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

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

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

BY JILLIAN RAYFIELD

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

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

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

Tapson agreed:

Is Van Doorn’s conversion sincere or a Far-Right political stunt? He claims it is sincere and confirmed the speculation regarding his conversion to AlJazeera.

The Dutch anti-hate site Krapuul.nl has also carried the story, (original Dutch, English translation).

This will really rattle the “counterjihadists,” no doubt Geert Wilders is shaken, as everything he stands for has been undermined by an individual who used to be a close confidante.

Far-right Dutch Politician Finds Islam

(OnIslam)

AMSTERDAM – A leading member in far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ party has reverted to Islam after an extensive study about the Islamic religion and Muslims.

“I can understand people are skeptic, especially that it is unexpected for many of them,” Arnoud Van Doorn told Al-Jazeera English satellite channel.

“This is a very big decision, which I have not taken lightly.”

The news about Doorn’s reversion first came to the surface last month when he tweeted “new beginning”.

He later posted a tweet in Arab pronouncing the Shahadah (proclamation of faith).

The politician later announced that he reverted to Islam, giving no more information about the reasons behind the decision.

“In my own close circle people have known that I have been actively researching the Qur’an, Hadith, Sunnah and other writings for almost a year now,” he said.

“In addition, I have had numerous conversations with Muslims about the religion.”

Driven by his party’s anti-Islam discourse, Doorn decided to dig in for the truth about the religion himself.

“I have heard so many negative stories about Islam, but I am not a person who follows opinions of others without doing my own research,” he said.

“Therefore, I have actually started to deepen my knowledge of the Islam out of curiosity.

“My colleague Aboe Khoulani from the City Council in The Hague has brought me further into contact with the as-Soennah mosque, which has guided me even further.”

A member of the Dutch parliament and The Hague city council, Doorn’s name has long been associated with Wilders’ anti-Islam, far-right PVV party.

A member of the Dutch parliament and The Hague city council, Doorn’s name has long been associated with anti-Islam rhetoric by Wilders’ PVV party.

Wilders himself is known for his rants against Islam, Muslims and the Noble Qur’an.

New Beginning

Doorn’s decision to embrace Islam has won mixed reactions in the Netherlands.

“According to some people I am a traitor, but according to most others I have actually made a very good decision,” he told Aljazeera.

“The reactions are generally positive and I also received quite some support via twitter.

“It feels good that people who do not know me personally have understanding of my situation and support me in my choice.”

For the Dutch politician, finding Islam was finally guiding him to the true path in his life.

“I have made mistakes in life as many others. From these mistakes I have learned a lot,” Doorn said.

“And by my conversion to Islam I have the feeling that I finally found my path.

“I realize that this is a new start and that I still have much to learn as well.”

Departing from his earlier life as a PVV member, Doorn expects much resistance in his political life.

“The expectation is that I will continue to face much resistance, also from certain government institutions,” he said.

“I have all faith in Allah to support me and to guide me through these moments.”

Is it a coincidence that Rossman-Benjamin gave her speech smearing student activists as being “anti-Semites with ties to terrorists” at Ahavath Torah Congregation, a synagogue led by the Islamophobic Rabbi Jonathan Hausman? The same synagogue has given a platform to the wild eyed bigot Pamela Geller, the anti-Muslim neo-Fascist Dutch politician Geert Wilders, as well as Wafa Sultan, who has called for “nuking and crushing” Muslims.

Caught on tape: California university lecturer smears student activists as anti-Semites with ties to terrorists

by Alex Kane (MondoWeiss)

Student activists in California have exposed inflammatory remarks made by a university lecturer who is the head of an Israel lobby group that tries to pressure college administrations and state officials into investigating what the lecturer calls anti-Semitism. Activists have started a petition calling on the University of California President to condemn the statements made last year by Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a Hebrew lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). The remarks were only recently publicized after students discovered them through a YouTube video of Rossman-Benjamin’s remarks.

Last June, Rossman-Benjamin gave a presentation on what she calls “campus anti-Semitism” at the Ahavath Torah Congregation in Stoughton, Massachusetts. She unleashed vitriolic comments smearing student activists who work for Palestinian rights as anti-Semites with ties to terrorist organizations, though she did not back up her statements with evidence. Rossman-Benjamin is the head of the AMCHA Initiative, a Zionist pressure group that targets professors and student groups for alleged anti-Semitism, though the actions AMCHA goes after are activism for Palestinian rights.

“They are generally motivated by very strong religious and political conditions–they have a fire in their belly. They come to the university, many of them are foreign students, who come from cultures and countries where anti-Semitism is how they think about the world,” said Rossman-Benjamin, referring to students involved with the Muslim Students Association and Students for Justice in Palestine. “These student groups often have strong ties to international campaigns to demonize and delegitimize Israel as well as to organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood…[They] have ties to terrorist organizations.” Later in her speech, Rossman-Benjamin also claims to have met with state legislators in California.

