banner at the cartoon protest rally in London, saying “Freedom of Expression Go To Hell!”

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On Gaffney’s Radio Show, Rep. King Suggests Muslims Aren’t American

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On Gaffney’s Radio Show, Rep. King Suggests Muslims Aren’t American

Posted on 13 January 2011 by Emperor

On point piece from Sarah Posner, another writer who was an extraordinary “anti-Loon” in 2010. It goes to show that despite all of Rep. King’s protestations that his hearings are innocent of bigotry his statements prove otherwise.

On Gaffney’s Radio Show, Rep. King Suggests Muslims Aren’t American

by Sarah Posner (Religion Dispatches)

Lee Fang at Think Progress reports that Rep. Peter King (R-NY), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee who plans on holding hearings on the “radicalization” of American Muslims, said on Frank Gaffney’s radio program last week that Muslims aren’t real Americans in combatting terrorism:

Joining anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney on Gaffney’s radio program last week, King doubled down on his promise to launch a witch-hunt against Muslims. He repeated a falsehood that he stated earlier — that American Muslims never cooperate to combat terrorism. But in addition to this claim, King made the extraordinary smear that American Muslims aren’t “American” when it comes to war. “[W]hen a war begins,” King said, every ethnic and religious group unites as “Americans.” “But in this case,” King continued, referring to Muslims, “this is not the situation. … Whether it’s cultural tradition, whatever, the fact is the Muslim community does not cooperate anywhere near to the extent that it should.”

As I reported last week, Gaffney has disgusted some conservatives with his anti-Muslim bigotry; one Muslim conservative activist, Suhail Khan, told me that is why Gaffney has beenexcluded from next month’s Conservative Political Action Conference. Yet that doesn’t stop CPAC from including a group like the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which supportsFront Page magazine, which has promoted Gaffney’s work, including Gaffney’s smear of Khan.

As King’s willingness to appear on Gaffney’s radio show and affirm his notions that Muslims can’t be real Americans shows, Gaffney is not the pariah some in CPAC might contend he is. By way of another example, as I reported, Gaffney was appointed to the advisory board of the Clarion Fund, whose Islamophobic propaganda films have been promoted by current and former elected officials and the Republican Jewish Committee, and which plans to screen its latest documentary, Iranium, to lawmakers early next month.

Gaffney has been peddling the bogus claim that shari’ah law represents a real threat to the Constitution, and has called on Congress to “investigate” that as well. He employs someone who believes being Muslim should be criminalized. He brought that dog and pony show to Capitol Hill late last year for the benefit of House staffers, and spoke to a room of about 50 people. It surely is a deeply troubling development that King is cavorting with Gaffney and pontificating about the “Americanism” of American Muslims, in light of Gaffney’s agitation about fifth columns of shari’ah proponents bent on undermining the Constitution.

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Wafa Sultan Meets Intelligent Person and Gets Flabbergasted

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Wafa Sultan Meets Intelligent Person and Gets Flabbergasted

Posted on 12 January 2011 by Mooneye

"Atheist Muslim reformer" Wafa Sultan with anti-Muslim loon Pamela Geller

Wafa Sultan or as she is better known Wafa Stalin was recently on Russia Today (RT) news network. We have previously linked to episodes from the Alyona Show, in which the host tore apart Pamela Geller. We also linked to an episode of Crosstalk in which Professor Norman Finkelstein debated an Israeli official and utterly pulverized him.

This time Wafa Sultan was on Crosstalk with Ibrahim Ramey to discuss the Quran, Muslims and foreign policy. Wafa may have had expectations that this video would also get the MEMRI treatment, thereby recapturing those 5 minutes of fame she procured previously, but Ibrahim Ramey wasn’t having it.

Ramey came across as the more cool, collected, comprehensible, reasoned, articulate and objective in this encounter, and Wafa…well…more Stalin-ish than ever.

One more thing, dear Asra Nomani, after watching this how can you still stand by your glorifying article of Sultan in TIME magazine? Asra, come to your senses, if not not on profiling Muslims at airports than at least on supporting anti-Muslim Islamophobic bigots.

We were also sent this video, which though a little annoying due to its tedious repetitions, captures Wafa in the midst of what can be deemed a bold faced lie or the kindest word perhaps “old lady dementia.”

Wafa Sultan Lies about her niece (hat tip: Yahya):

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Hindus were Really Behind Terror Attacks Blamed on Muslims

Posted on 12 January 2011 by Emperor

There were a spate of terrorist bombings from 2007 until 2009 on mainly Muslim targets that left hundreds of casualties in India, the incidences were quickly blamed on Muslims. Islamophobes at the time jumped on it and were happy that “at least they’re killing each other.”

Now the truth is coming out that these attacks were perpetrated by Hindu fundamentalists. Will the anti-Muslims revise their previous conclusions, or at the very least take down there hasty reports? (hat tip: All those who sent it in)

Hindu holy man reveals truth of terror attacks blamed on Muslims

(Independent)

By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi

India is being forced to confront disturbing evidence that increasingly suggests a secret Hindu terror network may have been responsible for a wave of deadly attacks previously blamed on radical Muslims.

Information contained in a confession given in court by a Hindu holy man, suggests that he and several others linked to a right-wing Hindu organisation, planned and carried out attacks on a train travelling to Pakistan, a Sufi shrine and a mosque as well as two assaults on Malegaon, a town in southern India with a large Muslim population.

He claimed the attacks were launched in response to the actions of Muslim militants. “I told everybody that we should answer bombs with bombs,” 59-year-old Swami Aseemanand, whose real name is Naba Kumar Sarkar, told a magistrate during a closed hearing in Delhi. “I suggested that 80 per cent of the people of Malegaon were Muslims and we should explode the first bomb in Malegaon itself. I also said that during partition, the Nizam of Hyderabad had wanted to go with Pakistan so Hyderabad was also a fair target. Then I said that since Hindus also throng [a Sufi shrine in] Ajmer we should also explode a bomb in Ajmer which would deter the Hindus from going there. I also suggested the Aligarh Muslim University as a target.”

Police in India have suspected for some time that Hindus may have been responsible for the attacks carried out between 2006 and 2008, and in November of that year several arrests were made, including that of a serving military officer. But the confession of Swami Aseemanand, obtained by an Indian news magazine, is perhaps the most damning evidence yet that Hindu extremists were responsible. It also suggests those involved were senior members of a religious group that is the parent organisation of India’s main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“The evidence is not conclusive but people have to take notice of this,” said Bahukutumbi Raman, a former national security adviser and now a leading regional security analyst. “This could aggravate tensions between India’s [Hindu and Muslim] communities. It will create problems.”

The revelations in Tehelka magazine, bear added significance following the comments of Rahul Gandhi, widely expected to be a future prime minister, in which he said he believed the growth of Hindu extremists presented a greater threat to India than Muslim militants. According to a cable obtained by WikiLeaks, last year Mr Gandhi told the US ambassador to Delhi, Timothy Roemer: “Although there was evidence of some support for Laskar-e-Taiba among certain elements in India’s indigenous Muslim community, the bigger threat may be the growth of radicalised Hindu groups, which create religious tensions and political confrontations with the Muslim community.”

At the time, Mr Gandhi’s comments were strongly condemned by the BJP. But the main opposition party has been pushed on to the back foot by the testimony of Swami Aseemanand, which suggests many of those involved in the bombing plots were members of religious organisations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The RSS is considered the BJP’s ideological parent. This week, the RSS’s leader, Mohan Bhagwat, claimed extremists had been forced out. “Elements nurturing extremist views have been asked to leave the organisation,” he said. “A majority of the people whom the government has accused… had left voluntarily and a few were told that this extremism will not work here.”

Among the incidents initially blamed on Muslim militants was a bomb attack in February 2007 on the Samjhauta Express, travelling between Delhi and Lahore. Of the 68 deaths, most were Pakistani citizens returning home. The attack took place a day before Pakistan’s Foreign Minister was due to arrive in India for peace talks.

Swami Aseemanand was arrested in Haridwar last November, having apparently been in hiding for more than two years. In his 42-page confession to the magistrate, he reportedly claimed he had been spurred into action by a series of Muslim attacks on Hindus, in particular the assault on the Akshardham temple in Gujarat 2002 that left at least 29 people dead. “This caused great concern and anger in me,” he said.

The attacks under scrutiny

Samjhauta Express

In February 2007, two firebombs exploded on the train commonly known as the ‘Friendship Express’ which travels across the Indo-Pakistani border. Most of the 68 victims and 50 injured were of Pakistani origin. Three further unexploded suitcase bombs were later found on the train.

Mecca Masjid

An attack on the Mecca Masjid mosque, which is in Hyderabad’s old city, left 14 people dead in May 2007 – with five apparently killed by police firing on a furious mob after the incident. Swami Aseemanand apparently said that the site was chosen because the local administrator wanted to be part of Pakistan during partition.

Ajmer

A famous Muslim shrine in the city of Ajmer in Rajasthan, about 350km south-west of Delhi, was targeted by bomb attacks in October later that year. Two people were killed and 17 injured near the scared shrine, which houses the tomb of a 13th-century Sufi saint. Swami Aseemanand said the blast was intended to deter Hindus from going there.

Malegaon

In September 2008, three bomb blasts killed 37 people in the Muslim-majority city of Malegaon, situated about 160 miles north-east of Maharashtra’s state capital, Mumbai. Muslims had been attending prayers when the bombs exploded in a sacred burial ground, also injuring more than 125 people.

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Ahmed Rehab: The Denial of Islamophobia

Posted on 11 January 2011 by Garibaldi

Greeneye recently did a great piece on Pascal Bruckner, a (wanna-be) “philosopher” who made the very poor and contradictory case that the word Islamophobia was “invented” to silence critics of the Koran, while at the same time minimizing bigotry against Muslims.

Much to our delight Marty Peretz wanted to help make our case that Pascal Bruckner’s article was not only woefully anemic intellectually, but thoroughly Islamophobic. Peretz of “Muslim lives are cheap fame” latched onto Bruckner’s article hoping that in some way another fake liberal might exonerate him of his lewd beliefs and laughingstock position, in doing so he just made our point even stronger. Good company you are in Pascal!

Ahmed Rehab shreds Peretz (hat tip: John P.):

The Denial of Islamophobia

by Ahmed Rehab

Faux liberal and pro-occupation advocate, New Republic editor Martin Peretz is back at it again.

