Fascists, Cowards, and Morons: Combating Anti-Muslim Bigotry While Maintaining Free Speech

Fascists, Cowards, and Morons: Combating Anti-Muslim Bigotry While Maintaining Free Speech

by Matt Cerami 

Andrew Cummins once said, in a quote often misattributed to Christopher Hitchens, that Islamophobia is “a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.”

It can be that word—we’ve certainly seen the word used as a conversation-stopper in any and all discussions about Islamic theology, and we’ve seen it used as a protective linguistic shield wielded by those who view honest criticism as inflammatory and religion as something untouchable or by various leftist intelligentsia in defense of a community who they implicitly believe are unable to defend themselves. We’ve also seen it used by Muslim communities who desperately want to protect their faith from the piercing gaze of rationalism. The fascists are those religious and political leaders who wish to impose a kind of intellectual tyranny where certain ideas are immune from criticism; those cowards are the privileged few who would restrain free speech and withhold inquiry for fear of backlash or causing offense; and those morons—well, I’ll leave that one alone, for now.

But there is something to be said about punching down. Anti-Muslim bigotry and hate crimes against Muslims are now, in the US, at the highest they’ve ever been, surging past even their immediate post-9/11 numbers—no doubt the result of a decade’s worth of wartime propaganda and the demonizing, xenophobic sentiments espoused by right-wing pundits daily.

And as I’ve contended before, language is not innocuous. Rhetoric can, and often does, manifest itself as action—this is particularly true when it comes to marginalized groups and the hegemonic discourse that can come to define them. The language of hate has once again morphed into the action of hate, and structurally oppressed minority communities are again suffering as a result. Examples of this have been cropping up in the news with frequency. It’s not by accident that Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, the man behind the recent shooting in Chattanooga, was almost immediately considered a possible terrorist—meanwhile, the word terrorist has not been once used, in any official context, to describe Dylann Roof, the ideologically motived shooter of nine African-American churchgoers. White-conservative-as-terrorist does not fit into our currently thriving political narrative—an unfortunate fact, considering that right-wing groups and individuals are responsible, by a wide-margin, for most of the terrorist attacks that occur in the United States.

We have a responsibility to combat this bigotry wherever we may find it, recognizing that even diplomatic and academic criticisms of Islam have been perverted—adopted by the ignorant and employed to more malicious ends. But we also have a responsibility to protect and promote freedom of speech absolute. At a recent briefing on anti-Muslim bigotry I posed the question (though without receiving a sufficient answer): how do we maintain the right to criticize ideas openly and freely without also perpetuating bigotry against people? Is there a divide between the two?

There is a divide, but I also believe there needs to be. Ideas are not people—criticizing the former does not by default imply a criticism of the latter. That Charles Darwin discovered biological evolution does not mean he’s accountable for the social Darwinists who later looked to his ideas for inspiration. Likewise, critical, respectful, and academic critiques of Islamic ideologies shouldn’t be censored just because others pervert that criticism for a more insidious purpose.

But we can also be honest about Islamophobia. I don’t think religion has much to do with the prejudice. The kinds of Americans who’ve been pushing for discrimination against Muslims aren’t necessarily known for their nuanced worldviews. Islamophobia is just racism. It’s bigotry against Arabs and Indians. It’s unlikely that someone who thinks “all Muslims should be deported” could tell you the difference between Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism, let alone their adherents; they just know that some people are brown, and brown people are bad. When US General Wesley Clark recently suggested that we throw all “radicalized” Muslims into internment camps, I don’t think he meant White Muslims, or Black Muslims, or Asian Muslims—he meant Arabs. When we see “No Muslims Allowed” signs pop up in storefronts and gun ranges across the South, I doubt that the proprietors mean to interrogate each customer on their religious beliefs—what they mean is no people who look like Muslims allowed; in other words, the imagined Arab-Muslim caricature that they warn their children about. I dare say that an Arab-Christian with a Middle-Eastern name would face as much discrimination in America as any Muslim would. Is it Islamophobia if the anti-Muslim bigot can’t tell you—or doesn’t care to know—the first thing about Islam? Or is it just good, old-fashioned, American racism?

The phenomena transcends political divisions—it’s a racism that the left has, in their insistence on tying ideology to race in this one instance, also been complicit in perpetuating. When Sam Harris calls Islam the “mother lode of bad ideas,” is he being Islamophobic? Perhaps—but it’s a curious thing that I’ve yet to see that damning suffix attached to any other faith name: that critics of Christianity (of which there are many on the left) are not ever called Christophobic, that Jewish critics are not called Judaiphobes, that Karl Marx, hero of the left, has never been called a capitalistophobe. Submit your ideology of choice and we could play this game forever.

So how do we navigate this? How do we maintain the right to criticize ideas while avoiding the negative affects of doing so? We’ve got to first separate ideas from people—ideologies do not constitute race. This must be done by people across the political spectrum. A liberal who suggests that criticism of Islam is racist does much to solidify the bond between Islam and people who look like Muslims in the mind of a conservative. We also have to identify American Islamophobia for what it is—racism—and use the appropriate rhetorical tools to fight it. Religious and racial discourses are not the same.

But above all, we must continue to forcefully condemn and excoriate bigotry in all of its forms. We can critique religion while also acknowledging that other critiques are ignorant, harmful, or unfounded. We can acknowledge that the Texans of Collins County, who recently expressed their fears at the prospect of having a Muslim cemetary in their town, are maybe not the morons of Cummins’ statement, but are morons nonetheless.

PAYPAL : we greatly appreciate you continued support and donations.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/377012949129789/

https://www.youtube.com/user/theageofblasphem

Matt Cerami is a freelance contributor for TheHumanist.com and the Humanist magazine. He has BA degrees in English and philosophy, and an MA in bioethics from Stony Brook University. He also studied religion as a graduate student at the University of Missouri. Follow him on Twitter @CeramiMatt.

Far Right Jews Seed Sectarian Hatred as Toxic as Trumps

‘Jewish Communal Fund’ seeds Islamophobia as toxic as Trump’s

via Philip Weiss

The Jewish Face of Hate –  Conspiracy loon and Right Wingnut hatemonger, Pamela Geller

Donald Trump’s disturbing comments about registering Muslims have put Islamophobia on the front pages. Even Jeb Bush has condemned them. And Jews have been outspoken. Andrew Rosenthal at the New York Times and the Anti-Defamation League have likened the racism to that faced by Jews in an era gone by, and J Street has called out the “bigoted” rhetoric.

Now we learn that one of the main sowers of Islamophobia in the United States, Pamela Geller, has had the support of the Jewish community. “Why is a mainstream Jewish charity funding Pamela Geller?” Eli Clifton asks, and reports in the Forward that Geller has gotten contributions through the Jewish Communal Fund.

Jewish Communal Fund, a mainstream philanthropic fund that describes itself as “dedicated to the welfare and security of the Jewish community at home and abroad,” has funded Geller’s work. JCF’s annual tax filings show contributions of $30,000 in the 2012 tax year and $70,000 in the 2013 tax year, the last tax year for which filings are available, directed to Geller’s AFDI [American Freedom Defense Initiative].

JCF functions as a donor-advised fund, meaning donors to the fund deposit money and receive an immediate federal income tax deduction

And JCF has strict rules about who gets money: “[T]he Board of Trustees of the Jewish Communal Fund retains the right to deny any grant request where the purposes and activities of the recommended charitable organization are deemed to be adverse to the interests of the Jewish community.”

No one will answer Clifton’s questions; but it turns out it’s not just Geller:

JCF’s contributions to anti-Muslim groups aren’t limited to the AFDI. In the 2013 tax year, JCF contributed $36,200 to the Clarion Fund, adding to a $27,880 grant made in 2007.

The Clarion Fund, an offshoot of the Jewish Orthodox fundamentalist Aish HaTorah, gained notoriety for its distribution of the film “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” to 28 million swing state voters before the 2008 presidential election between then-Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat, and Sen. John McCain, a Republican in Arizona. The film’s central thesis was that fundamentalist Islam is as bad as, if not worse than, Nazism.

As for Geller’s Islamophobia, the Southern Poverty Law Center describes her as the “figurehead” of Islamophobia; and of course it comes out of support for Israel:

Pamela Geller is the anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and flamboyant figurehead. She’s relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam and makes preposterous claims, such as that President Obama is the “love child” of Malcolm X. She makes no pretense of being learned in Islamic studies, leaving the argumentative heavy lifting to her Stop Islamization of America partner Robert Spencer. Geller has mingled comfortably with European racists and fascists, spoken favorably of South African racists, defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps. She has taken a strong pro-Israel stance to the point of being sharply critical of Jewish liberals.

Geller is pro-Israel. The JCF is also pro-Israel. That’s why Clifton’s report is so meaningful to me. Defining the Jewish community as pro-Israel was the great project of Zionists in the years following the Biltmore program of 1942 and leading up to the Yom Kippur War in 1973, by which time the American Jewish community was wholly identified with support for Israel. Israel needed us; and we became one! as propagandists exclaimed. In fact, the Jewish community lost other broad bases of Jewish identification outside of Israel; it became completely Zionist– which is why members of that community assert with sincerity that anti-Zionists are anti-Semites.

Plainly Jews have a strong need for community, as so many other American minority groups do. But that community definition has been so circumscribed along Israel lines that virulent pro-Israel groups like Pam Geller’s or the neoconservatives have been included as brothers and sisters. The inclusion of militants led to fatal mistakes in the community, as when the Reform Jews endorsed the Iraq war; because they’d heard from friends and relatives that it would be good for Israel.

That is what is so stirring and important about Jewish Voice for Peace. It understands the importance of community but is offering a very different definition of Jewish community, one that condemns Islamophobia, opposes Israel’s crimes and has a welcome mat out for non-Jewish progressives.

PAYPAL

https://www.facebook.com/groups/377012949129789/

https://www.youtube.com/user/theageofblasphemy

How Far Right Catholic Fanatics Like Robert Spencer, Manufacture Islamophobic Hoaxes

The far Right, corporatist, religious and political lunatic fringe, has an extensive history of fabricating and manufacturing hoaxes to demonise perceived enemies, or competitors.

Mere reality is insufficient to satiate their lust for unbridled power, sociopathic hatreds and extreme paranoia, so that fantasies and fabrications are routinely manufactured to nourish their pornography of paranoia.

Conspiracism, the manufacture of the ‘demonic other’ and group, cultural ‘scapegoats,’ has persistently played a vital and core role, in far Right propaganda.

The grubby, listed hate preacher, Robert Spencer, adored by neo-Nazis, fascists and Catholic/Christian/Jewish extremists, is an intermediate cog in the larger, manufactured Islamophobia Industry machinery, which has been staple cash cow for far Right religious and politicised extremists, hate mongers and fascists preying and profiteering from real and fabricated cultural tensions.

Whilst innumerable examples could be cited, here’s a recent faux ‘news’ ruse, promulgated by the superstitious, Rightist Catholic fanatical loon, Robert Spencer who deludes that despite his lies, disinformation and deception, he is doing ‘the work of god.’

 

 

Via by Richard Bartholomew

Here’s one I missed from a month ago. From the Daily Caller:

A group of 51 refugees were brutally assaulted outside a night club in Murmansk, Russia, after they groped and molested women at a night club Saturday.

The refugees had previously been ordered to leave Norway for “bad behavior” and tried their luck in Russia. What they didn’t realize when they went out clubbing in Murmansk is that Russians have less tolerance when it comes to sexual assault on local women than other European countries.

…The refugees tried to flee but were quickly captured by the Russians. They then took them out to the street and gave them a beating they will remember. Police arrived to break up the fight but locals report that they threw a few punches at the refugees before arresting 33 of them. Eighteen refugees were in such bad condition they had to be take to the hospital.

As shown above, the story is illustrated with a photograph of a gang of burly men, one of whom has a club, beating up another man, who cowers on the ground.

The source given in the link above is an Italian report from Imola Oggi (without the photo), which in turn cites Fort Russ. The Fort Russ article is in English (“translated by Tom Winter”), and states that it “was prepared from material on social network sites.”

However, it followed an earlier report on the same site (“translated by Ollie Richardson”) which has a somewhat different version of the story:

Several refugees from Arab countries were beaten in the middle of the night of Saturday in the city of Polyarnye Zori (Murmansk oblast), reported a FlashNord source in the law enforcement bodies of the region.

The incident occurred in the nightclub Gandvik.

“According to preliminary data, five refugees were beaten in the entertainment establishment. According to witnesses, they behaved insolently and had been pestering local girls,” — said the Agency’s interlocutor.

“Five”. As opposed to “51”. And no reference to any arrests. But there’s more: the original article from FlashNord can be seen here. It was followed up on the same day with a second article, confirming that there may have been a fight outside the nightclub, but that details could not be confirmed from CCTV and it was all over by the time the police arrived.

So, it looks like there was an incident of some kind – but it is far from clear that it was anything more significant than the kind of fight that tends to occur sometimes near venues where young men have been drinking and are perhaps “on the pull”. Were refugees involved? Was the incident provoked by anti-social behaviour towards female clubbers? Nothing in the report confirms any such details (and I can’t find further evidence elsewhere) – and the story of a mass incident involving dozens of arrests appears to have been a fiction.

The photograph used by the Daily Caller doesn’t make much sense: it shows just one man being attacked, and – somewhat crucially – it was taken in middle of the day. The site either didn’t bother – or forgot – to remove the photo’s metadata caption, which identifies it as actually showing Russian Cossacks assaulting a Ukrainian in Sevastopol in 2014. It was published in its correct context in the media at the time (see below).

Did the Daily Caller intend to deceive? Robert Spencer, always eager to spread stories about how Muslims are depraved, appears to have taken it at face value as evidence, as did other right-leaning sites.

Perhaps it was intended merely to be illustrative – but given that the Daily Caller clearly approves of the outcome in their version of the story, such a photo serves to titillate, and perhaps to exhort.

Have we really reached the point where a photo of a bunch thugs beating someone up is to be celebrated because someone has said that it shows a refugee, and has further assured us that the victim did something anti-social and deserves his fate?

Rudd/Gillard adviser: Abbott drums up Islamophobia to help his election chances

Rudd/Gillard adviser: Abbott drums up Islamophobia to help his election chances

The Abbott government and its supporters are doing Daesh’s work for it in creating a culture of fear. Wonder why that might be … Jeremy Hillman, former adviser to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, explains.

Phobia, or irrational fear, is an unfortunate hallmark of social and political discourse throughout the world, often exploited for gain by those who have a responsibility to do exactly the opposite. Rampant homophobia is used to stoke fears that gay people were sexual deviants out to destroy our way of life. Now rampant Islamophobia advances a fear of Muslims as terrorists who are out to destroy our way of life. And the government is driving a lot of it.

Although the Prime Minister has admitted he feels threatened by homosexuality, these days neither he nor his government would dare to publicly suggest that the gays are coming to get us (even if some still feel that way in private). Furthermore, if a public figure does spout any homophobic bile — think Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi and bestiality — they are rightly howled down by a cacophony of voices of reason and decency. But with few notable exceptions, Islamophobia in the public domain is running rampant and is largely unchallenged.

Back in 2011, a 10-year study on Australian attitudes to other cultures found almost half the population to have anti-Muslim sentiment. Undoubtedly this number is even higher in 2015. Our entrepreneurs of fear — certain public figures and media outlets — are irresponsibly riding this wave, content in the knowledge that such fear is useful to their cause and likely to result in political and ratings gains. In opposition, Scott Morrison urged his fellow cabinet to better exploit growing community concern about Muslims in Australia. In government this has clearly been embraced, with an unrelenting focus on terrorism and border protection, and even a parliamentary inquiry into halal certification.

Islamophobia appears to be a general fear of Muslims synthesised with our fear of terrorism, and compounded by our general inability to distinguish radical extremists from ordinary Muslims. Despite the likelihood of being harmed by terrorism being negligible, the fear created by terrorism has huge and enduring effects on human behavior and hampers our ability to assess risk objectively.

Exploiting such fear in politics is as old as politics itself, and is a tactic that all sides of the spectrum frequently deploy. Afraid of losing your job? Vote for X. Afraid of catastrophic climate change? Vote for Y. Afraid of asylum seekers? Vote for Z.  So much of our political narrative is based on nurturing people’s fears and then offering a “solution” to them, and it persists because it works.

But when these fears are deliberately stoked and grossly exaggerated, it takes us from fear to phobia and further distorts reasonable thought, action and debate. All too often it also leads to the formation and growth of groups such as One Nation, the Q Society and Reclaim Australia. What do we gain when Abbott tells us that this “death cult” is coming to get us?  What do we gain when the media airs sensational footage of Daesh (also called Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL) militants training, marching, fighting or torturing? The real winner is Daesh.