In response to Rossman-Benjamin’s remarks, activists from UCSC Committee for Justice in Palestine have started a petition that has so far garnered over 850 signatures. They are calling on the University of California President to “take a clear stand against hate speech directed at marginalized communities, and distance itself from extremists like Tammi Benjamin and the Amcha Initiative that work to smear and silence student human rights campaigners.”

So far, the University of California President’s Office has stayed silent. In an e-mail response to an inquiry from Mondoweiss, Shelly Meron, a media specialist with the president’s office, wrote: “We have no comment on this.”

Rossman-Benjamin did not return an e-mail and a phone message for comment on this story by the time of publication.

The petition from the UCSC Committee for Justice in Palestine also states that Rossman-Benjamin’s remarks “reflect the worst stereotypes and slurs leveled at Arab and Muslim communities in the post-9/11 era. They have absolutely no place in a university environment and it is completely unacceptable for a University of California lecturer to be making them, especially about students.”

Multiple students have also filed formal complaints with the University of Santa Cruz’s Hate/Bias Response Team. A school official told one student activist who preferred to go unnamed that they will look into the complaint and may investigate it and refer it to higher offices and take corrective action if appropriate.

Rachel Roberts, civil rights coordinator for the Council on American Islamic Relations in San Francisco, condemned the statements from the Hebrew lecturer in an interview.

“Her comments are an example of the ways in which Muslim students and Arab students and students organizing for Palestine are disparaged in a way that’s completely unfair to them. I personally don’t see how any reasonable individual could possibly believe that our students have ties to terrorist organizations overseas,” she said. “It’s ridiculous, it’s an attempt to sow fear.” Roberts’ organization has been working in coalition with other social justice groups to fight back against smears from legislators and others in California that conflate solidarity with Palestinians with anti-Semitism.

Other people who signed the petition, including alumni and former professors from the UC system, have echoed the student activists’ condemnation of Rossman-Benjamin. “I have experienced firsthand the intimidation tactics and attempts to silence dissent on Israel on the UCSC campus,” wrote Lisa Nessan, who described herself as a “Jewish UCSC alumna (’00) and a former Santa Cruz Hillel Foundation employee.”

Nessan went on to write that “Tammi Benjamin’s racist and islamophobic remarks are the antithesis of the type of tolerance and diversity that is expected on a University of California campus.” Robert Weil, who described himself as a “retired Visiting Assistant Professor, Lecturer and Union Organizer on the UC Santa Cruz campus,” wrote that he “can attest directly to the chilling effect that Tammi Rossman-Benjamin has had on those of us who hold critical views of Israeli policies and who support the struggle of the Palestinian people. She is a disgrace and a threat to the spirit of free academic debate and the right of all citizens–on and off campus–to express their ideas without intimidation.”

The activists’ petition–and the video that sparked it–shines a light on the tactics of Rossman-Benjamin. Through her organization, the AMCHA Initative, Rossman-Benjamin has targeted professors who show solidarity with Palestinians and who support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) call. Her modus operandi is to conflate support for Palestinian human rights and strong criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

As Mondoweiss has reported, Rossman-Benjamin was behind a 2011 federal complaint against the University of California at Santa Cruz. The complaint charged that the university ignored concerns that a hostile environment for Jewish students was being created on campus due to criticism of Israel. The U.S. Department of Education took up the Title VI complaint, and continues to investigate, according to the student activists’ petition. Rossman-Benjamin also unsuccessfully tried to get the California State University system to distance itself from a tour on campuses that featured Israeli professor Ilan Pappe. Her attempts to get state officials to investigate a professor who supports the BDS call also failed.

Still, activists say the remarks from a lecturer employed by the University of California is a glaring example of a hostile climate on campus when it comes to organizing for Palestinian rights. Last year, the California state legislature passed a bill that conflated activism and the BDS movement with anti-Semitism and also claimed that student activists had ties to terrorist organizations–similar rhetoric to what Rossman-Benjamin used at her Massachusetts appearance. That state legislation also applauded the release of a “campus climate” report on Jewish students in California that has been criticized for suggesting things that would impose restrictions on Palestine solidarity activism.

Islam a ‘dangerous and totalitarian ideology’: Wilders

Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders has called the Prophet Muhammad a murderer and used Anzac soldiers as an example of the courage needed to speak out against Islam at a speech to Melbourne supporters.

Tight security surrounded Mr Wilders’ hour-long speech to members of the ultra-conservative local group the Q Society of Australia at La Mirage reception centre in Somerton in Melbourne’s north on Tuesday night.

Fifty police, some on horseback, separated about 100 vocal but peaceful protesters standing on the Hume Highway verge outside the venue.