Last fall, he caused a firestorm with his racist comments that “Muslim life is cheap” in a piece lambasting the New York Times for speaking out against anti-Muslim prejudice and defending constitutionally-protected religious rights.

Sounding more like a slumlord than a former Harvard assistant professor, he wrote at the time:

I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.

Peretz, who was slated to be honored by Harvard prior to the controversy, was roundly rebuked for his offensive comments, with Harvard put under intense pressure for honoring a bigot. Harvard students rallied outside his ceremony which several professors and staff boycotted; disgusted alumni returned their certificates to the university. Though the ceremony took place, his acceptance speech was cancelled.

But that humiliation has not stopped Peretz from his downward spiral to kookdom. On Monday, he dished out some raw Islamophobia-denial in a gullible column entitled “The Invention of Islamophobia”:

Anyone who suggests that there is a war being waged by Muslims in their own lands and in the lands in which they have settled–these last, by the way, are the really aggressive “settlers”!–against rationalists and true liberals, traditional conservatives and Islamic dissenters, Christians and Jews is likely to be labeled an “Islamophobe.” I have been, and thousands of you out there, perhaps millions, have been so labeled…or almost. And, at dinner with friends, have anyone of you just raised questions about the tyranny of silence which the “politically so correct” are trying to impose on those who are fearful of the admixture of faith and bombs and then not found yourselves attacked as at least “intolerant” and perhaps even a bigot? Or, yes, even an Islamophobe.

He goes on to claim:

Islamophobia–that is, the word itself–is meant to silence you. It has already silenced President Obama, hasn’t it? He hasn’t even spoken up for his fellow Christians who in recent weeks have been victimized in Iraq (where maybe we still wave some sway), Egypt (our very expensive ally), Nigeria, Pakistan et al.

(Actually that’s a lie. “President Obama, in a statement, called the attack ‘barbaric and heinous,’” the AP reports. But that’s not our topic.)

Allow me to clarify a few things for the confused, self-victimizing Peretz.

Firstly, being “fearful of the admixture of faith and bombs” does not constitute Islamophobia.

In fact, most Muslims in the world would admit to being afraid of this admixture.

I understand that it is difficult for stereotype-minded individuals to understand that other people are largely just like their own – that is, with their share of some bad who do bad things and a good majority who fear bad things – but that is what makes them bigots.

Bigots, by definition, tend to not only fear the bad apples in “other” group – which would be understandable – but they tend to go further by propping them up as the headline for the entire group, even if the bad apples are a small percentage.

And so for a certified bigot, all Blacks are street criminals, all Latinos are gang bangers, all Jews are greedy, and all Muslims mix faith with bombs.

As such Islamophobia is just another form of bigotry – in this case, bigotry against Muslims. But here’s the point Mr. Peretz, like other forms of bigotry, it is not so much about criticizing something as negative (as you cheekily posit), but the generalization of what is negative to all members of the group (which you and others demonstrably indulge in).

So when Peretz talks of a war being waged by “Muslims in their own lands and in the lands in which they have settled … against rationalists and true liberals, traditional conservatives and Islamic dissenters, Christians and Jews” without context, scope or qualification – as if all 1.4 billion Muslims are waging a war against all the billions of liberals, conservatives, Christians and Jews in the world – then Peretz is engaging in simplistic and vitriolic generalizations against Muslims that certainly constitute Islamophobia.

There is another related indicator of Islamophobia: selectivity.

So when Peretz is “fearful of the admixture of faith and bombs” only when that faith is Islam, but not when that faith is Christianity, Hinduism, his native Judaism or some other faith, then chances are Peretz is mired in Islamophobia.

Funny enough, there is one more common indicator of Islamophobia: criticizing those who resist the trigger-happy generalizations of Muslims as supposedly “succumbing to political correctness.” In that warped world view, the bigoted are the courageous freedom fighting patriots, and those responsible souls who say “no thanks” to generalizations are the weak-kneed politically-correct liberals who are going to bring America down.

So no, Mr. Peretz, before you start crying victim and feeling sorry for yourself as someone who is ridiculed for daring to speak out against the evils of Islam and Muslims and against the oversensitivity of the poor old politically correct masses, perhaps you can explain to us how opposing an American Muslim mosque for the alleged transgressions of Muslims in medieval Muslim lands is not a double generalization across time and space for which you should rightly be ridiculed and dismissed?

Islamophobia – that is negative stereotyping, bigoted expressions, and rampant generalizations against Islam and Muslims – is not only a sad reality in America today but one that is hard to miss just reading through the news headlines in 2010, let alone the third page. Not coincidently, those who are leading the Islamophobic movement in this country are the same people now leading the Islamophobia-denial movement. And in truth, Martin Peretz, though a member of the club, is not at the top of the list.

Whether anti-semitism or Islamophobia, those who coined the phenomenon did not “invent” the phenomenon, they simply called it out. It is an insult to Harvard, that someone like Peretz does not possess the requisite intellectual fortitude to tell the difference.

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New arson attack on mosque in German capital

Posted on 11 January 2011 by Mooneye

Oh no, no Islamophobia here.

(hat tip: Ali Nihal)

New arson attack on mosque in German capital

BERLIN  — German police said an arson attack on a mosque in the country’s capital left has blackened its entrance door, but nobody was injured.

There have been more than 10 arson attacks on Islamic institutions in Berlin in the past year, and police said in a statement Saturday they are investigating whether this attack is linked to the previous ones.

The statement said a passer-by saw the fire early Saturday morning and alerted police. It said officers and the witness contained the small blaze with the police car’s fire-extinguishers. The fire caused only minor damage.

Police said a message was left next to the mosque’s door, but did not provide further details.

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Why Aren’t We Calling Loughner a Terrorist?

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Why Aren’t We Calling Loughner a Terrorist?

Posted on 11 January 2011 by Emperor

A good piece from Charles D. Ellison on the differing usages of the “terrorism” and the double standards it reveals.

(hat tip: Blue)

Why Aren’t We Calling Loughner a Terrorist?

by Charles D. Ellison (Huffington Post)

I can’t help but wonder why folks are so afraid to call the mass shooting in Tuscon, Arizona an act of terrorism.

The fear of the “T” word seems almost palpable in describing the gruesome events that took place this past Saturday. There is little explanation or reasoning for the omission, except that it’s very obvious what most Americans won’t call 22-year-old Jared Loughner. It goes without saying that the man is deranged. Fairly obvious that he’s unstable. But, tell us what we don’t know. Get straight to the core of the matter here. Let’s not fool ourselves and everyone else struggling to make sense out of it. Loughner is a terrorist, clearly fit within the strictest definition of the term.

While other top public officials tip-toed around it, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton almost went there, just short of dropping the “T” word. Instead, she chose “extremist.” While clearly holding back, it was one of the braver rhetorical stands we’ve heard in the past few days. Her comparison to the Middle Eastern “extremism” we routinely see plastered on global headlines is sure to raise a few brows and ‘how-dare-she’ remarks back home, especially since she said it while in Abu Dhabi.

But, let’s keep it real. The “T” term gets quickly applied within every second a suicide bomber blasts a busy street corner in Pakistan or when a crowded European commuter train is vaporized. We find some sort of geopolitical logic, however violent and horrific, to explain the indiscriminate mass killings of innocent civilians in various corners of the world. Even before responsibility is investigated or admitted by some obscure political fringe group wanting their spot blown, we’re already using the “T” word.

When a “crazy” white guy with a gun, wound up on polarized talking points and manifestos, indiscriminately kills innocent Americans in broad daylight, it takes several days in the aftermath before the larger public will even accept a hint of premeditation. Typically, the collective American psyche will initially trivialize the event by calling the perpetrator “deranged” or “mentally unstable.” The social response script is fashioned to fake us into a false sense of security. It’s isolated, they say. Just one crazed nut with a gun.

That dude who flew his plane into an IRS building? Isolated. Or the cat who waited for, scoped, then killed three Pittsburgh police officers? Crazy. What about the man who shot at the Panama City school board then shot himself? Off the edge.

Brown skin man with bombs strapped to his torso? Oh, that’s a terrorist.

Yet, in every instance, the “isolated” or “crazed” Americans each expressed some form of political reasoning for committing the act. Loughner, whose elaborate musings are outlined in lengthy Internet entries on MySpace and YouTube, was apparently hanging with anti-government dudes who probably have posters of Sarah Palin in a bikini brandishing a semi-automatic prior to the attack.

So, what’s the difference between a mass political killing in Tuscon, Arizona and the same in Any Town, Middle East?

Part of it is that we don’t want to accept that Americans are actually capable of politically motivated destruction. Clearly, the level of invective in our political discourse has reached a feverish pitch in recent years, matched by the worrisome lack of civility and old fashioned decency we use to pride ourselves on. It’s another conversation, but we’re much meaner, much more hyper-competitive and much less compassionate — some can fairly argue with that assessment, especially after 400 years of slavery and institutional racism peppered by mass lynching. We don’t want to admit it, but we all talk about how foul our social attitude is these days.

But, as we enter this 150th Anniversary of the Civil War, we are afraid to accept the comparisons. While the North vs. South battle lines disappeared with every history lesson, we can see a scary repeat of similar passions which led to the first cannon shots at Fort Sumter in 1861. Congress, in the 1850s, was also a scene of unadulterated political mayhem, Members beating each other senseless on the House floor and Senators drawing guns on one another. While it’s not that bad today, we are seeing an alarming deficit of decorum in the House chamber which, if left unchecked, could lead to unbridled outbursts of ideology we’ll end up regretting one day.

We’d be irresponsible not to reassess our national discourse. There are serious consequences to the ideological bubbles we’ve created while we self-isolate ourselves in Facebook profiles and Twitter accounts, interacting only with those we agree with.

Disagreeing is our national legacy and right, but how we disagree is a national discipline we should embrace before Tuscon becomes the norm rather than the exception.

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Baltimore: Ex-Israeli Special Forces Vigilante Assaults Teenager

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Baltimore: Ex-Israeli Special Forces Vigilante Assaults Teenager

Posted on 11 January 2011 by Emperor

What if he were Muslim? Imagine if instead of the Israeli Special Forces he had been part of the Turkish Special Forces or Saudi Special Forces? Think of the horror that the right-wing would respond with if there were a Muslim patrol group?

