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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; David J. Rusin</title>
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		<title>CAIR Leader Runs for New York City Council</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/david-j-rusin/cair-leader-runs-for-new-york-city-council-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=cair-leader-runs-for-new-york-city-council-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Feb 2013 04:25:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David J. Rusin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[agenda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAIR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[New York]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Zead Ramadan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=175906</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Zead Ramadan eyes a bigger platform from which to promote his Islamist agenda.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/david-j-rusin/cair-leader-runs-for-new-york-city-council-2/zaed-ramadan-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-175908"><img class="wp-image-175908 alignleft" title="Zaed-Ramadan" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Zaed-Ramadan.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="209" /></a>Zead Ramadan, <a href="http://www.cair-ny.org/page/staff_and_board.html">board president</a> of the <a href="http://www.cair-ny.org/">New York chapter</a> of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6176">CAIR</a>), is eyeing a <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/uptown/ramadan-underway-wash-hts-article-1.1248316">bigger platform</a> from which to promote his Islamist agenda: a seat on the New York City Council. If he prevails, the city that endured 9/11 will count among its lawmakers a senior official in an organization linked to the financing of terrorists and intent on frustrating law enforcement efforts to foil the next jihad plot.</p>
<p>A Democrat and <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/mancb12/html/about/members.shtml">member</a> of <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/mancb12/html/home/home.shtml">Community Board 12</a>, one of 59 local <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/cau/html/cb/about.shtml">representative bodies</a> serving neighborhoods across New York, Ramadan has formally <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/uptown/ramadan-underway-wash-hts-article-1.1248316">announced his candidacy</a> to succeed the term-limited <a href="http://council.nyc.gov/d7/html/members/home.shtml">Robert Jackson</a> in northern Manhattan’s <a href="http://council.nyc.gov/d7/html/members/map.shtml">District 7</a>. He has gotten off to a quick start in <a href="http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2013/01/25/city-council-race-mark-levine-and-zead-ramadan-leaders-amount-campaign-funding">fundraising</a> and an even quicker start in playing the victim card, no doubt hoping to preempt criticism of his association with CAIR. “Ready 2 get attacked 4 my faith but I am not first or last,” Ramadan <a href="https://twitter.com/Zead4NYC/status/290533827758141440">tweeted</a> on January 13.</p>
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<p>The opening salvo was a January 2 <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2013/01/7052857/zead-ramadan-president-cair-ny-braces-city-council-run">article</a> by Azi Paybarah, published at <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/">CapitalNewYork.com</a>. Relaying Ramadan’s description of himself as a “lightning rod,” the piece explains that he “has been a frequent target of local anti-Muslim commentators, and several times during the interview Ramadan predicted opponents of CAIR would turn their attention to his campaign,” because “CAIR has been a frequent target of Republicans and conservatives, who accuse it of being tolerant of terrorism, or worse.” Paybarah’s <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2013/01/7112291/were-going-obama-style-bill-lynch-council-candidate-zead-ramadan">follow-up report</a> states that “CAIR, a civil-rights group, says it exists in part as an antidote to radicalism, and condemns terrorism and religious violence.” A more thorough journalist would have mentioned that “CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists,” in the <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/542.pdf#page=58">words</a> of <a id="_GPLITA_1" title="Click to Continue &gt; by Text-Enhance" href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/david-j-rusin/cair-leader-runs-for-new-york-city-council/#">federal</a> prosecutors; that CAIR was listed as an <a href="http://www.nysun.com/national/islamic-groups-named-in-hamas-funding-case/55778/">unindicted co-conspirator</a> in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation (<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6181">HLF</a>), whose leaders were <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/25/nation/na-muslim-charity25">convicted</a> of funneling money to Hamas; that a federal judge, citing “ample evidence” of CAIR’s ties to HLF and Hamas, <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1425.pdf#page=15">upheld the designation</a>; and that the FBI <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/985/fbi-cuts-off-cair-over-hamas-questions">ended outreach activities</a> with CAIR as a result. Of course, these inconvenient facts might have ruined the witch-hunt narrative.</p>
<p>Paybarah <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2013/01/7052857/zead-ramadan-president-cair-ny-braces-city-council-run">emphasizes</a> the Arab-Israeli conflict and the “politics in staunchly pro-Israel New York,” assuring readers that Ramadan “said he wanted to avoid using his Council campaign to refocus the dialogue in New York on Middle East foreign affairs” and would not prioritize such issues if elected. “I can’t affect the Middle East problem,” Ramadan told him. “I’m not condemning anything, OK? You want me to condemn one side or the other in a one thousand, two thousand-year dispute, what are you, insane?”</p>
<p>This is not the only time that Ramadan has passed on an opportunity to denounce Hamas. “Sir, do you consider Hamas a terrorist organization?” asked an Investigative Project on Terrorism (<a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/">IPT</a>) reporter at a <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3405/excerpt-from-committee-to-stop-fbi-repression">press conference</a> in 2011. After trying to change the subject to anti-jihad activist Pamela Geller, Ramadan offered nothing but bromides: “Islam, myself, and I think all people of conscience are opposed to all terrorism in all of its forms against all the people of the world. Anyone who is innocent that is killed, it’s not the way of the Islamic people or people of conscience or people who stand for liberty and justice. Thank you very much.” His evasiveness is consistent with CAIR’s long history of <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/969/cairs-silence-on-hamas">refusing to censure Hamas</a> by name. Further illuminating his sympathies, an IPT <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3406/the-new-york-times-collaborates-with-hamas-front">article</a> reveals that “Ramadan <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3401/excerpt-from-the-siege-continues-the-struggle">contributed $1,000</a> to <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/322.pdf">Viva Palestina</a>, an organization led by noted anti-Semite George Galloway, that supports Hamas financially and politically, in 2010.”</p>
<p>Though reticent to rebuke Hamas, Ramadan has no shortage of harsh words about life in the U.S. and sometimes disseminates them on Iranian-controlled Press TV, just as <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2011/07/cair-regularly-slams-america-on-iranian-tv">other CAIR figures</a> have done. Ramadan employed the following <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/05/14/241178/attacks-us-muslims-rise-election/">hyperbolic analogy</a> to peddle the Muslims-under-assault meme on the channel last year: “In Nazi Germany, they targeted the minority, the Jewish minority, and unfortunately it went from only philosophy to rhetoric to action. And that’s not where we want to go in America. I don’t think we’ll ever get there, but I don’t think we should allow the road to continue to be built towards that direction, because the comments that are being made against Muslims are very eerily echoing the comments that were made against Jews by Nazis.” During an earlier <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/168553.html">Press TV appearance</a>, he painted Congressman Peter King’s hearings on Muslim radicalization as “an attempt to demonize the Islamic faith” and downplayed the danger of Islamic terrorism, suggesting that Jews are as great a terrorist threat as Muslims. He <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/geoffrey-dickens/2010/09/09/today-cair-spokesman-equates-ground-zero-mosque-protest-japanese-i">sparred with King</a> on NBC in 2010, likening resistance to the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero to the internment of the Japanese, segregation, and slavery.</p>
<p>Ramadan has toed the <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/ryan-mauro/cair-vs-the-nypd-counter-terrorism-program/">CAIR party line</a> on the New York Police Department’s <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/anti-terror-program-new-york-safe-nypd-article-1.945717">surveillance program</a> to identify potentially violent radicals, <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2013/01/7052857/zead-ramadan-president-cair-ny-braces-city-council-run">calling it</a> “f—ked up” for “basically equating Muslim with terrorism, which is outrageous.” He previously <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/nyregion/in-police-training-a-dark-film-on-us-muslims.html?pagewanted=all">chided the department</a> for its use of <em><a href="http://www.thethirdjihad.com/">The Third Jihad</a></em>, a documentary that exposes Islamism in America and is narrated by reformist Muslim <a href="http://aifdemocracy.org/about/staff/founder-president/">Zuhdi Jasser</a>. According to a 2011 CAIR <a href="http://www.cair.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?ArticleID=26733">news release</a>, “Ramadan compared <em>The Third Jihad</em> to past propaganda such as the Nazi-era film <em>Triumph of the Will</em> or <em>Birth of a Nation</em>, which vilified African-Americans.” As CAIR was <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/muslims-call-new-religious-freedom-appointee-a-puppet-for-islam-foes/2012/03/27/gIQAdH6meS_story.html">protesting</a> <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3513/jasser-appointment-riles-islamists">Jasser’s</a> <a href="http://freebeacon.com/smearing-zuhdi-jasser/">appointment</a> to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom last spring, Ramadan penned a <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/documents/12239.jpg">Facebook post</a> smearing him as an “extremist” and asking, “Are David Duke and Pamela Geller on this panel too?”</p>
