The Islamist attempt at legal jihad just hit a snag. Muslim imams tried to sue the passengers on US Airways who blew the whistle on their suspicious behavior. They were protected from prosecution by the "John Doe" law passed by Congress last year that protects people acting to prevent terrorist attacks. Not to be deterred by the Islamist intimidation attempts, US Airways and Minneapolis airport officials are demanding a jury trial in the civil rights lawsuit. This time the arrogant infidels won’t fold under Muslim intimidation. They’re demanding the imams be forced into our justice system to prove their point.
A content-rich information fact and opinion blog that advocates, educates, professes, affirms, defends and furnishes facts while restoring truth to the Middle East narrative about the legitimate and sovereign nation of Israel. On the internet with news and opinions from the right since 2003, and on forum boards, blasting Arabists, neo-nazis, Islamists and other Jew-haters, since 1999.
January 09, 2008
Flying Muslims - Turnabout Is Fair Play
December 10, 2007
Film: The Libel Tourist
This 8-minute documentary short film, produced by the Moving Picture Institute, shows how Saudi billionaire Khalid Bin Mafhouz exploits the British legal system and sues for libel whenever he is the subject of a terrorism accusation.
Directed by MPI fellow Jared Lapidus, the film explains how Mahfouz filed a libel suit against Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed -- and How to Stop It. The suit was not filed in the United States, where the book was published and sold, but instead in London, where Mahfouz associates ordered 23 copies online. The judge ordered all copies of the book pulped, and ordered Ehrenfeld to pay the legal fees and damages, despite the fact that nothing in her book about Saudi funding of terrorism was ever disproved.
Ehrenfeld, however, is fighting back. In The Libel Tourist she speaks about her shocking experience of modern-day book burning by British courts, and the First Amendment lawsuit she filed against Mahfouz.
Learn more about the case at http://www.libeltouristmovie.com/
Learn more about MPI at http://www.thempi.org/
November 20, 2007
CAIR Pressures OfficeMax to Stop Advertising On Michael Savage Program
The brief story highlighted below reports that CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) has successfully pressured OfficeMax to drop its advertising on the Michael Savage radio program. And notice the story says OfficeMax has “joined a growing list of companies” with its decision to stop advertising.OFFICEMAX DROPS MICHAEL SAVAGE ADS OVER ANTI-ISLAM BIAS (WASHINGTON, D.C., 11/15/2007) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today announced that OfficeMax, a leading office products retailer, has joined a growing list of companies that have stopped advertising on Michael Savage's nationally-syndicated radio program because of the host's anti-Muslim views.Please ACT! today. Here’s all you need to do:
CAIR recently reported that Savage, whose "The Savage Nation" airs on more than 300 radio stations nationwide, screamed attacks on Muslims, Islam and the Quran, Islam's revealed text, during his October 29, 2007, program
The decision by OfficeMax was announced the same day the Los Angeles Police Department announced it was dropping its proposed anti-terrorism program due to pressure from groups like CAIR.
This is just another example of why it’s so important that we build ACT for America into the nation’s most formidable grassroots organization. Look what’s happening! A tiny, tiny percentage of Americans are represented by CAIR, but because companies like OfficeMax don’t hear from anyone else, they cave in to CAIR’s demands.
We need to let businesses and communities know that we have a voice that is much, much larger than CAIR’s.
Call the OfficeMax office headquarters at 630.438.7800, press "0" when asked who you want to speak to, and when you get an operator, in a polite but firm manner, tell the operator you have heard about the company’s decision to stop advertising on the Michael Savage program because of the pressure from CAIR. Tell them you will no longer shop at OfficeMax until OfficeMax reverses this ill-advised decision.
If the 630-438-7800 number is busy, call the Customer Service line, 800-661-5931. It’s better to call the office line first, because if enough people call their phone lines will get clogged up and they’ll know right away that something is happening. Call the 800# only if you can’t get through on the 630.438.7800 line.
A barrage of phone calls will get immediate attention from the company.
If CAIR can succeed in this effort to silence Michael Savage, consider the chilling effect this will have on every talk radio host in America. Enough is enough – let’s ACT now!
Brigitte Gabriel
http://www.actforamerica.org/
August 24, 2007
Arabic Educator's Defense of "Intifada" T-Shirts Leads to Resignation
Of course there are dual-language schools about, but none of them sell or promote their students to wear T-shirts with slogans suggesting to kill Jews wherever you may find them. Bloomberg, you've turned into a putz.The Khalil Gibran International Academy in New York is one of the first public schools in the U.S. to focus on Arabic language and culture. Principal Debbie Almontaser - an observant Muslim Arab woman - said her mission was to foster tolerance and understanding. But she resigned Aug. 10 after she failed to immediately condemn the slogan "Intifada NYC" on a T-shirt, though she later condemned it. "She's certainly not a terrorist," said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. But it was "nice of her" to step down, he said.
There are more than 60 existing dual-language city schools that teach in languages including Russian, Spanish and Chinese.
August 23, 2007
Flying Imams drop suit against passengers, but not against flight attendants and captain
They still show no sign of caring that what they're doing will make air travel much easier for jihadists to terrorize.
