by Robert Spencer
Jihad Watch

This mainstream media story about Hamas-linked CAIR's ongoing jihad against free speech, and its smear campaign against Raymond Ibrahim, is almost fair, but ignores the mountain of evidence of CAIR's true allegiances besides its unindicted co-conspirator status. Above all, the article ignores the particular elephant in the living room that is made abundantly clear by the story it tells: that Hamas-linked CAIR and its allies are trying to quash free and open discussion about Islam and jihad in America today, rather than engage in and encourage that discussion. That in itself is indication enough of their thuggish and totalitarian propensities.

"War for American hearts and minds rages over Islam," by Kari Huus for MSNBC.com, May 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

EVERETT, Wash.— Where Islam is discussed, controversy follows.Though the 9/11 attacks by Islamic extremists are almost 10 years past and al-Qaida boss Osama bin Laden is dead, the American debate over Islam is still raging, as evidenced by numerous conflicts over public events around the country. The battles — a kind of holy war for American hearts and minds — feature a changing cast of players, but they typically array some of the dozens of groups dedicated to exposing the threat of radical Islam in the U.S. against dozens of others established to protect the rights of Muslim Americans and defend their religion as peaceful. Charles Kurzman, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says the clashes over Islam point to two powerful prevailing currents. "One trend is heightened alarm and suspicion on the part of people concerned about domestic security," he said. "The other trend is increased assertiveness and political activism on the part of Muslim Americans." At a national level, the conflict played out in controversial congressional hearings in April, which featured testimony from witnesses warning of a threat posed by Islamic radicals within the United States. Meanwhile Muslim leaders and civil rights groups — who were largely excluded from the proceedings — held press briefings comparing the hearings to red-baiting of the McCarthy era. But more often they unfold on smaller battlefields. Recent examples include: · In Detroit, the city transit system is locked in a legal struggle with groups who sought to use advertising space on the sides of buses for controversial messages on "honor killings" of Muslim women. After the city rejected the ads as too political, the groups behind the ads — Stop Islamization of America and the American Freedom Defense Initiative — sued the city, and won. Detroit is appealing.

Detroit is appalling.

· In Temecula, Calif., a group called Citizens Concerned about the First Amendment this month held a protest outside the local high school, where they handed out fliers that labeled the teaching of Islam in the school's social studies program as "brainwashing." The fliers offered links to national anti-Islam groups.· In Texas, the board of education passed a resolution last September to reject the purchase of textbooks that include "pro-Islamic, anti-Christian half-truths and selective disinformation." The debate is expected to resurface with the review of new textbooks this year. · At least 20 states are considering "anti-Shariah" measures, which in various ways prohibit the courts from considering Islamic law in their decisions. Muslim advocates say the measures are legal gibberish that promote fear and hatred, while drafters portray them as a bulwark against creeping Islamization.

It never occurs to MSNBC that the campaign against the freedom of speech and Hamas-linked CAIR's smears and defamation of freedom fighters is connected to Sharia provisions regarding "blasphemy" and criticism of Islam, and are just one indication of the need to take a stand against Islamization.

No one is immune from the theological tug-of-war, as administrators learned last week at a small Washington community college sandwiched between the Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountains that decided to run a special lecture series called "Islam in America."Since it launched the series in January, Everett Community College has been battered by forces far beyond its normally quiet campus. "I knew it would be controversial, but I thought it was going to be more internal," said Craig Lewis, dean of communications and humanities at the school. "I had no idea we were going to get national attention." The talk that inspired the most recent protest at Everett Community College was a May 5 appearance by Raymond Ibrahim, who works for the Middle East Forum, a conservative think tank in Philadelphia. Ibrahim, an Egyptian American of Coptic Christian upbringing, holds that there can be no such thing as a "moderate" Islam. If Muslims adhere to the Quran, he said, they are compelled to engage in jihad or "struggle"— by persuasion, deceit or violence, if necessary — so Islam can triumph. "To a Muslim, jihad means a certain kind of struggle — spreading and empowering Islam against non-Muslims," Ibrahim told students and local residents who crowded the lecture hall. "Peace with non-Muslims is a provisional state only." Ibrahim invoked a notion from Islamic theology called "taqiyya," which allows Muslims to lie in certain circumstances. Ibrahim argued that taqiyya is broadly used by apparently moderate Muslims whose real aim is to convert and control others. When a member of the audience asked Ibrahim why most Islamic scholars in the United States condemned al-Qaida, he pointed to taqiyya. "It's strategic. … It is a deception that is allowed by Islam." Ibrahim said he had come by his knowledge through a precise reading of the Quran and other Arabic sources. "I know the truth sometimes is ugly," Ibrahim told reporters. "But I believe that getting the truth out is for everyone's benefit. … I think we've had too much of people not talking about it because they don't want to offend." Ibrahim's detractors say he is merely peddling bigotry based on dubious scholarship. "Raymond Ibrahim is associated with a group that has a long history of one issue — bashing Muslims and Islam," according to Arsalan Bukhari, head of the Seattle chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), referring to the Middle East Forum. The Middle East Forum, where Ibrahim is associate director, was founded by historian Daniel Pipes, a controversial figure known for his hawkish, pro-Israel stance. On the group's website, he says the organization is committed to combating Islamist actions and influence, "whether violent or lawful." The Council on American Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights group in the United States, led the effort to halt Ibrahim's speech. Leaders of 60 Muslim and other religious organizations and civil rights groups signed a letter to the college urging that Ibrahim's talk be canceled.