Since our media aren’t exactly there on the ground, nearly all the footage is propaganda — written, directed and produced by the terror group. Naturally they supply us with images that show them looking more powerful, organised and respectable than they really are. Terrorism aims to instil fear, and when we overtly promote that fear, we are aiding the cause. What does Daesh want most after it has conquered and subdued?

Ongoing legitimacy, power and attention. Excessive media coverage of Daesh might not directly encourage terrorism but at the very least it legitimises, promotes and strengthens such groups, and we should debate the security ramifications of this more openly. By broadcasting their propaganda, we freely give Daesh more power and fuel Islamophobic sentiment. We forget Muslims in the Middle East are the overwhelming victims of Daesh terror while Muslims in Australia are indirect victims, frequently deemed guilty by association. We increasingly fear and blame Muslims in equal measure and are encouraged to do so by the entrepreneurs of fear. There are no easy solutions, but it’s clear we need more “entrepreneurs of calm” to countenance the fear merchants and inject some context and sensibility into the discourse.

Malcolm Turnbull briefly tried to be one such voice, cautioning overreactions to the fear of terror or Muslims. Undoubtedly he will be increasingly silenced as the federal government gears up for the mother of all fear campaigns leading into the next election. Islamophobia feeds into our worst instincts and needs to be courageously opposed, not elevated further in the public domain. When prejudiced views are articulated by those in high office, they gain a degree of social currency and legitimacy that perpetuates them further.

John Howard wanted us to be alert but not alarmed while Tony Abbott wants us to be in a permanent state of alarm. He knows it’s his best, and perhaps only, chance of being re-elected. Like the activists who challenged the prevailing culture of homophobia, we need to confront the prejudice and phobias of those around us and those entrepreneurs of fear who stoke them.

Via: CRIKEY

http://www.crikey.com.au/

Far Right, Theocratic Fascism | Reclaim Australia Dominated by a Christian Cult Leader

Reclaim Australia Dominated by a Christian Cult Leader

by Hugh Harris

Many may be surprised to find out that fervent nationalist group Reclaim Australia is driven primarily by a religious cult, Catch the Fire Ministries, and its political arm, Rise Up Australia. And the group wanting to “Keep Australia Australian” is headed by a Sri Lankan evangelist, Daniel Nallian, who moved to Australia in 1997.

Stating this fact by no means implies recent immigrants can’t have legitimate views about traditional Australian values, and multi-culturalism, (of course they can and do), but this challenges the common perception of Reclaim Australia as an extreme racist movement. Whilst convenient to the apologists of Islam to label them this way, the strange evangelical focus and multicultural nature of half its members provides a different narrative, albeit not one which is necessarily more conducive for an intelligent discussion regarding the perceived clash of Islamic and Western values.

According to “Evangelist Daniel’s” bio, Hillsong founder, Frank Houston, unsuccessfully “prophesied” over him in Sri Lanka, prior to his conversion by a member of his rock band. The Assembly of God evangelist claims that Jesus has saved his life multiple times.

Three months after experiencing salvation he came across his first trial during the communal violence in Sri Lanka when he was confronted with a mob who wanted to kill his parents. But praise God, his prayer as a new Christian was answered when the mob left without touching anyone. That day he said, “Lord, I will serve you as long as I have breath”.

Daniel Nalliah moved to Saudi Arabia to attempt to convert Muslims to Christianity, and was miraculously saved by Jesus again.

Pastor Daniel and his family were most miraculously saved from death and torture twice. He says, “If not for Jesus being alive, we would not be alive”! His testimony has touched the hearts of many all over the world.

Well, it’s good to have Jesus on your side.

The President of Rise Up Australia also believes Jesus communicates with him personally, and has ordained him with a special mission from God.

 While in Saudi Arabia, following an encounter he had with Jesus on 21st July 1997 (from 3.40am to 6.00am), in obedience to this, he decided to move to Australia and set up a base known as Catch The Fire Ministries Inc.

Then, Jesus appeared to Daniel again.

Dear Family in Christ,

On April 9, 2000 at 5:00am while in Ethiopia the Lord Jesus Christ woke me from sleep and spoke about Australia. He very clearly told me, Son, if my people will rise up and be proactive, they will stop the disaster which is coming on the land. But if my people sit back, relax and be reactive they will pay a heavy price to take back their land spiritually. He then spoke to me through (The Bible) 2 Chr. 7:14 and said, Gather my people across the land together and tell them to humble themselves, repent, pray and seek my face in one accord, then I will heal their land. This was the start of RISE UP AUSTRALIA prayer meetings.

There’s nothing like an argument from authority. Besides the obvious charlatanism these comments indicate a providential connection with “the land” which only aboriginal Australians lay claim to. One suspects the nationalism espoused by this particular Sri Lankan born follower of Jesus is subsumed by a larger cause.

Daniel Nalliah has claimed the Black Saturday bushfires were the result of the Victorian Government decriminalising abortion. The Queensland floods were due to Kevin Rudd speaking against Israel. He ran for a Senate seat for Family First party and disseminated brochures asking people to pray for God to pull down “Satan’s strongholds” which included bottle shops, gambling houses, brothels, mosques, and Buddhist and Hindu temples.

Reclaim Australian oppose multiculturalism, not multi-ethnicity. They oppose the melting pot of various cultures, insisting we enforce puritan Christian values on the whole society. Opposing Islam, abortion, gay marriage, promiscuity, pornography, and seeking Judeo-Christian focussed education, and other values of the religious right.

Unfortunately, this group adds nothing to debate on Islam, and the appropriate government response to jihadism.

Opposing Islamism with equally extreme ideas only adds height to the walls shielding Islam from appropriate examination. The core beliefs in jihad, martyrdom, the dar al-Harb, subjugation of women, and enforced religious belief underpin the ideologies of terrorist groups. The religion provides the ideology, and social network, to sustain the hatred, warmongering and predisposition towards violence which disenfranchised young men find so attractive.

Reclaim Australia provides succour to liberals whose knee-jerk response to any criticism of Islam is to brand it racism. Note the following in an otherwise well written expose by Jeff Sparrow:

 Let’s leave aside the question of how you can be “against Islam” without “targeting Muslims” (rather like being against Judaism without targeting Jews, one would have thought).

Many people say bad things about Christianity without facing accusations of “targeting” white Christians. Could we be against Nazism in the 1930’s without “targeting Germans”? Conflating the race of Jews and cultural traditions of Muslims provides a shield of political correctness.

Although, Sparrow’s remark paled in comparison to the apologetics of Anne Aly, who views criticism of Islam as the same thing as criticism of Muslims, at the hands of “bigots” and “racists.” Way to give your culture a free pass.

Applying the “racist” label too often shuts down debate, and censures the freedom to discuss the very ideas central to the conflict. Accusations of “racism” are too easy, and too convenient, a blunt instrument used to disarm opposing arguments. They also divert attention away from what appears to be significant motives within groups like Reclaim Australia, which is the debate about religious values, and the culture wars.

Reclaim Australia consists of a front for evangelical Christians. Those goose-stepping for God, combining religious zeal with associating with hate groups, are only reclaiming an historical bigotry. Australia was once a Christian country but never the sort of hollering, miracle worshipping, tele-evangelistic freak show that the backers of Reclaim Australia imagine.

This isn’t our country they are reclaiming. We should disavow their ideas, but for the right reasons. Opposing one totalitarianism with another misses the point altogether, providing a contradictory argument which undermines the Secular argument, the argument for tolerance and pluralism, freedom of speech, and religious freedom without religious coercion, within the framework of an agreed set of human rights and values.

No, Islam is not a race. Yes, you are still a racist

No, Islam is not a race. Yes, you are still a racist

by Daniel Lopez

Anti-Islamic bigotry is racism. How can that be when, as is frequently pointed out, Islam isn’t a race?

Biological race doesn’t exist. But the concept of biological race is an invention with a long history. Its transformations help answer the question.

One of the earliest and most detailed systems of biological racial classification existed in the French colony of St Dominguez. According to the historian C.L.R. James, the system of classification contained more than 150 gradations of “blackness”.

Only people who could prove that they were “purely white” were granted full rights. This system was overthrown by a slave rebellion and revolution. The “aristocracy of skin”, a term used by the Parisian masses to describe racism, was temporarily defeated. Those 150 gradations of blackness, which were regarded as a natural fact, have long been forgotten.

Roughly 80 years later, biological racism enjoyed a renaissance, as all sorts of new so-called races were discovered. This was the advent of pseudo-scientific Darwinian racism. For example, the Irish were considered a separate race to the English, and closer to apes. Skulls were measured, intellects compared and, lo and behold, the Irish were found inferior. This conveniently explained the Irish famine, in which between 800,000 and 1.5 million people starved to death while the British exported their food.

Nowhere did social Darwinism go further than in Germany. Prior to the late 1880s, Jewishness had been regarded purely as a religion. Of course, Jews had suffered religious discrimination, but they could escape this through conversion, as many did. Yet, from the late 1800s onward, with the aid of “science”, Jewishness was transformed into a race, which was then associated with a series of visual and cultural markers, involving facial hair, big noses, dishonesty and suspicious customs such as kosher food.

These examples highlight how racism was never really about “natural” differences. It was a manufactured ideology of oppression. Racism is really about power.

Biologically linked racism started to go out of fashion with the fall of the Third Reich. But this didn’t mean that racism disappeared. It just changed form.

Take the example of the USA. Since the Declaration of Independence, the USA has concealed real inequality under a constitution and political system premised on formal equality.

In the past, the contradiction between real and formal inequality was justified by the alleged inferiority of non-white races. But the struggles and achievements of those non-whites increasingly made such claims untenable.

Today, no one credible argues that inequality and poverty stem from innate racial differences. Rather, we are told that “cultural problems” are to blame. The new rationalisation is not biologically based, yet it is the politically acceptable code for the same old racism.

Anti-Muslim racism, which exploded following 9/11 and the “war on terror”, fits into this mould. Small-l liberals have played a special role in promoting it. The polite arguments that Islam is more repressive than other religions, that Muslims lack respect for women or democracy, or are particularly violent, are all coded signals which, like a dog whistle, prick the ears of rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth racists.

This is what happened at the Cronulla riot in 2005, where men of Arab appearance were bashed by a white mob trying to defend “their” beach and “their” women. It was referred to by participants as “Leb and wog bashing day”.

Racism always relies on stereotypes and visual or cultural markers. So, the racists portray Muslims as big-nosed, fat, fanatical, bearded misogynists who want to slaughter animals and non-believers alike, impose sharia law, prohibit tasty food and beverages, destroy liberty and reason and generally fuck things up for the “enlightened” West.

Why do they want to do this? Well, who knows, but one thing is for sure – they aren’t as civilised as us.

All of these tropes are based on racial stereotypes of Arab people, which are as old as they are repulsive. Edward Said’s magnificent book Orientalism traces this tradition of representation through Western art and literature. It turns out that “good Muslim” vs. “bad Muslim” is just an updated version of the colonial era “good savage” vs. “bad savage” trope.

Christopher Hitchens took war-mongering atheism to new depths when he endorsed cluster bombs and said that the death toll in the Iraq war wasn’t high enough. But the tradition of atheism and Enlightenment values being used as the spear tip for colonial-style racism goes at least as far back as the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt.

Racism has changed with the times, but it is still a system of oppression that commits violence towards whole swaths of humanity, who are depicted through a few crude stereotypes.

So sure, Islam is a religion. But the statement “Islam is a religion, not a race” remains the most transparent of covers for real racism.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Serial Fraudster Milking the Islamophobia Cash Cow

Exposing Anti-Islam Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Latest Deception

One of America’s most prominent Islam bashers has a long history of making things up.

By Max Blumenthal

While promoting her new book, Heretic, on a March 23 episode of “The Daily Show,” Somali-born author and anti-Islam activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a staggering claim: “If you look at 70 percent of the violence in the world today, Muslims are responsible,” she told host Jon Stewart.

Stewart did not demand any evidence and Hirsi Ali provided no citation. However, she made a strikingly similar statement in a March 20 essay previewing her new book for the Wall Street Journal: “According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies,” Hirsi Ali wrote in WSJ’s Saturday Essay, “at least 70% of all the fatalities in armed conflicts around the world last year were in wars involving Muslims.”

I contacted the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a leading British foreign policy think tank, to inquire about the source of Hirsi Ali’s statistic. According to IISS spokesperson Kat Slowe, IISS did not state such a figure in its research.

“I have spoken to a number of our experts and they cannot identify where this statistic may have come from,” Slowe told me.

“Their best guess is that the journalist in question [Hirsi Ali] may have access/a subscription to the [IISS] Armed Conflict Database and may have calculated this statistic independently. There are some concerns that it could be misleading as, without Syria (near 200,000 total deaths, and almost half of last year’s global conflict deaths) the figure would look massively different (and of course, this conflict did not have its root in religion),” Slowe added.

Hirsi Ali’s AHA Foundation did not respond to my request for a citation on the statistic, nor did the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute that employs Hirsi Ali as a resident scholar. My email query to Hirsi Ali’s personal account at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where she serves as a fellow, also went unanswered.

Around 24 hours after my initial query, Hirsi Ali publicly backed off her claim that Muslims are “responsible” for most of the violence in the world. “Depressing that 70% of fatalities in armed conflicts around the world last year were in wars involving Muslims,” she declared on her personal Twitter account.

Hirsi Ali linked to a survey of casualties in global conflicts by IISS’ Hanna Ucko Neill and Jens Wardenaer which made no reference to Muslims or religiously inspired violence. Apparently Hirsi Ali calculated the statistic on her own by using an IISS report that documented conflicts in territories from eastern Ukraine to sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East to Mexico, where drug gangs fueled widespread killing. The IISS’ Slowe noted that the year’s surge in conflict-related deaths occurred thanks to the fighting in Syria, explaining that Hirsi Ali’s claim was “misleading” because “this conflict did not have its root in religion.”

Instead of responding to my question about her statistic, Hirsi Ali’s AHA Foundation forwarded my email query to the Washington Free Beacon, a right-wing publication with its own history of Islamophobic tall tales and hoaxes. In a currently un-bylined article about the query, the Free Beacon accused me of anti-Semitism.

History of fraud

Hirsi Ali’s highly suspect statistic is only the latest deception by one of the world’s most prominent opponents of Islam. While other anti-Muslim activists like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller have marginalized themselves on the fringes of the far-right, Hirsi Ali remains a darling of the American mainstream media. In Heretic, a polemic recycling many of her past arguments against Islam, she calls for the emergence of a Muslim Martin Luther — the authoritarian 16th-century zealot who called for burning down the synagogues of Jews, whom he compared to a gangrenous disease. With the book’s release, Hirsi Ali has been welcomed with open arms by the BBC, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, and a relatively accommodating Jon Stewart. ABC News has even run an excerpt from Heretic, while the New York Times Book Review hosted her for an interview filled with hardball questions about her favorite children’s books.

Hirsi Ali’s power to persuade lies in her dramatic personal story and the public persona she has constructed. She has marketed herself as a expert native informant who has emerged out of the dark heart of radical Islam and into the light of Western civilization. Her tale is an uplifting, comforting one that tells many Westerners what they want to hear about themselves and their perceived enemies. With anti-Muslim attitudes at their peak across Europe and the US, her sweeping critique of Islam as an endemically violent faith has enormous cachet. The only problem is that like her writings on Islam, much of what she has told the public about herself is questionable.

In May 2006, the Dutch television program Zembla thoroughly debunked the dramatic story Hirsi Ali had told to advance her career, concluding that Hirsi Ali had sold the Dutch public “a story full of obscurities.”

Born Ayaan Hirsi Magam, she migrated to the Netherlands in 1992, changed her name to Hirsi Ali, and lied to Dutch authorities about her past. Contrary to the story she told the government, she arrived in the Netherlands not from war-torn Somalia, but from Kenya, where she lived in a secure environment and under the protection of the United Nations, which funded her education at a well-regarded Muslim girls’ school. Though she told immigration authorities and the Dutch public she had fled from civil war in Somalia, she left that country before its war broke out. Indeed, she did not live through a war there or anywhere else. Thanks to her fabrications, Hirsi Ali received political asylum in just five weeks.

Hirsi Ali told astonished audiences on Dutch talk shows that her supposedly devout family had forced her to marry a draconian Muslim man, that she had not been present at her own wedding, and that her family had threatened to kill her for offending their religious honor. However, Zembla told a drastically different story. Hirsi Ali’s brother, aunt and former husband each testified that she had indeed been present at her wedding. It turned out that Hirsi Ali’s mother had sent her brother to a Christian school, not exactly an indication of Islamic fanaticism.