"Imams drop lawsuit against 'Doe' passengers," by Audrey Hudson in the Washington Times:A federal court yesterday accepted a request by a group of Muslim imams to drop all claims in a federal lawsuit against unspecified "John Doe" passengers for reporting the men's suspicious behavior, which led to their removal from a US Airways flight last year.Hold the noisemakers. "Not all 'John Does' out of imams' sights," from GreensPiece:
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota was amended to "hereby dismiss possible defendants 'John Does' as set forth in ... the first amended complaint as parties from this action," said the notice of dismissal. The lawsuit still targets US Airways and Minneapolis airport workers.The news that Omar Mohammedi of New York and Frederick Goetz of Minneapolis, attorneys for the notorious “Flying Imams,” have limited the scope of the latter group’s jihad intimidation lawsuit is a positive development – but let no one suppose that this means they have stopped gunning for all of the “John Does” that reported the imams’ suspicious activity on U.S. Airways Flight 300 on Nov. 20, 2006. For their filing only dismisses “possible defendants ‘John Does’ as set forth in paragraphs 21 and 22 of the First Amended Complaint as parties from this action.” Omitted from it is paragraph 20 of said complaint, which reads:
“20. Defendant Flight Attendants and Desk Agents ‘John Does’ were at all times relevant to the events mentioned herein employees and/or agents of Defendant U.S. Airways and were acting within the scope of their employment on U.S. Airways Flight 300 on November 20, 2006 and subsequent U.S. Airways flights on November 20-21, 2006.”Thus, the imams and their litigious henchmen are still trying to cow into silence individual airline workers who, their humble pay grade notwithstanding, had, if anything, more of a duty to report suspicious activity than did the passengers for whose safety they were responsible.
August 18, 2007
New York Islamist Day Parade
On September 9, 2007, a pre-9/11 celebration of sorts will be taking place in New York City, as Islamists from across the Tri-State area will congregate there for the 22nd Annual Muslim Day Parade. If past parades are any indication, law enforcement will need to be on high alert, as the participants have been amongst the most radical in the nation. Will the city allow this denigration of a very somber day to take place, or will it remember its many victims of terrorism and shut it down?
The parade is being run by the Muslim Foundation of America (MFA), an organization located in the Astoria section of Queens that was founded in 1983, around the time of the first annual parade. In actuality, both the MFA and the parade appear to be the same entity with different names, as the MFA’s website, since it was first created in October of 2003, has been devoted almost entirely to discussing the parade.
Thousands are expected to attend this year’s event. In the past, the number of parade-goers has varied. While some participants may be coming out to experience a day of fun with their fellow religionists, others have an alternative agenda.
The Grand Marshal for the 2006 parade was Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn imam who is known for his fiery speeches, including those that have been considered threatening to the United States. In February of 1995, Wahhaj was named – along with such people as Osama bin Laden and bin Laden’s mentor, Abdullah Azzam – as a potential co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Another Grand Marshal of a past parade was Muzzamil Siddiqi, the former President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a mosque umbrella organization that was recently named a co-conspirator to the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. Siddiqi, like Wahhaj, has also verbally threatened the United States, stating in October of 2000, “America has to learn. If you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of G-d will come.” There are pictures of Siddiqi speaking at the parade, on the MFA site.
Also pictured at the parade are:
Ashrafuzzaman Khan, the ex-Secretary General of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), which is one of the sponsors of the parade and a top donor to a Pakistani charity that has been providing tens of thousands of dollars to the head of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal. Khan is accused of being a death squad leader for Al-Badr, the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan’s former paramilitary wing, during the 1971 massacre that led to Bangladesh’s independence, believed to be personally responsible for the murders of seven Bengali teachers at Dhaka University.
Dhabah “Debbie” Almontaser, the former Principal designate of the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), a controversial Arabic-language children’s school that is set to open its doors less than a week before the parade. Almontaser resigned from her position with KGIA, after it was discovered that a group she was affiliated with – the SABA Association of American Yemenis – had a connection to t-shirts calling for an intifada (violent uprising) in New York City. Almontaser defended the shirts by saying that they were an expression of solidarity with New York.
On the MFA website, in addition to the parade photo gallery, there is also a section titled, “USEFUL LINKS.” Four out of the five links listed (complete with their logos) are national organizations which have been found to be part of the violent Muslim Brotherhood overseas. They include the aforementioned ICNA and ISNA, as well as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA). CAIR was created by the American propaganda wing of Hamas, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), in 1994, and the MSA was the first organization created by the Brotherhood within the United States, in 1963.
Along with the parade, the MFA will be holding an essay contest for children and young adults. The themes for the different age groups vary. For those age 9 – 13 it is ‘Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is the best Role Model,’ for ages 14 – 18 it’s ‘The Man is the Best Creation of Allah (SWT),’ and for ages 19 – 23 it’s ‘The Purpose of my Life.’
Shamsi Ali, a member of the parade’s Board of Trustees, runs a children’s madrassa – the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens – where boys sit all day, Monday through Friday, and memorize the Quran by rote. One of his students and possible participant in the essay contest, a 13 year old named Sameer Uddin, explained to The New York Times his reasons for staying enrolled in Ali’s class. Bringing up disturbing illusions to thoughts of future martyrdom, Sameer stated, “I want to take my parents to heaven.”
The organizers of the parade state that one of their objectives is “to demonstrate and clarify Islamic values and traditions.” However, considering the individuals that have been participating in this parade, and understanding the radical nature of the groups that appear to be aligned with the MFA, we must ask what values and traditions they are talking about. Despite its name, as the American Muslim Day Parade, it is clear that this event has nothing to do with American values and traditions and has more in common with the ideology of the 9/11 hijackers.
The fact that this parade is taking place so close to Ground Zero is an insult to the memory of the 3,000 people who perished there six years before. The event should be taken as a threat to public safety and, therefore, it is incumbent on the city of New York to not only watch all of those involved, but to work to shut down the event completely, along with the sponsoring organizations.
