Archive for August, 2011

Made in the USA Islamophobia

Source | By Ismail Salami

Dubbed as Fear, Inc. The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America, the report sheds light on the collective efforts of the Zionist groups funded by the United States in pedaling a hatred for and a fear of Islam in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted talking points. According to the report, these wealthy donors and foundations also provide direct funding to anti-Islam grassroots groups.

The project of Islamophobia which has cost more than $40 million over the past ten years has been funded by seven foundations in the United States: 1. Richard Mellon Scaife Foundation; 2. Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation; 3. Newton and Rochelle Becker; 4. Foundation and Newton and Rochelle Becker Charitable Trust; 5. Russell Berrie Foundation, Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald; 6. Family Fund; 7. Fairbrook Foundation.

According to the report, there are five misinformation experts who have contributed to the spread of Islamophobia in spearheading this project through the effective vehicle of media partners and grassroots organizing. These notorious people include 1. Frank Gaffney at the Center for Security Policy; 2. David Yerushalmi at the Society of Americans for National Existence; 3. Daniel Pipes at the Middle East Forum; 4. Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and Stop Islamization of America and 5. Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

The league of the despicable hate-mongers

These experts travel far and wide and inculcate the idea that most of the mosques in the United States harbor terrorists and sympathizers.

One of the major figures active in disseminating anti-Islamic sentiments in the United States is Walid Shoebat. A purported Palestinian Liberation Organization member, he claims he once bombed an Israeli site and spent some time in Israeli prisons. A Christian convert, Shoebat was born of an American mother and a Palestinian father and seems to be nothing more than a blatant liar and traitor to the Muslim community. Financially supported by anti-Islamic groups, he believes that “terrorism and Islam are inseparable” and that “All Islamic organizations in America should be the No. 1 enemy. All of them.”

Daniel Pipes is another notorious Muslim hater who spares no effort in tarnishing the image of Islam in America. During his career, Pipes has displayed “a disturbing hostility to contemporary Muslims…he professes respect for Muslims but is frequently contemptuous of them” (The Washington Post).

Apart from his strong hatred for Islam, he also shows racial disrespect for Muslim immigrants who “wish to import the customs of the Middle East and South Asia” (Los Angeles Times). In 1990, he stated, “Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene…All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most” (National Review).

A barefaced liar and traducer, he vehemently extends his hatred to the person of the Holy Prophet of Islam and refutes the notion of the Night Journey, and the Holy Qur’an, and casts doubt even on the existence of the Holy Prophet of Islam.

To the gang of the haters also belongs Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of eleven monographs and well over three hundred articles on jihad and ‘Islamic terrorism’. While expressing intense animosity and hatred for Islam, he finds himself incapable of testifying to the many attractive qualities of Islam.

Asked once why so many people embrace Islam, he admitted against his will that “there are many attractive elements of the religion.” He even admitted that the amorality in the western world is one of the reasons why many embrace the glorious faith. It is interesting to note that he has been widely acclaimed by his cronies. Daniel Pipes calls him ‘A top American analyst of Islam’. Frank Gaffney, Center for Security Policy describes him as ‘a national treasure…The acclaimed scholar of Islam.’

David Yerushalmi, the founder of the think tank the Society of Americans for National Existence, is another influential Islamophobe. Without proper training in Islamic law, he claims to be an expert in the field. Yerushalmi introduces Islam as an inherent threat to the West because of its doctrinal goal of world rule via ‘a caliphate that will impose Sharia law on all its subjects’ (Forward.com). To this accusation, Mark Cohen, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University replied that historically, even in the areas where Muslims ruled, they did not seek to impose Sharia law on non-Muslims.

“Jews and Christians were granted communal autonomy, including the right to live according to their respective legal systems and to adjudicate in their own courts of law,” he said

One of David Yerushalmi’s famous quotes is, “Muslim civilization is at war with Judeo-Christian civilization…the Muslim peoples, those committed to Islam as we know it today, are our enemies.” To sum up, he is a hate-mongering figure who has been described as ‘anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black.’

Also behind Islamophobia in the US is Frank Gaffney, the director of the hardline neoconservative Center for Security Policy (CSP), who advocates for controversial weapons programs and an expansive “war on terror” targeting “Islamofascists” (a term Gaffney frequently uses in reference to the Muslims). His bizarre ideas about Islam and the Muslims have placed him among the leading Islamophobes in the United States.

As Richard Allen Smith says, “Whenever there is an issue of bigotry directed at Muslims in America, it’s a safe bet that you can find Frank Gaffney behind it.” Last year’s opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque was actually organized by Frank Gaffney. With a mind contaminated by western teachings against Islam, Gaffney has memorized some verses from the Holy Quran and recites and interprets them in the flickering light of his crooked perceptions of the Holy Book.

Last but not least is smearcaster and defamer Steven Emerson, one of the leading Islamophobes who serves as the Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism. His specialty lies in linking any terrorist attacks to the Muslims in the US. This expertise can well serve the interests of the western media who seek to lay any blame on the Muslims in case of a terrorist attack.

