The Passions (And Perils) Of Pamela Geller

Doug Chandler

Pamela Geller had had enough.

The right-wing blogger, whose vehement opposition to the planned Islamic community center near Ground Zero (a “mega-mosque” in her parlance) has earned Geller national headlines, rose from her seat at a Midtown diner last week and, fed up with the line of questioning, stormed out of a Jewish Week interview.

“Shame on you,” she shouted, “shame on you. Stop slamming the good guys.”

A journalist’s offense? Asking questions about her accuracy and her red-meat rhetoric.

The sense of drama seems, in part, to define Geller, who can be seen on the Internet frolicking in a bikini and posing in a skin-tight Superwoman outfit. Her blog “Atlas Shrugs” has referred to Democrats as “National Socialists,” has sided with Slobodan Milosevic, the late Serbian president charged with war crimes, and has claimed that Elena Kagan, the country’s newest Supreme Court justice and a Jew, admired “an architect” of Nazism. She has also likened President Barack Obama’s opposition to settlement growth on the West Bank to preparations for the Holocaust and has provided space to one writer’s view that Obama is Malcolm X’s love child.

Geller’s politics and tone have drawn a growing number of visitors to her blog, which she uses to promote other projects, including a provocatively named group, Stop Islamization of America, and her recently published book, “The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America.”

But it’s her opposition to the proposed Islamic center — an effort she helped fuel and now helps to lead — that has arguably won Geller the most attention. Recent articles in the Washington Post and on Salon.com have noted that Geller was among the handful of people calling attention to the project nine months ago, before it hit the national radar and when the host of a Fox News show could still interview Daisy Khan, wife of the center’s leader, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, and wish her well.

Since then, Geller’s right-wing fans have hailed her as prophetic, especially for warning of the dangers posed by Muslims in this country, while progressives, moderates and at least some embarrassed conservatives see her as something entirely different: a radical activist who comes across as shrill, crude and offensive and who fails to distinguish between Islamic fanatics and the religion itself.

Those emotions are bound to escalate in the next week, as Geller plans a Sept. 11 rally in Lower Manhattan to protest the Islamic center, known as Park51.

But few people are likely to guess that the woman who has stirred so much passion is also a Jewish day school mom raised by a Yiddishkeit family in the Five Towns enclave of Hewlett, L.I.

For her part, Geller dismisses any suggestion that she put the whole story in motion as “nonsensical” and as “condescending to the American people, as if they don’t know their own minds. It’s an issue of common decency,” she said while sitting in the back of a Midtown diner. “And you can see that in the [polling] numbers,” which show 70 percent of Americans opposed to the project.

The one thing Geller does acknowledge is that “no one else was talking” about the center as she began addressing the issue on Atlas Shrugs. But no one should assume that Geller’s blog posts made the story the one it is today. Instead, as she sees it, awareness of the matter simply grew and, with it, opposition to the center.

But Geller has done more than simply write about the project. She has also organized much of the opposition, showing up at the May 25 community board meeting that heard public debate over the issue, convening the first rally against the center, in early June, and now, of course, planning next week’s rally. Geller attended the community board meeting with Robert Spencer, an author and fellow blogger with whom she often partners, where they and others often shouted down speakers in favor of the center, creating an atmosphere that reminded one board member, the son of a German Jewish refugee, of the Brown Shirt movement.

She has also debated the issue on Fox News, “The Joy Behar Show” and other TV programs, where she often raises her voice and talks over the other guests.

In person, though, the 51-year-old blogger comes across as charming, demure and even subdued, as long as she isn’t questioned or challenged too vigorously.

Like many New Yorkers, Geller appears to divide her life between “Before 9/11” and “After 9/11.” Before the terror attacks, she worked on the business side of the newspaper industry, spending the 1980s at the Daily News before moving to the New York Observer. She was mostly apolitical, although, if anything, she said, she leaned left, seeing everything “through the prism of abortion.”

All that changed after 9/11, Geller recalled, saying she “felt guilty that I didn’t know who attacked my country.” She began reading all the material she could about Islam, Geller said, citing such authors as Martin Gilbert, the British historian; Bat Ye’or, an Egyptian-born scholar whose politics are decidedly right wing; and Ibn Warraq, a former Muslim from Pakistan.

“I spent years studying the matter before I started blogging,” Geller said, adding that the more she read, the more she realized that journalists and historians were “whitewashing Islam.”

Today, Geller describes herself as a keen believer in individual rights — “the well from which all things spring” — and says the name of her blog, launched in 2004, reflects that. The name refers to the title of Ayn Rand’s most famous book, which is an inspiration for Geller. She also calls herself an ardent Zionist.

Much of her blog’s focus, though, springs from Geller’s view of Islam, which, is portrayed as a monolithic religion that can only be interpreted in a single way — the one most scholars associate with radical, Wahhabi Muslims.

“It’s not like Judaism, where you have these different levels of observance,” Geller said. “Islam is Islam. … There’s no way you can be a devout Muslim and not support jihad.”

The only moderate Muslims are those who are secular, Geller said. And she dismisses any Muslim who claims otherwise by insisting that he’s a liar — a follower of taqiyya, the Islamic principle that allows Muslims to mislead their enemies, according to Geller.

Comments such as those, by Geller and others, leave at least one local Muslim in disbelief.

“They talk about Islam as if it’s monolithic,” said Qanta Ahmed, a British-born physician who often writes about religion for the Huffington Post and other sites. “We’re 1.5 billion individuals from 57 countries and countless cultures.”

“‘Devout’ means devotion to one’s faith, and you can be very devout without being radical,” said Ahmed, whose articles have concerned such topics as the friendship and inspiration she has drawn from a number of Jews, including a rabbi; the admiration she often feels for Israel; and the hatred toward Jews conveyed in Palestinian textbooks and TV shows.

Discussing jihad, a word that means “struggle,” Ahmed said it’s not even mentioned in the five pillars of Islam, “the absolute basis of being a Muslim,” and there are three kinds of jihad to which Muslims refer. The most important, known as the “greater jihad,” is the internal struggle within each individual to be good, while the “lesser jihad” concerns the religious permission Muslims need to defend themselves against military attack.

“There is no such thing as a holy war in Islam,”Ahmed continued. “There are only just and unjust wars, and Islam is very clear about that.”

On the matter of faith, Geller herself is not especially observant, calling her children far more religious than she is. She sends two of her children to Jewish day school, although she prefers that any further information about her kids remain private — a consequence, she added, of the death threats she says she has received.

She grew up in a Conservative Jewish home — “more Yiddishkeit than by the book,” she said — and has visited Israel twice: once during college and, again, in 2006, when she blogged about Israel’s war with Hezbollah. But her views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are just as right-wing as her views on American politics.

In Geller’s eyes, Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] are Jewish land; there are no settlers, only Jews living in the Jewish homeland; and the area’s Muslims should return the Temple Mount to Jewish hands.

Geller has also taken aim at Jewish leaders in the United States, comparing mainstream organizations to Jews before the Holocaust who ignored all the danger signs. She has also called J Street and the National Jewish Democratic Council “kapos,” a reference to the Jews in Europe who aided the Nazis.

Geller’s fans include Lori Lowenthal Marcus, founder of the right-wing, pro-Israel Z Street, who said “she’s definitely serving a need. She’s an indefatigable fighter and very brazen, which is necessary to raise the profile of the issues.”

Another view comes from Todd Gitlin, a progressive scholar who teaches journalism and sociology at Columbia University, who considers Geller part of “a long history” of firebrands devoted to “this sort of agitation. … These are people who have a fixation on some paranoid scenario,” he said, and they often become a focal point for wider passions.

While not discussing Geller specifically, Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, a neoconservative think tank, said the tenor of the conversation regarding Islam in recent months has distressed him. The “good part” is that Americans are now pushing back against Islamacists, or radical Muslims, but the “bad part” is that many are now doing so “in a crude way,” calling Mohammed a pedophile and referring to all Muslims as terrorists.

Many of today’s bloggers, Pipes said, “came of age on 9/11” and haven’t done the serious study of Islam that he and others have. As a result, he added, much of what they write is based on ignorance.

For her part, Geller defends the tone of her blog, calling Atlas Shrugs “my living room and kitchen” — a place where she can kick back and yell, like some people shout at their TV. Her book and opinion pieces “are more studied and more measured.”

“There’s no gray area with me,” Geller said. “I know why I think what I think.”

Rabbi Yizhak Shapira

(hat tip: D. Bartholomew)

How to Kill Goyim and Influence People: Israeli Rabbis Defend Book’s Shocking Religious Defense of Killing Non-Jews (with Video)

by Max Blumenthal

August 30, 2010

When I went into the Jewish religious book emporium, Pomeranz, in central Jerusalem to inquire about the availability of a book called Torat Ha’Melech, or the King’s Torah, a commotion immediately ensued. “Are you sure you want it?” the owner, M. Pomeranz, asked me half-jokingly. “The Shabak [Israel's internal security service] is going to want a word with you if you do.” As customers stopped browsing and began to stare in my direction, Pomeranz pointed to a security camera affixed to a wall. “See that?” he told me. “It goes straight to the Shabak!”

As soon as it was published late last year,Torat Ha’Melech sparked a national uproar. The controversy began when an Israeli tabloid panned the book’s contents as “230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guidebook for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew.” According to the book’s author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, “Non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and should be killed in order to “curb their evil inclinations.” “If we kill a gentile who has has violated one of the seven commandments… there is nothing wrong with the murder,” Shapira insisted. Citing Jewish law as his source (or at least a very selective interpretation of it) he declared: “There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.”

In January, Shapira was briefly detained by the Israeli police, while two leading rabbis who endorsed the book, Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef, were summoned to interrogations by the Shabak. However, the rabbis refused to appear at the interrogations, essentially thumbing their noses at the state and its laws. And the government did nothing. The episode raised grave questions about the willingness of the Israeli government to confront the ferociously racist swathe of the country’s rabbinate. “Something like this has never happened before, even though it seems as if everything possible has already happened,” Israeli commentator Yossi Sarid remarked with astonishment. “Two rabbis [were] summoned to a police investigation, and announc[ed] that they will not go. Even settlers are kind enough to turn up.”

In response to the rabbis’ public rebuke of the state’s legal system, the Israeli Attorney General and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kept silent. Indeed, since the publication of Torat Ha’Melech, Netanyahu has strenuously avoided criticizing its contents or the author’s leading supporters. Like so many prime ministers before him, he has been cowed into submission by Israel’s religious nationalist community. But Netanyahu appears to be particularly impotent. His weakness stems from the fact that the religious nationalist right figures prominently in his governing coalition and comprises a substantial portion of his political base. For Netanyahu, a confrontation with the rabid rabbis could amount to political suicide, or could force him into an alliance with centrist forces who do not share his commitment to the settlement enterprise in the West Bank.

On August 18, a pantheon of Israel’s top fundamentalist rabbis flaunted their political power during an ad hoc congress they convened at Jerusalem’s Ramada Renaissance hotel. Before an audience of 250 supporters including the far-right Israeli Knesset member Michael Ben-Ari, the rabbis declared in the name of the Holy Torah that would not submit to any attempt by the government to regulate their political activities — even and especially if those activities included inciting terrorist attacks against non-Jews. As one wizened rabbi after another rose up to inveigh against the government’s investigation of Torat Ha’Melech until his voice grew hoarse, the gathering degenerated into calls for murdering not just non-Jews, but secular Jews as well.

Watch the video (article continues below):

“The obligation to sacrifice your life is above all others when fighting those who wish to destroy the authority of the Torah,” bellowed Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira, head of the yeshiva in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan. “It is not only true against non-Jews who are trying to destroy it but against Jewish people from any side.”

The government-funded terror academy

The disturbing philosophy expressed in Torat Ha’Melech emerged from the fevered atmosphere of a settlement called Yitzhar located in the northern West Bank near the Palestinian city of Nablus. Shapira leads the settlement’s Od Yosef Chai yeshiva, holding sway over a small army of fanatics who are eager to lash out at the Palestinians tending to their crops and livestock in the valleys below them. One of Shapira’s followers, an American immigrant named Jack Teitel, has confessed to murdering two innocent Palestinians and attempting to the kill the liberal Israeli historian Ze’ev Sternhell with a mail bomb. Teitel is suspected of many more murders, including an attack on a Tel Aviv gay community center.

Despite its apparent role as a terror training institute, Od Yosef Chai has raked in nearly fifty thousand dollars from the Israeli Ministry of Social Affairs since 2007, while the Ministry of Education has pumped over 250 thousand dollars into the yeshiva’s coffers between 2006 and 2007. The yeshiva has also benefited handsomely from donations from a tax-exempt American non-profit called the Central Fund of Israel. Located inside the Marcus Brothers Textiles store in midtown Manhattan, the Central Fund transferred at least thirty thousand to Od Yosef Chai between 2007 and 2008.

Though he does not name “the enemy” in the pages of his book, Shapira’s longstanding connection to terrorist attacks against Palestinian civilians exposes the true identity of his targets. In 2006, Shapira was briefly held by Israeli police for urging his supporters to murder all Palestinians over the age of 13. Two years later, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz, he signed a rabbinical letter in support of Israeli Jews who had brutally assaulted two Arab youths on the country’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. That same year, Shapira was arrested under suspicion that he helped orchestrate a rocket attack against a Palestinian village near Nablus. Though he was released, Shapira’s name arose in connection with another act of terror, when in January, the Israeli police raided his settlement seeking the vandals who set fire to a nearby mosque. After arresting ten settlers, the Shabak held five of Shapira’s confederates under suspicion of arson.

Friends in high places

Despite his longstanding involvement in terrorism, or perhaps because of it, Shapira counts Israel’s leading fundamentalist rabbis among his supporters. His most well-known backer is Dov Lior the leader of the Shavei-Hevron yeshiva at Kiryat Arba, a radical Jewish settlement near the occupied Palestinian city of Hebron and a hotbed of Jewish terrorism. Lior has vigorously endorsed Torat Ha’Melech, calling it “very relevant, especially in this time.”

Lior’s enthusiasm for Shapira’s tract stems from his own eliminationist attitude toward non-Jews. For example, while Lior served as the IDF’s top rabbi, he instructed soldiers: “There is no such thing as civilians in wartime… A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail!” Indeed, there are only a few non-Jews whose lives Lior would demand to be spared. They are captured Palestinian militants who, as he once suggested, could be used as subjects for live human medical experiments.

Otherwise, Lior appears content to watch Palestinians perish as they did at the muzzle of Dr. Baruch Goldstein’s machine gun in 1994. Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinians and wounded 150 in a shooting spree while they prayed in Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs mosque, was a compatriot and neighbor of Lior in the settlement of Kiryat Arba. At Goldstein’s funeral, Lior celebrated the massacre as an act carried out “to sanctify the holy name of God.” He then extolled Goldstein as “a righteous man.” Thanks to Lior’s efforts, a shrine to Goldstein was constructed in center of Kiryat Arba so that locals could celebrate the killer’s deeds and pass his legacy down to future generations.

Though Lior’s inflammatory statements resulted in his being barred from running for election to the Supreme Rabbinical Council, according to journalist Daniel Estrin, the rabbi remains “a respected figure among many mainstream ZIonists.” By extension, he maintains considerable influence among religious elements in the IDF. In 2008, when the IDF’s chief rabbi, Brigadier General Avichai Ronski, brought a group of military intelligence officers to Hebron for a special tour, he concluded the day with a private meeting with Lior, who was allowed to revel the officers with his views on modern warfare — “no such thing as civilians in wartime.”

Besides Lior, Torat Ha’Melech has earned support from another nationally prominent fundamentalist rabbi: Yaakov Yosef. Yosef is the leader of the Hazon Yaakov Yeshiva in Jerusalem and a former member of Knesset. Perhaps more significantly, he is the son of Ovadiah Yosef, the former chief rabbi of Israel and spiritual leader of the Shas Party that forms a key segment of Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

Yaakov Yosef has brought his influence to bear in defense of Torat Ha’Melech, insisting at the August 18 convention in Jerusalem that the book was no different than the Hagadah that all Jews read from on the holiday of Passover. The Hagadah contains passages about killing non-Jews and so does the Bible, Yosef reminded his audience. “Does anyone want to change the Bible?” he asked.

Bibi buckles

Only days before direct negotiations in Washington between Israel and the Palestinian Authority planned for early September, Yaakov Yosef’s 89-year-old father, Ovadiah delivered his weekly sermon. With characteristic vitriol, he  declared: “All these evil people should perish from this world… God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians.”

The remarks have sparked an international furor and earned a stern rebuke from Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. “While the PLO is ready to resume negotiations in seriousness and good faith,” Erekat remarked, “a member of the Israeli government is calling for our destruction.”

Palestinian Israeli member of Knesset Jamal Zehalka subsequently demanded that the Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein put Yosef on trial for incitement. “If, heaven forbid, a Muslim spiritual leader were to make anti-Jewish comments of this sort,” Zehalka said, “he would be arrested immediately.”

Here was a perfect opportunity for Netanyahu to demonstrate sincerity about negotiations by  shedding an extremist ally in the name of securing peace. All he had to do was forcefully reject Yosef’s genocidal comments — a feat made all the easier by the White House’s condemnation of the rabbi. But the Israeli Prime Minister ducked for political cover instead, issuing a canned statement instead of a condemnation. “Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef’s remarks do not reflect Netanyahu’s views,” the statement read, “nor do they reflect the position of the Israeli government.”

By refusing to cut Yosef loose, his party remains a central actor in the Israeli government. Thus the statement by Netanyahu was not only weak. It was false.

Islamophobia? What Islamophobia?

Fire at Tenn. Mosque Building Site Ruled Arson

Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.

Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.

Special Agent Andy Anderson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told CBS News that the fire destroyed one piece of construction equipment and damaged three others. Gas was poured over the equipment to start the fire, Anderson said.

The ATF, FBI and Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office are conducting a joint investigation into the fire, Anderson said.

WTVF reports firefighters were alerted by a passerby who saw flames at the site. One large earth hauler was set on fire before the suspect or suspects left the scene.

The chair of the center’s planning committee, Essim Fathy, said he drove to the site at around 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning after he was contacted by the sheriff’s department.

“Our people and community are so worried of what else can happen,” said Fathy. “They are so scared.”

The fire was smoldering by the time Fathy and the center’s imam, Ossama Bahloul, had arrived. Fathy was told that responders had smelled gasoline near the fire.

Fathy was later contacted by members of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, who told him the incident was under investigation and to remain calm.

Digging had begun at the site, which was planned as a place of worship for the approximately 250 Muslim families in the Murfreesboro area, but no structure had been built yet, according to Saleh Sbenaty, a member of the planning committee and a professor of engineering technology at Middle Tennessee State University.

“This is a shock,” said Sbenaty. “We’ve had small act of vandals. But this is going to be a crime and whoever did it, they should be punished to the full extent of the law.”

The center had operated for years out of a small business suite. Planning members said the new building, which was being constructed next to a church, would help accommodate the area’s growing Muslim community.

“We unfortunately did not experience hostilities for the 30 years we’ve been here and have only seen the hostility since approval of the site plan for the new center,” said Sbenaty.

Opponents of a new Islamic center say they believe the mosque will be more than a place of prayer; they are afraid the 15-acre site that was once farmland will be turned into a terrorist training ground for Muslim militants bent on overthrowing the U.S. government.

“They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group,” Bob Shelton, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in the area, told The Associated Press.