Member of Jewish patrol group accused of striking teen in city

(Balitmore Sun)

by Justin Fenton

With matching jackets and radios and a hotline staffed around the clock, members of an Orthodox Jewish citizen patrol group in Northwest Baltimore view themselves as a necessary complement to city police to keep their neighborhood safe.

But one member may have recently taken the role too far. On Tuesday, a participant in the Shomrim patrol organization was arrested after allegedly striking a 15-year-old boy and telling him, “You don’t belong around here.”

Police arrested 23-year-old Eliyahu Eliezer Werdesheim, a former Israeli special forces soldier, and charged him with first-degree assault, reckless endangerment and false imprisonment in a Nov. 19 incident in the 3300 block of Fallstaff Road. According to court records, the teen’s wrist was broken in the scuffle and he suffered cuts to the back of his head.

“Shomrim has and continues to be a good partner in making the northwest community safer,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Wednesday. “However, this individual took the law into his own hands, and the Baltimore Police Department will not tolerate acts of vigilantism from any organization.”

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Asra Nomani Supports This Kind of Harassment

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Asra Nomani Supports This Kind of Harassment

Posted on 11 January 2011 by Garibaldi

It is wrong, it violates your religious liberty and you constitutional rights, but Asra Nomani would be happy to submit to it.

Civil Rights Groups: US Muslims’ Rights Violated at Border

(VOA)

Lawrence Ho is also a U.S. citizen, and a Muslim convert. He was stopped at a border crossing with Canada.

Ho says he was held for four hours and asked religious questions interrogation-style – in a closed room, by a special agent, with armed guards watching.

“They’re treating me like a suspect,” he says. “Like while I was in there, I just felt like I was a criminal. At a certain point they almost make you feel like you did something wrong.”

Civil liberties groups say U.S. border officials are violating the constitutional rights of American Muslims by asking about their religious beliefs and practices on their return from trips abroad.

Ho and Shibly’s testimony form part of a complaint to the government by two groups – the American Civil Liberties Union and Muslim Advocates.

It alleges that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, or CBP, has been questioning Muslims or people that appear to be Muslim about their religious and political beliefs, associations and activities.

Hina Shamsi is director of the ACLU’s National Security Project:

“Of course we all recognize that it is the government’s job to keep the country safe and secure, and we want it to do that,” she said. “But questioning innocent American Muslims about their religious and political beliefs does nothing to make us safer.”

She says it also violates the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees religious liberty.

Shamsi says U.S. citizens and residents may only be questioned in this way if there is a reasonable suspicion, based on credible evidence, that a person has engaged in criminal activity. And the faith-related questions have to be relevant, she says.

“It cannot be a dragnet set of questions,” she added. “That is simply impermissible and unconstitutional.”

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Spencer Distorts Egyptian Society; Spreads Interfaith Bigotry

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Spencer Distorts Egyptian Society; Spreads Interfaith Bigotry

Posted on 11 January 2011 by Greeneye

(Published originally at Spencerwatch)

Egypt’s majority Muslim population spoke loudly against extremism and terrorism when they served as “human shields” in protection of their Christian neighbors on Christmas eve. “We either live together, or we die together,” was the slogan of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon. Indeed, it was a teachable moment: a ray of hope in a sectarian torn world. But fake scholar Robert Spencer is determined to squander any chance at peaceful interfaith coexistence.

Spencer notes that Al-Azhar University condemned the recent attacks on Egyptian Churches:

Al-Azhar is the foremost authority in Sunni Islam, and a case can be made from the Qur’an for what they say: “For had it not been for Allah’s repelling some men by means of others, cloisters and churches and oratories and mosques, wherein the name of Allah is oft mentioned, would assuredly have been pulled down.” — Qur’an 22:40

Of course, the citation of Quran 22:40 is black-and-white proof that Islam does not sanction attacks on houses of worship. However, Spencer as usual turns the Quran upside down:

Thus Muslims should not be among those who “pull down” churches, right? So why, then, would any jihadists target a church, given that they consistently proclaim themselves to be the true and pure Muslims, following scrupulously everything commanded in the Qur’an and Sunnah? Or have they really “hijacked” Islam, as is endlessly claimed?

Well, it is worth noting that ’Umdat al-Salik (Reliance of the Traveller), a manual of Islamic law that Al-Azhar certifies as conforming “to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni Community,” contains a section (o9.10-o.9.15) entitled “Rules of Warfare” that says nothing about any prohibition on attacking a non-Muslim house of worship. And Islamic law generally takes a negative view of non-Muslim houses of worship, forbidding non-Muslims in Islamic states from building new houses of worship or repairing old ones.

Suggesting the Quran doesn’t mean what it says, Spencer cites as proof his favorite piece of evidence: Umdat al-Salik, a 14th century medieval Muslim law manual. Spencer assumes the certification of the translation into English by Al-Azhar means that Muslim legal thinking hasn’t moved beyond the 14th century. What he fails to disclose is that these manuals are studied in their historical contexts. Serious Egyptian religious intellectuals do not take the rules of warfare from Umdat al-Salik but from the Geneva Conventions and U.N. treaties, as stated clearly by Egypt’s Grand Mufti, Dr. Ali Gomaa:

“Fight in the way of God against those who wage war against you, but do not commit aggression – for, verily, God does not love aggressors,” (Quran, 2:190)

This verse summarizes everything that has been agreed upon concerning guidelines of warfare, including the first and second Geneva Conventions.

Nonetheless, reading in translation (since we know he is not proficient in Arabic), Spencer doesn’t find any suggestion in Umdat Al-Salik that houses of worship should be protected; therefore, he concludes Islamic law in its totality must not have any precedent about protecting houses of worship. What he failed to mention, even in the very piece of evidence he cited, is this:

09:11 It is unlawful to kill a non-Muslim to whom a Muslim has given his guarantee of protection.

[Ibn, al-Naqīb A. L, and Noah H. M. Keller. Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law ʻumdat Al-Salik. Beltsville, MD, U.S.A: Amana Publications, 1999. P. 603]

Most Muslims reinterpret such clauses in the modern sense of citizenship. The Christians are Egyptian citizens and therefore deserve the protection of the government. Hence, the overwhelming demonstration by Muslims in support of the Christian community. Of course, even in a time of warfare, Islamic law laid down strict rules of combat. Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, told his armies:

“I advise you ten things: Do not kill women or children or an aged, infirm person. Do not cut down fruit-bearing trees. Do not destroy an inhabited place. Do not slaughter sheep or camels except for food. Do not burn bees and do not scatter them. Do not steal from the booty, and do not be cowardly.”

[Muwatta, Book 21, Number 21.3.10:]

“Inhabited places” include houses of worship. But the Egyptian Christians aren’t combatants; they’re citizens. They’re even more deserving of scrupulous protection. In this regard, Muhammad himself sanctified the lives of those who made peace treaties with Muslims:

Narrated ‘Abdullah bin ‘Amr: The Prophet said, “Whoever killed a Mu’ahid (a person who is granted the pledge of protection by the Muslims) shall not smell the fragrance of Paradise though its fragrance can be smelt at a distance of forty years (of traveling).”

[Sahih Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 83, Number 49]

Apparently, Spencer feels no need to check any Islamic sources other than Umdat al-Salik before he makes sweeping claims about Islamic law. In any case, Spencer would like us to think that Al-Qaeda, who bombs houses of worship, is acting in accordance with Islamic law better than the majority of Egyptian Muslims. He gives us his “expert” interpretation:

Also, it is likely that al-Qaeda understands Qur’an 22:40 as referring to churches that teach the true Christianity of Jesus the Muslim prophet as he is depicted in the Qur’an. Those Christians who consider Jesus divine — that is, virtually all of them — are “unbelievers” according to the Qur’an (5:17, 5:72), and the Qur’an commands Muslims to make war against those who associate partners with Allah (9:5), which Christians are explicitly accused of doing by proclaiming Jesus to be the Son of God (9:30). Thus they would likely believe that Qur’an 22:40 just doesn’t have anything to do with “pulling down” the assemblies of renegades such as those who were gathered in the church in Alexandria last night.

Notice that Spencer thinks it is “likely” al-Qaeda understand the verse exactly the way he does, although he can produce no such evidence. Maybe because he’s not too good at translating Arabic documents? He then cites his favorite handful of verses (out of context); for example, citing:

But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)… (Quran 9:5)

But without citing the following verses (interpreted in Tafsir Jalalayn as follows):

“How can polytheists [that were treacherous and violated their treaties] have a covenant with Allah and His Messenger? Except for those with whom you entered covenants [i.e., the polytheists who did not break them and hence were not treacherous] in the Sacred Mosque. So as long as they are true to you [with their covenants and do not breach them] then be true to them [by also fulfilling your covenants]; verily, Allah loves those who fear Him [i.e., He loves those who fulfill covenants, since whoever fears Allah will fulfill his covenants, and the Prophet kept his word and upheld his side of the treaty until his enemies broke theirs].”

[Tafsir Jalalayn, Quran 9:7]

Spencer takes verses that refer specifically to a handful of Arab tribes who broke their peace treaties with Muhammad and extrapolates them out to apply to all Jews, Christians, and people everywhere. Spencer ignores key verses of the Quran that make clear distinctions between those who war against Muslims and those who make peace:

Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loves those who are just. Allah only forbids you, with regard to those who fight you for (your) Faith, and drive you out of your homes, and support (others) in driving you out, from turning to them (for friendship and protection). It is such as turn to them (in these circumstances), that do wrong. (Quran 60:8-9)

Finally, Spencer ends by repeating his keynote fallacy:

If Al-Azhar backs up this statement with consistent calls on Egyptian authorities to protect Egypt’s Christians, and consistent teaching against the Islamic texts and teachings that provide justification for attacks against them, we will be making real progress.

Spencer thinks we’ll “make progress” when Al-Azhar teaches against Islamic texts and teachings, while we have shown here that Al-Azhar’s condemnation of Al-Qaeda is not against Islamic texts and teachings, but is perfectly in line with them. Spencer pretends that only his spurious self-serving interpretation of Islam is correct and therefore Islam is the problem, rather than extremism fostered by military occupations. Would Spencer find it sensible for me to likewise demand Christians speak out against the Christian texts and teachings that justify terrorism?