Repeating uncritically Hamas-linked CAIR's self-description as "the largest Muslim civil rights group in the United States" is spectacularly biased and misleading, and is hardly mitigated by giving space to its defamation below and only later getting around to noting (in a perfunctory and incomplete fashion) its ties to Hamas.

"Would a KKK member be given a platform by the college to talk about his/her view on African Americans in America?" said a letter from the coalition to college President David Beyer. "Would a member of the neo-Nazi movement be given a platform to share theories on Jews in America?"The argument over Ibrahim's speech soon flashed across the country. Bukhari's criticism of Ibrahim, published in an editorial in the Everett Herald, was then dissected by Washington, D.C.-based Robert Spencer — perhaps the most outspoken U.S. critic of Muslims — on his website Jihad Watch.

Note how they characterize me as a critic of "Muslims" rather than of "Islam" or "jihad," thus suggesting to the reader that I represent an irrational prejudice against a group of people rather than resistance to a repressive and rapacious ideology.

"(CAIR) always howl(s) when someone exposes the truth about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism," Spencer wrote. "...(The group) consistently opposes anti-terror measures… and more. This is the group trying to dictate to (the college) on its choice of speakers, and defaming a freedom fighter in the process. Free Americans should not let this unsavory Hamas-linked gang of thugs get away with this."Freedom of speech was one of the reasons the college cited for hosting Ibrahim — citing the value of hearing diverse opinions. That argument fell flat for audience member Jeff Siddiqui, who argued that Ibrahim's talk was so inaccurate, so incomplete and so unfair that he should not have been granted a podium, or been paid a speaker fee. "Here's the tug of war between free speech and hate speech," said Jeff Siddiqui, a local Pakistani American real estate agent. "Should he be allowed to be here? I say if he wants to stand here on the yard on an empty carton— more power to him. But to use public funds, to use public institutions to impact children who are paying money … should not be allowed," [sic] Mr. Ibrahim received a $1,500 fee for speaking, according to the college.

The profiteering implication here and below is straight out of the Islamic supremacist playbook. How much does John Esposito get for a speaking engagement?

The campaign to bump Ibrahim from the roster was the second protest over the college's Islam series. The first salvo came from the other side.When CAIR's Bukhari was included on a panel for a session titled "Being Muslim in America" in January, activists on the other side flew into action. ACT! for America, a group based in Florida, launched a Facebook campaign urging supporters "to contact the college, educate them about CAIR's background… and demand that the college provide an opposing viewpoint to CAIR's." Opponents have been trying to sideline CAIR since 2007, when a grand jury named the group as an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal case against the Holy Land Foundation, an Islamic charity charged with funding Hamas and "other terrorist organizations." No charges were ever filed against CAIR, and a federal court removed the designation three years later, but the stigma remains. Numerous websites are dedicated to proving its association with terrorists.

No charges were ever filed, but the FBI cut off work with Hamas-linked CAIR, and is reportedly still investigating it. Also it was recently revealed that the Justice Department stopped pursuing an indictment of Hamas-linked CAIR co-founder and longtime Board Chairman Omar Ahmad for political reasons.

What's ironic here is that this article chronicles how Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacists are trying to sideline everyone who points out how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence and supremacism, and in a fine case of projection, blame their enemies for what they themselves are doing.

