Shaul Spitzer

What if he were Muslim? Spitzer firebombed his neighbor for disagreeing with a Rabbi’s religious opinion. Should Judaism be blamed for this now? Of course not.

Spitzer’s sentence was reduced because of concern about how he will fair in prison life. Hopefully some Muslim prisoners can protect Spitzer while he is in prison, he will certainly need help (h/t: JD):

NY teen gets prison in religious-dispute firebomb

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A Hasidic teenager was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in prison for the firebomb attack that badly burned a neighbor during a religious dispute in an insular Jewish enclave.

A defense attorney said the sentence was fair but worried about prison life for an 18-year-old who has “never seen TV, never been on the Internet, doesn’t know who Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter are.”

Shaul Spitzer of New Square had been charged with attempted murder but pleaded guilty to assault as potential jurors gathered for his trial in February. A trial would have brought unwanted attention to New Square, a New York village where nearly every one of the 7,000 residents is a member of the Skver Hasidic sect.

Spitzer admitted that he attacked Aron Rottenberg, a plumber, outside Rottenberg’s home in May. He said he did it because Rottenberg defied New Square’s grand rabbi by worshiping with nursing home residents rather than at New Square’s main synagogue.

Rottenberg, a plumber, claimed in a lawsuit that Spitzer was acting at the direction of the rabbi, David Twersky. The rabbi denied involvement and was not charged. The lawsuit was settled for $2.3 million.

Rottenberg had asked Rockland County Court Judge William Kelly to be lenient with Spitzer, who was also burned, and the judge came down from the 10-year cap he had promised after the plea deal.

Defense attorney Kenneth Gribetz said the sentence was “fair and compassionate.” But he said he fears for Spitzer, who he said will be the rare inmate who has had “no exposure to the outside world.”

“His whole life has been the rabbi and the synagogue and now he’s going to state prison,” Gribetz said. “This is a very severe sentence for a boy from New Square. I hope he can be safeguarded.”

New Square is about 30 miles north of Manhattan. The sect and the village are named for the Ukrainian village of Skver, where sect members were killed during the Holocaust.

This should come to no surprise that Peter King will defend the NYPD monitoring. He must be really proud.

Peter King Defends NYPD Monitoring, Plans More Hearings on Islam

by George Zornick

Appearing on WCBS in New York this morning, Representative Peter King offered a strong defense of NYPD’s spying on mosques and Muslim businesses and student groups in several states. Criticism of the recently revealed program has intensified in recent days, but King said he was proud of the police department.

“[Police Commissioner] Ray Kelly and the NYPD should get a medal for what they are doing,” he said. “This is good police work. If you are going after radical Muslims you don’t go to Ben’s Kosher Deli.”

This is perhaps not surprising coming from the man who held highly controversial Capitol Hill hearings into Muslim Americans last year, which many people saw as essentially profiling by public relations; his colleague, Representative Keith Ellison invoked the specter of Joe McCarthy in criticizing King’s efforts and said they served to “vilify” Muslims.

But, alas, King announced last week that he would hold more hearings into domestic radicalization among Muslim Americans in the coming year. “The series of radicalization hearings I convened last March has been very productive,” King said in a statement. “I will definitely continue the hearings in 2012.”

This is a good time to flag a recent study by Charles Kurzman, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina and member of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. His comprehensive examination of crime statistics found that terrorism-related incidents by Muslim Americans has declined markedly, and that Muslim-Americans represent “a minuscule threat to public safety.” He wrote:

The limited scale of Muslim-American terrorism in 2011 runs counter to the fears that many Americans shared in the days and months after 9/11, that domestic Muslim American terrorism would escalate. The spike in terrorism cases in 2009 renewed these concerns, as have repeated warnings from U.S. government officials about a possible surge in homegrown Islamic terrorism. The predicted surge has not materialized.

Repeated alerts by government officials maybe issued as a precaution, even when the underlying threat is uncertain. Officials may be concerned about how they would look if an attack did take place and subsequent investigations showed that officials had failed to warn the public. But a byproduct of these alerts is a sense of heightened tension that is out of proportion to the actual number of terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11.

If King calls Kurzman to testify at his hearings I’ll eat my hat, but it’s possible Democrats on the committee could arrange for his appearance. He would provide a substantive counterweight to King’s typically anecdote-driven hysteria. Last week the FBI foiled a plot in which a Moroccan man wanted to bomb the US Capitol—you can bet King will give that episode a prominent role at his hearings.

Someone Called the FBI on NYPD Officers Pretending to Be Muslim Students

When the New York Police Department was doing some spying on Muslim students outside the city (that’s a thing it does, we learned from the Associated Press on Monday), an apartment officers used to spy on Rutgers students got a visit from the FBI on a report that it was a terrorist cell itself. This is the kind of reporting that won the AP a Polk award Monday for its series on the NYPD spying on Muslims. Not only did the department go well outside its jurisdiction to “get a better handle on what was occurring at” Muslim Student Associations, as spokesman Paul Browne told the AP, it did so in a pretty Keystone Kops manner at times:

Police also were interested in the Muslim student group at Rutgers, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 2009, undercover NYPD officers had a safe house in an apartment not far from campus. The operation was blown when the building superintendent stumbled upon the safe house and, thinking it was some sort of a terrorist cell, called the police emerency dispatcher.

The FBI responded and determined that monitoring Rutgers students was one of the operation’s objectives, current and former federal officials said.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author atamartin@theatlantic.com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

Anti Muslim graffiti insulting Allah scrawled on Kensington insurance shop.

Anti Muslim graffiti insulting Allah scrawled on Kensington insurance shop

By Simone Weichselbaum / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Bangladeshis in Kensington said they are living in fear after Muslim hate graffiti was found on a storefront in the neighborhood’s bustling shopping strip.

The manager of TDS Insurance on Beverly Road near McDonald Avenue, came to work Monday and spotted a nauseating sight:

“It was written on the outside – ‘Allah is s–t,’” said Abu Chowdhury, 51, who immediately called the cops.

“I have no enemies,” he said. “We are not a religious business.”

Although the hateful message was erased hours later, Bangladeshis said the sight left them emotionally scarred.

“It is just shocking,” said Mamnunul Haq, a Bangladeshi community leader. “No one wants to see anything like that.”

“We are a very peaceful people,” Haq added.

Kensington is one of the most diverse areas in the city – home to a Muslim stronghold mainly comprised of Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, living among Mexican families and Orthodox Jews.

Bangladeshis joined their Hasidic neighbors in July during the search for Leiby Kletzky, the 8-year-old boy who went missing in Borough Park and was later found dead.

They also blasted the vandal or vandals who painted a half dozen swastikas around Midwood last month.

“It happened in the Jewish community. And now it is happening in ours,” Haq said.

Hoping to quell the growing anxiety, Councilman Brad Lander (D-Kensington) held a meeting Wednesday night with Bangladeshi, Jewish, and Latino residents discussing ideas about how to prevent future hate crimes in their hood.

Lander wants to put a set of trees and benches in front of TDS Insurance, calling it “Kensington Plaza,” serving as a mixed race meeting spot.

“In the face of hatred, this community is coming together,” Lander said. “When these things happen, you have to stand up.”

simonew@nydailynews.com

Shaul Spitzer

What if he were Muslim?

Shaul Spitzer, Hasidic Man Admits Burning Neighbor In New York Religious Dispute

NEW CITY, NY, Feb 7 (Reuters) – A Hasidic Jewish man from New York state pleaded guilty to assault on Tuesday for setting a neighbor on fire because he wasn’t praying with the rest of the community, leaving the man badly burned.

Shaul Spitzer, 18, of New Square, New York, admitted to lighting Aron Rottenberg ablaze after learning that he had disobeyed a prayer order by the Grand Rebbe of the Hasidic enclave about 35 miles north of New York City.

He pleaded guilty to assault in a New York court and faces up to 10 years in prison, although Judge William Kelly said he would likely receive a 5-year sentence.

Spitzer, who worked for Grand Rebbe David Twersky, admitted in court that he used a heavy duty propane lighter to set Rottenberg on fire in May 2011.

He lit him on fire when Rottenberg confronted him after Spitzer had stuffed gasoline-soaked shirts into a bag, lit it on fire and threw it onto the porch of Rottenberg’s home, he admitted. The family was sleeping inside, court documents said.

Prosecutor Stephen Moore said Rottenberg spent more than a month in the hospital for severe burns.

Under the plea deal, charges of attempted murder and arson were dismissed. Spitzer could have faced a 25-year prison sentence for those charges. Outside court, Spitzer’s attorney Kenneth Gribetz said his client had been trying to cause mischief, not to kill anyone.

“This is a young boy who has no criminal intent,” he said. “He’s not a criminal … He should be given a chance to get back on the right track.”

Spitzer, who will be sentenced in April, entered his plea on the day jury selection was set to begin in the case. Rottenberg was in court and told the judge he consented to the plea deal.

Court documents said Rottenberg’s family had received several threats and had their property vandalized for not praying in the community’s main synagogue.

Rottenburg has a pending civil lawsuit against Spitzer and Twersky stemming from the incident. Gribetz said in court a settlement in the $2 million range was under discussion. (Editing By Ellen Wulfhorst and Cynthia Johnston

All the facts on this are not clear yet, but it is being reported as a bias crime in many reports. If this holds true then it will be another manifestation of the all too real threat to Muslim communities from radical hatemongers.

Four Attacks in Queens With Homemade Firebombs

By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS (NYTimes)

A wave of arson attacks spread across eastern Queens on Sunday night, and the police said the firebombings were being investigated as bias crimes — with Muslims as the targets.

No one was hurt in the four attacks, in which homemade firebombs were apparently used. In three of the four attacks, the police said, Molotov cocktails were made with Starbucks bottles.

The first attack occurred just before 8 p.m. at a bodega at 179-40 Hillside Avenue.

Ten minutes later, another crude firebomb was thrown, this time at a private home at 146-62 107th Avenue, and the house caught fire.

Half an hour after that, an Islamic center at 89-89 Van Wyck Expressway was the target. The last attack occurred at a house at 88-20 170th Street, the police said.

The Islamic center, the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation, houses one of the most prominent Shiite mosques in New York. According to its Web site it offers funeral services, counseling and free SAT classes. It lists branches in several cities, including Montreal and Islamabad, Pakistan. Calls to the foundation were not returned Sunday night.

The firebomb, made with a glass Starbucks bottle, was thrown at the door of the center, possibly from a van as it drove it by, the police said. The door was blackened, but the building did not catch fire.

A similar weapon was found at the bodega, the site of the first attack, according to the police. The bomb might have been thrown from inside the store, because the counter sustained some damage, the police said.

It was the second attack, on 107th Avenue, police and fire officials said, that caused the most damage.

Shortly after 8 p.m., someone called 911, saying that a Molotov cocktail had been thrown at their home. The house caught fire, and it took more than 60 firefighters about 40 minutes to bring it under control.

In the fourth attack, two bottles were thrown at the house on 170th Street. A spokesman for the Fire Department said that the person who called 911 said they saw a vehicle drive by as the bottles were hurled toward their home. But the flames quickly fizzled.

The letter said Michael Bloomberg had 'defended the NYPD misconduct'. Photograph: Henny Ray Abrams/Reuters

New York Muslims to snub Bloomberg breakfast in surveillance protest

A group of prominent Muslim figures in New York City have said they will boycott an annual meeting on Friday with Mayor Michael Bloomberg in order to protest against police surveillance of their communities.

Bloomberg is scheduled to hold a multi-faith “Bagels with Bloomberg” breakfast with religious leaders from across the city on Friday morning, but the group has written to the mayor’s office outlining their reasons for refusing to attend.

In particular, the group says it is outraged at details that emerged earlier this year of a concerted effort by the New York police department to monitor activities of Muslims in New York. A series of reports by the Associated Press detailed the activities of a unit within the NYPD, called the Demographics Unit, that monitored daily life in Muslim communities, including eavesdropping in businesses and infiltrating mosques.

“According to the investigation, the police department monitored and collected information on New Yorkers at about 250 mosques, schools, and businesses throughout the city, simply because of their religion and not because they exhibited suspicious behavior,” the letter said.

It added: “Mayor Bloomberg, the extent of these civil rights violations is astonishing, yet instead of calling for accountability and the rule of law, you have thus far defended the NYPD’s misconduct. We, on the other hand, believe that such measures threaten the rights of all Americans, and deepen mistrust between our communities and law enforcement.”

The letter was signed by 15 prominent Muslim New Yorkers, including Khaled Lamada, head of the Muslim American Society, Omar Mohammedi, president of the Association of Muslim American Lawyers, Aisha al-Adawiya, founder of Women in Islam, and Iman Al Hajj Talib Abdur-Rashid, who president of the Islamic Leadership Council of New York.

Another signatory, Linda Sarsour, the director of the Arab-American Association of New York, told the Guardian that the AP reports had confirmed her worst fears. “This confirmed what we already knew. It gave validity to our concerns that we are being spied upon just because of our religion. That undermines the security of all New Yorkers,” Sarsour said.

Sarsour added that lawsuits against the NYPD were being considered in the wake of the AP investigation, and called for an independent inquiry into the activities of the department when it came to monitoring Muslim communities.

So far, that call has fallen on deaf ears. Senior police figures have denied that they targeted Muslim communities in general, claiming they only followed leads. Bloomberg has also strongly and consistently backed the city’s police department and its tactics.

An investigation by the CIA had looked at its role in helping the NYPD and recently concluded no wrongdoing had taken place.

But Sarsour remained unsatisfied.

“How can someone from the CIA be the one to investigate the CIA? We are asking for an independent investigation,” she said, saying it should be carried out by the Department of Justice or a Congressional committee.

A spokesman for the mayor’s office downplayed the impact of the letter and the boycott, saying that other Muslim leaders were still planning on attending the breakfast gathering. “We have a couple dozen Muslim community leaders who have RSVP-ed that they will be at the breakfast, which is about the same as previous years,” said Stu Loeser.

NYPD officials also weighed into the spat, saying that the AP story had exaggerated its activities. “The NYPD lawfully follows leads in terrorist-related investigations and does not engage in the kind of wholesale spying on communities that was false alleged,” said Paul Browne, an NYPD deputy commissioner.

But the revelations about the Demographics Unit are not the only controversy surrounding NYPD actions around Muslim Americans and terrorism. An NYPD operation last month arrested a suspected “lone wolf” terrorist in the shape of New Yorker Jose Pimentel. NYPD officials hailed the arrest, which occurred after a lengthy undercover operation that saw an NYPD informant supply Pimental with bomb-making equipment, as a major triumph.

However, it later emerged that the FBI had passed on co-operating on the case, because it believed the target was not a viable threat. That has led to accusations that the NYPD “entrapped” Pimental.

I hope the holiday spirit can be with people all year long.

Church Group Steps in to Save Muslim Food Pantries

Lisa Colagrossi

NEW YORK (WABC) – A pair of Bronx food pantries in jeopardy of closing have gotten a reprieve in the form of a large donation.

The Muslim Women’s Institute for Research and Development has been operating food pantries in Highbridge and Parkchester since 1997, but without $50,000, the organization would have had to shutter the pantries at the end of the month.

But Monday evening, executive director Nurah Ama’tulla received a check for $100,000. She says she is grateful and relieved that thousands of families in the Bronx won’t have to go elsewhere for assistance.

The lifeline came from the Collegiate Church Corporation.

“We will cover the hurdle of the $50,000, and we’re covered through operations of March 31, 2012,” Ama’tulla said. “The first quarter.”

The cash infusion comes just at the right time. The Collegiate Church Corporation issued a statement, saying: “The MWIRD has faithfully its constituency for more than a decade. As the only halal food pantry in the city, their services are vital. The Collegiate Church is honored to extend them a substantial grant so that their food pantry can remain open.”

The pantries feed 2,500 people per week. In addition to paying for heat and other utilities, the organization’s four employees will get paid for the first time since Memorial Day.

If Muslims are double parking, beware!

Islamofascist Cab Drivers Launch Shariah Double-Parking Attack

In today’s Muslim threat news: Some New York cabbies are Muslims! And they pray, to their Muslim god! And when they do, they illegally double-part their taxicabs on the street, because Muslims “obey religious laws over parking rules.”

That salacious headline comes via DNAInfo, a normally reliable local New York news site. Apparently, a mosque on Manhattan’s Upper West Side is popular with cab drivers. During prayers, they “double- and triple-park outside the house of prayer, forcing northbound traffic…to veer into the oncoming traffic lane.” The mosque’s neighbors—including Donald Trump, who owns four nearby towers—don’t like that, so naturally they complain to the police about it: “311 records show at least nine complaints this year about illegal parking at that intersection.”

Nine complaints! In just one year? It’s a full-blown scandal.

If you live in New York, anywhere, you spend an average of 15 minutes per day mad about some asshole double-parking somewhere. The fact that some Muslim cab drivers double-park to pray doesn’t mean they “flout the rules of the road in order to observe the rules of their religion.” It means they flout the rules of the road because, like everyone else who drives an automobile in Manhattan, they are asshole drivers.

[Image via AP]

Muslim and Jewish Volunteers Feed the Hungry by Cooking 350 Meals Sunday

By Jennifer Bradshaw

Project co-sponsored by they Muslims Against Hunger Project, Rutgers University Shalom-Salaam, and the New York-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

On Sunday morning, the kitchen of the Muslim Foundation Inc. Mosque in Somerset was filled with good smells and friendly conversation as a group of volunteers prepared 350 meals for homeless folks in New York and New Jersey.

The event was part of a larger “Weekend of Twinning,” held from Nov. 18 – 20.

The purpose of the weekend is to facilitate events between Muslim and Jewish people to promote greater understanding and community between the two, according to Walter Ruby of the New York-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

According to a release from Muslims Against Hunger, more than 125 events are being held around the world as part of the Weekend of Twinning.

“Each Jew and each Muslim is obligated to help those most in need,” Ruby said.

Adult and student volunteers, as well as a group from Rutgers University prepared tandoori chicken, rice pilaf, salad, vegetables and fruit. A kosher and vegetarian option of chickpea salad was also prepared, as well as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Zamir Hassan, founder of the Muslims Against Hunger Project said about 100 meals would be taken to a shelter in Basking Ridge, while another 150 would be taken to Manhattan, where they would be handed out to homeless on the street.

Ruby said the group planned to visit 53rd St. and Lexington Ave. in New York, a spot where many homeless people congregate.

An Orthodox Jewish outreach group called “Masbiah” would be meeting them in New York to assist in handing out the meals, he said.

Additionally, the volunteers held an interfaith luncheon and prayer service following the morning preparation.

Marshal Anjum, 26, of Shalom-Salaam, a Muslim and Jewish student organization at Rutgers University said the group is working to build bridges between the Jewish and Muslim communities.

“We thought community service was a great way to go about it,” she said.

If this were Muslims you could be sure that there would be a boycott of this bus line, as well as cries about Creeping Sharia’ and the threat of Islamization.

Women ride in back on sex-segregated Brooklyn bus line

(New York World)

On the morning of October 12, Melissa Franchy boarded the B110 bus in Brooklyn and sat down near the front. For a few minutes she was left in silence, although the other passengers gave her a noticeably wide berth. But as the bus began to fill up, the men told her that she had to get up. Move to the back, they insisted.

They were Orthodox Jews with full beards, sidecurls and long black coats, who told her that she was riding a “private bus” and a “Jewish bus.” When she asked why she had to move, a man scolded her.