As our country starts debating the violent political rhetoric in our nation’s discourse, let people know that fraudsters like Robert Spencer add fuel to the fire by pushing communities apart, dividing nations along religious lines, and hindering any hope of interfaith understanding. His anti-Muslim bigotry and rejection of Muslim/Christian harmony is poisonous to the best of American traditions: E pluribus unum.

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Phil,-Bill-and-Gabrielle-Giffords

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White Terrorism: Jared Lee Loughner Shoots Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

Posted on 09 January 2011 by Emperor

Another case of, “All Muslims are Terrorist…no, wait.”

White Terrorism

by Juan Cole

Jared Lee Loughner,the assassin of Federal judge John M. Roll and five others and attempted assassin of Rep. Gabrielle Gifford (D-AZ), was clearly mentally unstable. But the political themes of his instability were those of the American far Right. Loughner was acting politically even if he is not all there. He is said to have called out the names of his victims, such as Roll and Gifford, as he fired. As usual, when white people do these things, the mass media doesn’t call it terrorism.

It is irrelevant that Loughner may (at this point we can only say “may”) have been a liberal years earlier in high school. If so, he changed. And among the concerns that came to dominate him as he moved to the Right was the illegitimacy of the “Second Constitution” (the 14th Amendment, which bestows citizenship on all those born in the US, a provision right-wingers in Arizona are trying to overturn at the state level). Loughner also thought that Federal funding for his own community college was unconstitutional, and he was thrown out for becoming violent over the issue. He obviously shared with the Arizona Right a fascination with firearms, and it is telling that a disturbed young man who had had brushes with the law was able to come by an automatic pistol. He is said to have used marijuana, which would be consistent with a form of anti-government, right-wing Libertarianism. I don’t think we can take too seriously the list of books he said he liked, as a guide to his political thinking. They could just have been randomly pulled off some list of great books on the Web, since there is no coherence to the choices.

The man who had most to do with Loughner after his arrest, Pima County Sherriff Clarence W. Dupnik, was clearly angered by what he heard from the assassin: “When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry … it is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

When Gifford helped pass the Health Care bill, according to Suzy Khimm, “extremists subsequently encouraged the public to throw bricks through the windows of lawmakers.” Gifford had to call the police once before when an attendee at one of her events dropped a gun. Gifford had complained ‘ in an MSNBC interview that a Sarah Palin graphic had depicted her district in the crosshair of a gun sight. “They’ve got to realize there are consequences to that,” she said. “The rhetoric is incredibly heated.” ‘

The subtext of the angst over the shooting of Gifford is that in recent months Loughner was saying Tea-Party-like things about the Federal government. The violent language of “elimination,” “putting in the cross-hairs,” (as with Palin’s poster, above) “taking back,” “taking out,” to which members of that movement so often resort, has created a heated atmosphere that easily seeps into the unconscious of the mentally disturbed. That is Dupnik’s point.

There apparently is some indication that Loughner had an accomplice, and his arrest and identification will shed a great deal more light on the motivations behind this political massacre. Did Loughner have a Rasputin?

In some ways, the turn of Loughner to the themes of the American far right parallels what happened to Michael Enright, who slashed the throat of a Bangladeshi cab driver at the height of the campaign promoting hatred of Muslims launched last summer-fall by Rick Lazio and Rupert Murdoch. Everyone should have learned from that tragedy that heated rhetoric has consequences.

Those right-wing bloggers who want to dismiss Loughner as merely disturbed are being hypocritical, since they won’t similarly dismiss obviously unstable Muslims who, like the so-called “Patriots” of the McVeigh stripe, sometimes turn violent. (Zacharias Moussawi, for instance, isn’t playing with a full set of backgammon dominoes, and blaming Islam for him is bizarre). In fact, the right-wing Muslim crackpots and the right-wing American crackpots are haunted by similar anxieties, about a powerful government in Washington undermining their localistic ideas of the good life.

AP has video on the shootings, h/t LAT.

Among the last things Gifford did before she was shot was to reply to the Tea Party-inspired congressional reading of the Constitution by reading out the Bill of Rights. She obviously enjoyed pronouncing the words, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” But where members of Congress encourage extreme rhetoric, and where Rupert Murdoch’s stable of demagogues use code to whip up racial hatred and violence, those rights can be withdrawn by vigilante and mob violence. Not the letter of the Constitution can protect us, but only its spirit, and then only when implemented in our daily lives.

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Fake enlightened liberal democrats making excuses for anti-Muslim bigotry

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Fake enlightened liberal democrats making excuses for anti-Muslim bigotry

Posted on 08 January 2011 by Greeneye

We have detailed a lot of anti-Muslim bigotry on the religious right-wing, but lest anyone think the religious right has a monopoly on Islamophobia, rest assured that some people on the left-wing have their own reasons for stereotyping and scapegoating Muslims. This is what we find in the latest hit piece by Pascal Bruckner, one of the nouveaux (“new”) French philosophers who defends loons like Ayan Hirsi Ali.

A common talking-point ceaselessly echoed in the Islamophobic blogosphere is that the term “Islamophobia” is part of a draconian conspiracy to silence anti-Muslim whistle-blowing. For example, the vitriolic hate site BareNakedIslam has a catch phrase, “It isn’t Islamophobia when they really ARE trying to kill you!” by which they imply that Islam and every Muslim wants to kill you. In this fashion, Bruckner begins with an incredibly sweeping claim:

Islamophobia was invented to silence those Muslims who question the Koran and who demand equality of the sexes.

At the end of the 1970s, Iranian fundamentalists invented the term “Islamophobia” formed in analogy to “xenophobia”. The aim of this word was to declare Islam inviolate. Whoever crosses this border is deemed a racist. This term, which is worthy of totalitarian propaganda, is deliberately unspecific about whether it refers to a religion, a belief system or its faithful adherents around the world.

We imagine a dim room full of bearded Iranian clerics sinisterly plotting to introduce Islamophobia into the Western lexicon to advance their insidious totalitarian agenda. In reality, far from being “deliberately unspecific,” Islamophobia has been defined by Runnymede Trust as ”an outlook or world-view involving an unfounded dread and dislike of Muslims, which results in practices of exclusion and discrimination.” It has been accepted by the United Nations and numerous government officials. Countless manifestations of Islamophobia are documented and recognized. But Bruckner dismisses all the stereotypes, prejudice, and hostility being thrown at Muslims as figments of our imagination. That is certainly shocking news to Columbia University Press and victims of the Bosnian Genocide.

Islamophobia was an important driving force behind the latest legally recognized genocide in Europe. According to Dr. Norman Cigar at the Strategic Studies Institute, the Serbians’ Islamophobic propaganda was necessary to justify the genocide:

In particular, these [Serbian] intellectuals have been instrumental in establishing and cementing an in-group/out-group dichotomy between the Muslims and the Serbs based on stereotypes, a fact which has been central to forming the environment and establishing the legitimacy for much of the violence that occurred.

[Qureshi, E., & Sells, M. A. (2003). The new crusades: Constructing the Muslim enemy. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 314]

It is precisely this “in-group/out-group” dichotomy promoted by Islamophobes, anti-Semites, racists, and other bigots that leads to so much civil strife and violence, including genocide. But despite this recent ugly European history, nowhere in his article does Bruckner acknowledge that bigotry against Muslims is a real issue. This is a classic example of Runnymede’s sixth point in their comprehensive definition of Islamophobia: criticism of the West made by Muslims is rejected out of hand.

Nevertheless, Bruckner wants us to believe that everyone who uses the term Islamophobia is simply an agent in the service of Ayatollah Khomeini. Perhaps Bruckner believes former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan was secretly working for the Mullahs when he concisely summarized the issue:

When a new word enters the language, it is often the result of a scientific advance or a diverting fad. But when the world is compelled to coin a new term to take account of increasingly widespread bigotry, that is a sad and troubling development. Such is the case with Islamophobia.

In any case, Bruckner hinges his argument on the false premise that Islamophobia targets normal criticism of Islam rather than prejudice and hostility towards Islam. In fact, Muslims largely accept normal criticism of Islam as part of religious freedom. The Quran says:

There is no compulsion in religion. (2:256)

If it had been your Lord’s will, they would all have believed – all who are on earth. Will you then compel mankind, against their will, to believe? (10:99)

Certainly, people who choose not to practice Islam are not Islamophobic. Normal criticism of Islam is acceptable in a modern pluralistic society, as is normal criticism of any religion or ideology. Muslims, like Jews and Christians, have likewise debated and reformed traditional laws on apostasy. However, what is unacceptable in our pluralistic society is spreading hate, intolerance, discrimination, stereotypes, and prejudice. Ignoring this important point, Bruckner pretends the term “Islamophobia” has nothing to do with anti-Muslim hateanti-Muslim violence, or religious discrimination. He sums up his beef:

The term “Islamophobia” serves a number of functions: it denies the reality of an Islamic offensive in Europe all the better to justify it; it attacks secularism by equating it with fundamentalism. Above all, however, it wants to silence all those Muslims who question the Koran, who demand equality of the sexes, who claim the right to renounce religion, and who want to practice their faith freely and without submitting to the dictates of the bearded and doctrinaire. It follows that young girls are stigmatised for not wearing the veil, as are French, German or English citizens of Maghribi, Turkish, African or Algerian origin who demand the right to religious indifference, the right not to believe in God, the right not to fast during Ramadan. Fingers are pointed at these renegades, they are delivered up to the wrath of their religions communities in order to quash all hope of change among the followers of the Prophet.

Let me get the conspiracy theory straight: Islamophobia was invented by Iranian fundamentalists to wage the Eurabia stealth jihad (“Islamic offensive”) and attack secularism, but “above all,” wants to silence any criticism of Islam and prevent any Islamic reform. As we’ve already pointed out, this is completely fabricated nonsense; long on confident presumptuous claims, short on supporting evidence.

Furthermore, Bruckner cares so much about Muslim women being stigmatized for not wearing the veil, but this so-called liberal democrat curiously has no concern for the religious rights of Muslim women who choose to veil out of modesty. It seems the right of people to reject religion is very important to Bruckner, but the right of people to practice religion, not so much. Liberal democracy for you but not for them?

Even the French President has somehow been fooled by the treacherous hidden hand of the Mullahs. He says:

Did not the French president himself, never one to miss a blunder – not compare Islamophobia with Antisemitism? A tragic error.