Shelton was among several hundred demonstrators who recently wore “Vote for Jesus” T-shirts and carried signs that said “No Sharia law for USA!,” referring to the Islamic code of law.

Others took their opposition further, spray painting a sign announcing the “Future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro” and tearing it up.

Earlier this summer opponents criticized the planned mosque at hearings held by the Rutherford County Commission, as supporters held prayer vigils.

At one such prayer vigil, WTVF reported opponents speaking out against construction.

“No mosque in Murfreesboro. I don’t want it. I don’t want them here,” Evy Summers said to WTVF. “Go start their own country overseas somewhere. This is a Christian country. It was based on Christianity.”

So much for the claims of Spencer-Geller that this was probably staged by Muslims to get sympathy from unwitting Americans.

Michael Enright, cabbie-stabber, had “anti-Muslim” diary

By Alex Pareene

Michael Enright, the raging drunk who nearly killed a Muslim cab-driver in Manhattan this week, is being held without bail following his arraignment on hate crime charges. Enright, a film student, is finishing a documentary about Marines serving in Afghanistan, where he was embedded earlier this year for 35 days.

Enright stabbed the man after an apparently civil conversation about the driver’s Muslim faith. Then Enright allegedly yelled, “This is the checkpoint,” and slashed the drivers throat and arm.

According to friends, Enright was usually kind and mild-mannered. He volunteered with Intersections International, a liberal organization dedicated to religious tolerance and peace.

“The person who volunteered for us is a really good guy,” Intersections International executive director Rev. Robert Chase told the media. “He’s responsible, he’s been generous, he’s concerned about the issues in the world.”

“He’s a really nice guy to be around,” a college friend told the New York Post. “He’s a great kid,” a neighbor said.

But: Enright was arrested twice last year, for disorderly conduct and underage drinking. According to the Post: “College friends said Enright had been sober for the last year.”

And a friend tells the Daily News that Enright had seemed troubled and angry since his return from Afghanistan.

The Daily News also reports that cops found a diary on Enright that was filled with anti-Muslim rantings:

Mosque vandalized by the American Nationalist Brotherhood (ANB), this time it is explicitly connected to the so-called “mosque at Ground Zero.” Job well done Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.

Vandalism at Madera Islamic center called hate crime

Vandalism to a Madera Islamic center and signs found on the property are being investigated as a hate crime, the Madera County Sheriff’s Department said today.

A brick was thrown at the building Friday and three signs were found at Masjid Madera, 16634 Road 26, during two other incidences since Aug. 18, said Erica Stuart, Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman. Two of the signs were found on the center’s property Tuesday afternoon.

The signs read “No Temple for the God of terrorism at Ground Zero. ANB,” “Wake up America, the Enemy is here. ANB” and “American Nationalist Brotherhood.”

Earlier reports said the brick went through a window. The sheriff’s department said later today that it struck a wall.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Sheriff’s Department at (559) 675-7770 or Crime Stoppers at (559) 498-STOP.

The anti-Muslim movement, spearheaded by Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller has been ratcheting up the rhetoric against Islam and Muslims. Painting Muslims as an evil fifth column stealthily attempting to subvert our freedoms and impose a draconian totalitarian government upon us.

I mean what else did they expect when they created the Orwellian sounding organization “Stop the Islamization of America” (hat tip: Les):

Police: Cab Driver Stabbed By Passenger Who Asked “Are You Muslim?”

As of late Tuesday, no charges had been filed.

Both the driver and the passenger were taken to Bellevue Hospital.

By: NY1 News

A city cab driver is in the hospital after being stabbed by a passenger who allegedly asked if he was Muslim, police tell NY1.

Investigators with the New York City Police Department say it all began Monday night when a 21-year-old man hailed a cab at 24th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan.

Police say the passenger asked the driver, “Are you Muslim?” When the driver said yes the passenger pulled a knife and slashed him in the throat, arm and lip.

The 43-year-old driver was able to lock the passenger in the back of the cab and call 911.

Robert Spencer, a Christian crusader who likes to cover his anti-Muslim fanaticism with a pretense to scholarship is fond of saying “Obama may be a Muslim,” and his buddy Pamela Geller often dubs Obama as a “Socialist” and “Communist.”

That’s why it is quite ironic to learn that Spencer himself in a previous incarnation used to be a Communist. In his younger days before he went zealous with Christianity Spencer was a devoted Communist,

Robert Spencer…[a] canny operative who likely has the inside track on the State Department’s Middle East affairs desk should the tea party win the White House in 2012, Spencer nonetheless offered that he had spent part of his youth working at Revolution Books, which is run by the Revolutionary Communist Party (and its cultish leader Bob Avakian), a hard-line Maoist group most sixties-style radicals, like, say, Bill Ayers, would consider beyond the pale.

Not only was Spencer a Commie but he was a hard core Communist, such that even the boogie monster known as Bill Ayers wouldn’t want to touch.

It is also another point of similarity between Spencer and his boss David Horowitz who used to be a Communist and now is a hardcore Conservative. Interestingly enough Spencer’s embrace of capitalism has been quite profitable, he is making six figures for his anti-Muslim work.

The article in the New York Magazine also reveals some other interesting if irrelevant tid-bits about Spencer, his father used to work for the Voice of America.

The following is the relevant portion relating to Spencer in the article, I suggest everyone read the whole thing by Mark Jacobson titled, Muhammad Comes to Manhattan:

Dhimmitude was the state to which Muslim caliphs reduced their “useful” but decidedly second-class subjects, those who had to be made to “feel themselves subdued” (the Koran, Sura 9:29), Robert Spencer told me as we dined in the T.G.I. Friday’s on the scenic lower level of Penn Station. A canny operative who likely has the inside track on the State Department’s Middle East affairs desk should the tea party win the White House in 2012, Spencer nonetheless offered that he had spent part of his youth working at Revolution Books, which is run by the Revolutionary Communist Party (and its cultish leader Bob Avakian), a hard-line Maoist group most sixties-style radicals, like, say, Bill Ayers, would consider beyond the pale. Spencer—whose father worked for the Voice of America during the Cold War—contended that terror, the threat of the A-bomb in the burka, while worth worrying about, was “just one tactic” in Islam’s clash with the U.S. What was afoot was a more insidious thing, a burrowing infiltration of the enemy.

“Muslims are the first immigrant group that has ever come to this country with a ready-made model of society and government they believe to be superior to what we have here,” Spencer told me. The thinking was clear to anyone who took the trouble to study the plan, the blogger and author of Stealth Jihad contended. “Muhammad said, ‘When you meet the unbelievers, invite them to accept Islam; if they refuse, offer them the dhimma—second-class status—and, if they refuse that, go to war with them.’ That’s it. Conversion, subjugation, or war. Three steps. Conversion, subjugation, or war … That’s what Muhammad said. And in chapter 33, verse 21 of the Koran, it says Muhammad is the excellent example for the Muslim, you ask any Muslim and they’ll tell you that: That is nonnegotiable, what Muhammad said goes, and that’s not some hijacker extremist Islam, that’s mainstream … This is how it is, you don’t need a bomb. I don’t think Feisal is ever going to blow anything up, because that’s not his game; his game is a societal, cultural penetration … ”

After that, Spencer peered up from his plate of Caribbean chicken and bid me to look around the T.G.I. Friday’s. “Remember this moment and this spot,” he said. “Because the freedoms we enjoy are in danger. You might not know it now, because it is just beginning. But 25 or 30 years from now you’re going to think of this place and say to yourself, Spencer was right.”

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An excellent article by Nicholas Kristof on the issue of the Park51 Islamic cultural center and mosque. He portrays accurately how those fighting this are feeding into the ideology of Bin Laden and company.

Taking Bin Laden’s Side

Is there any doubt about Osama bin Laden’s position on the not-at-ground-zero mosque?

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Nicholas D. Kristof

Osama abhors the vision of interfaith harmony that the proposed Islamic center represents. He fears Muslim clerics who can cite the Koran to denounce terrorism.

It’s striking that many American Republicans share with Al Qaeda the view that the West and the Islamic world are caught inevitably in a “clash of civilizations.” Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric who recruits jihadis from his lair in Yemen, tells the world’s English-speaking Muslims that America is at war against Islam. You can bet that Mr. Awlaki will use the opposition to the community center and mosque to try to recruit more terrorists.

In short, the proposed community center is not just an issue on which Sarah Palin and Osama bin Laden agree. It is also one in which opponents of the center are playing into the hands of Al Qaeda.

These opponents seem to be afflicted by two fundamental misconceptions.

The first is that a huge mosque would rise on hallowed land at ground zero. In fact, the building would be something like a YMCA, and two blocks away and apparently out of view from ground zero. This is a dense neighborhood packed with shops, bars, liquor stores — not to mention the New York Dolls Gentlemen’s Club and the Pussycat Lounge (which says that it arranges lap dances in a private room, presumably to celebrate the sanctity of the neighborhood).

Why do so many Republicans find strip clubs appropriate for the ground zero neighborhood but object to a house of worship? Are lap dances more sanctified than an earnest effort to promote peace?

And this is an earnest effort. I know Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan — the figures behind the Islamic community center — and they are the real thing. Because I have written often about Arab atrocities in Darfur and about the abuse of women in Islamic countries, some Muslim leaders are wary of me. But Imam Feisal and Ms. Khan are open-minded and have been strong advocates for women within Islam.

The second misconception underlying this debate is that Islam is an inherently war-like religion that drives believers to terrorism. Sure, the Islamic world is disproportionately turbulent, and mullahs sometimes cite the Koran to incite murder. But don’t forget that the worst brutality in the Middle East has often been committed by more secular rulers, like Saddam Hussein and Hafez al-Assad. And the mastermind of the 1970 Palestinian airline hijackings, George Habash, was a Christian.

Remember also that historically, some of the most shocking brutality in the region was justified by the Bible, not the Koran. Crusaders massacred so many men, women and children in parts of Jerusalem that a Christian chronicler, Fulcher of Chartres, described an area ankle-deep in blood. While burning Jews alive, the crusaders sang, “Christ, We Adore Thee.”

My hunch is that the violence in the Islamic world has less to do with the Koran or Islam than with culture, youth bulges in the population, and the marginalization of women. In Pakistan, I know a young woman whose brothers want to kill her for honor — but her family is Christian, not Muslim.

Precisely because Palestinian violence has roots outside of Islam, Israel originally supported the rise of Hamas in Gaza. Israeli officials thought that if Gazans became more religious, they would spend their time praying rather than firing guns.

President George W. Bush was statesmanlike after 9/11 in reaching out to Muslims and speaking of Islam as a religion of peace. Now many Republicans have abandoned that posture and are cynically turning the Islamic center into a nationwide issue in hopes of votes. It is mind-boggling that so many Republicans are prepared to bolster the Al Qaeda narrative, and undermine the brave forces within Islam pushing for moderation.

Some Republicans say that it is not a matter of religious tolerance but of sensitivity to the feelings of relatives to those killed at ground zero. Hmm. They’re just like the Saudi officials who ban churches, and even confiscate Bibles, out of sensitivity to local feelings.

On my last trip to Saudi Arabia, I brought in a Bible to see what would happen (alas, the customs officer searched only my laptop bag). Memo to Ms. Palin: Should we learn from the Saudis and protect ground zero by banning the Koran from Lower Manhattan?

For much of American history, demagogues have manipulated irrational fears toward people of minority religious beliefs, particularly Catholics and Jews. Many Americans once honestly thought that Catholics could not be true Americans because they bore supreme loyalty to the Vatican.

Today’s crusaders against the Islamic community center are promoting a similar paranoid intolerance, and one day we will be ashamed of it.

Is this getting scarier or what? My gut feeling is the Church will not be able to go ahead with this action considering they were denied a permit by their local fire department.

Armed Christian Group to Guard Church on “Burn Koran Day”

A group that proudly calls itself Right Wing Extreme has pledged to protect a church in Gainesville , Florida that is planning to hold a Koran burning on 9/11, according to WorldCorrespondents.com, which reports as follows.

“This Press Release entitled “Armed Christian Conservative group to protect church during burning of Quran” was shared to us by Prince Shannon Carson of Right Wing Extreme.

The Christian conservative organization Right Wing Extreme has offered its support and protection for the International Burn a Quran day.

Right Wing Extreme was founded in April of 2009 after the Department of Homeland Security’s report titled Right Wing Extremism.”

Unlike the infamous cross burnings of the Ku Klux Klan which were often staged on the property of opponents to intimidate them, the Koran burning will be held on the premises of Dove Ministries International, with their enthusiastic consent. The only laws that could be used against such an event would probably deal with  air pollution rather than objectionable political expression. A case might be made that the Koran burning is a disturbance of the peace.

Unlike the Mohammed cartoon disputeof 2005, which sparked bloody riots, American Muslims have responded to the Dove Ministries provocation with American style media savvy. The Book of Signs Foundation has pledged to distribute 50 free Korans for every copy burned on 9/11. This puts Dove Ministries in a quandary. The bigger and more successful their Koran burning is, the more free copies will be distributed of the Koran.

Most Muslims in America seem to recognize that struggles for the hearts and minds of believers involve arguing and presenting one’s point of view. It is doubtful that a single Muslim will alter or change his or her faith because of the burning of the Koran.

In America, people missionize their religion and their politics. Book burnings of any sort turn people off. The scariest thing to any religious fanatic is the freedom one has in America to practice, change or reject one’s faith.

There are people who get their jollies desecrating the symbol of someone else’s faith, such as Andres Serrano in his infamous “Piss Christ” exhibit, in which he suspended a crucifix in a jar of urine. Most Americans, from devout Christians to avowed atheists and members of non Christian faiths, were disgusted by Serrano’s gratuitous slap at Christian believers. Most Americans feel the same way about the Koran burners at Dove Ministries as well.

Loonwatch is obviously being attacked by rogue hackers who want to silence the anti-hate, pro-freedom voice. The hackers present themselves as Arabs from Egypt or Morroco, but an investigation into their IP’s casts doubt on where the attacks are really originating.

We have seen in the time since we started publishing online that those who proclaim to be “freedom lovers”, standing up for “freedom of speech” and “Western civilization” have turned out to be the biggest hypocrites.

This is exposed by their malicious attack on our site. They do not wish to play by the rules of the game, sincere and factual criticism backed up by a plethora of evidence scares the “beejezus” out of them and so they resort to dirty tactics such as these.

Is it surprising that they chose to attack us on our highest traffic day? Someone out there wants Loonwatch to be silenced.

Great blog from Matthew Yglesias at ThinkProgress. He also links to Inconnu’s piece on Taqiyyah.

Obama’s Porkilicious Taqiyya

by Matthew Yglesias

Steve M at No More Mr Nice Blog falls for the White House spin hook, line, and sinker:

Anyone remember when candidate Barack Obama was getting grief for going to Philadelphia and sampling expensive Spanish ham? Doesn’t sound like something a secret Muslim would eat — nor is the honey-baked ham the Obamas served along with the turkey last Thanksgiving. The half-smoke he got at Ben’s Chili Bowl a couple of weeks before Inauguration Day is a sausage that’s half-pork, half-beef. Oh, and the beer at that beer summit didn’t quite comport with the teachings of the Koran, did it? But all that was just weaving a web of deceit, right?

I’ll admit that for a long time my own views were along these lines. After all, the very first time I met State Senator (and US Senate candidate) Barack Obama we were at a hotel in Boston (I believe it was the Westin Copley Place) on line at a breakfast buffet fighting for the tongs to grab some bacon. But then I learned all about taqiyya which proves that counter-evidence to the “secret Muslim” thesis only demonstrates how far the conspiracy goes.

TIME has come out with a poll on the prevailing mood amongst Americans toward the mosque and toward their fellow Muslim citizens. What does this mean for the future of religious freedom and the failure of our leaders and the media in tackling this story?

Majority Oppose Mosque, and most Distrust Muslims

Opponents of the planned Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan have public opinion firmly in their corner. According to a new TIME poll, 61% of respondents oppose the construction of the Park51/Cordoba House project, compared to 26% who support it. More than 70% concur with the premise that proceeding with the plan would be an insult to the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Opposition to the project appears to derive largely from the conviction that the proposed site of the project — just two blocks from Ground Zero, in a building that formerly housed a Burlington Coat Factory outlet — is so close to “hallowed ground,” as President Obama put it.

Yet the survey also revealed that many Americans harbor lingering animosity toward Muslims. Twenty-eight percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Nearly one third of the country thinks adherents of Islam should be barred from running for President — slightly higher than the 24% who mistakenly believe that the current occupant of the Oval Office is himself a Muslim. In all, just 47% of respondents believe Obama is a Christian; 24% declined to respond to the question or said they were unsure, and 5% believe he is neither Christian nor Muslim. (See TIME’s photo-essay “Muslim in America.”)

And while more Americans are open to the idea of having a mosque built in their neighborhoods than near Ground Zero, it’s still not an overwhelming majority; 55% of respondents say they would favor the construction of an Islamic community center and mosque two blocks from their own homes, and an equal number say they believe most Muslims are “Patriotic Americans.”

As he attempts to shepherd the U.S. through the sluggish economic recovery and galvanize Democratic voters ahead of a congressional election cycle in which the party is expected to sustain heavy losses, Obama’s approval rating has held relatively steady, at a near-even split: 46% of respondents back his job performance, with 45% expressing disapproval. Voters are far less enthusiastic about the President’s policies, however, with 57% asserting the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction.

That wasn’t the only grim news for Democrats. The GOP has snatched the lead in generic Congressional balloting, with 43% of likely voters saying they would vote for a Republican candidate if the midterm elections were held today, compared to 37% for Democrats. (Last month, Democrats held a slight edge in generic balloting, 43%-42%.) While those figures augur well for the GOP, harping on the mosque issue — a tactic many Republicans appear to have embraced as the overheated debate nears a boiling point — seems unlikely to give the party’s fortunes a significant boost. Nearly three quarters of voters told TIME the issue will not have any impact on their decisions in the ballot box.(Read “Ground Zero: Exaggerating the Jihadist Threat.”)

While the poll revealed that prejudice toward Muslims is widespread, respect for other religions traditions remains sturdy. Respondents held the Jewish faith in the highest regard, with 75% professing to hold a favorable impression-just slightly higher than attitudes toward Protestants and Catholics. Fifty-seven percent say they have a favorable view of the Mormon faith, compared to 44% for Muslims. Despite (or perhaps because of) this widespread antipathy, 62% of respondents say they don’t personally know a Muslim American.

The poll, conducted by ABT SRBI, surveyed 1,002 adults — 89% of whom identified themselves as likely voters — on Aug. 16-17.

Two takes on the issues revolving on Islamic cultural center that has been dubbed the “Ground Zero Mosque.” One is a very serious toned and heart felt monologue from Keith Olbermann,

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The other is a satirical and hard hitting segment of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show called “Mosque-erade,”

If you listened to Pamela and company who would’ve thought there were New Yorkers for the mosque and cultural center?

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Barack Obama commented on the Cordoba Center that will be near Ground Zero, reaffirming freedom of religion as an essential American value.

Islamophobes were furious about this. For many of them this probably confirmed their belief that Obama is a Muslim.

Robert Spencer was on record writing,

Obama is in effect saying that you can build a triumphal mosque marking Islam’s superiority and victory — which is how the Ground Zero mosque will be viewed in the Islamic world — and you can lie about your funding, and lie about your commitment to interreligious dialogue and harmony, and refuse to denounce jihad terrorists, and all that is just fine with him.