“If God makes a rule, you don’t ask ‘Why make the rule?’” he told Franchy, who rode the bus at the invitation of a New York World reporter. She then moved to the back where the other women were sitting. The driver did not intervene in the incident.

The B110 bus travels between Williamsburg and Borough Park in Brooklyn. It is open to the public, and has a route number and tall blue bus stop signs like any other city bus. But the B110 operates according to its own distinct rules. The bus line is run by a private company and serves the Hasidic communities of the two neighborhoods. To avoid physical contact between members of opposite sexes that is prohibited by Hasidic tradition, men sit in the front of the bus and women sit in the back.

The arrangement that the B110 operates under can only be described as unorthodox. It operates as a franchise, in which a private company, Private Transportation Corporation, pays the city for the right to provide a public service. Passengers pay their $2.50 fare not by MetroCard, but in dollar bills and coins. The city’s Franchise and Concession Review Committee defines a franchise on its website as “the right to occupy or to use the City’s inalienable property, such as streets or parks, for a public service, e.g., transportation.”

The agreement goes back to at least 1973, and last year the franchise paid the city $22,814 to operate the route, according to the New York City Department of Transportation. According to the news site Vos Iz Neias?, which serves the Orthodox Jewish community in New York City and elsewhere, the bus company has a board of consulting rabbis, which decreed that male passengers should ride in the front of the bus and female passengers in the back.

City, state and federal law all proscribe discrimination based on gender in public accommodations. “Discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations in New York City is against the law,” said Betsy Herzog, a spokeswoman for the New York City Commission on Human Rights, which investigates and prosecutes alleged violations of anti-discrimination law.

The Department of Transportation, which issues the franchise, confirms that it understands the B110 to be subject to anti-discrimination laws. “This is a private company, but it is a public service,” said Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the DOT. “The company has to comply with all applicable laws.”

Following the New York World’s inquiry, Solomonow said DOT would contact Private Transportation Corporation. “We are reaching out to the company about this alleged incident to ask for its response, with the expectation that it will take steps to prevent the occurrence of incidents of this nature,” he said.

Melissa Franchy/Special to the New York World

Herzog said the Human Rights Commission would not investigate the B110 unless someone filed a complaint. But its website states that “anyone who provides goods and services to the general public is considered a public accommodation” and that it illegal for public accommodations to “set different terms for obtaining those goods or services” to different groups.

Ross Sandler, a professor at New York Law School and editor of the CityLaw newsletter, said that anti-discrimination laws apply to bus franchises, but that religious groups are sometimes granted exceptions. “Do all these laws apply? Yes, they apply to buses that are franchises,” Sandler said. “The question is whether there is an exception for this particular bus line.”

The Transportation Department said that the B110 had not been granted any exceptions to anti-discrimination laws.

Calls to the offices of Private Transportation Corporation also went unreturned. We tried calling the home of Jacob Marmurstein, the company’s president, but were told he was unavailable.

The New York World will be keeping a close eye on the practices aboard the B110 bus and the city’s response – and we will let you know when we hear more.

Ibtihaj Muhammad is the first practicing Muslim to represent the U.S. in women's fencing. She's ranked second in the U.S. and 11th in the world. Ibtihaj stands out because she wears her hijab headscarf that is worn by Muslim women.

Carter: Maplewood woman could be first American Muslim to wear hijab while competing at OlympicsBy 

Barry Carter/The Star-Ledger 

Ibtihaj Muhammad jogs lightly across the second floor gym at the Manhattan Fencing Center in New York. She’s warming up, eager to get some work in.

Ready! Fence!

Fencers are already on the strip, a narrow fighting lane, and they’re going at it, the air filled with little razor-like hisses and whispers. Many are Olympic hopefuls, like her, preparing for the World Championships Saturday in Italy. The competition is another chance for Muhammad to earn qualifying points in her quest to make the 2012 London Olympics in July.

“I don’t think I ever wanted anything so much,” said Muhammad, 25, of Maplewood. “I just want to make sure I’m doing everything I can to make this Olympics.”

When it’s her turn to spar, she slips the fencing mask over her hijab, the headscarf Muslim women wear. In a room full of fencers, it’s the one thing that makes her stand out. If she makes the Olympics, she’ll stand out even more. Fencing officials believe Muhammad is likely to be the first American Muslim woman wearing a hijab to compete at the games. The United States Olympic Committee doesn’t track athletes by religion, but the demographic is something Muhammad thinks about, knowing what an accomplishment it would be since few Muslim women compete in sports.

“I didn’t have female Muslim role models to look up to in the athletic world,” she said. “It’s really important for people to know my story. I think it’s something I have to do, because I want Muslim female youth to believe they can do something like this.”

Muhammad is ranked number two in the United States and 13th in the world in women’s sabre, a fencing style in which strikes are made above the waist with any part of the weapon. Locally, she represents the Peter Westbrook Foundation in New York City, training at the Fencers Club on West 28th Street, where she is coached by Akhnaten Spencer-El, a 2000 Olympic fencer. Under him, she’s a tactical, cerebral fighter who caught the fencing world off guard in 2009.

She won the U.S. national title that year, cracking the top 16 world rankings. Last year, she won a bronze medal at the Pan American Championships and a coveted spot on the U.S. women’s national team.

“She’s still young in the game and she’s only going to get better,” Spencer-El said.

Back to the strip. She goes against a member of the U.S. men’s national team, then her teammate, Dagmara Wozniak of Avenel. You can hear the constant ping of saber blades colliding. Everyone has cat-like footwork that is lickety-split quick, calculating and aggressive. They duel back and forth trying to outsmart each other, snapping their weapons at the wrist to score. The long electrical wires attached to the edge of their fencing jackets register hits. All of them look like puppets dancing on a string, lunging toward each other and their their shot at gold.

Ibtihaj Muhammad, left, and Damara Wozniak, of Avenel, face off during practice match in New York.

Getting to Italy isn’t easy. Each country is allowed two spots for women’s sabre and Muhammad and her teammates are the top four fencers in the U.S. The best of them is two-time Olympian Mariel Zagunis of Oregon, and she’s number one in the world.

Muhammad is unfazed. She trains daily, except for Sunday, running in the morning before conditioning at a women’s gym. In the evening, she’s in New York City fencing for four hours.

“I just keep going,” she said. “I don’t want to get to a competition and lose a bout, because I didn’t work out that extra hour.”

You can see she’s super-competitive, hating to lose, constantly critiquing herself. She’s all business for this once in lifetime shot, but Muhammad does pause for what’s important.

The third of five siblings in an athletic family, Muhammad finds strength in her faith. In August, she stayed focused through Ramadan, the annual Islamic month of fasting during the day. But Muhammad wants no sympathy, saying her sacrifices are not unlike anybody else’s. She kept hyrdrated, waking up every 90 minutes at night to eat and drink. If she makes the team, Muhammad will be used to the regimen since Ramadan next year falls during the Olympic competition.

It doesn’t matter at this point. Muhammad has come a long way in a career that started when she was a high school freshman. She stumbled on the sport driving past Columbia High School with her mother, who could see the team practicing through the large cafeteria windows. Inayah Muhammad didn’t know what they were doing but thought her daughter should try it because the uniform would cover her body and that was suitable to Islam’s tenet of modesty for women.

“I had know idea it (fencing) would take us this far,’’ said her mom, a Newark schoolteacher. “She’s so in love with the sport. I don’t think she really understands how good she is.’’

Muhummad was an epee fencer with Columbia until her former coach, Frank Mustilli, saw she was a better fit for sabre’s combative vein. At practice one day, Mustilli said his mild mannered athlete got upset after she got hit hard and lashed out.

“She showed me a little bit of fire. She screamed and attacked,’’ said Mustilli, head of the New Jersey Fencing Alliance.

At Columbia, Muhammad also played softball and volleyball but was captain of two state championship fencing teams before going to Duke University. She became a three-time NCAA All-American, earning dual degrees in International Relations and African-American studies with a minor in Arabic.

Ibtihaj Muhammad is seen during a September practice in New York.

After graduation in 2007, her father, Shamsiddin Muhammad, said his daughter’s passion for fencing did not wane. The family supports her financially and she chipped in what she could last year as a substitute teacher at Shabazz High School in Newark and fencing coach at Columbia.

“I know this is her dream and inspiration,’’ said her dad, a retired Newark cop. “We believe that what is written is going to happen.’’

That belief helps her deal with distractions on this journey. At times she’s wondered if her race or religion played a role in a judge scoring unfairly. When traveling, she has been treated as a foreigner who can’t speak English, and worse, she feels the stares that say terrorist.

In Belgium this year, security officials told her to leave the airport unless she removed her hijab. Muhammad would not. Her mother interceded and there was a compromise to have her head patted down. Muhammad said it’s frustrating making others comfortable, but she’s not going to let “closeted views” derail her purpose.

“If God wants me to succeed, no one can take it from me,’’ she said. “That’s the way I approach it and I think that’s what keeps me sane and grounded in this sport.’’

(Via Islamophobia-Watch.com)

Altercation at New York amusement park after Muslim women banned from rides for wearing headscarves

A New York amusement park was temporarily shut down Tuesday after a large-scale altercation erupted between Muslim patrons and park rangers over a disagreement on headgear rules.

Muslim women in a tour group at Rye Playland in Westchester County were reportedly denied access to several rides because they were wearing hijabs – their traditional headscarves, MyFoxNY reports.

“Our headgear policy is designed to protect the safety of patrons and safety is our first concern,” said Deputy Parks Commissioner Peter Tartaglia. “This policy was repeatedly articulated to the tour operator, but unfortunately the message did not reach some of the members of his group.”

The altercation began when park officials offered refunds and members of the Muslim group got in a scuffle, Tartaglia told The Journal News. Two park rangers were injured when they jumped in to break it up, he said, and were taken to local hospitals.

Dozens of police vehicles from nine agencies then rushed to the park, where officers arrested 15 people – mostly for disorderly conduct, authorities said. The disturbance involved around 30 to 40 people.

All other visitors were not allowed into the park between 4 and 6 p.m. ET, with exit ramps from I-95 closed as well.

The tour group – the Muslim American Society of New York – was at the park to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr, an Islamic holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, MyFoxNY reports.

“Everybody got mad, everybody got upset,” Amr Khater, a Brooklyn resident, told The Journal News. “It’s our holiday. Why would you do this to us?” Khater said park rangers notified him of the headgear rules upon arrival.

Fox News, 30 August 2011

The Journal News reports: “Lola Ali, 16, of Astoria said she witnessed a group of girls and women wearing hijabs go to park security to confront them about the headgear issue. She said the women were upset and yelling. She said the security officers started pushing them away and the girls stood their ground, at which point the security officers grabbed them, pushed them to the ground and handcuffed them. Men within the park saw this and tried to intervene, Ali said, and the situation went downhill from there. ‘They were beating down the girls, then they started beating down the guys,’ she said of the security officers.”

With CIA help, NYPD built secret effort to monitor mosques, daily life of Muslim neighborhoods

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the New York Police Department has become one of the nation’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies, targeting ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The operations have benefited from unprecedented help from the CIA, a partnership that has blurred the line between foreign and domestic spying.

The department has dispatched undercover officers, known as “rakers,” into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They’ve monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as “mosque crawlers,” to monitor sermons, even when there’s no evidence of wrongdoing.

Neither the city council, which finances the department, nor the federal government, which has given NYPD more than $1.6 billion since 9/11, is told exactly what’s going on.

Many of these operations were built with help from the CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans but was instrumental in transforming the NYPD’s intelligence unit.

A veteran CIA officer, while still on the agency’s payroll, was the architect of the NYPD’s intelligence programs. The CIA trained a police detective at the Farm, the agency’s spy school in Virginia, then returned him to New York, where he put his new espionage skills to work inside the United States.

And just last month, the CIA sent a senior officer to work as a clandestine operative inside police headquarters.

The NYPD denied that it trolls ethnic neighborhoods and said it only follows leads. Police operations have disrupted terrorist plots and put several would-be killers in prison.

“The New York Police Department is doing everything it can to make sure there’s not another 9/11 here and that more innocent New Yorkers are not killed by terrorists,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. “And we have nothing to apologize for in that regard.” AP’s investigation is based on documents and interviews with more than 40 current and former New York Police Department and federal officials. Many were directly involved in planning and carrying out these secret operations for the department. Though most said the tactics were appropriate and made the city safer, many insisted on anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak with reporters about security matters.

In response to the story, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a leading Muslim civil rights organization, called on the Justice Department to investigate. The Justice Department said Wednesday night it would review the request.

“This is potentially illegal what they’re doing,” said Gadeir Abbas, a staff attorney with the organization.

After the terrorist attacks, New York hired retired CIA official David Cohen to transform its intelligence division.

Among Cohen’s earliest moves at the NYPD was asking for help from his old CIA colleagues. He needed someone who had access to the latest intelligence so the NYPD wouldn’t have to rely on the FBI to dole out information.

CIA Director George Tenet dispatched Larry Sanchez, a respected CIA veteran, to New York while Sanchez was still on the CIA payroll, three former intelligence officials said. Sanchez directed and mentored officers, schooling them in the art of gathering information, officials said.

There had never been an arrangement like it, and some senior CIA officials soon began questioning whether Tenet was allowing Sanchez to operate on both sides of the wall that’s supposed to keep the CIA out of the domestic intelligence business.

Read the rest…

Mike Huckabee

Huckabee Generates Cash With 9/11 ‘History’ Cartoon

By MARY MURPHYpix11.com

7:46 p.m. EDT, August 3, 2011

NEW YORK (PIX11)— Former presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, is cashing in on the upcoming, 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks by marketing an educational “cartoon” about the events that sent the United States back to war.

“You can go to Learn Our History.com,” Huckabee told viewers this week on Pat Robertson‘s “700 Club” cable show. The one-timeArkansas governor is producing a series of DVD’s, and he told the TV audience, “The first one’s $9.95, and then it goes to $11.95.”

“Someone to profit off the worst day in American history is unheard of,” fumed retired, FDNY fire chief, Jim Riches, who lost his firefighter son, Jim Jr., on 9/11.

“Three thousand Americans were murdered, and it’s for his personal gain. I think it’s blood money,” Riches told PIX 11.

A preview of Huckabee’s cartoon for the “Time Cycle Academy” shows a plane heading toward the Twin Towers on a clear day, with someone shouting below “No!” before the jet crashes into the first tower. The cartoon also shows a “Wanted” poster for Al Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden — long before he was fatally shot by U.S. Navy Seals this past May — portraying an animated Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan, as he proclaims, “The time for jihad is upon us, death to the Americans!”

When PIX 11 traveled to the Tribute Center right next to Ground Zero on Wednesday, a Utah tourist, Heather Robertson, said this about Huckabee’s history lesson: “I don’t know if I like it in cartoon form.” Robertson continued, “I think it diminishes what took place on 9/11.”

A laborer named Frankie, who was working in a hard-hat re-building World Trade Center Tower 4, said this about Huckabee’s efforts, “Then do it for free. He’s about making money. He ain’t about teaching anybody anything. If he’s doing not-for-profit, then that’s a different story. But I’m sure he’s making money on it.”

David Yi, a Korean immigrant who lives in New Jersey, did not think the cartoon was such a bad idea for kids. “We have to teach them freedom to protect ourselves,” he told PIX 11.

Huckabee’s representatives have not been responding to requests for comment.

Jim Riches had plenty more to say, however. “I think for politicians trying to teach our kids, we’re in trouble. Leave it to the teachers, the educators.”

Riches also noted the recently-passed Zadroga Law to help sick, 9/11 “First Responders” leaves certain people out. “The people who have cancer aren’t even going to be covered,” Riches told PIX 11. “And I think that would be another good place to put the money, instead of putting it in his pocket.”

See Video:

Fencer With Headscarf Is a Cut Above the Rest

By AIMEE BERG

When Ibtihaj Muhammad fastens her headscarf, or hijab, around her chin, one of its purposes is to deflect unwanted attention.

But when she wears a hijab in a sporting arena, it often has the opposite effect.

The New Jersey native is currently ranked 11th in the world in women’s sabre, a discipline of fencing. Only one American ranks higher: Mariel Zagunis, the two-time Olympic and world champion.

Both women will compete this weekend at a World Cup fencing event at the New York Athletic Club to earn points toward qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee do not track athletes’ religion, but if Muhammad makes the Olympic team, she would likely be the first practicing Muslim woman to represent the U.S. at the Games.

When she competes, photographers often zoom in on the name Muhammad on the back of her fencing jacket. Her mother, Denise, recently saw such a photo and said, “I realized: my God, she’s representing all of us.

In This Town, Open Arms for a Mosque

By PETER APPLEBOME

In the boiling caldron of American outrage, here’s one to throw in the pot.

In this faded industrial town on the Erie Canal, the old United Methodist church downtown is being turned into a mosque, the old roof topped with minarets, the crescent moon and star of Islam on new white stucco replacing the familiar red-brick facade. Like the immigrants and refugees making up an ever-increasing share of the local population and the 42 languages spoken in the local schools, it is one more sign of how much the familiar world here is fading into the past.

Somehow, though, people here have not been given the current script. Instead, while mosques and Islamic community centers have been contested from near ground zero and Staten Island to Murfreesboro, Tenn., Temecula, Calif., and Sheboygan, Wis., Utica is a place where the dog hasn’t barked.

Instead, the mosque has been welcomed by, among others, former church members grateful that the old building will be saved. Some 200 people showed up this month for a tour by the Landmarks Society of Greater Utica.

Utica is hardly some post-racial nirvana, and it probably helps that the Muslim community is largely Bosnian, not Arab. But if we had today’s stories told by Frank Capra rather than by talk radio, there are more than a few that could be told in this town, which is being revived by immigrants and is embracing difference not in the didactic style of do-gooder moralizing but as a continuation of what Utica has always been.

“Where would we be today if no one welcomed the Italians, like my father, the Irish, the Polish, who became the backbone of this community,” said Mayor David R. Roefaro, who owns a funeral home. “When I ran for office, my slogan was ‘We’re in this together,’ because I believe it.”

Like most of upstate New York, Utica has seen better days. The population, more than 100,000 for much of the past century, is now around 60,000. Most of the old textile and manufacturing jobs are gone. That said, a flood of immigrants and resettled refugees, Bosnians, Burmese, Somalis, Vietnamese, Iraqis and many others, who now make up about a quarter of the population, have almost stopped the population decline. The Bosnians, in particular, have refurbished much of the housing, and Utica feels like a place with a pulse and maybe even a future.

“I’ve been here for eight years, and to watch the transformation, new stores, new restaurants, has been amazing,” said Peter D. Vogelaar, executive director of the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees. He said an estimated 600 houses had been purchased by refugees, helping to prop up the housing market. “Utica is a model for a small community in terms of integrating and acculturating emerging populations.”

So while some other communities grapple with English-only movements, Utica’s City Hall does its best to provide information in all the languages its residents speak while they learn English. The city and the Muslim community together came up with a plan to save the old church building, its basement underwater, which would have cost the city $1 million to demolish.

Would the mosque construction have been as placid if it began now or if the congregation came from somewhere else or looked Middle Eastern rather than European? Maybe not. But the imam, Ahmedin Mehmedovic, said he took pains to be sensitive to the community, making sure to save and return all the religious artifacts to the church members, and he wasn’t surprised his congregation was treated well in return.

“I think the main point is to respect each other,” he said. “So if you respect me as a Muslim and as a good man, I’ll respect you, too. I’ll try to do what’s best for you. You’ll try to do what’s best for me. In Utica, there is a big harmony between different religions and different congregations.”