"Our Facebook page was deluged with postings saying you know… 'they are terrorists'," said Lewis, the community college official. "'They're going to try to convert you and when they don't they can kill you' — all sorts of preposterous things like that. … We started getting calls from the community. And the president started getting calls."While security hawks have had successes in marginalizing groups they believe to be Islamists disguised as moderates, or misguided sympathizers, Muslims are fighting back, with backing from many religious leaders and civil rights groups. "It's part of a broader movement among Muslim Americans to get organized politically, including voter education campaigns, voter registration, running candidates for local offices, and in general, taking on the rights and responsibilities of American citizenship," said Kurzman, the UNC professor. "I know some people see this as troubling. I see this as part of the process of Americanization that many immigrant groups have gone through throughout history." In answer to websites like Jihad Watch and anti-CAIR.net that focus on suspected Islamist extremism — activists on the other side have created publications such as Jihad Watch, Islamophobia Today, and Loon Watch to fact-check what they see as anti-Islam smears.

Jihad Watch is on both sides of the issue! Nice work, MSNBC!

In any case, one wonders who fact-checks the purported fact-checkers, or how MSNBC decided that it was smear and hate sites like Islamophobia Today and Loon Watch, and Saudi-funded pseudo-academics like John Esposito who represented the side of the facts, and their anti-jihad opponents who were doing the smearing. Probably they did so simply on the basis of the fact that their Leftist political worldview coincides with that of those hate sites.

"There's this sense that they are not just going to be victims," said John Esposito, a [Saudi-funded] professor of religion, international affairs and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University. "(The attitude is) we're going to respond and be proactive."A recent report by Political Research Associates, a self-described "progressive" think tank in Sommerville, Mass., documents what it says is a lucrative industry that peddles Islamophobia to law enforcers in federal and state agencies. The report — "Manufacturing the Muslim Menace" — warns that anti-Islam groups are teaching officers that Muslims are waging a stealth jihad in the United States, as they await the right moment to take militant action. "Public servants are regularly presented with misleading, inflammatory, and dangerous information about the nature of the terror threat," it said. "A vocal and influential sub-group of the private counterterrorism training industry markets conspiracy theories about secret jihadi campaigns to replace the U.S. Constitution with Sharia law, and effectively impugns all of Islam … as inherently violent and even terroristic."

No evidence, you will note, is presented that any of this is false.

Former terrorist, born-again consultant Among the subjects profiled in the report is Walid Shoebat, an American born in Jordan who converted to Christianity from Islam. He now maintains that Islam is the religion of the antichrist and the current White House occupancy of Barack Obama — "definitely a Muslim" — is evidence of the growing influence of this dark force.Shoebat, who also claims he was a PLO terrorist as a youth and attempted to bomb a bank in Bethlehem, has parlayed his story into a thriving business as a consultant and anti-terror trainer for police and FBI agents, according to the report.

Note the sly bias — Shoebat has a "thriving business" alerting the FBI and police to the jihad threat. But Hamas-linked CAIR doesn't have a "thriving business"; they're a civil rights group. That CAIR is linked to pro-Sharia Islamic supremacists and Omar Ahmad has spoken about bringing Sharia to the U.S. doesn't matter. That opponents of CAIR are fighting for Constitutional freedoms doesn't matter.

Just this week, CAIR tried to convince the South Dakota Department of Public Safety to drop its endorsement of a state Homeland Security Conference featuring Shoebat as keynote speaker."South Dakota taxpayers need to know whether their hard-earned dollars are helping to fund a conference that will offer anti-Muslim hate and stereotyping to law enforcement and security personnel," wrote Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for CAIR, in a letter to South Dakota Public Safety Secretary Trevor Jones. The speech went ahead as planned on Wednesday.

Bravo!

Getting past knee-jerk reactions In Everett, college administrators besieged by protest over CAIR and Ibrahim gathered in the president's office, said Lewis."Finally we decided that if we were to going to un-invite one then we were going to have to un-invite everybody," he said. "… So we decided to keep everybody … and keep the dialogue open."...

Refreshing. And increasingly rare.