Pamela Geller had this to say through an SIOA news release,

Obama “has, in effect, sided with the Islamic jihadists and told the ummah (at an Iftar dinner on the third night of Ramadan) that he believes in and supports what will be understood in the Islamic world as a triumphal mosque on a site of Islamic conquest.”

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Obama throws support behind controversial Islamic Center

Washington (CNN) — President Obama threw his support behind a controversial proposal to build an Islamic center and mosque near New York’s ground zero, saying Friday that “Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country.”

“That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances,” Obama said at a White House Iftar dinner celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The president’s remarks drew praise from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who announced his support for the Islamic center last week.

Bloomberg compared Obama’s speech to a letter President George Washington wrote in support of a Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. “President Obama’s words tonight evoked President Washington’s own august reminder that ‘all possess alike liberty,’ ” Bloomberg said in a statement.

“I applaud President Obama’s clarion defense of the freedom of religion tonight,” he said.

To learn more about the “ground zero” mosque, see CNN’s Belief Blog

Critics of the proposed Islamic center quickly denounced Obama’s remarks. “President Obama is wrong,” said Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). “It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of Ground Zero. Unfortunately, the President caved into political correctness.”

“While the Muslim community has the right to build the mosque, they are abusing that right by needlessly offending so many people who have suffered so much,” King said in a statement. “The right and moral thing for President Obama to have done was to urge Muslim leaders to respect the families of those who died and move their mosque away from Ground Zero.”

What do you think about this issue? Tell us on video

Obama, who said he was speaking both as a citizen and as president, invoked the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which critics of the Islamic center cite as the main reason for preventing its construction.

“We must all recognize and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of lower Manhattan,” Obama said, according to his prepared remarks. “The 9/11 attacks were a deeply traumatic event for our country.”

“The pain and suffering experienced by those who lost loved ones is unimaginable,” he continued. “So I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. Ground zero is, indeed, hallowed ground.”

But Obama said one “reason that we will win this fight” against terrorism is “our capacity to show not merely tolerance, but respect to those who are different from us — a way of life that stands in stark contrast to the nihilism of those who attacked us on that September morning, and who continue to plot against us today.”

Repeatedly invoking the nation’s founders and examples of religious tolerance from American history, the president argued that national ideals and the Constitution demanded that the project proceed.

He noted that Thomas Jefferson hosted the the first Iftar dinner at the White House more than 200 years ago and said that the country had previously seen “controversies about the construction of synagogues or Catholic churches.”

“But time and again,” he said, “the American people have demonstrated that we can work through these issues.”

“This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable,” Obama said. “The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are. The writ of our Founders must endure.”

The proposed Islamic center has provoked vocal opposition from some families of 9/11 victims and other groups. Nearly 70 percent of Americans oppose the plan, according to CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll released Wednesday.

“Obama came out for the Islamic supremacist mosque at the hallowed ground of 911 attack,” Pamela Geller, a leading foe of the Islamic center, wrote on her blog Friday night. “He has, in effect, sided with the Islamic jihadists.”

Muslim Americans, meanwhile, applauded the speech. “It was pitch perfect and it was cut and dry,” said Eboo Patel, executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core and a Muslim adviser to the White House on faith issues. “He said that our Founding Fathers built a nation on religious freedom where people from different faiths can pray and thrive and that is that.”

Some Muslims said they were surprised to hear the president weigh in on the controversy.

“It’s such a hot potato and he’s already got so much on his plate and people jumping on him for any hint of an Islamic connection,” said Akbar Ahmed, an American University professor who attended Friday’s White House dinner. “But he plunged in and took a very bold position.”

The Islamic center’s leaders say they plan to build the $100 million, 13-story facility called Cordoba House three blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks. The developer, Sharif El-Gamal, describes the project as an “Islamic community center” that will include a 500-seat performing arts center, a lecture hall, a swimming pool, a gym, a culinary school, a restaurant and a prayer space for Muslims.

On Wednesday, the project’s developers declined an offer by New York Gov. David Paterson to relocate the project to a state-owned site.

Earlier this month, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously denied landmark status for the building where the proposed Islamic center would stand, allowing the project to move forward.

Even those who used to debate whether Islamophobia exits or not probably have no leg to stand on, as it is evident with all the rhetoric and flashpoints across America, Islamophobia is on the rise.

Bryan Fischer a leader in the conservative American Family Association echoes Euro-supremacist Geert Wilders statements that Islam isn’t a religion. This line of attack is becoming more and more common.

Conservative activist calls for nationwide mosque moratorium

by John Cook

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One of the leaders of the conservative American Family Association has taken the debate over the Cordoba Mosque in lower Manhattan to a new level. Bryan Fischer, the group’s director of issue analysis, is calling on his blog and radio show for a nationwide moratorium on the construction of any mosque, anywhere. “Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America, let alone the monstrosity planned for Ground Zero,” Fischer wrote on Tuesday. “This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government.”

That’s an odd position for an ostensibly religious organization to have. But it’s especially odd because the American Family Association filed a federal lawsuit in 2003 accusing a county government in Georgia of violating federal law and the Constitution for refusing to grant a permit to build a church.

As we’ve mentioned previously, many of the groups who have endorsed the idea of using preservation laws to block the construction of the mosque have previously argued precisely the opposite when the imperiled project was a church. Indeed, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) explicitly bars local governments from “implement[ing] a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of … a religious assembly or institution,” unless there’s a compelling government interest in doing so. Many of the groups that have come out against the mosque — and in favor of stopping it with land-use laws — have filed federal lawsuits under the act.

You can add the American Family Association to their number. In 2003, the AFA helped the Victory Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in Henry County, Ga., file a federal lawsuit accusing the county of violating RLUIPA, as well as Victory’s constitutional rights to free exercise of religion, due process, and equal protection under the laws, for refusing to grant a building permit for a new church. The group prevailed, and celebrated the win in the AFA newsletter.

Now the AFA appears to be advocating the express violation of the very law that allowed for that victory, under the theory that mosques don’t count. A call to the AFA to clear up the inconsistency was not immediately returned.

UPDATE: Fischer returned our phone call. Turns out we weren’t too far off: Mosques don’t count! “I’m not a lawyer,” he told The Upshot, “but I have a layman’s understanding of the RLUIPA. And there’s a key difference between that case and mosques: Islam is not just a religion. It’s a subversive ideology. And as a subversive ideology, they can’t seek protection under the First Amendment.” Since Islam is really a political movement that advocates the imposition of sharia, he said, it doesn’t deserve the same sort of protections that the Victory Tabernacle Missionary Church gets. By the way: One of the bad things about sharia, according to Fischer, is “there is no such thing as religious liberty.” Sounds awful.

Fischer went on to say that “the First Amendment was designed to provide religious liberty for the Christian faith,” but that he is happy to let other religions enjoy its protections so long as they’re not “subversive.” Asked to identify any other subversive religions aside from Islam as a point of comparison, he came up empty. Not even Satanism? “Not that I’m aware of,” he said.

Finally, we asked Fischer why, if Islam is so dangerous, he’s stopping at a moratorium on new mosques. Why not shut down the ones that already exist? “We need to take things one step at a time here,” he said. “We need to turn off the hose first, and then we can figure out how to clean up the mess.”

Fischer said he was speaking as a talk-radio host (he hosts a show on the American Family Radio network),  and not as a representative of the AFA, which “hasn’t taken a position on the building of mosques.”

Nonie Darwish

Our MSNBC debut!

Nonie Darwish was on MSNBC along with CAIR-New York representative Zead Ramadan (hat tip: JustAFan). Darwish was her usual self, blathering about how she “is against this frenzy of Mosque building,” trying to legitimate her putrid and irrational stance by putting up her bona fides as a “former Muslim,” you know the usual spiel we are used to from clowns like Walid Shoebat and company who parlay their too often made-up-out-of-whole-clothe ex-Muslim stories into big bucks and easy living.

However, this time she was stopped dead in her tracks, and her soft tone quickly turned shrill when Ramadan pointed out to her that she is featured on “Loonwatch.com for fibbing.” Yes, Darwish, you are featured on our site for being “Caught in a pool of lies,” an article written by Professor Jim Holstun,  and trust me we are not done exposing you, we haven’t even scratched the surface.

In response Darwish was slightly incomprehensible, and cried “those people at Loonwatch are Imams.”

Watch it:

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Transcription:

Ramadan: “Ms. Darwish is on Loonwatch.com because of fibbing, she tells stories all the time, she fabricates information in order to push her ultra-right concept. She’s an extremist.”

Darwish: The people who are on Loonwatch are those Imams who are tyring, who are trying to fool the American people, who don’t want to stand up for our rights and freedoms in America.

So not only are we George Soros funded, one-half of the Leftist Mooslim-alliance, but we are also Imams trying to fool Americans. This gets funnier by the minute.

Finally someone has taken the time to bring up loony Pamela Geller’s crazy quotes to her face. She seemed surprised and dumbfounded…again.

I really love the Alyona Show! Wasn’t that host awesome? Why is Russia TV doing a better job at challenging the Geller’s of the world then our own oblivious and slow mainstream media?

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There was a plethora, a million things that the host could have brought up, all in all she did a pretty good job. How silly does Pamela look with her hypothesis that Islam inspired Hitler. She did not leave that interview feeling good about herself.

Please take some time out and thank the host, Lauren Lyster for the great job that she did. She needs encouragement and positive feedback because the haters are going to be contacting her and spitting all sorts of vile.

Contact:

U.S. bureau

Phone: + 1 202 775 2305/06
Fax: + 1 202 775 2309
E-mail: RT-US@rttv.ru

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

Both sides clash over proposed Temecula mosque

JEFF HORSEMAN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Temecula mosque proposal targeted in pending protest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Mormon controversy contains parallels to the mosque proposal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Mormon church was subsequently built at that location.

Newt Gingrich Joins Muslim-Baiting Movement

by Walid Zafar

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

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

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

That’s rich.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cross-posted on PoliticalCorrection.org

Pamela “The Looniest Blogger Ever” Geller was on The Alyona Show (Russia TV) with Palestinian Muslim Rapper, Will Youmans. Pamela was her usual shrill conspiratorial self. This must have been her worst nightmare: a Palestinian, Muslim and a rapper!

The nice thing about this episode was that at least someone was challenging Pamela, and I bet if Will had more information on her (read our site Will) he would have completely obliterated her.

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Notice Pamela still claiming to love Muslims.

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

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

(via. Islamophobia-Watch)

Memorial to Marwa Sherbini Vandalised

(via. Islamophobia-Watch)

Vandals have attacked an art project erected in honor of Marwa El-Sherbini, a pregnant headscarved Egyptian woman who was murdered in a German court room, organizers said Friday.

The Citizen.Courage group, which sponsored the display in the eastern city of Dresden, said that a few knife-shaped columns used in the open-air show had been knocked over several times and signs explaining the project were stolen.

“Citizen.Courage assumes this was a malicious, politically motivated attempt to destroy the project,” group chairman Christian Demuth said in statement. To warn against everyday racism, we will not restore the destroyed installations. But we will continue the project.” A police spokeswoman said authorities had opened an investigation.

During a trial last July, a Russian-born defendant suddenly attacked Sherbini – who was Muslim and wore a headscarf – plunging an 18 centimetre kitchen knife at least 16 times into her while she was three-months pregnant with her second child. Her son, Mustafa, three years old at the time, watched her bleed to death at the courtroom.

Sherbini’s husband, Egyptian geneticist Elwy Okaz, rushed to her aid but was also stabbed repeatedly and then shot in the leg by a police officer confused about who was attacking whom.

The 28-year-old assailant, who was sentenced to life in prison, attacked her out of revenge after she pressed charges against him for calling her a “terrorist”, “Islamist” and “whore” during a dispute over a playground swing.

The killing, and the initially muted reaction of Germany’s politicians and media, sparked outrage in Sherbini’s home country, as well as in the wider Muslim world. Many newspapers dubbed her the “veil martyr” after her headscarf.

The “18 Stabs” installation, unveiled on the first anniversary of Sherbini’s death on July 1, featured 18 knife-shaped concrete pillars erected throughout the city with signs condemning racism and xenophobic violence.

AFP, 23 July 2010

Joe “nuke ‘em” Kaufman was on Fox and Friends saying Muslim Family Day was a terrorist sponsored event.

Fox & Friends’ latest vicious attack on Islam targets Muslim Family Day

July 20, 2010 1:48 pm ET by Justin Berrier

On what is rapidly becoming a regular feature, Fox & Friends this morning continued their incessant attack on Islam. Co-host Alisyn Camerota this morning hosted anti-Islam blogger and founder of the ironically named Americans Against Hate organization Joe Kaufman to attack Muslim Family Day at Six Flags Great Adventure. Camerota called it “insensitive” that they would host the event on September 12, “just hours after the anniversary of the September 11th attacks,” and added “but what’s even more controversial are the allegations that the Muslim group organizing the event could have been involved in financing the September 11 terror attacks.” Kaufman went further, employing what is becoming a familiar phrase among anti-Muslim bloggers: “The fact that they’re having it on September 12th, I believe they are actually spitting in the face of Americans.”

So what evidence did Kaufman give to back up Camerota’s claim that the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), who is sponsoring this event, “could have been involved in financing the September 11 terror attacks?” His first piece of evidence is a message from former ICNA President Dr. Muhammad Yunus making “a request calling on supporters to give ‘material support to groups associated with al-Qaida and the Taliban.” Here is what Yunus actually said, in an image hosted on Kaufman’s website: “Remember fellow Chechnyan Muslims in Eid Celebrations. President ICNA Dr. Muhammad Yunus has requested all Muslims around the world to include Chechnyan Muslims in their special Eid-ul-Fitr prayers. We must show our spiritual and material support for our brothers and sisters being oppressed by Russian forces.” For Kaufman, this justifies making the claim that “they may be themselves involved in financing 9/11.”

In case the name Muhammad Yunus sounds familiar, by the way, that would be Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus, developer of the microcredit and microfinance concepts.

Kaufman went on to try to associate ICNA with Hamas through more tenuous ties. According to his website, in 2006 ICNA was listed as a donor to the Al-Khidmat Foundation, a Pakistani charitable organization that, according to their website, “is dedicated to the services of humanity all parts of the world without any discrimination of creed, religion and political associaltion [sic].”  They provide funding for clean water projects, diagnostic centers, orphan homes, and other community-based programs. According to Kaufman, while ICNA was one of their donors, the Al-Khidmat Foundation made a one-time donation to Hamas. Kaufman of course has no evidence that ICNA was involved in the gift, or that their money was part of the gift, or that they had anything to do whatsoever with the gift. Kaufman has been pushing this connection for years, and even the Anti-Defamation League isn’t buying it. An October 5, 2007 Dallas Daily News article reported on Kaufman’s allegations. At the time, he was protesting a different Muslim Family Day at Six Flags Over Texas. They reported (accessed via Nexis):

Mohammad Barney, president of the Dallas chapter of ICNA, said the accusations are troubling and untrue.

According to its Web site, ICNA supports Islamic culture and education while promoting justice and understanding.

“It’s disturbing that they are writing false statements like that,” said Mr. Barney. “People have the right to say whatever they want, but that doesn’t make it true.”

The Anti-Defamation League – a pro-Jewish group – seems to agree. ICNA is not listed as a threat on its Web site.

“We don’t involve ourselves in that kind of activity,” said Mark Briskman, regional director of the league, who said his group would not participate in the protest. “He made a lot of claims … without clear documentation of those claims. His statements are problematic.”

So other than making what appear to be baseless accusations about an organization sponsoring a family outing, why would Fox & Friends bring Kaufman on to attack Muslim Family Day? Well, what he lacks in expertise or insight, he makes up for in dedication. What Kaufman failed to mention is that, while Muslims may be “spitting in the faces of Americans” for holding the event on September 12, he attacked the event in 2007, when it was being held on October 14. Kaufman and Fox also ignored that the reason why the event is being held on September 12 this year –the same reason it was held on October 14 in 2007 –is that it falls on the first weekend after Ramadan ends.

In a FrontPage article titled “Fanatic Muslim Family Day” Kaufman wrote of the October 2007 event:

ICNA’s Muslim Family Day that will occur on October 14, 2007 is nothing but a charade, created to spread hatred, but veiled in a way to make the sponsoring organization look harmless. Six Flags will play host to this dangerous farce. If events, such as these, are allowed to continue, more and more Americans could become desensitized to those groups – fifth columns within our borders that wish to do us harm. It is up to those concerned to speak out against these travesties that threaten our way of life.

He may have been on to something. Looking back at previous events, I was able to find evidence of ICNA members spreading hatred. Witness the horror:

Rachel Maddow on the hysteria directed at Elena Kagan from the far right! Frank Gaffney considers Kagan an appeaser of Islam. The Washington Times ran his story accompanied with photoshopped images of Kagan in a turban.

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

Stop the Islamization of America

Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), was created by anti-Muslim bloggers and activists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. It was born out of its parent organization Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE), an organization led by Anders Gravers (also a leader in SIOA), of whom Media Matters wrote,

Despite having put what she says is the “full video” of the event on her site, Geller actually cut out several comments made by Anders Gravers, the Danish Leader for the Stop the Islamisation of Europe. For instance, Geller’s video edits out Graver’s assertion that “[r]ape is also a part of” Muslims’ efforts to convert non-Muslims in Europe, and that “[d]emocracy is being deliberately removed” from the European Union by “incorporating Muslim countries of North Africa and the Middle East in the European Union.” Gravers went on to explain (in a portion of the speech that Geller did include) that the purpose was to gain “some European control of oil resources” at the cost of the “introduction of Sharia law and removal of democracy” in Europe. No, really. Check out this exclusively un-edited portion of his remarks (transcript available here)

SIOE’s motto is, “Racism is the lowest form of human stupidity, but Islamophobia is the height of common sense.” It was criticized by John Denham, Labour’s (UK) Communities Secretary, who stated that it was “trying to provoke violence on Britain’s streets” and called it “right-wing.” The group calls for a boycott of all Muslim majority countries and some countries with sizable Muslim minorities such as Cameroon. It calls on its followers to avoid Fisher Price, Asda, Kentucky Fried Chicken and The Radisson Hotel chain for apparently pandering to the Muslim community (via. Wiki).

SIOA’s declared mission is to educate Americans,

about the threat that Islamic doctrine and those who support it present to our freedoms, and the future of our democracy and country.” The organizers call themselves “scholar warriors/ideological warriors in the cause of American freedom and Constitutional government,” as well as in “the defense of… our society of liberty, knowledge, and human decency

The declared mission gives us a scent of the absurdity that is SIOA, what else can “the threat of Islamic doctrine and those who support it” mean except “Muslims.” In other words the groups mission is to educate Americans about the “threat that Muslims present to freedom.”

However, to capture the full extent of bigotry and inciting hatred of Islam and Muslims that is the substance of the organization we have to look no further than its founders, members and supporters. It is a hatred that gives platform to all the destructive rhetoric and conspiracies about Muslims that we have detailed here at Loonwatch, including: nuke and kill all the Muslims and their holy places, Obama is a Mooslim, Muslim demographic take over of the West, extolling the Crusades, etc. The group also seems to bring together radicals from a variety of backgrounds: Christian Zionists, Extreme Jewish Nationalists, Tea Partiers all united in hate for Muslims.

US Government Rejects SIOA Trademark

Soon after SIOA was launched, both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer attempted to have their organization’s trademark patented. They assumed that it would go through without a problem but they didn’t expect what came next. The patent office rejected SIOA’s attempt to patent its trademark because of its anti-Muslim nature,

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.