Not all is harmony. The Republican candidate for Congress, Richard Hanna, expressed support last week for the project in Lower Manhattan, only to have the Democratic incumbent, Michael Arcuri, come out against it. On Monday, Mr. Hanna changed course, calling the project “an affront to the victims of 9/11.”

If this happened in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, rest assured the Islamophobes would be blaming Islam.

Boy’s remains found in refrigerator; New York man in custody

(LA Times)

NEW YORK—A young Brooklyn boy who vanished while walking home from a day camp in one of the safest parts of the city was killed and dismembered by a stranger who he had turned to for help after getting lost, police said Wednesday.

An intense search for the missing 8-year-old, Leiby Kletzky, ended early Wednesday morning with the gruesome discovery of pieces of his dismembered body inside the home of a man who had been seen with the child around the time he disappeared, police said.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the 35-year-old suspect, Levi Aron, made statements implicating himself in the boy’s death.

Photos: Missing boy found dead

Investigators tracked Aron with the help of surveillance video that showed him being approached by the lost boy.

When detectives arrived at the man’s home, they asked him where the boy was and he nodded toward the kitchen, Kelly said.

Detectives saw blood on the freezer door and they opened it to discover bloody knives, a cutting board and feet inside, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Additional body parts were found inside a red suitcase that had been tossed into a trash bin in another Brooklyn neighborhood.

Police and volunteers had been looking since late Monday afternoon for Leiby, who disappeared while on his way to meet his mother in the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park.

The break in the case came when investigators focused on a grainy surveillance video that showed the boy, wearing his backpack, walking down the street, while a man walked nearby.

Detectives noticed the man on the video going into a nearby dentist’s office, Browne said. The dentist, located later in New Jersey, said he remembered someone coming by to pay a bill for a patient, and police were able to identify Aron using records from the office. When they went to his home, they made the gruesome discovery.

Police said Aron lives alone in the apartment, in a building shared with his parents. He once had a summons for urinating in public but otherwise did not have a criminal record, Kelly said.

Outside the family’s apartment building Wednesday morning, men and women from the community clustered in separate groups. Many of the mothers gathered there said the streets are safe enough for a child Leiby’s age to walk home alone.

“This is a no-crime area,” said State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose district includes the area. He said the boy was the only son of the Kletzky family. The couple has four daughters, and the husband works as a driver for a private car service.

“Everybody is absolutely horrified,” he said. “Everyone is in total shock, beyond belief, beyond comprehension … to suddenly disappear and then the details … and the fact someone in the extended community … it’s awful,” he said.

He said the parents did not know Aron, who lived about a mile away from the boy.

At about 6:45 a.m., an NYPD crime unit carted away the trash bin where some of the body parts had been found and put it in a truck, and police officers walked in a line looking for evidence under cars and on sidewalks.

The medical examiner’s office will determine a cause of death and positive identification.

Leiby was one of the neighborhood’s many Hasidic Jews, an ultra-Orthodox people who live in tight-knit, somewhat insular communities and abide by strict religious rules that require men to wear dark clothing that includes a long coat and a fedora-type hat. Men often have long beards and ear locks.

Most of the 165,000 members in the New York City the area live in neighborhoods in Brooklyn and are part of three different sects. Hasidism traces its roots to 18th-century Eastern Europe.

A $100,000 reward had been offered, Hikind said the outpouring of support has been tremendous with people from all over the state volunteering their time to scour the neighborhood and hand out flyers.

Adel Erps, who lives two blocks from the family, said she was very upset because the state of the body means it will be more difficult to do a proper burial. Like other neighborhood residents congregating near the boy’s home Wednesday, she expressed shock that the suspect was Jewish.

“He’s a sick person obviously, but it hurts so much more,” she said.

A Hasidic man, Simchon Shwartz shouted racist epithets and violently assaulted his neighbor, calling them “F—ing Arabs,” “F—ing Terrorists.”

“F—ing Arabs! F—ing terrorists!” Schwartz screamed when he grabbed his neighbor, Selda Turan, 27. He shoved the woman against her car and poured beer on her head, a police source said.

This disgusting assault will most likely not be covered much by the media, we will hear deafening silence from Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, or silly equivocation along the lines of, “but…no..he was drunk,” etc.

Imagine for a second if a Muslim had done this? We all know that this would be immortalized as a terrorist attack and Islam would be blamed for the attack. (hat tip:Peak of Elephants)

Brooklyn Hasid charged with felony hate crime after attacking ‘f—ing Arabs’ living next door

BY Rocco Parascandola, Kerry Burke and Bill Hutchinson
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

A boozy Brooklyn man was hit with hate crime charges Sunday for pouring beer on a newlywed neighbor, calling her an “Arab terrorist” and pummeling her husband, police sources said.

Following the seemingly unprovoked attack Saturday night in Mill Basin, Simchon Schwartz, 46, hid in a local synagogue and tried to fight off cops when they came to arrest him, sources said.

The Hasid even kicked out a window of a police cruiser as he sat inside, whining that “the cuffs are too tight,” a source said.

“F—ing Arabs! F—ing terrorists!” Schwartz screamed when he grabbed his neighbor, Selda Turan, 27. He shoved the woman against her car and poured beer on her head, a police source said.

Turan’s husband of 13 months, Mustafa Turan, rushed out of their house to protect his wife, but Schwartz punched him in the face, the source said.

Neighbors said the Turans moved into the heavily Jewish neighborhood about a month ago. They said the victims were from Turkey; it wasn’t clear if they were Muslim.

Schwartz was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on charges of felony assault and felony criminal mischief, both as hate crimes. He was also charged with resisting arrest, obstructing cops, menacing and harassment. He could get up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

“They arrested the wrong person,” Schwartz’s attorney, Lance Lazzaro, said Monday night.

He said his client was attacked by Mustafa Turan, 32, after Selda Turan complained about Schwartz’s children being noisy. He said Mustafa Turan called Schwartz a “dirty Jew” and hit him.

Cops said they found no physical evidence supporting Schwartz’s counterclaim, while Mustafa Turan needed three stitches to close a gash on his nose. The ordeal erupted at 7 p.m. Saturday when Schwartz began harassing Selda Turan on their E. 70th St. block, a criminal complaint charges. Schwartz opened a can of beer and poured it on Selda Turan, grabbed her by the the arm, pushed her into the side of her car and called her an “Arab terrorist,” the complaint said.

Selda Turan was left with scratches and bruises. Schwartz was released without bail.

A judge rejected a prosecution request to hold Schwartz on $60,000 bail, but granted the Turans an order of protection barring him from contacting them.

The Turkish couple live in a townhouse that shares a common wall with Schwartz’s home.

Cops said that following the fisticuffs, Schwartz scratched the Turans’ car with a key.

Once Schwartz, a car dealer, bolted from the scene, the Turans called 911. Schwartz’s son led cops to a Chabad House on nearby E. 69th St., where they found the suspect. Cops smelled alcohol on his breath, a source said.

Schwartz struggled with cops as they dragged him out of the synagogue in handcuffs. They drove him to his house, where his neighbors identified him as the culprit. As Schwartz threw a tantrum in the police car, his wife made a veiled threat to the victims, sources said.

“This is a majority Jewish neighborhood. We’re going to get you back,” Esther Schwartz told the Turans, the sources said.

While Schwartz was in jail over the weekend, his wife circulated a petition demanding the Turans’ landlord evict them, neighbors said. About 20 neighbors signed it, but the Turans’ landlords, Rusden and Saadet Dolan, refused.

“That’s their opinion,” Rusden Dolan told the Daily News.

With Amir Khan and Oren Yaniv

rparascandola@nydailynews.com

Imagine if a young Muslim teenager got into a religious feud and attempted to murder someone. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer would not stop talking about it and would follow the story down to the very last bit.

Religious feud leads to attempted murder charges

Eyewitness News

NEW CITY, New York (WABC) – A teenager is under arrest in an ongoing religious feud in a small, Hasidic village.

It’s become so bad, police say attempted murder charges are now involved.

This latest incident happening in New Square.

Yesterday police arrested 18-year-old Shaul Spitzer on charges of attempted murder, arson and first degree assault. Cops say he tried to set the Rottenberg family home on fire and it’s a location police are very familiar with.

There is a few instances of broken windows, broken windows in the vehicles owned by Rottenberg,” said Chief Peter Brower, Ramapo Police Department.

Investigator say early Sunday morning Aron Rottenberg saw Spitzer on his surveillance cameras as the teen threw a rag soaked with flammable liquid onto the rear porch at his Truman Avenue home. The 43-year-old confronted the teenager and somehow both men caught fire.

Rottenberg suffered third degree burns to 50-percent of his body. Spitzer is also hospitalized with burns to his hands and arm.

No one answered the door at Spitzer’s new square home today.

Police and some residents say the attack centers on a simmering feud between the community’s grand rabbi and a group of men, including Rottenberg who worship at a nearby senior center and not at the main synagogue.

—

(Copyright ©2011 WABC-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

The neighbor who made the above sign says,

“‘It does not say what driveway. It doesn’t say ‘at the mosque’,” he said. ‘If they feel it’s at them, that’s how they feel.’”

That’s as sincere as Pamela Geller saying she “Looooooves the Moooslims.”

‘Bomb Making Next Driveway’ posted next to mosque

AMHERST, N.Y. — Muslim leaders are upset that a homeowner who lives next door to a newly opened mosque has posted a sign on his front lawn that reads “Bomb Making Next Driveway.”

Michael Heick lives along a heavily traveled road in Amherst, a Buffalo suburb. The next driveway on the same side of the road is the entrance to the Jaffarya Center.

Heick told local media outlets that he put up the sign last weekend because he was frustrated with how the mosque and town officials handled his complaints that the mosque was built too close to his property and that its bright lights violate town code.

“The place is too close. I don’t care what people think. It doesn’t matter what people think,” he told the Buffalo News. “This is a way to get answers now. I get none from the town. The intent was to catch the eye of the people who I have a problem with.”

In an interview with local TV network, WGRZ, Commissioner of Building Thomas Ketchum described Heick’s allegation about the town as “absolutely false.”

He told WGRZ that outstanding issues had caused him to issue a conditional certificate of occupancy for the mosque. It allows the building to be occupied but under the condition that code violations are corrected.

Heick, for his part, insisted the sign was not directed at a particular group.

“It does not say what driveway. It doesn’t say ‘at the mosque’,” he said. “If they feel it’s at them, that’s how they feel.”

Mosque officials said the sign’s message is offensive and that Heick hasn’t responded to their requests for a meeting.

“I would really think it’s an incitement of hatred against Muslims,” said Dr. Syed Jaffri, an Amherst psychiatrist and member of the mosque’s board of trustees. “Law enforcement should take it very seriously. Tomorrow, somebody could say, ‘Oh they have weapons,’ and people believe it.”

Mubarak Abidi, mosque president, said he called Amherst police over the weekend about the sign and was told its posting wasn’t illegal.

“They said there’s nothing in the law that we can do anything about this sign,” he said.

The center planted shrubs along the property line that should grow to six feet in a few years, but Heick said he wants the center to put up a six-foot-tall fence.

New York State Senator Gregory Ball speaks during a hearing on Homeland Security.

Peter King must be happy to hear about the Homeland Security hearing in Manhattan. King started something “revolutionary,” putting Muslim Americans and Islam on trial and now his minions are following.  But King felt it was important to give praise to one special minion, Greg Ball:

“This is a first rate hearing,” King said. “I hear some rumblings from people opposed to it. I just wish the Muslim community and the leadership would be much more cooperative on these hearings, not see everything as being an attack on them.”

The same old tired line, when is King going to stop with the baseless accusations of Muslim American non-cooperation, something contradicted by law enforcement, a group conspicuously absent (excepting Lee Baca) from King’s last hearing?

King of course is infamous for saying that 85% of mosques are run by radicals, and now he’s changing up the numbers:

Mr. King prefaced his comments by noting that “99 percent” of Muslims in the United States are “outstanding Americans” and not terrorists.

It seems he can’t make his mind up? Or maybe he realized that people were catching onto the fact that what he said was full of B.S.? At the end of the day watch him squirm and try to claim that he is right on both (contradictory) statements.

If you didn’t catch Loonwatch’s live tweets of the hearings, here is a decent summary:

Hearing on Terror Includes Heated Debate on Islam

In a local reprise of a polarizing Congressional hearing last month on the question of Islam and terror, state lawmakers warned in grave terms on Friday of the threats facing the New York area, while other lawmakers and interfaith groups criticized the proceedings as anti-Muslim and incendiary.

The hearing, which was convened by the State Senate’s homeland security committee, was something of a spectacle: Security was ramped up at the office building in Lower Manhattan where state legislators have work space, and television cameramen easily outnumbered lawmakers.

Adding to the theatrics, the hearing began to great fanfare with testimony from the lawmaker who convened the Congressional hearing, Representative Peter T. King, a Long Island Republican, who has promised further federal inquiries into what he describes as the radicalization of American Muslims.

Mr. King prefaced his comments by noting that “99 percent” of Muslims in the United States are “outstanding Americans” and not terrorists.

“But the fact is: The enemy, or those being recruited by Al Qaeda, live within the Muslim community, and that’s the reality we have to face,” Mr. King said. “This is not to put a broad brush over a community, but you go where the threat is coming from, and that’s the reality today.”

Mr. King testified at the invitation of Senator Gregory R. Ball, a Putnam County Republican who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs. Mr. Ball was criticized by Muslim and interfaith groups as well as a group of Senate Democrats for his inclusion of Islamic law as one of the hearing’s topics; they accused him of exploiting the threat of terrorism to incite a fear of Muslims among the broader public.

But on Friday, as reporters crammed into a low-ceilinged meeting room for the daylong hearing, Mr. Ball defended the scope of the committee’s inquiry, saying that he asked lawmakers to propose other witnesses but received very little input.

“There are some who are more concerned about the front-page press than today,” Mr. Ball said. “I understand politics. But we cannot allow our homeland security to become a political football.”

Among the witnesses whose scheduled testimony provoked the most criticism was Nonie Darwish, an Egyptian-born American who is president of a group called Former Muslims United, and Frank Gaffney, a former Defense Department official who has often criticized Islam.

Ms. Darwish testified on Friday that young people in the Arab world are taught as children to hate America and to look favorably on terrorism. “The education of Arab children is to make killing of certain groups of people not only good,” she said. “It’s holy. It becomes holy in our culture.”

Her testimony was met with an angry rebuke from Senator Eric Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat, who held up a Koran and said that Ms. Darwish was “bringing hate and poison” to the hearing. Mr. Ball tried to quiet Mr. Adams, and their back-and-forth descended into a shouting match, with Mr. Adams suggesting that Mr. Ball was condoning bigotry and Mr. Ball accusing him of pandering to the news media.

“I’m glad that nobody is between those TV cameras and you, because that’s the most dangerous place in New York City right now,” Mr. Ball snapped.

In his testimony, Mr. Gaffney decried Sharia law as a threat to the United States and said that American efforts to prevent future acts of terrorism have been “hobbled, frankly, by what we consider to be politically correct blinders.”

He added that the Muslim community center and mosque proposed to be built near ground zero “fits the profile of triumphalist mosques built on sacred ground of defeated people elsewhere around the world.”

“I believe it should not be allowed to happen here,” Mr. Gaffney said.

While the testimony on Islam offered the most drama, the bulk of the hearing was spent discussing matters far less politically charged. A parade of law enforcement officials and counterterrorism experts offered what amounted to a verbal encyclopedia of terror threats, and legislators added their own possibilities, too.

Senator Martin J. Golden, a Brooklyn Republican, wondered whether someone could shoot down an airplane using a heat-seeking missile. Mr. Ball asked about the safety of the AirTrain system at Kennedy Airport. And Mr. King worried about an attack on the New York City subway system or the use of a dirty bomb.

“I would just say that as we approach the 10th anniversary, not for people to look upon Sept. 11 as just some historical moment like Gettysburg or Pearl Harbor or Bunker Hill,” Mr. King said. “It was the first battle in a war which is still being waged.”

At times, however, those at the hearing seemed less than interested in the technical discussion that dominated most of the session. During the testimony of Richard Daddario, the New York Police Department’s top counterterrorism official, at least three people in the audience were fast asleep.

Nonie giving a passionate anti-Muslim lecture

For years now, the U.S. government has left counter-terrorism training dangerously unregulated such that millions of dollars were spent on private contractors who present Islam as an inherently violent religion and all Muslims as suspects. This is no shock to Loonwatchers who’ve been watching fake scholars like Robert Spencer brag about their bogus presentations before government security agencies. Unfortunately, the problem still persists and officials continue to receive training in Islamophobic doctrine rather than real counter-terrorism skills, all courtesy of the U.S. tax-payers.

In the latest round of hate-for-hire, the New York State Senate will hold a hearing entitled, “Reviewing our Preparedness: An Examination of New York’s Public Protection Ten Years After 9/11” starring none other than loon-at-large, caught-in-a-pool-of-lies Nonie Darwish (Peter King will also make a cameo).

Like most in the anti-Muslim business, Nonie has a greatly exaggerated personal sob-story backed up by book deals and speaking engagements in all the typical “hating on Muslim” venues. She sells herself as a “human rights activist,” as do so many other virulent Muslim-bashers, though she doesn’t seem to care too much about the human rights of Muslims. This time, however, she will be using the pseudonym “Nahid Hyde,” perhaps as a not-so-clever way of avoiding government inquiry into her association with other bigots and white supremacists. Yet, even a cursory view of her ridiculous book titles should cause any serious security official to question her credibility as a fair and impartial witness.

The reviewer of her latest book, “Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law,” (which sells for a whopping $28.99) stated:

In her estimation, Islam is a backward and authoritarian ideology that is attempting to impose on the world the norms of seventh-century Bedouin life. For Darwish, Islam is a sinister force that must be resisted and contained.

It must be difficult to pack so many stereotypes into 272 pages, but Ms. Darwish has done it, making such bold generalizations and demonstrably false claims as:

Sharia is incompatible with any state that has as a foundational principle the equality of the sexes before the law.

Perhaps she should “educate” the Grand Mufti of Egypt, who recently remarked:

Egypt’s religious tradition is anchored in a moderate, tolerant view of Islam. We believe that Islamic law guarantees freedom of conscience and expression (within the bounds of common decency) and equal rights for women. And as head of Egypt’s agency of Islamic jurisprudence, I can assure you that the religious establishment is committed to the belief that government must be based on popular sovereignty.

But disclosing some enlightening and nuanced facts about contemporary Islam or the multivalent, non-monolithic view and relationship Muslims have with Islamic Law would ruin her book sales and speaking tours, wouldn’t it?

Like other Islamophobes, she is careful to make a distinction between Islam and Muslims, so as not to appear like the plain bigot she is:

Darwish is careful to distinguish between people and ideas: “The purpose of this book is not to spread hatred of a people but to tell the truth about the wickedness of Islamic Sharia law.”

Such distinctions are disingenuous, pro-forma statements that only fool the naïve into thinking she isn’t a professional hate-monger. (Right, just like how Pam Geller loves those Moozlims so much she wants to drop nuclear bombs on them, out of love, of course.)

Contrary to her assertion, Ms. Darwish regularly engages in dehumanizing rhetoric about all Muslims, not just extremists. She even told the New York Times:

A mosque is not just a place for worship. It’s a place where war is started, where commandments to do jihad start, where incitements against non-Muslims occur. It’s a place where ammunition was stored.