“Yeah, I made up the whole thing,” Hirsi Ali admitted on camera to a Zembla reporter who confronted her with her lies. “I said my name was Ayaan Hirsi Ali instead of Ayaan Hirsi Magan. I also said I was born in 1967 while I was actually born in 1969.”

Hirsi Ali’s claim of honor killing threats also appears to be empty; she remained in touch with her father and aunt after she left her husband. In fact, her husband even came to visit her in the Dutch refugee center where she lived after leaving him. Even though he had paid her way to Europe on the grounds that she would join him in Canada, Hirsi Ali’s husband consented to the divorce she sought. (Watch the full Zembla program on Hirsi Ali.)

Fabrications that toppled a government

In 2003, just a decade after gaining political asylum in the Netherlands, Hirsi Ali was elected to the Dutch parliament on the ticket of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy. VVD leadership knew that the story Hirsi Ali told on her immigration forms was a gigantic lie — she had told them as much — but covered up the fraud and even advanced it to propel her career.

“She’s witnessed five civil wars in her youth, and has fled with her family many times. She’s made of iron and steel,” the VVD’s Neelie-Smit Kroes said of Hirsi Ali at the time, reciting claims her party knew were false.

A year after joining the Dutch parliament, where she said she attempted to ban Islamic schools in the Netherlands, Hirsi Ali teamed up with Dutch director Theo van Gogh to produce a documentary called Submission. The film portrayed violence against women in Muslim communities as a logical result of Islamic belief, relying on actresses to portray abused women and featuring semi-nude, niqab clad women with Quranic verses scrawled across their torsos. Van Gogh, a filmmaker and columnist who had taken to calling Muslims “goat fuckers,” was gunned down and stabbed to death soon after the film’s release by a Dutch Islamist radical. Before fleeing the scene, the killer pinned a note to van Gogh’s body threatening Hirsi Ali with death. Hirsi Ali’s persistence in the face of the episode helped earn her hero status across the West, particularly in post-9/11 America, where Time magazine named her one of its 100 Most Influential People in 2005.

Zembla’s revelations of Hirsi Ali’s lies in May 2006 interrupted her ascent and threw the Dutch government into chaos. No one was more damaged than her friend and close party ally, Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk. Nicknamed “Iron Rita” for her ruthless anti-migrant crackdowns and her demagogic appeals to xenophobia, Verdonk was shamed by the revelations of Hirsi Ali’s deceptions. When she announced her intention to strip Hirsi Ali of her citizenship, however, she was skewered in parliament and forced to relent.

Days after Zembla aired its exposé, Hirsi Ali announced her plans to leave parliament and take up a position with the American Enterprise Institute, the Washington-based think thank that housed many of the neoconservatives who helped orchestrate the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In the immediate aftermath of the furor she caused, Verdonk introduced the so-called “Law on Integration,” one of Europe’s harshest anti-immigrant bills. Only one member of the Dutch House of Representatives opposed it. However, the governing coalition soon collapsed because of the scandal Hirsi Ali’s deceptions inspired. With a new coalition seated in February 2007, and without Verdonk and Hirsi Ali in power, the government was able to adopt a more tolerant approach to immigrants.

Winning a Harvard fellowship, defending Breivik

Upon her relocation to the US, Hirsi Ali was embraced by a coalition of liberal interventionists, neoconservatives and “New Atheists” like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Bill Maher. With extended appearances on the Christian Broadcasting Network of Pat Robertson, who blamed homosexuality for the 9/11 attacks, self-proclaimed feminist Hirsi Ali won droves of fans among the Christian right. Despite her views on Islam, which she called a “destructive, nihilistic cult of death,” or perhaps because of them, she received a fellowship from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

As she rose in prominence among America’s intellectual elite, Hirsi Ali’s history of lying tumbled conveniently down the Orwellian memory hole. In promotional material for her best-selling 2007 memoir, Infidel, Hirsi Ali’s publishers at Simon & Schuster have pushed the discredited claim that “Hirsi Ali survived civil war.” More recently, conservative pundit Peggy Noonan glossed over the reasons behind Hirsi Ali’s flight from the Netherlands, writing, “Ayaan Hirsi Ali got death threats and eventually fled to America.” Few, if any, American outlets have noted that Hirsi Ali left the Netherlands as her public credibility collapsed and her anti-immigrant party fell into crisis.

With support from across the American ideological spectrum, Hirsi Ali sharpened her rhetoric against Muslims. In a candid 2007 exchange with Reason Magazine, she declared that the religion of Islam had to be “defeated.” “Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful,” Hirsi Ali stated. “It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now….There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.”

Junketed to Berlin in 2012 to receive the Axel Springer Honorary Award from the right-wing German publisher, Hirsi Ali appeared to blame liberal defenders of multiculturalism for the killing spree committed by the Norwegian extremist Anders Breivik, claiming they left Breivik with “no other choice but to use violence. (Breivik cited Hirsi Ali’s work in his 1,500 page manifesto explaining his plans to commit a series of terrorist attacks across Norway.)

“[T]hat one man who killed 77 people in Norway, because he fears that Europe will be overrun by Islam, may have cited the work of those who speak and write against political Islam in Europe and America – myself among them – but he does not say in his 1500 page manifesto that it was these people who inspired him to kill. He says very clearly that it was the advocates of silence. Because all outlets to express his views were censored, he says, he had no other choice but to use violence.” (Her words were met with an extended standing ovation.)

When Brandeis University canceled plans to award Hirsi Ali an honorary degree in April 2014, it appeared that her increasingly vitriolic tirades against Islam and its adherents had caught up with her. But then came the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, a seemingly clarifying moment that Hirsi Ali and fellow anti-Islam activists seized on as confirmation of their darkest prophecies. Two months later, she released Heretic.

Having rebranded herself a brave “reformer” following in the footsteps of the Selma marchers, Hirsi Ali has found her way back into the mainstream limelight. While American media demonstrates an endless appetite for her polemics about Islam, holding her to account remains taboo.

Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for AlterNet, and the award-winning author of Goliath and Republican Gomorrah. Find him on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal.

In Europe, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia go hand in hand

In Europe, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia go hand in hand

Both scourges are projections of the illiberal mind

 

by Paul Hockenos

Paris — The spate of anti-Semitic violence in Europe might appear to justify Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for European Jews to move to Israel where, he claims, Jews can be safe.

“Of course, Jews deserve protection in every country,” Netanyahu said on Feb. 15, “but we say to Jews, to our brothers and sisters, ‘Israel is your home.’ We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe.”

Europe’s Jewry should nevertheless reject Netanyahu’s call. It’s a populist ploy ahead of Israel’s March 17 election. Jewish citizens in Europe should instead be active participants in the societies in which they live, continuing to promote democracy, civil liberties and tolerance of diversity as they have done energetically in the past, to Europe’s enormous benefit.

Nowhere, even in long-established democracies such as France, can the liberal order be taken for granted. Every generation has to fight anew to maintain (or even, in a best case scenario, improve on) the quality of democracy as its circumstances change. Anti-Semitism is one challenge to this struggle, Islamophobia another. The two illiberal ideologies and their implications for open societies are more closely linked than they appear.

Anti-Semitism in Europe

Anti-Semitism is on the rise across Europe, propelled by familiar and new antagonists. The Jan. 9 shooting of four Jewish shoppers at a kosher supermarket in Paris followed a string of lethal assaults on Jews across the continent in 2014. Last month an attack on a synagogue in Copenhagen, Denmark, left one man dead and two police officers wounded. The incident forced Jewish schools in Belgium and France to close temporarily. Last year the Jewish Museum in Brussels was bombed. At least eight synagogues were attacked in Europe in July 2014. In Germany, Jewish men wearing the skullcap, or kippa, were harassed, cursed and beaten up on the street.

A 2012 European Union survey of 6,000 Jews in eight European nations, which together account for 90 percent of Europe’s Jewish population, found that 66 percent believed anti-Semitism was on the rise in Europe; 76 percent said anti-Jewish sentiment increased in their country since 2007. In a survey a year later, almost half of the respondents said they were concerned about being verbally insulted or attacked in public. Seventy years after Auschwitz’s liberation, which is being commemorated across Europe, Jewish graves have been desecrated, and Jewish citizens are uncomfortable in certain neighborhoods, particularly those with high proportions of Muslims.

Anti-Semitism is not a new phenomenon in postwar Europe. But its usual standard bearers were Europe’s far-right groups. Far-right and populist groups still propagate hatred toward Jews, although in its more muted form than in recent decades. (There’s an anti-Semitic stripe in the far left as well, closely linked with anti-Americanism and sympathy for the Palestinian quest for statehood.) Parties such as the National Front in France, Austria’s Freedom Party and Belgium’s Vlaams Bok have long traded in anti-Semitism. Opinion polls show residual anti-Semitism in most European populations, which is largely understood as a reaction to globalization, modernity and urban values. In Central and Eastern Europe, where there was no postwar reconciliation, anti-Semitism burns hotter as part and parcel of old-school volkish nationalism.

Muslim leaders have to fight anti-Jewish mindsets as actively as Europe’s Jews must help dispel the falsehoods fueling the anti-Islam discourse.

But the far-right anti-Semites now have a more opportune target: Islam. The same tools and tropes that were once used to create fear of and resentment toward Jews have been turned against Muslims. They claim that Muslims are swamping their countries and diluting their national cultures — claims once made against Jews. Whereas Jews were claimed to partake in blood rituals, Islam is cast as an inherently violent religion and all Muslims as threats to European security and identity.

Germany’s PEGIDA movement, which took to the streets in Dresden and elsewhere in Germany in late 2014 and early 2015, offers a perfect example. While PEGIDA’s foremost target was the Muslim community, its closeness to neo-Nazi groups and anti-Israel currents was manifest. One man with an Israeli flag was chased from a PEGIDA demonstration, and marchers carried posters reading “Just say no to Israel” and “Let Germany finally be Germany,” the latter a resentful reference to Germany’s war guilt and coming to grips with the Holocaust. Just as contemporary anti-Semitism is often strongest in places with no Jews, PEGIDA support was the highest in Dresden, a city with a population less than 0.5 percent Muslim. In other words, as with anti-Semitism, Islamophobia is highly irrational.

Muslim anti-Semitism

The chief perpetrators of anti-Semitic violence and terrorist attacks, however, are not the far right ideologues but radicalized elements in Europe’s Muslim community. It goes without saying that not all Muslims are anti-Semitic. (Collective guilt is almost always wrong-headed.) But polls show that anti-Semitism is strikingly high among European Muslims, particularly younger Muslim men and women.

A recent French survey found that 74 percent of French Muslims said they believe Jews have too much influence over the nation’s economy. (The figure among non-Muslim French was 25 percent.) Seventy percent of French Muslims said that Jews control the country’s media. A 2013 study by the EU found that Jews in Europe felt most threatened by Muslims in their societies. Günther Jikeli in his new book, “European Muslim Antisemitism,” corroborates these findings and argues that anti-Semitism is pervasive in the beliefs of young European Muslims.

The reasons for the new anti-Semitism are part socioeconomic, part political. So far, the young Muslims involved in the recent attacks against Jews have almost always been the kind of poor, disenfranchised young men whose circumstances breed resentment and anger. In Islam they find a home and identity. The politics of Israel in the Middle East have thrown fuel on the fire consistently over the last two decades; the ongoing violence against the Palestinians in Gaza is only the most recent agony. The emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant has facilitated the mix of a toxic cocktail that targets Jews across Europe.

But Jews are not necessarily safer in Israel than they are on the streets of Paris or Berlin. Europe is facing an enormous challenge in reacting to this new element in its midst and defeating it without encouraging more converts to radical Islam. We saw this happen in the aftermath of United States’ wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in response to the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the Central Intelligence Agency’s black sites and the drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

On Feb. 14, the European Jewish Congress called for enhancing existing anti-racism legislation, which is enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. It envisions prohibiting the wearing of the full-face veil everywhere in Europe, punishing denial of the Holocaust and hate speech and outlawing praise for a terrorist act. But the proposal is not constructive in the long run. Such measures cast suspicion on all Muslims and would work to alienate rather than integrate.

European countries must devise a way to make Muslims feel part of their societies. Here in Paris it is stunning to experience firsthand how abruptly the City of Light ends at the banlieues, the tenement housing on Paris’ periphery where much of the migrant population lives. Here one leaves the urban wonderland of museums, fine restaurants, graceful apartment buildings and good jobs and enters the underworld of poverty, marginalization, unemployment and ugliness.

There are many ways that French and other European societies can reach out to their Muslim neighbors. This could mean interfaith dialogue, common civic initiatives, integrated schooling and more inclusive governance structures. Projects such as Germany’s Schule Ohne Rassismus, a nonprofit that fights racial bias against Jews, Muslims and others in secondary schools across the country should be replicated elsewhere in Europe. Ultimately, all Europeans, including Muslim communities, must insist on more democracy, civic culture and tolerance. Muslim leaders have to fight anti-Jewish mindsets as actively as Europe’s Jews must help dispel the falsehoods fueling the anti-Islam discourse. This is the way to beat the twin menaces of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Paul Hockenos is a journalist living in Berlin. He has covered the transformations of the EU for over 25 years.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy.

Blame the Muslims: how government and media stoke the fires of Islamophobia

Blame the Muslims: how government and media stoke the fires of Islamophobia

Muslims are portrayed as fanatics and extremists, caught in a clash of civilisations where the good guys are representatives of western civilisation.

---

BLAME the Muslims. That seems to be the message from governments and media across Europe in the wake of the terrible attacks in Paris.

Muslims are to blame for terrorism. Not just the tiny number of Muslims who carry out such attacks, but all Muslims must carry some responsibility. It is argued that their religion is too amenable to terrorist ideas, that they don’t denounce their co-religionists sufficiently and in strong enough terms, that their schools and mosques are breeding grounds for terrorism.

We are now being told that not enough Muslims are signing up to join the British army while at the same time young men from the Muslim community are flocking to fight with the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

The way that Muslims dress, the food that they eat and the regularity with which they pray are under scrutiny, and the message is all too often clear: that Muslims are seen as the “enemy within” western society. Indeed this is the explicit argument of the racist Pegida movement in Germany, which is now planning a demonstration in Newcastle, northern England.

Those Muslims who renounce violence as a means of achieving political change do not thereby absolve themselves from blame. Demands for change, or non-violent extremism as it has come to be called, only leads to violent extremism. Or at least that was the contention of the journalist John Ware on a recent edition of Panorama, an investigative programme aired on the BBC.

Many Muslims feel that these are examples of double standards. Most terrorism in Europe is not Islamic terrorism, but connected with separatist groups or with the far right.

The biggest single terrorist attack in recent years was in Norway, carried out by a far right ideologue against a left party youth gathering. This week’s shooting of three young Muslims in North Carolina, which police said may have been over a parking dispute but many have suspected was carried out by a militant atheist, has not led to denunciations of his act as the armed wing of atheism. Other atheists have not been asked to search their consciences to see whether atheism may lead to this sort of extremism. Gatherings of atheists are not targeted by security forces.

Why are the approaches to different groups of terrorists so different? Part of the reason is racism: Muslims are portrayed as fanatics and extremists, caught in a clash of civilisations where the good guys are representatives of western civilisation while the bad guys are identified with backwardness, superstition and barbarity.

This dichotomy conveniently ignores western lack of civilisation, whether through two world wars and a holocaust or through the creation of empires which ruled over whole peoples – many of them the same who are being demonised here. It also ignores the record of Muslim culture historically.

There is one overwhelming reason why this happens however: the wars themselves. There is a refusal to link terrorism with the wars which have taken place over a decade and a half, and a refusal to see that one of their outcomes is a rise in Islamophobia.

There is a hideous symmetry in this: as the wars involving Britain and the US have become more mired in failure, so civil liberties have come under greater attack and the rise in Islamophobia has become more pronounced.

When the war on terror was launched in October 2001, those who opposed it predicted not just a devastating series of wars but a crackdown on civil liberties and a rise in racism against Muslims. Not a single pro-war politician would have predicted its outcome 14 years later. Instead we were told these wars would root out terrorism, encourage democracy and protect human rights.

The war on terror has created the exact opposite of its aim: a massive increase in terrorism.

The war initially was to root out terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan and destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Despite the fuss about the killing of bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are still there. Terrorism is now widespread in the Middle East and Africa.

Western Embassies have been closed in Yemen and Libya, which is in a state of civil war and strife, only four years after the western bombing of the country. IS controls large parts of Syria and Iraq. The rise of IS has been partly facilitated by western allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar as part of their intervention in Syria.