<p>Ramadan and CAIR-NY also participate in the <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3496/islamists-rehash-canards-in-bashing-law">Islamist pushback</a> against vital FBI sting operations to nab budding terrorists. The aforementioned <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3405/excerpt-from-committee-to-stop-fbi-repression">press conference</a> at which Ramadan ducked the Hamas query was arranged by the <a href="http://www.stopfbi.net/">Committee to Stop FBI Repression</a>. Additionally, CAIR-NY <a href="http://www.cair-ny.org/event/terros_factory_inside_the_fbi.html">co-hosted an event</a> with the author of <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Terror-Factory-Manufactured-Terrorism/dp/1935439618">The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism</a></em> at Columbia Law School on January 31. Attorney General Eric Holder <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121007733.html">criticized</a> such rhetoric before a Muslim audience in 2010: “Those who characterize the FBI’s activities in this case as ‘entrapment’ simply do not have their facts straight — or do not have a full understanding of the law.”</p>
<p>Finally, Ramadan has overseen one of CAIR’s more radical branches. A CAIR-NY <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CAIRNewYork/posts/182673128505041">Facebook entry</a> from February 2012 “urges everyone to come out and support Dr. Aafia Siddiqui by attending her appeal for an unjust 86 yr jail sentence”; Siddiqui, a suspected al-Qaeda facilitator, was <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/pakistani-scientist-lady-al-qaeda-sentenced-86-years-prison-kill-u-s-soldiers-article-1.442926">found guilty</a> of trying to murder U.S. personnel in Afghanistan. Ramadan’s CAIR-NY <a href="http://www.cair-ny.org/page/staff_and_board.html">colleague</a> Cyrus McGoldrick infamously <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/joe-kaufman/cair-leader-mimics-hamas-in-calling-for-israels-destruction/">tweeted pro-Hamas messages</a>, <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/08/cyrus-mcgoldrick-of-hamas-linked-cair-calls-for-vandalism-of-afdi-pro-israel-ads.html">advocated</a> the <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/09/cyrus-mcgoldrick-of-hamas-linked-cair-applauds-mona-eltahawys-fascist-vandalism.html">destruction</a> of anti-jihad ads, and promised that “<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/10/hamas-linked-cairs-cyrus-mcgoldrick-warns-snitches-theyll-blast-them.html">we’ll blast</a>” police informants, whom he branded as “<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/12/hamas-linked-cair-thug-cyrus-mcgoldrick-again-threatens-snitches.html">snitches</a>”; he recently <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/joe-kaufman/cair-leader-calling-for-israels-destruction-leaves-organization/">left the group</a>, perhaps due to bad publicity. Furthermore, CAIR-NY <a href="http://www.cair-ny.org/page/staff_and_board.html">board member</a> Lamis Deek has <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3489/cair-official-sees-nypd-cia-israeli-conspiracy">warned Muslims</a> of an “NYPD-CIA-Israeli alliance” out to get them and, upon the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/world/middleeast/mohamed-morsi-of-muslim-brotherhood-declared-as-egypts-president.html">election</a> of Islamist Mohamed Morsi as president of Egypt, <a href="https://twitter.com/Lamis_Deek/statuses/216762773084971008">praised</a> the supposed liberation from America’s “proxy-imperialist (colonialist) wrath.”</p>
<p>Notable on its own, Ramadan’s campaign also highlights the trend of American Muslims with Islamist track records seeking elected office. For instance, <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/711.pdf">Esam Omeish</a>, a former president of the Muslim American Society (<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6263">MAS</a>), <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/542.pdf#page=58">described</a> by federal prosecutors as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America,” <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/1684/pro-muslim-brotherhood-candidate-eyes-public">pursued a seat</a> in the Virginia House of Delegates four years ago, but he <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/1294/omeish-campaign-crashes-in-va-primary">finished third</a> in the Democratic primary. Minnesota’s <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2158">Keith Ellison</a> has been more successful. A Democratic congressman since 2007, he regularly <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/1533/rep-keith-ellison-the-islamists-man-on-capitol">collaborates with CAIR</a> and similar groups; <a href="http://newsbusters.org/node/14103">saw parallels</a> between 9/11 and Hitler’s Reichstag fire; <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/1448/jasser-challenges-congressman-on-reforms-value">savaged Jasser</a> on Capitol Hill in 2009, effectively calling him an Uncle Tom who “give[s] people license for bigotry”; and <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/08/group-funded-rep-ellisons-pilgrimage-mecca-called-extremism/">enjoyed a pilgrimage to Mecca</a> funded by MAS. Despite this, Ellison <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Minnesota%27s_5th_congressional_district_elections,_2012">defeated his challenger</a> by nearly 50 points in 2012.</p>
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<p>Though Islamists who enter the halls of power through the back door have drawn most of the headlines of late — particularly the many unelected <a href="http://www.radicalislam.org/analysis/muslim-brotherhoods-long-tenacles-reach-american-gov">Muslims with alarming histories</a> currently populating the Obama administration — one must not forget to keep an eye on the front door as well. Will Zead Ramadan be the next to walk in, securing a New York City Council seat that would provide a vehicle for shaping key issues, from police counterterrorism programs to religious accommodations in public institutions, and bestow unearned legitimacy on CAIR itself?</p>
<p>The decision will rest with the voters of District 7. They deserve to be given the facts about Ramadan and CAIR — to offset the steady diet of <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2013/01/7052857/zead-ramadan-president-cair-ny-braces-city-council-run">puff</a> <a href="http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2013/01/28/candidate-zead-ramadan-would-be-city-councils-first-arab-american">pieces</a> and sob stories — before making it.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://davidjrusin.blogspot.com/">David J. Rusin</a> is a research fellow at <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/">Islamist Watch</a>, a project of the <a href="http://www.meforum.org/">Middle East Forum</a>.</em></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.<br />
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		<title>When Romney Met Kenny: Mitt’s Islamist Gamble</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-j-rusin/when-romney-met-kenny-mitts-islamist-gamble/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=when-romney-met-kenny-mitts-islamist-gamble</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Oct 2012 04:46:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David J. Rusin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kenny Gamble]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reading]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[school]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[separatists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[youth]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[A word of caution on the presidential candidate's dangerous endorsement. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/david-j-rusin/when-romney-met-kenny-mitts-islamist-gamble/pgamble25-zz/" rel="attachment wp-att-149542"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-149542" title="pgamble25-zz" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/pgamble25-zz.gif" alt="" width="315" height="234" /></a>Mitt Romney’s embrace of <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/1105/legendary-songwriter-now-marches-to-an-islamist">Kenny Gamble</a>, an operator of Philadelphia charter schools who doubles as a prominent suit-and-tie Islamist calling himself <a href="http://www.imancentral.org/visionary-artist-businessman-community-servant-kenny-luqman-abdul-haqq-gamble/">Luqman Abdul Haqq</a>, raises questions about a potential Romney administration’s readiness to identify and steer clear of smooth-talking radicals. The Republican candidate should treat this blunder as a learning opportunity. The lesson: never make the mistake of promoting a Muslim leader without properly vetting him first.</p>
<p>The story begins on May 24, when Romney’s desire to push his education policies and reach out to urban voters <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&amp;id=8674917">prompted a visit</a> to West Philadelphia’s <a href="http://www.universalcompanies.org/BLUFORD.html">Universal Bluford Charter School</a>, one of <a href="http://www.universalcompanies.org/FamilyOfSchools.html">several</a> managed by Gamble’s conglomerate, <a href="http://www.universalcompanies.org/">Universal Companies</a>. According to an ABC News <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&amp;id=8674917">report</a>, Romney “had heard about Universal … and asked for an invitation.” Gamble claimed as much in a radio <a href="http://900amwurd.com/index.php?mact=Podcasts,cntnt01,detail,0&amp;cntnt01item=kenny-gamble-of-universal-companies-talks-about-mitt-romney-s-visit&amp;cntnt01detailtemplate=12&amp;cntnt01returnid=56">interview</a>.</p>
<p>Seated beside Gamble, Romney joined other local figures for a roundtable (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRHWFhUAEsc">video here</a>) in which he discussed ideas for attracting good teachers, involving parents, and boosting achievement. Romney generously praised Gamble, at one point turning to him and saying, “I’d like to get your experience from the front lines and first salute you for the investment you’ve made, financial and personal, in establishing a pathway for hundreds, thousands of young people to have changed lives.” Gamble led Romney on a <a href="http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/tTIji2oyb0f/Romney+Visits+Philadelphia+Charter+School/kFEb8N4Ty2o/Kenneth+Gamble">tour of the facilities</a> as well.</p>
<p>No less disconcerting, the Romney campaign appears not to have done any serious follow-up on Gamble despite <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/06/romney_visited_black_islamist-run_charter_school_in_philadelphia.html">drawing</a> <a href="http://kleinonline.wnd.com/2012/06/05/romney-pushes-education-plan-at-islamist-owned-charter-school-strange-visit-to-facility-tied-to-obamas-presidential-campaign/">criticism</a> from bloggers for the trip to an “Islamist-owned charter school.” Thus, Romney compounded the previous error by eagerly dropping Gamble’s name multiple times during NBC’s <a href="http://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=2D892700-F6A7-11E1-B7FE000C296BA163">Education Nation summit</a> in New York on September 25.</p>