“The trademark examining attorney refers to the excerpted articles from the LEXISNEXIS® computerized database referencing how many Muslims view terrorists as illegitimate adherents of Islam. … Therefore, the suggestion that Islam equates terrorism would be disparaging to a substantial group of Muslims,” it said.

Accordingly, the applied-for mark is refused under Section 2(a) because it consists of matter which may disparage or bring into contempt or disrepute Muslims and the Islamic religion

The reaction from both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer was unsurprising, to them it was a signal that Islam had permeated all of our government agencies. Pamela Geller wrote,

It is everywhere, folks, in every aspect of our lives from the big stuff (Major Hasan cover-up) to the minutia (trademark registration)

She doesn’t say what is “everywhere” but one can safely presume based on the written record freely available at her hate site that what she is referring to is the “evil tentacles of the Mooslims.”

SIOA

Undaunted by the rejection from the US Government, SIOA continued with its project. Pushing forward with their now infamous “Leaving Islam” ad campaign as well as opposition to the construction of Mosques and Muslim cultural centers, such as the high profile case of the Cordoba Center or what opponents are dubbing “the Ground Zero Mosque” because of its proximity to Ground Zero.

Both the anti-Mosque and anti-Islam Bus ad campaigns garnered a lot of media attention and were the scene of staunch anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In Miami, where the bus ads kicked off, the city having made a contract to run the ads became aware of the anti-Muslim and Islamophobic nature of the group and upon review made the right decision to remove the ads because they were “offensive.” Of course this riled up Geller and Spencer and they sued Miami which then essentially buckled rather then having to deal with law suits that would cause the city to lose money and time.

In New York, the bus ads went ahead without a hitch though many viewed it as Islamophobic and hateful. Detroit’s transit system however rejected the ads,

Detroit’s SMART bus system has rejected the button-pushing placards that read “Fatwa on your head? Is your community or family threatening you? Leaving Islam?” – and direct Muslims to a Web site urging them to leave the “falsity of Islam.”

“It’s a purely anti-Muslim hate issue,” Dawud Walid of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Detroit News on Friday.

“The SMART bus company, or any bus company, should not be used to marginalize a minority group.”

Defenders of the ads, dreamed up by Manhattan-based right wing blogger Pamela Geller and the New York-based Stop the Islamization of America, say it’s a free speech issue and they have sued.

“Americans have a right to know the truth; Islam is a religion of intolerance and violence,” said Michigan lawyer Richard Thompson, who filed the suit.

In New York, the ongoing divisive saga over a planned cultural center has been the scene of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim agitation. Pamela Geller inserted her group into the fray and now SIOA is taking a leading role in the opposition to a planned cultural center which is being dubbed by Geller and company the “Ground Zero Mosque,” though as Reza Aslan put it, it is “neither a mosque nor is it at Ground Zero.”

Some weeks ago SIOA held a protest against the “Mosque” in which protesters attacked two Arab looking men who they mistook for being Muslim. The police had to save them from the crowd, even though they were Arab Christians who came all the way from California to join the protest. That gives you an insight into the kind of people SIOA attracts.

SIOA Facebook Group

SIOA has over 10,000 members on Facebook and it is growing. The SIOA Facebook page is administered by Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Anders Gravers,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

It is truly an ode to hate mongering racism, incitement to violence, veiled threats of physical violence against Muslims, conspiracy theories, from birthers to Eurabia clowns.

Nuking Muslims and Mecca

One demented SIOA member believes that the “rules of engagement with Muslims” are “#1: Kill the enemy, #2: There is no rule #2,”

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Another doozie, this time from David Gaston. Apparently the Ghost Busters are out to start World War III,

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Another nuking fantasy from Ben Kjellssecondson (the last name sounds like it was put together by someone blindly tapping away at the keyboard),

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It isn’t only pyscho images, but in discussions members dispute with each other on which option, “nuking the Middle East” and killing all the “diaper heads” or wanting Israel to “conquer the whole Middle East” are better solutions to the Mooslim menace,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

There are more nuking and destroying Mecca and Muslim pics which we have saved but this gives you a taste and flavor of the annihilation of Muslims that many in SIOA want to see.

Murdering Muslims

David Gaston, still a member of SIOA posts what he calls “Army Math” next to a picture of dead Afghan civilians,

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This is particularly disturbing when we read that some SIOA members claim to be in the United States Armed Forces and add images with thinly veiled hints of physical violence against Muslims,

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This is something that the MRFF, Military Religious Freedom Foundation and the military should definitely look into. We are seeing a growing trend amongst members of the military who view Muslims as their enemy, and it is only simple mathematics to note that more than a few will not leave their hatred of Muslims at the battlefield but will bring it home.

Crusader Mentality

You can say that many in the SIOA have Biblical or Medieval mentalities — literally. They believe that Israel has a right to the land because it says so in the Bible, they believe the solution to terrorism is Crusades, they believe all of this is prophecy and that Jesus approves,

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More ghastly calls for violence in the name of Jesus,

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Did we mention that some of them really don’t like the Quran,

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Conspiracy Theorists

The paranoia and fear amongst many of the members of SIOA takes form in a number of ways. They hold all the crazy conspiracies that we are used to by now about President Obama: he is a Muslim, anti-Semite, Communist, anti-Christ, etc. They believe in the conspiracy theories of Eurabia, the myth that Muslim women’s wombs are the most dangerous weapons of all because they spell the demographic take over of the West, etc.

Obama and our leaders are anti-Semitic fascist Nazis,

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Obama wants to make America into a Muslim country,

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Another one from Ron Ben Michael, who earlier said Israel will rule the whole Middle East,

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Ron sees no difference between Obama and the other two. They’re all “evil Mooslims” trying to burn Israel.

Then there is the Muslim demographic time bomb, there were a number of pics related to this topic, but this one summed up all the craziness in one image,

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So what is the solution. Well, SIOA members won’t leave you dissapointed,

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Notice the comments. “Kick Muzzies ass out of Europe” and the prayer to Jesus, “I hope this one day happens.” Delightful.

The Fabulous Duo: Christian Zionists and Extreme Jewish Nationalists

While there are all sorts of wackos on SIOA, and some misguided ones who don’t know what they got themselves into, the majority of those attracted to SIOA seem to be Extremist Christians and Jews with a sprinkling of atheists. The SIOA Facebook page was littered with pics of Jesus, prayers to Jesus, Israeli flags, stars of David, etc.

For instance, what does this pic have to do with SIOA’s mission?

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The guy is totally insane, just look at his crazy comments.

Then there is this gem, from our friend Ron, which extolls the power of the Israeli Air Force,

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Disproportionate power anyone? How aboud David v. Golaith?

Conclusion

There are many more posts and pics that manifest the loonacy that is SIOA, and we have them all saved. The sad thing is that this is no laughing matter, these people are calling for murder and genocide. Some of it may be tongue in cheek but a lot of it reveals the inner depths of hatred that lurks inside and motivates this organization, which is one step removed from being the inspiration for an armed anti-Muslim vigilante group.

Even more reprehensible are the admins and creators of this organization, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller who allow such vile, conspiratorial and dangerous pronouncements from their members. How could we expect any less, as is clear from mounting evidence, both Spencer and Geller share in the above views though at times not as explicitly as their followers.

Stop the Islamization of America is nothing less than a hate group that deserves to be monitored and observed by Homeland Security and the likes of the Southern Poverty Law Center. It is one of a plethora of extreme right-wing organizations that have arisen since Obama has taken office and should be included in any further report or update on the rise of right-wing extremism.

Any organization that targets a minority that makes up one percent of the population of America, claiming that the minority is trying to take over is beyond hysterical, it is a threat to the fabric of our nation.

Mark Williams is the same cretin who said, Allah is a “monkey God” and that Muslims were his “animals.”

The animals of allah for whom any day is a great day for a massacre are drooling over the positive response that they are getting from New York City officials over a proposal to build a 13 story monument to the 9/11 Muslims who hijacked those 4 airliners.The monument would consist of a Mosque for the worship of the terrorists’ monkey-god and a “cultural center” to propagandize for the extermination of all things not approved by their cult.

Anyway, now he is saying that NAACP is racist though he defeats his point by writing a very racist fictional letter in the name of the head of the NAACP, Ben Jealous.

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

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

Mosque leads to Square off

BY SCOTT BRODEN

SBRODEN@DNJ.COM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Awale agreed.

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

NAACP Passes Tea Party Racism Resolution

Brian Montopoli

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The “shrieking harpy” as she is known by many, Pamela Geller is at her business once again — lunacy. Now she is taking it to another level and reiterating her support for Serbian war criminals.

In another maniacal post, Geller writes,

Radovan Karadžić, the former Bosnian Serb politician, is on trial (more like a sharia court) in the United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, accused of “war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo” (now an entirely Muslim city, completely ethnically cleansed of non-Muslims.)

Obviously stating that the Hague Court is a Shariah Court is a lame attempt at deligitimizing the Hague and the UN. It is sad to see the depths that Pamela will go to white wash crimes against humanity just because its victims were Muslim.

She goes on,

(Remember that in matters concerning the former Yugoslavia — the media, the court, the prosecution, world governments, NATO, and Hollywood are a single conglomerate.) In the example below, the prosecution and the media attempt to twistKaradzic’s efforts to avoid ethnic cleansing, into a fiendish desire to commit ethnic cleansing

You see it is all a conspiracy from the whole world working in one unit to persecute Karadzic who was actually trying to avoid ethnic cleansing.

An example of Radovan Karadzic preventing ethnic cleansing,

“There are 20,000 armed Serbs around Sarajevo … it will be a black cauldron where 300,000 Muslims will die. They will disappear. That people will disappear from the face of the earth.”

The things that make you go hmmmmm? Karadzic really was trying hard to stop the ethnic cleansing. Imagine if Ahmedinejad said those exact words about Israel, he would rightly be labeled an anti-Semite seeking the destruction of the Jews. Hypocritical Pamela Geller can’t see the rank hypocrisy in her own words.

Jon Stewart is one of the last men out there with the moral courage to do the kind of reporting the mainstream media just won’t do. A beautiful segment, that skewers Fox News, and the likes of Steven Emerson and Robert Spencer. Spencer no doubt will be howling at the moon about Stewart being a dhimmi. Nothing makes him more upset than being portrayed like the clown that he is.

Enjoy!

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

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

Read the excellent expose.

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

If they build it, they will bomb.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2010 Community Newspaper Group

Sureyya Ozkaya

A 14 year old Muslim girl recently was brutally beaten and burned by assailants who made racial insults and attacked her for her faith (hat tip: Milda).

Girl attacked burned and robbed in broad daylight

By Mike Didymus

These are the shocking injuries inflicted upon schoolgirl Sureyya Ozkaya during a brutal daylight assault near her Thornton Heath home.

The 14-year-old’s hair was set on fire and her hands and feet were cut with glass during the attack in Grangewood Park, before her attackers smashed her head against a tree and left her bleeding in a bush.

She was stumbled upon by a woman walking her dog and carried home to nearby Kitchener Road following the attack, at about 7.30pm on June 9.

Sureyya’s mother Pemdegul Kale, 39, said three girls taunted her daughter about her Muslim faith as they carried out the assault, before burning her hair with a lighter and stealing her trainers.

Mrs Kale said: “My daughter is so scared. She does not want to stay in the house – she is staying at a relative’s now and wakes up crying.

“She comes here and stays for an hour, but only gets to the front door before she wants to go again. I miss her and I want her to come home.”

The family have been critical of the police’s response to the attack, complaining they had to collect hair cut from Sureyya’s head themselves several days after the incident.

Mrs Kale said: “We are doing the police’s job for them. We had a phone call 24 hours after it happened saying they were taking statements from someone on July 22.

“It is too long. I want this to be done and over with.”

A 14-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman have been arrested in connection with the attack and bailed to return to a south London police station on July 22.

Anyone with information can call Croydon police on 03001 231212, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

This highlights just how odious the embrace of Islamophobia by the likes of Robert Spencer and company is. They revel in something that in its worst manifestations can lead to physical harm and even death.

Just recently Spencer posted a piece containing a photo of him holding an “Islamophobia pills” box. At a lecture in Sweden (probably canoodling with Euro-supremacists), a “Muslim” (loonwatcher no doubt) gave him the box to cure him of his Islamophobia. Instead Spencer posted a picture of himself holding the box and then went on to blame Muslims for Islamophobia.

Robert Spencer holding "Islamophobia Pills"

I was speaking in Sweden yesterday, and during the Q&A a Muslim presented with the little box of “Islamophobia” pills I’m holding in the photo above. It’s a clever little piece, if you like that sort of thing, listing the ingredients of this “cure” for “Islamophobia” as “multiculturalism,” “open-mindedness,” and the like.

But of course none of that will cure this disease, which is non-existent in any case.

A great article from one of the foremost analysts of racism. (hat tip: iSherif)

Fighting anti-Muslim racism: an interview with A. Sivanandan

By IRR News Team

IRR News spoke to one of the foremost analysts of racism and Black struggle as to how to meet the contemporary challenge of anti-Muslim racism.

Should we look at Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism today as something new and apart, or as a continuation of the racism we have known in the UK?

A. Sivanandan: Every racism is different and every racism is the same.

Western culture, because it is a culture of conquest and subjugation, is impregnated with racist and nativist/anti-foreigner ideas. Such ideas develop into a fully-fledged ideology when harnessed to an economic or political programme such as slavery or apartheid. But they can still become a material social force, justifying discrimination and engendering racial violence, in areas and times of economic hardship when there is competition for jobs, housing etc between indigenous and foreign or immigrant workers

It is ‘natural’ for indigenous, poor, white people who have to compete for housing, employment, social services etc to be hostile to those who look like the obvious cause of their hardship, marked out by colour, foreignness or cultural difference. When such hostility is lent justification by government policies (domestic and foreign) and harnessed by political parties for electoral gain, racial ideas become firmed into a quasi-ideology which, in turn, feeds and justifies popular racism.

The components of racism are always the same – cultural, political, economic and social. But the shift from an industrial to a post-industrial society gives the components of racism a different weightage.

The racism of industrial capitalism was connected to exploitation – slavery, colonialism, indenture, immigration. Racism was imbricated in labour exploitation. The economic factor was dominant in the way racism changed and was shaped and became functional. In post-industrial capitalism, where the exploitation of labour in the old sense is concentrated in the periphery; the political and cultural components are dominant. And ideas, in an Information Society dominated by the media, become material irrespective of the economic factor. There is, in other words, very little disjuncture between the racist idea and the racist act; they virtually flow into each other.

Are you saying that before we even look at contemporary Islamophobia, per se, we have to look at the way that the balance within racism itself has changed over the last thirty years or so?

A. Sivanandan: Yes. By and large, under industrial capitalism, racist views, filtered down through slavery and colonialism, were prevalent mostly among the working class. But in post-industrial society racial ideas run through the whole of society and culture. For, globalisation and the market have sundered the ethos of the nation state and opened the door to nativism.

Let me explain. Globalisation has shifted the role of the state from welfare to market. The welfare state was guided by principles of social equality, which made for social cohesion. The market state is guided by the principles of wealth creation and individual success, which fractures society, fragments communities, and reifies personal relationships. There is nothing organic now to cohere the nation. Hence the imposition from above of British values and programmes of social cohesion to hold the nation together – aided now by the politics of fear and the ‘enemy within’, creating in the process a faux nationalism evident in everything from foreign policy to oaths of allegiance in our town halls.

How does this then relate to how we tackle Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism, are they really the same thing? Can the terms be used interchangeably?

A. Sivanandan: Yes and no. Yes, Islamophobia is implicated in anti-Muslim racism; but no, the one does not equate the other. I see Islamophobia as a term relating to a set of ideas which indicate an antipathy to Islam – which can range from the crude and direct demonisation we find in the tabloids to the intellectual sophistry we associate with people like Amis. Whereas anti-Muslim racism is the acting out of that antipathy, that prejudice – in violent attacks on the street or, when institutionalised in the state apparatus, in the impact of the anti-terror laws, in racial profiling by the police, and so on.

The distinction is important because Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism reside by and large in two different constituencies – and each has to be fought on its own ‘merits’. Islamophobia, in its most sophisticated form, is the province of middle-class opinion formers, erstwhile liberals, defenders of the true liberal faith against the encroachments of illiberal Islam, as defined by them, the ‘liberati’. Anti-Muslim racism is the province of the working class and is no different from past working-class racisms. Except that now it finds its justification in Islamophobia – suitably translated into the vernacular of stereotype and scapegoat by the tabloids, the carriers of racist culture. Racism is now justified not on notions of racial superiority but on notions of Islamic ‘barbarity’. And religion is racialised.

Hence the confusion that fighting Islamophobic discourse is tantamount to fighting anti-Muslim racism. But, as I have said, Islamophobia is not the cause of anti-Muslim racism but its rationale. Religion is not race. And unless we unravel race from religion and employ different strategies for the different sites of struggle, while still keeping their relationship in view, we will be rendered ineffective on both sites. Conversely, to let the fight against Islamophobia (ideological/theoretical) dictate the fight against anti-Muslim racism (strategic/practical) is to intellectualise both and undermine action. To concentrate on the anti-racist aspect of struggle without missing out on the fight against Islamophobia, however, is not only to be able to draw on the long history of that struggle but also to gain the support of allies that were made on its way, especially – at a time of British National Party (BNP) resurgence – the anti-fascists. Such solidarity is also important to make sure that the liberati’s use of the term Islamofascism does not let the real fascism off the hook.

There are other reasons, too, why we need to focus on the struggle against anti-Muslim racism. Firstly, because anti-Muslim racism has become institutionalised through the government’s ‘Muslim wars’, its anti-terror laws, its use of stop and search and its failure to curb the media’s excesses. (And institutional racism, as we know, reproduces itself at other levels of society.) Second, these in turn breed a culture of fear and suspicion and give groups such as the BNP and the English Defence League a hold on public opinion. Third, the government’s elevation of ‘British values’ (as opposed to universal values) to which we should all aspire – and therefore to British culture – confirms the popular view that Muslim values and Muslim culture are raw and threatening. And this gives a fillip to nativism which, in the hands of the Right, turns into the rough and tumble patriotism of the street.

Do you feel that the extreme Right in the UK has shifted, like other rightwing groups in Europe, towards recruiting on the basis of Islamophobia?

A. Sivanandan: In the past, the extreme Right’s fascist ideology was per se reprehensible to all sectors of society in a democracy. Today, the classlessness of Islamophobia, ie the fact that it runs through the whole of society, from the liberati to the illiterati, and is made respectable by government policies, has given groups like the BNP a new constituency within ‘middle England’ on whom they work for electoral purposes. Hence its two faces: one electoral and the other populist – and its bipolar tactics of putting on a respectable front for the first and a militant front for the second. And the politics of fear engages both constituencies. The middle-England constituency is frightened by the immolation of its culture and values, and the working-class constituency is frightened by the spectre of aliens taking their jobs, homes, shops, and marrying their children.

So are you really saying that activists should be just addressing anti-Muslim racism as it affects poor communities on the streets?

A. Sivanandan: At the risk of repeating myself, we have to fight both Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism when and where they are acted out. But the fights are at two different levels which need two different strategies and weapons. We need to dismantle and critique the intellectual arguments being put forward by Islamophobia’s intellectual protagonists and attack the media at every turn for popularising and disseminating that discourse. And we have simultaneously to take up the other fight, the fight against Anti-Muslim racism, be that at the level of government policy or the level of hate crime on the street.