Despite this, the response from western governments has been more of the same. The US and its allies are bombing IS in Iraq and Syria and this week it was announced 2000 British troops were being sent to Jordan.

We are now in a vicious circle: more terrorist attacks, more crackdowns, more wars, more racism.

The atmosphere after the Paris attacks will lead to much more of that. Already the calls for free speech in defence of Charlie Hebdo have been somewhat compromised by draconian sentences even for those making drunken remarks to police about the attacks.

In this country those returning from IS camps, often with having had no involvement in fighting have been given up to 12 years in prison. Whatever one might think of their behaviour, it is surely counterproductive to send those who have returned, often disillusioned with IS, to prison for such long periods of time.

This open season on Muslims is fuelled by government and media. Stories negative to Muslims are highlighted, those which show them in a positive light or refute previous negative ones, receive much less publicity. The UK government’s Prevent strategy – designed ostensibly to prevent violent extremism – targets schools, colleges and Muslim organisations, demanding that they are vetted for speakers and activity.

This is an attack on free speech, on civil liberties, on the right to think ideas that might be unpopular but which should not be forbidden.

Muslims are repeatedly told they have to apologise but what exactly do they have to apologise for? The Muslim community in Britain has played a large part in campaigning and political organising over the years, most recently on the major demonstrations over Israel’s attack on Gaza last summer.

They have been the backbone of a movement which tried to stop the wars and change government foreign policy. There is little doubt that Britain would be a safer place if we had succeeded.

– Lindsey German is convenor of the Stop the War Coalition and co-author of A People’s History of London.

Source: Middle East Eye

Fox News Inspires Mosque Arsonist Claims “I Only Know What I Hear on Fox News”

Fox News Inspires Mosque Arsonist Claims “I Only Know What I Hear on Fox News”

 

Fox Hate Speech and Paranoid Memes lead directly to physical hate crimes!

Yesterday in Indiana, 52-year old truck driver Randolph Linn pleaded guilty to all charges in an arson attack against the Islamic Center of Toledo.

Linn testified that he got “riled up” by Fox News and right wing talk radio, drank 45 beers, and set fire to the mosque’s prayer room because he learned from Fox that Muslims are terrorists who don’t believe in Jesus Christ: Mosque Arsonist Tells Court: ‘I Only Know What I Hear on Fox News’.

Linn explained to the court that he had gotten “riled up” after watching Fox News.

“And I was more sad when Judge [Jack] Zouhary asked him that, ‘Do you know any Muslims or do you know what Islam is?’” one mosque member who attended the hearing recalled to WNWO. “And he said, ‘No, I only know what I hear on Fox News and what I hear on radio.’”

“Muslims are killing Americans and trying to blow stuff up,” Linn also reportedly told the judge. “Most Muslims are terrorists and don’t believe in Jesus Christ.”

Linn claimed that he had consumed 45 beers in the 6 hours before leaving his Indiana home to set fire to the mosque, which he had discovered while working as a truck driver.

After his arrest on Oct. 2, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ava Dusten said that Linn had told officers, “Fuck those Muslims… They would kill us if they got the chance.”

Related articles

• Randolph Linn: Mosque Arson Suspect Indicted On Hate Crime Charges (loonwatch.com)
• Slaughtered Pig Left Outside of Cypress Mosque a Possible Hate Crime (theuglytruth.wordpress.com)
• Houston: Dead Pig Left In Front of Mosque (loonwatch.com)
• Colbert: Fox News so desperate they’re breaking out their ’emergency Muslims’ (rawstory.com)

Investigation Looks For Muslim Bias In Texas Schools, Finds Christian Bias Instead

Investigation Looks For Muslim Bias In Texas Schools, Finds Christian Bias Instead

Posted by kstreet607

I meant to post this yesterday, but I got sidetracked.  I’ve often wondered if Right-Wingers ever get embarrassed when they are proven to be blatantly wrong on an issue.

Then again I doubt it, their embarrassment gene is non-existent.

Via:- Think Progress

A bizarre chain email sent to district and school board officials in the Dallas area this October titled “IRVING ISD INDOCTRINATING ISLAM” inspired a recent investigation of “Islamic bias” in the district’s curriculum. Despite the outlandish claims, the district requested that an official from the organization that created the curriculum to respond. The results of a 72-page investigation done by the organization were not surprising: there’s a Christian bias in schools, not a Muslim one.

The official told the board that a bias toward Islam didn’t exist, even mentioning that “she hired a ‘very socially and fiscally conservative’ former social studies teacher who ‘watches Glenn Beck on a regular basis’ to seek out any Islamic bias in CSCOPE [the curriculum].” She “asked her to look for anything she would consider the least bit controversial.” The Dallas Morning News has the details of an investigation that mentioned “every religious reference in the CSCOPE curriculum, from kindergarten to high school”:

– Christianity got twice as much attention in the curriculum as any other religion. Islam was a distant second.

– The Red Crescent and Boston Tea Party reference mentioned in the email were nowhere in CSCOPE’s curriculum, although they may have been in the past.

– If there was any Islamic bias in CSCOPE it was “bias against radical Islam.”

This isn’t the first time Texas has debated the perceived presence of too much Islam in its school books. In 2010, the Texas Board of Education banned any books that “paint Islam in too favorable of a light.” The reasoning was head-scratching: “the resolution adopted Friday cites ‘politically-correct whitewashes of Islamic culture and stigmas on Christian civilization’ in current textbooks and warns that ‘more such discriminatory treatment of religion may occur as Middle Easterners buy into the US public school textbook oligopoly.’” A Texas based civil liberties advocate said at the time that “the members who voted for this resolution were solely interested in playing on fear and bigotry in order to pit Christians against Muslims.”

Related articles

• Investigation Looks For Muslim Bias In Texas Schools, Finds Christian Bias Instead (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
• Investigation Looks For Muslim Bias In Texas Schools, Finds Christian Bias Instead (thinkprogress.org)

ISLAMIC SUNNIS AGAINST EXTREMISM | “The extremist fanatics are doomed”

SUNNIS AGAINST EXTREMISM

About the author Darulfatwa is an endeavour of a group of committed and highly educated Muslims who collaborated with diverse community officials to establish what is the final frontier to bridge the gap between the needs of Muslims and their productive co-existence in the wider Australian community. Darulfatwa is a non-partisan and independent institution, lobbying for the right of all Muslims to a better living standard without prejudice and discrimination and defending the civil liberties and privileges of those at risk. It set forth in its endeavor to produce this text to empower the reader with knowledge to discriminate between moderation and extremism and expel the latter. Preface Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said: “The extremist fanatics are doomed.” Although extremism is not a new phenomenon, the rebel exacerbations witnessed today requires prompt action and a strong resolve. The global extremist movement driving this form of anarchy is manifested in groups known by a multitude of names hiding behind Islam to roam among the Islamic communities without drawing suspicion. Extremism does exist. Admitting this and recognising it as a dangerous force we can better plan to weed it from society. Islamic practice is a true following of the rules of Islam and extremism is a perverted view that deviates from the meanings of the merciful and moderate Islamic shari`ah. This elucidation is presented along this backdrop.   Abstract This elucidation explores the type of extremism and terrorism practiced under the pretext of Islam. It draws on the Quran, the sayings of Prophet Muhammad and the sayings of Muslim scholars to expose the roots of extremism and assert the just position of Islam. It also discloses revealing statements of deviant men/groups to add to the case against them. First the historical place of Islam in society is explored, then how deviations from orthodox Islam occurred and lead to the emergence of extremist ideologies manifesting historically in groups like the khawarij (dissenters) and in modern times in groups including the named al-Jama`ah al-Islamiyyah, the Wahhabis and Hizbut-Tahrir. Their actions and methodology are identified. Today, extremist movements have killed many people in Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Saudi, Iraq and other places. Based on misleading reasoning, they have killed innocents. Daring to masquerade as Muslims, these extremists have attempted to destroy the reputation of Islam and Muslims. To refute them we quote a series of statements from moderate Sunni scholars; clarifying the Sunni stand against terrorism and extremism. Finally, this paper delivers solutions and warnings including, a need for Islamic scholars, Sheikhs and Islamic religious workers to remain at the forefront of the line of defence against extremists and prevent access to the extremist books. It is recognised that this work requires qualified and diligent individuals trained in deflating the calls of the named terrorist groups and activists of today. The Beginnings of Extremism Historically, many people embraced Islam freeing their hearts from the odious practices of ignorance and tribalism. Those true Muslims whose hearts pacified to the call of the Prophet were a people of middle ground, fairness and justice. Others, whose hearts did not pacify with peace of mind, had ulterior motives and emerged to spread envious gossip by attempting to split the line. They constitute the fringe sects of destruction and diseased ideologies who had to conceal themselves with the cloak of Islam to spread their evil, disrupting the harmony of Islam. The khawarij (dissenters) are among those who appeared in the first century on the Islamic calendar and whom the Prophet peace be upon him warned against in his hadith: “There will be those that come after me who will read the Qur’an but it does not go past their throats. They leave Islam like a spear leaves a prey, and they never return to it. They are the worst of the creations.” Extremism in Modern Times The majority of Muslims do not subscribe to extremist ideologies and theological perversions, which is why extremists find themselves constantly challenged, striving in every era to increase their small number and expand on their fringe positioning. Consequently, extremists have always tended to overtly gather to protect and pass their distorted views to the next generation built on youth. Today the khawarij still exist despite appearing under different names. Like their elders, they pass group-blasphemy to all those outside their sects. They continue to assault, to shed blood and to extort the properties of all those who defy them, the same way their elders did with the sons of the companions of the Prophet. Except today their threat is greater especially when they are not being faced with a unified and prompt ideological counter-offensive. The khawarij of today follow the same concepts of their elders resulting in copycat acts of terror shedding the blood of the rulers; peoples of states; Imams; contractors; journalists; ambassadors; engineers; doctors; farmers; craftsman, and old and young males and females. They call upon peoples to dissent against the leaders by way of revolutionary coup d’états and armed revolts, to hit at the infrastructure of governments and to kill its soldiers and police officers. If people refuse their calls, they apostatize them and shed their blood and extort their properties; leading to the bombing of civilian buses and to planting explosives at airports, trains, public roads. Previously they have even destroyed mosque minarets with the praise of some locals. One of their speakers here in Sydney said on a local radio station about such killing that includes the likes of people in the police force: “It’s as permissible to us as drinking water”. Let us not forget the killing and slaughtering of the kids in East Jordan on the hands of these extremists. Their activist was caught saying: “Do not prevent us from its blessing”, implying he too wanted to contribute to the cowardice slaughtering. Clearly, these and the killing of the innocent are attempts to destroy the reputation of Islam and Muslims. The extremists have killed many people in Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Saudi, Iraq and other places thinking that their killing of those who oppose them is a means of seeking reward from God. Amongst those they’ve killed are: • Sheikh Muhammad ash-Shami:  the Mufti of a village near Aleppo called `Ifrin, • Sheikh Dr. Hussayn adh-Dhahabi: the Minister for Islamic Endowments and an academic at an Islamic College in Egypt. • Sheikh Nizar al-Halabi: the chairman of the Islamic Charity Projects Association in Lebanon. To plainly discover their deviant ideology and unjust reasoning underpinning their acts of terror, one needs only to observe extremists’ books.   Quotes from extremists’ books: • In their book fi dhilal al-Qur’an (In the Shades of the Qur’an) [vol. 3/G8/p.1198] they say: “He who obeys a human in a secular law even if it were partial obedience then this person is a mushrik (idolater) and a blasphemer no matter how emphatically he utters the testifications of faith”. • In the same book [vol. 2/G7/p.1057]: “All humankind in the East and the West inclusive of those who repeat the testifications of faith on the minarets with no indicator or factual happening are deeper in sin and worse in punishment on the Day of Judgment because they have blasphemed for the worship of creations”. • In the same book [vol 3/p.1449] is written: “It is required upon those who are called the Jama`ah al-Islamiyya or the brotherhood group to snatch the reigns of power from the rulers and to destroy their systems and to revolt against them by way of coups throughout the states”. However, historic and contemporary Islamic literature abounds with refutations against deviant sects. Islamic scholars fought and debated them including the great Prophetic companion `Abdullah Ibn `Abbas and the fourth Khalif (successor) Master `Aliy Ibn Abi Talib, followed by the four Sunni schools of thought and their orthodox followers. The four Sunni schools of thought are the highest authority for the Sunnis in refuting this global extremist movement and its aligned groups who falsely claim to be part of the Sunni populace.   Quotes from the four Sunni schools: • The Mufti of the Hanbalis in Mecca Sheikh Muhammad bin `Abdullah bin Hamid (d. 1295 H.) said in his book as-suhub al-wabilah (The Downpouring Clouds) page 276 about the leader of the extremist Wahhabi movement: “If he was contested and refuted and could not overtly kill his contester, he sends a hit man to murder him on his bed or at night in the market place, because he believed in the blasphemy of those who opposed him and the shedding of their blood”. • The Mufti of the Shafi`is in Mecca Sheikh Ahmad Zayni Dahlan (d. 1304 H.) wrote in his book ad-durar as-sunniyyah (The Sunni Gems) about the leader of the extremist Wahhabi movement that he used to say: “And all that is under the seven skies is a mushrik (idolater) fully, and he who kills a mushrik is rewarded with Paradise”. • He (Mufti) also relayed about the Wahhabi leader his statement: “He who enters our way shares our rights and obligations, and he who doesn’t is a blasphemer whose blood is shed and wealth is squandered”. • He also mentioned in his book ‘umara’ al-balad al-haram (The Princes of the Holy Land) that when the Wahhabis entered at-Ta’if they killed the people en mass including the elderly and the children, the honourables, the princes and the layman. They even slaughtered the suckling infants by their mothers’ breasts. They also assaulted the pilgrims to Mecca through extortion and murder. • The Maliki Sheikh Ahmad as-Sawi (d. 1241 H.) mentioned in his commentary on al-Jalalayn [vol.3 p.307-308] about the khawarij who misinterpret the true meanings of the Qur’an and the Prophetic traditions shedding in that the blood of the Muslims as is witnessed today in their localities. They are a sect in the Hijaz region (East Arabia) who are called the Wahhabis, they think they have a legitimate authority but in deed they are the liars who have been deceived by the devil who has made them forget the remembrance of their Lord. Those are the evil satanic sect; in fact the sect of Satan is defeated.”. • Dr Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 1996) and who was a disciple of Sheikh Hasan al-Banna may Allah have mercy on him mentioned in his book min ma`alim al-haqq (From the Characteristics of Truth) [p.264]: “Those underground youth were later on a major threat to the group, as they started turning against each other in assassinations until they became a destructive tool for terror in the hands of those who had no true knowledge of Islam and could not be relied upon for the common interest of society”. Hasan al-Banna also said about them before he died that they were not brothers and they were not Muslims. Today, the threat of extremists is escalating and reaching new fronts beyond New York, Madrid, Bali, London and Sharm El-sheikh. They kill unjustly on one hand and call themselves ‘the Salafy Group’ on the other hand. But, no two concepts can be more polarised. They hide behind the banner of Jihad and martyrdom and under the veil of Islam. The fact of the matter remains that Islam is against them and against their evil acts. Refuting them is an Islamic obligation and diffusing them should be a way of life for the true Muslim.   Remedies and Solutions The war against extremism is a systematic war which has to be accompanied with preventative measures which include: • Satisfying the need for Islamic scholars, Sheikhs and Islamic religious workers who remain at the forefront of the line of defence against them. • To continue training new religious workers and Sheikhs with the know hows and the rebuttal documents enabling them to expose extremism and its proponents. • To expose those in the public arena so that they cannot continue to find access to the general public. • To maintain a media, broadcast and print, that supports rebutting and curtailing extremist acts and undressing their disguise and motives • To encourage Islamic leaders of today to speak out against the modern version of the khawarij in order to prevent them from teaching their ideology through pulpits, mosques, radio stations, satellite channels, schools, public lectures. • To protect the Muslim youth from their danger by preventing access to the extremist books Curtailing extremism should not be limited to security measures, which sometimes defeats the aim. Security measures may sometimes bloat the motives of extremists who act upon a recursive chain of actions and reactions in order to expand their sphere of conflict from one generation to another. Alone it could also attract the attention of some oblivious youth who might grant their sympathy to these extremist groups. Some people have even put a spin on hypocrisy, disguising it as public relation and promotion; thus luring the passive. Such deviant people compete for air time and coverage, while concealing their true identity and motives behind void utterances of peace and moderation. Their private sessions contain the same rants that they distribute in their bookstores claiming to advise the youth towards the right path for salvation. It is also behind doors that they accuse those calling against extremism to be mere agents or informers. It was only recently, when one of them was extolling extremists by saying that if it weren’t for them “Allah would have sunk the Earth from underneath us” and he called those carrying out suicidal attacks “martyrs”. Consequently, continued learning about Islam and application becomes a necessity for differentiation.   The conclusion is framed in what the trustworthy Prophet peace be upon him said: “Allah rewards for gentleness what He does not reward for violence” [related by Muslim and others]. Clearly, the onus is upon all Muslims to resolve this phenomenon, each through his informed area of expertise and with as much capacity as one could bear. Muslims in Australia and abroad following the orthodox teachings of Islam condemn all forms of terrorism, extremism and social destruction. Thus, it is essential to conquer terrorism and its kin, that governments, nations and the media differentiate between Muslims and terrorists and to further promote that there is no relation between Islam, terrorism and extremism. To execute this objective Muslims throughout the world and particularly in Australia should assert their moderate stand loudly, empowered by textual and logical proofs. They must restate that they are not the ones who exchange conviction for positions, and are not those who disregard the true Islamic fatwa for any agenda or program. Counselling against extremists cannot be achieved only by statements and words, but has to be accompanied with a continuous effort in order to eradicate this social dilemma and save nations and its peoples from its danger. This work requires qualified and diligent individuals trained in deflating the calls of the named al-Jama`ah al-Islamiyyah, the Wahhabis and Hizbut-Tahrir.