<p>“I saw a school in the inner city of Philadelphia,” Romney <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/mitt-romney-at-education-nation--transcript/2012/09/25/b03ebcd2-0741-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html">explained</a>. “And I understand that the school was closed down, that 90 percent of the kids in that school were not reading at grade level. … A guy named Kenny Gamble … put in place a charter school.” After recounting his surprise at the art, music, and computer instructors there, Romney touted how Gamble runs it “like a business.” He continued: “As I recall, almost 90 percent of the students there now are reading at grade level. And it’s the same students.” (Note, however, that Universal’s education record is very much a <a href="http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2012-05-24/failing-charter-school-touted-on-romneys-education-tour/">mixed</a> <a href="http://www.greatschools.org/pennsylvania/philadelphia/5136-Universal-Institute-Charter-School/">bag</a>.)</p>
<p>Wherever Romney originally heard about Gamble and Universal, it probably was not from the websites of Middle East expert <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/">Daniel Pipes</a>, <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/">Islamist Watch</a>, or <a href="http://www.militantislammonitor.org/">Militant Islam Monitor</a>, which for years have documented <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2007/11/is-kenny-gamble-building-a-muslim-only">Gamble’s</a> <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/1105/legendary-songwriter-now-marches-to-an-islamist">troubling</a> <a href="http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3305">agenda</a> — a history that should make him toxic to any politician knowledgeable about stealth jihad.</p>
<p>An African-American <a href="http://rockhall.com/inductees/gamble-and-huff/bio/">music</a> and <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/31/entertainment/main546974.shtml">real estate</a> mogul, Gamble has long been listed — under his alternate name, Luqman Abdul Haqq — as part of the <a href="http://mana-net.org/subpage.php?ID=about">governing council</a> of the Muslim Alliance in North America (<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6704">MANA</a>), which is among the most radical U.S. Muslim groups. Its <a href="http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=608">formation</a> was inspired by <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/article/97">Jamil al-Amin</a>, a <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-503687.html">convicted cop killer</a> and <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/detroit/press-releases/2009/de102809.htm">Islamic separatist</a> who dreams of a Shari‘a-run state; he <a href="http://www.mana-net.org/pages.php?ID=activism&amp;ID2=&amp;NUM=46">enjoys MANA’s support</a> to this day and even has <a href="http://www.mana-net.org/pages.php?ID=&amp;NUM=164">phoned into MANA meetings</a> from prison. Gamble’s other MANA colleagues have included <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2009/10/imam-killed-in-fbi-shootout-sat-on-board">Luqman Ameen Abdullah</a>, who <a href="http://www.adl.org/main_Terrorism/detroit_imam_killed.htm">preached jihad</a> against the U.S. and was shot to death after <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/2215/michigan-ag-wont-prosecute-agents-in-luqman">initiating a gunfight</a> with federal agents in 2009, and <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=716">Siraj Wahhaj</a>, one of the “<a href="http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1369">unindicted persons</a> who may be alleged as co-conspirators” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.</p>
<p>Just as several MANA leaders have championed the building of <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/4404/muslim-enclaves-usa">closed Islamic communities</a>, Gamble outlined his own “model” for them during an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeA_yTt5HRI">interview</a> on Saudi television. Worse, he is suspected of actually using his enormous South Philadelphia real estate holdings to assemble what has been dubbed a “<a href="http://www.phillymag.com/articles/features-king-kenny/">black Muslim enclave</a>.” Confronted in 2007, Gamble responded with a rant portraying segregation as natural. “It’s like cats,” he <a href="http://www.phillymag.com/articles/features-king-kenny/">insisted</a>. “They’re all cats. But you don’t see the lion with the tiger. You don’t see the tiger with the panther.” Equally alarming are Gamble’s intimate ties to the <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/joe-kaufman-and-beila-rabinowitz/philadelphia%E2%80%99s-islamist-boy-scouts/">Jawala Scouts</a> (<a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/Jawala_Scouts.html">photos here</a>), aptly described as an “Islamic paramilitary boys group” featuring “hand-to-hand combat, firearms training, and survival tactics.”</p>
<p>Additional background is available in an Islamist Watch <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/1105/legendary-songwriter-now-marches-to-an-islamist">article</a> from 2008, published after Gamble left his fingerprints on that year’s election by <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/983/obama-office-operates-in-phillys-islamist-corridor">hosting an Obama office</a>. Alternatively, a simple online search yields plentiful data.</p>
<p>What makes the Romney-Gamble flirtation so unsettling is the apparent lack of due diligence in determining who does and does not get endorsed by the man who could be the next leader of the free world. Ten minutes on Google should suffice to raise red flags, but did anyone from the campaign bother to look? More disturbing is the possibility that uncomfortable facts turned up but were dismissed as tangential to Gamble’s work in education.</p>
<p>“Saluting” somebody like Gamble for one facet of his life while ignoring the rest imparts an aura of respectability to the individual as a whole, easing the path for his less savory projects. This seems to be understood for every group except Muslims. Imagine, for example, a senior figure in a radical Christian organization whose luminaries have been linked to violence and terrorism, a man who has shrugged off charges of constructing a “white Christian enclave” and been involved with a youth movement whose participants <a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/images/Jawala_Scouts/Jawala_Scouts_3.jpg">march in fatigues</a> and <a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/images/Jawala_Scouts/Jawala_Scouts_7.jpg">brandish weapons</a>. Regardless of his other accomplishments, would this person be asked to share camera time with a presidential hopeful? The question answers itself.</p>
<p>The role of the media is significant here. Though they would hammer any candidate who bolstered the analogous Christian radical, mainstream news sources that <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&amp;id=8674917">covered</a> <a href="http://www.phillytrib.com/newsarticles/item/4235-romney-sneaks-into-philly.html">Romney’s</a> <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57441105-503544/romney-encounters-pushback-on-education-ideas-at-urban-charter-school/">Bluford</a> <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/presidential/20120524_Romney_gets_an_earful_at_W__Philly_charter_school.html">visit</a> made no mention of the skeletons in Gamble’s closet, illustrating that their see-no-evil mentality vis-à-vis Islamism trumps even their instinct to shame Republicans. Indeed, the obvious hypersensitivity and double standards protecting Islamists can foster complacency among politicians of both parties, who assume that they will not be held accountable for palling around with them.</p>
<p>This certainly has been the case in Philadelphia, where Mayor Michael Nutter has suffered no ill effects from having Gamble on his <a href="http://www.youngphillypolitics.com/philadelphia_prepare_be_boarded">inaugural committee</a>, personally <a href="http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/00Ii00Z8tzdIG/595x360.jpg?fit=scale&amp;background=000000">presenting the sign</a> to <a href="http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Philly-Street-Named-After-Gamble-and-Huff--108767204.html">rename a block</a> in Gamble’s honor, and headlining the dedication ceremony for a <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2011/07/face-of-controversial-philly-muslim-adorns-city">taxpayer-supported mural</a> that lauds him. Such legitimization has paved the way for Gamble to build his Islamist-tinged empire through massive government assistance, including <a href="http://archives.citypaper.net/articles/2003-03-06/cover.shtml">dirt-cheap property</a> from the city, <a href="http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/18752-did-archie-violate-state-ethics-act-before-universal-vote/">sweetheart</a> <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2012-06-07/news/32079923_1_charter-district-buildings-schools">deals</a> with the School Reform Commission when it was chaired by a onetime Universal board member, and regular feedings at public troughs that span the <a href="http://www.southphillyreview.com/news/cleaning_up_the_ghetto-72191992.html">municipal</a>, <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2011-10-19/news/30297978_1_south-street-historic-theater-historic-building/2">state</a>, and <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2010/09/kenny-gamble-nets-another-500k-from-taxpayers">federal</a> levels.</p>
<p>Rather than provide a “they do it too” excuse for politicians caught befriending Islamists, the Philadelphia establishment’s cozy relations with Gamble only underscore the importance of a critical eye and the will to act on it — in other words, real leadership. As radical Muslims aggressively seek similar openings to win undeserved respect and influence governments both <a href="http://www.radicalislam.org/analysis/muslim-brotherhoods-long-tenacles-reach-american-gov">nationally</a> and <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/10690/american-islamist-groups-shape-arab-revolutions">internationally</a>, a president capable of recognizing and shunning them is more vital than ever. Washington’s colossal and bipartisan <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/7954/the-us-government-failed-history-of-muslim">failures in Muslim outreach</a> — most recently seen in the mind-boggling <a href="http://freebeacon.com/anti-israel-advocate-reps-u-s-at-rights-conference/">selection of an Islamist</a> to represent the U.S. at a conference on human rights — have done enough damage already.</p>