If you are concerned about this parade taking place in New York City two days prior to the anniversary of 9/11 – if you are concerned this parade is taking place at all – contact the Mayor’s office.
Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate and the founder of CAIR Watch. Beila Rabinowitz is the Director of Militant Islam Monitor.
August 11, 2007
Hebrew, Arabic Schools Seen Stretching Boundaries
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I think we need to be very alert in monitoring the Arabic language school. I believe its a Trojan horse, as a clip from JTA.org strongly supports:The principal of New York's first Arab charter school defended the sale of T-shirts that say "Intifada NYC."It boggles the mind to imagine that Almontaser can spin these shirts as "an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society ... and shaking off oppression." HUH?!? And -- what has that got to do with Arabic??? It's so clear what it means, and yet the school is going forward. Years from now, historians will point to this as one of the turning points in the fall of the American empire.
Dhabah Almontaser, principal of the soon-to-open Khalil Gibran School in Brooklyn, defended the sale of the shirts, produced by a company that shares office with an organization for which Almontaser serves as spokeswoman.
Sale of the T-shirts, which prompted a critical news story in the New York Post on Monday, was condemned by New York state assemblyman Dov Hikind, an Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn.
In a letter to the New York schools chancellor, Joel Klein, Hikind said it is "outrageous" that Almontaser would "support and hail" the T-shirts.
"It is grossly insensitive, " Hikind said. "I have had personal friends killed in the recent intifada. What is Ms. Almontaser thinking? If this is her mindset, a radicalized vision of Islam, she poses a danger to New York City students and she should be removed immediately. She has disqualified herself from being a principal in any New York City school."
Almontaser told the Post that while she understands the "negative connotation" the word "intifada" carries from its association with Palestinian violence, she doesn't believe the T-shirt's producers intended to promote violence in New York City.
"I think it's pretty much an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society ... and shaking off oppression," Almontaser said.
A spokesman for the Anti-Defamation League called the T-shirts "disturbing. "
July 30, 2007
Muslims get special treatment in schools in the US
Some public schools and universities are granting Muslim requests for prayer times, prayer rooms and ritual foot baths, prompting a debate on whether Islam is being given preferential treatment over other religions.
The University of Michigan at Dearborn is planning to build foot baths for Muslim students who wash their feet before prayer. An elementary school in San Diego created an extra recess period for Muslim pupils to pray. At George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., Muslim students using a "meditation space" laid out Muslim prayer rugs and separated men and women in accordance with their Islamic beliefs.
Critics see a double standard and an organized attempt to push public conformance with Islamic law.
"What (school officials) are doing … is to give Muslim students religious benefits that they do not give any other religion right now," says Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel at the Thomas More Law Center, an advocacy group for Christians.
"The whole issue is to provide for a religious foundation for those who are observant while respecting separation of church and state," says Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, based in Los Angeles. Many schools accommodate the Christian and Jewish sabbaths and allow Jewish students to not take tests on religious holidays, he says.
Barry Lynn, of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, says however that the law is murky on these expressions of faith. And the American Civil Liberties Union says overt religious symbols like crucifixes are not legal, but whether Muslim foot baths and prayer rugs fall into that category is not clear.
"That's a difficult one, and it's right on the edge," says Jeremy Gunn, director of the ACLU program on freedom of religion and belief in Washington, D.C.
At the forefront of the movement is the Muslim Students' Association, which has formed a Muslim Accommodations Task Force to push for foot baths and prayer rooms. At least 17 universities have foot baths built or under construction, including Boston University, George Washington University and Temple University, and at least nine universities have prayer rooms for "Muslim students only," including Stanford, Emory and the University of Virginia, according to the MSA's website. The association did not return calls seeking comment.
Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim and chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, which promotes separation of mosque and state, says he is concerned about the accommodations. "Unusual accommodations for one faith at the cost of everybody else doesn't fall on the side of pluralism," he said.
At George Mason University, non-Muslim students were asked to observe Muslim rules in the prayer area, such as keeping men on one side and women on the other and removing their shoes, according to Broadside, the school newspaper. Alissa Karton, assistant to the vice president for student life, said the article prompted the school to order students to roll up prayer rugs when not in use and move the dividers.
The University of Michigan agreed to install foot baths after talks with the MSA, said Terry Gallagher, director of public relations at the campus. Some Muslims ritually wash their feet before praying five times a day.
Daniel Pipes, founder of the Middle East Forum, a conservative think tank, sees the requests as part of a movement to force the public to acquiesce to Islamic law.
"The goal of Islamists is the application of Islamic law," Pipes says.
In the San Diego case, a substitute teacher at Carver Elementary School alleged that teachers were indoctrinating students into Islam. The San Diego Unified School District determined that a teacher's aide was wrong to lead Muslim students in prayer. Carver still has a special recess to allow 100 Muslim students to pray.
The ACLU, which has often sued schools for permitting prayer, says it is waiting to see what kind of policy the school settles on before deciding whether to sue. It says promoting prayers is unconstitutional.
"If you start carving out time in the school day that you would not do but for the need to let students pray, then it begins to look like what you're trying to do is to assist religion," says David Blair-Loy, legal director for the ACLU in San Diego.
Thompson says such conflicts are bound to proliferate. He and other Christians, he says, are preparing to ask for equal consideration such as a Christian prayer recess.
"What you're going to see out there is more of these kinds of cases as the Muslim community tests how far it can go in the public school system," he says. "If this can happen for Muslims, it can happen for Christians and other religions."