Related articles

• Saudis say No to the Prophet Muhammad, Yes to Paris Hilton – Blog: What Would Muhammad Do? (religionnews.com)
• Innocence of Muslims participants sentenced to death in Egypt (guardian.co.uk)
• Op-ed | Ignorance breeds hatred: I am not a terrorist (tuftsdaily.com)
• Top 10 Misconceptions in Islam (islamolife.wordpress.com)

Profiteer of Hate and Religious Right Heroine Brigitte Gabriel Linked to Militia Guilty of Heinous War Crimes

Brigitte Gabriel Was Aligned with an Israeli Proxy Militia Guilty of Heinous War Crimes

Posted by Emperor

by Emperor

Brigitte Gabriel, a fanatic anti-Muslim bigot with a long and detailed history of Islamophobia has largely been discredited in the mainstream media. Gone are the days when Gabriel would get air time on Real Time with Bill Maher, feature profile articles in the New York Times, etc.

Gabriel is however still a darling favorite of the Christian Right-Wing and their associates and so her propaganda tactics have not ceased (there’s also the sticky fact that she make$ a lot of money in the hate industry). She gets coverage in the cocooned industry of Right-Wing media as a “terror expert” where the only voices allowed are those who confirm the prejudices she promotes. Just today Gabriel was quoted in another Right-wing media twilight-zone portal “One news Now” in an article titled “More Americans anti-America, Pro-Jihad” where she fear-mongers about the exaggerated threat of “homegrown terrorism” and puts forward another bizarre “Muslim Brotherhood infiltration conspiracy.”

She makes the following contradictory claim,

“‘We’re already seeing a rise of homegrown jihadists in the United States. In the last four years, since President Obama became president, we have arrested on American soil 426 jihadists,’ she reports. ‘[Reports are that] 186 of them were Muslim.’”

426 jihadists, 186 of whom were Muslim? huh? Logic clearly doesn’t prevail in the anti-Muslim propaganda machine.

In a twist to the usual MB infiltration conspiracy theories Gabriel goes onto claim Muslim Brotherhood recruitment centers exist and operate in the inner cities,

“‘One of the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood and their operation in the United States is to set up recruitment centers in the inner cities and recruit from the African-American communities and from the Hispanic communities, as well as from the prisons by appealing to them with the Islamic ideology as the ideology that’s going to raise their heads, give them pride,’ Gabriel explains.”

Has anyone seen any of these phantom recruitment centers?

The reality is Gabriel is projecting her own background as an ally and associate of extremism and terror. In a must read report released by MPAC titled “Not Qualified: Exposing the Deception Behind America’s Top 25 Pseudo Experts on Islam” we are provided with the testimony of Andrew Exum who is a former US Army officer and “Lebanese political specialist” on her exploits and involvement with a heinous terrorist Israeli proxy militia in Lebanon,

More disconcerting is the fact that Gabriel has ties to a violent Lebanese militia group that engaged in war crimes and other egregious human rights violations. According to Andrew Exum, a former U.S. Army officer, counter-­‐insurgency expert, and Lebanese political specialist:

‘The Lebanese Civil War was a conflict in which all the armed factions were guilty of some pretty heinous crimes at one point or another during the conflict and that Ms. Gabriel herself worked for and was aligned with an Israeli proxy militia in southern Lebanon that was responsible for some particularly horrific brutality — including widespread and systematic torture at the detention center in Khiam.‘

This is not new information (we’ve covered it before) but it is worth highlighting as it once again sheds light on the hypocritical nature of the Islamophobia Movement and exposes their true propagandistic intentions.

Related articles

• The Islamophobia Industry (islamphobia.wordpress.com)
• Has the Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrated the Romney Campaign!? (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• Brigitte Gabriel Was Aligned with an Israeli Proxy Militia Guilty of Heinous War Crimes (loonwatch.com)
• Anti-Muslim bigotry is being funded by the Israel-right-or-wrong crowd (mondoweiss.net)

Why Did IRA Terrorist Enabler and Catholic Bigot Peter King Get To Chair Anything?!

King is a long-time supporter of the IRA, and in the 1980s proclaimed: “If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the IRA for it.”

On Muslims, King has reached his own fact-less conclusion

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, will begin holding hearings Thursday on “the extent of the radicalization of American Muslims.” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has characterized the hearings as “a witch hunt.” Are they?

King also has said he believes the “self-radicalization” of American Muslims represents “a very small minority” of the overall community. What are the potential consequences of singling out one religious group?

All one needs to know about what is behind the King hearings can be gleaned by Peter King’s own statements regarding Muslims in the US.

How does Rep. King feel about Islam in the United States?

“Unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this country. There are too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully. We should be finding out how we can infiltrate [them].

How does King know so much about radicalization in the US? From a single source more than decade ago.

“The only real testimony we have on it is from Sheikh Kabbani who was a Muslim leader during the Clinton Administration, he testified back in 1999 and 2000 before the State Department that he thought over 80 percent of the mosques in this country are controlled by radical Imams. Certainly from what I’ve seen and dealings I’ve had, that number seems accurate.”

King’s single source, Sheikh Kabbani, is a Sufi Muslim who has advocated for peace and tolerance in Islam but who by his own admission is not an authority on Islam in America and who has admitted to simply stating his personal opinion – an opinion that has been contradicted by both the FBI and by every scholar who has studied the matter. Oh, and by the way, Sheikh Kabbani has also claimed that any Muslim who advises the US government is also “an extremist.” But King is not interested in facts. He just feels like it must be at least 80%.

“It was 80 percent back in 2000. Based on the radicalization since then, it has to be — I have no doubt, I have problem at all in saying it’s 85 percent. If it’s not 85, it’s still 80.”

And King has reliable sources to back up his feeling.

“I can get you the documentation on that from experts in the field. Talk to a Steve Emerson… It’s a real issue … I’ll stand by that number of 85 percent. This is an enemy living amongst us.”

That’s Steve Emerson, the “expert in the field” who has turned Islamophobia into a multi-million dollar career. Emerson has been caught in so many lies and distortions that the media watchdog group Fairness in Accuracy and Reporting (FAIR) has devoted an entire page to debunking his wild and exaggerated accusations. In an in-depth report of his writings, FAIR concludes that, “Emerson’s willingness to push an extremely thin story–with potentially explosive consequences–is… consistent with the lengthy list of mistakes and distortions that mar his credentials as an expert on terrorism.”

Of course, King could try to speak to American Muslims himself. But it seems he has already reached his own, fact-less conclusions.

“I think there’s been a lack of full cooperation from too many people in the Muslim community. And it’s a real threat here in this country.” … They won’t turn in their own. They won’t tell what’s going on in the mosques. They won’t come forward and cooperate with the police.”

That comes as a surprise to the authorities King claims to be assisting with these hearings. “If he has evidence of non-cooperation, he should bring it forward,” says Los Angeles County’s Sheriff Lee Baca. “We have as much cooperation as we are capable of acquiring through public trust relationships.”

Perhaps all of this explains why even conservative outlets like the National Interest have criticized King’s hearings. The National Interest wrote, “The hearings should never take place, but if they do, the real promoter of anti-Americanism at home and abroad will be Rep. King.”

The bottom line is that King’s hearings were not about making Americans safer. They are about promoting his personal views about Islam and Muslims in the U.S. As such they lend false legitimacy to the anti-Islam hate groups that have flourished in the U.S. since 9/11. We saw a glimpse of this zealotry and hatred recently, when a large group of tea party protesters in Orange County surrounded a Muslim group’s fundraiser yelling obscenities and shouting “Go Back Home!” to the Muslims walking to and from the event. The scene looked much like a chapter of American history that most Americans reflect on with shame. The fact that a representative of Congress held hearings that could lend legitimacy to this type of bigotry is shocking.

Dr. Reza Aslan, an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religions, is a contributing editor at The Daily Beast

Related articles

• U.S. dominates list of world’s ‘500 Most Influential Muslims’ – Articles (religionnews.com)
• David Yerushalmi: Pamela Geller’s anti-democracy lawyer & “SION” senior member exposed: The facts (loonwatch.com)
• Key members of the Congressional ‘Islamophobia caucus’ swept from Congress (mondoweiss.net)
• An ‘industry’ built on hate: How the right-wing successfully brought anti-Muslim bigotry into the American mainstream (mondoweiss.net)
• Dena Takruri: Islamophobia and the Muslim-American Vote (huffingtonpost.com)
• Will New House Homeland Security Committee Chair Carry On Peter King’s Islamophobic Legacy? (thinkprogress.org)
• Will New House Homeland Security Committee Chair Carry On Peter King’s Islamophobic Legacy? (loonwatch.com)

Renowned Philosopher Berates Western ‘Islamophobia’

Renowned Philosopher Berates Western ‘Islamophobia’

Posted by Amago

“Once, not very long ago, Americans and Europeans prided themselves on their enlightened attitudes of religious toleration, although everyone knew that the history of the West has actually been characterized by intense religious animosity and violence,” she said.

Why is it that priding yourself with enlightened attitudes of religious toleration only an ideal?  One reason why it has and still is an ideal is that religious toleration seems to be trumped by ”intense religious animosity and violence,” according to the renowned philosopher Martha Nussbaum,

Renowned philosopher berates Western ‘Islamophobia’

By Olivia Patton

Renowned philosopher Martha Nussbaum addressed a packed auditorium Friday afternoon, berating Western Islamophobia, a problem Nussbaum said continues to plague the country today.

“Once, not very long ago, Americans and Europeans prided themselves on their enlightened attitudes of religious toleration, although everyone knew that the history of the West has actually been characterized by intense religious animosity and violence,” she said.

Nussbaum, a service professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago, said blatant legislative discrimination against Muslims in the United States, France, Belgium, Germany, and Spain, among other countries, requires examination.

“Our situation calls urgently for critical self examination as we try to uncover the roots of ugly fears and suspicions that currently disfigure all Western societies,” Nussbaum said.

Seventy percent of Oklahoma voters in 2010 opted to pass an amendment to the state’s constitution that singled out Shariah Law — the moral code of Islam — as something Oklahoma courts would not be influenced by.

Shariah law regulates Muslim personal conduct and provides rules on alcohol consumption, dietary practices, prayer and codes of honesty in business dealings.

The amendment, approved by voters, was ultimately struck down as unconstitutional, and never went into effect.

The measure mirrors other recent U.S. attempts at religious intolerance.

Nussbaum shed light on a proposed Tennessee law that would have criminalized the practice of Shariah law with a felony punishable up to 15 years in jail. A rewritten version of the bill that did not expressly reference Islam or Islamic law, but did still carry criminal penalties, eventually passed.

In addition, U.S. Muslim women have experienced harassment because of their personal choice to wear the hijab and burka, Nussbaum said.

A female Moroccan hostess who worked at Disney Land’s Grand California Hotel is suing Disney for the right to wear her head scarf during work. Her supervisors allegedly told her the head scarf went against the “Disney look” and that she would have to take a job outside of the view of customers if she wished to continue wearing it.

“What I favor in the undergraduate curriculum is that everyone should have some knowledge of the major world religions,” Nussbaum said. “So I think we’re lucky in a sense that we have more opportunities for this kind of intervention to learning and conversation.”

The University’s 15-month-old Institute of Humanities and Global Cultures sponsored the talk to enrich its program aimed at providing the structure for graduate students and faculty to further their work in the humanities.

Related articles

• Imams’ trial tests Bulgaria’s religious tolerance (washingtontimes.com)
• Martha Nussbaum, the US philosopher who is a Consulting Editor for Interlitq, has been cited in “Antjie Krog: Should power listen to poetry?” (The Guardian, 26.09.12): “That is why a cabinet should read literature. Neither the state which it controls, nor (interlitq.wordpress.com)
• Shari’ah’s Uphill Climb (christianitytoday.com)

Hate Peddlers Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller’s Link to Neo-Fascist Thugs and Criminals

EDL Boss Stephen Lennon aka Tommy Robinson Arrested For Using A False Passport To Enter USA And Speak At Pamela Geller NYC Anti-Islam Rally.

LUTTON Published on Monday 22 October 2012…English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon has appeared in court this morning charged with entering the US on a false passport.  Lennon, who goes by the name Tommy Robinson, appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court and was remanded in custody, according to an EDL spokesman. He travelled to New York in September to speak at a Pamela Geller conference. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the unemployed 29-year-old had been charged with having “a false identity document with improper intention contrary to Section 4 of the Identity Documents Act 2010”.

EDL Leader Tommy Robinson Faces Trial for Passport Allegation after 9/11 US Speech for Pamela Geller. The leader of the far-right English Defence League (EDL) could face extradition to the US on criminal charges. Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was arrested amid reports that he entered the US illegally in September.

EDL leader Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson), appeared at Westminster magistrates’ court charged with possession of an illegal identity document. Yaxley-Lennon was remanded in custody until January to stand trial at Southwark crown court. He claimed on his Twitter page that his arrest stemmed from an invitation he accepted to speak in the US to mark the anniversary of 9/11 terror attacks.   Additional arrests came ahead of a planned march by the EDL in Walthamstow, east London, on October 27th, 2012.  Robinson used social media to publicise the event, revealing he intended to hold a viewing there of the inflammatory film Innocence of Muslims – which mocks Islam and portrays the prophet Mohammed as a paedophile.

As Per Islamophobia Watch: The EDL members released on bail after being arrested on Saturday October 20th, 2012 – apparently en route to the East London Mosque – didn’t include EDL leader Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson), who has been remanded in prison on a charge of entering the United States illegally. This arises from his visit to New York City last month to speak at the so-called International Freedom Defense Congress organised by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer’s Stop Islamization of Nations (SION).

Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) had previously been refused entry to the US when he tried to attend a demonstration (also organised by Pamela Geller and Spencer) against the “Ground Zero mosque” in September 2010. So it was always pretty obvious that he must have got through US customs to attend last month’s conference by using a false passport. It is difficult to believe that his hosts Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer were unaware of this, and hopefully the US authorities are investigating that aspect of the case too.

It appears that Lennon’s arrest over the New York trip wasn’t exactly unexpected. Back on 10 October he was asking Pamela Geller to contact him to discuss problems arising from his appearance at her conference.  Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today and was remanded in custody until January 2013. The EDL confirms that the offence he has been charged with is passport fraud.

AFP reports that Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) has been charged with “possession of a false identity document with improper intention” and quotes a Met police spokesman as saying: “The case relates to allegations that a man tried to travel to the US in September using another person’s passport.” In addition, Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) faces the prospect of being extradited to the US to face charges there.

Related articles

• EDL man on false passport charge (bbc.co.uk)
• VIDEO Pamela Geller on The Russel Brand X Show And Boy Did He Make A Fool Out Of Her. (pibillwarner.wordpress.com)
• Loony Pamela Geller: Petraeus Resignation Is an Obama Plot to Put a Muslim in Charge of the CIA (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Insane Allen West and Key Wingnuts of The Congressional ‘Islamophobia Caucus’ Swept From Power (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• Mitt #Romney, Pamela Geller, EDL’s Tommy Robinson, Robert Spencer and John Bolton (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• British Fascism | EDL Riddled With “Nazis Within” (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• Insane Islamophobe Pamela Geller | Petraeus Resignation Is an Obama Plot to Put a Muslim in Charge of the CIA (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• Caught on Camera | Mitt Romney Coddles Islamophobic Bigots and Neo-Fascist Extremists (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• EDL Boss Stephen Lennon aka Tommy Robinson Arrested For Using A False Passport To Enter USA And Speak At Pamela Geller NYC Anti-Islam Rally. (pibillwarner.wordpress.com)
• Majority of Americans Reject Hatemonger Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller’s Incitement to Hate (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)

Right Wing Religious Nuts Profiteering From Islamophobia

Al Qaeda Leader Ayman al-Zawahri Urges Holy War Over Prophet Film Produced And Promoted By Right Wing Extremists Joseph Nassralla, Morris Sadek and Nakoula B. Nakoula.