Of course, the comparison between Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism is perfectly valid. Yet strangely Bruckner, allegedly an enlightened freedom-loving liberal democrat and champion of reason, believes dehumanization of Jews is wrong (and it definitely is) but dehumanization of Muslims is… well, nothing to be concerned about. Rather, we are told Islamophobia is a term meant to “quash all hope of change” instead of protect innocent people from the majority’s bigotry. He concludes:

“Islamophobia” is one of the words that we urgently need to delete from our vocabulary.

Mr. Bruckner, the enlightened liberal democracy I know stands by the human and religious rights of all people with the goal of building a tolerant, pluralistic, fair, and peaceful open society. However, the “enlightenment” you peddle is a poor intellectual articulation of nativist tribalistic (us-versus-them) in-group/out-group populism which thoroughly, and ironically, mirrors the rigid fundamentalism you claim to be against.

In my estimation, you belong in the category of self-serving pseudo-liberal loons like Bill Maher.

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arton5749-1862f

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Oumma.com: International Conference Against Islamization

Posted on 07 January 2011 by Garibaldi

A report from the French website Oumma.com. (Hat tip: Abraham al-Ahmad). The report was originally in French, and so the translation is not the greatest, if anyone has a better translation send it over.

The gist is that Oumma sent one of their journalists to the “International Conference against Islamization” that was held in Paris. They learned about the developing cultural cross spectrum of Islamophobia and how it is a reflection of majority opinion in France.

The New Face of Islamophobia

They say they are Islamophobic and proud. Who are they really? Umma attended the “international conference against Islamization” that was recently held in Paris. Meeting with the organizers and supporters of the radical trend that is increasingly influential in public opinion.


Islam is a threat: a feeling that is now accepted by nearly all French people, according to a survey released by Le Monde . Beyond the necessary questions about the responsibilities-of-both sides for such a negative perception, the identification of the protagonists instrumentalizing this sentiment is already possible. Ummah will soon publish a lengthy multi-media investigation (written, audio and video) showing the emergence and manifestations of Islamophobia in France. The “international conference against Islamization,” held December 18 in Paris is just the tip of the iceberg behind this gathering, we come back, parallel to its description on the connections of this diverse movement with parliamentary right, left, feminist, right-wing ultra-Zionist but also, more surprisingly, with think-tanks and U.S. collaboration. In addition, we discuss how journalists, quietly sharing the same beliefs, prepared through their actions and their visual tests, the ideological terrain on which this motion was seconded.Finally, and most importantly, the investigation tells us how these Islamophobia propagandists claimed a position for themselves strategically for the presidential election through the next convention of the National Front and tactical support to Marine Le Pen.

As an illustration of the story that is soon to be posted by Umma, here’s a video clip, made at the end of the day Audience: This is my encounter with Christine Tasin , member of Riposte Lay and co-organizer of the gathering.The courtesy shown by those responsible for this event to the media in general and Muslim Ummah in particular, has not overshadowed so far, here or there, some tension in our discussions with the stakeholders.

After eight hours of speeches focused on Islam and the “grave danger” that it presents the spirits of the participants was particularly heated, as shown by this clip. If Christine Tasin kindly agreed to answer my questions, he did not fail at the end of our brief conversation, to speak to me as if I was the spokesman of the French Muslim Council, with recurrent expressions like “if you, in Islam, you change this or that ….” The most revealing of the atmosphere that will show to be ultimately deleterious was the unexpected crowd of true fans, applauding at the end of the interview. One of them, particularly vehement against me, apologized after filming the movie. Then he wanted to ask about the media for which I made my report, however, confusing and L’Humanite Ummah, man, from a “communist family”, refused later to give me his first name, because, he says, he “works in a ministry.”

Neither fascist nor brave

Since the “Aperitif sausage” of June 18 which I also attended to speak to various actors of this movement which was a huge ratings success on December 18, a cartoon double, including which fell many of my colleagues, seems pointless: the men and women who make up this emerging force in French politics are neither fascist nor clowns. There are amongst them some who are nostalgic for Benito Mussolini, visceral racists, or eccentric, however this would be a serious journalistic error to reduce all their activists, and especially their supporters to such a label. On this point, I have not so far shared the feeling that the journalist Elisabeth Levy, speaking off with colleagues, found that it was only “good people” at times, stigma obsessional contempt insidious cultural condescension returned regularly in the words of this speaker or that member of the public. But rather than demonize, like the radical Islamophobes, or dilute, the attempt by Ummah in the coming time will simply be to understand this phenomenon to better relate the dangers and challenges addressed, not only to French Muslims, but also to the national community as a whole.

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peter-king

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Rep. Peter King’s Muslimphobia

Posted on 07 January 2011 by Emperor

An excellent report from Sheila Musaji at The American Muslim on Peter King’s “Muslimphobia.”

Rep. Peter King’s Muslim Phobia

by Sheila Musaji

Rep. Peter King plans to hold a Congressional inquiry into American Muslim “radicalization” in his new position as Chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

This has been seen as a flashback to McCarthy’s witchhunt, and a witch trial.  Whether or not this inquiry would benefit anyone   has been debated by the right and the left.

As an American Muslim, when I look at Rep. King’s background and previous statements, it seems to me that Rep. King is an Islamophobe, and that what he is proposing is not an attack on radicals (of whatever persuasion) but an attack on American Muslims in general.  I am very concerned about where this might take us as a nation, and will follow this developing story and provide updates.

What makes this all the more concerning is a recent Washington Post article “Top Secret America” which includes the information that “‘Top Secret America’ includes hundreds of federal departments and agencies operating out of 1300 facilities around this country. Thirty-three new building complexes have been built for intelligence bureaucracies alone, occupying 17 million square feet-the equivalent of 22 U.S. Capitols or three Pentagons.  Five miles southeast of the White House, the largest government site in 50 years is being built-at a cost of $3.4 billion-to house the largest bureaucracy after the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs; the Department of Homeland Security, which has a workforce of 230,000 people.  With nearly 2,000 private companies that are sub contracted in all, there are now 850,000 Americans with top secret clearance.” The Department of Homeland Security to the extent that it is influenced by people like Rep. King may limit our civil rights.  As Javeed Akhter has pointed outFew are aware of the magnitude of this secret intel. It is legitimate worry that parts of an operation this large and diverse and secret may get out of hand and start affecting civil liberties of all Americans.  I am not aware of any congressional hearings on it.  Also no moral authority in or out of office has taken on the media for their reckless stereotyping of Muslim Americans.
KING’S BACKGROUND

Back in 2004 King said on the Sean Hannity program “I would say, you could say that 80-85 percent of mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists…Those who are in control. The average Muslim, no, they are loyal, but they don’t work, they don’t come forward, they don’t tell the police.”

In our TAM article collection Islamophobia no longer questioned – even by our elected representatives, the entry on Rep. Peter King notes that

King said that there are “Too Many Mosques” in the U.S.”. King also made comments suggesting American Muslims don’t cooperate with authorities.  He said “85 percent of American Muslim community leaders are an enemy living amongst us” and that “no (American) Muslims cooperate in the war on terror”.  He is also a vocal opponent of the Cordoba House.  (Note:  as Robert Wright has pointed out “Representative King, who shares the Weekly Standard’s grave suspicions about Rauf, supported the Irish Republican Army back when it was killing lots of innocent civilians. He raised money for the I.R.A. and said it was “the legitimate voice of occupied Ireland” and praised the “brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry” and in various other ways backed this terrorist group. If Rauf’s past looked like King’s past, there would indeed be cause for concern.”)  King also said regarding Cordoba House “It’s a house of worship, but we are at war with Al Qaeda.” Unless you believe that all Muslims are somehow supportive of or connected with Al Qaeda, that is one colossal non sequitur.  Most Muslims are at war with Al Qaeda.  Rep. King also defended Pamela Geller and called her a “credible spokesperson”.  King’s new plan to open a McCarthy style witchhunt against American Muslims.

Regarding his past support for the IRA, as Justin Elliott notes in his article The Republican congressman who supported terrorism:  “If “IRA” were replaced with “Hamas,” the sort of fundraising King did would these days earn you a lengthy prison sentence for material support for terrorism.” Alex Massie points out ”… King presents himself as a hawk on security issues who, like so many so-called conservatives, is an enthusiastic supporter of torture and, should it prove necessary, nuclear weapons. Listening to King talk about al Qaeda, you could be forgiven for thinking that he’s the terrorists’ most implacable enemy.    Which would be funny if it weren’t such a sour joke. For years, King, who represents a chunk of New York’s Long Island, was in fact the terrorists’ best friend. King wasn’t merely an apologist for terrorism, he was an enthusiastic supporter of terrorism.    Of course it was Irish, not Islamic terrorism that King championed. So that’s different. Right? For decades, King was one of the keenest, most reliable American voices supporting the Irish Republican Army during its long and murderous campaign.  According to King, the terrorist movement was “the legitimate voice of occupied Ireland.”    In Northern Ireland, the conflict was drily referred to as “The Troubles.” But that understatement hides the brutal nature of an ugly, squalid conflict during which more than 3,600 people were killed. Republican terrorists were responsible for more than 2,000 of these deaths. The scale of the carnage was such that, on a per-capita basis, a comparable conflict in the United States would kill 700,000 Americans.    And King was at the heart of it: In the 1980s, he was a prominent fundraiser for Noraid, the Irish-American organization that raised money for the IRA and was suspected of running guns to Ulster, too. Indeed, King’s rise to prominence within the Irish-American movement was predicated upon his support for the IRA at a time when New Yorkers were softer on terrorism than they are now. Noraid helped win King his seat in Congress, making him, in some respects, the terrorists’ Man in Washington.

In 2004, King said“The fact is while the overwhelming majority of Muslims are outstanding people, on the other hand 100% of the Islamic terrorists are Muslims, and that is our main enemy today.” This is a meanlingless comment.  Of course 100% of Muslim terrorists are Muslims.  The question is, what does King plan to do about the majority of terrorists who are not Muslims.

When the New York Times ran an article that criticized King’s planned hearings, King responded with“I’m absolutely delighted that The New York Times would attack me,” [New York Republican Congressman Peter King] said in an interview with The Hill. “I have nothing but contempt for them. They should be indicted under the Espionage Act. … “

When the Department of Homeland Security released a report in 2009 that warned of the rising threat of right-wing extremism, King responded negatively.  King told Joe Scarborough that, instead of discussing the threat of anti-government radicals, DHS should focus on the threat emanating from “Muslims” and “mosques” at home.  He said ”[Napolitano] has never put out a report talking about look out for mosques. Look out for Islamic terrorists in our country. Look out for the fact that very few Muslims come forward to cooperate with the police. If they sent out a report saying that, there would be hell to pay.”
King wants Wikileaks designated as a terrorist organization.