Why it is important to understand the two fights as different but connected is because of the danger that, in confining ourselves to the religious aspect of the fight against Islamophobia without taking on its political translation on the street, we would once again descend into the inward-looking politics of identity.

Any Asian could be a Muslim. Any Asian wearing a headscarf or a beard must be a Muslim. Every Muslim is a fundamentalist. Every fundamentalist is a terrorist. We are in danger of creating a culture of suspicion and distrust not only between communities but within communities, indeed within families and between individuals – which can hardly count for British values or democracy!

How about the 300 Muslims who died?

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, leaders of the hate organization SIOA (Stop the Islamization of America), were going nuts advertising their protest against the Cordoba House, a center that will contain a mosque, gym, swimming pool and museum that is to be built a few blocks away from Ground Zero. According to the Islamophobic duo, and their “save-Western-Civilization-from-evil-Mooslims” crowd, this protest was similar to D-Day, when the allies stormed Normandy. Hysteria much?

The protest itself was filled with anti-Muslim and Islam hating personalities. Placards read that building the mosque would be similar to building a” memorial to Hitler at Auschwitz,” labeled Prophet Mohammed a “pedophile,” “terrorist” and other names and stated that “Islam Hates Women,” etc.

According to Pamela’s highly inflated estimate, 5,000 people showed up while in reality only around 200-300 came to the event.

Geller said the NYPD and security at the rally told her about 5,000 demonstrators were there. But NYPD spokesman Sgt. Kevin Hayes said the police department’s policy is to not provide crowd estimates and that he could not confirm Geller’s number. CNN iReporter Julio Ortiz-Teissonniere, who attended the rally and sent photos to CNN, said the number was closer to 200-300 while he was there for the first 45 minutes of the event.

Can this woman ever quit with the hysterical, disproportionate and excessive lies? Another news agency put the number of protesters squarely at 300.

According to Geller and Spencer this protest not only turned out large (fictional) numbers of people, but was also looked upon with approval from the heavens! Pamela wrote joyously that, “despite weather forecasts of thunderstorms and rain, the skies were clear and beautiful — but not as beautiful as this patriotic crowd of great Americans and Europeans.” Robert Spencer hinted at Divine approval,

And the truth is powerful. The forecast had called for rain, but it didn’t start raining in New York until after the rally had broken up. Many took it as a sign that we represented the cause of right and justice.

Debbie Schlussel, an open Islamophobe and bigot, whom Robert Spencer once dubbed a “freedom fighter” refers now to her former friend Pamela Geller only as Scamela Geller, had this scathing assessment of the protest (hat tip: BMD),

a cleverly designed PR vehicle for people like car loan fraud scammer Scamela Geller and others who are using them to raise money and get attention.  Because having a whole car dealership making gazillions by ripping off banks with car loan scams using Muslim straw buyers wasn’t enough.  Nor was the murder of an investigating cop and the execution of the one honest car salesman employee who told police.  Behavior worse than a mobster’s wife apparently breeds no shame.  But it does breed faux-outrage in a “battle” that we already know won’t be won.  It’s already lost.  They have the property.  Move on to something we can win, not a car loan defrauder’s attention-whore trick, just weeks before her book is about to be released and needs to earn back a bloated advance.  If you think it’s anything other than this, you are a malleable tool, easily manipulated and not of much substance.

Wow, did Debbie just drop the elbow from the sky on Pamela here? This assessment is from a woman who wants all Muslim immigration to America to stop and for there to be no Mosques in the USA, so it can’t be said that she is sympathetic to the plight of Muslims.

Also, I have to ask why no mainstream media outlet, cable or otherwise has taken Pamela to task not only for her crazy and loonie conspiracy theories, but the fact that she isn’t only against this specific center which will house a mosque, but against mosques in general. She is the same person who called for the DESTRUCTION of the Golden Dome in Jerusalem, and for it to be replaced with a Jewish Temple (insert World War III)! Someone needs to smack her with that question.

The height of irony probably came when two Christian Arabs who came to protest the mosque were mistaken for being Muslims, and became targets of their fellow protesters bigotry and harassment. I wonder if they will dispute whether Islamophobia really exists? From Mike Kelly’s great article, On this Ground, Zero Tolerance,

At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims.

“Go home,” several shouted from the crowd.

“Get out,” others shouted.

In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry — were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called “The Way.” Both said they had come to protest the mosque.

“I’m a Christian,” Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face.

But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.

“I flew nine hours in an airplane to come here,” a frustrated Nassralla said afterward.

The incident underscores how contentious — and, perhaps, how irrational — the debate over the mosque has become.

A mosque, for instance, has been located since 1983 on West Broadway, about 12 blocks from Ground Zero. After the 9/11 attacks, the mosque’s imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, began shaping plans to build an Islamic cultural center closer to Ground Zero as part of an attempt to build cultural ties between Islam and America.

Called Cordoba House, the center would rise 13 stories and would include a 500-seat auditorium, a swimming pool and a mosque.

I guess the lesson here is don’t speak Arabic or look foreign at an Islamophobic protest or you might get harmed.

Texas Board of Education Remains Silent when Man says, “Islam is Death” (via. Think Progress)

One of the most contentious issues in the debate over what to include in Texas’ social studies textbooks surrounds the separation of church and state. The far-right members of the State Board of Education (SBOE) argue that America is a Christian nation and separation of church and state is a myth. In March, a majority of SBOE members voted “against requiring high school American government students to learn that the nation’s Founders barred government from favoring or disfavoring one religion over all others.”

At the opening of yesterday’s session — where the board gave final approval to the social studies standards — far-right member Cynthia Dunbar gave the invocation, in which she used the prayer to pusher her anti-church-state separation agenda:

Whether we look to the first charter of Virginia, or the charter of New England or the Charter of Massachusetts Bay, or the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the same objective is present: a Christian land governed by Christian principles. I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible and their belief in it. … I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion.

Watch it:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdhGK9aYjDY&feature=player_embedded 350 300]

Additionally, during a session this past week that included debate and comment from members of the public, a man stood up and said, “I have to tell you: Islam is coming, and Islam brings death. So I say, ‘Repent America, repent.’” CNN said that Lawrence Allen, the one Muslim member of the board, called the man out for his “insulting” comments, but not one of the other 14 members complained. Watch it:

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

A May 4-12 poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for the TFN Education Fund found that “68 percent of likely Texas voters agree that church-state separation is a key principle of the Constitution.” That number included “59 percent of Republicans, 76 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of political independents believing it is a key principle.”

The French government has gotten what it asked for, the “discussion” about the Burka, and now the legislation for banning the burka has created a volatile mix in the country. The discussion is provoking a lot of animosity and hate, now we have the case of a French woman ripping off the burka of a French Muslim, what is being dubbed “burka rage.”

Bill Maher and George Bush: Closer in thought than we ever knew?

You might be reading the title, Bill Maher Sounds Like Jerry Falwell and thinking to yourself, “What?! Bill Maher hates religion, and if I recall he blasted Jerry Falwell at the time of his death for being an intolerant, huckster con-man.” It is true that Maher has made a lot of money out of mocking religion, all religion, he made a movie about it called Religulous. In fact, Maher is constantly seen with his anti-religion crew promoting atheism and agnosticism.

So how could he possibly sound like a Christian fundamentalist such as Jerry Falwell? An analysis of Maher’s work and comments about Islam reveal he has a special and unique bias against Islam that goes well beyond his condemnation or mocking of other religions, which is unfortunate because he has a lot of hilarious and witty things to say about various topics.

Maher’s bias leads to moments where he loses his rationality and rather than comment with his usual sardonic logic, he falls into emotion and repeats worn out stereotypes and caricatures of Islam and Muslims. If that weren’t egregious enough, he also makes statements that are flat out empirically false.

So how does an atheist who prizes rationality and empirical evidence fall so hard off of the beaten path? Some might say it’s the weed but let’s look at the evidence for a second.

The first piece that I want to draw to your attention is a five minute section of the New Rules portion of Bill Maher’s Real Time.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39d1fHRHrM4&feature=player_embedded 350 300]

Maher is on the wrong foot from the very beginning. He starts his monologue by creating an exclusive frame that depicts Islam as the “other,” something that is “outside” and does not belong to the West. This might have something to do with Maher’s ignorance of history since Islam has been a part of the West for over a millennium now. There is no need for me to go into detail about the historical interplay and exchange of commerce, goods and ideas between the Muslim world and the West, nor of the presence of Muslim communities, but if the construct of the “West” is to mean anything it has to include Islam and Muslims.

Omar Baddar makes just such a point and a further rebuttal in his excellent article in the Huffington Post on Maher’s recent confusion,

The implied premise that Judaism and Christianity belong to a cohesive unit called “the West” which stands in distinction from another cohesive unit called “the Muslim world” is absurd. But even if one accepted this false dichotomy, why did Maher’s example of “the craziest religious wackos we have here in America” stick to nonviolent fanatics? Why not abortion clinic bombers?

And what about Jewish extremists in the Palestinian territories? I haven’t heard an argument for why their brutal attacks on western human rights activists accompanying children to school, routine vandalism, and other violent acts coupled with chants of “we killed Jesus we’ll kill you too” are any less wacko.

Structural constraints are another obvious factor to consider. You see, the Taliban can act like they do because they live in a lawless state, and extremist settlers can act like they do because of a culture of impunity provided by the structure of Israeli apartheid. So while Pat Robertson may seem harmless, by comparison, when he issues a death fatwa on Hugo Chavez, or when he blames a hurricane or an earthquake on gay sex or a pact with the devil or something, a useful question to contemplate is whether he and his followers would be as benign (if one could describe them as such) if they could get away with worse behavior. Thankfully, we live in a system that can enforce law and order; and our wackos have the alternative outlet of lobbying the government for wars against Iraq and Iran, and they send over 100,000 emails to the White House for the perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so direct violence from them is somewhat less likely.

I would just add one more comment to the prescient points raised by Baddar above. Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan did and do have an active religious component in them. How else can we characterize the war briefings read by Donald Rumsfeld that were always headlined with quotes from the Bible? The Daily Times reported at the time,

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was sold as a fight for freedom against the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.

But for former U.S. defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his elite Pentagon strategists, it was more like a religious crusade.

The daily briefings about the progress of the war that Mr Rumsfeld gave to President George W Bush were illustrated with victorious quotes from the Bible and gung-ho photographs of U.S. troops, it has emerged.

….

One of the top-secret ‘worldwide intelligence updates’, which were hand-delivered to Mr Bush by Mr Rumsfeld, includes an image of an F-18 Hornet fighter jet roaring off from the deck of an aircraft carrier.

On it were the words of Psalm 139-9-10: ‘If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast, O Lord.’

The cover of another featured pictures of U.S. soldiers at prayer with a quote from Isaiah: ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us? Here I am Lord, Send me.’

A photograph of Saddam Hussein included a quotation from the First Epistle of Peter: ‘It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.’

The religious theme for briefings prepared for the president and his war cabinet was the brainchild of Major General Glen Shaffer, a committed Christian and director for intelligence serving Mr Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In the days before the six-week invasion, Major General Shaffer’s staff had created humorous covers for the briefings to alleviate the stress of preparing for battle.

But as the body count rose, he decided to introduce biblical quotes.

…

Mr Bush, a born-again Christian, believed the invasion was a ‘mission from God’.

Another of his briefings included the words ‘Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed’ alongside a photo of a U.S. marine with a machine gun.

And on an image of U.S. tanks rumbling through the Victory Arch monument in Baghdad was a quote from Isaiah: ‘Open the gates the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps the faith.’

A photograph of U.S. tanks in Iraq used a further passage from Isaiah: ‘Their arrows are sharp, all their bows are strung, their horses’ hoofs seem like flint, their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind.’

…

These are wars that have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and were instigated and supported in large part by right-wing Christians and Zionists. It is also salient to mention the involvement of Erik Prince the leader and founder of Blackwater, a security service hired by the State Department and who many consider to be nothing more than a squad of mercenaries. Prince himself is a Christian supremacist and in an affidavit from a former employee is accused of viewing “‘himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,’ and that Prince’s companies ‘encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.’”

There are many more examples that we can give, the Lord’s Resistance Army,  Christian witch-hunts, American Evangelical collusion in the Uganda gay death bill and the war on Gaza in which Israeli soldiers were told by Rabbis in  pamphlets to be “cruel” and not to “spare” the Gazan population, even “innocent civilians.”

So the claim that Muslim “wackos” are somehow uniquely more dangerous or wacky than extremists in other faiths is not only false, it is disingenuous.

However, Maher’s bigoted rant didn’t stop there, it also included his preaching about how “our culture” is better than their “culture.” I thought Maher would have realized by now that NOT ALL MUSLIMS are alike. Not all Muslims speak Arabic, live in caves, beat their wives 24-7, etc.  It’s a point that As’ad Abu Khalil made painfully obvious to Maher and his guests ten years ago when Maher hosted Politically Incorrect (video at bottom). Did Maher just forget that convenient fact or is he just fulfilling the buffoonish American caricature he so often loves to lampoon?

Omar Baddar commented on Maher’s incoherence quite succinctly,

I described Maher’s tirade as incoherent because the “them” in Maher’s equation shifted from “the developing world” at one point, to people whose culture “makes death threats to cartoonists,” to “the Taliban,” and eventually to “Muslims” (not exactly interchangeable terms). None of these categories can be lumped into a “Muslim culture” because the Muslim world is simply too vast to collapse into a cultural category. From Eastern Europe to Africa, from Lebanon to Pakistan, and from Iran to Indonesia, we are talking about completely and fundamentally different cultures. In all five Arab/Muslim countries where I grew up (and went to school with girls in all of them), women are an integral part of public life, and many of them dress like Western women do. So I can assure Maher that many of these societies are not waiting for “the West” to lecture them on whether women can work.

The incoherent ramble got even more incoherent, after making a mealy mouthed and half-hearted disclaimer that “in speaking of Moslems we realize that the vast majority are law abiding, loving people who just want to be left alone to subjugate their women in peace” Maher went on to preach to Moslems saying,

“but I got to tell ya, civilized people don’t threaten each other…threatening, that’s some old school desert s***, and I am sorry, you can’t bring that to the big city. I am very glad that Obama is reaching out the Moslem world, and I know Moslems living in America and Europe want their way of life assimilated more, but the Western world has to make some things clear, somethings about our culture are non-negotiable and can’t change and one of them is Freedom of Speech, seperation of Church and State is another, women are allowed to work here and you can’t beat them, not negotiable, this is how we roll, and this is why our system is better, and if you don’t get that and you still want to kill someone over a stupid cartoon, please make it Garfield.”

The fact is Muslims didn’t react to the South Park cartoon. This was a controversy completely whipped up by the media that gave a group of four-nobody-morons far more attention than they deserved. If Bill Maher and his staff had done a little research, instead of focusing on Revolution Muslim, they would have asked the far more penetrating and relevant question of why so much attention was given to an unknown group that has zero credibility or support amongst American Muslims. Of course this would not fit into the preset narrative that the “Godzilla of crazy religions” (as Maher would put it) “must be offended and threatening.”

Bill Maher also should be put on notice, about how people who don’t believe in his “us vs. them” mentality roll. He should be put on notice about what democracy really is about. It isn’t about high voltage diatribes, and self-congratulatory head nodding, or putting down “the other”. There is also a duty to uphold justice and equality. Muslims don’t want to “assimilate more,” (last I checked that isn’t a condition for being Western) they are already here, they are integrated and they are contributing, and he should know the highest incidences of domestic violence occur here in America, where 2 to 4 million women are the victims of domestic violence every year and in which a quarter of the population will have been victims of domestic violence in their lifetimes.

After this show Bill Maher was on Anderson Cooper 360, and in my opinion it was one of the worst interviews I have seen in a long time. It was so bad that I wished I was watching Bill O’ Reilly or Glenn Beck. On the show Bill Maher repeated many of things he said on Real Time, but one thing was exceptionally noteworthy:

“I haven’t read the Quran in its original, when you read the translation there are many, many, many passages that are not peaceful at all, that are about killing the infidel and so forth, there are many passages like that in the Bible too, not as many.”

Is he serious? The Quran itself is about the size of the Psalms, and only a few hundred of the 6,000 verses relate to fighting and all of them have a context and explanation. None of them command a Muslim to just “slay the infidel.” However, the Bible is filled with exhortations to violence, wiping out whole nations, slaying pagans, enemies and non-Jews who live in Israel. This is one of the reasons that the Israel-Palestine conflict is so intractable, the view by religious Jews that not one centimeter of historic Israel should be owned by a non-Jew.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZN-FhDrB3A 350 300]

I would challenge Bill Maher to find one verse in the Quran equal or even a quarter equal to this odious commandment in the Bible,

“How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock.” Psalm: 137:9

He will be unable to as there are no verses that come close to advocating such horrendous behavior in the Quran. As far as his retort that Jews and Christians don’t follow such things, a simple search on the internet will disabuse him of that and reinforce the fact that there are people who take the Bible literally and are willing to exact Biblical commandments such as the one above (see Sabbath breakers getting stoned, and license to murder babies).

Part of me believes all of this is for attention.  It seems that Maher desperately wants a fatwa on his head.  He wants the status it would give him: the fame and the soaring ratings. He’ll have ensured himself a position next to Salman Rushdie as one of the victimized on the pantheon of atheist stardom. Maybe it will give him some meaning in an utterly purposeless life?

This whole episode reminds me of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, a story in which the pigs lead the other animals in a coup overthrowing the human beings who rule the farm. Once the pigs come to power, they take on the same odious traits of the human beings that had led to the revolt in the first place. The pigs became intolerant, manipulative, chauvinistic, and shallow. Orwell meant it to be a story about the failures and potential flaws of communism but the analogy could be applied equally to many of the new atheists, of whom Bill Maher is one, who rant and rave about the intolerance, shallowness, and wide sweeping claims of the religious but like the pigs are taking on those very same traits.

————————————————————————————————————————-

Please check out this very instructional episode of Politically Incorrect a few months after 9/11. It is very interesting and highlights the psychology of Islamophobia that languishes deep even in self professed liberals. As’ad Abukhalil really lays it into them,

Part 1:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu1jajbOnBw 350 300]

Part 2:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STY5FwyJ2O8&feature=related 350 300]

Part 3:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5ENu4zT92c&feature=related 350 300]

Part 4:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqnuKfCddK0&feature=related 350 300]

Max Blumenthal writes:

On April 25, over 1000 New York-area Jewish extremists gathered in midtown Manhattan to rally against the Barack Obama administration’s call for a freeze on construction in occupied East Jerusalem and to demand unlimited rights to colonize the West Bank

He video taped this hate-filled rally, and we’ll embed the YouTube clip below.  But before we do that, it’s worthwhile to comment on the issue of Israeli settlements.  It never ceases to amaze me how many Americans are so profoundly ignorant on this topic, and have no clue that “the consensus view of the international community is that the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under international law.”  Or as the BBC News puts it: “Settlement building in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under international law.”  This is the view expressed by none other than the United Nations and its judicial arm, the International Court of Justice.  Numerous resolutions have been passed against the state of Israel, demanding that illegal settlement activity be ceased.