That was one of her tamer statements dressed up before a liberal audience. Such sweeping outright lies have been instrumental in the spread of anti-Muslim, anti-Sharia, and anti-Mosque hysteria in our country, materializing in over 800 documented cases of anti-Muslim violence and discrimination. When confronted about her lies, she will likely attempt to dismiss her critics as agents of the Mad Mullah Conspiracy, rather than owning up to the falsity of her claims.

So I don’t believe her for a second when she says she is not spreading hatred. She is spreading hatred, blatantly, and making a buck while doing it, this time at the expense of hardworking New Yorkers’ taxes. In less than a week she is going to tell the New York Senate that basically every Muslim is a suspect, thereby misdirecting valuable law enforcement resources away from violent extremists and onto the majority of peaceful, law-abiding American Muslim citizens. We will all be less safe as a result.

The citizens of New York deserve better than this. The American people deserve better. They have the right to know why the government is funding clearly biased, hateful individuals who have absolutely no credibility. For this reason, a coalition of civil rights and interfaith organizations will hold a news conference on the steps of City Hall in Manhattan to challenge this expected anti-Islam bias in the State Senate, Thursday, April 7^th, at 1pm.

The American people deserve testimony from impartial security experts, not this Islamophobic nonsense about stealth Jihad and Islamic boogeymen hiding under every bed. It’s time for the government to be held accountable and to stop playing these dangerous political games with our security.

I guess Islamophobia doesn’t exist?

Two men sentenced in mosque graffiti incident

(MidHudsonNews)

HUDSON – Two of three men involved in spray painting a City of Hudson mosque Tuesday were sentenced in city court.

Christopher Osborne, charged with a felony, was sentenced to six months in jail and five years probation by Columbia County Court Judge Jonathan Nichols.

A second man, James Glover III, charged with two misdemeanors, was given 60 days in the county jail.

At the time of the September incident where a racial slur was painted on a wall of the Hudson Islamic Center, authorities labeled it a hate crime.

I guess all Muslims aren’t evil terrorist n’er-do-wells?

Cabbie Returns $100K Worth Of Jewerly, Cash Left In Taxi

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – John James is a lucky man.

After returning to his apartment at the National Arts Club Sunday afternoon, James realized he forgot a bag with $100,000 worth of jewelry and cash in the back seat of a taxi cab. With the help of a friend in city government and a receipt he thankfully kept, James was able to track down cabbie Zubiru Jalloh.

“The man had my possessions because he took it from the backseat when new passengers got on and were, I guess, messing with my tote bag,” James told 1010 WINS. ”He asked to have it lifted up to the front seat where he protected it and then took it home.”

…

Jalloh says he was motivated to return the valuable jewels by his Muslim faith.

An excellent report from Sheila Musaji at The American Muslim on Peter King’s “Muslimphobia.”

Rep. Peter King’s Muslim Phobia

by Sheila Musaji

Rep. Peter King plans to hold a Congressional inquiry into American Muslim “radicalization” in his new position as Chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

This has been seen as a flashback to McCarthy’s witchhunt, and a witch trial.  Whether or not this inquiry would benefit anyone   has been debated by the right and the left.

As an American Muslim, when I look at Rep. King’s background and previous statements, it seems to me that Rep. King is an Islamophobe, and that what he is proposing is not an attack on radicals (of whatever persuasion) but an attack on American Muslims in general.  I am very concerned about where this might take us as a nation, and will follow this developing story and provide updates.

What makes this all the more concerning is a recent Washington Post article “Top Secret America” which includes the information that “‘Top Secret America’ includes hundreds of federal departments and agencies operating out of 1300 facilities around this country. Thirty-three new building complexes have been built for intelligence bureaucracies alone, occupying 17 million square feet-the equivalent of 22 U.S. Capitols or three Pentagons.  Five miles southeast of the White House, the largest government site in 50 years is being built-at a cost of $3.4 billion-to house the largest bureaucracy after the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs; the Department of Homeland Security, which has a workforce of 230,000 people.  With nearly 2,000 private companies that are sub contracted in all, there are now 850,000 Americans with top secret clearance.” The Department of Homeland Security to the extent that it is influenced by people like Rep. King may limit our civil rights.  As Javeed Akhter has pointed out:  Few are aware of the magnitude of this secret intel. It is legitimate worry that parts of an operation this large and diverse and secret may get out of hand and start affecting civil liberties of all Americans.  I am not aware of any congressional hearings on it.  Also no moral authority in or out of office has taken on the media for their reckless stereotyping of Muslim Americans.
KING’S BACKGROUND

Back in 2004 King said on the Sean Hannity program “I would say, you could say that 80-85 percent of mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists…Those who are in control. The average Muslim, no, they are loyal, but they don’t work, they don’t come forward, they don’t tell the police.”

In our TAM article collection Islamophobia no longer questioned – even by our elected representatives, the entry on Rep. Peter King notes that

King said that there are “Too Many Mosques” in the U.S.”. King also made comments suggesting American Muslims don’t cooperate with authorities.  He said “85 percent of American Muslim community leaders are an enemy living amongst us” and that “no (American) Muslims cooperate in the war on terror”.  He is also a vocal opponent of the Cordoba House.  (Note:  as Robert Wright has pointed out “Representative King, who shares the Weekly Standard’s grave suspicions about Rauf, supported the Irish Republican Army back when it was killing lots of innocent civilians. He raised money for the I.R.A. and said it was “the legitimate voice of occupied Ireland” and praised the “brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry” and in various other ways backed this terrorist group. If Rauf’s past looked like King’s past, there would indeed be cause for concern.”)  King also said regarding Cordoba House “It’s a house of worship, but we are at war with Al Qaeda.” Unless you believe that all Muslims are somehow supportive of or connected with Al Qaeda, that is one colossal non sequitur.  Most Muslims are at war with Al Qaeda.  Rep. King also defended Pamela Geller and called her a “credible spokesperson”.  King’s new plan to open a McCarthy style witchhunt against American Muslims.

Regarding his past support for the IRA, as Justin Elliott notes in his article The Republican congressman who supported terrorism:  “If “IRA” were replaced with “Hamas,” the sort of fundraising King did would these days earn you a lengthy prison sentence for material support for terrorism.” Alex Massie points out ”… King presents himself as a hawk on security issues who, like so many so-called conservatives, is an enthusiastic supporter of torture and, should it prove necessary, nuclear weapons. Listening to King talk about al Qaeda, you could be forgiven for thinking that he’s the terrorists’ most implacable enemy.    Which would be funny if it weren’t such a sour joke. For years, King, who represents a chunk of New York’s Long Island, was in fact the terrorists’ best friend. King wasn’t merely an apologist for terrorism, he was an enthusiastic supporter of terrorism.    Of course it was Irish, not Islamic terrorism that King championed. So that’s different. Right? For decades, King was one of the keenest, most reliable American voices supporting the Irish Republican Army during its long and murderous campaign.  According to King, the terrorist movement was “the legitimate voice of occupied Ireland.”    In Northern Ireland, the conflict was drily referred to as “The Troubles.” But that understatement hides the brutal nature of an ugly, squalid conflict during which more than 3,600 people were killed. Republican terrorists were responsible for more than 2,000 of these deaths. The scale of the carnage was such that, on a per-capita basis, a comparable conflict in the United States would kill 700,000 Americans.    And King was at the heart of it: In the 1980s, he was a prominent fundraiser for Noraid, the Irish-American organization that raised money for the IRA and was suspected of running guns to Ulster, too. Indeed, King’s rise to prominence within the Irish-American movement was predicated upon his support for the IRA at a time when New Yorkers were softer on terrorism than they are now. Noraid helped win King his seat in Congress, making him, in some respects, the terrorists’ Man in Washington.

In 2004, King said:  “The fact is while the overwhelming majority of Muslims are outstanding people, on the other hand 100% of the Islamic terrorists are Muslims, and that is our main enemy today.” This is a meanlingless comment.  Of course 100% of Muslim terrorists are Muslims.  The question is, what does King plan to do about the majority of terrorists who are not Muslims.

When the New York Times ran an article that criticized King’s planned hearings, King responded with:  “I’m absolutely delighted that The New York Times would attack me,” [New York Republican Congressman Peter King] said in an interview with The Hill. “I have nothing but contempt for them. They should be indicted under the Espionage Act. … “

When the Department of Homeland Security released a report in 2009 that warned of the rising threat of right-wing extremism, King responded negatively.  King told Joe Scarborough that, instead of discussing the threat of anti-government radicals, DHS should focus on the threat emanating from “Muslims” and “mosques” at home.  He said ”[Napolitano] has never put out a report talking about look out for mosques. Look out for Islamic terrorists in our country. Look out for the fact that very few Muslims come forward to cooperate with the police. If they sent out a report saying that, there would be hell to pay.”
King wants Wikileaks designated as a terrorist organization.

King supports torture of Guantanamo detainees.

M.J. Rosenberg has reported about Rep. King that In 1984, “the Secret Service listed him as a threat when President Reagan made a trip to Nassau County to watch a Special Olympics event.”
Claim that MUSLIMS DON’T SPEAK OUT AGAINST EXTREMISM AND TERRORISM is a lie

Actually many individuals who have been arrested for terrorist plots and activities were turned in by members of the Muslim community.  These include:  Craig Monteilh, Abdel Hameed Shehadeh, Times Square bomber, the Oregon jihadist, Lackawanna six, Paintball 11 in VA, Matin Siraj plot in NY , Daniel Boyd in NC, 5 Muslim men who went to Pakistan from VA, Farooque Ahmed subway plotter.  Muslims have also helped by infiltrating al Qaeda.

A cursory look at our TAM article collection on Responses to Islamophobia, Arabophobia, and Extremism will provide anyone who is interested with hundreds of articles and statements countering the claims of individuals or groups attempting to justify extremism in the name of Islam.

A cursory look at our many article collections under the heading MUSLIMS DENOUNCE TERRORISM which is readily avaible by simply clicking on this logo on the TAM homepage and which will take you to a lengthy collection of Muslim denunciations of terrorism, extremism, and violence will show that Muslims have spoken out often and loudly.  – Qur’an & Hadith against extremism (see also power point presentations)  – Part I Fatwas – Part II Statements by Organizations – Part III Statements and Articles by Individuals (see also power point presentations)  – Part IV A Few Quotes A-K, and A Few Quotes L-Z – Part V The Muslim Majority Who Don’t Get Publicity (see also power point presentation)  – Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. Military – Selective Hearing of Muslim Voices Against Extremism – Sunni Shia Unity Resource – collection of articles – Muslim Voices Promoting Islamic Non Violent Solutions
Claim that MOST TERRORISTS ARE MUSLIMS is simply a lie

TAM has a lengthy article collection Claim that all terrorists are Muslims ignores history This article lists studies, government reports, and other documentation, and incidents from the 1970’s to the present time.  Since 2000 alone here are some of the terrorist incidents involving non-Muslims

Former leader of the Texas Militia plot to attack the Federal Building in Houston, a Catholic priest drove his car into the Northern Illinois Health Clinic and pulled out an ax before being shot at by a security guard, JDL plot by Irv Rubin and Earl Krugel to blow up the King Fahd Mosque and the office of Congressman Darrell Issa in CA foiled, Anthrax attacks by Bruce Ivins kill five across the U.S. with politicians and media officials as the apparent targets, Clayton Waagner mailed hoax letters containing a white powder to 554 clinics, Robert Pickett discharged a number of shots from a weapon in the direction of the White House, Lucas John Helder rigged pipe bombs in private mailboxes to explode when the boxes were opened, white supremacists planned to bomb a series of institutions associated with the black and Jewish communities including the U.S.  Holocaust Memorial Museum, Two members of Project 7 are arrested plotting to kill judges and law enforcement officials in order to kick off a revolution, An Idaho Mountain Militia Boys plot to kill a judge an a police officer and break a friend out of jail is uncovered, William Krar is charged for his part in the Tyler poison gas plot, a white supremacist related plan, Jeffrey Weise killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend on the Red Lake, MN Chippewa reservation, then went to Red Lake H.S. where he killed 7 people and wounded 5 others before committing suicide, Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe threw a Molotov cocktail at a clinic in Shreveport, LA, Two officers were killed at Forward Operating Base Danger in Tikrit, Iraq by a deliberately placed mine,  Staff Sergeant Alberto B. Martinez was charged, but was acquitted in a court martial trial at Fort Bragg, NC, The Animal Liberation Front targets a UCLA professor with a firebomb due to her research on animals, Charles Carl Roberts IV went into an Amish school in Lancaster County, PA and killed 5 girls before committing suicide,  Dennis & Daniel Mahon send mail bombs to a diversity office in Scottsdale AZ that injure three, Demetrius Van Crocker a white supremacist from rural TN attempted to acquire Sarin nerve gas and C-4 explosives that he planned to use to destroy government buildings, A man rammed his car into a women’s clinic that he thought was an abortion clinic and set it ablaze in Davenport, Iowa, Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded many others at Virginia Tech before committing suicide, Five members of a Birmingham, Alabama area anti-immigration militia were arrested for planning a machine gun attack on Mexicans, A bomb was left in a women’s clinic in Austin but failed to explode,  Jim D. Adkisson opened fire in the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville TN killing two and injuring seven (a note found in his SUV indicated this was intended as a suicide attack and said the church was apparently targeted because of its support of liberal social policies), UC-Santa Cruz molecular biologist David Feldheim’s home was firebombed. A car belonging to another researcher from that University was destroyed by a firebomb in what is presumed to be related. FBI is investigating incidents as domestic terrorism related to animal rights groups, plot by two white power skinheads to target an African American High School and kill 88 blacks and decapitate 14 more (the numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic to white supremacists) and although expecting to fail try to assassinate Barack Obama, Jomar Falu Vives a Fort Carson, CO soldier and Iraq war veteran accused of killing 2 people and wounding another in drive-by shootings, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting by James Wenneker von Brunn, Assassination of Dr. George Tiller by Scott Roeder, bombing of a Starbucks in Manhattan’s Upper East Side by Kyle Shaw, shooting at Muslim home in Oregon by Vadim Ignatov, Keith Luke went on shooting spree in MA to kill as many non whites and Jews as possible, Three Pittsburgh police officers are fatally shot and a fourth wounded by Richard Andrew Poplawski, who had posted his racist and anti-Semitic views on white supremacist websites.  James Cummings dirty bomb plot.  Joseph Stack’s suicide flight into an IRS building.  Hutaree militia.  Justin Carl Moose plot to bomb abortion clinics.

Even before adding in shootings, bombings and arson attacks on mosques and violent attacks on individual Muslims or individuals perceived to be Muslim, it is glaringly obvious that attempting to defend the claim that most terrorist incidents involve Muslims can only result from ignorance or outright bigotry.

Rep. King might be interested to know that in 2010 there were at least 3 bombings carried out by the IRA in Ireland.  It would be very interesting to know what his current position is on the IRA.

In 2009, MPAC released a study of plots by Muslim and non-Muslim violent extremists against the United States since 9/11.  The the key findings of this report were:

•There were 77 total plots by domestic non-Muslim perpetrators against the United States since 9/11/01. In comparison, there have been 41 total plots by domestic and international Muslim perpetrators since 9/11/01.
•There are at least 5 incidents of non-Muslim domestic extremists possessing or attempting to possess Biological, Chemical or Radiological weapons. One of those occurred since Obama’s election. No such cases involving Muslim violent extremists have been reported since 9/11/01.
•Evidence clearly indicates a general rise in violent extremism across ideologies. Using Obama’s election as our measurement, since November 4, 2008 there have been 44 terror plots by non-Muslim domestic extremists. By comparison, there have been 20 plots by Muslim domestic and international extremists. Each of these categories constitutes close to 50% of all violent extremism cases since 9/11.
•Yet, there is little evidence of rising ideological extremism among American Muslims. We use Obama’s election as the start of a timeline for measurement. We found 14 out of the 19 post-election plots (74%) involved Muslim Americans engaging in ideological extremism before the vote. Only 2 out of 19 cases (10%) are individuals involved in extremist activities after Obama’s election. Al-Qaeda does not appear to be making new ideological gains into the Muslim American community. Instead, the data is pointing toward greater numbers of longstanding ideological extremists turning to violence.
•Muslim communities have stepped forward to help law enforcement foil over 1 out of every 3 Al Qaeda-related terror plots threatening America since 9/11. Muslim communities have help law enforcement prevent the last 7 out of 11 Al Qaeda related plots. This represents an important counter trend the recent spike of arrests. It also highlights the importance of law enforcement partnering with citizens through community-oriented policing.

Loonwatch has also published a must read article All Terrorists are Muslims…Except the 94% that Aren’t which takes information from an FBI report, analyzes the list of incidents and creates an interesting pie chart that makes all the information come clearly into focus.  Loonwatch states: “According to this data, there were more Jewish acts of terrorism within the United States than Islamic (7% vs 6%).  These radical Jews committed acts of terrorism in the name of their religion.  These were not terrorists who happened to be Jews; rather, they were extremist Jews who committed acts of terrorism based on their religious passions, just like Al-Qaeda and company.” A second report noted by Loonwatch discusses a Europol Report which shows that in Europe,  All Terrorists are Muslims…Except the 99.6% that Aren’t.
Has Rep. King noticed that just this past month, the FBI and Connecticut police found “improvised explosives” inside a New Haven home occupied by three “white men”.
Claim that AMERICAN MUSLIM’S HAVE NOT RESPONDED TO RADICALIZATION is a lie

MPAC published its first policy memo as the Counterterrorism Chronicles in 1993, and produced its first policy paper on counterterrorism policy in 1999. In September 2003, MPAC published its second counterterrorism policy paper entitled “A Review of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy: American Muslim Critique & Recommendations.” General Brent Scowcroft, former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs to Presidents George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford, said, “MPAC’s Counterterrorism Policy Paper is a serious and thoughtful document that should be valuable to all policy-makers. Counterterrorism analysis from an American Muslim perspective is critical to the decision-making process. I found the paper to be serious and in-depth, and the recommendations should be reviewed by the policy-making community.”

MPAC has created campaigns to assist local Muslim communities in engaging with law enforcement and ensuring financial and ideological transparency at their mosques. One such program is our National Grassroots Campaign to Fight Terrorism, which was launched in 2004 and endorsed by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Department of Justice.  More recently, we released an eye opening policy paper entitled “Building Bridges to Strengthen America: Building an Effective Counterterrorism Enterprise between Muslim Americans and Law Enforcement.” Against the background of more than a dozen domestic terrorism plots uncovered in 2009, this paper discusses the current analysis of the “domestic radicalization” and proposes a blueprint for effective community-law enforcement engagement and partnership.

A Community Based Approach to Countering Radicalization: A Partnership for America was produced by the World Organization for Resource Development and Education in Washington, D.C.  The report was written by Muslims.

During a hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing & Terrorism Risk Assessment in 2008, Rep. Pascrell expressed strong disagreement with Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) remarks that Muslims are not doing enough to help law enforcement fight terrorism.  Pascrell said:  “America must view the Muslim community as a great asset to our homeland security effort and take real steps to engage them. We cannot risk becoming like Europe where Muslim citizens have been pushed to the margins of society and are looked at as objects of suspicion.”

In April of 2008 FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, stated before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee: “And every opportunity I have, I re-affirm the fact that 99.9 percent of Muslim-Americans or Sikh-Americans, Arab-Americans are every bit as patriotic as anybody else in this room, and that many of our cases are a result of the cooperation from the Muslim community in the United States.”