King supports torture of Guantanamo detainees.

M.J. Rosenberg has reported about Rep. King that In 1984, “the Secret Service listed him as a threat when President Reagan made a trip to Nassau County to watch a Special Olympics event.”
Claim that MUSLIMS DON’T SPEAK OUT AGAINST EXTREMISM AND TERRORISM is a lie

Actually many individuals who have been arrested for terrorist plots and activities were turned in by members of the Muslim community.  These include:  Craig Monteilh, Abdel Hameed Shehadeh, Times Square bomber, the Oregon jihadist, Lackawanna six, Paintball 11 in VA, Matin Siraj plot in NY , Daniel Boyd in NC, 5 Muslim men who went to Pakistan from VA, Farooque Ahmed subway plotter.  Muslims have also helped by infiltrating al Qaeda.

A cursory look at our TAM article collection on Responses to Islamophobia, Arabophobia, and Extremism will provide anyone who is interested with hundreds of articles and statements countering the claims of individuals or groups attempting to justify extremism in the name of Islam.

A cursory look at our many article collections under the heading MUSLIMS DENOUNCE TERRORISM which is readily avaible by simply clicking on this logo on the TAM homepage and which will take you to a lengthy collection of Muslim denunciations of terrorism, extremism, and violence will show that Muslims have spoken out often and loudly.  – Qur’an & Hadith against extremism (see also power point presentations)  – Part I Fatwas – Part II Statements by Organizations – Part III Statements and Articles by Individuals (see also power point presentations)  – Part IV A Few Quotes A-K, and A Few Quotes L-ZPart V The Muslim Majority Who Don’t Get Publicity (see also power point presentation)  – Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. MilitarySelective Hearing of Muslim Voices Against ExtremismSunni Shia Unity Resource – collection of articlesMuslim Voices Promoting Islamic Non Violent Solutions
Claim that MOST TERRORISTS ARE MUSLIMS is simply a lie

TAM has a lengthy article collection Claim that all terrorists are Muslims ignores history This article lists studies, government reports, and other documentation, and incidents from the 1970’s to the present time.  Since 2000 alone here are some of the terrorist incidents involving non-Muslims

Former leader of the Texas Militia plot to attack the Federal Building in Houston, a Catholic priest drove his car into the Northern Illinois Health Clinic and pulled out an ax before being shot at by a security guard, JDL plot by Irv Rubin and Earl Krugel to blow up the King Fahd Mosque and the office of Congressman Darrell Issa in CA foiled, Anthrax attacks by Bruce Ivins kill five across the U.S. with politicians and media officials as the apparent targets, Clayton Waagner mailed hoax letters containing a white powder to 554 clinics, Robert Pickett discharged a number of shots from a weapon in the direction of the White House, Lucas John Helder rigged pipe bombs in private mailboxes to explode when the boxes were opened, white supremacists planned to bomb a series of institutions associated with the black and Jewish communities including the U.S.  Holocaust Memorial Museum, Two members of Project 7 are arrested plotting to kill judges and law enforcement officials in order to kick off a revolution, An Idaho Mountain Militia Boys plot to kill a judge an a police officer and break a friend out of jail is uncovered, William Krar is charged for his part in the Tyler poison gas plot, a white supremacist related plan, Jeffrey Weise killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend on the Red Lake, MN Chippewa reservation, then went to Red Lake H.S. where he killed 7 people and wounded 5 others before committing suicide, Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe threw a Molotov cocktail at a clinic in Shreveport, LA, Two officers were killed at Forward Operating Base Danger in Tikrit, Iraq by a deliberately placed mine,  Staff Sergeant Alberto B. Martinez was charged, but was acquitted in a court martial trial at Fort Bragg, NC, The Animal Liberation Front targets a UCLA professor with a firebomb due to her research on animals, Charles Carl Roberts IV went into an Amish school in Lancaster County, PA and killed 5 girls before committing suicide,  Dennis & Daniel Mahon send mail bombs to a diversity office in Scottsdale AZ that injure three, Demetrius Van Crocker a white supremacist from rural TN attempted to acquire Sarin nerve gas and C-4 explosives that he planned to use to destroy government buildings, A man rammed his car into a women’s clinic that he thought was an abortion clinic and set it ablaze in Davenport, Iowa, Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded many others at Virginia Tech before committing suicide, Five members of a Birmingham, Alabama area anti-immigration militia were arrested for planning a machine gun attack on Mexicans, A bomb was left in a women’s clinic in Austin but failed to explode,  Jim D. Adkisson opened fire in the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville TN killing two and injuring seven (a note found in his SUV indicated this was intended as a suicide attack and said the church was apparently targeted because of its support of liberal social policies), UC-Santa Cruz molecular biologist David Feldheim’s home was firebombed. A car belonging to another researcher from that University was destroyed by a firebomb in what is presumed to be related. FBI is investigating incidents as domestic terrorism related to animal rights groups, plot by two white power skinheads to target an African American High School and kill 88 blacks and decapitate 14 more (the numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic to white supremacists) and although expecting to fail try to assassinate Barack Obama, Jomar Falu Vives a Fort Carson, CO soldier and Iraq war veteran accused of killing 2 people and wounding another in drive-by shootings, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting by James Wenneker von Brunn, Assassination of Dr. George Tiller by Scott Roeder, bombing of a Starbucks in Manhattan’s Upper East Side by Kyle Shaw, shooting at Muslim home in Oregon by Vadim Ignatov, Keith Luke went on shooting spree in MA to kill as many non whites and Jews as possible, Three Pittsburgh police officers are fatally shot and a fourth wounded by Richard Andrew Poplawski, who had posted his racist and anti-Semitic views on white supremacist websites.  James Cummings dirty bomb plot.  Joseph Stack’s suicide flight into an IRS building.  Hutaree militia.  Justin Carl Moose plot to bomb abortion clinics.

Even before adding in shootings, bombings and arson attacks on mosques and violent attacks on individual Muslims or individuals perceived to be Muslim, it is glaringly obvious that attempting to defend the claim that most terrorist incidents involve Muslims can only result from ignorance or outright bigotry.

Rep. King might be interested to know that in 2010 there were at least 3 bombings carried out by the IRA in Ireland.  It would be very interesting to know what his current position is on the IRA.

In 2009, MPAC released a study of plots by Muslim and non-Muslim violent extremists against the United States since 9/11.  The the key findings of this report were:

•There were 77 total plots by domestic non-Muslim perpetrators against the United States since 9/11/01. In comparison, there have been 41 total plots by domestic and international Muslim perpetrators since 9/11/01.
•There are at least 5 incidents of non-Muslim domestic extremists possessing or attempting to possess Biological, Chemical or Radiological weapons. One of those occurred since Obama’s election. No such cases involving Muslim violent extremists have been reported since 9/11/01.
•Evidence clearly indicates a general rise in violent extremism across ideologies. Using Obama’s election as our measurement, since November 4, 2008 there have been 44 terror plots by non-Muslim domestic extremists. By comparison, there have been 20 plots by Muslim domestic and international extremists. Each of these categories constitutes close to 50% of all violent extremism cases since 9/11.
•Yet, there is little evidence of rising ideological extremism among American Muslims. We use Obama’s election as the start of a timeline for measurement. We found 14 out of the 19 post-election plots (74%) involved Muslim Americans engaging in ideological extremism before the vote. Only 2 out of 19 cases (10%) are individuals involved in extremist activities after Obama’s election. Al-Qaeda does not appear to be making new ideological gains into the Muslim American community. Instead, the data is pointing toward greater numbers of longstanding ideological extremists turning to violence.
•Muslim communities have stepped forward to help law enforcement foil over 1 out of every 3 Al Qaeda-related terror plots threatening America since 9/11. Muslim communities have help law enforcement prevent the last 7 out of 11 Al Qaeda related plots. This represents an important counter trend the recent spike of arrests. It also highlights the importance of law enforcement partnering with citizens through community-oriented policing.

Loonwatch has also published a must read article All Terrorists are Muslims…Except the 94% that Aren’t which takes information from an FBI report, analyzes the list of incidents and creates an interesting pie chart that makes all the information come clearly into focus.  Loonwatch states: “According to this data, there were more Jewish acts of terrorism within the United States than Islamic (7% vs 6%).  These radical Jews committed acts of terrorism in the name of their religion.  These were not terrorists who happened to be Jews; rather, they were extremist Jews who committed acts of terrorism based on their religious passions, just like Al-Qaeda and company.” A second report noted by Loonwatch discusses a Europol Report which shows that in Europe,  All Terrorists are Muslims…Except the 99.6% that Aren’t.
Has Rep. King noticed that just this past month, the FBI and Connecticut police found “improvised explosives” inside a New Haven home occupied by three “white men”.
Claim that AMERICAN MUSLIM’S HAVE NOT RESPONDED TO RADICALIZATION is a lie

MPAC published its first policy memo as the Counterterrorism Chronicles in 1993, and produced its first policy paper on counterterrorism policy in 1999. In September 2003, MPAC published its second counterterrorism policy paper entitled “A Review of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy: American Muslim Critique & Recommendations.” General Brent Scowcroft, former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs to Presidents George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford, said, “MPAC’s Counterterrorism Policy Paper is a serious and thoughtful document that should be valuable to all policy-makers. Counterterrorism analysis from an American Muslim perspective is critical to the decision-making process. I found the paper to be serious and in-depth, and the recommendations should be reviewed by the policy-making community.”

MPAC has created campaigns to assist local Muslim communities in engaging with law enforcement and ensuring financial and ideological transparency at their mosques. One such program is our National Grassroots Campaign to Fight Terrorism, which was launched in 2004 and endorsed by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Department of Justice.  More recently, we released an eye opening policy paper entitled “Building Bridges to Strengthen America: Building an Effective Counterterrorism Enterprise between Muslim Americans and Law Enforcement.” Against the background of more than a dozen domestic terrorism plots uncovered in 2009, this paper discusses the current analysis of the “domestic radicalization” and proposes a blueprint for effective community-law enforcement engagement and partnership.