<p>Islamists have grown adept at hiding in plain sight, so great care must be taken when choosing which Muslims to engage and extol. With luck, airing the embarrassing facts behind his unfortunate promotion of Kenny Gamble / Luqman Abdul Haqq will be the wake-up call that Mitt Romney needs to learn this lesson now and, should he prevail on November 6, be in a better position to succeed where past presidents have faltered.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Islamist Vandals Wage War on Free Speech</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-j-rusin/islamist-vandals-wage-war-on-free-speech/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islamist-vandals-wage-war-on-free-speech</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-j-rusin/islamist-vandals-wage-war-on-free-speech/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2012 04:35:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David J. Rusin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ads]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAIR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cyrus McGoldrick]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vandalize]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=142297</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Vigilante censorship on behalf of Islam is on the rise. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/vandal1.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-142331 alignleft" title="vandal" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/vandal1.jpg" alt="" width="320" height="240" /></a>When <a href="http://www.facebook.com/CyrusMcGoldrick">Cyrus McGoldrick</a>, advocacy director for the <a href="http://www.cair-ny.org/">New York office</a> of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (<a href="http://discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6176">CAIR</a>), logged into Facebook on August 12 to hint at his <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/08/cyrus-mcgoldrick-of-hamas-linked-cair-calls-for-vandalism-of-afdi-pro-israel-ads.html">desire to vandalize</a> anti-jihad ads that may soon run on city buses, he did not simply underline <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2004/09/cairs-growing-litigiousness">CAIR’s</a> <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/3927/cairs-twisted-stand-on-academic-freedom">troubling</a> <a href="http://www.meforum.org/2653/how-islamist-lawfare-tactics-target-free-speech">attitude</a> <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/6857/cair-strong-arm-tactics-in-the-cradle-of-liberty">toward</a> <a href="http://www.meforum.org/2906/raymond-ibrahim-1-cair-0-by-ko">free</a> <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/9473/keystone-cronies-state-agency-colludes-with-cair">expression</a>. McGoldrick’s words — and the subsequent actions of others — have illuminated an overlooked aspect of the Islamist <a href="http://www.legal-project.org/2755/rip-free-speech-about-islam">assault on Western speech</a>: the defacement, if not obliteration, of political and commercial messages.</p>
<p>“In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad,” states the <a href="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c60bf53ef016768b19ae4970b-400wi">advertisement</a> that infuriated McGoldrick. The American Freedom Defense Initiative (<a href="http://freedomdefense.typepad.com/">AFDI</a>) had to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/nyregion/mta-violated-rights-of-pro-israel-group-judge-says.html">win a court battle</a> to reverse the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s previous decision to reject it, but reluctant bureaucrats, who <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/nyregion/mta-urged-to-act-faster-in-advertising-case.html">continue to delay</a>, are not the only obstacle to disseminating these and similar views. After claiming that “the ads are great” because they expose their allegedly “racist, supremacist, hateful” backers, <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/08/cyrus-mcgoldrick-of-hamas-linked-cair-calls-for-vandalism-of-afdi-pro-israel-ads.html">McGoldrick’s post</a> ends with this provocative thought: “I almost DON’T want to protest/vandalize them. But then again …” — remarks followed by a mischievous emoticon. Coincidence or not, multiple copies of a separate AFDI “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/islamophobic-billboard-at-metronorth-station-pamela-geller-pro-palestinian-ad_n_1797651.html">Islamorealism</a>” ad — citing more than 19,000 <a href="http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/">Islamic terrorist attacks</a> worldwide since 9/11 — <a href="http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Anti-Islamic-ads-target-Metro-North-commuters-3808389.php#photo-3353011">were</a> <a href="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/08/islamorealism-ads-vandalized-on-nyc-metro.html">later</a> <a href="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/08/counter-jihad-ads-face-islamic-defacement-under-sharia-anti-israel-remain-untouched.html">destroyed</a> at commuter rail stations in New York and Connecticut.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/geller.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-142306" title="geller" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/geller.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="280" /></a></p>
<p>Up to now, such acts of vigilante censorship on behalf of Islam have been relatively rare in the U.S., whose First Amendment traditionally has fostered a society in which controversial speech is opposed with more speech, not crudely silenced. However, America may be inching closer to other Western nations where Islamists and their fellow travelers have long made a habit of countering “offensive” words and images with vandalism — an important symptom of creeping Shari‘a that is worth examining in detail.</p>
<p>Assuming that they make it past the government censors, visual critiques of Islamic practices are perpetual targets, as Sergio Redegalli can attest. In September 2010, the Australian glass sculptor decorated the exterior wall of his Newtown studio with a “<a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/ban-the-burqa-mural-not-anti-muslim-says-artist/story-e6freuy9-1225928451622">Say No to Burqas</a>” mural depicting a veiled woman inside a red circle with a line through it. News stories and blog posts chronicle the waves of abuse inflicted on the artwork — <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/ban-the-burqa-mural-not-anti-muslim-says-artist/story-e6freuy9-1225928451622">two defacements</a> by September 23, 2010, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/complaint-lodged-over-burqa-mural-20101125-18967.html">at least 20</a> by November 26, 2010, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/artist-defies-bullies-over-burka-mural/story-e6frg6nf-1225990596982">roughly 40</a> by January 19, 2011, and a <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/02/new-say-no-to-burqas-mural-no-driving.html">total of 63</a> by February 13 of this year — prompting Redegalli to recreate it over and over again. Though he primarily <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/artist-defies-bullies-over-burka-mural/story-e6frg6nf-1225990596982">blames leftists</a> instead of Muslims, <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/08/sergio-redegallis-say-no-to-burqas-mural-defaced-yet-again.html">fresh damage</a> to the mural’s driving-while-veiled version in August 2012 bears Islamist fingerprints. “Think twice before mocking Islam!!!” cautions a note placed at the scene. “We will have our rights one way or the other” — a pledge that typically results in denying rights to everybody else, starting with the right to free speech.</p>
<p>Belgium provides another recent example of Islam-critical graphics being disfigured. Early this year, An-Sofie Dewinter, the daughter of anti-Islam politician Filip Dewinter, appeared in an <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095862/Belgian-Vlaams-Belang-risks-Muslim-backlash-picture-daughter-burka-bikini.html">ad campaign</a> sporting a face veil and bikini, with “Freedom or Islam?” stamped across her chest and “You choose!” over her crotch. Radical Fouad Belkacem, a.k.a. Abu Imran, <a href="http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2012/03/belgium-welcome-to-belgistan.html">replied with a video</a> documenting how one of the posters had been vandalized by painting a cloak-like garment atop her bare skin and writing “Welcome 2 Belgistan.” The burqa debate always brings out the worst in Belkacem; he was <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/156665">arrested</a> in June for urging Muslims to attack non-Muslims after the detention of a woman in face-concealing attire, which was <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/belgian_face_veil_ban/24274154.html">restricted</a> in 2011.</p>
<p>Efforts to cover females go beyond ads focusing on Islam. Disturbingly, commercial advertisements are in the crosshairs of Europe’s Islamist morality police, for whom seeing too much of a woman’s body pictured on a sheet of paper cannot be tolerated.</p>
<p>This phenomenon has been especially prevalent in the UK. A <em>Times</em> of London <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2005/01/uk-muslim-group-targets-poster-nudity.html">article</a> revealed in 2005 that Muslims Against Advertising (MAAD) had launched a website with instructions on how to vandalize ads and which ones to select. “There is no longer any need to cringe as you walk past a sleazy poster,” the group declared. “We’ll improve it.” Many answered the call, as ads pitching bras, beauty products, and even television programs were trashed. “Photographs of semi-dressed women are the most frequently targeted, with the offending body parts painted over or ripped off,” the <em>Times</em> observed. In a telling example, thugs destroyed images of scantily clad women on an East London billboard promoting the series <em>Desperate Housewives</em>, but fully clothed characters were untouched. Responding to the controversy, leading British Islamist Ahmed Sheikh <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,146552,00.html">argued</a> that “freedom of speech should end when you offend others.”</p>