According to the NY Times “A two-year study by a group of academics on American Muslims and terrorism concluded that contemporary mosques are actually a deterrent to the spread of militant Islam and terrorism. The study was conducted by professors with Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the University of North Carolina. It disclosed that many mosque leaders had put significant effort into countering extremism by building youth programs, sponsoring antiviolence forums and scrutinizing teachers and texts.”
PERCENTAGE OF MOSQUES claims are a lie

This claim by Rep. King and others is based on nothing at all.  The first time it was stated was by Sheikh Hisham Kabbani in 1999.  It is a number taken from thin air.  There have been no studies or anything else to support such a baseless claim.

It is one of what I call “everyone knows” claims about Islam and Muslims that has no basis in fact.

There is a long list of bigoted propoganda stating some “fact” that “everyone knows” which are all, quite simply, not facts at all.  You can find responses to hundreds of such claims here.  The most commonly repeated claims about Muslims and Islam are that

“everyone knows” that most or all terrorists are Muslims, and there are no Christian and no Jewish terrorists (or terrorists of any other religious stripe), and that Muslims are inherently violent.  Everyone also knows that Muslims are not equivalent to real Americans, that they are the enemy within, and a fifth column,  that good Muslims can’t be good Americans, that they are not a part of our American heritage, that they are all militant,  that Islam makes Muslims “backward”, that Muslims have made no contribution to the West,  that Islam is “of the devil”, a Crescent menace, and an “evil encroaching on the United States”, and not a religion.  Everyone knows that this is a Christian nation, which everyone knows the Muslims are trying to take over, starting with getting an Eid stamp which is the first step towards shariah law which is a threat to America, and by purposefully having more children than others to increase their numbers.  Everyone knows that Muslims have no respect for the Constitution, and that they are opposed to freedom of speech, and don’t allow freedom of religion.  Everyone knows that Muslims are given a pass by the elite media.  It’s “us versus them”.  Their goal is world domination under a Caliphate, and the proposed Cordoba House in NYC is a a demonstration of supremacism and triumphalism.  They don’t speak out against extremism or terrorism, and even those Muslims who do speak up or seem moderate are simply lying or practicing taqiyyah.  Everyone knows the Qur’an is uniquely violent, that the Islamic concept of God doesn’t include God’s love, that Allah is a moon god.  The problem is that what “everyone knows” is wrong.  These self-righteous and incorrect statements are usually followed by a demand that the Muslim community do something about whatever is the false flag of the day or face the inevitable consequences.

REACTION TO REP. KING’S PROPOSED HEARINGS

As Eboo Patel points out there are ways that King’s inquiry might be beneficial.  For example it could ” …  shine a light on the role that the mainstream Muslim community has played in these attacks. By and large, it has been to help prevent them. Mainstream American Muslims have been vigilant against extremists in their communities – confronting their views, flushing them out and if need be reporting them to law enforcement.” And, he points out that The pattern of extremism amongst American Muslim is ‘self-radicalization’ online. Patel points out that if this inquiry focuses on this reality it might have beneficial consequences “King should help the country draw the obvious conclusion from these two points: let’s reduce the number of people who self-radicalize online, let’s lift up the good work of the mainstream American Muslim community and let’s strengthen our partnerships so we keep our nation safe. Doing anything else is bad for the country.

Rep. Keith Ellison said on “The Ed Show” that he told King he’d like to be involved in the proposed hearing but wanted it done “responsibly. . . . Let’s talk about how we’re going to make America safer, and enlist Muslim Americans to help safeguard our country and look at anybody who might get radicalized.”
Juan Cole has referred to these hearings as hating Muslims in America and said: Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the incoming chair of the House committee on Homeland Security has announced that he will hold hearings into the ‘radicalization’ of American Muslims. This, despite the fact that the Muslim Americans are pillars of the US community–disproportionately well-educated and well integrated into the country, and even though a third of tips forestalling radical Muslim operations come from the community itself. And, despite the fact that most terrorism in the US is committed by white supremacists. King’s obscene gesture of Kristallnacht-by-hearing does not come out of the representative’s own eccentricities, but is part of an organized conspiracy to demonize and marginalize Muslim Americans and Arab Americans. (Ironically, as we will likely hear more of from the Wikileaks cables, the British government considers King little more than a terrorist himself, given his vocal support for the Irish Republican Army, which regularly blew up London from the 1970s through the early 1990s).

As Larry Cohler-Esse and Nathan Gutman note It is King’s prescriptions for addressing this trend that cause controversy. The hearings, still in their formative stage, are likely to be shaped by King’s view of Muslims as a community to be intensively monitored and systematically infiltrated. That is at odds with other views, held by some in law enforcement and counter-terrorism, who see American Muslims quite differently: as willing partners, if sensitively cultivated and understood as individuals who want to stop terrorism — but who bristle at being targeted as a community and pressured to spy on their own congregations. They also point out that According to data compiled by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, one-third of terror plots in the United States linked to al-Qaeda or its affiliates since 9/11 were foiled thanks to cooperation from members of the Muslim community. Alejandro Beutel, the group’s government and policy analyst, said that these numbers were derived from government records and press reports tracked by the Congressional Research Service and the Heritage Foundation.    “The number clearly shows that there is cooperation with law enforcement agencies,” Beutel said, terming King’s claims “grossly inaccurate.”

Salam al-Marayati of MPAC said“He basically wants to treat the Muslim-American community as a suspect community”…  He added that Mr. King was potentially undermining the relationship that Muslim leaders had sought to build with law enforcement officials around the country. Tensions have occasionally erupted in recent years over counterterrorism measures that civil rights groups and others said had gone too far.

All of the premises that are the foundation for Rep. King’s belief that this inquiry is needed are false.  His motives are either ignorant or bigoted, and whether Rep. King is ignorant or bigoted, either possibility makes him a bad choice to be in charge of Homeland Security, or to lead a non-biased investigation.  I am concerned that the question for Rep. King might just be “Are you now, or have you ever been, a Muslim?”
I hope that he reads and re-reads the first amendment – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

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SEE ALSO:

ISLAMOPHOBIA – RESPONSES TO ISLAMOPHOBIA AND EXTREMISM
NOTE:  We have had as part of our Muslim Voices against Terrorism and Extremism resources a section on responses to Islamophobia.  This was in five parts:  – Responses to Claims Made ABOUT Islam and Muslims in General – Responses to Claims Made ABOUT Qur’an Verses, Arabic Terms, Prophet Muhammad – Responses to False Claims ABOUT Muslim Individuals & Organizations & Incidents Involving Muslims – Responses to Actual Extremist Statements & Incidents of Extremism or violence BY Muslims – Responses to Claims Made BY Specific Individuals and Organizations About Muslims.  Because of a restriction in the possible length of articles, we were unable to organize these in a more user-friendly manner.  Our webmaster has now resolved this problem, and we have combined all these five sections into one section.  The entries are alphabetical, and it should now be much easier to locate a response to a particular issue, incident, or individual.  In order to keep load time down for our readers, this single resource will still be divided into two sections:  A to L, and M to Z.  Sheila Musaji 3/5/2010.

ISLAMOPHOBIA

- ALARMING STATEMENTS Note, previously divided by year and now consolidated into one collection
- Alarming statements by elected officials and political organizations
- Claim That All Terrorists are Muslims Ignores History (sections on Christian extremism and terrorism and Jewish extremism and terrorism were divided 4/08)
- INCIDENTS OF ISLAMOPHOBIA – Prejudice, Racist, or Violent Incidents at MOSQUES – Incidents, hate crimes -  Tariq Ramadan incident – and Khalil Gibran Academy incident and Obsession film incident – Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week incident
- Islamophobia: Real or imagined
- MEDIA, Propaganda & Perception
- Polls, statistics, and surveys relating to Islam and Muslims

- A Long History of Injustice Ignored
(see also power point presentations)

Peter King supported the IRA

Peter King claims American Muslims are a threat to our security while also being soft on terrorism, even though throughout the 80′s and until as recently as 2005 King financially and politically supported the IRA.

The Republican congressman who supported terrorism

by Justin Elliot (Salon.com)

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., is set to assume the chairmanship of the House Homeland Security Committee in January, and today comes the news that he intends to launch an investigation of “radicalization” among American Muslims.

In some perverse sense, King, who has represented part of Long Island in Congress since 1993, may be just the man for the job: He spent years openly supporting the terrorist Irish Republican Army.

The journalist Alex Massie has ably documented King’s history with the IRA, a group that he did not break with until 2005:

In the 1980s, he was a prominent fundraiser for Noraid, the Irish-American organization that raised money for the IRA and was suspected of running guns to Ulster, too. Indeed, King’s rise to prominence within the Irish-American movement was predicated upon his support for the IRA at a time when New Yorkers were softer on terrorism than they are now. Noraid helped win King his seat in Congress, making him, in some respects, the terrorists’ Man in Washington. …

In 1982 he told a pro-IRA rally in Nassau County, New York, that “We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry.” That same year, an IRA bomb killed eight people in London’s Hyde Park. Two years later, the IRA almost succeeded in murdering the British prime minister.

If “IRA” were replaced with “Hamas,” the sort of fundraising King did would these days earn you a lengthy prison sentence for material support for terrorism.

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Some people will do absolutely anything to fear-monger….

NY Livery Cab Driver littered anti-Semtic notes to frame Muslims

Newsday (New York)
November 4, 2010 Thursday

A former livery cabdriver from Brooklyn told authorities he littered his routes in Nassau with handmade anti-Semitic leaflets because he wanted “the Jews to find them to think it was the Muslims,” officials said yesterday.

On Tuesday, for the second time this year, detectives arrested Dimitrios Apolonides, 37, after tracing 1-by-3-inch notes bearing the slogan “KILL JEWS” back to the livery company where he once worked, police said.

Apolonides wished to create “alarm in the Jewish community” by leaving notes on the street in several Nassau communities since at least September 2009, including Rockville Centre, Port Washington, and West Hempstead, according to Nassau police Det. Lt. Kevin Smith. Similar notes also were found in Melville in March 2009, Suffolk police said, but no arrests have been made.

Apolonides is charged in Nassau with nine counts of aggravated harassment as a hate crime. Yesterday, he pleaded not guilty and was held on bail of $5,000. If convicted, the hate crime charges will be upgraded to felonies carrying a sentence of up to 4 years, police said.

Nassau police said they believed this was happening “across the tristate area.”

In July, New York City hate crimes detectives arrested Apolonides and charged him with aggravated harassment as a hate crime in connection with similar notes found near the Jewish Guild for the Blind on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, said an NYPD spokesman.

An NYPD spokesman said Apolonides was believed to have dropped dozens of notes around the borough. Apolonides was released without bail after his July arrest; the case is pending.

As in Nassau, city detectives were able to trace the notes to Apolonides when they discovered they were cut from a log sheet bearing the name of his employer, XYZ Car Service in Brooklyn, authorities said. Prosecutors at Apolonides’ arraignment in Hempstead yesterday said he faces similar charges of aggravated harassment in Westchester County.

Apolonides told Nassau officers, “I wanted the Jews to find them to think it was the Muslims,” according to a criminal complaint.

XYZ owner Mohamed Mowad said Apolonides was hired in 1994 and was a conscientious, polite employee, friendly with people from many backgrounds, including Jewish employees. Apolonides was fired at the time of his July arrest, Mowad said.

“You talk to him, he’s a sweetheart, always polite, he smiles,” he said.

Apolonides’ attorney, Michael Alber of Rockville Centre, said Apolonides is married and has one child. He questioned the timing of Apolonides’ arrest. “Some of these charges date back to 2009. … There is a substantial gap in time,” he said. “Why wasn’t he arrested in 2009?”

From the Khalil Gibran controversy to Park 51 the anti-Muslim machine is not new. (hat tip: Garret)

Killing the Buddha: The anti-Muslim Machine

by Kiera Feldman

In the fall of 2007, New York’s first Arabic-language public school was slated to open in Brooklyn. For a namesake, organizers chose the Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran, a pacifist, an immigrant to New York, and a Christian so obsessed with Jesus he often said the Son of God visited him in his dreams. With a name like Khalil Gibran International Academy, they thought, surely no one would mistake it for a Muslimschool.

“Imbuing pan-Arabism and anti-Zionism, proselytizing for Islam, and promoting Islamist sympathies will predictably make up the school’s true curriculum,” professional anti-Muslim Daniel Pipes wrote in a New York Sun op-ed, “A Madrassa Grows in Brooklyn.” Later, he’d admit the claim was “a bit of a stretch.” No matter: Pipes’ rallying cry was heard by conservative activists, who founded a Stop the Madrassa Coalition, unleashing a vicious tarring of Khalil Gibran’s would-be principal, Debbie Almontaser. Three years later, those same activists would set upon the “Ground Zero mosque.” “All of these groups are connected and working on one thing,” Almontaser told a colleague and me recently, “to eliminate anything Arab or Muslim in the United States.”

A pillar of the local interfaith community and longtime educator, Debbie Almontaser worked with the Bloomberg administration to make Khalil Gibran a reality. The Timescalled Almontaser “arguably the city’s most visible Arab-American woman.” She carries herself tall and wears a simple, tightly-wrapped hijab that covers her hair but not her neck, making her high cheekbones all the more striking. Kind but authoritative, with a girlish lilt in her voice that puts one instantly at ease, “Principal Almontaser” would’ve suited her well.

The summer before Almontaser was to take the helm of Khalil Gibran, Stop the Madrassa spokeswoman Pamela Hall went trolling at New York’s annual Muslim Day Parade. Hall found a t-shirt that read “Intifada NYC” and snapped a picture. Gold mine: Almontaser was on the board of an organization that rented office space to the women’s group that made the t-shirt.

In our post-9/11 landscape of guilt-by-association, a time when every public American Muslim must prove their nonviolence by ritually denouncing radical Islam and Hamas, it was enough of a smoking gun. Department of Education officials pressured Almontaser to do an interview with the New York Post, the city’s preeminent tabloid. The next day, newsstands were plastered with the words “CITY PRINCIPAL IS ‘REVOLTING’: TIED TO ‘INTIFADA NYC’ SHIRTS.” The Bloomberg administration forced Almontaser to resign; in September, Khalil Gibran opened without her. Installed in her stead was an Orthodox Jewish woman who spoke no Arabic. Stop the Madrassa wanted more: specifically, Khalil Gibran’s closure. Staff took precautions not to give them fuel. “We cut pictures of mosques out of the Arabic books,” one teacher told Colorlines magazine as the school year began. “We are afraid that anything could be taken out of context.” But such measures would never be enough; the damage was done. Stop the Madrassa et al., triumphant, had caught a whiff of what they could accomplish.

*

Now that the fervor over Park51, the so-called “Ground Zero mosque.” has died down somewhat, we can actually step back, take a look around, and consider: the shitstorm that just passed through town is a familiar one. The proposed Islamic cultural center in Lower Manhattan is the Brooklyn “madrassa” all over again, with the same cast of conservative activists working to block the mainstreaming of Muslims in the public sphere. Imam Abdul Feisal Rauf wants to create essentially a Muslim YMCA in Lower Manhattan? They say he supports Hamas and has terrorist ties. Debbie Almontaser wanted to head a public school that’d specialize in Arabic? Also—you guessed it—a Hamas supporter with terrorist ties. And repeat.

The anti-Muslim voices in the echo chamber are the same now as they were three years ago. They never stopped; they talked amongst themselves, writing books and articles and blog posts, the in-crowd growing larger and more devoted—until another big, ambitious project spearheaded by Muslims came around. Suddenly a mass amplification took place, and we found ourselves asking a question traditionally under the purview of the Right: what is happening to our country?

Khalil Gibran was not the beginning; our local and national history can be read as a grand succession of shitstorms. Yes, nativism is the great American common denominator. And New York has its own specific tradition of reactionary backlashes, in which the majority sees both its safety and entire way of life threatened by minorities. Where to begin?

Suzanne Wasserman of CUNY’s Gotham Center for New York City History points to colonial New York’s fears of slave rebellion. It was a time when 1/5th of Manhattanites were owned by another in what historian Jill Lepore has termed “a wretched calculus of urban unfreedom.” Accused of plotting to kill every single white person on the island, dozens of slaves were either burned at the stake or hanged in 1741. In the next century, Wasserman notes New York saw riots against Irish Catholics in the 1830s, the anti-immigrant Know Nothing movement of the 1840s and 1850s, and the draft riots during the Civil War, when angry mobs of resentful working class whites attacked African-Americans, carrying out lynchings in the West Village. Twentieth-century New York saw race riots, and lots of them: 1919, 1935, 1943, 1968, and more. Then there were the hard-hat riots against the New Left in 1970, when construction workers attacked anti-war protestors near City Hall. Lest we be lacking in sympathy for angry mobs, we’d do well to remember the Stonewall riots and the Tompkins Square Park riot, when gays and the homeless did battle with the cops—or rather, in the case of the latter, were outright attacked by NYPD’s finest.

Nowadays, we don’t lynch, and we riot rarely. The occasional individual will stab a Muslim cabbie in Manhattan, beat a Mexican on Staten Island, or kill an Ecuadorian on Long Island. Mostly, we blog. An angry, fearful mob, posting and commenting, commenting and posting, in a town square cobbled with pornography and hate speech: the internet.

And yet, Mayor Bloomberg offers an appealing narrative of progress. In a landmarkspeech on Governors Island in August, he declared his unwavering support for Park51, the Islamic cultural center in Lower Manhattan. He termed New York “the freest city in the world,” a “hard-won” freedom thanks to a long line of struggles beginning in the 17th century with Jews and Quakers petitioning the Dutch—unsuccessfully—for the right to build a synagogue and hold meeting groups, respectively. “I do agree with Bloomberg that we are the most tolerant city in the entire universe,” Wasserman wrote me in an email—a proud New Yorker, backlashes and all.

From Khalil Gibran to Park51, these last three years can be read as a narrative of progress for Bloomberg as well: finally, some might sigh with relief, he has remembered his own people’s history of discrimination and, seeing the fate of the Jews as irrevocably tied with the fate of all oppressed peoples, seen the light. Not quite. For starters, Almontaser pointed out, Bloomberg still steadfastly refuses to include Muslim holidays in the New York public school calendar.

And then there’s Israel. Objectively speaking, Bloomberg and his administration threw Debbie Almontaser under the bus because of a t-shirt with the words “Intifada NYC.” Almontaser failed to denounce the word to the New York Post. Instead, she’d given the educator’s answer: a history lesson.

“We all know what a huge supporter of Israel Bloomberg is,” Almontaser told me. Exhibit A: the mayor’s trip to the Jewish state during the 2008-09 attack on Gaza. Israel, Almontaser says, is “the elephant in the room” of New York politics. It’s a force that can make the mayor demand a public school principal’s resignation. A force that can make Chuck Schumer, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, defend Israel’s blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, saying the goal is a honorable one: “to strangle them economically.” Such is the power of Zionism that it asks Jews, the majority of whom lean leftward, “to check their liberalism at [the] door,” as Peter Beinart put it.

Were Abdul Feisal Rauf to say a single critical word about Israel, Almontaser predicted Bloomberg would withdraw his support for Park51 in a heartbeat.

“Anything is possible,” she said.

“When it comes to Bloomberg and Israel?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” she replied with a laugh.

It struck me as a very Jewish response, in a way: finding humor in the stuff of the world’s wrongs against you.