There’s a very good reason why these settlements are illegal.  According to international law, that land does not belong to Israel; it belong to the Palestinians, who have lived there for hundreds of years.  That’s why the region is called the “Israeli Occupied Territories”.  And that’s also why they’re called Israeli settlers, not unlike the white settlers who pushed the Native Americans off their land.  Yet, we have Zionist extremists claiming that the land belongs to Israel, because “God gave it to them”, as one crazed man claims in the video below.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R611drTEHPA 300 250]

Blumenthal continues (emphasis is ours):

…The Republican Jewish Coalition was afforded a prominent role at the demonstration beside far-right groups like the Zionist Organization of America, Z Street, Americans for a Safe Israel, Christians United for Israel, and Manhigut Yehudit, an anti-democratic group that calls for theocratic rule over Israel.

Supporters of Manhigut leader and Likud politician Moshe Feiglin distributed fliers promoting Feiglin’s upcoming campaign for prime minister of Israel. An open advocate of ethnic cleansing who has proposed depriving the Palestinians of drinking water, Feiglin recently called Vice President Biden “a diseased leper.”

While the pro-settler elements rallied in Manhattan, their counterparts from the radical Kahanist movement in the Hebron-based settlement of Tel Rumeida rampaged through Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, inciting violent confrontations while announcing their intention to rid the area of its historical Arab presence…[There were] many hints that the events in Manhattan and Jerusalem were closely coordinated.

The Manhattan rally took on a distinctively Tea Party-flavor. Besides issuing maximalist calls for the expulsion of the Palestinians, demonstrators assailed Obama as a secret Muslim with no legitimate right to serve as President of the United States. When I was identified by a particularly ornery rally participant as “the self-hating asshole Max Blumenthal,” I decided it was time to make my exit.

However, as I walked down 44th Street towards the subway, an elderly man grabbed me and attempted to snatch my camera (I had seen the gun-toting Marzel use similar tactics on anti-settlement activists documenting his exploits in the West Bank). “You’re not a Jew! Give me the film!” the man exclaimed. A mob of demonstrators suddenly formed and began advancing towards me. Luckily, two NYPD officers were nearby. They pried the man off me and gave me enough time to escape. I paced for two blocks until I reached Grand Central Station then disappeared into the crowd.

Conservative blogger Matt Lewis; facts mean nothing to this guy!

Such rhetoric is not limited to street level protests.  Following the Obama administration’s call for a freeze on settlement activity, Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks debated conservative blogger Matt Lewis on MSNBC; here’s what Lewis had to say about the Israeli Occupied Territories:

This is their territory.  They won it in 1967.  And essentially what we’re asking them to do is to turn over…part of their territory.  I think we should stand with Israel on this…You don’t get peace by giving away territory…Israel has continued to give away territory…You want them to give territory, [and] that’s not supporting them.

Mr. Lewis has the facts exactly wrong: it’s not their territory…at least not according to the consensus of the international community and international law.  Land acquired through conquest is illegal, and must be returned.  One can hardly imagine Lewis making the claim that the United States was forcing Saddam Hussein to “give away territory” when the demand was placed on the Iraqi military to leave Kuwait.  Israel has never given away any of its own territory, ever.  The West Bank and East Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinians.  It’s amazing that neither Cenk Uygur nor the host Dylan Ratigan thought it worthwhile to mention this key fact in the debate, which just shows how biased the mainstream media in this country is when it comes to the question of Israel.

Is former 1/2-governor of Alaska and Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin trying to join the ranks of the Loons? On her Facebook page, Palin wrote:

My, have things changed. I was honored to have Rev. Franklin Graham speak at my Governor’s Prayer Breakfasts. His good work in Alaska’s Native villages and his charitable efforts all over the world stem from his servant’s heart. In my years of knowing him, I’ve never found his tempered and biblically-based comments to be offensive – in fact his words have been encouraging and full of real hope.

It’s truly a sad day when such a fine patriotic man, whose son is serving on his fourth deployment in Afghanistan to protect our freedom of speech and religion, is dis-invited from speaking at the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer service. His comments in 2001 were aimed at those who are so radical that they would kill innocent people and subjugate women in the name of religion.

Are we really so hyper-politically correct that we can’t abide a Christian minister who expresses his views on matters of faith? What a shame. Yes, things have changed.

Everybody join me now: Awwwwwwwwwww!

Apparently she was referring to the Army’s recent decision to rescind their invitation of Franklin Graham, son of the late Billy Graham, to their National Day of Prayer event. Army spokesman Col. Tom Collins said,

“Army leadership became aware of the issue and immediately recognized it was problematic. ”  He added,  “This Army honors all faiths and tries to inculcate our soldiers and work force with an appreciation of all faiths and his past comments just were not appropriate for this venue.”

What I thought was truly hilarious was her saying, “His comments in 2001 were aimed at those who are so radical that they would kill innocent people and subjugate women in the name of religion.” Really? She MUST have missed the memo.

Here are his “tempered” and “biblically-based” comments about Islam:

In 2001, he said that Islam, not the radical version of Islam, but all of Islam “is is a very evil and wicked religion.” In 2001, he said:

We’re not attacking Islam but Islam has attacked us. The God of Islam is not the same God. He’s not the son of God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian faith. It’s a different God, and I believe it is a very evil and wicked religion.

In 2006, he didn’t back down:

I know about Islam. I don’t need an education from Islam. If people think Islam is such a wonderful religion, just go to Saudi Arabia and make it your home. Just live there. If you think Islam is such a wonderful religion, I mean, go and live under the Taliban somewhere. I mean, you’re free to do that.

In a Wall Street Journal piece, Graham wrote: “the persecution or elimination of non-Muslims has been a cornerstone of Islamic conquests and rule for centuries. Graham said the Quran “provides ample evidence that Islam encourages violence in order to win converts and to reach the ultimate goal of an Islamic world.”So “tempered”and  ”Biblically-based,” eh?

The Taliban are no more an example of Islam than the Hutaree are an example of Christianity. The terrorists of the Muslim flavor are no more representative of Islam than the pedophile Catholic priests are representative of Catholic Christianity. Please, Sarah, don’t comment about something which you clearly have little idea. Please, Sarah, keep watching Russia from your house and stay out of religion. Clearly, it is way, way, way above your pay grade.

Is this the only image of suicide terrorism?

Resident “Islam expert” Robert Spencer is at it again, using his skills of obfuscation to smear Islam. In a recent post, he claims “suicide for jihad” is nothing new in Islam:

Actually the idea of suicide in the cause of jihad is no innovation. It is founded upon Qur’an 9:111, which guarantees Paradise to those who “kill and are killed” for Allah. It is a phenomenon that is actually found throughout Islamic history, and is not new. In the 18th century John Paul Jones wrote about Ottoman sailors setting their own ships on fire and ramming the ships of their enemies, although they knew this meant certain death for them.

And centuries before that, the Assassins, Hashishin, went into their missions knowing that death was virtually certain, and energized by the promise of Paradise that had been made vivid for them in an artful scenario that was used as a recruitment tool: the prospective assassin would be given hashish and then taken into a garden full of beautiful women, and told that he was enjoying a taste of Islamic Paradise. Then to return to that Paradise, he was told that he had to go out and kill his victim, and be killed in the process.

Wow. Let us address the verse in question (9:111):

Behold, God has bought of the believers their lives and their possessions, promising them paradise in return, [and so] they fight in God’s cause, and slay, and are slain: a promise which in truth He has willed upon Himself in [the words of] the Torah, and the Gospel, and the Quran. And who could be more faithful to his covenant than God? Rejoice, then, in the bargain which you have made with Him: for this, this is the triumph supreme!

As outlined by the Quran, fighting in Islam is allowed in defense, and aggression is prohibited (2:190-193). Thus, those who “fight in God’s cause” in the verse are fighting in a battle to defend “those [civilians] who have been expelled from their homes” (22:40) by an aggressor.  In this context, able-bodied men are called to defend the people with their lives.  When one fights a battle, he tries to kill his enemy and avoid being killed himself. Spencer, however, claims that those who “slay and are slain” are actually committing suicide. Huh?

Suicide is when you take your own life: the death blow comes from your own hand.  This is dramatically different than valiantly fighting the enemy in battle when the odds are heavily stacked against you, such that death is “near certain.” The former is suicide, the latter is not.  Unless Robert Spencer is being un-American and claiming that the countless U.S. soldiers who have thrown themselves upon the enemy–facing “near certain death” by doing so–committed suicide?  In fact, the medal of honor is routinely given to soldiers who throw themselves upon the enemy (thereby facing “near certain death”) to protect their fellow soldiers and advance their position.

There are several examples of this during World War II. For example, Private First Class Leonard Foster Mason received the medal of honor for “his exceptionally heroic act in the face of almost certain death.”  The American soldiers were under heavy fire, and with total disregard for his own life, Mason ran out of his foxhole and killed five enemy soldiers.  He was critically wounded in the arm and shoulder, and subsequently died.  Today, he is remembered as a hero who fought and died for his country.  Would Spencer like to claim that he committed suicide, and that the U.S. military has been using “suicide jihad” tactics during WWII?

Private George Phillips received the medal of honor because he “unhesitatingly threw himself on [a] deadly missile, absorbing the shattering violence of the exploding charge in his own body and protecting his comrades from serious injury.”

And let’s read about the bravery of Private First Class Harold Glenn Epperson who gave up his life for his country:

Determined to save his comrades, Pfc. Epperson unhesitatingly chose to sacrifice himself and, diving upon the deadly missile, absorbed the shattering violence of the exploding charge in his own body. Stouthearted and indomitable in the face of certain death, Pfc. Epperson fearlessly yielded his own life that his able comrades might carry on the relentless battle against a ruthless enemy. His superb valor and unfaltering devotion to duty throughout reflect the highest credit upon himself and upon the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.
Another suicide jihad terrorist attack, I suppose?  In fact, what about the American soldiers who took the island of Iwo Jima? According to historians, the Japanese fought tenaciously for the island, and only 216 out of more than 18,000 soldiers were alive at the end of hostilities. This invasion must have “meant certain death” for the scores of American soldiers who took part. Were these American soldiers “committing suicide”? What about the soldiers who took part in the invasion of Normandy? The odds against the Allied soldiers were tremendous, and it “meant certain death” for the scores of soldiers who valiantly chose to be on the front line. Did these American heroes also “commit suicide”?

Anyways, the Quran is crystal clear on suicide:

“And do not take a life that God has made sacred, except for just cause.” (17:33)

“And spend for the sake of God, and do not invest in ruin by your own hands. And do good, for God loves those who do good.” (2:195)

“And do not kill yourselves, for God has been merciful to you.” (4:29)

But I do know of a holy book that mentions (and seems to condone) suicide attacks. You may have heard of it, Spencer.  It’s called the Bible.  The Mighty Samson kills himself in order to kill three thousand men and women (civilians):

Samson said to the servant who held his hand, “Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them.”  Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform.  Then Samson prayed to the LORD, “O Sovereign LORD , remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.”  Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.  (Judges 16:26-30)”

Samson was one of the good guys in the Bible, and nowhere are his actions condemned.  Far from it: he got the strength from God to do it.  How are his actions any different than the Palestinian suicide bombers who blow themselves up in shopping malls to kill Israeli men and women?  And in 1 Samuel 31:1-6, we have another good guy in the Bible killing himself rather than being taken alive by the enemy; in fact, it’s a group suicide–Saul, his three sons, his armor bearer, and all of his men commit group suicide in this battle. Two can play at this, Mr. Spencer.

With regard to the example of the Ottomans ramming their ships, this is a technique that dates to antiquity.  As a last resort (since they were going to lose/die anyways), the captain would order that they use the ship to ram the enemy’s.  To use another American example, even civilian boats were equipped with this capability: the Seattle fireboat Duwamish, built in 1909, was designed to ram wooden vessels, as a last resort. More “suicide jihad” I suppose?

As for the Hashashin, or Assassins, they belonged to an extremely heterodox extremist sect of Islam.  They did not believe in committing suicide, but rather put themselves in harms way to complete missions such that oftentimes they would be facing “near certain death.”  In any case, even at that time the orthodox Muslims used to write about how crazy they thought these Hashashin were, so how can we take the most extreme example as indicative of the general rule?  In fact, at the time of the Hashashin, there were the Crusaders.  Would Spencer like to take the bloodthirsty Crusaders (who engaged in cannibalism and mass murder) as indicative of Christianity overall?

It seems that Spencer is becoming desperate; desperate to link anything to his fanciful imaginary Islam that is totally devoid from reality. Umm…nice try.

Brigitte Gabriel

ACT! for America has a problem. Its first problem is that it was founded by Brigitte Gabriel. Yes, the same Brigitte Gabriel the New York Times called a “radical Islamophobe” and who in the past has made statements like “Arabs have no soul,” and “Arabs are barbarians.” She might be novel eye candy for some (which I’m guessing is the reason Bill Maher had her on his show) but it is clear that Brigitte Gabriel is a whacked out fundamentalist with a seething rage against Muslims and a determination on the one hand to destroy Islam and on the other to make as much profit in the process.

The other problem with ACT! is that it is an organization filled with the types of people we see at Tea Party rallies. You know the ones who dress up in late 18th century regalia a la George Washington or carry around posters about Obama being a Kenyan, or Hitler, or Joker or a Marxist Mooslim anti-Christ coming to change America from a Christian nation into the Soviet Union.

The ACT! for America scheme essentially boils down to an organization masquerading as a “defender of Western Civilization” akin to the claims of other Islamophobes such as Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. They have a binary view of the world, the Bush mantra of “you’re either with us or against us.”

Brigitte Gabriel pretentiously declares on the ACT! site, “I founded this organization to give Americans their voice back…” Brigitte, Americans never lost their “voice,” unless the “voice” you want to give back is the Jim Crow voice that unleashed the dogs and water hoses on Southern blacks fighting for civil rights and against White racism because that is the historical parallel which fits into your rhetoric.

Those White racists were saying the same thing Brigitte is saying today, that we need to “defend Western civilization.” To the White racists of the South, Western civilization equaled White and Christian. Today Brigitte claims a bigger tent though it is bigoted just the same, to her Western Civilization equals Judeo-Christian and de facto excludes any Muslim.

ACT! is an organization shot through and through with Christian fundamentalists. That is why at many of their events one will see a Christian missionary preaching the Gospel while other ACT! custodians will be passing out anti-Islam literature.

In this video a representative for a Florida Chapter of ACT! for America spews his hate filled beliefs about Islam. He brags about using the Quran as toilet paper and urinating in Muslim ablution sinks (starts at 45 seconds):

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn5UfW6GOc4 350 300]

I guess that is defending Western Civilization for you. The original user (an ACT! member) who put up the above video on YouTube has removed it. Obviously realizing that it hurts their credibility, but luckily someone else downloaded it.

Also in Florida where they seem to be the most active, ACT! for America chapters were angered at the appointment of Parvez Ahmed to Jacksonville’s Human Rights Commission. They couldn’t countenance a Muslim being appointed to anything in an official capacity (even though 90% of them probably believe that Barack Obama is a Mooslim). So they began a campaign to smear Parvez, saying he was filled with Taqiyyah, that he was a terrorist, a terrorist supporter, etc. To do so they brought up his time as an employee with CAIR. ACT! members falsely held the belief that they could shout “CAIR!” and it would be enough to stop the train and ruin someones career and reputation.

Anti-Muslim group opposes professor’s appointment to Jacksonville Commission

By Tia Mitchell

An anti-Muslim organization is lobbying Jacksonville City Council members to vote against confirming a University of North Florida professor to the city’s Human Rights Commission.

Parvez Ahmed, who is Muslim, was appointed to the voluntary advisory board by Mayor John Peyton and recommended for confirmation by the council Rules Committee. A vote on his confirmation is scheduled to occur at Tuesday’s council meeting.

The group ACT! for America caught wind of his appointment last week and e-mailed a 20-page report Friday accusing Ahmed of having ties to extremist groups through his service on the board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“When it comes to a human rights commissioner, Jacksonville can do better than this nomination,” said Randy McDaniels, leader of ACT’s Jacksonville chapter.

The mayor’s office and some City Council members dispute the organizations’ claims and said there is no proof Ahmed has radical ties. Deputy General Counsel Cindy Laquidara will attend Tuesday’s council meeting to answer questions about Ahmed’s background.

Councilman John Crescimbeni, who initially suggested Ahmed to the mayor’s office for a nomination, said the group and its last-minute claims against the professor have no credibility.

“In fact, I checked out some of those allegations made in the original e-mail that came out last Friday,” Crescimbeni said. “It looked like a cut and paste job. It’s pure hate on their part.”

Crescimbeni said Ahmed, who is a Fulbright Scholar with decades of public service under his belt, would be an asset to the Human Rights Commission.

“I can’t think of a better person to serve on that commission than him,” he said. “He is the guy that’s all about peace, and he’s all about getting along.”

Council President Richard Clark said Ahmed’s appointment is currently included on the consent agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, meaning it would be approved quickly with several other items. However, he said, any council member can request that it be taken off the consent agenda and discussed separately.

“I have no intention of pulling it,” Clark said. “If people felt that strongly about it, they should have spoken up long before the confirmation process at Rules.”

McDaniels said ACT learned of Ahmed’s nomination after media reports surfaced about the Rules Committee vote and Councilman Clay Yarborough’s questioning of the professor’s opinion on separation of church and state and gay marriage.

Yarborough voted to recommend the professor after receiving responses he considered satisfactory, but he now says the ACT report has given him pause. He said he wants to know more about its claims before deciding whether he will vote for Ahmed’s confirmation.

“If need be, I will adamantly oppose confirmation of his appointment on the floor tomorrow if there are established links here that are of concern,” Yarborough said Monday.

The ACT report ties Council on American-Islamic Relations to extremists because it was listed as one of 300 unindicted co-conspirators in a Department of Justice terrorism financing trial. That matter ended in mistrial, and CAIR was never accused of wrongdoing.

McDaniels’ group offered no evidence that Ahmed had directly attempted to support terrorist groups.

The mayor’s office is standing by its decision to nominate Ahmed to the Human Rights Commission, saying it conducted the same criminal background and reference checks as all other nominees to a board or commission.

Ahmed said the scrutiny he has experienced in recent days has not deterred him from wanting to serve on the commission, but he worries about the message it is sending.

“I am afraid other qualified individuals may be discouraged to pursue public service,” he said. “Hate groups like ACT do not belong in our Democratic process.”

Councilman Art Shad, who is chairman of the Rules Committee, expressed the same concern and said the next two weeks will be important for the City Council as Ahmed and two others come up for confirmation to the Human Rights Commission.

“We want to be very careful in how we act because we need to set the example of being level-headed, although we want to be thorough in our view,” Shad said.

He said any council member has a right to ask questions of nominees, but he hopes there is an air of respect to the process and to those who want to volunteer their time.

tia.mitchell@jacksonville.com
(904) 359-4425

Unfortunately for ACT! people aren’t buying into the conspiracies anymore, and their cries about CAIR are falling on unsympathetic ears.

Jacksonville panel votes again to recommend Ahmed for commission

After nearly two weeks of controversy, the City Council Rules Committee voted 4-1 today to recommend University of North Florida professor Pervez Ahmed as a member of the city’s Human Rights Commission.

The nomination now goes to the full council for approval.

Only Councilman Clay Yarborough voted against Ahmed. He had voted to approve Ahmed at the last Rules meeting.

Mark Woods: Jacksonville councilman Clay Yarborough takes turn at answering questions

“I have too much of a reasonable doubt based on the research I’ve done over the last week and a half,” Yarborough said.