June 07, 2007
Muslim Store Owners Beat White Man in Detroit -- Because He Was White
Received by email, from Click on Detroit:
I checked CAIR's website and didn't find any action alerts "calling on North American Muslims and other people of conscience" to condemn this vicious racial hate crime.ECORSE, Mich. (WDIV) — Ecorse police are investigating a beating last week that was possibly racially motivated. Ecorse Public Works employee Mike Coleman, 48, said he walked into a local convenience store and was refused service.“I will take my business elsewhere,” Coleman told Local 4. He said the worker at the store yelled a racial slur at him and then the store owner and his two sons came at him out in the parking lot.Massod Dauod, the store owner, and his two sons Kusay and Wyah have been charged with ethnic intimidation and assault.Coleman claims the three proceeded to beat and punch him with sticks and bats. He said one of them had a gun.“They were trying to hit me with a bat, jab me with a bat. For what? For nothing,” Coleman said.Coleman suffered some bruising.He said now the whole incident just haunts him.
Update: The whole incident was caught on tape by security cameras.
May 26, 2007
What is CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) ?
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) describes itself as a "non-profit, grassroots membership organization … established to promote a positive image of Islam and Muslims in America," to protect Muslims from hate crimes and discrimination, and to present "an Islamic perspective on issues of importance to the American public." According to the Council's Director of Communications, Ibrahim Hooper, "We are similar to a Muslim NAACP." CAIR currently claims 30 affiliates in the United States and one branch in Canada.
CAIR was co-founded in 1994 by Ibrahim Hooper, Nihad Awad, and Omar Ahmad, all of whom had close ties to the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which was established by senior Hamas operative Mousa Abu Marzook and functioned as Hamas' public relations and recruitment arm in the United States. Awad and Ahmad had previously served, respectively, as IAP's Public Relations Director and President. Ibrahim Hooper was also an employee of IAP. Thus it can be said that CAIR was an outgowth of IAP.
CAIR opened its first office in Washington, DC, with the help of a $5,000 donation from the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), a self-described charity founded by Mousa Abu Marzook. In May 1996, CAIR coordinated a press conference to protest the decision of the U.S. government to extradite Marzook for his connection to terrorist acts performed by Hamas. CAIR characterized the extradition as "anti-Islamic" and "anti-American." Shortly after 9/11, the CAIR website featured a picture of the World Trade Center in flames and below it a call for donations that was linked to the HLF website. When President Bush closed HLF in December 2001 for collecting money "to support the Hamas terror organization," CAIR decried his action as "unjust" and "disturbing."
From its inception, CAIR has sought to portray itself as a moderate, mainstream organization, and as early as 1996 its officials became frequent guests at State Department and White House events. In the aftermath of 9/11, when the Bush administration tried to reassure American Muslims that Islam was not the target of the war on terrorism, CAIR officials were prominent among the invitees. CAIR was the main Islamic group to gain U.S. media access in the post-9/11 period, providing the "Muslim view" of the terrorist attacks and of America's response to them. As self-acclaimed Muslim spokesmen, CAIR officials typically refused to "simplify the situation" by blaming Osama bin Laden for the attacks on America. Moreover, while they were eventually induced by journalists to condemn Palestinian suicide terror in a pro forma manner, they hedged their disavowals by describing it as an understandable response to [perceived] Israeli brutality.
CAIR contends that American Muslims are the victims of wholesale repression, and that U.S. foreign policy is largely dictated by Zionist extremists. As Evan McCormick of the Center for Security Policy puts it: "By convincing moderate Muslims that they are being targeted unfairly by the Bush administration's [anti-terror] policies, CAIR incites fear in members of that demographic. If innocent Muslims are then convinced that they will be the target of government action, then they have no incentive to reject an extremist ideology that resists the government's anti-terror policies. ... This is the essence of CAIR's strategy: shock moderate Muslims about the motivations of the U.S. Government, turn them into post-[9/11] victims, and then recruit them as supporters for your political agenda when they are ripe for the taking." Along the same lines, a civil suit filed by the estate of 9/11 victim and former high-ranking FBI counter-terrorism agent John O'Neill, Sr. asserted that CAIR's goal "is to create as much self-doubt, hesitation, fear of name-calling, and litigation within police departments and intelligence agencies as possible so as to render such authorities ineffective in pursuing international and domestic terrorist entities."
CAIR endorsed an October 22, 2002 "National Day of Protest" whose premise was: "Since September 11th thousands of Muslims, Arabs and South Asians have been rounded up, detained and disappeared. ... Hard-won civil liberties and protections have been stripped away as part of the government's 'war on terrorism.' The USA-PATRIOT Act brings in a new set of repressive laws and restrictions on people and grants even greater power to law enforcement agents of all kinds." Moreover, this document explicitly defended the convicted murderers Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier, as well as Lynne Stewart and Jose Padilla, who were convicted on terrorism-related charges -- depicting all four as persecuted political prisoners of a repressive American government.
CAIR was a signatory to a February 20, 2002 document, composed by C. Clark Kissinger's radical group Refuse & Resist, condemning military tribunals and the detention of immigrants apprehended in connection with post-9/11 terrorism investigations. The document lamented that "the denial of any due process for Arab[s], Muslim[s], South Asians and others" bore "chilling similarities to a police state."