*

So: Mayor Bloomberg caved to Stop the Madrassa, and Debbie Almontaser lost her school. So what? In a state in which the mayor is the most powerful elected official, action counts. “Bloomberg has empowered them,” Almontaser said of the constellation of conservative activists who fought Khalil Gibran. It was an emboldening victory, a glimpse of the power of the blog. “His stance of not standing up to them gave them credence.”

Who is “them,” anyway? The dynamic duo of Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer deserve an extended introduction, as they were vocal saber rattlers against Khalil Gibran and then emerged the leading voices against Park51—Geller in particular. She is an arch-conservative Upper East Side Zionist Jew, a Tea Partier, a conspiracy theorist, a supporter of the neo-fascist English Defense League, and proprietor of the website Atlas Shrugs, ranked the 16th most popular conservative blog by Compete Site Analytics. There, she Photoshopped a picture of Elena Kagan in Nazi regalia and infamously re-posted another blogger’s theory that Barack Obama could very well be Malcolm X’s lovechild. “I love Muslims,” Geller declares just about as often as she says, “Hitler was inspired by Islam.” With funding from David Horowitz’s Freedom Center and the ultra-right wing, pro-Israel philanthropists Aubrey and Joyce Chernick, Spencer runs a website called Jihad Watch and is the pseudo-academic of the two. ANew York Times-bestselling author, he is a man Karen Armstrong once described as having “studied Islam for 20 years, largely, it seems, to prove that it is an evil, inherently violent religion.”

In May, Geller became the first person to write in opposition to what was then called Cordoba House (“Monster Mosque Pushes Ahead in Shadow of World Trade Center Islamic Death and Destruction”). For months afterward, she led the anti-Muslim bloggers’ brigade against the Islamic center, a clamor amplified by conservative media—until Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich blew it up into a national issue.

Spencer told me their friendship began in 2006, when Geller introduced herself at a conference; they had a mutual friend, Dr. Andrew Bostom, a Brown University medical school professor and, as the author of The Legacy of Jihad and The Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism, a semi-professional anti-Muslim. One of Spencer and Geller’s early partnerships was organizing a rally about Rifqa Bary, a teenage Muslim girl who converted to Christianity and ran away from her Ohio home, claiming her family threatened to kill her. The police found no evidence to support her allegations, but Bary’s case has become a focal point for those in the anti-Muslim cottage industry predicated on Islam’s doctrinal mandates to violence.

“There is no justification for so-called honor killing in Islamic law or religion,” Georgetown professor John Esposito emphasizes, calling it a “cultural phenomenon” found among Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, and, yes, Muslims. Spencer and Geller are obsessed with the figure of the dead Muslim girl, killed by her family in the name of Islam. On Atlas Shrugs, Geller prominently features pictures of alleged honor killing victims, pretty girls in make-up without hijabs, killed—according to Geller and Spencer’s logic—for becoming Western. Spencer and Geller are interested only in dead Muslims or ex-Muslims: “I fight for the moderates,” Geller told Right Wing News, adding, “I fight for people that are leaving Islam.” At the same time, they cast themselves as “human rights activists,” Muslims’ saviors from the inherent violence of Islam—but what they offer in its stead is unclear.

Together Spencer and Geller now run Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), the stateside offshoot of Stop the Islamization of Europe (motto: “Racism is the lowest form of human stupidity, but Islamophobia is the height of common sense”). SIOA is under the banner of the Freedom Defense Initiative (on whose board sits John Joseph Jay, a retired lawyer who blogs in support of violence against Muslims: ‘There are no innocent muslims.  islam is subject to killing on grounds of political expediency on the same basis as islam kills its victims” [sic]). SIOA is responsible for the MTA bus adsdepicting the Twin Towers in flames beside an artist’s rendering of Park51 emblazoned with a star and crescent (SIOA’s addition), and the words “Why there?”

This spring, SIOA advertisements graced buses and taxis in major metropolitan cities across the country, asking, “Leaving Islam? Is your family threatening you?” and directed readers to refugefromislam.com, an empty shell of a website. The ads faced opposition in New York and elsewhere, and their lawyer was the inimitable David Yerushalmi, an ultra-right wing Zionist who advocates 20-year prison sentences for practicing Muslims. He once lamented that one gets unfairly termed a racist when telling the truth “of Islam as an evil religion, or of blacks as the most murderous of peoples (at least in New York City), or of illegal immigrants as deserving of no rights.” And in yet another sign of the Right’s mainstreaming of its fringe, three Republican members of the House recently endorsed “Sharia: The Threat to America,” a reportYerushalmi co-authored. Along with Daniel Pipes, Yerushalmi was a board member of Stop the Madrassa.

It would be much easier if we could write the Robert Spencers and Pamela Gellers of the world off as fringe racist crazies. But their books sell; their blogs get more traffic than Killing the Buddha ever will. Simon and Schuster gave Spencer and Geller a six-figure advance to write their book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America, blurbed by Geert Wilders, the nativist Dutch MP who wants to ban the burqa and the Qur’an. Recently in Virginia, the FBI and the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force even had Spencer teach law enforcement agents about the threats of Islam—an educator’s role he often plays for the Army and assorted intelligence agencies. Together, Spencer and Geller are shining examples of successful conservative activism via media punditry.

*

The thread that connects Khalil Gibran and Park51 is something we’ve been facing this whole post-9/11 decade: a sizeable swath of Americans is simply not okay with Muslims in the public sphere. It is an unease that lies dormant, not front page news, but quietly showing its symptoms. In 2002, the Council on American-Islamic Relationsreceived 602 civil rights complaints from Muslims, ranging from hate crimes to mosque vandalism; by 2009, that number was up to 2,728. In explaining the recent outpouring of anti-Muslim hysteria, progressives have been quick to point to Obama’s blackness—a catalyst, to be sure, but let’s not forget who paved the path along which we’ve been traveling. It was the Bush administration who paid lip service to Islam as a “religion of peace” even while rounding up Arab-Americans for detention and questioning. To be Arab-American was and is to be suspect, a potential threat, and Americans believe in defensive offensives, after all.

Over the summer, an internet meme spread: “This is NYC on Madison Ave,” read the subject line, followed by photos of Muslims bowing in prayer in the streets. And a warning: “they are claiming America for allah.” That the pictures were taken at the 2009 Muslim Day Parade was beside the point. They want to take over, and they’re doing it via legal means. They’re using the system against us. Their freedom of religion means we lose control of our country. “They plan this event so we can watch them praying on Madison avenue [sic],” Pamela Hall, the “Intifada NYC” t-shirt photographer, wrote of this fall’s 2010 Muslim Day Parade. It’s the kind of reactionary logic of the Christian Right, complaining about having to suffer the indignity of seeing a gay couple holding hands in public—or worse, a gay teacher (who must surely be recruiting children). And even worse than that, a Muslim principal (who must surely be converting them).

The Madison Avenue meme has been used to rationalize conservative activism. “Synagogues and churches, people do not pray in the streets. They do not take their little carpets out and pray in the street,” a Sheepshead Bay woman named Susan Gerber told me—adding emphatically, “We have pictures.” A former public school teacher, Gerber is a member of a group called Bay People, which is fighting the construction of a local mosque. “I envision people praying all along Voorhies Avenue, like practically in front of my house a block and a half down.” Others express their opposition more forcefully. “If they build a mosque there, I’m going to bomb the mosque,” one man told the Brooklyn Paper at a Bay People rally in June.

*

In July, Tennessee Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey described Islam as a “cult” unworthy of First Amendment rights. The national atmosphere was such that he seemed less like an unhinged politician and more a representative of the unhinged populace, professing to be “all about the freedom of religion,” but “you cross the line when they start trying to bring Sharia law into the United States.” Yes, it’s come to this, and who knows where it’s going.

A week before this year’s 9/11 anniversary, a new protest against Park51 began. A car circled the block, towing a decommissioned missile aimed skyward, toward the thirteen stories that would eventually—hopefully, maybe, if they do indeed raise the funds—comprise the so-called “megamosque.” Along the side, an inscription: “Religion preying on freedom.” After the summer we’d had, was it much of a shocker?

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

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

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

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

On Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer winkingly termed the Copt incident a “kerfuffle” and posted a statement from Nasralla. The mob’s violence and his own fear were both magically absent from Nasralla’s statement. “We Coptic Christians wanted to express our full support to your initiative and to this important rally,” Nasrallah wrote in a letter addressed to Spencer and Geller, adding that the confrontation was “blown out of proportion” and the crowd had simply “mistaken” them as “Muslims infiltrators trying to disrupt the event.”

When I asked Spencer about the June 6th rally, he insisted on reading Nasrallah’s statement from start to finish over the phone. Irritation was palpable in his voice, rising as he went along. Reaching the final line, Spencer trilled the letters in the Copt’s last name with a disdainful flourish. “Yours truly, Joseph Nassss-RRRALLL-ahhh,” he said, exasperated.

I invited Spencer to explain how he and Geller are not stirring up anti-Muslim violence. “There isn’t any anti-Muslim violence,” he shot back. “Where is it? Tell me an incident.” The CAIR reports? Those are “false hate crimes, often done by Muslims themselves”—a point Daniel Pipes has been harping on for years. The perpetrators’ motivation, Spencer says, is to “bamboozle people into thinking that Muslims are being victimized.”

Among Pamela Geller’s more incendiary writings on Atlas Shrugs was a piece in which she called for the destruction of the Dome of the Rock. “The dome has got to go,” Geller wrote not once but twice. Definitely not incitement, said Spencer, and here he grew jovial. “If Ms. Geller were leading an army, and they had bulldozers, and they were about to knock over the Dome of the Rock, then you might have a point.” He was clearly amused that I could conceive of such a thing. “It isn’t as if Pamela Geller is the IDF.”

But then he grew serious, concerned for my political salvation. “I’m talking to you as a human being,” he implored, trying to reach some inner part of me that would be receptive. “You keep talking to me as a reporter,” Spencer lamented. (After the interview Spencer devoted a Jihad Watch post to our exchange, calling me “beneath contempt.”) He thought I was missing the point by focusing on hyperbolic rhetoric—that my heart had grown callous to the plight of female Muslim apostates, killed according to the laws inscribed in all Islam.

“I know there’s a soul in there,” Spencer told me solemnly. Our conversation was wrapping up. “I know that you must have some sense of justice.”

*

Debbie Almontaser is now a PhD student at Fordham University, where she studies education policy. Perhaps, she says, she’ll help other educators launch multicultural schools of their own. “At this point, I have chosen to move on,” she explains. But not if the anti-Muslim machine has anything to do with it: Pamela Hall and two other Stop the Madrassa members filed a defamation suit against Almontaser after she delivered a statement on the steps of City Hall saying, “Members of the coalition stalked me wherever I went and verbally assaulted me.” Litigation is ongoing.

In March, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that New York City’s Department of Education had discriminated against Almontaser in forcing her to resign. “It was an absolute vindication for me and others who faced such scrutiny within the Arab and Muslim community,” she concludes. And yet: the ruling only ceded Almontaser the moral high ground, not a just resolution. The Bloomberg administration didn’t offer to reinstate her as Khalil Gibran’s principal. Or even to apologize.

On the eve of September 11th, not an angry mob but rather a vigil formed in Lower Manhattan, organized by a broad coalition that teamed up in support of Park51. Volunteers passed out tall candlesticks with paper cups at the top to catch the wax. A thousand New Yorkers filled up a block on Park Place, each holding a glowing orb on a stick. Behind us, the beams from “Tribute to Light” formed the Twin Towers in the night sky.

A group began singing “Happy Birthday” to their friend who had just turned 80, and everyone nearby joined in merrily. “I can’t imagine a better way to celebrate my birthday,” the woman said as she looked around smiling, holding hands with her white-haired husband. At one point, a friend accidentally set her paper cup aflame, and we all had a laugh as she waved it out like a campfire marshmallow. We were a we. No one was really listening to the speeches, it seemed to me, but a warm feeling of belonging had settled in—a sense of being among kindred spirits who could commiserate silently about the madness taking over this country, briefly escaping it. This was the night before Geert Wilders joined Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller for a rally against the “megamosque” blocks away; no doubt its attendees had similar feelings.

Pamela Hall, the “Intifada NYC” t-shirt photographer, was there with her camera at the vigil, too. Always on the prowl for more fodder for the online mill, Hall planted herself in front of the stage and began snapping photos. Nearby, the “intifada principal” chatted with the other vigil organizers. By now, they recognize one another, of course. Debbie Almontaser looked into the lens and smiled for the camera, weary but defiant.

Kristian Ishmael

Islamophobia knows no race and hopefully these kids will realize that attacking people for their religion or ethnicity is wrong and will not be sanctioned.

Muslim teen beaten, called a ‘terrorist’ by classmates says he stayed silent out of fear

(NY Daily News)

A Muslim boy says four bullies made his life a living hell in the halls of a Staten Island public school, calling him a “terrorist” and beating him every chance they got.

The victim, a 16-year-old high school freshman, told his father and the police of the constant abuse he endured, prompting the arrests Sunday of his teen tormenters on suspicion of hate crimes.

“[They] punched me in my groin, and I fell to the floor. They started kicking me, and calling me ‘You f—in’ terrorist,’ ‘You f—in’ Muslim,’” the victim, Kristian, told the Daily News.

Word of Kristian’s emotionally scarring ordeal comes during a disturbing spike in hate crimes across the city, highlighted by Friday’s sadistic Bronx gang torture of two teens and an adult because they were gay.

Kristian – his voice shaky, his hands clenched in his lap – and his parents spoke to The News on grounds their last name not be used.

The boy, the American-born, only child of Trinidadian immigrants, said the abuse began in October 2009 while he was a student at the Edwin Markham Intermediate School. He said the almost-daily abuse didn’t end until he graduated from the school in June.

He finally told his father when he began his freshman year last month at Port Richmond High School and saw two of the bullies sitting in one of his classes; he hasn’t returned to class since.

“I think I can’t go through a year like this again,” said the soft-spoken victim, who first told his story to the Staten Island Advance.

The four suspects – three 14-year-old Latinos and a 15-year-old African-American – were arrested on charges of assault and aggravated harassment – both as hate crimes. They were all released to their parents and are expected to be formally charged as early as today as minors. Their names were not made public.

Kristian said the bullying began when the thugs first called him gay and quickly escalated to him being battered for his Muslim heritage and blamed for terrorist bombings.

“I was very scared that if I told the teachers…they would beat me up more,” Kristian said.

He said he remained silent, hoping and praying they would stop.

“It kept going on,” he said. “The kids were in my class and they would see me in the halls.”

He said one of the teen thugs brazenly attacked him in class, in front of a teacher.

“[He] touched me here and here,” he said, pointing to his left elbow and forehead.

The teacher scolded the menace, saying, “‘Why did you do that for? He’s a good boy. Leave him alone. Why do you keep bothering him?’”

Outside of class, things got worse.

“Four kids punched me everywhere. They would spit in my face, and kick and punch me. I had injuries,” Kristian said.

Once he was kicked so hard he had blood in his urine and had to go and see his doctor.

His father, whose first name is Shaffiate, said Kristian, a once-promising student and gifted piano player, has given up music and his grades have suffered.

“He’s afraid to go outside alone,” the father said.

The family wants him transferred to a new school.

jlauinger@nydailynews.com

With Rocco Parascandola

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/10/11/2010-10-11_si_muslim_teen_beaten_mocked_by_classmates.html?r=news#ixzz12GI4A475

The latest manifestation of Islamophobia to get some media attention has been the attempt by paranoid Islamophobes to have a Muslim community remove the body of their deceased ones from a cemetery that they own. Stephen Colbert mocked them with his skit on Muslim Vampires and Keith Olberman designated the leader of the anti-Muslims, Bob McCarthy, as the Worst Person in the World. (hat tip: Yursil)

Islamophobia? What Islamophobia?

The Hudson Islamic Center was targeted by vandals who spray painted racial slurs and anti-government messages on the mosque, obviously upset over the proximity of Hudson to Ground Zero,

Hudson mosque vandalized

HUDSON — City detectives are searching for the vandals who spray-painted a racial slur on a local mosque and an anti-government obscenity in an alley near the house of worship, according to police.

Hudson Lt. Lynne Finn said the vandalism occurred sometime between midnight and 5 a.m. Wednesday at the Hudson Islamic Center on North 3rd Street. The epithet was left on the rear of the mosque while the anti-government rant was spray painted on a wooden fence in an alleyway adjacent to the mosque at the corner of North 3rd Street and Long Alley, Finn said.

Finn said both were done with red paint.

The building is located downtown in a residential area, Finn added.

And from the city of brotherly love which must be to close to Ground Zero as well,

Thanks, Philadelphia, For At Least Keeping Your Intolerance Peaceful

The cover of the Philadelphia Daily News today promises to explain “Why Islamophobia is Raging Elsewhere in America, but Not in Philly.” Awesome! Apparently we hate Muslims less than other people hate them, which is nice of us. Will Bunch writes:

Here in Philadelphia and the suburbs, Islamic leaders acknowledge that this region has so far been spared major incidents like the others, and they say that the overall climate for Muslims here has not been as negative as elsewhere.

Philadelphia’s Muslim population is relatively large and has been a part of the city for decades, which could partially explain why this year’s nativist panic en vogue hasn’t touched us quite as much. Bunch’s article also points to the diversity of Philly’s Muslim population, which includes a significant segment of African-American Muslims. In other words: Islam in Philadelphia’s collective subconscious is more Freeway and less foreigners+Islam=terrorism. Bunch, of course, is in a unique position to comment on all of this. His new book, Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, Hi-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama, is just out, and as it happens, he’s reading from it tonight at Rittenhouse Barnes & Noble.

But Philadelphia apparently does hate Muslims at least a little bit. Bunch tells us about a 25-year-old Muslim who was called a terrorist by a customer at a pharmacy where he worked and was forced to quit his job after he walked off in anger. Bunch also tells us that Moein Khawaja, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Philadelphia office, has seen an increase in that kind of bigotry over the past couple of years. On the plus side, we haven’t set fire to Mosque construction sites or stabbed any Muslim cab drivers, which I guess is a start. But, uh, is that really enough to earn Philadelphia a column patting it on the back for its “Tolerance toward Islam?” The result of low expectations, perhaps?

and don’t forget about Arizona,

Mosque under construction in Phoenix vandalized

by Frank Camacho

azfamily.com

Posted on September 7, 2010 at 9:10 PM

PHOENIX – Staff at a Phoenix mosque is cleaning up broken glass and graffiti after vandals break in.

The mosque has been under construction near Interstate 17 and Glendale for a while now but recently vandals doused floor with paint after breaking a door and several windows, including some near the ceiling.

The damage is not extensive but local Muslim leaders say they see this as a sign of the times, given the controversy over the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero.

No one has yet been arrested for the crime.

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.”

The backlash against Muslims continues. I am sure Islamophobes will give this guy a break and say he was drunk, but do you think they would have given Mel Gibson the same break for his drunken anti-Semitic tirade?

‘Drunk’ desecration at mosque

By FRANK ROSARIO and JESSICA SIMEONE

A drunk barged into a Queens mosque last night and shouted anti-Muslim slurs as he urinated on prayer rugs, cops and witnesses said.

Evening prayers were disrupted at the Iman Mosque on Steinway Street in Astoria when the unhinged man “came in with a beer bottle in his hands, clearly very intoxicated,” said Mustapha Sadouki, who was attending services.

“He fumbled over to our rugs where people were praying” and then committed the despicable desecration, Sadouki said,

The man, identified by cops as Omar Rivera, also allegedly shouted slurs, calling the worshippers “terrorists.”