FOX NEWS CAIRO – The leader of Al Qaeda is encouraging Muslims to wage holy war against the United States and Israel in response to a film that insulted Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Ayman al-Zawahri, in an audio message released by Al Qaeda’s media arm As-Sahab early Saturday, claimed Washington allowed the film’s production under the pretext of freedom of expression, but added that “this freedom did not prevent them from torturing Muslim prisoners.”

The crudely-produced amateur film, “Innocence of Muslims,” which was posted to YouTube and other online forums (some in Arabic), was made by Egyptian-born American citizens (Joseph Nassralla, Morris Sadek and Nakoula B. Nakoula). The video sparked violence in the Middle East, including in Egypt and Libya, where Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others were killed on Sept. 11 during an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. Dozens more have also been killed in violence related to the film. In Saturday’s audio recording, Al-Zawahri praised “honest and zealous” demonstrators who breached the U.S Embassy in Cairo and attackers who stormed the U.S. “embassy” in Benghazi.

World War III: That’s exactly what Right Wing Extremists  Joseph Nassralla, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and Morris Sadek intended to do when they produced and promoted the stupid ‘Innocence of Muslims’ film.

Right Wing Extremists  Joseph Nassralla, Nakoula B. Nakoula and Morris Sadek, who are Coptic Christians from Egypt, have been on the  Islamophobia ”money train” for the past 3 years. Nakoula has federal convictions for manufacturing and distribution of Meth and ID fraud, he is an ex-convict whose probation conditions exclude him from ever using the internet or a computer without the written approval of his probation officer.

Gas station operator Nakoula B. Nakoula’s ”production company” is “Pharaoh Voice, Inc.” The registered address was 11804 Carson St. Hawaiian Gardens, Ca 90716. This is a converted gas station, now a “smog test” depot under a new owner not linked to Nakoula B. Nakoula.

Joseph Nassralla and Media for Christ (M4C) applied for the filming permit for Desert Warrior aka ‘Innocence of Muslims’ (per San Gabriel Valley Newspaper) and provided a certificate of insurance.  M4C has IRS non-profit status and files 990 returns. The 2011 return shows a budget of over $1 million dollars, and assets that were used to produce the film, ie the studio and the equipment such as sound editing for overdubs. The Media for Christ ( www.ATVSat.com ) website is a video blog production. 

Islamophobia Industry is Big Bucks as ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Filmmaker Joseph Nassralla’s Media For Christ Went From $8 Grand in Cash Donations in 2005 to over $1 Million in 2011. Joseph Nassralla has a very deep media trail, mostly on account of his featured roles in the various Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer promoted anti-Mosque events in New York City. SEE: http://rainoutreachtv.com/… “Nassralla founded the charity [i.e., Media for Christ] in 2005 with $30,000 of his own money. In its 2011 tax filing, which covers the period of the filming, the charity reported having eight employees and contributions of over $1 million.”

“There’s an interesting chronological parallel in the development of Joseph Nassralla’s alliance with Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, and the funding fortunes of Media For Christ nonprofit 501(c)(3), that in its first four years of existence, starting in 2005, it had an operating budget of less than $50,000 a year. Then, in 2009, according to Media For Christ’s 2009 990 tax form filed with the IRS, the non profit’s yearly budget jumped to $195,396.

“In 2010, the year Joseph Nassralla spoke at Pamela Geller’s and Robert Spencer’s two anti-mosque rallies, and was photographed together with the two, Media For Christ’s budget tripled, to $633,516. Then, in 2011, Media For Christ’s budget zoomed to over one million dollars ($1,016,366), an astounding rate of growth for a new nonprofit.

Media For Christ 1040 Hamilton Dd Durate CA 91010
Media for Christ Federal EIN 203012642 Public Charity 501(c)(3)
Most recently completed fiscal year (TAXPER) 12/2011
Total Revenue $1,016,785 12/2011
Total Assets: $67,167
President Joseph Nassralla
Filed by Kamal Rizk CPA/Vice President
Total Revnue $635,198… 12/2010 Way TV launched on 1/1/2010
Total Revnue $195,396… 12/2009..Linked to Geller and Spencer
Total Revnue $46,248….. 12/2008
Total Revnue $65,861….. 12/2007
Total Revnue $64,164….. 12/2006
Total Revnue $8,719…… .12/2005

Related articles

• ‘I Am Nakoula’: Anti-Islam Moviemaker Now Cult Hero (wired.com)
• TIMELINE of Anti Islam Film ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Produced and Promoted by Joseph Nassralla, Nakoula B. Nakoula and Morris Sadek Fox News Has It Wrong. (pibillwarner.wordpress.com)
• Al Qaeda Leader Ayman al-Zawahri Urges Holy War Over Prophet Film Produced And Promoted By Right Wing Extremists Joseph Nassralla, Morris Sadek and Nakoula B. Nakoula. (pibillwarner.wordpress.com)

Actress Cindy Lee Garcia Sues Over Innocence of Muslims Schlock

Actress Cindy Lee Garcia sues over Innocence of Muslims

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula has gone into hiding since his name was linked with the film

Anti-Islam film protests

A US actress who appeared in an amateur anti-Islam video that sparked protests across the Muslim world is suing the film’s suspected director.

Cindy Lee Garcia accused Nakoula Basseley Nakoula of duping her into a “hateful” film that she was led to believe was a desert adventure movie.

She is also asking a judge to order YouTube to remove the film.

A clip dubbed into Arabic provoked widespread anger for its mocking portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad.

The film, Innocence of Muslims, which was made in the United States, has sparked protests across the Middle East, North Africa and as far away as Sri Lanka, with some demonstrations turning into destructive and violent riots.

Four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stephens, were killed during an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

According to Ms Garcia, the script she received had made no mention of the Prophet Muhammad or made references to religion.

She claims she has received death threats since the video was posted to YouTube, and says her association with the film has harmed her reputation.

In a court filing lodged with Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, Ms Garcia alleged fraud, slander and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Dialogue dismay

Lawyers for Ms Garcia contend that changes in dialogue during post-production casts her in a false light.

Protests are continuing in the Muslim world, including in Pakistan

“[Garcia] had a legally protected interest in her privacy and the right to be free from having hateful words put in her mouth or being depicted as a bigot,” the lawsuit says.

“There was no mention of ‘Mohammed’ during filming or on set. There were no references made to religion nor was there any sexual content of which Ms Garcia was aware,” it adds.

Mr Nakoula denies being “Sam Bacile”, a pseudonym used by the person who posted the video online.

He has gone into hiding after telling US media he was the manager of a company that helped produce the film, but US officials believe him to be the director.

Mr Nakoula was convicted of fraud in 2010 and ordered to pay more than $790,000 in restitution. He was released in June 2011 with the provision that he did not access the internet or use any aliases without permission.

Authorities questioned him last week over whether he had violated any of those conditions.

YouTube has so far refused Ms Garcia’s requests to remove the film, according to the lawsuit, although it has blocked it in Saudi Arabia, Libya and Egypt.

“This lawsuit is not an attack on the First Amendment nor on the right of Americans to say what they think, but does request that the offending content be removed from the Internet,” the complaint states.

Google, which owns YouTube, has blocked the film in Saudi Arabia, Libya and Egypt.

A spokesman for YouTube said they were reviewing the complaint and would be in court on Thursday.

Related articles

• Actress sues over anti-Islam film (bbc.co.uk)
• Actress in anti-Muslim film to ask for injunction (news.yahoo.com)
• Actress in Anti-Muslim Film Sues (abcnews.go.com)
• Actress wants judge to block anti-Muslim film clip (miamiherald.com)
• Actress wants judge to block anti-Muslim film clip (hosted.ap.org)

Pamela Geller | Professional Hatemonger Freaks Out

Pamela Geller Freaks Out Over ‘Bare Naked Islam’ Shutdown

And her commenters are nauseating

Via:- Charles Johnson

Hate group leader Pamela Geller is losing it over WordPress.com shutting down the “Bare Naked Islam” anti-Muslim blog: BNI SHUT DOWN AGAIN, HAMAS-TIED CAIR DOES VICTORY DANCE!!!!! – Atlas Shrugs.

After ranting about the threats she has received (as if that somehow excuses threats against other people), Geller concludes her babbling post with this:

 
Is she a SKELETOR stand in!?

I condemn all calls for killing and genocide.

I don’t know what was said at Bare Naked Islam. Some of what I see I would not host or post on Atlas. But I don’t CAIR. The difference between an exchange of ideas and an exchange of blows is self-evident.

If I had a blog on wordpress, I would pull it. I would. Because it’s only a matter of time until something you say doesn’t meet with the Muslim Brotherhood guidelines.

The fundamental principle of free speech is the protection of all speech, not just speech we like. Because who decides what’s good and what’s forbidden? The Hamas-tied thugs and enemies of free speech at CAIR?

If it can happen to BNI, it can happen to any of us. Contact support@wordpress.com.

There’s the rub. All of these freaks know they’re walking a tightrope, making alliances with thuggish groups like the English Defense League, and inciting the ugliest kind of extreme hatred — but keeping up a masquerade of “condemning” it at the same time. It’s no surprise that they’re worried by what happened to “Bare Naked Islam,” and they should be.

Here are some of the comments in Geller’s thread about the closure, just to drive this point home. The non-stop hatred has driven these people insane.

*ALL* of BNI’s comments are monitored, ALL. They just dont want the TRUTH to come out about Islam and how evil it is.

Evil hides, truth reveals.

YOU ARE EVIL, ISLAM! AND, you are for ISLAM first before America.

[…]

BNI was an amazing side , how dare they shut it down ? I guess we are allready living under sharia law , I want BNI back and I will do whatever it takes to get it back , this makes me hate muslims even more than ever before …they are pure SCUM

[…]

I’m sure the financial backers of CAIR (read sowdis) are putting pressure on WordPress. This is bigger than CAIR . I smell rats and some of them may also be in the White House.

Interesting that this should suddenly happen, while WordPress is supposedly on holidays, and the OIC has just been here and petitioned the government for silence about condemning islam. RATS, everywhere.

[…]

I say this to the cowards there:

Nothing quite like being a TRAITOR TO CIVILIZATION, is there?

Why not just post a big banner on your homepage saying:

“TELLING THE TRUTH IST VERBOTEN!”

and

“STOP TELLING THE TRUTH! (it hurts the criminals feelings)!”

Listen, jerks: we have the right to accuse the criminals (moslems) of their crimes! Especially when we use their own “holy” words, proclamations and actions to do it!

“TurdPress – Gilding The Turds for the islamic extortion racket since 2011!”

;-(

As for what constitutes free speech? Anything backed up by facts (aka the Truth)! Even Aristotle, ages ago, noticed that “slander” is ONLY pre-judice, and vice-versa! It used to be, when we had laws concerning slander (and it’s written form, “libel”) you always had the legal Defense of the Truth to fall back on. But moslems didn’t like the Truth, so they got their libtarded todaies to create “hate crimes” ‘laws,’ in stead – where they go after the symptoms and effects of ongoinf injustices (the perfectly natural human emotional response of perpetual anger, aka ‘hate’ in stead of going after the causes – the crimes) so now they pretend to make it “illegal” to HATE CRIMES (like islam)!

😉

[…]

The koran is a violent piece of fiction, it creates violent brainwashed cult members who love nothing more than blowing the limbs from themselves and others all over the streets. blood and death is all they are about. That is the truth, and without sites such as BNI they,d be operating unoppossed. Come back soon BNI, the truth still needs telling. As has already been said if we allow the death cult to silence one site, they will think they can silence them all. WordPress are feeble. Keep sending them complaints.

[…]

I have never seen a better site in this topical realm of fighting the evil death cult masquerading as one of the worlds great religions – and I seen scores of these sites. The archived material, by topic, is a clearing house for rebuttal of Islamic lies and resistance tactics in general. It’s an educational resource that will quickly bring anyone up to speed on what Islam really is. The site itself is a networking opportunity and a rallying point for those who want to get active or remain active in the crusade against the worst evil the world has ever known.

EXPOSE OF PAMELA GELLER’S links to Organised Crime, her wealth linked to proceeds from crime, corruption, fraud and murder here:-

http://pibillwarner.wordpress.com/tag/pamela-geller-wealth-from-corruption-fraud-and-murder-at-universal-auto-world-dealership-she-co-owned-supplied-cop-killer-getaway-car/

Bill Warner Private Investigator Crime Blog exposes Pamela Geller’s neo-Nazi and Euro-fascist alliance

Geller’s Wealth from Corruption, Fraud; Dealership She Co-Owned Supplied Cop-Killer Getaway Car

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/10/13/gellers-wealth-from-corruption-fraud-mayve-facilitated-cop-killing/

Pamela Geller at The Age of Blasphemy

Related articles

• Anti-Muslim Hate Site Removed After CAIR’s Intervention (prnewswire.com)
• Godly Terrorist Anders Breivik Inspired by American Catholic Fascist Robert Spencer, Jewish Hatemonger Pamela Geller & Fascist Religious Right (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• Geller and Spencer Get Lathered Up, Spew Insults and Conspiracy Theories (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• CAIR Asks Lowe’s to Address Anti-Muslim Hate Prompted by TV Ad Pull-Out (prnewswire.com)
• Lions, Tigers, and Muslims OH MY! – Victoria Jackson “Spreading Islamaphobia where Pamela Geller left off” (allianceforanidiotfreeamerica.wordpress.com)
• Pamela Geller Freaks Out Over ‘Bare Naked Islam’ Shutdown (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Mitt Romney Says All Muslims Aren’t Violent Terrorists, Pamela Geller Freaks Right Out (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• EXPOSE OF PAMELA GELLER’S links to Organised Crime, her wealth linked to proceeds from crime, corruption, fraud and murder here:- (pibillwarner.wordpress.com)
• Bill Warner Private Investigator Crime Blog (pibillwarner.wordpress.com)
• http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/10/13/gellers-wealth-from-corruption-fraud-mayve-facilitated-cop-killing/ (richardsilverstein.com)
• Pamela Geller | Professional Hatemonger Freaks Out (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• Pamela Geller: Muslims Firebombed Their Own Mosque in Queens (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Pamela Geller’s Desperate Spinning Somehow Misses Mosque Attack Suspect’s Anti-Muslim Statements (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Pamela Geller’s Desperate Spin Somehow Misses Mosque Attack Suspect’s Anti-Muslim Statements (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Pamela Geller Still Freaking About Butterball Jihad: ‘I Exposed Halal Tutrkeys [sic]’ (littlegreenfootballs.com)

The Muslim conspiracy theory and the Oslo massacre

1. Liz Fekete

Abstract

Anders Behring Breivik, perpetrator of the Norwegian massacre, was motivated by a belief in a Muslim conspiracy to take over Europe. Extreme and aberrant his actions were, but, explains the author, elements of this conspiracy theory are held and circulated in Europe today across a broad political spectrum, with internet-focused counter-jihadist activists at one end and neoconservative and cultural conservative columnists, commentators and politicians at the other. The political fallout from the circulation of these ideas ranges from test cases over free speech in the courts to agitation on the ground from defence leagues, anti-minaret campaigners and stop Islamisation groups. Although the conspiracy draws on older forms of racism, it also incorporates new frameworks: the clash of civilisations, Islamofascism, the new anti-Semitism and Eurabia. This Muslim conspiracy bears many of the hallmarks of the ‘Jewish conspiracy theory’, yet, ironically, its adherents, some of whom were formerly linked to anti-Semitic traditions, have now, because of their fear of Islam and Arab countries, become staunch defenders of Israel and Zionism.

http://rac.sagepub.com/content/53/3/30.abstract

Related articles

• Breitbart Should Probably Stop Posting Nazi-Era Anti-Semitic Cartoon to His Site [Andrew Breitbart] (gawker.com)
• Neocon Kooks Obsessed With Islamic Conspiracy Lunacies (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)

Peter King Catholic Fascist & Terrorist Apologist is Chair of House Homeland Security Committee?!

Tuesday, Sep 13, 2011 11:59 ET

At U.K. terror inquiry, Rep. King defends I.R.A. terror

At a parliamentary hearing on Muslim radicalization, the New York Republican condones Irish radicalization

[Is Catholic commissar Peter King the new Joseph (Catholic fascist) McCarthy and fueling a new Inquisition?]