Voting in favor were Art Shad, John Crescimbeni, Denise Lee and Bill Bishop. Council Vice President Jack Webb left the room before the vote was taken; he told The Times-Union he stepped out to get a soft drink and was surprised that the vote came so soon.

The meeting was interrupted by shouting and several people walked out.

Ahmed said of the vote, “It’s a vindication for the City of Jacksonville more than for me … The city needed an outcome that demonstrated courage, that demonstrated moral clarity.”

Ahmed’s nomination was opposed by ACT! for America, an anti-Islamist group. Randy McDaniels, head of the group’s Jacksonville chapter, said, “It is surprising that so many people are pushing this individual and I would ask why.”

This story isn’t over but it is clear that the days of maligning Muslims for standing up for their civil rights will not get a free pass. However, the dogged persistence of hate groups such as ACT! for America means Americans of all stripes will have to be vigilante and work hard to fight hate.

ACT! for America maybe more properly known as Hate! for America because that is what they represent, as is evident by the bigotry of their founder Brigitte Gabriel, the witch hunt against Parvez Ahmed and the video of the hate filled ACT! for America representative make plain.

Leonard Pitts

A very interesting piece from Leonard Pitts about double standards and the reality of Christian fundamentalists willing to resort to violence in our country.

Yes, there are Christian Terrorists Among Us

A few words about Christian terrorism.

And I suppose the first words should be about “those” words: “Christian terrorism.” The term will seem jarring to those who have grown comfortable regarding terrorism as something exclusive to Islam.

That this is a self-deluding fallacy should have long since been apparent to anyone who’s been paying attention. From Eric Rudolph’s bombing of the Atlanta Olympics, a gay nightclub and two abortion clinics to the so-called Phineas Priests, who bombed banks, a newspaper and a Planned Parenthood Office in Spokane, Wash., from Matt Hale soliciting the murder of a federal judge in Chicago to Scott Roeder’s assassination of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller to brothers Matthew and Tyler Williams murdering a gay couple near Redding, we have seen no shortage of “Christians” who believe Jesus requires — or at least allows — them to commit murder.

If federal officials are correct, we now have one more name to add to the dishonor roll. That name would be Hutaree, a self-styled Christian militia in Michigan, nine members of which have been arrested and accused of plotting to kill police officers in hopes of sparking an anti-government uprising.

Many of us would doubtless resist referring to plots like this as Christian terrorism, feeling it unfair to tar the great body of Christendom with the actions of its fringe radicals. And here, we will pause for Muslim readers to clear their throats loudly.

While they do, let the rest of us note that there is a larger moral to this story, and it has less to do with terminologies than similarities.

We are conditioned to think of terror wrought by Islamic fundamentalists as something strange and alien and other. It is the violence of men with long beards who jabber in weird languages and kill for mysterious reasons while worshiping God in ways that seem outlandish to middle-American sensibilities. And whatever quirk of nature or deficiency of humanity it is that allows them to do what they do, is, we think, unique. There is, we are pleased to believe, a hard, immutable line between us and Them.

Then you consider Hutaree and its alleged plan to kill in the name of God, and the idea of some innate, saving difference between us and those bearded others in other places begins to feel like a fiction we conjured to help us sleep at night.

“Preparing for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive,” it says on Hutaree’s Web site. And you wonder: Who is this Jesus they worship and in what Bible is he found? Why does he bear so little resemblance to the Jesus others find in their Bibles, the one who said that if someone hits you on your right cheek, offer him your left, the one who said if someone forces you to go one mile with him, go two?

Why does their Jesus need the help of men in camo fatigues with guns and bombs? In this, he is much like the Allah for whom certain Muslims blow up marketplaces and crowded buses. Muslim and American terrorists, it seems, both apparently serve a puny and impotent God who can’t do anything without their help.

Sometimes, I think the only thing that keeps us from becoming, say, Afghanistan, is a strong central government and a diverse population with a robust tradition of free speech. The idea that there is something more is a conceit that blows apart like confetti every time there is, as there is now, a sense of cultural dislocation and economic uncertainty. That combination unfailingly moves people out to the fringes, where they seek out scapegoats and embrace that feeble God. And watching, you can’t help but realize the troubling truth about that line between “us” and “them.”

It’s thinner than you think.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald.

Anne Coulter is the well known crazy Conservative who stated that the US should invade “Muslim countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” so I guess it isn’t much of a surprise that she told a Muslim student to ‘take a camel.’

Coulter Tells an Ont. Muslim to ‘take a camel’

It didn’t take long for firebrand U.S. conservative Ann Coulter to live up to her reputation on her Canadian tour, telling a University of Western Ontario Muslim student to “take a camel” as an alternative to flying.

Coulter made the comment Monday night after she received an email about the limits of free speech in Canada from the provost of the University of Ottawa, where she appears Tuesday.

The private email, which was leaked to conservative news organizations, noted that Canada’s Charter of Rights meant that “promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges.”

Francois Houle, vice-president academic and University of Ottawa provost, invited Coulter to educate herself on Canadian free speech laws.

“We, of course, are always delighted to welcome speakers on our campus and hope that they will contribute positively to the meaningful exchange of ideas that is the hallmark of a great university campus,” wrote Houle,

The letter only added fuel to the fire of Coulter’s speaking tour, which is titled, “Political Correctness, Media Bias and Freedom of Speech.”

“I was the victim of a hate crime and plan to file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission,” Coulter said Monday.

Coulter, who wore a short black dress to her speech, is one of the most divisive characters in American conservatism.

She is well-known for her vehement views against Muslims. In a post-September 11 column, she wrote that the U.S. should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.

It didn’t take long for her controversial views to emerge at Western.

The student, Fatima Al-Dhaher, asked Coulter about previous comments in which she said Muslims shouldn’t be allowed on airplanes and should take “flying carpets” instead. Al-Dhaher noted she did not own a flying carpet and asked what she should take as an alternative transportation.

Coulter did not deny making the flying carpet comment and replied to the university student: “What mode of transportation? Take a camel” to a mix of jeers and cheers.

Some students walked out after the comment.

“She stabbed me in the heart, she was rude,” Al-Dhaher said. “I walked out after she said that.”

“As a female, as a Muslim, as a student of this university, I felt an obligation to kind of represent that,” the student said of her question.

Coulter spoke in front of a packed audience of about 800 at the university.

It was a decidedly pro-Coulter audience. One man, who identified himself as a U.S. citizen, described U.S. President Barack Obama as a “Marxist.”

Wrong approach by U of Ottawa: MPs

Coulter, who often comments on Fox News, once said Canada is “lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent” after the Canadian government did not join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Her tour was organized by International Free Press Society, a group whose website sets up Islam as the preeminent threat to democracy in the Western world.

“This jihad, like all jihads before it, will continue until a sharia-based caliphate rules the world, or until it is defeated,” the society’s policy statement says.

The group also sells one of the infamous Danish Mohammad cartoons, signed by cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, for $250. They are currently sold out.

Among the group’s board of advisers are Canadian conservative bloggers Ezra Levant and Kathy Shaidle, author Mark Steyn and far-right Dutch political leader Geert Wilders.

Coulter reportedly commands a $10,000 speaking fee. Her fee is being covered in part by the Claire Boothe Luce Policy Institute, an American group that calls itself the “home of conservative women leaders.”

Some critics say trying to quiet Coulter is the wrong approach to discrediting her views.

“In terms of putting limits on what she … should say or shouldn’t say, I’m not sure that helps,” New Democrat MP Paul Dewar, told The Canadian Press. “It might add fuel to the fire that she will be probably starting tomorrow.”

Liberal MP Scott Brison made a similar comment.

“If you don’t agree with what she has to say, then ignore her,” he said.

Coulter’s Canadian tour wraps up at the University of Calgary on Thursday.

Nicolas Sarkozy, better known as Nicoleon

The discussion on the veil ban is now leading to practical implementation with plans for the veil ban to become effective in the spring. (via. Islamophobia-Watch)

Wearing a Yarmulke (Yamaka) is okay but not the Hijab

Geert Wilders previously called for a tax on the Hijab, now a recent political event reveals a new tactic in his  discriminatory political agenda. On a side note this is a good compliment to Danios’ article, as it ironically reveals that it is contemporary, if marginal Westerners who want to repress religious freedom and are advocating repressive conditions and restrictions on minorities akin to the ones in the fabled ‘Pact of Umar.’

Wilders goes for headscarf ban in the Hague

A ban on headscarves for city council workers and in all institutions and clubs which get local authority money will be the most important point in the PVV´s negotiations to join governing coalitions in Almere and the Hague, says party leader Geert Wilders.

Speaking to RTL news, Wilders said the ban would be central to talks to form new local authority executives in the only two cities where the party is contesting the March 3 local elections.

The ban will apply to ‘all council offices and all other institutions and clubs which get even one cent of council money,’ he said.

The PVV is tipped to emerge as the biggest party in Almere and second biggest in the Hague.

Speech

Wilders brought up the ban again in a speech to supporters in Almere, where he entered the room to the Rocky theme tune Eye of the Tiger.

The ban will not apply to other religious items such as Christian crosses and Jewish skull caps because these are symbols of our own Dutch culture, Wilders said in his speech, receiving a standing ovation from the crowd.

The speech began with a ‘lengthy tirade’ against the ‘arrogant Labour party’, according to the Volkskrant report of the meeting. ‘If you translate the PvdA’s Arabic language election brochures they say ‘bring your family here. You get benefits, we pay for everything’, the Volkskrant quoted the PVV leader as saying.

‘Almere must become the safest city in the Netherlands,’ he said. ‘There will be an end to subsidies for Turkish macramé and Arabic finger painting. Not just the Netherlands but all of Europe will look to Almere.’

Discrimination

Wilders is currently facing charges of discrimination and inciting hatred against non western immigrants and Muslims. He always maintains he is opposed to Islam, not Muslims themselves.

Earlier this week, Wilders told the Telegraaf the PVV´s commitment to maintaining the current retirement age of 65 would be crucial in negotiations to form a new national government, following the collapse of the CDA, Labour and ChristenUnie alliance last weekend.

Most parties have already ruled out forming a coalition with Wilders. Only the Christian Democrats and right wing Liberals VVD have not done so.

Opinion polls make it likely that four parties will be needed to form a new government after the June 9 vote.

David Horowitz

David Horowitz, the former Marxist turned neo-Conservative and the person who funds such loathsome individuals as Robert Spencer and his Jihad Watch was at UMass where he faced strong opposition from students. He ended up calling Palestinians Nazis, said Islam is worse and more dangerous than Nazism and other crazy stuff.

Horowitz Brings Controversial Ideas to Student Union

By: Michelle Williams | February 25, 2010 | ShareThis

Editor’s Note: Due to the snow day, this article will appear in the paper edition of Thursday, Feb. 25. As such, the online article has been slightly updated.

Ashley Lesperance/Collegian

On Tuesday evening, former New Left radical turned conservative pundit and author of such works as “Hating Whitey: and Other Progressive Causes,” and “Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left,” David Horowitz spoke in the Cape Cod Lounge in the Student Union.

Outside the Lounge two UMass Police officers were stationed at the door, with numerous law enforcement officials inside in plainclothes.

Justin Thomas, vice president of the University of Massachusetts Republican Club, the RSO which brought Horowitz to UMass, defended the heavy police presence at the event, citing previous events including Don Feder’s speech in March 2009, which was disrupted by protesters.

David Horowitz is described by the Republican Club as a well-known author and lifelong civil rights activist. He was sponsored to speak at UMass for a payment of $5,000 plus expenses, including transportation, lodging, and payment for protection.

Those protesting disagree that his speech was worth funding.

“I am here protesting because, as a UMass student attending a public university, I don’t welcome homophobia, and Islamophobia that is integrated in Horowitz’s hate speech.” said Marah DeFlavia, a junior at UMass. “I feel that bringing Horowitz to this campus was socially irresponsible, and it sends a negative message regarding our campus.”

Protesters passed out flyers labeling Horowitz a racist, citing an article he wrote which likened calling Rush Limbaugh a racist to calling minorities racial epithets.

The evening seemed a perfect test of some of Horowitz’s primary tenets, as he has asserted that liberal thinkers suppress free thought in academia in such pieces as “The Professors: 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.”

Ultimately, this forum turned out better than last year’s contested gathering. Some protesters did speak out, and while they were asked to leave, none were forcibly removed or arrested.

The UMPD also implemented security measures, including not allowing audience members to bring backpacks with them inside. Members of the audience were also asked not to hold up signs or interrupt, though some disruption did occur.

UMass student Alex Tuffile was excited for the night’s events, having read all of Horowitz’s books. When asked his thoughts on the protesters, after viewing them quietly passing out flyers, he responded that he liked them. Citing past speeches, specifically the Don Feder speech, Tuffile said he feels the security measures are necessary.

“It was a disaster. I don’t have a problem with people when they protest, but it was ugly,” he said.

Thomas, the Republican Club vice president, gave opening remarks and thanked everyone for attending the speech, stating that Horowitz’s presence would hopefully facilitate conversation and debate.

Thomas explained why the Republican Club chose Horowitz.

“David Horowitz has been a strong proponent of free speech on campus,” he said.

Horowitz also provided an outlet for the club to display a more conservative speaker.

“You may remember Ms. Meghan McCain, who brought a more independent viewpoint [coming to campus.] Surprisingly for some, she wasn’t conservative enough,” said Thomas.

Next to speak was Derek Khanna, the president of the Republican Club. Khanna spoke of Horowitz’s lack of political correctness and the need for such in the University environment. Khanna spoke of not being able to call his country a “she,” and said, “Today, we live in a society where use of the word ‘niggardly’ requires an apology,” which the audience greeted with hissing sounds.

As he took the stage, Horowitz began his speech with an attack on liberals.

“Universities were set up to be free institutions that taxpayers pay for. It is due to out of control spending on faculty and out of control governmental loans that tuition costs are so much,” said Horowitz.

He went on to call college professors lazy, claiming they only work “nine hours a week, eight months out of the year.”

He continued to claim that professors generally represent just one side of the aisle politically. Horowitz sat in on a 90 minute civil liberties class during Tuesday’s classes, which he felt did not show multiple viewpoints on the subject.

“The professor tried to sell students on the decency of the Supreme Court, and denied them key information,” he said, furthering that he believes an educator’s job should entail “teaching you how to think, not what to think.”

Midway through his speech, Horowitz spoke on an educational department with which his views are commonly connoted. Horowitz said that women’s studies departments’ goals are to “make students into radical feminists.”

On the issues of gender and racial hierarchies in society, Horowitz claimed such inequities do not exist in America. He also said, to much audience protest, that the women’s studies department “doesn’t actually care about women,” because of genital mutilation occurring in Islamic cultures.

Horowitz expanded on his view of education stating that “the entire liberal arts college cannot give you a good education.” The only department Horowitz felt was of value was the engineering college, because through science, he believes the department presents facts without political slant.

Horowitz also told the crowd his views on religion. He deemed Muslims radicals, citing a poll claiming ten percent of Muslims agreed with jihad, or holy war. Making numerous comparisons to Nazi Germany, Horowitz called the Islamic jihad worse.

“Islamists are worse than the Nazis, because even the Nazis did not tell the world that they want to exterminate the Jews,” he said. In another comparison to Nazis, he added, “there are good Muslims and bad Muslims just like there were good Germans and bad Germans.”

After an hour of speaking, Horowitz took questions. Numerous students asked him about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, to which Horowitz responded heatedly, “The Palestinians are Nazis. Every one of their elected officials are terrorists.”

He spoke of how the countries in the Middle East were created and had no right to the lands that now make up Israel. “The Jews were attacked. They had every right to expel every Arab from both Israel and, when they were attacked in ‘67, from the West Bank.”

Zamil Akhtar, president of the UMass Muslim Student Association, spoke of how every Muslim, himself included, did not support the jihad, and said, “You said that you had not heard Muslims condemn the jihad. I can show you hundreds of Muslim scholars that disagree.”

“You also spoke of genital mutilation,” added Akhtar, “which is not a part of the culture – of my culture – as you said.”

Horowitz asked if Akhtar would denounce Hamas, to which Akhtar responded he would, and retorted by asking Horowitz if he would denounce Ann Coulter’s Islamophobic remarks, to which he responded, “It was a very apt satire.”

On the differences between sex and gender, UMass student Ashley Lesperance tried to explain the differences between gender and sex.

“Gender is defined as socially constructed to oppress women, versus sex which is what you are born with, gender is what is in fact socially constructed,” Lesperance told Horowitz.

Horowitz retorted by referencing former Harvard President Larry Summers, who drew criticism when he claimed women had lesser scientific abilities than women.

“Women possibly have a lower aptitude for math and science than men. And that’s a gender difference. Women have a lower aptitude in mathematics than men, and that is a scientific fact,” said Horowitz.

After a 30 minute question-and-answer of agitated remarks between the protesters and Horowitz, he told audience members lined at the microphone that he was finished answering questions and was escorted out of the room by his bodyguard.

Michelle Williams can be reached at mnwillia@student.umass.edu

Martin Kramer

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

Martin Kramer Spouts Anti-Muslim Racism

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaJXFbH4McM&feature=player_embedded 350 300]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joseph Stack's attack

A man flies a plane into a federal building in a suicide mission in which he wishes to sacrifice himself for a political cause or objective, he must be a Muslim! Not so fast, Joseph Stack seems to have blown that idea to bits, highlighting a fact we have pointed out Ad nauseum, terrorism isn’t a Muslim only brand.

Joe Stack’s story is interesting for a number of reasons,one of them being the confusion on whether or not what he did is terrorism, though it fits the definition of terrorism to the letter,

premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets

News media outlets are a perfect example of the confusion over whether or not to label this an act of terrorism, or whether to label Joe Stack a terrorist. The confusion seems to stem from the fact that Stack is a middle aged White male who isn’t Muslim. If he had been Muslim there would be no confusion, instantly pundits would be in unanimous agreement that this is terrorism.

Glenn Greenwald breaks down the hypocrisy and the double standards quite succinctly, (I recommend all read his article, Terrorism: The Most Meaningless and Manipulated Word)

The New York Times‘ Brian Stelter documents the deep reluctance of cable news chatterers and government officials to label the incident an act of “terrorism,” even though — as Dave Neiwert ably documents — it perfectly fits, indeed is a classic illustration of, every official definition of that term.  The issue isn’t whether Stack’s grievances are real or his responses just; it is that the act unquestionably comports with the official definition.  But as NBC’s Pete Williams said of the official insistence that this was not an act of Terrorism:  there are “a couple of reasons to say that . . . One is he’s an American citizen.”  Fox News’ Megan Kelley asked Catherine Herridge about these denials:  ”I take it that they mean terrorism in the larger sense that most of us are used to?,” to which Herridge replied: “they mean terrorism in that capital T way.”

The things that make you go hmmm.

Think about that for a second, he is an “American citizen,” so he can’t commit terrorism? Jose Padilla was an American citizen, the una-bomber was an American citizen, Timothy McVeigh was an American citizen. Are they all exonerated because they were American citizens?

Megan Kelley’s words are even more illustrative of the Islamophobia that is commonplace now and buried deep within the American psyche, the “terrorism that we are used to” meaning terrorism can only be commited by Muslims. The “capital T,” might as well be a capital M for Muslim.