In February 2003, CAIR joined the American Muslim Council, the American Muslim Alliance, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council in forming a coalition to repeal and amend the Patriot Act -- alleging that it violated the civil liberties of Americans, particularly Muslims. CAIR also endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act of 2004, which was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting civil liberties, vital national-security policies that had been adopted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
CAIR promotes a radical Islamic vision, as evidenced by the fact that its co-founder Omar Ahmad told a Fremont, California audience in July 1998: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran … should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth." In a similar spirit, Ibrahim Hooper told a reporter in 1993: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future." In 2003 Hooper stated that if Muslims ever become a majority in the United States, they will likely seek to replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic law, which they deem superior to man-made law. In the late 1980s, Ihsan Bagby, who would later become a CAIR Board member, stated that Muslims "can never be full citizens of this country," referring to the United States, "because there is no way we can be fully committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country."
CAIR receives considerable funding from Saudi Arabia. In 1999, the Saudi embassy in Washington announced a $250,000 grant by the Islamic Development Bank to CAIR for the purchase of land in Washington, DC to be used in the construction of "an education and research center." Writes Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz: "CAIR should be considered a foreign-based subversive organization, comparable in the Islamist field to the Soviet-controlled Communist Party USA, and the Cuban-controlled front groups that infiltrated 'Latin American solidarity' organizations in the U.S. during the 1980s. It has organized numerous community branches and has had immense success in gaining position as an 'official' representative of Islam in the U.S."
Other facts about CAIR's pas de deux with Islamic terrorism include the following:
Co-founder Nihad Awad asserted at a 1994 meeting at Barry University, "I am a supporter of the Hamas movement." Awad wrote in the Muslim World Monitor that the 1994 trial which had resulted in the conviction of four Islamic fundamentalist terrorists who had perpetrated the previous year's World Trade Center bombing was "a travesty of justice."
On February 2, 1995, U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White named CAIR Advisory Board member and New York imam Siraj Wahhaj as one of the "unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators" in Islamic Group leader Omar Abdel Rahman's foiled plot to blow up numerous New York City monuments.
On June 6, 2006, CAIR's Ohio affiliate held a large fundraiser in honor of Siraj Wahhaj. Following the event, CAIR-OH issued a press release heralding the more than $100,000 that Wahhaj had helped raise that evening for the organization's "civil liberties work."
In October 1998, CAIR demanded the removal of a Los Angeles billboard describing Osama bin Laden as "the sworn enemy," asserting that this depiction "offensive to Muslims."
In 1998, CAIR denied bin Laden's responsibility for the two al Qaeda bombings of American embassies in Africa. According to Ibrahim Hooper, the bombings resulted from "misunderstandings of both sides."
In September 2003, CAIR's former Community Affairs Director, Bassem Khafagi, plead guilty to three federal counts of bank and visa fraud. Federal investigators said that a group Khafagi founded, the Islamic Assembly of North America, had funneled money to activities supporting terrorism and had published material advocating suicide attacks against the United States.
In July 2004, Ghassan Elashi, a founding Board member of CAIR's Texas chapter, was convicted along with his four brothers of having illegally shipped computers from their Dallas-area business, InfoCom Corporation, to Libya and Syria, two designated state sponsors of terrorism. That same month, Elashi was charged with having provided more than $12.4 million to Hamas while he was running HLF. In April 2005, Elashi and two of his brothers were also convicted of knowingly doing business with Hamas operative Mousa Abu Marzook.
On September 6, 2001, the day that federal agents first raided Infocom's headquarters, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad denounced the government for "tak[ing] us back to the McCarthy era." Similarly, CAIR's Dallas-Fort Worth chapter depicted the Elashis' indictment as "a war on Islam and Muslims" and alleged that the brothers had been convicted "for their crime of being Muslims in America."
Randall Todd Royer, who served as a communications specialist and civil rights coordinator for CAIR, trained with Lashkar-I-Taiba, an al Qaeda-tied Kashmir organization that is listed on the State Department's international terror list. He was also indicted on charges of conspiring to help al Qaeda and the Taliban battle American troops in Afghanistan. He later plead guilty to lesser firearm-related charges and was sentenced to twenty years in prison.
Onetime CAIR fundraiser Rabih Haddad was arrested on terrorism-related charges and deported from the United States due to his subsequent work as Executive Director of the Global Relief Foundation, which in October 2002 was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department for financing al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
During the 2005 trial of Sami Al-Arian, who was a key figure for Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the United States, Ahmed Bedier of CAIR's Florida branch emerged as one of Al-Arian's most vocal advocates.
The foregoing terrorist connections have drawn the notice of numerous commentators:
Steven Pomerantz, the FBI's former chief of counter-terrorism, has stated that "CAIR, its leaders and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups."
The family of John P. O'Neill, Sr., the former FBI counter-terrorism chief who died at the World Trade Center on 9/11, named CAIR in a lawsuit as having "been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism" responsible for the September 11 attacks.
Terrorism expert Steven Emerson, citing federal law enforcement sources and internal documents, characterizes CAIR as "a radical fundamentalist front group for Hamas."
U.S. Senator Richard Durbin has said, "CAIR is unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect."
On September 17, 2003, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer stated that CAIR co-founders Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmed have "intimate links with Hamas." He later remarked that "we know [CAIR] has ties to terrorism."
During September 2003 hearings held by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security, Chairman Jon Kyl noted the connections between such groups as CAIR and the Saudi government, stating: "A small group of organizations based in the U.S. with Saudi backing and support is well advanced in its four-decade effort to control Islam in America -- from mosques, universities and community centers to our prisons and even within our military. Moderate Muslims who love America and want to be part of our great country are being forced out of those institutions."