A Community Based Approach to Countering Radicalization: A Partnership for America was produced by the World Organization for Resource Development and Education in Washington, D.C.  The report was written by Muslims.

During a hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing & Terrorism Risk Assessment in 2008, Rep. Pascrell expressed strong disagreement with Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) remarks that Muslims are not doing enough to help law enforcement fight terrorism.  Pascrell said“America must view the Muslim community as a great asset to our homeland security effort and take real steps to engage them. We cannot risk becoming like Europe where Muslim citizens have been pushed to the margins of society and are looked at as objects of suspicion.”

In April of 2008 FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, stated before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee: “And every opportunity I have, I re-affirm the fact that 99.9 percent of Muslim-Americans or Sikh-Americans, Arab-Americans are every bit as patriotic as anybody else in this room, and that many of our cases are a result of the cooperation from the Muslim community in the United States.”

According to the NY Times “A two-year study by a group of academics on American Muslims and terrorism concluded that contemporary mosques are actually a deterrent to the spread of militant Islam and terrorism. The study was conducted by professors with Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the University of North Carolina. It disclosed that many mosque leaders had put significant effort into countering extremism by building youth programs, sponsoring antiviolence forums and scrutinizing teachers and texts.”
PERCENTAGE OF MOSQUES claims are a lie

This claim by Rep. King and others is based on nothing at all.  The first time it was stated was by Sheikh Hisham Kabbani in 1999.  It is a number taken from thin air.  There have been no studies or anything else to support such a baseless claim.

It is one of what I call “everyone knows” claims about Islam and Muslims that has no basis in fact.

There is a long list of bigoted propoganda stating some “fact” that “everyone knows” which are all, quite simply, not facts at all.  You can find responses to hundreds of such claims here.  The most commonly repeated claims about Muslims and Islam are that

“everyone knows” that most or all terrorists are Muslims, and there are no Christian and no Jewish terrorists (or terrorists of any other religious stripe), and that Muslims are inherently violent.  Everyone also knows that Muslims are not equivalent to real Americans, that they are the enemy within, and a fifth column,  that good Muslims can’t be good Americans, that they are not a part of our American heritage, that they are all militant,  that Islam makes Muslims “backward”, that Muslims have made no contribution to the West,  that Islam is “of the devil”, a Crescent menace, and an “evil encroaching on the United States”, and not a religion.  Everyone knows that this is a Christian nation, which everyone knows the Muslims are trying to take over, starting with getting an Eid stamp which is the first step towards shariah law which is a threat to America, and by purposefully having more children than others to increase their numbers.  Everyone knows that Muslims have no respect for the Constitution, and that they are opposed to freedom of speech, and don’t allow freedom of religion.  Everyone knows that Muslims are given a pass by the elite media.  It’s “us versus them”.  Their goal is world domination under a Caliphate, and the proposed Cordoba House in NYC is a a demonstration of supremacism and triumphalism.  They don’t speak out against extremism or terrorism, and even those Muslims who do speak up or seem moderate are simply lying or practicing taqiyyah.  Everyone knows the Qur’an is uniquely violent, that the Islamic concept of God doesn’t include God’s love, that Allah is a moon god.  The problem is that what “everyone knows” is wrong.  These self-righteous and incorrect statements are usually followed by a demand that the Muslim community do something about whatever is the false flag of the day or face the inevitable consequences.

REACTION TO REP. KING’S PROPOSED HEARINGS

As Eboo Patel points out there are ways that King’s inquiry might be beneficial.  For example it could ” …  shine a light on the role that the mainstream Muslim community has played in these attacks. By and large, it has been to help prevent them. Mainstream American Muslims have been vigilant against extremists in their communities – confronting their views, flushing them out and if need be reporting them to law enforcement.” And, he points out that The pattern of extremism amongst American Muslim is ‘self-radicalization’ online. Patel points out that if this inquiry focuses on this reality it might have beneficial consequences “King should help the country draw the obvious conclusion from these two points: let’s reduce the number of people who self-radicalize online, let’s lift up the good work of the mainstream American Muslim community and let’s strengthen our partnerships so we keep our nation safe. Doing anything else is bad for the country.

Rep. Keith Ellison said on “The Ed Show” that he told King he’d like to be involved in the proposed hearing but wanted it done “responsibly. . . . Let’s talk about how we’re going to make America safer, and enlist Muslim Americans to help safeguard our country and look at anybody who might get radicalized.”
Juan Cole has referred to these hearings as hating Muslims in America and said: Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the incoming chair of the House committee on Homeland Security has announced that he will hold hearings into the ‘radicalization’ of American Muslims. This, despite the fact that the Muslim Americans are pillars of the US community–disproportionately well-educated and well integrated into the country, and even though a third of tips forestalling radical Muslim operations come from the community itself. And, despite the fact that most terrorism in the US is committed by white supremacists. King’s obscene gesture of Kristallnacht-by-hearing does not come out of the representative’s own eccentricities, but is part of an organized conspiracy to demonize and marginalize Muslim Americans and Arab Americans. (Ironically, as we will likely hear more of from the Wikileaks cables, the British government considers King little more than a terrorist himself, given his vocal support for the Irish Republican Army, which regularly blew up London from the 1970s through the early 1990s).

As Larry Cohler-Esse and Nathan Gutman note It is King’s prescriptions for addressing this trend that cause controversy. The hearings, still in their formative stage, are likely to be shaped by King’s view of Muslims as a community to be intensively monitored and systematically infiltrated. That is at odds with other views, held by some in law enforcement and counter-terrorism, who see American Muslims quite differently: as willing partners, if sensitively cultivated and understood as individuals who want to stop terrorism — but who bristle at being targeted as a community and pressured to spy on their own congregations. They also point out that According to data compiled by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, one-third of terror plots in the United States linked to al-Qaeda or its affiliates since 9/11 were foiled thanks to cooperation from members of the Muslim community. Alejandro Beutel, the group’s government and policy analyst, said that these numbers were derived from government records and press reports tracked by the Congressional Research Service and the Heritage Foundation.    “The number clearly shows that there is cooperation with law enforcement agencies,” Beutel said, terming King’s claims “grossly inaccurate.”

Salam al-Marayati of MPAC said“He basically wants to treat the Muslim-American community as a suspect community”…  He added that Mr. King was potentially undermining the relationship that Muslim leaders had sought to build with law enforcement officials around the country. Tensions have occasionally erupted in recent years over counterterrorism measures that civil rights groups and others said had gone too far.

All of the premises that are the foundation for Rep. King’s belief that this inquiry is needed are false.  His motives are either ignorant or bigoted, and whether Rep. King is ignorant or bigoted, either possibility makes him a bad choice to be in charge of Homeland Security, or to lead a non-biased investigation.  I am concerned that the question for Rep. King might just be “Are you now, or have you ever been, a Muslim?”
I hope that he reads and re-reads the first amendment – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

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SEE ALSO:

ISLAMOPHOBIA – RESPONSES TO ISLAMOPHOBIA AND EXTREMISM
NOTE:  We have had as part of our Muslim Voices against Terrorism and Extremism resources a section on responses to Islamophobia.  This was in five parts:  – Responses to Claims Made ABOUT Islam and Muslims in General – Responses to Claims Made ABOUT Qur’an Verses, Arabic Terms, Prophet Muhammad – Responses to False Claims ABOUT Muslim Individuals & Organizations & Incidents Involving Muslims – Responses to Actual Extremist Statements & Incidents of Extremism or violence BY Muslims – Responses to Claims Made BY Specific Individuals and Organizations About Muslims.  Because of a restriction in the possible length of articles, we were unable to organize these in a more user-friendly manner.  Our webmaster has now resolved this problem, and we have combined all these five sections into one section.  The entries are alphabetical, and it should now be much easier to locate a response to a particular issue, incident, or individual.  In order to keep load time down for our readers, this single resource will still be divided into two sections:  A to L, and M to Z.  Sheila Musaji 3/5/2010.

ISLAMOPHOBIA

- ALARMING STATEMENTS Note, previously divided by year and now consolidated into one collection
- Alarming statements by elected officials and political organizations
- Claim That All Terrorists are Muslims Ignores History (sections on Christian extremism and terrorism and Jewish extremism and terrorism were divided 4/08)
- INCIDENTS OF ISLAMOPHOBIA – Prejudice, Racist, or Violent Incidents at MOSQUES Incidents, hate crimesTariq Ramadan incident – and Khalil Gibran Academy incident and Obsession film incidentIslamo-Fascism Awareness Week incident
- Islamophobia: Real or imagined
- MEDIA, Propaganda & Perception
- Polls, statistics, and surveys relating to Islam and Muslims

- A Long History of Injustice Ignored
(see also power point presentations)

Comments (11)

U.S. teenager tortured in Kuwait and barred re-entry into the U.S.

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U.S. teenager tortured in Kuwait and barred re-entry into the U.S.

Posted on 06 January 2011 by Garibaldi

A Somali-born US citizen was tortured in Kuwait. Glenn Greenwald interviewed him through telephone, what he found out was quite disturbing. You can hear the whole interview by clicking on this link.

U.S. teenager tortured in Kuwait and barred re-entry into the U.S.

(Salon.com)

(updated below)

Gulet Mohamed is an 18-year-old American citizen whose family is Somalian.  His parents moved with him to the U.S. when he was 2 or 3 years old, and he has lived in the U.S. ever since.  In March, 2009, he went to study Arabic and Islam in Yemen (in Sana’a, the nation’s capital), and, after several weeks, left (at his mother’s urging) and went to visit his mother’s family in Somalia, staying with his uncle there for several months.  Roughly one year ago, he left Somalia and traveled to Kuwait to stay with other family members who live there.  Like many teenagers who reach early adulthood, he was motivated in his travels by a desire to see the world, to study, and to get to know his family’s ancestral homeland and his faraway relatives.

At all times, Mohamed traveled on an American passport and had valid visas for all the countries he visited.  He has never been arrested nor — until two weeks ago — was he ever involved with law enforcement in any way, including the entire time he lived in the U.S.