Protest organiser Feiyi Zhang said: “we’re here to show we will not stand for Wilders’ racism and Islamophobia”. She said his speech could incite violence against Muslims “and general fear of Islam”.

Protester Nadia Shamsuddin, a doctor and a Muslim, said she was “repulsed” by Wilders’ visit and views. “His promotion of oppression and racism is appalling in the civilised world”.

Her husband Raj Rao said: “Wilders accuses Islam of promoting hatred and violence but I think that’s what he’s doing.” Mr Rao said the message of the Qu’ran was of “peace and submission to God”.

Inside the venue, audience member Inez, a Dutch immigrant, said she had come from Ringwood to hear Wilders, “because we have built this country into something very, very beautiful but I can slowly see it getting spoiled by people who want to impose their beliefs and laws. When I hear Muslim people wanted to introduce Sharia law here, I shudder. I thought it too horrible to contemplate.”

Mr Wilders spoke to a ballroom usually used for multicultural weddings and debutante balls. The crowd met his speech with standing ovations, laughter at his jokes and applause.

Mr Wilders said the Prophet Muhammad was a savage leader of a gang of robbers that raped and murdered and mutilated its opponents including the Jews in 7th century Medina and violence had carried on to Islam’s modern day supporters.

He said anyone who criticised Islam “is in grave personal danger” and “we cannot continue to accept this”. European countries such as the Netherlands are “in the process of losing our cultural identity and our freedom and I am warning Australia about the true nature of Islam. It’s not a religion; it’s a dangerous and totalitarian ideology.”

The Age, 20 February 2013

By contrast The Australian – which has already given Wilders a platform to incite hatred of Islam, with a much wider audience than the tiny Q Society could ever drum up – accuses protestors of provoking violent clashes outside the venue.

In addition to providing extensive, and entirely uncritical, coverage of Wilders’ Melbourne speech, the Murdoch-owned newspaper also publishes an editorial (“Geert Wilders’s right to speak”) which states:

Mr Wilders’s views on the impact of large-scale Islamic immigration in Europe and the challenge that it presents to established cultures and the obligations of citizenship in Western countries are part of an important debate that Australians should be aware of.

Mr Wilders is the founder and leader of The Netherlands Party for Freedom. His political mission is to halt what he says is the “Islamisation” of his country. He argues that Islamism is a totalitarian political ideology enforced by violence and rigid adherence to it, quite different from the faith of Islam. In his article in The Australian earlier this week, Mr Wilders outlined his views that many will find challenging, but they were respectfully put and hardly deserve the vilification he has received from extremists.

Mr Wilders is welcome here, provided that he abides by the law, as all visitors must. Our laws include prohibiting racial vilification and inciting violence, but there is no suggestion he has come close to violating them. So far, it is his opponents who have displayed the illiberalism they accuse him of.

Wilders holds that “Islamism is a totalitarian political ideology enforced by violence and rigid adherence to it, quite different from the faith of Islam”? Where did they get that from? There are of course Islamophobes who claim to make a distinction between Islamism and Islam, but Wilders is emphatically not one of them. In his article for The Australian, he made his views quite clear:

Contrary to what many Westerners think, Islam, rather than a religion, is a totalitarian political ideology. It is an ideology because it aims for an Islamic state and wants to impose sharia on all of us. It is totalitarian because it is not voluntary: once you are in, you cannot get out. Unlike genuine religions, Islam also makes demands on non-Muslims. We, too, are marked for death if we criticise it.

You can only conclude that The Australian‘s editorial writers don’t read their own newspaper.

Geert Wilders as a child? (via. www.antibogan.wordpress.com)

Australia visit prompts condemnation of Wilders

Far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders could learn a lot about the strengths of multiculturalism during his Australian visit, community and religious leaders say.

Mr Wilders will give speeches in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth this month about what he calls the “Islamisation of Australia”.

A coalition of 24 groups – including the AFL and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne – issued a joint statement in Melbourne on Monday, reinforcing their support for Victoria’s “multicultural and multifaith community”.

“We have a collective responsibility to respect our fellow citizens and preserve the social cohesion and harmony that characterise Victoria and makes our society great,” the statement says. “We welcome challenging ideas and debate, however, inciting hatred and animosity towards specific cultural or faith-based communities has no place in Victoria.”

State Multicultural Affairs Minister Nicholas Kotsiras says Mr Wilders could learn a lot from his visit to the state. “I find it amazing that someone could travel 16,000 kilometres to tell us why he and his party have failed in his own country,” he told reporters in Melbourne. “If he wants to come to learn and to educate himself about the success of multiculturalism and diversity, Victoria is the place to be.”

AAP, 18 February 2013

See also “Cold reception for anti-Islam campaigner”, SBS, 18 February 2013

There will be protests against Wilders’ visit in Melbourne, Sydneyand Perth.