Two men managed to subdue him. They put him a back room and called 911.

Cops took him to a hospital and later charged him with criminal trespass.

“He stuck up his middle finger and cursed at everyone,” said Sadouki, 43.

“No one can pray now because the rugs are completely soiled. It was disgusting.

“He calls us terrorists, yet he comes into our mosque and terrorizes other people.

“This is a true hate crime.”

A different New York Muslim story.

Once in a while we like to showcase positive stories that reflect the goodness in people and efforts to contribute to bettering society.

Yusuf Ramelize is a devout Muslim who is taking the initiative to make a difference for homeless people.

Graphic designer will be ‘Homeless for one Week’ in Union Square Park to raise money, awareness

by Irving Dejohn

A Queens man is hoping to turn sleeping on the streets into big bucks for the homeless.

Yusef Ramelize, a 33-year-old graphic designer, will leave his Ozone Park apartment Sunday and take up residence in Union Square Park. He won’t shower and he won’t have shelter during his “Homeless for One Week” project.

“My reasoning for doing this is to inspire people to make sacrifices within their own lives,” Ramelize said of his project, now in its second year.

He raised $3,635 in March 2009 and donated it to the Coalition for the Homeless. This year’s beneficiary will be the Food Bank of New York.

Ramelize will hand out flyers and keep a videotaped diary of his experiences in order to help elicit donations on his website, homelessforoneweek.com.

“It’s really about me pushing myself to see how much of a sacrifice I’m willing to make every year to get the word out,” Ramelize said.

Ramelize chose Union Square to pay homage to his biggest inspiration, Mohandas Gandhi, who is immortalized with a statue on the west side of the park.

“That’s one of the reasons I did it here,” Ramelize admits. “He wanted to bring peace around him, and he was willing to sacrifice his life.”

As if braving the elements for seven days wasn’t enough, the slender Ramelize will also be fasting from sunrise to sunset for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

His employer, Informa, gave him the week off without forcing him to dip into his vacation time – something Ramelize said he’s grateful for. His boss, Nora Pastenkos, said it was a “no-brainer” to allow him to take the time to pursue his cause.

“Many people just walk by the homeless. He’s one of those unique people who doesn’t just walk by – he tries to make a difference,” Pastenkos said.

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

It seems as though it has been a slow descent into inconsistency and betrayal of values for the ADL. An excellent and poignant article from Hollywood director Kamran Pasha.

The ADL Defames its Jewish Heritage

by Kamran Pasha

People often ask me what it is like being one of the first Muslims to succeed in Hollywood. There is always a hint of surprise in their tone, as if they never expected to meet a Muslim who has made strides in the entertainment industry. Because the real question they are asking is a more uncomfortable one: “How have you managed to succeed in a town filled with Jews?”

My response is one that usually takes them aback. I tell them that the only people who have helped me to succeed in Hollywood are Jews. It was Jewish studio executives who gave me my first writing breaks, and Jewish writers, directors and producers have served as my mentors and allies over the past decade. Without the help of Jews, this Muslim would still be writing scripts in a café somewhere, desperately hoping to find a way to break into Hollywood.

Others are surprised when I say that, but I am not. I grew up in Borough Park, a primarily Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, and most of my close friends over the course of my life have been Jews. Despite our often passionate disagreements about Middle Eastern politics, my Jewish friends and I always find common ground in our shared experience of being a religious minority in a predominantly Christian country.

Both American Jews and American Muslims know what it is like to feel out of place, to long for inclusion in a mainstream society that is often filled with ignorance and hate for our faiths. We know what it is like going to elementary school and being reviled by our classmates for not believing that Jesus is the Son of God. We know what it is like being mocked for having different customs at home, for celebrating holidays that our Christian neighbors have never heard of (and often can’t pronounce). We know what it is like to be preached to every day by neighbors trying to convert us and “save our souls.” We know what it is like to be told that our religion is inferior to Christianity by people who do not understand even the most basic tenets of our faiths (as well as their own).

Despite the real political differences that exist over Middle East policy between members of our communities, we have a common bond of being outsiders, of being the misunderstood “other” in a Christian world. And that common bond has always allowed me to transcend political differences with my Jewish friends and meet them on the field of shared loneliness that is the lot of those who are different.

And that is why it breaks my heart to watch a respected Jewish organization like the Anti-Defamation League fall into the abyss of anti-Muslim bigotry over the past several years. Many Americans, including many Jews, have expressed shock at the ADL’s recent announcement that it sides with bigots and fear-mongers who oppose the building of the Cordoba House Islamic center in southern Manhattan.

Regrettably, I am not surprised. The ADL, which was founded in 1913 as a powerful voice against religious discrimination in America, has over the past decade become increasingly xenophobic toward the Muslim community, which its leaders seem to view as a threat to Jews due to its lack of support for Israel. As a Christian friend who works in the Obama Administration lamented to me recently, the ADL has in essence become the “Pro-Defamation League” when it comes to Islam and Muslims.

The recent comments by Abraham Foxman, National Director of the ADL, against the proposed Muslim community center in New York are the latest in a long line of incidents where members of the ADL have promoted bigotry and discrimination against Arabs and Muslims. In 1993, the ADL illegally spied on American citizens who had spoken out in sympathy with Palestinians, generating a watch list of 10,000 names of private citizens and over 600 groups, and then selling the list to South African intelligence agents.

The ADL was sued for violating privacy rights and settled out of court. But the organization did not learn its lesson. Through the past decade, it has regularly organized smear campaigns around Muslim leaders and conferences, falsely imputing terrorist sympathies to some of the most moderate and respected leaders of the community.

In one of its ugliest campaigns, the ADL protested the right of Muslim college students at UC Irvine to wear graduation stoles that carried the Shahada, the basic testimony of Islamic faith: “There is no god but God and Muhammad is his Messenger.” The ADL claimed that the Muslim students were supporting terrorist groups like Hamas by wearing a common symbol of their religion. As a Muslim, I was left absolutely stunned at the stupidity of this argument. It was the equivalent of trying to bar Christian students from wearing crosses because the cross is a symbol that has been used by Christian extremists like the Crusaders and the Ku Klux Klan! The ADL was forced to apologize and retract its statements that the Shahada was “an expression of hate.”

To be fair, the ADL has in a few instances spoken up in defense of Muslim civil rights, notably when the topic of Israel is not involved. The ADL publicly denounced the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia and criticized the Swiss government for amending the constitution in 2009 to prevent the building of mosque minarets.

But the preponderance of its actions over the past decade have made it clear that when Muslim grievances against Israel are raised, the ADL will firmly side with its co-religionists rather than adhere to its underlying mission of standing for justice and equality for all humanity. On some level, perhaps that is understandable, if not excusable. But what is particularly shocking about the recent statements against the Cordoba House is that the ADL appears to have moved from a knee-jerk defense of Israel to an aggressive stance attacking American Muslims even when there is no criticism of Israel involved.

I have written at length on the Huffington Post about the founders of the Cordoba House and how they represent progressive Islam and embrace people of all religions, including Jews. I know Daisy Khan personally and she is a gracious and gentle woman who espouses love and wisdom, not hate. The writings of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf continue to inspire me and countless mainstream Muslims to improve our communities and defeat the extremists that threaten to corrupt Islam from within.

The opponents of the Islamic Center have gone out of their way to vilify and defame these honorable people, who are leaders of the moderate Islam that the media is always claiming doesn’t exist. Muslim leaders like Daisy Khan and Imam Abdul Rauf have endured with great dignity the double-pronged attack from their enemies. First, the media spreads the lie that Muslim leaders like them do not speak out against terrorism. And when they do speak out, they are either ignored or lumped in with the very extremists they are fighting. The Cordoba House is exactly the voice of moderate Islam that needs to be highlighted at a time when Muslim extremists and anti-Muslim bigots both want Islam, a spiritual path of great beauty, to be seen as a religion of hate and death.

But what is particularly painful for me as a Muslim is to watch how a group like the ADL, born out of the horrible experience of anti-Semitism and bigotry in America, can so easily turn its back on its heritage in order to join forces with the voices of hate and division. If any community knows what it is like to be branded with false stereotypes, to have the innocent condemned as guilty, it is the long-suffering Jewish people. To have its leaders now embrace the mindless, drunken crowd in its march of hate against a fellow religious minority’s right of worship, it is beyond obscene. And it is a fundamental rejection of everything that Judaism stands for.

In my latest novel, Shadow of the Swords, I delve deeply into the character of Maimonides, the great Jewish rabbi, who was friend and advisor to the Muslim sultan Saladin during the Crusades. In examining the experience of Maimonides, a Jew living as a minority among Muslims, I sought to demonstrate the ancient sympathy and understanding that Jews and Muslims had for each other at a time when both were being targeted by Christian persecutors. And I sought to share with my readers that the tenets of Judaism have always stood for social justice, mercy and wisdom, and that this ethical commitment served as a link of common understanding between Judaism and Islam at a time when Christianity stood for ignorance, murder and barbarism.

People who have read my book have expressed wonder at how two communities that were once intimate friends have become so estranged in the past century. The reasons for these modern divisions are long and complex, and are mainly linked to the trauma of Western colonization of the Muslim world, and the suffering of the Palestinians when Israel was created as the byproduct of that colonial history. Despite efforts by some Christians and Jews (as well as extremists among Muslims) to portray the current tensions between these communities as rooted in theological and cultural foundations, the reality is that Jews and Muslims historically got along much better than either group did with European Christians. When the Spanish Inquisition expelled Jews from Spain, where they had thrived under Muslim rule for 800 years, Spanish Jews found refuge in the Muslim Ottoman Empire and rose to positions of great economic and political power.

What the current leadership of the ADL does not understand is that there is no ancient enmity between Jews and Muslims. If many Muslims have problems with Israel today, that arises from real grievances about the treatment of Palestinians, not inherent hatred for Judaism in Islamic culture. What the ADL appears to fear is that as Muslims become part of the American fabric of life, that their critiques of Israel will lead one day to United States abandoning its long-term ally. This fear is, frankly, insane.

There is a place for dialogue, debate and disagreement about Middle Eastern politics among American citizens, and that discussion will not threaten Israel’s existence. As President Obama made abundantly clear in his speech to the Islamic world in Cairo last year, the bond between the United States and Israel is “unbreakable.” So Abraham Foxman should relax and take a breath. Muslim empowerment in the United States will not lead to a second Holocaust. Muslims praying at a mosque in New York City will not lead to death camps and mass extermination of the Jewish community.

Muslim voices joining the public forum will not add to anti-Semitism in America. But if the Jewish community is seen as willing to join in discrimination against innocent Americans to promote its own agenda – that perception will fulfill every anti-Semite’s ugly and false perception of the Jewish community as a self-serving and hypocritical group that only cares about its own pain and not the pain of others.

That ugly vision is not the Judaism I studied in college, the Judaism of Maimonides and Martin Buber, nor does it reflect the Judaism that I have experienced in my relationships with Jews all my life. But it appears to be the cheap and unworthy vision of the ADL leadership, and as such dishonors the Jewish legacy to this world.

The Judaism that I admire, that I write about in my novel, is the true Judaism of love for mankind, of humility before God, of service and compassion. It is the Judaism that stands for the rights of the weak and the oppressed against the arrogance of those in power. It is the Judaism of Moses standing in defiance of the Pharaoh on behalf of a group of powerless slaves.

It is the Judaism of Rabbi Hillel, one of the greatest religious visionaries of all time. Decades before Jesus Christ proclaimed the Golden Rule, Rabbi Hillel is famed for his response to a questioner who wanted to know the essence of Judaism, of the Torah, in the time it took him to stand on one foot. Hillel responded that the whole of the Torah could be summarized in one sentence.

“Do not do unto others what you would not have others do unto you.”

To Mr. Foxman and the rest of the ADL leadership, I ask if in your hearts you would want people to accuse innocent Jews of being enemies of the state? Would you want Jews to accept vilification of their entire religion if a handful of Jews ever did something wrong? Would you want Jews to tacitly accept the lies that bigots had projected on to them? And finally, would you want Jews to be forced to shut down their synagogues because of the misguided passions of a mob?

Would you want this done to Jews?

If the answer is no, then I ask as your Muslim brother that you follow the wisdom of Rabbi Hillel and the sages of Judaism.

Do not do the same hateful thing to my people.

The hysteria of the anti-Mosque crowd continues in Staten Island.

Another Sunday, another protest against proposed Staten Island mosque

by Virgina N. Sherry

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. –  Midland Beach residents opposed to the sale of the empty convent of St. Margaret Mary parish to a Muslim group rallied yesterday afternoon for the second straight Sunday in front of the 2½ -story building, and this time other Staten Islanders joined them, carrying their own protest signs.

“I’m here to support this community because of how frightened everyone is of this group coming in to the neighborhood — the terrorism factor is a big part of it,” said Suzanne Adamo of Castleton Corners, who was born and raised in Midland Beach. She was referring to the Muslim American Society, a national organization whose Brooklyn/Staten Island chapter signed a contract last month with Rev. Keith Fennessy, the parish pastor, to purchase the convent.

“To me, they’re too closed,” added her husband Sal Adamo. “We don’t know them. It’s up to them to show us what and who they are. It’s very frightening.”

One sign on bright yellow cardboard read in black capital letters: “Muslim Brotherhood You Are Not Welcome Here.”

A major issue that has energized opponents of the convent-to-mosque conversion is the alleged links of MAS founders to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, and the belief of many neighborhood residents that the Muslim Brotherhood is itself a terrorist organization.

The U.S. State Department maintains a publicly available list of foreign terrorist organizations. The most current list, dated January 2010, includes the names of 45 groups from around the globe. The Muslim Brotherhood is not on the list.

‘NO FOREIGN TIES’

“Everyone in this country has safety concerns, and I think that’s fair and valid, especially in the wake of September 11,” MAS local spokeswoman Lana Safah said in a phone interview on last night.

“We want to reiterate that we have no ties or affiliations to any foreign entities whatsoever,” she added. “And we have maintained the same position from the beginning — we are willing to speak to whoever wishes to speak to us.”

“I’m very against the way this sale went through — it was deceitful and sinful,” said Carolyn Pinto of New Dorp, who attended St. Margaret Mary elementary school. “This is a Christian community. The people here are the church. Archbishop [Timothy] Dolan has hurt the Catholics of Midland Beach, and it cuts like a knife.”

Anthony Sagona, also New Dorp, saw no nuance. “We don’t want the mosque. This is a nice neighborhood and we hope to keep it that way,” he said, adding that he was born in Midland Beach and lived there for 50 years. “I hope the deal falls through.”

Native Islander Christine Marra of Grant City said she was “opposed to the sale of the convent to a non-Christian organization,” and held a hand-written sign that read “Tell the Archdiocese No Mosque. Boycott the Basket.”

“I feel betrayed by the New York Archdiocese,” she commented. “I’ve been donating money my entire adult life with the intention of spreading the Gospel and the Christian message.”

TENSION OVER A BANNER

Some division in the anti-mosque crowd became apparent when a long banner was unfurled, emblazoned with color photographs and the words “We Will Never Forget!” It referenced the killing of Coptic Christians in Egypt, where they remain a beleaguered minority without full civil rights, including freedom of worship and the right to freely build churches.

The U.S. State Department, in its 2009 “Report on International Religious Freedom,” said that Egypt’s constitution “provides for freedom of belief and the practice of religious rites,” but added that “the Government restricts these rights in practice. Islam is the official state religion, and Shari’a is the principal source of legislation.”

One of the people holding up the banner was Magdi Saweres, a Cairo-born Copt who has lived in Midland Beach for the last eight years.

“You see..they [Islamic extremists] killed these kids in Egypt,” he explained to someone reading the large banner.

“That’s not our issue! They should not be here!” said Rosemary Vasquenz, an officer of the Midland Beach Civic Association, who then walked away in disgust.

“We’re not in Egypt — we’re in the U.S.” another resident chimed in.

“They’re on our side, believe me,” intervened Thomas Bosco of Grasmere, who was helping to hold up the large banner.

Unlike the first rally last Sunday, yesterday’s included a uniformed police presence, and officers restricted protestors to the sidewalk after many spilled out onto Greeley Avenue, raising signs and cheering when drivers of passing vehicles slowed down and honked horns in support.

The rally, with about 175 people at its height, was periodically interrupted by a lone counter-demonstrator standing across the street from the convent. His shouts were ignored by the vociferous yet peaceful crowd.

It concluded at 1:30 p.m., with the crowd chanting “USA! USA!” as they dispersed.

MAS REACTION

The Advance received this written statement from MAS in reaction to yesterday’s rally:

“We as Americans understand and fully appreciate the need to feel safe, and the right and necessity to look into the background of any party or group.

“However, it is equally as important for individuals to do their homework, not just rely on the research and propaganda of other parties.

“We have and continue to make ourselves available for any sit downs or questions, be it with the Church board, Community Leaders or individuals in the community. We are committed to communication and dialog, and are willing at any time to address any valid community concerns.”

Archbishop Dolan said it best on his blog: “Yes, it is acceptable to ask questions about security, safety, the background and history of the groups hoping to build and buy… What is not acceptable is to prejudge any group, or to let fear and bias trump the towering American virtues of hospitality, welcome, and religious freedom.”

(cross-posted from NYMag)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sad.

Heated Opposition to a Proposed Mosque [NYT]

(cross-posted from Stageleft)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(cross-posted from Barth’s Notes)

by Richard Bartholomew

Apparently this was said with a straight face at Sunday’s anti-mosque protest in New York:

“We’re not here today to condemn Muslims or Islam” said Pamela Geller, executive director of ‘Stop the Islamization of America’, “but we are here today to condemn the kind of mosque that will teach the very same radical ideology that gave birth to the 9/11 attacks…”

As has been widely reported, Geller was speaking at a protest against plans to build a mosque and Muslim community centre a couple of blocks away from the site of World Trade Center. A few days before, Geller had thundered that

“The only Muslim center that should be built in the shadow of the World Trade Center is one that is devoted to expunging the Quran and all Islamic teachings of the violent jihad that they prescribe, as well as all hateful texts and incitement to violence”

Of course, this isn’t a statement made in good faith: a Muslim center with an “expunged” Quran makes about as much sense as a church with the anti-Jewish parts of the New Testament expunged or a synagogue with the more sanguinary passages of the Torah expunged – ancient religious texts may be re-interpreted or contextualised in ways that make them more amenable to the modern world, but they are seldom repudiated by adherents.

Some background to the Cordoba House Muslim centre project was provided by the WSJ‘s Metropolis blog in May:

The project is driven in part by the needs of a growing Muslim population in Lower Manhattan. The nearest existing Islamic prayer space, the Tribeca Mosque, has been holding three evening prayer services on Fridays to keep up with demand.

“New immigrants coming to the area — you see a lot of people coming to Canal Street, a lot of street vendors and laborers,” says Daisy Kahn, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement. “But also a lot of people in the financial community coming to prayers as well.”

When Kahn’s organization found a vacant property on Park Place, the former site of a Burlington Coat Factory that had been damaged by airplane debris on September 11, 2001, the potent symbolism of the site also became a compelling rationale for the project. “We decided we wanted to look at the legacy of 9/11 and do something positive,” she explained in an interview. Her group represents moderate Muslims who want “to reverse to trend of extremism and the kind of ideology that the extremists are spreading.”