By Justin Elliott

AP

Rep. Peter King (R-NY)

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) stood by his past support for Irish terrorism during an appearance today before a British parliamentary inquiry into the roots of Muslim terrorism.

King, the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, came under fire as a hypocrite earlier this year when he launched his own hearings into “domestic radicalization” in the American Muslim community. Critics, including a civilian survivor of a 1990 Irish Republican Army bombing in London, called out King for being an unrepentant supporter of the I.R.A. King built his career in the Irish Catholic community of Nassau County as a pro-I.R.A. firebrand in the 1980s, and was even involved with a fundraising organization suspected of providing the militant group with money and weapons.

So it was a bit of surprise when the Home Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons invited King to testify in its “Roots of violent radicalisation” inquiry. Inevitably, King’s I.R.A.-supporting past came up.

It was the longtime Labour MP David Winnick, who was first elected to the House of Commons in 1966, who confronted King.

“There’s been some surprise in the United States but also in Britain that you have a job looking into and investigating into terrorism,” said Winnick. King, the MP added, “seems to be an apologist for terrorism.”

Winnick cited a King quote from 1982:

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.

And another from 1985:

If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.

“Do you stand by that?” Winnick asked King.

“I stand by it in the context of when it was said,” King responded, without hesitation.

He later added that those quotes were designed to “put [the conflict] in a perspective” for an American audience that was too often exposed to anti-I.R.A. points of view.

He then offered this lengthy defense of the role he played during the conflict in Ireland. Conspicuously missing from it is any denunciation of, or expression of regret for, I.R.A. terrorism.

I stand by it in the context of when it was said. … I can cite you Tony Blair, as recently as March of this year, put out a long statement defending my record both in the 1980s and throughout the Irish peace process. I was just out in the hallway and Baroness Kennedy came up to me to thank me for the work I did in the Irish peace process. Paul Murphy came by last evening.

What I was saying — and I stand by it — is that the situation in northern Ireland — there were loyalist paramilitaries and obviously Republican paramilitaries — and I believe that, I had gotten to know Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. And I was very confident that if the Republican movement could get to the table, you would see a peace process. And I believe the United States had a very significant role to play as an honest mediator, as an honest broker. And I worked very closely with Bill Clinton, I was very much involved in the Good Friday agreements, I was very involved in getting Gerry Adams’ visa, but also involved in getting loyalists into the United States. I felt that when it was on the table, that Adams and McGuinness would be able to, if you will, control the republican movement. And it’s worked. Tony Blair said I made invaluable contribution to peace, Bill Clinton has cited me in his memoirs as a person who was very much involved.

It was never my position as an Irish-American, whether or not Ireland was united, to me there were injustices in the north. There were good people on both sides. I spent a lot of time meeting with the loyalist community, the unionist community, at the same time, and I came away from that convinced that there was a role for the U.S. to play. What I was saying with those quotes, I was also trying to put in perspective. All of the quotes were anti-I.R.A. in the United States, no mention [ever] made of the UVF or the UDA or the Red Hand Commandos or whatever. I was trying to put it in a perspective to show that there were people — that this is not just the terrorist mayhem it was made out to be — that there were significant leaders on the Republican side.

It’s also worth noting here that this year King defended his support for the I.R.A. to the New York Times by claiming that the group had “never attacked the United States. And my loyalty is to the United States.” He did not repeat that explanation to the parliamentary committee.

Winnick followed up on the exchange by asking about British use of torture against the I.R.A. being used as a recruiting tool, and whether there is a parallel to post-9/11 U.S. torture policies. King said he did not believe there was.

Watch the exchange, beginning at the 10:18:50 mark.

http://salon.com/a/svEMfAA

• Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More: Justin Elliott

Related articles

• British Parliamentarians Have Lost Their Effing Minds (lezgetreal.com)

Right Wing Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America

Fear, Inc.

The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America

Anti-Muslim graffiti defaces a Shi’ite mosque at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan.

SOURCE: Getty Images/Bill Pugliano

By Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang , Scott Keyes, Faiz Shakir |August 26, 2011

Download this report (pdf)

Read the report in your web browser (Scribd)

Download individual chapters of the report (pdf):

• Introduction and summary
• Chapter 1: Donors to the Islamophobia network
• Chapter 2: The Islamophobia misinformation experts
• Chapter 3: The grassroots organizations and the religious right
• Chapter 4: The right-wing media enablers of anti-Islam propaganda
• Chapter 5: The political players
• Conclusion

Video: Ask the Expert: Faiz Shakir on the Group Behind Islamophobia

On July 22, a man planted a bomb in an Oslo government building that killed eight people. A few hours after the explosion, he shot and killed 68 people, mostly teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on Norway’s Utoya Island.

By midday, pundits were speculating as to who had perpetrated the greatest massacre in Norwegian history since World War II. Numerous mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, speculated about an Al Qaeda connection and a “jihadist” motivation behind the attacks. But by the next morning it was clear that the attacker was a 32-year-old, white, blond-haired and blue-eyed Norwegian named Anders Breivik. He was not a Muslim, but rather a self-described Christian conservative.

According to his attorney, Breivik claimed responsibility for his self-described “gruesome but necessary” actions. On July 26, Breivik told the court that violence was “necessary” to save Europe from Marxism and “Muslimization.” In his 1,500-page manifesto, which meticulously details his attack methods and aims to inspire others to extremist violence, Breivik vows “brutal and breathtaking operations which will result in casualties” to fight the alleged “ongoing Islamic Colonization of Europe.”

Breivik’s manifesto contains numerous footnotes and in-text citations to American bloggers and pundits, quoting them as experts on Islam’s “war against the West.” This small group of anti-Muslim organizations and individuals in our nation is obscure to most Americans but wields great influence in shaping the national and international political debate. Their names are heralded within communities that are actively organizing against Islam and targeting Muslims in the United States.

Breivik, for example, cited Robert Spencer, one of the anti-Muslim misinformation scholars we profile in this report, and his blog, Jihad Watch, 162 times in his manifesto. Spencer’s website, which “tracks the attempts of radical Islam to subvert Western culture,” boasts another member of this Islamophobia network in America, David Horowitz, on his Freedom Center website. Pamela Geller, Spencer’s frequent collaborator, and her blog, Atlas Shrugs, was mentioned 12 times.

Geller and Spencer co-founded the organization Stop Islamization of America, a group whose actions and rhetoric the Anti-Defamation League concluded “promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy “American values.” Based on Breivik’s sheer number of citations and references to the writings of these individuals, it is clear that he read and relied on the hateful, anti-Muslim ideology of a number of men and women detailed in this report&a select handful of scholars and activists who work together to create and promote misinformation about Muslims.

While these bloggers and pundits were not responsible for Breivik’s deadly attacks, their writings on Islam and multiculturalism appear to have helped create a world view, held by this lone Norwegian gunman, that sees Islam as at war with the West and the West needing to be defended. According to former CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman, just as religious extremism “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged,” the writings of these anti-Muslim misinformation experts are “the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.” Sageman adds that their rhetoric “is not cost-free.”

These pundits and bloggers, however, are not the only members of the Islamophobia infrastructure. Breivik’s manifesto also cites think tanks, such as the Center for Security Policy, the Middle East Forum, and the Investigative Project on Terrorism—three other organizations we profile in this report. Together, this core group of deeply intertwined individuals and organizations manufacture and exaggerate threats of “creeping Sharia,” Islamic domination of the West, and purported obligatory calls to violence against all non-Muslims by the Quran.

This network of hate is not a new presence in the United States. Indeed, its ability to organize, coordinate, and disseminate its ideology through grassroots organizations increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Furthermore, its ability to influence politicians’ talking points and wedge issues for the upcoming 2012 elections has mainstreamed what was once considered fringe, extremist rhetoric.

And it all starts with the money flowing from a select group of foundations. A small group of foundations and wealthy donors are the lifeblood of the Islamophobia network in America, providing critical funding to a clutch of right-wing think tanks that peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islam—in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted talking points that anti-Islam grassroots organizations and some right-wing religious groups use as propaganda for their constituency.

Some of these foundations and wealthy donors also provide direct funding to anti-Islam grassroots groups. According to our extensive analysis, here are the top seven contributors to promoting Islamophobia in our country:

• Donors Capital Fund
• Richard Mellon Scaife foundations
• Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
• Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust
• Russell Berrie Foundation
• Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund
• Fairbrook Foundation

Altogether, these seven charitable groups provided $42.6 million to Islamophobia think tanks between 2001 and 2009—funding that supports the scholars and experts that are the subject of our next chapter as well as some of the grassroots groups that are the subject of Chapter 3 of our report.

And what does this money fund? Well, here’s one of many cases in point: Last July, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned a conservative audience at the American Enterprise Institute that the Islamic practice of Sharia was “a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.” Gingrich went on to claim that “Sharia in its natural form has principles and punishments totally abhorrent to the Western world.”

Sharia, or Muslim religious code, includes practices such as charitable giving, prayer, and honoring one’s parents—precepts virtually identical to those of Christianity and Judaism. But Gingrich and other conservatives promote alarmist notions about a nearly 1,500-year-old religion for a variety of sinister political, financial, and ideological motives. In his remarks that day, Gingrich mimicked the language of conservative analyst Andrew McCarthy, who co-wrote a report calling Sharia “the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time.” Such similarities in language are no accident. Look no further than the organization that released McCarthy’s anti-Sharia report: the aforementioned Center for Security Policy, which is a central hub of the anti-Muslim network and an active promoter of anti- Sharia messaging and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In fact, CSP is a key source for right-wing politicians, pundits, and grassroots organizations, providing them with a steady stream of reports mischaracterizing Islam and warnings about the dangers of Islam and American Muslims. Operating under the leadership of Frank Gaffney, the organization is funded by a small number of foundations and donors with a deep understanding of how to influence U.S. politics by promoting highly alarming threats to our national security. CSP is joined by other anti-Muslim organizations in this lucrative business, such as Stop Islamization of America and the Society of Americans for National Existence. Many of the leaders of these organizations are well-schooled in the art of getting attention in the press, particularly Fox News, The Wall Street Journal editorial pages, The Washington Times, and a variety of right-wing websites and radio outlets.

Misinformation experts such as Gaffney consult and work with such right-wing grassroots organizations as ACT! for America and the Eagle Forum, as well as religious right groups such as the Faith and Freedom Coalition and American Family Association, to spread their message. Speaking at their conferences, writing on their websites, and appearing on their radio shows, these experts rail against Islam and cast suspicion on American Muslims. Much of their propaganda gets churned into fundraising appeals by grassroots and religious right groups. The money they raise then enters the political process and helps fund ads supporting politicians who echo alarmist warnings and sponsor anti-Muslim attacks.

These efforts recall some of the darkest episodes in American history, in which religious, ethnic, and racial minorities were discriminated against and persecuted. From Catholics, Mormons, Japanese Americans, European immigrants, Jews, and African Americans, the story of America is one of struggle to achieve in practice our founding ideals. Unfortunately, American Muslims and Islam are the latest chapter in a long American struggle against scapegoating based on religion, race, or creed.

Due in part to the relentless efforts of this small group of individuals and organizations, Islam is now the most negatively viewed religion in America. Only 37 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Islam: the lowest favorability rating since 2001, according to a 2010 ABC News/Washington Post poll. According to a 2010 Time magazine poll, 28 percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, and nearly one-third of the country thinks followers of Islam should be barred from running for president.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 alone did not drive Americans’ perceptions of Muslims and Islam. President George W. Bush reflected the general opinion of the American public at the time when he went to great lengths to make clear that Islam and Muslims are not the enemy. Speaking to a roundtable of Arab and Muslim American leaders at the Afghanistan embassy in 2002, for example, President Bush said, “All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true faith—face of Islam. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It’s a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It’s a faith based upon love, not hate.”

Unfortunately, President Bush’s words were soon eclipsed by an organized escalation of hateful statements about Muslims and Islam from the members of the Islamophobia network profiled in this report. This is as sad as it is dangerous. It is enormously important to understand that alienating the Muslim American community not only threatens our fundamental promise of religious freedom, it also hurts our efforts to combat terrorism. Since 9/11, the Muslim American community has helped security and law enforcement officials prevent more than 40 percent of Al Qaeda terrorist plots threatening America. The largest single source of initial information to authorities about the few Muslim American plots has come from the Muslim American community.

Around the world, there are people killing people in the name of Islam, with which most Muslims disagree. Indeed, in most cases of radicalized neighbors, family members, or friends, the Muslim American community is as baffled, disturbed, and surprised by their appearance as the general public. Treating Muslim American citizens and neighbors as part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, is not only offensive to America’s core values, it is utterly ineffective in combating terrorism and violent extremism.

The White House recently released the national strategy for combating violent extremism, “Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States.” One of the top focal points of the effort is to “counter al-Qa’ida’s propaganda that the United States is somehow at war with Islam.” Yet orchestrated efforts by the individuals and organizations detailed in this report make it easy for al-Qa’ida to assert that America hates Muslims and that Muslims around the world are persecuted for the simple crime of being Muslims and practicing their religion.

Sadly, the current isolation of American Muslims echoes past witch hunts in our history—from the divisive McCarthyite purges of the 1950s to the sometimes violent anti-immigrant campaigns in the 19th and 20th centuries. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has compared the fear-mongering of Muslims with anti-Catholic sentiment of the past. In response to the fabricated “Ground Zero mosque” controversy in New York last summer, Mayor Bloomberg said:

In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion, and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780s, St. Peter’s on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site, and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center. … We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else.

This report shines a light on the Islamophobia network of so-called experts, academics, institutions, grassroots organizations, media outlets, and donors who manufacture, produce, distribute, and mainstream an irrational fear of Islam and Muslims. Let us learn the proper lesson from the past, and rise above fear-mongering to public awareness, acceptance, and respect for our fellow Americans. In doing so, let us prevent hatred from infecting and endangering our country again.

In the pages that follow, we profile the small number of funders, organizations, and individuals who have contributed to the discourse on Islamophobia in this country. We begin with the money trail in Chapter 1—our analysis of the funding streams that support anti-Muslim activities. Chapter 2 identifies the intellectual nexus of the Islamophobia network. Chapter 3 highlights the key grassroots players and organizations that help spread the messages of hate. Chapter 4 aggregates the key media amplifiers of Islamophobia. And Chapter 5 brings attention to the elected officials who frequently support the causes of anti- Muslim organizing.

Before we begin, a word about the term “Islamophobia.” We don’t use this term lightly. We define it as an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from America’s social, political, and civic life.

It is our view that in order to safeguard our national security and uphold America’s core values, we must return to a fact-based civil discourse regarding the challenges we face as a nation and world. This discourse must be frank and honest, but also consistent with American values of religious liberty, equal justice under the law, and respect for pluralism. A first step toward the goal of honest, civil discourse is to expose—and marginalize—the influence of the individuals and groups who make up the Islamophobia network in America by actively working to divide Americans against one another through misinformation.

Wajahat Ali is a researcher at the Center for American Progress and a researcher for the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Eli Clifton is a researcher at the Center for American Progress and a national security reporter for the Center for American Progress Action Fund and ThinkProgress.org. Matthew Duss is a Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress and Director of the Center’s Middle East Progress. Lee Fang is a researcher at the Center for American Progress and an investigative researcher/blogger for the Center for American Progress Action Fund and ThinkProgress.org. Scott Keyes is a researcher at the Center for American Progress and an investigative researcher for ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Faiz Shakir is a Vice President at the Center for American Progress and serves as Editor-in-Chief of ThinkProgress.org.

Download this report (pdf)

Read the report in your web browser (Scribd)

Download individual chapters of the report (pdf):

• Introduction and summary
• Chapter 1: Donors to the Islamophobia network
• Chapter 2: The Islamophobia misinformation experts
• Chapter 3: The grassroots organizations and the religious right
• Chapter 4: The right-wing media enablers of anti-Islam propaganda
• Chapter 5: The political players
• Conclusion

Video: Ask the Expert: Faiz Shakir on the Group Behind Islamophobia

Related articles

• CFAP Report: $42 Million From Seven Foundations Helped Fuel The Rise Of Islamophobia In America (crooksandliars.com)
• Godly Terrorist Anders Breivik Inspired by American Catholic Fascist Robert Spencer, Jewish Hatemonger Pamela Geller & Fascist Religious Right (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• New report maps the roots of Islamophobia (salon.com)

Pamela Geller “America’s Most Deranged Blogger”

Pamela Geller Rages at the Independent’s Accurate Article

Shrieking Harpy says, ‘I love Muslims!’

She’s looking more and more like SKELETOR!