Approximately two weeks ago (on December 20), Mohamed went to the airport in Kuwait to have his visa renewed, as he had done every three months without incident for the last year.  This time, however, he was told by the visa officer that his name had been marked in the computer, and after waiting five hours, he was taken into a room and interrogated by officials who refused to identify themselves.  They then handcuffed and blindfolded him and drove him to some other locale.  That was the start of a two-week-long, still ongoing nightmare during which he was imprisoned for a week in an unknown location by unknown captors, relentlessly interrogated, and severely beaten and threatened with even worse forms of torture.

Mohamed’s story was first reported this morning by Mark Mazzetti in The New York Times, who spoke with Mohamed by telephone, where he is currently being held in a deportation center in Kuwait.  I also spoke with Mohamed this morning, and my 50-minute conversation with him was recorded and can be heard on the recorder below.  Mazzetti did a good job of describing Mohamed’s version of events.  He writes that during his 90-minute conversation, “Mr. Mohamed was agitated as he recounted his captivity, tripping over his words and breaking into tears.”

That was very much my experience as well.  It may be difficult at times to understand all of what Mohamed recounts because he is emotionally distraught in the extreme, but it’s nonetheless very worth listening to what he has to say, at the very least to portions of it.  Mohamed says he was repeatedly beaten with a stick on the bottom of his feet and his palms, hit in the face, and hung from the ceiling.  He also says his captors threatened him with both the arrest of his mother and electric shock, and told him that he should forget his family.

He still does not know why he was detained and beaten, nor does he know what is happening to him now.  Indeed, although Mazzetti writes that he was detained and beaten by Kuwait captors, Mohamed actually has no idea who was responsible, and told me that at least some of the people interrogating him spoke English.  He has been told that he will be deported back to the U.S., but is now on a no-fly list and has no idea when he will be released.  American officials told Mazzetti that “Mr. Mohamed is on a no-fly list and, for now at least, cannot return to the United States.”  He’s been charged with no crime and presented with no evidence of any wrongdoing.

This event is significant for multiple reasons, many of them obvious.  The questions Mohamed was repeatedly asked — including two days ago by American embassy officials and FBI agents who visited him in the detention facility — focused on whether he knew Anwar al-Awlaki, the American cleric in Yemen who has become an obsession of the Obama administration, as well as why he went to Yemen and Somalia.  Kuwait is little more than a subservient American protectorate, and the idea that they would do this to an American citizen without the American government’s knowledge, if not its assent and participation, is implausible in the extreme.  That much of the information they sought from Mohamed is of particular interest to the U.S. Government only bolsters that likelihood.

Independent of all that, the U.S. Government has an obligation to protect its own citizens.  Mohamed described to me how both embassy officials and the FBI expressed zero interest in the torture to which he had been subjected during his detention.  The U.S. Government has said nothing about this matter, and refused to comment about Mohamed’s treatment to The New York Times.

All of this underscores the rapidly expanding powers the U.S. Government and law enforcement agents within the country are seizing without a shred of due process.  For the government to put an American citizen on the no-fly list while he’s traveling outside the U.S. is tantamount to barring him from entering his own country — a draconian punishment, involuntary exile, meted out without any due process.  In June, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of several citizens and legal residents who — like Gulet Mohammed — have been literally stranded abroad and barred from returning with no hearing, simply by being placed secretly on the no-fly list.  Add to that the growing seizures of the laptops and other electronic equipment of American citizens re-entering the country without any warrants — or even yesterday’s ruling from the California Supreme Court that police officers can search and seize someone’s cell phone without a warrant when arresting them — and (even leaving aside the administration’s ongoing due-process-free prison camps and assassination programs) these are pure police state tactics.

The Bush-era torture scandal was as much about its use of torture-administering allies as it was the torture regime which the U.S. itself created.  In the face of these credible allegations — just listen to this American teenager talk and assess how credible he is — the Obama administration, at the very least, has the obligation to inform the public about whether this is true, what its role was, if any, and what it’s doing to investigate and protest this abuse of its own citizen.

My discussion with Mohamed can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder below.  I’m posting it in its entirety without edits, except for the last minute or so where we discussed how we came to speak, information I’m withholding at his request:

UPDATE:  Mohamed’s family has now secured a lawyer for him, Gadeir Abbas of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who has written a letter to the DOJ raising all the right questions and demanding all the right assistance.  Nobody should have to ask the government to provide this form of assistance to an American citizen under these circumstances.

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Cliff_May

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Fox News allows guest to promote ‘holy war’ on Muslims

Posted on 06 January 2011 by Garibaldi

Cliff May stirring up war and hatred.

Fox News allows guest to promote ‘holy war’ on Muslims

(RAWStory)

The year has just begun, and already Fox News’ Sean Hannity is telling the story of how Christians are being persecuted in the Arab world.

Hannity observed that a holy war may be “brewing” in the Middle East, as he reported on the New Year’s Eve bombing of a Christian church in Egypt.

Cliff May, a notorious neoconservative and creator of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, was a little more excited about the prediction than Hannity.

“In your intro you said a holy war is brewing,” May began. “It is not brewing, it is taking place.”

“Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities are being not just discriminated, but persecuted in Egypt and throughout the broader Middle East,” he added.

“Do you think we are headed for a modern day religious war in the Middle East?” Hannity asked.

“The war that is being fought now, the great global conflict in the world, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Gaza, this is one war and it is a religious war,” May explained. “Not because we want it to be, but because al Qaeda and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and various other radical Islamists and jihadists, they say it’s a religious war. That’s what a jihad means.”

“People forget jihad equals holy war,” Hannity concluded.

It was President George W. Bush who first invoked images of a holy war in the Middle East, when he suggested soon after Sept. 11, 2001 that the US was on a “crusade” in the region.

Years later, GQ magazine uncovered top-secret military briefings prepared by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for President George W. Bush that included Bible passages.

Trijicon Inc., a defense contractor, was discovered last Janurary to have been placing scriptural references on military gun sights used in Iraq and Afghanistan for years. The company was forced to provide the Pentagon with kits to remove the Bible codes.

This video is from Fox News’ Hannity, broadcast Jan. 3, 2010.

Watch this video on iPhone/iPad

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Claims that the Gulen Movement is a CIA Front are Baseless

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Claims that the Gulen Movement is a CIA Front are Baseless

Posted on 06 January 2011 by Garibaldi

Last time we visited the Gulen Movement they were being accused of being radicals who had training camps across America. Now they are being accused of being a CIA front.

Islamic group is CIA front, ex-Turkish intel chief says

By Jeff Stein

A memoir by a top former Turkish intelligence official claims that a worldwide moderate Islamic movement based in Pennsylvania has been providing cover for the CIA since the mid-1990s.

The memoir, roughly rendered in English as “Witness to Revolution and Near Anarchy,” by retired Turkish intelligence official Osman Nuri Gundes, says the religious-tolerance movement, led by an influential former Turkish imam by the name of Fethullah Gulen, has 600 schools and 4 million followers around the world.

In the 1990s, Gundes alleges, the movement “sheltered 130 CIA agents” at its schools in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan alone, according to a report on his memoir Wednesday by the Paris-based Intelligence Online newsletter.

The book has caused a sensation in Turkey since it was published last month.

Gulen could not be reached for comment.

But two ex-CIA officials with long ties to Central Asia cast doubt on Gundes’s charges.

Former CIA operative Robert Baer, chief of the agency’s Central Asia and Caucasus operations from 1995 through 1997, called the allegations bogus. “The CIA didn’t have any ‘agents’ in Central Asia during my tenure,” he said.

It’s possible, Baer granted, that the CIA “turned around this ship after I left,” but only the spy agency could say for sure, and the CIA does not comment on operational sources and methods.

A U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said Gundes’s “accounts are ringing no bells whatsoever.”

Likewise, Graham Fuller, a former CIA station chief in Kabul and author of “The Future of Political Islam,” threw cold water on Gundes’s allegations about Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

“I think the story of 130 CIA agents in Gulen schools in Central Asia is pretty wild,” Fuller said by e-mail.

“I should hasten to add that I left CIA in 1987 — nearly 25 years ago — and I have absolutely no concrete personal knowledge whatsoever about this. But my instincts tell me the claim is highly improbable.”

Fuller added, “I cannot even imagine trying to credibly sell such a scheme with a straight face within the agency. As for Nuri Gundes, I am not aware of who he is or what he has written. But there is a lot of wild stuff floating around in Turkey on these issues and Gulen is a real hot button issue.”

Imam Gulen, “whose views are usually close to U.S. policy,” according to Intelligence Online, favors toleration of all religions, putting his movement in direct competition with al-Qaeda and other radical groups for the affection of Muslims across Central Asia, the Middle East and even Europe and Africa, where it has also expanded its reach.

Gundes, who was Istanbul station chief for Turkey’s MIT intelligence agency, “personally supervised several investigations into Gulen’s movement in the 1990s,” according to the newsletter’s report on his memoir, which has not been translated into English. The purpose of Gundes’s investigation was not immediately clear. His own religious views could not be determined, but the influence of radical Islamist forces in Turkey swelled in the 1990s.

The imam left Turkey in 1998 and settled in Saylorsburg, Pa., where the movement is headquartered. According to Intelligence Online, he obtained a residence permit only in 2008 with the help of Fuller and George Fidas, whom it described as head of the agency’s outreach to universities.

Fuller says that’s wrong.

“I did not recommend him for a residence permit or anything else. As for George Fidas, I have never even heard of him and don’t know who he is.”

“What I did do,” Fuller explained, “was write a letter to the FBI in early 2006 …at a time when Gulen’s enemies were pressing for his extradition to Turkey from the U.S. In the post 9/11 environment, they began spreading the word that he was a dangerous radical. In my statement to the FBI I offered my views…that I did not believe he posed a security threat of any kind to the U.S. I still believe that today, as do a large body of scholars on contemporary Islam.

“I do not at all consider Gulen a radical or dangerous.” Fuller continued. “Indeed in my view–and I have studied a lot of Islamist movements worldwide–his movement is perhaps one of the most encouraging in terms of the evolution of contemporary Islamic political and social thinking…”

Fidas could not be reached for comment, nor would the CIA answer questions about him. George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs lists him as a visiting professor and “Director for Outreach in the Office of the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production.”

But the title was abolished when the Directorate of National Intelligence was created several years ago, an informed source said.

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Jeff Stein  | January 5, 2011; 5:08 PM ET


Categories:  Foreign policy, Intelligence | Tags:  Fethullah Gulen, Graham Fuller, Osman Nuri Gündeş, Robert Baer