He erroneously blamed the Oklahoma City bombing on Muslims. Speaking on CBS Evening News, he said, “This was done with the attempt to inflict as many casualties as possible. That is a Middle Eastern trait… it was a bomb that brought down TWA Flight 800.” This clearly indicates a mind set at analyzing events and putting the blame on the Muslim society.

It is evident that these bloggers and think tanks work closely together and make concerted endeavors to promote their anti-Islamic campaign. Their outlandish ideas have unfortunately influenced some in the United States and in Europe as well. Just some time ago, the tragedy that took Norway by surprise and made Western media jump to the conclusion that the terrorist act was the work of the Muslims is a product of this flow of misinformation in the West.

Anders Behring Breivik who was responsible for the killing of 62 people was a byproduct of this macabre mis-teaching penetrating the European community as well. Breivik’s 1,467-page document containing gruesome details of his terrorist act reveals that he was inspired by the network of Islamophobia in the United States as well as his links with the extremist neo-Nazi British EDL who share similar ideas concerning Islam.

Islamophobia practically started with 9/11. Although the main motive and the real identity of those responsible for the attacks have remained a secret since then, the US government has from the outset shifted the blame on the Muslim extremists. This provided a plentiful excuse for the US government to mount wars in Afghanistan and Iraq under the pretext of combating terrorism. The wars have incurred inconceivable human loss, and irretrievable destruction of infrastructures in the two countries. Besides, the US government has suffered billions of dollars in the military adventures it has pursued in the region. This crooked policy of the US government has augmented an anti-Islamic sentiment in the US and in the West. To crown it all, the US has been effectively conducive to the emergence of Islamophobia by funneling millions of dollars to Zionist groups and organizations in the US, thereby entangling it in the web it has woven. The US is now stuck in an economic and military quagmire which can eventually terminate in the collapse of the Empire.

The massive conspiracy project to defame Islam and all Muslims is but another source of shame for and another black stain on the history of US policies.

Ismail Salami is the author of dozens of books and articles. Many of his articles have been translated into more than ten languages.

IS/HGH

REPORT: $42 Million From Seven Foundations Helped Fuel The Rise Of Islamophobia In America

Source

Following a six-month long investigative research project, the Center for American Progress released a 130-page report today which reveals that more than $42 million from seven foundations over the past decade have helped fan the flames of anti-Muslim hate in America. The authors — Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matt Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and myself — worked to expose the Islamophobia network in depth, name the major players, connect the dots, and trace the genesis of anti-Muslim propaganda.

The report, titled “Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network In America,” lifts the veil behind the hate, follows the money, and identifies the names of foundations who have given money, how much they have given, and who they have given to:

The money has flowed into the hands of five key “experts” and “scholars” who comprise the central nervous system of anti-Muslim propaganda:

FRANK GAFFNEY, Center for Security Policy – “A mosque that is used to promote a seditious program, which is what Sharia is…that is not a protected religious practice, that is in fact sedition.” [Source]

DAVID YERUSHALMI, Society of Americans for National Existence: “Muslim civilization is at war with Judeo-Christian civilization…the Muslim peoples, those committed to Islam as we know it today, are our enemies.” [Source]

DANIEL PIPES, Middle East Forum: “All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.” [Source]

ROBERT SPENCER, Jihad Watch: “Of course, as I have pointed out many times, traditional Islam itself is not moderate or peaceful. It is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers.” [Source]

STEVEN EMERSON, Investigative Project on Terrorism: “One of the world’s great religions — which has more than 1.4 billion adherents — somehow sanctions genocide, planned genocide, as part of its religious doctrine.” [Source]

These five “scholars” are assisted in their outreach efforts by Brigitte Gabriel (founder, ACT! for America), Pamela Geller (co-founder, Stop Islamization of America), and David Horowitz (supporter of Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch). As the report details, information is then disseminated through conservative organizations like the Eagle Forum, the religious right, Fox News, and politicians such as Allen West and Newt Gingrich.

Over the past few years, the Islamophobia network (the funders, scholars, grassroots activists, media amplifiers, and political validators) have worked hard to push narratives that Obama might be a Muslim, that mosques are incubators of radicalization, and that “radical Islam” has infiltrated all aspects of American society — including the conservative movement.

To explain how the Islamophobia network operates, we’ve produced this video to show just one example of how they have mainstreamed the baseless and unfounded fear that Sharia may soon replace American laws:

Click here to read the full report.

Background of Islamophobia

Source | By ALİ BULAÇ

Although the Muslim conquest of certain Western territories and the Western conquest of certain Eastern lands may be similar military acts, they differ from each other in terms of how they are culturally perceived.

The Umayyads dominated Spain and Sicily and the Ottomans ruled parts of Eastern Europe for several centuries, building lasting monuments of civilization in these places. After conquering Byzantium, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror perhaps also sought to conquer Rome, this being a part of his vision. But there was nothing sacred about conquering Byzantium other than following the Tradition of the Prophet of Islam, peace and blessings be upon him, who said: “Constantinople will certainly be conquered. How blessed is the commander who conquers it. How blessed are the soldiers who conquer it.” The Prophet’s Tradition certainly motivated many people, but otherwise, Byzantium was simply a choice location to be conquered from a political and military standpoint.