A number of American Muslims have made similar observations:
The late Seifeldin Ashmawy, who published Voice of Peace, called CAIR the champion of "extremists whose views do not represent Islam."
Tashbih Sayyed of the Council for Democracy and Tolerance (CDT) called CAIR "the most accomplished fifth column" in the United States. Jamal Hasan, also of CDT, said that CAIR's goal is to spread "Islamic hegemony the world over by hook or by crook."
According to Kamal Nawash of the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism, CAIR and similar groups "condemn terrorism on the surface while endorsing an ideology that helps foster extremism," and adds that "almost all of their members are theocratic Muslims who reject secularism and want to establish Islamic states."
In 1998, CAIR co-hosted a rally at Brooklyn College where Islamic militants exhorted the attendees to carry out "jihad" and described Jews as "pigs and monkeys." The crowd chanted: "No to the Jews, descendants of the apes." Referring to Israel as a "racist country and state," CAIR was a signatory to a MAY 20, 2004 "Joint Muslims/Arab-American Statement on Israeli Violence in Gaza," which "strongly condemn[ed]" Israel's "indiscriminate killings of innocent Palestinians, including many children," and its "demolition of Palestinian homes." In August 2006 CAIR accused Israel of practicing state terrorism in its war against the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah. Said CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, "Our [American] government must end it support for Israel's campaign of terror in Lebanon and join an international effort to protect and bring humanitarian aid to the civilian population of that devastated nation."
CAIR officials have displayed a double standard for denouncing violence. For example, Ibrahim Hooper in a Pittsburg Post-Gazette interview refused to denounce the terrorism of Hamas and Hezbollah, stating, "we're not in the business of condemning." By contrast, when Israeli troops killed Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, CAIR "condemned the assassination of a wheelchair-bound Palestinian Muslim religious leader," calling the operation "an act of state terror."
According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson: "Hussam Ayloush, the Executive Director of the Southern California chapter of [CAIR] ... is known to use the term 'Zionazi' to refer to Israelis, and [he] compare[s] Zionism to Nazism, once writing in an e-mail, 'Indeed, the Zionazis are a bunch of nice people; just like their Nazi brethren!'"
CAIR chose not to endorse or participate in the May 14, 2005 "Free Muslims March Against Terror," an event whose stated purpose was to "send a message to the terrorists and extremists that their days are numbered ... [and to send] a message to the people of the Middle East, the Muslim world and all people who seek freedom, democracy and peaceful coexistence that we support them."
CAIR states that it "works in close cooperation with other civic and civil liberties groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, NAACP, Hispanic Unity, Organization of Chinese Americans, Japanese American Citizens League, Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force, among many others." CAIR also identifies the National Council of Churches as a "partner" organization.
On December 12, 2006, CAIR Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed called the war in Iraq a "pure unadulterated projection of raw power" and said the U.S. should withdraw its forces immediately.
Another notable CAIR official is Altaf Ali, the organization's Florida Director.
In February 2007, CAIR endorsed a call by the American Muslim Taskforce for Civil Rights and Elections, for a worldwide "rolling fast" in support of the incarcerated Sami Al-Arian, who had initiated a hunger strike on January 21 to protest his detention and treatment by federal authorities. Participants in the campaign agreed to fast every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for as long as Al-Arian continued his hunger strike.
CAIR is funded by the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta and by the New York Foundation.
Source: DiscoverTheNetworks
April 28, 2007
Pandering to Muslims: We are no longer equal in the United States
The move concerns airport police who worry about Middle Eastern men loitering inside the building. After 9/11, the airport beefed up its police force to help prevent terrorist attacks.
"Why are we constructing places of worship for them inside our airports?" said an airport official who requested anonymity. "Why are we catering to their rituals? We don't do it for any other religion."
Other major airports also are dealing with increased demands from Muslim cabdrivers.
For instance, cabbies at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport recently caused a stir when they refused to carry passengers possessing alcoholic beverages or accompanied by seeing-eye dogs. Alcohol is forbidden in Islam, and dogs are considered unclean.
There are approximately 250 taxicab drivers operating at KCI Airport in Missouri, one of the largest airports in the U.S., linking some 10 million passengers between mid-America and other U.S. cities. Approximately 70 percent of the drivers are of Middle Eastern heritage and practice the Islamic faith, sources say.
KCI Airport Police are responsible for the cab drivers, including the holding areas of the building. The KCI Aviation Department, which oversees the police, recently expanded the taxicab facility restroom area to include the construction of four individual foot-washing benches.
The cost of the project is not immediately known. A spokeswoman for the engineering department said she could not break out the figures.
KCI Airport Police Capt. Jim Harmon declined comment, explaining, "This is a touchy subject."
He referred questions to the KCI Aviation Department.
In a cleansing ritual known as ablution, Muslims are required to wash their feet before praying to Allah five times a day. They often complain that public restroom sinks do not accommodate their needs. Floor-level basins make it easier for them to perform their foot-washing ritual.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has pressed government agencies and businesses to install the foot basins in restrooms.
The controversial Muslim lobby group advises employers to allow Muslim workers time to perform both the washing ritual and prayer, which "is usually about 15 minutes," according to a pamphlet CAIR publishes called, "An Employer's Guide to Islamic Religious Practices."
The Islamic purification ritual, known in Arabic as "wudu," involves a 10-step process, which includes:
1. Praising Allah while washing both hands up to the wrist three times, making sure that the water reaches between fingers and under rings.
2. Rinsing out the mouth thoroughly three times, using the right hand (the one not used for cleaning private parts) to bring the water to the mouth.