Joseph Stack is now being considered a hero and a martyr against big government and the intrusive tax system. Facebook pages and Twitter accounts are abuzz proclaiming Stack a “true American hero.”

The silence from Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, who must be busy with their new Orwellian organization Freedom Defense Initiative is deafening. Other Conservatives are busy boohooing against the Left and claiming that they are being painted unjustly as “extremists and terrorists.” Now isn’t that ironic?

Racist Nazi Grafitti on French Mosque

Islamophobia doesn’t exist?

Racist Graffiti on Mosque for 6th time

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

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

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

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

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

Nonie Darwish

We are going to have an explosive breakdown of the clownish Nonie Darwish, another charlatan akin to Wafa Sultan who is milking the Islamophobic cash cow for all it’s worth. Jim Holstun, a professor at SUNY Buffalo wrote this great piece in 2008 that lays bear Nonie’s excessive Islamophobia, as well as her contradictions and lies.

Nonie Darwish and the al-Bureij Massacre

StandWithUs is a Zionist advocacy group in Los Angeles. It concentrates on US colleges and universities, offering fellowships, book donations, lectures, training and hands-on activism. I first heard about the group in 2005, after its Executive Director, Roz Rothstein, wrote my university’s president, provost and Arts and Sciences dean to warn them that I was teaching courses in Palestinian culture. She passed along some hysterical libels from anonymous community members (not my students), gave a detailed critique of my syllabuses, encouraged them to investigate me and two other colleagues, and helpfully suggested a few questions they might want to ask.

StandWithUs manages an impressive stable of Zionist speakers, including several who are Arabs, Muslims, or ex-Muslims: Brigitte Gabriel, Ishmael Khaldi, Walid Shoebat, Khaled Abu Toameh, and Nonie Darwish. Darwish, born an Egyptian Muslim, now an American Evangelical Christian, is one of the most energetic. She manages the website Arabs for Israel and has appeared on FOX News, on the website Frontpage Magazine, and in the film Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West. She is also the author of Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror. Penguin Books publishes it under its Sentinel imprint — a special line of conservative titles. Since her book’s publication in 2006, Darwish has toured extensively, speaking primarily at colleges and universities.

Now They Call Me Infidel has blurbs from all the usual crew: Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, Robert Spencer, Bat Ye’Or, former Senator Rick Santorum, Representative Tom “Nuke Mecca” Tancredo, and General Paul Vallely, who advocates the final ethnic cleansing of all Palestinian citizens of Israel. In the book itself, Darwish interweaves stories of her Egyptian girlhood with potted accounts of female genital mutilation, arranged marriages, polygamy, veiling, domestic abuse, honor killings, sharia law, jihad, censorship, hate-oriented education, the rejection of modernity, the cult of martyrdom, Islamic imperialism, and the pathological, groundless hatred of Israel.

In her interviews and in her book, she insists that she is not anti-Arab or anti-Islamic, and even suggests from time to time that she is still a Muslim. Then she pivots nimbly and attacks “the Arab mind,” “the seething Arab street,” and “the Muslim world,” with its “culture of jihad,” “culture of death,” and “culture of envy.” There are “no real distinctions between moderate or radical Muslims,” and no significant differences within or among Arab or Muslim cultures: for Darwish, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s secular Arab nationalism was essentially jihadist. Darwish is allergic to social history: “I realized that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not a crisis over land, but a crisis of hate, lack of compassion, ingratitude, and insecurity.” Instead of history, scholarship, and footnotes, she gives us a watered-down version of Raphael Patai’s The Arab Mind: a dictionary of Islamophobic commonplaces underwritten by the authority of an ex-Muslim native informant: I was there — I know.

Darwish’s portraits of Israel and of the US, to which she emigrated in 1978, are diametrically opposite but equally fatuous: Israeli Jews are tolerant, pragmatic, and peace-loving. From 1967 to 1982, they made the Sinai bloom. Americans are honest, charitable, industrious, self-sufficient, intellectually curious, and benevolent toward the foreign nations to whom they bring liberty. They err only in their excess of credulous goodness: because of “the simplicity of American values such as truthfulness,” they risk falling prey to duplicitous jihadist immigrants and dangerous professors, who “indoctrinate American young people with the radical Muslim agenda.”

Her outsider’s view of America complements her insider’s view of the Arab and Muslim world, for imperial states want not only other people’s land and labor, but their love. Here, we may compare Now They Call Me Infidel not only to recent anti-Islamic conversion narratives like Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel (her conversion was to neoconservative atheism and the American Enterprise Institute), but to earlier works in the genre. In her 1964 Editions Gallimard autobiography, O mes soeurs musulmanes, pleurez! (O My Muslim Sisters, Weep!), Zoubeida Bittari recounts her escape from Algerian Muslim patriarchy to French Christian bliss as a domestic servant to a Pied-Noir family; Nonie Darwish finds friends, family, and faith in southern California, including a Republican women’s group, an American husband, and Christian fellowship in Pastor Dudley Rutherford’s Shepherd of the Hills Church. As Bittari helped French colons feel better about their ungratefully rebuffed civilizing mission in Algeria, so Darwish helps Americans feel better about the long and bumpy road to global democratization.

There are occasional flashes of something more individual and authentic in Darwish’s book. For instance, her reiterated heartfelt attack on Nasser’s rent control laws (her mother lived partly off of her Cairo rentals) helps us understand why she feels so much more at home in southern California, where she arrived with enough money to buy a house with a swimming pool. But as a whole, the book is tedious, predictable, and badly edited — born to be bought, scanned and displayed, not actually read. But this will not diminish the demand for Darwish as a lecturer, which derives not from her writing but from her parentage: her father was Colonel Mustafa Hafez, head of Egyptian army intelligence in the Gaza Strip in the early ’50s, who was killed by an Israeli letter bomb in July 1956. Every lecture notice, every interview, even the title page of her book announces her as “a Muslim Shahid’s Daughter.”

Throughout her book, Darwish struggles to maintain love and loyalty both to the father she lost at age eight and to the Israeli state that killed him. In a parting flourish, she says that “My father — and potentially my whole family — was sent to his death in Gaza by Nasser, who was consumed by his desire to destroy Israel,” and she fondly imagines him surviving and flying with assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to Israel. But this argument sometimes requires a torturous chronology: “When, on January 16, 1956, Nasser vowed a renewed offensive to destroy Israel, the pressure on my father to step up operations increased. More fedayeen groups were organized, and their training expanded to other areas of the Gaza Strip. Often my father was gone for days at a time. In an attempt to end the terror, Israel sent its commandos one night to our heavily guarded home.”

The problem here is that this early, failed assassination attempt occurred in 1953, when Hafez was struggling to prevent destabilizing Palestinian infiltration from Gaza into Israel. Things changed dramatically in February 1955, when then military commander Ariel Sharon’s Gaza raid killed 37 Egyptian soldiers and wounded 31. This raid brought shocked international condemnation, the end of Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett’s ongoing negotiations with Nasser, mass demonstrations of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, and Nasser’s decision to have Hafez organize and arm Palestinian fedayeen for cross-border forays. Israeli historians Avi Shlaim and Benny Morris see the raid as a turning point in Israeli-Arab relations. Darwish never mentions it.

Continuing with her discussion of the earlier undated raid on her family’s home (it actually occurred on 28-29 August 1953), she says, “My father was not at home that night, and the Israelis found only women and children — my mother, two maids, and five small children. The commandos left us unharmed. I personally did not even wake up or know of the incident until later in life, when I read a book written about my father. After I read it, I called my mother immediately, and she confirmed the story. The Israelis chose not [to] kill us even though the Egyptian-organized fedayeen did kill Israeli civilians, women and children.”

Young Nonie must have been a very sound sleeper, since one squad blew the gate off her house, injuring several civilians, and, by one account, proceeded to demolish the house. Grown-up Nonie seems not to know that the Israeli commandos were part of Ariel Sharon’s newly-organized Unit 101. While the one squad attacked her house, Sharon’s was cornered nearby in al-Bureij refugee camp. He decided they would bomb and shoot their way through the camp rather than retreat from it. General Vagn Bennike, the Danish UN Truce Chief, reported to the Security Council on the ensuing massacre: “Bombs were thrown through the windows of huts in which the refugees were sleeping and, as they fled, they were attacked by small arms and automatic weapons. The casualties were 20 killed, 27 seriously wounded, and 35 less seriously wounded.” Other sources estimate from 15 to 50 fatalities.

The Israeli army blamed the raid on rogue kibbutzniks, and Ariel Sharon tried to reassure his men, telling them that all the dead women were camp whores or murderous Palestinian infiltrators. But some of them remained shocked at what they had done. Participant Meir Barbut said they felt as if they were slaughtering the pathetic inhabitants of a Jewish transit camp: “The boys threw Molotov cocktails at [innocent] people, not at the saboteurs we had come to punish. It was shameful for the 101 and the IDF [Israel army].” Another asked, “Is this screaming, whimpering multitude … the enemy? … How did these fellahin sin against us?” In 2006, Palestinian journalist Laila El-Haddad interviewed a survivor for Al Jazeera English:

“Mohammad Nabahini, 55, was two at the time and lived in the camp. He survived the attack in the arms of his slain mother. ‘My father decided to stay behind when they attacked. He hid in a pile of firewood and pleaded with my mother to stay with him. She was too afraid, and fled with hundreds of others, only to return to take me and a few of her belongings with her,’ he said. ‘As she was escaping, her dress got caught in a fence around the camp, just over there,’ he gestured, near a field now covered with olive trees. ‘And then they threw a bomb at her, Sharon and his men. She tossed me on the ground behind her before she died.’”

Though Darwish never mentions it, the al-Bureij Massacre hasn’t exactly been a secret — both Zionist and anti-Zionist historians have described it clearly, with little disagreement save the number of fatalities, with the high-end estimate coming from an Israeli history. If it tends not to loom large in Palestinian historical memory, that’s because it was overshadowed just two months later by the Qibya Massacre, during which Sharon’s Unit 101 killed 67, women and children, demolishing buildings over their heads and shooting them down when they tried to flee — the tactic pioneered at al-Bureij. Given its propensity for civilian soft targets, this daredevil elite unit might be better described as a death squad.

We probably shouldn’t expect Nonie Darwish to alter her campus presentations anytime soon. The bookings by StandWithUs might dry up if she were to start supplementing her cautionary tales about sharia law, jihadi immigrants, and female genital mutilation with a serious discussion of Israeli massacres at Deir Yassin, Tantura, al-Bureij, Qibya, Kfar Qasim, Sabra and Shatila, and Beit Hanoun. In any case, Darwish prefers simple cultural generalities and intimate personal reflection to historical analysis. But since that’s the case, someone at her next lecture might ask if she remembers playing with any of the refugee children murdered at al-Bureij, and why the kindly Israeli commandos who spared her family decided to blow up Mohammad Nabahini’s mother.

Jim Holstun teaches world literature and Marxism at SUNY Buffalo and can be reached at jamesholstun A T hotmail D O T com.

Rabbi Nachum Shifren

Rabbi Nachum Shifren is a West Bank Settler, a teacher in the Los Angeles educational system and a surfer. The last time he came to the attention of the media was for his books on surfing and spirituality.  He implied then that he wasn’t into politics, Denise Dowling of Salon.com wrote at the time,

The Surfing Rabbi will talk religion, but not politics. If pressed on his views, it’s evident how he earned the nickname “Shifty.” “My politics are not germane to what I’m doing,” he demurs. “All I’m about is surfing.”

Yet even then there were hints that he was deeply political and that his allegiance was to extreme right-wing Zionist ideology,

Yet he opted to reside in Kfar Tapuah, a West Bank settlement perched a half-hour from the “lousy” Mediterranean surf. Kfar Tapuah is considered an extremely militant, right-wing, anti-government stronghold. “I’d compare its residents to white militants in the United States,” says Hagit Yaari, an Israeli spokesperson for Americans for Peace.

Kfar Tapuah is the settlement where Israeli police recently arrested an remorseless extremist Jewish settler who was killing Palestinians. Now Rabbi Shifren is running to be a State Senator in California and what he is saying doesn’t reflect the peaceful rhythms of the Ocean but instead reflects a hateful ideologue filled with bigotry against Islam. I haven’t investigated his past statements thoroughly but there is no need to waste time to find his views, his most recent article sums it up quite directly.

Shifren writes on a recent student protest at UC Irvine where 11 students were arrested for protesting the visit of Israel’s Ambassador to America, Michael Oren on the grounds that he represents a government which perpetrates “war crimes, violates international law, and subjugates and oppresses Palestinians.” Shifren believes that they will get off too lightly and he wants them jailed and expelled from the university.

In an article he penned, Cal. Senatorial Candidate Responds to Muslim Hooliganism, Rabbi Shifren writes that the protesters weren’t just “rude, and disrespectful students” but they “are the front line of an army of Muslims that is waiting patiently to take over and subvert our country.”

The article doesn’t make a lot of sense a lot of the time but he goes on to repeat many of the stereotypical essentialist, paranoid, anti-Muslim statements that we are used to from Islamophobes,

For instance the canard that Muslims only respect strength,

The rule that we in the West refuse to acknowledge is simply that to the muslim, whoever is perceived as strong, will be feared and will survive; and whoever is seen as weak, irresolute, or wavering, will be despised and will be vanquished.

He also states that he believes we are at war with Islam,

This will be a hard bullet for America to bite, but we are at war with Islam! Those who deny this are quislings or fifth-columnists — and very often, university professors and chancellors. With strong leadership, there would be no notions of “academic freedom” for those who come here to subvert and destroy.

These students weren’t just protesters but according to Rabbi Shifren are “Muslim terrorists-in-training,” who are “breeding” like crazy on our university campuses,

Make no mistake: these students are the probing squads that are testing the waters to see what they can get away with, positioning themselves to ultimately shut down the entire campus when they please. These are among the first salvos in a war that, until now, has been only academic and ideological — at least in this country.

If you want to see where we are headed, if we don’t find the courage to stand up to and defeat these muslim terrorists-in-training, just look to France, Spain, England and other countries where muslims have been allowed to get a toe-hold. Or consider the carnage caused by just one insane muslim terrorist at Fort Hood, then multiply that many times over, as more muslim terrorists consolidate their power base in our country — and our state and their favorite breeding grounds, our campuses!

Hurry, the Mooslims are coming, the Mooslims are coming, in fact they are here!

Without strength of character in our leaders, and the courage of our people, we are poised to become just another chapter in history — right next to the debauched and pillaged societies of Greece and Rome. The muslim onslaught is at the gates; they are weary of our self-indulgence and they abhor our eroding social mores and valueless culture. They are sharpening the long knives, knowing that their time will come shortly.

Of course Rabbi Shifren thinks he has the “strength of character” to be a leader, but the reality seems to be he that he is not fit to be a teacher. Can one imagine him teaching a diverse classroom of students that includes Middle Easterners and Muslims? Can we trust him to to be respectful, even handed? In fact can we trust him to educate and open the minds of youth when the bigotry that he revels in indicates that his mind is narrow and constricted?

I urge readers to contact the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to lodge a formal complaint that due to the preponderance of bigoted and hate filled comments by Rabbi Nachum Shifren he is not fit to teach in the school system and should be disciplined.

LAUSD information:

Address: 333 S. Beaudry Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Phone: (213) 241-4131 (thanks Usman)

The Video from the Protest at UC Irvine of Israeli Ambassador, Michael Oren:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRsS7jAWoGQ 350 300]

Ilham Moussaid is an NPA candidate in forthcoming elections in France. The fact that she wears a headscarf has politicians from every corner in an uproar. French sensitivity to the scarf is bordering on fanaticism.

Ilham Moussaid

These two statements from Ilham are amazing and I think many Western Muslims can find resonance in what she says,

“Try as I might to explain that I am not oppressed and that it shows, there’s still a lack of understanding,” she told today’s Le Monde.

In a statement to local party members at the weekend she wrote: “It is with great sadness that I watch … my life reduced to my headscarf. It is with great sadness that I hear that my personal beliefs are a danger to others while I advocate friendship, respect, tolerance, solidarity and equality for all human beings.”

From the Guardian via Islamophobia-Watch:

Election Candidate in Headscarf causes Uproar in France

Olivier Besancenot, the postman-turned-revolutionary at the helm of France’s anti-capitalist movement, has been fiercely criticised from all sides of the political spectrum for fielding a headscarf-wearing candidate in forthcoming elections.

Ilham Moussaid, a 21-year-old Muslim woman who describes herself as “feminist, secular and veiled”, is running for the far-left New Anti-Capitalist party (NPA) in the south-eastern region of Avignon.

But, despite her insistence that there is no contradiction between her clothing and her political role, Moussaid’s candidacy in the regional vote due in March has angered other feminists and politicians.

In an echo of the controversy raised by recent moves to ban the full, face-covering veil in public places such as schools, hospitals and buses, critics have said that the young activist’s headscarf, which conceals only her hair, goes against values of laïcité – secularism – and women’s rights.

Today, in a sign of how deep concerns are running, a leading feminist group announced it would file an official complaint against the NPA’s list of candidates in the Vaucluse département to protest against what it called an “anti-secular, anti-feminist and anti-republican” stunt.

“In choosing to endorse ‘open’ laïcité, the NPA is perverting the values of the Republic and suggesting we reread them in a manner which conforms with regressive visions of women,” said the Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores Nor Submissives) association in a statement.

Others have expressed their shock at Besancenot’s attempt to field a candidate who sees no problem with making an overt statement about her religion in the public sphere, a practice considered taboo.

Moussaid’s candidacy has been considered all the more surprising because she is running for a party with far-left leanings traditionally seen as hostile to religion and pro-women’s rights. Socialist MP Aurélie Filippetti advised Besancenot to “reread Marx” in order to understand why the headscarf was unacceptable.

The government is attempting to wrap up a “great debate” on national identity, which many people believe has caused Islamophobia. It is reminiscent of the controversy in 2004 when headscarves and other conspicuous religious symbols were banned from state schools.

Moussaid, an advocate of contraception and abortion rights whose candidacy was announced last month, said she had been particularly stung by the criticism from feminist groups. “Try as I might to explain that I am not oppressed and that it shows, there’s still a lack of understanding,” she told today’s Le Monde.

In a statement to local party members at the weekend she wrote: “It is with great sadness that I watch … my life reduced to my headscarf. It is with great sadness that I hear that my personal beliefs are a danger to others while I advocate friendship, respect, tolerance, solidarity and equality for all human beings.”

Al-Farooq Mosque vandalized with the words "Muslims go home."

This could be the handy work of a left over from the Tea Bagger Convention, or some self-styled Knights Templar Crusader. The message is clear: “Muslims Go Home.” That is essentially the message preached by Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller and their fascist friends in Europe.

Nashville Mosque Vandalized

State, local and federal officials are investigating vandalism discovered this morning at the Al-Farooq Mosque on 4th Avenue South.

The words “Muslim go home” and several crosses were spray-painted in red on the exterior of the building, and an expletive and hate-speech filled note was left at the youth center, according to a board member of the mosque.

“It was an unexpected thing,” said Salaad Nur. “It kind of shook us.”

Metro Police Sgt. Brooks Harris said he has notified the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation as well as the FBI to look for potential similarities with vandalism late last year at a mosque site in Murfreesboro.

Brooks was unsure if there was any physical evidence that might help them solve the crime.

“The key issue is, we’re really looking at this together with our state and federal partners and doing everything we can to get to the bottom of this, prevent it, and if there’s a solvability factor, we’ll find it.”