<p>The UK’s Islamist vandals continue to act on this logic. “Street adverts featuring women in bikinis have been defaced in apparently targeted attacks,” the <em>Evening Standard</em> <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/bus-shelter-bikini-ads-covered-with-paint-in-censorship-attacks-6479036.html">noted</a> in June 2010. “Police said 14 bus shelters around Tower Hamlets” — a borough of London known for its <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100060304/labour-london-borough-becomes-islamic-republic/">heavy</a> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386558/Tower-Hamlets-Taliban-Death-threats-women-gays-attacked-streets.html">Islamist</a> <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8570506/Police-covered-up-violent-campaign-to-turn-London-area-Islamic.html">presence</a> — “including many in Limehouse, were hit last month.” A Bollywood movie poster with a kissing couple fared no better. In May 2011, a <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386364/Censored-Bikini-advert-blacked-spray-paint-Muslim-extremists-object-women-swimsuits.html">painted-over bikini advertisement</a> in Birmingham was “blamed on militant Muslims who were offended by her flesh,” according to the <em>Daily Mail</em>. “I don’t think it’s just kids messing around,” a local man asserted, because “they’ve spray-painted specific areas and covered up anything that might be offensive to very religious people.” Later in 2011, two young Muslims admitted to multiple counts of <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020548/Muslim-teenagers-convicted-spraying-burkas-scantily-clad-Lynx-models.html">criminal damage</a> after they “used black paint to draw the traditional headdress over a model in a poster for Lynx deodorant.” Perpetrator Mohammed Hasnath explained that “if someone was to look at our wife or mother or daughter with a bad intention we would not like it, so we were just trying to do good.” The pious Hasnath’s other attempts to “do good” have involved plastering London’s East End with <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8550178/Muslim-fanatic-fined-100-for-gay-free-zone-stickers.html">anti-gay stickers</a>, for which he was fined, and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9260207/Extremist-behind-gay-free-zone-posters-jailed-for-possessing-al-Qaeda-literature.html">possessing al-Qaeda magazines</a>, which led to a 14-month sentence.</p>
<p>The pattern is not limited to Britain. Radio Netherlands Worldwide <a href="http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/muslim-censorship-or-just-plain-decency">reported</a> this past April: “In Kanaleneiland, a predominantly Muslim area of Utrecht, a poster advertising the open museum weekend has been covered by a black bag. The poster shows a woman in a short pink strapless dress.” The bag carried an appeal invoking Allah and lamenting “sexually tinted advertising.” Also shrouded was “another poster showing a woman in a bikini in the distance walking on a beach.”</p>
<p>In Denmark, people depicted on ads need not be skimpily attired to enrage Islamists; they merely have to be participating in democracy. “The election posters of several Muslim MP candidates were painted over with Islamist slogans in various districts and suburbs of Copenhagen,” according to a <a href="http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2011/08/copenhagen-religiously-motivated.html">news item</a> from 2011. The not-so-subtle warnings: “Legislation belongs to Allah. Democracy is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy in hell.” Politicians fingered members of <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6219">Hizb ut-Tahrir</a>, a global Islamist group that seeks the establishment of a Shari‘a-run caliphate.</p>
<p>Islamists also have adapted to the information age, recognizing that much of the Western speech they despise now exists online. Al-Azhar University scholars, representatives of the highest religious authority in the Sunni Muslim world, even <a href="http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=3.0.2595019598">crafted a fatwa</a> in 2008 that sanctions hacking for the purposes of jihad. Therefore, those who criticize Islam or otherwise offend its followers often find that their freedom of expression is no safer on the internet than it is on a Tower Hamlets billboard.</p>
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		<title>American Islamist Groups Shape Arab Revolutions</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-j-rusin/american-islamist-groups-shape-arab-revolutions/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=american-islamist-groups-shape-arab-revolutions</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 31 Jul 2012 04:42:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David J. Rusin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american islamists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arab Spring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bassem Khafagi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAIR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamist winter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamists]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=138831</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A telling cast of suspects in the Middle East’s new political landscape.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-138837" title="cair" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/cair.jpg" alt="" width="314" height="235" /></a><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
<p>Illustrating that the jihadist enterprise transcends all borders, American Islamist groups typically preoccupied with remaking the U.S. have been leaving their fingerprints on the campaign to exchange secular authoritarianism for religious authoritarianism in the Middle East. As these organizations labor stateside to nudge the governing class to embrace Arab Islamists at the expense of liberals — prompting Egyptian intellectual Essam Abdallah to <a href="http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=53331">lament</a> that “the most dramatic oppression of the region’s civil societies and the Arab Spring … is led by the powerful Islamist lobbies in Washington” — several of the groups’ past and current officials have emerged as key players in the Middle East’s new political landscape. The connections underscore that Islamists everywhere are united by a single goal: the imposition of Shari‘a.</p>
<p>One of the prominent figures to embody these ties is <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=715">Bassem Khafagi</a>, who in March <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/36685/Egypt/Politics-/We-have-not-yet-chosen-a-presidential-candidate-Br.aspx">announced</a> his intention to run for president of Egypt on behalf of the Freedom and Justice Party (<a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/33/104/24939/Elections-/Political-Parties/Freedom-and-Justice-Party.aspx">FJP</a>), an arm of the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6386">Muslim Brotherhood</a>, which seeks to <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3639/report-brotherhood-has-egyptian-caliphate-plans">resurrect the caliphate</a> and achieve “<a href="http://www.meforum.org/3151/muslim-brotherhood-world-mastership">mastership of the world</a>.” He failed to get the nod, but his back story is intriguing nonetheless. Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer has <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/03/former-hamas-linked-cair-official-running-for-president-in-egypt-pledges-to-complete-the-implementat.html">pointed out</a> that Khafagi <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/111.pdf#page=6">once worked</a> for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (<a href="http://discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6176">CAIR</a>) and is among its most notorious alumni. While serving as CAIR’s <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2003/11/cairs-khafagi-sentenced.html">community affairs director</a>, Khafagi was <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,96946,00.html">arrested</a> in 2003 as part of a terrorism support and recruitment probe targeting the Islamic Assembly of North America (<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6457">IANA</a>), of which he was a founder. The government deported Khafagi after he pleaded guilty to bank and visa fraud.</p>
<p>Khafagi’s election <a href="http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/3356.htm">platform</a> was the essence of Islamism: “complete the implementation of Islamic law in Egypt.” He also <a href="http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/3372.htm">remarked</a> that he “never loved” America, an “infidel country” that “constitutes a criminal element in this world.” Moreover, Khafagi boasted about being “the first to expose the notion of ‘moderate Islam,’ which is used as a means to canonize a ‘non-Islamic Islam.’ … This ‘moderation’ means violation [of the laws] of Islam.” Khafagi’s views help explain his attraction to CAIR, with its <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/109.pdf">Muslim Brotherhood origins</a>, <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/120.pdf#page=6">promotion of Islamic rule</a>, <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2011/07/cair-regularly-slams-america-on-iranian-tv">criticism of America</a>, and <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/111.pdf">links to terrorism</a>, especially through its status as an <a href="http://www.nysun.com/national/islamic-groups-named-in-hamas-funding-case/55778/">unindicted co-conspirator</a> in the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/25/nation/na-muslim-charity25">successful trial</a> of the Hamas-funding Holy Land Foundation (<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6181">HLF</a>). Indeed, his words would be an embarrassment for CAIR if the mainstream media deigned to notice. Though Khafagi has faded from the spotlight for now, there is no telling what impact he could have on Egypt’s undoubtedly turbulent future.</p>
<p>Tentacles from American Islamist organizations also reach into the Syrian National Council (<a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/fp_uploaded_documents/110916_About%20SNC.pdf">SNC</a>), the <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/297361/syria-america-allies-muslim-brotherhood-john-rosenthal">U.S.-favored</a> civilian umbrella group opposing dictator Bashar al-Assad. The SNC is widely understood to be <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-syria-opposition-idUSBRE82R16120120328">stacked with Islamists</a>, so these radicals fit right in.</p>
<p>Heading the roster is <a href="http://www.syriancouncil.org/en/members/item/239-loai-safi.html">Louay Safi</a>, a <a href="http://globalmbreport.org/?p=5046">central figure</a> in the SNC and increasingly its <a href="http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/al-jazeera-speaks-to-louay-safi-on-syria/0v2vhOz9VDsdsvRyI2dTFg">public</a> <a href="http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/syrian-opposition-to-equip-fighters/YUwUX7QHEJUr4xuAWmYKJA">face</a>. Safi may be most familiar, however, as a <a href="http://louaysafi.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=9&amp;Itemid=37">longtime official</a> with the Islamic Society of North America (<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6178">ISNA</a>), serving as executive director of the ISNA Leadership Development Center from 2004 to 2008 and becoming ISNA’s director of communications and leadership development in 2009. A <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/document/id/20">document</a> composed by the Brotherhood <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/20.pdf#page=32">lists ISNA</a> as one of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends” that can advance the “<a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/20.pdf#page=21">grand jihad</a> in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.” Like CAIR, it was designated as an <a href="http://www.nysun.com/national/islamic-groups-named-in-hamas-funding-case/55778/">unindicted co-conspirator</a> in the HLF case. <a href="http://louaysafi.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=9&amp;Itemid=37">Safi’s résumé</a> also includes past senior positions with the Virginia-based International Institute of Islamic Thought (<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6180">IIIT</a>), which has been the <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/700/al-arian-indicted-for-contempt">focus of investigations</a> into terror funding, and the D.C.-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6296">CSID</a>), which reformist Muslims have <a href="http://www.islamicpluralism.org/978/on-daniel-pipes-and-the-center-for-the-study">dubbed</a> “a front for some of the most obnoxious members of the ‘Wahhabi lobby’ in America.”</p>