For Geller and her Stop Islamization of America organization (currently on a roll following the “Leaving Islam?” bus-ad controversy), this is all a ruse – the purpose of the mosque is to gloat over the site of the World Trade Center and to establish Muslim supremacy over America; as reported by the London Times:

“What could be more insulting and humiliating than a monster mosque in the shadow of the World Trade Centre buildings that were brought down by an Islamic jihad attack?” said Pamela Geller, the group’s director. “Any decent American, Muslim or otherwise, wouldn’t dream of such an insult. It’s a stab in the eye of America.”

Ms Geller’s group said that Islam had a history of building mosques on top of the holy places of other religions as a symbol of Muslim dominance. It cited al-Aqsa Mosque on top of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Ayasofya Mosque in the former Hagia Sophia basilica in Istanbul, and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus atop what was once the Church of St John the Baptist.

The Times refered to an “anti-Muslim backlash”, which Geller objected to as a “lie” (Geller’s ally Robert Spencer does occasionally refer positively to “Muslims of conscience”, but how exactly they are to be defined is unclear).

Khan’s quote – slightly re-edited - has also been turned against her in a press release:

Daisy Khan has trivialized and insulted the memories of the victims of the 9/11 jihad attacks by saying that the mosque is intended to “make something positive out of 9/11.”

We’re also told that

…Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is an open proponent of Sharia, Islamic law, a system that denies the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all people before the law.

Abdul Rauf has said that “an Islamic state can be established in more then just a single form or mold. It can be established through a kingdom or a democracy. The important issue is to establish the general fundamentals of Shariah that are required to govern.” Thus it is clear that this mosque will teach Sharia, Islamic supremacism, and the denial of basic rights.

Abdul Rauf and other mosque organizers have been inconsistent and deceptive about whether their planned Islamic Center at Ground Zero will contain a mosque; ultimately they have admitted that it will. Belying his claim that this mosque will become a place for interreligious harmony, he has told the Arabic press: “I don’t believe in religious dialogue.”

This information was provided by Walid Shoebat (who was not at the protest himself);  it seems he’s realised that he needs to come up with some new material if he’s going to keep his profile up. However, even Shoebat’s article puts the “religious dialogue” comment into some context; in his translation, it refers to:

Religious dialogue as customarily understood is a set of events with discussions in large hotels that result in nothing.

From the Google translation of Shoebat’s source, it appears that Rauf goes on to praise American diversity and to criticise Egypt. But whether Rauf is secretly an extremist is hardly the main point – it is clear that SIOA objects to any mosque in principle.

The protest itself brought together the usual “anti-jihad” activists, along with a few 9/11 rescue workers and bereaved family members – Geller has posted a number of speeches. The event also gave a politician named Jay Townsend an opportunity to grandstand, and there was an attack on Obama from a certain Bev Carlson, who insisted that America is a “Christian nation”.

The size of the rally has been disputed; a journalist named Mike Kelly puts the figure at 500, Geller herself has declared there were 8,000, while WorldNetDaily rounds the number up to 10,000. Sentiments expressed on some of the protest signs made further mockery of Geller’s claim that “we are not here today to condemn Muslims or Islam”, and Kelly notes one telling incident:

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.

Ahead of the protest, there were various objections, ranging from some Muslim criticisms of the project through to the most vitriolic spewing. As was widely reported, a Texas radio host named Michael Berry expressed the hope that the mosque would be bombed, and his excess was matched by the Tea Party leader Mark Williams, who denounced the Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer, as “a Jewish Uncle Tom who would have turned rat on Anne Frank” because he supports the project. Across the Atlantic, atheist comedian Pat Condell fired off another of his hectoring (and curiously joke-free) rants, insisting (I paraphrase) that the mosque was obviously being built to celebrate 9/11 and as part of a strategy to take over the USA, that Islam ought to be suppressed as a political ideology akin to Nazism, and that anyone who can’t see this is a fool (Condell objects to religion in general as being authoritarian and supported by people who are self-righteous).

The Forward carried a thoughtful editorial on the subject a few weeks ago. While backing the project, it notes that

Some families of those who perished on September 11, 2001, have displayed great courage by supporting the proposal to create a 13-story hub for Muslim religious and cultural life, two blocks north of where the twin towers stood. But other families have not and — unlike some of the bigots who oppose the project for unjustifiable reasons — their qualms and resistance need to be respected.

But with so much overheated rhetoric on the subject, it is difficult to see how the project organisers could make any revisions to their plans without opponents trumpeting alterations as climb-downs that supposedly prove extremist intent.

Meanwhile, Geller’s motives have been derided by her equally-unpleasant rival “anti-jihadist” Debbie Schlussel; she dismisses the protest as “a cleverly designed PR vehicle”, and claims that Geller is expressing

…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… 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.

Schlussel, who has been in a feud with Geller for some time, also makes reference to the p0lice investigation into Geller’s ex-husband’s business affairs (I noted Geller’s book – which has a Foreword by John Bolton – here).

(S0me links H/T Loonwatch)

UPDATE: Ed Brayton has some fun with one detail:

Geller added, “There is a large piece of an airplane in that building. That is a war memorial”… That’s funny, there were pieces of airplane and debris in pretty much every building for many blocks in every direction after 9/11. And yet the only one she demands be made into a museum is the one owned by Muslims.

At least *this* was a better stereotype...

Reuters reports:

Pakistanis pose as Indians after NY bomb scare

(Reuters) – Pakistani merchants and job seekers in the United States, still reeling from economic hardship since the September 11 attacks of 2001, are posing as Indians to avoid discrimination in the wake of the Times Square bomb attempt.

…

“A lot of Pakistanis can’t get jobs after 9/11 and now it’s even worse,” said Asghar Choudhri, an accountant and chairman of Brooklyn’s Pakistani American Merchant Association. “They are now pretending they are Indian so they can get a job.”

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, creating hostilities that ordinarily would lead a Pakistani to resent being mistaken for an Indian.

…

Merchants in New York, many of whom declined to be named, still remember reprisals after September 11. Soon after the attacks, there was a drive-by shooting in Brooklyn at a Pakistani restaurant, which is now closed.

The local merchants association has shrunk to 150 members, from about 250 merchants almost a decade ago.

The FBI also arrested many undocumented workers in the neighborhood, leading to a wave of deportations, and residents would call law enforcement to make claims against their neighbors, including many false claims, Choudhri said…”We are embarrassed that the name of Pakistan came up.”

(cross-posted from ThinkProgress.org)

The chief suspect in the case of the failed Times Square car bombing is Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, who has confessed to the plot. Much of the media has latched onto Shahzad’s Muslim faith and his Pakistani identity, making inflammatory remarks and suggestions about Muslims and Pakistanis:

– CNN contributor and Redstate.com blogger Erick Erickson complained that the words “muslim” and “Islam” are “not mentioned” enough in stories about Shahzad. He wrote, “It really is pathetic that you’re more likely to see the words “racist” and “Republican” together in the newspaper these days than “terrorism” and “Islam.” [5/4/2010]

– Hate radio host Neal Boortz tweeted, “OMG! The Times Square Bomber is a Muslim! Shocker! Who would have believed it?” [5/4/2010]

– The cover of today’s Washington Post-published Express features a black-and-white photo of Shahzad with the sensationalist headline “MADE IN PAKISTAN” [5/5/2010]

Yet one fact being ignored in the American media’s sensationalist narrative about the failed bombing is that the man who was responsible for police finding the bomb was Muslim. The UK’s Times Online reports that Aliou Niasse, a Senagalese Muslim immigrant who works as a photograph vendor on Times Square, was the first to bring the smoking car to the police’s attention:

Aliou Niasse, a street vendor selling framed photographs of New York, said that he was the first to spot the car containing the bomb, which pulled up right in front of his cart on the corner of 45th street and Broadway next to the Marriott hotel.

“I didn’t see the car pull up or notice the driver because I was busy with customers. But when I looked up I saw that smoke appeared to be coming from the car. This would have been around 6.30pm.”

“I thought I should call 911, but my English is not very good and I had no credit left on my phone, so I walked over to Lance, who has the T-shirt stall next to mine, and told him. He said we shouldn’t call 911. Immediately he alerted a police officer near by,” said Mr Niasse, who is originally from Senegal and who has been a vendor in Times Square for about eight years.

As the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights notes, “South Asian, and Muslim communities may yield useful information to those fighting terrorism. Arabs and Arab Americans also offer the government an important source of Arabic speakers and translators. The singling out of Arabs, South Asians, Muslims, and Sikhs for investigation regardless of whether any credible evidence links them to terrorism will simply alienate these individuals and compromise the anti-terrorism effort.”

Reflecting on Niasse’s good samaritanism Muslim-American author Sumbul Ali-Karamali writes, “It’s somewhat consoling to know that the man who first noticed the smoking Nissan Pathfinder and sought help is also Muslim, a Senegalese immigrant. … I grew up Muslim in this country, with Muslim friends and non-Muslim friends, and there was very little difference between the two groups. We were all American.”

Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani origin, has been arrested in connection to the attempted Times Square car bombing.  Like other Americans, the Muslim (and Pakistani) American community is relieved that this attack failed and no lives were taken due to this dastardly deed.

The mainstream cable news networks have gone into overdrive, discussing the case in great detail and analyzing it in every which way.  Dozens of so-called “terrorism experts” talk in somber terms about the existential threat that Islamic radicalism poses.

Yet, it is amazing that none of them ask (and seek to really answer) the simple question: Why?  Why do these extremist Muslims keep targeting the United States?  It seems to be the most obvious and intuitive question.

As of now we do not know the motivation of the alleged car bomber but one speculation is that the bomber was targeting Viacom, the parent company of Comedy Central, in response to the  South Park controversy.  But could there be another reason as to why he did what he did?

Representative Ron Paul dared to explore that question in a televised debate, arguing: “They don’t come here to attack us because we are rich and we’re free. They come and they attack us because we’re over there [attacking them].”  When Dr. Paul said this seemingly common sense and painfully obvious thing, Rudy Guiliani–who virtually copyrighted 9/11–threw a hissy-fit and demanded Paul to issue an immediate apology, and went on to say that it was the most “absurd” explanation for 9/11 he’s ever heard.  The Republicans tried to silence Ron Paul, fearful that he would point out such an obvious fact that it may force them to reconsider their war-mongering views.

Similarly, the mainstream media engages in self-censorship, refusing to ask the most obvious question: why?  Why did this man of Pakistani descent attempt to bomb the United States of America?  Mayor Bloomberg tried to answer this question:

Terrorists around the world feel threatened by the freedoms we have in this country and want to take our freedoms away from us.

This preposterous answer reflects George Bush’s famous “terrorists hate us for our freedoms.”  Such a response divides the world neatly into good guys and bad guys.  Us vs. Them. We Americans are the good guys, and those evil Mooslems are the bad guys.  The bad guys hate us because of how good we are.

But could there be another reason that possibly motivated the bomber?  Could it have anything to do with what has caused widespread anti-American sentiment in his country of origin?  U.S. drone attacks on Pakistani soil have killed hundreds of Pakistani civilians.  According to Pakistani sources, upwards of 687 Pakistani civilians have died at the hands of U.S. drone attacks.  CNN’s national security analyst Peter Bergen placed the number a bit lower:

Since 2006, our analysis indicates, 83 U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan have killed between 760 and 1,050 people. Among them were about 20 leaders of al Qaeda, the Taliban and allied groups, all of whom have been killed since January 2008…The real total of civilian deaths since 2006 appears to be in the range of 260 to 320, or one-third of those killed.

Regardless of whether the number is closer to 260 or 687, the point is: the U.S. is killing Pakistani civilians–men, women, and children.  At least one-third of those killed are civilians.

UN human rights investigator Philip Alston has said that the drone attacks may “violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law”, and demanded the United States to prove otherwise.  The ACLU declared that this drone policy “violates international law” and is “unconstitutional”, and has converted “the entire world” into a “war zone.”  In a strongly worded letter to the President of the United States, the ACLU wrote:

The program you have reportedly endorsed is not simply illegal but also unwise, because how our country responds to the threat of terrorism will in large measure determine the rules that govern every nation’s conduct in similar contexts. If the United States claims the authority to use lethal force against suspected enemies of the U.S. anywhere in the world – using unmanned drones or other means – then other countries will regard that conduct as justified. The prospect of foreign governments hunting and killing their enemies within our borders or those of our allies is abhorrent.

Only 9% of Pakistanis support the U.S. led drone attacks–and only 6% amongst the Pashto speaking people who live in the NWFP (the area being bombed).  Pakistani officials have declared the drone attacks on Pakistani soil to constitute an “act of war,” a feeling shared by the vast majority of the country’s citizenry.

Could it possibly be–I dare ask–that some Pakistanis would want to bomb Times Square because our country has committed what they perceive as numerous acts of war, which have killed hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children?  How would we feel if Pakistani predator drones were killing hundreds of New Yorkers?  After 9/11, Americans had blood in their eyes, and that burning anger resulted in the U.S. invading two countries, bombing both into the stone ages and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.  Some Americans even contemplated nuking Mecca and Medina, the two holy cities of Islam.  So do we find it surprising that a handful of Pakistani extremists might want to strike inside the U.S.?

Pakistanis protest Hillary Clinton's visit, demanding an explanation for illegal drone attacks

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Pakistan, an angry Pakistani woman asked her why she didn’t consider drone attacks to be terrorism.  Whether or not the attacks fit the definition of terrorism, to the hundreds of dead civilians it is irrelevant (and largely only of academic interest) whether the bombs fall from the skies (drone attacks) or are packed into parked cars.  The result is the same.  But as long as Americans drop bombs from far distances, they feel immune to the feelings of guilt from the very real consequences.

There is, however, one major difference between the drone attacks and the terrorist attacks like the failed Times Square bombing.  The former are ordered by the United States government, whereas the latter are not carried out by any country’s government.  The Pakistanis would argue that at least their government didn’t order the Times Square bombing, whereas the drone attacks are ordered by the U.S. government.

There is a very real anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan, and the question must be asked: why?  Why would any of them want to attack us?  I believe I have presented the most likely reason.

Because I have the audacity to ask and answer this question, I will no doubt be accused of being unpatriotic.  Yet, I consider it extremely patriotic to speak the truth on this matter.  It is only by properly understanding the origins of terrorism that we can seek to end it, and thereby save American lives.  None of this condones what the Times Square bomber did.  I hope the man arrested for this terrorist act is given a fair trial and–if found guilty–punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Neither am I saying that the Muslim community has no role to play in tackling extremism within their ranks.  Although I reject Islamophobic claims that Muslims are “silent” when it comes to terrorism, I do believe that more must be done…much more.  Yet, the efforts of the Muslim community will invariably fail if the Islamic world’s main grievance–our interventionist foreign policy–is not reevaluated.

When attacked, we ought to be able to ask the question “why” without being accused of being unpatriotic or of condoning the act.  We must move beyond George Bush’s simplistic mentality.

Further reading: Glenn Greenwald on the threat of terrorism and Only 6% of terrorist acts inside the U.S. committed by Muslim extremists

Update:

It seems that I was right:

Times Square bombing in retaliation for U.S. drone attacks, No connection to Islam

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.

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.

FDNY

Of course Islamophobia doesn’t exist? I wonder if the former FDNY lieutenant reads Pamela Geller?

Retired FDNY Lieutenant in anti-Islam Hate Fit

A retired FDNY lieutenant was arrested for calling a Muslim Queens man a “terrorist” and spitting on him as they argued on an Astoria street last summer, said a spokeswoman for DA Richard Brown.

Former firefighter Gerald Duffy allegedly blew his stack after he rolled through a stop sign at 25th Avenue and 41st Street the afternoon of Aug. 7 and nearly ran into Toufik Sadouki, who was walking to afternoon prayer, cops said.

“What’s your problem? Don’t you stop at the stop sign?” Sadouki shouted at Duffy, who then allegedly unleashed a litany of bigoted slurs at the man.

“I don’t have to stop for you, you f- – -ing terrorist,” Duffy told the cabdriver, who was wearing religious garbed, according to court papers.

“You’re Taliban,” he snarled at the bearded man who emigrated from Algeria 20 years ago.

Duffy, 46, then allegedly got out of his car, spit on Sadouki and pushed him.

Sadouki told The Post that he spit back at Duffy in retaliation, but did not tussle with Duffy.

“I was trying to avoid the fight because I was on my way to pray. It’s against our religion to fight with people,” he said. Two pals came to his aide and Duffy got back into his car, said Sadouki, 38.

But the hotheaded Duffy re-emerged from his car and grabbed Sadouki’s kufi, a traditional hat.

“Don’t put that on the ground. It’s a religious matter. If you do, there will be trouble,” Sadouki told the ex-firefighter.

Duffy then put the hat on a parked car and fled, Sadouki said.

Witnesses wrote down Duffy’s plate number, and detectives were finally able to track down the Long Island resident. Sadouki picked him out of a line-up Friday.

Duffy was arraigned that night on charges of aggravated harassment.

A woman who answered the door at Duffy’s home said he couldn’t come to the door.

Sadouki said: “Honestly, I want to go back home. I am a guest in this country, so I play by your rules. He’s a maniac.”

murray.weiss@nypost.com

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/fire_vet_in_islam_hate_fit_eObsA1ejoFTkakhJhXA1TL#ixzz0jaVUTjDj

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

Some Residents in Sheepshead Bay Fear Planned Mosque

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dov Hikind, A Settler and New York Assemblyman supports Ethnically Profiling "Mooslims"

Just a few days ago we had a failed terrorism attack on an NWA flight in Detroit. Umar Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, seems to have come under the sway of the extremist ideology of Al-Qaeda and attempted to blow up a plane in Detroit. The case is in some ways similar to the one involving Nidal Hasan who acted alone in his attack on Fort Hood, and reports are coming out now that Abdulmutallab may have acted alone as well. These actions put a strain on American Muslims, who we never tire to repeat, condemn these acts and are the strongest wall for law enforcement in preventing them.

In this climate, and whenever an attack or an attempted attack occurs we find that certain segments of the population seek to capitalize on them to push forward their agendas. In this instance we have a revealing video collection put together by Think Progress:

First we have Mike Gallagher, the Michael Savage wanna-be pretty much sounding as ignorant as possible, emphasizing names like “Abdul,” “Ahmed,” and “Mohammed” with a wry grin as means for profiling and creating a separate line at the airport. Then we have the aforementioned Islamophobe Peter King making the golly gee statement of the year, “100% of Islamic terrorists are Muslims.” Charles Johnson, of Little Green Footballs commented on that nicely, “In other news, 100% of Popes are Catholics.”

We also have failed Terrorism expert Steven Emerson contradicting himself in consecutive sentences,

There have been so many complaints about so called profiling by quote “Islamic civil rights groups” that they stop basically profiling and that basically led to not putting this guy on the terrorist watch list there would have been too much of an outcry. Number two, he was put on in the last month.

Emerson the genius.

Then there is the New York Assemblyman, Dov Hikind, who in a completely absurd and non-sensical move is calling for the ethnic profiling of Arabs and South Asians. A profile which the would-be bomber didn’t fit considering he was…drum roll please… NIGERIAN.

Dov Hikind dodges the rebuttal by Muslim Advocates’ Hussein Rashid, what is his answer to the fact that this case only seems to prove that ethnic profiling does not work?

The answer seems to be that Hikind is a racist, and notice in this clip how he only mentions Arabs as the ethnic “Mooslims” that he would have profiled, he must be Pamela Geller’s favorite politician after Sarah Palin, considering how he advocates the destruction of the Dome of the Rock and the construction of a Third Jewish Temple. (hat tip: Chasing Evil)