“I ♥ me some Muslims!”

The Independent’s Robert Chalmers has a very balanced and fair look at Pamela Geller: American patriot or extremist firebrand?And of course, any balanced and fair examination of the Shrieking Harpy can only come to one conclusion: she’s desperately unhinged.

What’s striking about this article, though, is that Geller completely lacks the courage of her convictions. When confronted about her bizarre, hate-filled posts, she invariably attempts to pretend she didn’t really say what she did really say. It’s a “joke,” or it’s somebody else’s writing that she just happened to put on her blog for no particular reason, or it’s “taken out of context.” Like many extremists and bigots, underneath the bluster and the hateful statements Geller is a coward.

For example:

Among the many new things I have learnt from the work of Pamela Geller is that President Obama reputedly used to knock around with a crack whore.

“That,” the author, blogger and broadcaster insists, “is not what I said. You are taking this out of context. The post [on her website atlasshrugs.com] was pointing out how people were reporting lie after lie about Sarah Palin. I said to myself, there is so much about Obama we don’t print. In his youth,” she continues, repeating a story for which there exists absolutely no foundation, “he supposedly liked a girl who was a crack whore. I never reported it as fact. They say all these vile things about Palin but do we ever talk about Obama and the crack whore?”

The incredibly libellous post, entitled: “IT’S TIME TO EXPOSE THE TRUTH ABOUT OBAMA” appeared on 1 August 2009. “Why not tell the truth about Obama and his reported strange sexual predilections?” Geller wrote. “It is well known that he allegedly was involved with a crack whore in his youth. Very seedy stuff … Find the ho, give her a show! Obama allegedly trafficked in some very deviant practices.”

Pretty hard to take that out of context, wouldn’t you say?

Chalmers emailed me to ask for my reaction to Geller’s insults:

She began blogging on littlegreenfootballs.com, run by the professional musician and software expert Charles Johnson. Between 2004 and 2007, she posted thousands of entries. “She was always as reactionary,” he tells me, “as you see her now.”

Johnson, who, as that remark would suggest, does not share Geller’s opinions, is described as a “mental patient” on Atlas Shrugs.

“I know Pamela Geller often calls me crazy,” he told me. “But I’m not the one who talks about the president’s birth certificate being faked or says that he’s the illegitimate son of Malcolm X, and I’m not the one who defends a war criminal and makes alliances with white supremacist groups. That would be Ms Geller. She has a very long record of absolute lunacy, mixed with bigotry and racism and I am far from the only person to point this out.”

Please note: the article says Geller posted “entries” at LGF, but that’s not accurate. She posted comments only; even when LGF focused heavily on Islamic extremism, there was no way I’d ever let someone this crazed and illiterate post front page entries here.

The overall picture you get from the Independent’s article is of a pathetic, intellectually challenged bigot who thrives on the attention, and the Shrieking Harpy has responded to Chalmers’ article with her customary insults and incoherent rage: Independent Sunday Magazine Cover Story: Pamela Geller ‘The most dangerous woman in America???????’

Robert Chalmers could not disappoint his judgemental peers and risk losing his cache with the lemmings; hence he commiserated with intellectual frauds like Charles Johnson and an unnamed journalist who actually attempted amateur Geller psychoanalysis (as if), but Chalmers chose not to speak to the people I actually work with, like Robert Spencer, Pamela Hall, James Lafferty etc.,

Geller seems to believe that Chalmers was actually sympathetic to her, but too afraid to say so. Good grief.

Pamela Geller is definitely not the “most dangerous woman in America,” but she just might take the title of “most deranged blogger in America.”

Read the whole thing…

Loons Pamela Geller and Terry Jones Make Hate List

Pamela “the looniest blogger ever” Geller is on the front page of the SPLC hate report. The SPLC should feature Spencer’s hate diatribe and association now as well.

Geller, Jones Amp Up Anti-Muslim Hate Rhetoric

The annual observances in New York City of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Center are normally somber and subdued. But with anti-Muslim acrimony in America escalating, apparently stoked by anger over a proposed Islamic cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero, this year’s commemorations were sometimes downright ugly.

Public figures such as Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin helped fuel that discord with harsh denunciations of the proposed Muslim center. But no one did more to fan the flames of fear and hatred over the “Ground Zero mosque” than Pamela Geller, co-founder of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).

Earlier this year, Geller — who also has questioned whether President Obama was born in America — bought anti-Muslim ads that were displayed on New York City buses for a month. She warned that Muslims will “turn to further intimidation, murder and terrorism” if they can’t achieve a political takeover. Her comments were so incendiary, in fact, that several neo-Nazi organizations even ignored the fact that she is Jewish and published her diatribes. She in turn commented favorably on the South African, apartheid-defending terrorist Eugene Terre’Blanche after he was murdered, blaming his death on “black supremacism.”

Pamela Geller

On Sept. 11, Geller led a rally near the proposed Muslim community center, where protesters carried signs (“No mosque on sacred ground”) and heard speeches by her and Geert Wilders. Wilders is a hard-line Dutch lawmaker who has compared the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and made frequent speeches in the United States warning that Islam is an ideology, not a religion, intent on world domination.

At the same time Geller’s demonstration was being staged, a rival rally was held just blocks away. Those demonstrators called for tolerance and carried their own signs — “The attack on Islam is racism” was one.

Citing police estimates, The Wall Street Journal said there were about 1,500 people at Geller’s anti-mosque rally and 2,000 at the counter-demonstration. The New York Post said the pro-mosque crowd outnumbered the anti-mosque protesters, 3,000 to 2,500. Both these estimates infuriated Geller, who accused the “liberal establishment mass media” of a “massive distortion” meant to minimize her cause.

For several days this September, Gainesville, Fla., pastor Terry Jones and his plans to burn Korans were world news. Then the Muslim- and gay-bashing chief of the Dove World Outreach Center sank back into obscurity.

Meanwhile, an obscure pastor from Gainesville, Fla., drew vastly more publicity than the far better known Geller by announcing a plan to mark the 9/11 commemoration with “International Burn a Koran Day.” News of Terry Jones’ plans tore across the Muslim world, igniting fury in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates phoned Jones in an effort to persuade him not to burn copies of the Islamic religious text. Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, warned that Jones could endanger the troops. President Obama said if Jones followed through on his plan, it would be “a recruitment bonanza for al Qaeda.” The right-wing pastor, who has also bitterly attacked “homos,” received death threats and a visit from FBI agents. The international police agency Interpol issued a warning to governments worldwide of an increased risk of terror attacks if Jones proceeded with his plan. The U.S. State Department also warned Americans living and traveling abroad of the potential for violent protests.

In the end, Jones canceled his Koran burning event, saying he had an agreement that would move the Manhattan Islamic center to another site. That wasn’t so. Gainesville law enforcement agencies later said they would bill Jones for the costs associated with his planned Koran burning. They are expected to exceed $200,000. That would bankrupt his 50-member Dove World Outreach Center, Jones said, a prospect that clearly delighted many residents of Gainesville.

Fascist, Neo-Nazi Rabbi Wants Debate with Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Richard Bartholomew

From the Jewish Chronicle:

The rabbi who spoke at an English Defence League rally two months ago has apparently challenged Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks to a televised BBC debate on “Is Islam a religion of peace?”

…In an email seen by the JC, Rabbi [Nachum] Shifren says he has set rules for the debate structure, to be followed by the Chief Rabbi and the BBC – despite no known interest in such a programme from either party.

The JC saw the email because it was sent to them; the text was published on 23 December on a blog devoted to the Rabbi’s exploits:

Dear Sir,

I, Rabbi Nachum Shifren, Director of The California Security Council, who,having been the first person in the history of England to be banned from excercising [sic] freedom of speech at the home and pivot of British free speech at Speaker’s Corner in London, Hereby challenge Rabbi Lord Jonathon [sic] Sacks; Chief Rabbi of the Hebraic congregations of The United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth, to a one hour televised BBC debate on a number of topics including “Is Islam a religion of peace?” The Islamification of Britain. Cultural Marxism in Western liberalism, Multiculturalism and it’s [sic] effect on the host society; education, religion, laws and culture.

This is the first time I’ve seen Shifren complain that he was supposedly “banned” from Speaker’s Corner; a video of his appearance there merely shows him arguing with a Muslim about how “fags” can’t be executed in Judaism because there is no religious court in Jerusalem where they can be put on trial. The only people who seemed to be keen for him not to continue in this vein were his EDL handlers (I blogged on the incident here, and on Alan Lake’s response to my post here).

The blog where the “challenge” was published has the encouraging name of Newworldorderuk, but there is no information about who runs it or how the message was passed to them; presumably the blog owner is someone with a personal link to Shifren. However, given that Shifren has a background as a schoolteacher in California, the spelling is strangely poor, and one wonders if he has actually written it himself.

There is also a list of conditions for the debate, including  the demand that

The programme should not be advertised or announced using such inflamitory [sic] labelling as ‘far-right, ‘extremist.’ i.e. not served up in terms that suit the marxist-Islamist agenda of the BBC.

Further:

That the usual practice of selecting a carefully chosen hostile audience to the guest deemed to be ‘politically-incorrect’ according to BBC Trotskyist strictures [sic – the JC misquotes this as “Trotskyist structures”] be avoided by having no audience at all, ditto questions from emails or phone-ins.

Of course, this is transparent publicity-seeking – it’s a common crank strategy to demand a public debate with someone who has a higher profile, and then to insist, when the “challenge” is ignored or rebuffed, that this is clearly evidence that the crank views cannot be refuted.

Newworldorderuk has some commentary of his or her own – the writing style is the same as that of the challenge itself:

Rabbi Sachs [sic] has not responded to the challenge. Though the Chief Rabbi often makes important statements against secularism and the atheist attack on religion he inevatably [sic] risks a second Holocaust by supporting the Islamification of Britain, something which does not much worry the mass of the British political and religious class, still basking in the heritage of Bolchevism in the land where Karl Marx lived and died, wrote Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto, and where Marx’s grave in Highgate cemetery remains a holy shrine. The land whch has been a socialist state since 1945.

…It appears that as is normal with all news emanating from the EDL or other opposition to the one party state, Rabbi Shifren’s challenge was referred to either Yasmin Alabhai Brown or Mehdi Hasan, the ‘Anti-fascist enforcers’ for the Communist National Union of journalists, where one of these two distinguished British Muslims has slapped a ‘No Platform’ on it’s [sic] publication across all British print and televised media.

Catholic Fascist Robert Spencer Praises Catholic Euro Fascist Ewald Stadler

Robert Spencer Goes Bonkers for Austrian Fascist Ewald Stadler

Birds of a feather flock together and in Robert Spencer’s case it seems that he has latched onto a fellow Catholic in Austria by the name of Ewald Stadler.

The only problem is that Stadler is a politician with the BZO, a group that he found along with Jorg Haider, a neo-fascist. Stadler has also made some controversial statements on Nazism.

Here is the video Spencer posted on his site and his comments, it has been reposted by the BNP since,

Austrian MP Ewald Stadler, addressing the Turkish ambassador to Austria, here dares to tell the truth about Islam in Turkey and in Europe. It’s breathtaking. Ewald Stadler surely deserves to be nominated for Anti-Dhimmi Internationale of 2010.

(Video thanks to Pamela Geller.)

Here is Stadler’s bio translated from the German (hat tip: Leonora),

Ewald Stadler is an Austrian politician and was a member of the Austrian Freedom party until 2007. He was counted among the so-called “German National” wing of the FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party/ freedom party Austria) but was also a proponent of the (previously less known) conservative catholic views in his party. Stadler constantly attracted attention with his controversial statements on the Nazi era. He asserted that the end of the National Socialist(nazi) command in Austria would not give any relief/liberation.  In the European elections in Austria in 2009 he was the top candidate of the BZÖ .

Bündnis Zukunft Österreich(BZÖ)= Alliance for Austria’s Future (BZÖ) is an Austrian party . It was founded in April 2005 by members of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) by Jörg Haider. It is classified as right-wing (right-populist).

Is it any surprise that Spencer is so awe struck by Stadler? A fascist whose party is classified as right-wing (right-populist), and who has made borderline Nazi favorable comments? In reality it once again peels away at the facade that Spencer has created as a defender of the West when in reality he is nothing more than an anti-Freedom fascist.

It also adds to the list of Fascists that Spencer has supported and spoken with:

-EDL (English Defense League), SIOE (Stop the Islamization of Europe), Geert Wilders, Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa, Ewald Stadler, BZO, Sergei Trefkovic (Serbian Nationalist, genocide denier), etc.

Right Wing Terrorist Supporter Heads Homeland Security

The Republican congressman who supported terrorism

By Justin Elliott

Reuters/Chip East

Peter King

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.

Ironically, King has since emerged as the member of Congress perhaps most willing to toss around the “terrorism” label; he recently called for the designation to be extended to WikiLeaks. A few years ago, he also made the ludicrous claim that “80-85 percent of mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists.” After Sept. 11, he floated the idea of using “tactical nuclear weapons” in Afghanistan.

In another literary twist in the tale, when King did finally break with the IRA in 2005, it was over his frustration with the lack of Irish support for the American invasions of two Muslim countries, Iraq and Afghanistan. King’s fear of Muslim terrorism had finally overwhelmed his support for Irish terrorism. 

• Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More: Justin Elliott

How the U.S. Government Promotes Islamophobia

Via Alex Kane

I often focus on organizations and individual right-wing activists outside the U.S. government that have stoked anti-Muslim sentiment here.  But the U.S. government itself is just as culpable in promoting a McCarthyist climate of fear where every Muslim-American is considered a “terror threat” and Islam is turned into the new bogeyman of the day.

The latest installment in the Washington Post‘s investigative series by Dana Priest and William Arkin, “Top Secret America,” provides a look into how the U.S. government is mired in the deep swamp that is Islamophobia in America (emphasis mine):

Seeking to learn more about Islam and terrorism, some law enforcement agencies have hired as trainers self-described experts whose extremist views on Islam and terrorism are considered inaccurate and counterproductive by the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies…

Ramon Montijo has taught classes on terrorism and Islam to law enforcement officers all over the country.

“Alabama, Colorado, Vermont,” said Montijo, a former Army Special Forces sergeant and Los Angeles Police Department investigator who is now a private security consultant. “California, Texas and Missouri,” he continued.

What he tells them is always the same, he said: Most Muslims in the United States want to impose sharia law here.

“They want to make this world Islamic. The Islamic flag will fly over the White House – not on my watch!” he said. “My job is to wake up the public, and first, the first responders.”

With so many local agencies around the country being asked to help catch terrorists, it often falls to sheriffs or state troopers to try to understand the world of terrorism. They aren’t FBI agents, who have years of on-the-job and classroom training…

Amazingly, the Center for Security Policy, a neoconservative think tank, is also being listened to by the U.S. homeland security apparatus:

A book expanding on what Shoebat and Montijo believe has just been published by the Center for Security Policy, a Washington-based neoconservative think tank. “Shariah: The Threat to America” describes what its authors call a “stealth jihad” that must be thwarted before it’s too late.

The book’s co-authors include such notables as former CIA director R. James Woolsey and former deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, along with the center’s director, a longtime activist. They write that most mosques in the United States already have been radicalized, that most Muslim social organizations are fronts for violent jihadists and that Muslims who practice sharia law seek to impose it in this country.

Frank Gaffney Jr., director of the center, said his team has spoken widely, including to many law enforcement forums.

“Members of our team have been involved in training programs for several years now, many of which have been focused on local law enforcement intelligence, homeland security, state police, National Guard units and the like,” Gaffney said. “We’re seeing a considerable ramping-up of interest in getting this kind of training.”

The fact that Gaffney speaks with law enforcement on how to combat “terrorism” is disturbing.  Matt Duss of Think Progress explains that Gaffney is a person who thinks that “Obama is a Muslim, question[s] whether Obama is an American citizen, [and] believe[s] that the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s new logo is a sign of the president’s ‘submission to sharia.’”  Gaffney is not an expert on Islam.  In fact, Gaffney did not consult a single Islamic scholar on his “report” on shariah law, and only started studying the religion three years ago.

What’s more, as I explained here, the Center for Security Policy’s general counsel is David Yerushalmi, an advocate for criminalizing Islam and who once wrote that “blacks [are]…the most murderous of peoples.”

Another recent instance of the U.S. government promoting Islamophobia was the arrest of Mohamed Osman Mohamud in Oregon, which in reality was, as Glenn Greenwald put it, the FBI successfully thwarting its own plot.

The next day, this happened:

U.S. investigators said a fire at an Islamic center in Oregon on Sunday was arson and warned they would tolerate no retribution for an attempt by a Somali-born teenager to detonate what he thought was a car bomb.