<p>An excellent <em>Dallas Morning News</em> <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/20100206-U-S-torn-over-whether-9330.ece">piece</a>, published amid the <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/191177/somebody-fort-hood-should-be-walking-plank-andrew-c-mccarthy">controversy</a> over Safi’s training of U.S. military personnel at Fort Hood, compiles further evidence of his radicalism. For example, Safi was an <a href="http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBCTN2GEBE.html">unindicted co-conspirator</a> in the prosecution of <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/profile/100">Sami al-Arian</a>, the professor who <a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2006/April/06_crm_221.html">pleaded guilty</a> in 2006 to conspiring to aid Palestinian Islamic Jihad (<a href="http://www.cfr.org/israel/palestinian-islamic-jihad/p15984">PIJ</a>). Al-Arian’s think tank reportedly <a href="http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBCTN2GEBE.html">received considerable funding</a> from IIIT, where Safi was executive director and later research director. The FBI intercepted a <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/97.pdf">1995 conversation</a> between Safi and al-Arian in which they <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/97.pdf#page=4">discussed</a> whether an executive order banning financial transactions with terrorists would inhibit al-Arian’s work with PIJ. In the course of the call, Safi <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/97.pdf#page=5">agreed</a> with al-Arian that “Zionists” were controlling Washington.</p>
<p>Equally troubling are Safi’s musings on the <a href="http://answering-islam.org/Silas/apostasy.htm">Shari‘a-mandated execution</a> of those who leave Islam. On the one hand, during the international uproar over charges levied against Afghan convert <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4823874.stm">Abdul Rahman</a> in 2006, Safi wrote an <a href="http://lsinsight.org/articles/Current/Apostasy.htm">article</a> voicing platitudes about individual religious liberty under Islam while laughably blaming Western imperialism for the barbaric apostasy laws in various Muslim countries, where converts can <a href="http://articles.boston.com/2006-03-28/news/29250851_1_muslim-converts-apostasy-christianity">face penalties</a> that include death. Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2006/03/blaming-islamic-apostasy-laws-on-western">described himself</a> as “surprised, even wondrous, at the lack of shame.” On the other hand, a <a href="http://louaysafi.com/index2.php?option=com_content&amp;do_pdf=1&amp;id=98">monograph</a> published by Safi a few years earlier, when there was much less media scrutiny of the subject, takes a harder line, <a href="http://lsinsight.org/articles/2001/peace-war/ch3.htm">concluding</a> that although “a quiet desertion of personal Islamic duties is not a sufficient reason for inflicting death on a person,” execution is “just punishment” if “the individual’s desertion of Islam is used as a political tool for instigating a state of disorder, or revolting against the law of Islam.” Along with the rest of his radical history, these contradictory pronouncements — standard fare whenever Islamists address the public on uncomfortable matters — should cast doubt on any claims made by Safi, particularly his <a href="http://www.middle-east-online.com/English/?id=46143">soothing assurances</a> that Syria’s future will be characterized by “equal rights and freedoms of all people.”</p>
<p>CAIR has its own man in the SNC: <a href="http://www.syriancouncil.org/en/members/item/242-myaser-tabbara.html">Yaser Tabbara</a>, a <a href="http://www.wbez.org/episode-segments/2011-11-15/international-pressure-mounts-against-syrian-regime-94059">founding member</a> of the Syrian resistance group. After <a href="http://www.cairchicago.org/2010/05/07/wbez-chicago-public-radio-ahmed-rehab-and-yaser-tabbara-talk-to-jerome-mcdonnell-as-part-of-nprs-series-on-islamic-reform/">helping launch</a> CAIR’s <a href="http://www.cairchicago.org/">Chicago office</a>, Tabbara <a href="http://www.cairchicago.org/staff.php">served</a> as its executive director until 2006; he currently <a href="http://www.cairchicago.org/board_tabbara.php">sits on its board</a>. Tabbara’s time at the helm of CAIR-Chicago was marked by multiple controversies. He played a <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=1591">major role</a> in the <a href="http://marathonpundit.blogspot.com/2010/12/justice-denied-for-former-depaul.html">successful drive</a> to get Thomas Klocek dismissed from his post as an adjunct professor at DePaul University, following an out-of-classroom argument in which Klocek defended Israel against the smears of pro-Palestinian students. Tabbara also led CAIR-Chicago’s efforts to circle the Islamist wagons when the family of an American teenager murdered by Hamas <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/334/the-boim-trial-a-new-way-to-fight-terrorism">sued U.S. charities</a> believed to fund such terrorists. He <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2004/12/chicago-muslim-groups-claim-injustice-in-boim-trial.html">called</a> the trial a “lynching and a mockery of justice,” but a jury <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-12-09-slaying-suit_x.htm">awarded the plaintiffs</a> $156 million. Around the same period, the FBI accused CAIR-Chicago of having “<a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/639/cair-pushes-phony-charges-of-anti-muslim-hysteria">compromised or impeded</a>” an investigation into an alleged hate crime by ignoring the bureau’s request not to issue a premature press release about it.</p>
<p>Yet another important SNC member is <a href="http://www.syriancouncil.org/en/members/item/64-najib-ghadbian.html">Najib Ghadbian</a>, a University of Arkansas professor who <a href="https://www.csidonline.org/about-csid/board-of-directors/past-directors/116-former-directors/30-najib-ghadbian">recently sat</a> on the CSID board. Ghadbian’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Democratization-Islamist-Challenge-Cluture-Society/dp/0813327849">1997 book</a> classifies Muslim Brotherhood theorists, including <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1368">Hasan al-Banna</a> and <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2492">Sayyid Qutb</a>, as “moderate” Islamists who favor democracy, inspiring Daniel Pipes to <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/755/democratization-and-the-islamist-challenge-in-the-arab-world">observe</a> that “there are no ‘moderate’ Islamists, only deluded analysts who try to convince of their existence.” As the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report <a href="http://globalmbreport.com/?p=5402">notes</a>, Ghadbian has long <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/20916325/UNLIKELY-ALLIES-To-Check-Syria-U-S-Explores">advocated</a> that the U.S. government reach out to Syria’s Brotherhood, <a href="http://www.nysun.com/foreign/concern-mounts-on-syria-as-opposition-gathers/26597/">desiring</a> it to have a place at the post-Assad table. Wielding significant influence these days as part of the SNC’s <a href="http://www.syriancouncil.org/en/structure/secretariat-general.html">inner circle</a>, Ghadbian was among its representatives at a <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/06/us-syria-usa-idUSTRE7B51T420111206">meeting</a> with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Geneva last December. Three months prior, he spoke at an Anaheim <a href="http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2011/09/syria_assad_future_town_hall.php">town hall</a> beside a State Department official; the event was endorsed by CAIR and hosted by the Syrian American Council (<a href="http://www.sacouncil.com/">SAC</a>), in which both Safi and Tabbara have held <a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/6/prweb8589359.htm">leadership positions</a>.</p>
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		<title>Western Survival Depends on Western Pride</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-j-rusin/western-survival-depends-on-western-pride/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=western-survival-depends-on-western-pride</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 28 Mar 2012 04:05:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David J. Rusin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Claude Guéant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[West]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[A French politician is raked over the coals for touting the exemplary characteristics of the West.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Claude-gueant.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-126979" title="Claude-gueant" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Claude-gueant.jpg" alt="" width="394" height="222" /></a></p>
<p>Claude Guéant, the French interior minister, <a href="http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2012/02/06/2003524829">sparked a firestorm</a> last month when he praised Western values as “superior” to the oppressive ones found elsewhere, namely the Islamic world. Yet the controversy did more to spotlight an area in which the West clearly trails its rivals: self-confidence. If a government official cannot extol the unique virtues of freedom and equality that define Western life without being cast as a bigot by the politically correct, how can they be safeguarded against the highly motivated forces of Islamism, which doubt neither the superiority of their own principles nor the righteousness of imposing them on others?</p>
<p>“Contrary to what the left’s relativist ideology says, for us, all civilizations are not of equal value,” Guéant, a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement, <a href="http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2012/02/06/2003524829">told a conference</a> on February 4. “Those which defend humanity seem to us to be more advanced than those that do not,” he averred. “Those which defend liberty, equality, and fraternity seem to us superior to those which accept tyranny, the subservience of women, social and ethnic hatred” — a truth that would be hammered home a month and a half later by a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17456541">jihadist</a> murdering Jewish children in Toulouse. Thus, Guéant underscored the need to “protect our civilization.”</p>
