The office of Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first elected Muslim congressman, is promoting an event in Congress on September 13 to publicize the Center for American Progress’ report, “Fear Inc: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.” The event comes almost exactly one week after Rep. Allen West hosted a screening of a film opposed to the Ground Zero Mosque, which was accompanied by a panel on the Islamist threat within the U.S.
On September 7, Rep. Allen West held a screening of the Christian Action Network’s film titled “Sacrificed Survivors: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Mosque.” He stood by the sides of 9⁄11 survivors and victims’ family members who emotionally spoke out against the project. His press conference is now viewable online. Afterwards, there was a panel that included myself, Patrick Poole, Clare Lopez, Michael Del Rosso and John Guandolo. The event was streamed live by the United West and had approximately 2,000 viewers. Now, Rep. Keith Ellison is promoting an event in the Rayburn House Office Building on September 13 about “Islamophobia.”
“I find it hard to believe that the timing of [this] event is a coincidence,” FrontPage was told by Martin Mawyer, President of the Christian Action Network.
The report endorsed by Ellison, “Fear Inc.,” sharply criticizes Rep. Allen West and specifically mentions the September 7 event. It calls West a “loyal foot soldier in the misguided campaign against Sharia.” It also criticizes Clare Lopez and Tom Trento, two other speakers at the event. Ellison’s goal is to question the integrity of those talking about the ideological roots of radical Islam.
“The report identifies the funding streams that support anti-Muslim activities, the intellectual nexus of the Islamophobia network, the grassroots players and organizations that help spread messages of hate, the media amplifiers of Islamophobia, and the elected officials who support anti-Muslim causes,” said an e-mailed statement from Rep. Ellison.
Rep. Ellison has repeatedly worked with Muslim Brotherhood fronts like the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America, both of which were labeled as “unindicted co-conspirators” in the Holy Land Foundation trial. A judge ruled in 2009 that the federal government had “ample evidence” to connect them to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. His 2008 pilgrimage to Mecca was sponsored by the Muslim American Society, another Brotherhood affiliate. He has also received donations from major players in the Brotherhood’s American networks. He defends CAIR, and lashes out against those who talk about the ideological roots of the Islamist threat, including moderate Muslims like Zuhdi Jasser.
The “Fear Inc.” report has been extensively rebutted here at FrontPage Magazine. It was published by the Center for American Progress, a left-wing think-tank led by John Podesta, the former chief-of-staff for President Clinton, with an annual budget of at least $25 million, and possibly as high as $38 million. It took part in the creation of Media Matters for America, a non-profit that seeks to counter perceived right-wing bias in the media. It relentlessly criticizes so-called Islamophobes, including myself (read my rebuttal here).
Rep. Ellison and the authors of “Fear Inc.” are outraged that anyone would suggest that Islamic terrorists are motivated by an ideology with a theological basis. Osama Bin Laden’s own teachings confirm that he was ideologically-motivated. In “The Al-Qaeda Reader” by Raymond Ibrahim, Bin Laden says:
In fact, Muslims are obligated to raid the lands of the infidels, occupy them, and exchange their systems of governance for an Islamic system, barring any practice that contradicts the Sharia from being publicly voiced among the people, as was the case at the dawn of Islam…They say that our Sharia does not impose our particular beliefs upon others; this is a false assertion. For it is, in fact, part of our religion to impose our particular beliefs upon others.
The Muslim Brotherhood, likewise, says its “work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
The September 13 event will accuse the “Islamophobes,” such as Rep. Allen West and the David Horowitz Freedom Center, of exaggerating the Islamist threat, and it will find itself contradicting even the Obama administration’s own admissions. Attorney General Eric Holder said, “You didn’t worry about this [homegrown terrorism] even two years ago—about individuals, about Americans, to the extent that we now do.”
The inescapable fact is that the Islamists, violent and non-violent, are motivated by an ideology that requires them to fight for Sharia-based governance around the world. The price of speaking out about this fact is to be labeled a hate-monger by those who wish to downplay the threat from the ideology or even deny that it exists. If Rep. Ellison is so concerned about the image of his faith, he’d be better off confronting the Islamist ideology rather than trying to silence its critics.
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