3. Snorting water into the nostrils from the right hand, three times, to cleanse them of demons that Muslims believe reside there, clearing the passages of any mucous using the left hand.
4. Washing off the tip of the nose with the left hand.
5. Washing the entire face three times from right ear to left ear.
6. Continuing to wash from forehead to throat.
7. Washing the right arm and then the left arm, three times, from the wrist up to the elbow, removing watches.
8. Moving wetted palms over the head from the top of the forehead to the back of the head.
9. Passing the wetted tips of the fingers into the grooves and holes of both ears, and also passing the wetted thumbs behind the ears and ear lobes.
10. Finally, washing both feet to the ankles starting with the right foot, including between the toes, then reciting: "Ash-hadu an la ilaha illal lahu wa ashhadu anna Muammadan 'abduhu wa rasuluh" – meaning there is no god but Allah and he has no partners, and Muhammad is his servant and messenger.
March 31, 2007
I am John Doe
I also reprint, in full. Michelle Malkin's brilliant "The John Doe Manifesto":
My column this week also covers the new John Doe movement and lays down the John Doe manifesto:
Dear Muslim Terrorist Plotter/Planner/Funder/Enabler/Apologist,
You do not know me. But I am on the lookout for you. You are my enemy. And I am yours.
I am John Doe.
I am traveling on your plane. I am riding on your train. I am at your bus stop. I am on your street. I am in your subway car. I am on your lift.
I am your neighbor. I am your customer. I am your classmate. I am your boss.
I am John Doe.
I will never forget the example of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who refused to sit back on 9/11 and let themselves be murdered in the name of Islam without a fight.
I will never forget the passengers and crew members who tackled al Qaeda shoe-bomber Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63 before he had a chance to blow up the plane over the Atlantic Ocean.
I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that several Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run.
I will act when homeland security officials ask me to “report suspicious activity.”
I will embrace my local police department’s admonition: “If you see something,say something.”
I am John Doe.
I will protest your Jew-hating, America-bashing “scholars.”
I will petition against your hate-mongering mosque leaders.
I will raise my voice against your subjugation of women and religious minorities.
I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools.
I will combat your violent propaganda on the Internet.
I am John Doe.
I will support law enforcement initiatives to spy on your operatives, cut off your funding, and disrupt your murderous conspiracies.
I will oppose all attempts to undermine our borders and immigration laws.
I will resist the imposition of sharia principles and sharia law in my taxi cab, my restaurant, my community pool, the halls of Congress, our national monuments, the radio and television airwaves, and all public spaces.
I will not be censored in the name of tolerance.
I will not be cowed by your Beltway lobbying groups in moderate clothing. I will not cringe when you shriek about “profiling” or “Islamophobia.”
I will put my family’s safety above sensitivity. I will put my country above multiculturalism.
I will not submit to your will. I will not be intimidated.
I am John Doe.
Pass it on.
Reader Frank e-mails that he has created "I am John Doe" buttons. Buy 'em here.
Background/previous:
House
GOP strikes back
AIFD;
Powerline
I'm John Doe buttons
Protect John Doe
Katherine Kersten reports
Becket Fund
Note: Earlier this month, six publicity-seeking imams filed a federal lawsuit against US Airways and the Metropolitan Airports Commission in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The Muslim clerics were removed from their flight last November and questioned for several hours after their suspicious behavior alarmed both passengers and crew members. Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten reported last week that the imams, advised by the grievance-mongers at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also plan to sue "John Does" — innocent bystanders who alerted the authorities about their security concerns. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., has introduced legislation to protect John Does who report suspicious behavior from legal liability. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; talk show host Michael Reagan; Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, who heads the American Islamic Forum for Democracy; and Minnesota lawyer Gerry Nolting have all stepped forward to offer free representation to the imams' targets.
March 29, 2007
Preventing Muslim intimidation of Americans
Thank goodness for men like Congressman Peter King of New York, who is trying to protect public-transportation passengers from being sued if they report suspicious activity. The lawsuit filed by six Muslim imams against US Airways and "John Does," passengers who reported suspicious behavior, could have a "chilling effect" on passengers who may fear being sued for acting vigilant.
Rep. Peter King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, offered the motion saying all Americans -- airline passengers included -- must be protected from lawsuits if they report suspicious behavior that may foreshadow a terrorist attack.
Mr. King called it a "disgrace" that the lawsuit against the passengers by the six imams seeks to identify "people who acted out of good faith and reported what they thought was suspicious activity."
You can listen to an audio of Pete King being interviewed on the Mark Levin Show on Talk Radio WABC here.
Wake up, America. Muslims are now using our courts to terrorize us. And while every vote against the measure was by a Democrat, 105 Democrats joined 199 Republicans in voting for it.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers faces a lot of pressure should he attempt to bury it in committee. The final vote results are here.
If you see something, say something. Will you still vote for a Democrat in 2008?
==============
Note: Earlier this month, six publicity-seeking imams filed a federal lawsuit against US Airways and the Metropolitan Airports Commission in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The Muslim clerics were removed from their flight last November and questioned for several hours after their suspicious behavior alarmed both passengers and crew members. Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten reported last week that the imams, advised by the grievance-mongers at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also plan to sue "John Does" — innocent bystanders who alerted the authorities about their security concerns. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., has introduced legislation to protect John Does who report suspicious behavior from legal liability. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; talk show host Michael Reagan; Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, who heads the American Islamic Forum for Democracy; and Minnesota lawyer Gerry Nolting have all stepped forward to offer free representation to the imams' targets.