<p>The response from the aforementioned relativists was swift and hostile, led by the Socialist Party of François Hollande, the apparent <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-15/sarkozy-hollande-level-in-1st-round-poll-hollande-leads-in-2nd">frontrunner</a> in this spring’s presidential race. Pierre Moscovici, Hollande’s campaign chief, <a href="http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/02/07/french-ministers-remarks-seen-muslim-putdown.html">called</a> Guéant’s observations “a premeditated, willful, conscious gesture” to secure rightist votes for Sarkozy. He is “targeting Muslims,” Moscovici added. Prominent Socialist Harlem Désir <a href="http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2012/02/06/2003524829">condemned</a> Guéant’s words as a “pitiful provocation” reflecting his party’s supposed “moral decline.” Hollande spokesman Bernard Cazeneuve <a href="http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/02/07/french-ministers-remarks-seen-muslim-putdown.html">accused</a> Guéant of attempting to “hierarchize humanity,” while the Young Socialist Movement <a href="http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2012/02/06/2003524829">decried</a> his speech as “xenophobic and racist.” Serge Letchimy, representing Martinique in the National Assembly of France, <a href="http://www.thelocal.fr/2502/20120208/">went farthest</a> of all when he addressed Guéant in parliament, saying, “You bring us back day after day to those European ideologies which gave birth to the concentration camps.”</p>
<p>To their credit, Guéant <a href="http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/02/07/french-ministers-remarks-seen-muslim-putdown.html">stood by his remarks</a> and Sarkozy supported him. “Obvious words to note that not all civilizations have the same worth regarding the humanist values that are ours,” Guéant later explained to <em>Le Figaro</em>. “Who can contest that there is a difference in values between a civilization that favors democracy, protects individual liberties … promotes the rights of women, and a civilization that accepts tyranny, accords no importance to liberties, and does not respect equal rights between men and women?” Many people, it seems.</p>
<p>Guéant is hardly the first politician to be raked over the coals for touting the exemplary characteristics of the West and shining a negative light, directly or indirectly, on Islam. Indeed, the row recalls one that erupted days after 9/11 when Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister at the time, <a href="http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-cultural-war-on-Western-civilization-2045">maintained</a>: “We must be aware of the superiority of our civilization, a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights, and — in contrast with Islamic countries — respect for religious and political rights.” The <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1565664.stm">reaction</a> was fierce. Belgium’s prime minister cautioned that such “dangerous” language “could feed a feeling of humiliation” among Muslims, an Italian opposition leader chided Berlusconi for “using terms that no statesman worthy of the name has used,” and another likened him to Osama bin Laden. Berlusconi quickly <a href="http://wwrn.org/articles/8345/">backtracked</a>, with his office citing his “deep respect for Islam, a great religion … which preaches tolerance” and “respect of human rights.”</p>
<p>Of course, the political figure best known for bluntly comparing the Western and Islamic worlds while suffering the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7885918.stm">establishment’s</a> <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/23/us-dutch-wilders-idUSTRE75M10P20110623">wrath</a> is Dutch parliamentarian <a href="http://www.geertwilders.nl/">Geert Wilders</a>. “We will have to end cultural relativism,” he <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/03/geert-wilders-the-failure-of-multiculturalism-and-how-to-turn-the-tide.html">stressed</a> in Rome last year. “To the multiculturalists, we must proudly proclaim: Our Western culture is far superior to the Islamic culture. Only when we are convinced of that, we will be willing to fight for our own identity.”</p>
<p>The ancient military thinker Sun Tzu <a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/suntzu155752.html">taught</a> that victory in any conflict is achieved by understanding not merely one’s adversary, but also oneself. Applied to the struggle against Islamism, this starts with Westerners grasping that which they are charged with preserving: a unique cultural patrimony — born in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem and nurtured during the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and American Revolution — that sustains the freest and most prosperous civilization in the historical record.</p>
<p>Yet as the response to Guéant demonstrates, appreciation of this Western “self” has grown thin in many circles. Due to “post-modernism, moral relativism, and multiculturalism, the West has lost all self-confidence in its own values, and seems incapable and unwilling to defend those values,” <a href="http://pjmedia.com/blog/why-the-west-is-best/?singlepage=true">argues</a> Ibn Warraq, author of <em><a href="http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/why-the-west-is-best/">Why the West Is Best</a></em>. “By contrast, resurgent Islam, in all its forms, is supremely confident, and is able to exploit the West’s moral weakness and cultural confusion to demand ever more concessions from her.”</p>
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		<title>CAIR&#8217;s Fight Against Pennsylvania Foreign Law Bill</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-j-rusin/cairs-fight-against-pennsylvania-foreign-law-bill/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=cairs-fight-against-pennsylvania-foreign-law-bill</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-j-rusin/cairs-fight-against-pennsylvania-foreign-law-bill/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:13:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David J. Rusin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAIR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HB 2029]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pennsylvania]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharia law]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Islamist operatives pull out all the stops to clear the way for Sharia in the Keystone State. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/sharia-stealth.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-122046" title="sharia-stealth" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/sharia-stealth.gif" alt="" width="375" height="258" /></a></p>
<p>Resistance to a <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2011-12-15/news/30520720_1_sharia-law-swanger-muslims">new bill</a> aimed at limiting foreign law in Pennsylvania courts serves as a case study of how Islamists and their allies operate: peddling falsehoods about Shari’a, painting Muslims as victims, and denying that anyone seeks to institutionalize aspects of Islamic law — even as they vigorously promote that very agenda. With similar <a href="http://ztruth.typepad.com/ztruth/2011/02/13-more-states-move-to-ban-sharia-law.html">legislation</a> <a href="http://www.michiganvotes.org/2011-HB-4769">being</a> <a href="http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?121+sum+HB825">debated</a> across the U.S., understanding their tactics is critical.</p>
<p>At issue in Pennsylvania is <a href="http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billinfo/billinfo.cfm?syear=2011&amp;sind=0&amp;body=H&amp;type=B&amp;BN=2029">House Bill (HB) 2029</a>, which stipulates that “a tribunal shall not consider a foreign legal code or system which does not grant … the same fundamental liberties, rights and privileges” as guaranteed by the federal and state constitutions. Introduced in November, it follows the American Laws for American Courts (<a href="http://publicpolicyalliance.org/?page_id=38">ALAC</a>) model and makes no mention of Shari’a. A <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/documents/9147.pdf">preliminary memo</a> sent to legislators last June in the name of Rep. <a href="http://www.repswanger.com/">RoseMarie Swanger</a>, HB 2029’s chief sponsor, does highlight Islamic law, but she later <a href="http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/phillynow/2011/12/22/qa-rep-rosemarie-swanger-who-introduced-the-%E2%80%98anti-sharia-law%E2%80%99-bill/">said</a> that it had been circulated accidentally. Regardless, concerns about Shari’a are warranted due to its many provisions that conflict with the standards of American jurisprudence. For example, it <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jul/05/sharia-law-religious-courts">disadvantages women</a> in terms of <a href="http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/w_islam/inhrt.htm">inheritance</a>, <a href="http://www.expertlaw.com/library/family_law/islamic_custody-2.html#60">divorce</a>, <a href="http://www.expertlaw.com/library/family_law/islamic_custody-3.html#80">child custody</a>, and other areas of family law. Shari’a already has shaped <a href="http://shariahinamericancourts.com/">numerous cases</a> nationwide, including in Pennsylvania, where one state court <a href="http://volokh.com/2011/04/29/will-calls-for-distribution-according-to-islamic-laws-and-sharia-pennsylvania-court-gives-twice-as-much-to-each-son-as-to-each-daughter/">decided</a> how assets should be distributed according to Islam.</p>
<p>Pushback against HB 2029 has been led by the Philadelphia office of the <a href="http://discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6176">Hamas-linked</a> Council on American-Islamic Relations (<a href="http://pa.cair.com/">CAIR-PA</a>) and was punctuated by an interfaith <a href="http://pa.cair.com/pressrelease/interfaith-leaders-to-challenge-bill/">press conference</a> (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjkTHWUYNf4">video here</a>) at CAIR-PA headquarters on December 14. The overall campaign reflects CAIR’s usual recipe of distortion, victimology, and contradiction between words and deeds.</p>
<p>Attacks on bills like HB 2029 begin by sowing confusion about Shari’a. Because Islamic law encompasses virtually <a href="http://shariahthethreat.org/a-short-course-1-what-is-shariah/">every facet of life</a> — governing personal activities such as eating and worship, but also forming an oppressive social and legal structure — suit-and-tie Islamists work to emphasize its unthreatening pieces whenever possible. CAIR-PA executive director Moein Khawaja’s <a href="http://pa.cair.com/blog/calling-the-bluff-moein-khawaja/">suggestion</a> that Shari’a should worry Pennsylvanians no more than halal gyros is a fine example of this technique.</p>