It’s not much of a shock when we remember that Wilders is a racist:

White Supremacists Ready For A Fight

by Natalie O’Brien (The Age)

WHITE supremacists are urging Australian “patriots” to gather at public meetings by the controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders, ready for trouble and a no-holds barred fight.

Tensions have been mounting over the impending visit of the far right-wing politician who has been accused of Islamophobia and racism.

One group, Australian New Nation, has been encouraging followers to react to any threat or sign of violence from Muslim protesters who might attend.

On its website, the group has posted an audio from “Radio Free Australia, the voice of white revolution in Australia” warning them to “expect an Islamic rent-a-crowd outside screaming and foaming at the mouth like the evil bastards they are”.

After his party, the PVV completely failed to deliver anything to the Dutch people, Wilders is resorting to the tried and true method of attacking minorities in Holland and promising more war against Islam. He also made the hilarious comment that it is “Moroccan racism that they do not rob one another.”

Keep chugging away Geert! You will really take care of Islam this time, really!

Wilders to step up international anti-Islam campaign

(Dutch.News.nl)

PVV leader Geert Wilders is to step up his campaign against Islam in 2013, the parliamentarian told Nos television in an interview.

The fight against Islam is a mission for life, Wilders told the broadcaster.

Wilders said he would step up his fight against ‘the biggest sickness’ the Netherlands has had at home and internationally, ‘from Australia to America, from Switzerland to wherever.’

Wilders also again renewed his statement that the Netherlands has a ‘Moroccan problem’. It is Moroccan racism that they rarely rob each other, Wilders said.

by Emperor

Bye, bye to the shining hope of Islamopobes everywhere, Allen West (though he refuses to concede the election) has likely lost his House seat in a close race against 29 year old businessman Patrick Murphy. I’m sure post-Congress West will hit the speaking and right-wing news circuits railing against the infiltration of the USA by the twin phantom menaces known as the “Communists” and the “Mooslims”.

Florida was also the scene of that other darling of the Islamophobia movement, Adam Hasner. You will recall Hasner is good friends with Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, he also shared the stage with the fascist Geert Wilders, who he praised effusively and hosted at a special event in 2009. Hasner lost his bid for the House to West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel.

Also gone is Tea Party politician Joe Walsh who saw “Muslim terrorists” in all of the surrounding suburbs of Chicago, Walsh was defeated by US Army veteran and double amputee Tammy Duckworth.

Charles Fuqua who advocated the “deportation of all Muslims” from the USA was defeated in Arkansas and Chip Cravaack was ousted by Rick Nolan after just one term .

Michelle Bachmann barely squeezed out a victory in Minnesota and Peter King held on, Mike Pence a possible future Republican presidential candidate won the governorship in Indiana and is an Islamophobe to watch.

Overall it was a bad night for the harbingers of anti-Muslim Islamophobic fervor. No doubt, they will try and come back with vengeance, but the electoral defeats they suffered are a good sign that their blatant displays of hate-mongering and scapegoating can be broken.

Obama’s re-election is not going to change much, we are still going to have a corporatist state that continues the policies of Empire, but just on a basic level Obama’s victory staved off a Romney presidency that would be littered with anti-Muslims heavily invested in attempting to intimidate American Muslims and enhancing a global Neo-Con vision. The next four years could have been one in which the likes of Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, Walid Phares and others who are intimately tied with the Islamophobia movement would become regular staples of our Loon Politics category.

Related articles

Top House Islamophobe Allen West Falls – The Daily Beast

Key members of the Congressional ‘Islamophobia caucus’ swept from Congress

Wilders divisiveness and hate promotion has hurt the image of the Netherlands.

Alliance with Wilders did hurt Netherlands’ reputation

The previous coalition government, which involved Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam PVV in a supporting role, did have an image problem abroad, civil service documents supplied to website nu.nl show.

Ministers repeatedly said foreign governments understood the relationship between the minority coalition and Wilders and that he was not officially part of government.

However, official papers show “time after time” that diplomats wanted proper instructions on “how to avoid reputation damage as much as possible” – for example, when Wilders published a new book. This often did not work, the documents state.

Rob de Wijk, director of research institute HCCS and an expert on international relations, told the website this should not be a surprise. “Wilders’ position was impossible to explain abroad,” he said.

The problems have not all been solved now Wilders is no longer part of the alliance. “He was a symbol of the way the Netherlands had turned in on itself.”

Dutch News, 4 November 2012

Anti-Muslim speeches and events have a track record of poor turnouts, but this one was laughingly abysmal, as pro-Freedom voices outnumbered the bigoted clan of Islamophobes gathering in Malmö for a lecture by Dutch loon Geert Wilders.

The protesters have to be commended, they are a sign of the real Europe. (h/t: CriticalDragon)

Muted protests greet Wilders Malmö visit

(The Local)