Muslims intimidating Americans: Another example
Click here for the audio, from MarkLevinFan. For more background information on the six imams, see this.
Muslims intimidating Americans: An example
Click here for more information on "Obsession".A New York City university apologized to its Hillel following complaints that the administration pressured the Jewish center into canceling a controversial film on radical Islam. In an open letter Monday, Pace University President David Caputo said that "no such coercion or intimidation was intended" and apologized "for any action that may have unfortunately led to that belief. I also want to apologize for any hurt we may have caused Michael and other members of Hillel." Pace Hillel President Michael Abdurakhmanov told The New York Times in January that following complaints by a Muslim student group, a dean told him not to show "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West." If the film were shown, the dean allegedly said, police could be called in and Hillel members could be considered suspects in recent Islamophobic acts.
The film has been scheduled for an April screening at the Pace campus in Manhattan.
December 13, 2006
From a Muslim outlook, imams have missed the point on flight behavior
The first thing one must understand about this whole hullabaloo with the Muslim imams taken off a Phoenix-bound plane in Minneapolis is that it most definitely was not about the right to prayer or freedom of worship.
And much as the imams and their handlers may try, it is certainly not about victimization.
But because the case of the six imams (five from the Valley) and US Airways Flight 300 has taken on a life of its own, it would be helpful to look and see what lessons can be gleaned from this story.
All of us as Americans have endured the incremental inconveniences of air travel since 9/11. From 3-ounce fluid limits to random searches, those of us with the first name Mohammed can also attest to humbling profiling. Most of us are quite willing to endure all this because we know the inherent dangers of flying in the world today.
There is little argument that American airport concourses have become clinics of anxiety-laden travelers who have become vigilant in spotting anything out of the ordinary. This vigilance and anxiety is even more acutely felt by U.S. Transportation Security Administration agents and airline crews. They will never be rewarded for a safe flight. But they will be globally vilified for one lax call that leads to tragedy.
Into this highly charged environment comes this incident of the imams returning from their conference. To ignore the larger context is to virtually live in an airtight bubble.
The preponderance of evidence points to some troubling coincidences during flight preparation, regardless of where we stand on this issue. The distribution of their seats, while in fact random, raised concern. Changing seats after boarding, rather than before, raised concern. Conversations in Arabic after boarding raised concern. Seatbelt extenders raised concern. However, no passengers refused to board after seeing and hearing the imams pray aloud at the gate. Taken individually, each of the reported actions could be something any of us would do. However, in totality, although unfortunate in retrospect, it remains hard to fault a cautious crew who must act with little information to ensure a safe flight.
But let us look at the response of the imams since the incident.
They rushed toward the media never looking back. They have taken their story of victimization to every soft media they could find. They then stoked the same tired Muslim flames of victimization through their own political pulpits in mosques around the Valley.
Organizations like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) and the Muslim American Society also immediately jumped on board, even before the imams' flight reached Phoenix the next day, and began whipping up the drums of victimization. Their handlers flew in from across the country staging rallies and pray-ins so they could teach the American people about this supposed tragedy of injustice.
As a devout Muslim, I have watched this painfully protracted saga unravel, fearing what comes next. The media, especially print media, have bent over backward to hear minorities' fears. Yet public opinion has not seemed to budge in favor of the imams. The lesson here lies in why. It has to do with credibility.
We are all creatures of passion. This fiasco has stirred the passionate cry of victimization from the Muslim activist community and imam community. But where were the news conferences, the rallies to protest the endless litany of atrocities performed by people who act supposedly in my religion's name? Where are the denunciations, not against terrorism in the abstract, but clear denunciations of al-Qaida or Hamas, of Wahhabism or militant Islamism, of Darfurian genocide or misogyny and honor killings, to name a few? There is no cry, there is no rage. At best, there is the most tepid of disclaimers. In short, there is no passion. But for victimization, always.
Only when Americans see that animating passion will they believe that we Muslims are totally against the fascists that have hijacked our religion. There is only so much bandwidth in the American culture to focus upon Islam and Muslims. If we fill it with our shouts of victimization, then the real problems from within and outside our faith community will never be heard.
Though this was not about prayer, let us look at the prayer itself: certainly a central part of our faith both alone and in congregation. The Quran teaches Muslims that God did not make our faith to be too difficult. Thus, during travel, many of us pray alone in silence when we cannot find a private place or where public display is not appropriate.
Prayer is an intimate thing, five times a day for Muslims. It is a personal conversation with God and not about showing others how devout we are.
Congregational prayers are preferred, but in travel (as three of the imams did apparently do) they can be combined upon their arrival in Phoenix.
Alija Izetbegovic, former president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, once said he was never so close to God in his prayers as a Muslim as he was during his solitary confinement for 12 years as a political prisoner struggling for liberty under Josip Broz Tito's oppression.
These imams would do well to learn from President Izetbegovic. He further understood the separation of religion and politics.
He understood God teaches us in the Quran that our religion is based upon intention and that if we perceive that the public situation is not conducive to our congregational prayer, that a forgiving God will understand.
Because these imams and their handlers just don't get it, it's time we Muslims found leadership and organizations that do.
Our predicament is unique, fragile and precarious. We Muslims are a relatively new minority in a nation that gives us freedoms that no other Muslim nation would allow.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, a radical subset of our faith community is seeking to destroy the basis for this liberty.
Either we predominantly direct our passions against these radicals or Americans will not count us as allies in this consuming struggle.
M. Zuhdi Jasser is a Phoenix physician and chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. He can be reached at Zuhdi@aifdemocracy.org.
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