Published in FrontPageMagazine.com

Translations of this item:

Polish

Days ago in Egypt, throngs of Muslims (henceforth, "Islamists"), estimated at 3,000, fired guns and rifles and hurled Molotov cocktails at Coptic churches, homes, and businesses in the Imbaba region near Cairo: twelve Christians were killed—some shot by snipers atop rooftops—232 injured; three churches were set aflame to cries of "Allahu Akbar," while Coptic homes were looted and torched. Imbaba Church Burns As usual, Egyptian leadership did little to stop this latest rampage. According to eyewitnesses, though the mob opened fire around 5:30 p.m., the military did not arrive till 10 p.m., providing ample time to terrorize the Copts. One priest said "I called everyone, but no one bothered to come. I mourn all those young people who died," naively adding "We now must ask for international protection." Noting that this attack is unprecedented in scope, Muslim liberal writer Nabil Sharaf el Din said "The army is either incapable [of stopping anti-Christian violence] or is an accomplice to the Salafis [Islamists]." So what triggered this latest bit of Salafi savagery—or, as the MSM calls it, "sectarian strife"? Islamists claim that a Christian girl converted to Islam and the Coptic Church responded by abducting her and torturing her into renouncing Islam. Hence, the wild rampage was part of a "rescue" effort. This issue of Christian women supposedly converting to Islam only to be kidnapped by the Coptic Church is the Islamists' latest excuse to make Coptic life a living hell (especially ironic since the well-documented reality in Egypt is the opposite: Islamists regularly kidnap and force Christian women to convert to Islam). Indeed, days before this rampage, thousands of Islamists marched in front of St. Mark Cathedral, Coptic Pope Shenouda's residence, demanding the "release" of other Christian women—two wives of clergy, whom Muslims insist also converted to Islam only to be abducted and tormented by the Coptic Church to return to Christianity. (The notion of torturing people into returning to their original religion obviously comports well with Muslim logic: aside from the other Sharia schools which recommend outright execution of apostates, the "liberal" Hanafi school, which is dominant in Egypt, maintains that apostate women should merely be imprisoned and beaten till they come to their senses and return to Islam.) That these Coptic women have publicly insisted that they never converted to Islam does not seem to matter much; one of them, Camelia Shehata appeared on video months ago proclaiming that she will "live and die as a Christian"; she appeared again last week with her priest husband and young child, emphatically denying that she ever converted to Islam, imploring Muslims to leave them in peace. This supposedly "chivalrous" behavior—"rescuing" damsel converts to Islam even when they insist on never converting—highlights the Islamic world's obsession with the issue of conversion: while it is known that those who convert out, the apostates, should be put to death, few people are aware that those who convert in—against their will or not, based on false rumors or not—are a great source of validation for Islam, and thus must be secured. Undeterred, Copts congregate the next day in a burned Imbaba church for Sunday mass Even the West has been dragged into this obsession—such as the persistent rumor that the late Jacque Cousteau embraced Islam, prompting the Cousteau foundation to issue a letter verifying its founder never converted, and lived and died as a Catholic Christian. Indeed, a new Arabic book, Al-Quran Yaqum Wahdu—which consists of 33 anecdotes of Western intellectuals converting to Islam after supposedly being bowled over by the truths of the Koran—lists Cousteau and Islam critic Henryk Broder as its very first two examples, despite the fact that, back in the real world, everyone knows they never converted. One is left wondering how many, if any, of the other 31 anecdotes are true. In an insightful Arabic op-ed—see my complete translation here—Muslim intellectual Khaled Montaser elaborates on why Muslims are obsessed with converts: We Muslims have an inferiority complex…feeling that our Islamic religion needs constant, practically daily, confirmation by way of Europeans and Americans converting to Islam. What rapturous joy takes us when a European or American announces their [conversion to] Islam—proof that we are in a constant state of fear, alarm, and chronic anticipation for Western validation or American confirmation that our religion is "okay." Discussing how the Arab world exulted when it erroneously thought that the German writer Henryk Broder had accepted Islam—based on sarcastic remarks he had made—Montaser wrote "but we are a people incapable of comprehending sarcasm, since it requires a bit of thinking and intellectualizing. And we read with great speed and a hopeful eye, not an eye for truth or reality. Some of us are struck with blindness when we read things that go against our hopes." And there it is: just as Islamists refuse to face reality concerning so-called Western converts, so do they refuse to face reality concerning so-called Coptic converts to Islam. The only difference, of course, is that Copts live under Islamic authority—hence, all the death and destruction visited upon Egypt's indigenous Christians whenever Islam's inferiority complex flares up.