<p>Others brazenly misrepresent the unsavory components, as <a href="http://www.law.pitt.edu/people/full-time-faculty/haider-ala-hamoudi">Haider Ala Hamoudi</a>, a University of Pittsburgh law professor, did when he was <a href="http://post-gazette.com/pg/11346/1196328-454-0.stm">interviewed</a> by the <em>Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</em>. Hamoudi insisted that women and children would suffer if judges could not consider Shari’a — a stretch, given how it discriminates against women, including in disputes over children. Moving beyond the types of cases that are adjudicated in U.S. courts, he depicted the requirement of testimony by <a href="http://www.cmje.org/religious-texts/quran/verses/024-qmt.php#024.004">four male</a> <a href="http://www.cmje.org/religious-texts/quran/verses/024-qmt.php#024.013">witnesses</a> to convict someone of adultery as an exemplar of Islamic enlightenment that protects against false accusations. In practice, however, it can be a nightmare for women in those Muslim countries where the same scriptural passages are interpreted as mandating four witnesses even to <a href="http://oldsite.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1835/context/archive">prove rape</a>. Robert Spencer further <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=3bhWsAKYDscC&amp;pg=PA68&amp;lpg=PA68">explains</a>, “If the required male witnesses can’t be found, the victim’s charge of rape becomes an admission of adultery,” too often leading to her <a href="http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/apro/aproweb.nsf/pages/svaw_hudoo">imprisonment</a>.</p>
<p>Hamoudi also <a href="http://post-gazette.com/pg/11346/1196328-454-0.stm">contended</a> that harsh punishments used in Iran and elsewhere, like cutting off hands for stealing, have little to do with Shari’a and are “more a matter of identity politics” in response to Western influence. The man deserves credit for artful misdirection, as it is not every day that brutal penalties <a href="http://www.universalunity.net/Punishment_For_Theft.htm">prescribed by the Koran</a> itself are chalked up to blowback from cultural imperialism.</p>
<p>When distortion of Shari’a is insufficient, Islamists and their collaborators characterize Muslims as the targets of a shadowy cabal of “Islamophobes.” Hence, Pennsylvanians were treated to <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/1937/the-fbi-loses-its-way-with-marwan-kreidie">Marwan Kreidie</a>, a major figure in the Philadelphia Islamist scene, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjkTHWUYNf4#t=25m21s">describing</a> Swanger’s faith-neutral bill as “an exercise in discrimination” and claiming that “there’s a conspiracy afoot here.” CAIR-PA’s Khawaja followed up by taking the ad hominem route, <a href="http://pa.cair.com/blog/calling-the-bluff-moein-khawaja/">trashing</a> HB 2029 as the brainchild of “anti-Muslim, white supremacist <a href="http://www.davidyerushalmilaw.com/aboutus.php">David Yerushalmi</a>.” See Yerushalmi’s <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/nyt_searches_for_the_leader_of_the_anti-shariah_movement_finds_me_instead.html">recent article</a> for a reply to the typical assaults on his character.</p>
<p>Yet no hyperbole topped that of Rabbi Linda Holtzman, who played the Nazi card at CAIR-PA’s press conference. “The echoes for me are strong of Germany in the 1930s,” she <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjkTHWUYNf4#t=10m45s">said</a>, “when repeatedly Jewish law was brought forward and defamed in the courts as a means of defaming all of Jewish tradition.” Aside from the sheer ugliness of the analogy, Shari’a could be “defamed” only by spreading inaccuracies about it. HB 2029 does not reference Islam or Islamic law, while the <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/documents/9147.pdf">memo</a> correctly labels Shari’a as “inherently hostile to our constitutional liberties.” Sometimes the truth hurts.</p>
<p>Islamists also maintain that bills such as HB 2029 are unnecessary because, they say, there is no attempt by adherents of Islam to undermine the American legal system, but their actions away from the cameras inevitably belie their soothing words. Indeed, not long after it issued a <a href="http://pa.cair.com/pressrelease/interfaith-leaders-to-challenge-bill/">press release</a> dismissing concerns about the advance of Shari’a as “conspiracy theories” to be “mocked,” CAIR-PA announced that its <a href="http://pa.cair.com/images/banquet/2012-poster-web.png">2012 banquet</a> will be headlined by two men who have expressed support for transforming the U.S. into a Shari’a-run state: <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=716">Siraj Wahhaj</a> and <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/9339">Sherman Jackson</a>.</p>
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		<title>The Slow-Motion Exodus of European Jews</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-j-rusin/the-slow-motion-exodus-of-european-jews/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-slow-motion-exodus-of-european-jews</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-j-rusin/the-slow-motion-exodus-of-european-jews/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:01:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David J. Rusin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=81412</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Do Jews have a future in an increasingly Muslim Europe? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/nazi_1663659c.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-81438" title="nazi_1663659c" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/nazi_1663659c.gif" alt="" width="375" height="265" /></a></p>
<p><strong>[This article is reprinted from </strong><strong><strong><a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog"><strong></strong></a></strong></strong><a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/"><strong><strong><strong>Islamist Watch Blog</strong></strong></strong></a><strong>] <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog"><strong></strong></a></strong><a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog"> </a></p>
<p>Do Jews have a future in an increasingly Muslim Europe? Often <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2004/01/jewish-life-in-an-increasingly-muslim-europe" target="_blank">explored</a> by Daniel Pipes, this question recently drew a disconcerting answer  from prominent Dutch politician Frits Bolkestein, who opined on the <a href="http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/no-future-dutch-orthodox-jews%E2%80%99" target="_blank">grim choices</a> facing visible (e.g., Orthodox) Jews in his nation:</p>
<blockquote><p>The former EU commissioner says there is  no future for this group in the Netherlands because of &#8220;the  anti-Semitism among Dutchmen of Moroccan descent, whose numbers keep  growing.&#8221;</p>
<p>He feels that this group of Jews should  encourage their children to emigrate to either the United States or  Israel, because he has little confidence in the effectiveness of the  government&#8217;s proposals for fighting anti-Semitism.</p></blockquote>
<p>Bolkestein&#8217;s remarks echo those of Benjamin Jacobs, the country&#8217;s chief rabbi, who <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138399" target="_blank">told</a> Arutz Sheva in 2010 that &#8220;the future for Dutch Jewry is moving to Israel.&#8221; Indeed, some Jews are acting. The same news service <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx/141230" target="_blank">reported</a> in December that the son of Raphael Evers, another leading Dutch rabbi,  &#8220;has announced plans to move to Israel due to anti-Semitism&#8221;:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not that you can&#8217;t leave the house,  but you need to constantly hide, to be careful,&#8221; he explained. He  related his own cautionary measures, which include avoiding certain  neighborhoods, and hiding his kippah (yalmulke) when walking through  areas with a high number of Muslim immigrants.</p></blockquote>
<p>Next consider Sweden. Last month, the Simon Wiesenthal Center <a href="http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&amp;b=4441467&amp;ct=8971903" target="_blank">urged traveling Jews</a> to exercise &#8220;extreme caution&#8221; due to &#8220;harassment of Jewish citizens in the southern city of Malmö.&#8221; An estimated <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/29/hate-crimes-force-jews-out-of-malmo/" target="_blank">60,000 Muslims</a> comprise a fifth of Malmö&#8217;s population and hate crimes regularly impact  the lives of its 700 remaining Jews. &#8220;The city&#8217;s synagogue has guards  and rocket-proof glass in the windows,&#8221; the <em>Telegraph</em> <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/7278532/Jews-leave-Swedish-city-after-sharp-rise-in-anti-Semitic-hate-crimes.html" target="_blank">notes</a>,  &#8220;while the Jewish kindergarten can only be reached through thick steel  security doors.&#8221; With the government&#8217;s response a mix of <a href="http://www.thelocal.se/25210/20100225/" target="_blank">denial and blaming the victim</a>, many Jews are <a href="http://www.thelocal.se/24632/20100127/" target="_blank">leaving Malmö</a> — and even Sweden altogether.</p>
<p>Recent years also have seen increasing numbers of Jews moving to Israel from <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/04/international/europe/04isra.html" target="_blank">France</a> and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/aug/16/israel" target="_blank">the UK</a>.  Will this soon be the case for Jews of other European countries as  well? Given the raft of worrying tales from 2010 alone — Muslims  assaulting Jews in <a href="http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2010/03/norway-muslims-attack-jews-in-school.html" target="_blank">Norway</a> and <a href="http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2010/05/copenhagen-jews-take-off-kippas-in.html" target="_blank">Denmark</a>, stone-tossing Arabs driving Jewish dancers from a stage in <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/24/group-teenagers-attacks-jewish-dance-group-stones-germany/" target="_blank">Germany</a>, and a poll finding that 38% of Muslim youth in <a href="http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2010/11/vienna-38-of-muslim-youth-think-hitler.html" target="_blank">Austria</a> agree that &#8220;Hitler had done a lot of good for the people&#8221; — the future does not look happy.</p>
<p>It has <a href="http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/europe%E2%80%99s-muslims-get-to-be-the-continent%E2%80%99s-new-jews-26042/" target="_blank">become</a> <a href="http://www.nisnews.nl/public/171210_1.htm" target="_blank">fashionable</a> to equate the plight of today&#8217;s Muslim population in Europe with that  of the continent&#8217;s oppressed Jews during the 1930s. However, one can  tell which group faces the real threat in modern Europe by watching  migratory trends. While European governments are <a href="http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14747138,00.html" target="_blank">planning fences</a> to keep Muslims from entering illegally, Jews are exiting in droves.  People vote with their feet. The results — Muslims in, Jews out — offer  critical lessons and warnings.</p>
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