We cannot assume that Muslims always conducted their conquests with legitimate or pure intentions, such as promoting the Word of God, or conveying the correct Message of Islam to the masses who were as yet unaware of it. Such desires as obtaining the spoils of war, economic wealth, world domination, political standing and military necessities also played an important role in these conquests. Oddly enough, Muslim states even conquered other Muslim states, as in the conquest of Syria and the military campaign against Egypt carried out by Ottoman Sultan Yavuz Sultan Selim and the conquest of Baghdad by the Seljuks. These reasons may be understandable to some extent. When Muslims were subsequently forced to leave the territories they had conquered and dominated, they accepted it as a fact of life, as in the case of Andalusia and the Balkans.

Europeans, on the other hand, developed such strong religious motivations for their military campaigns against the East that these motivations still linger today within their cultural codes, albeit in modified or disguised forms. Thus, Westerners have never accepted the Muslim domination of Jerusalem or Constantinople (now İstanbul). The Palestinian territories surrounding Jerusalem are as sacred to Christians as they are to Jews. So Christians saw the Muslim conquest of these territories as a breach of their sacred values and as the extortion of their religious rights. The center of the Kingdom of God and anticipated place of the second coming of Christ is under the rule of others, they thought. In their eyes, this delayed the proper flow of history and postponed salvation. This line of reasoning left a heavy responsibility felt on the shoulders of every Western Christian. Furthermore, Constantinople had been the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire — founded by Constantine, who was the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity — and Muslims had seized this holy city.

These perceptions underlie the very subconscious of all Westerners, urging them to launch military expeditions against the East in order to conquer its territories, to ethnically cleanse its people and to Christianize or Westernize them so that they will no longer pose a threat to the West. If Christianity can be considered to preach the eternal truth and if Christianity itself is the “true faith” and all other religions are just beliefs, then the sword may be wielded against all others. Interestingly, although the principle that “the Church hates the sword” has been embraced, Western leaders, old and new alike and including such figures as George W. Bush, have readily used their power against Muslims from the historic Crusades to the modern Crusades that include the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Of course, Bush and other evangelicals do not represent the entire US, and there are those who seek the Middle East purely for the exploitation of energy resources and the security of Israel. Christian Zionists may be pursuing a destructive policy via Islamophobia, but the most hostile ideas to develop in the US could be those in the Clash of Civilizations thesis, which can hardly serve as a lasting motivation for strong enmity. Indeed, Islam has still not yet established itself as an object of fear in the historical subconscious or collective memory of the US. Perhaps, over time, the clash of civilization may bring about Islamophobia in the US, but it is Europe that is currently gripped with Islamophobia.

One may suggest that religion is no longer a decisive factor in shaping social or political life in Europe thanks to secularism, democracy, human rights and other secular European ideals. However, we must also pay attention to the fact that many destructive codes and cultural elements are actually derived to some extent from the secularization of religious ideas.

Anti-Muslim Blogger Pamela Geller Lashes Out At Islamophobia Report: ‘Pile Of Dung Masquerading As Research’

Source | By Eli Clifton

Responding to CAP’s Islamophobia report, anti-Muslim activists David Horowitz called it “fascistic” and Robert Spencer deemed it the “agenda of the Islamic jihad.” Determined to one-up her Islamophobia network colleagues, Pamela Geller took to her blog on Friday evening to unleash a fiery tirade against the new report “Fear, Inc.”

Geller piles baseless, if at times colorful, allegations on the report’s authors. Including:

Over at the wildly funded machine of hate and lies, the “Center of American Progess,” the Soros cranks have spent hundreds of thousands producing a pile of dung masquerading as research. […]

It reads more like a Mein Kampf treatise. The funding section of the report is outrageous. I have not seen one dime from any those donors, though they name me as a recipient. Lies. […]

[MediaMatters and the Center for American Progress] mean to destroy this country, and they will crush anyone who gets in their way. […]

This “report on Islamophobia” is Goebbels attacking the Jew. I wear it as a badge of honor. These quislings are the enemy. They fear my work, and that is good. They fear my book, Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. […]

Watch them choke on their own vomit.

Geller’s only factual issue with the report is that “I have not received one cent from any of these funders they attempt to tie me to.” But the report never claims that Geller receives any money from the seven funders who contributed $42.6 million to the Islamophobia network. Indeed, Geller is probably one of the few individuals who requires little money from outside donors. Last year, The New York Times reported:

Ms. Geller got nearly $4 million when [she and Michael H. Oshry] divorced in 2007, and when Mr. Oshry died in 2008, there was a $5 million life-insurance policy benefiting her four daughters, said Alex Potruch, Mr. Oshry’s lawyer. She also kept some proceeds from the sale of Mr. Oshry’s $1.8 million house in Hewlett Harbor.

Geller, much like her colleagues Robert Spencer and David Horowitz, uses the report as an opportunity to solicit readers for contributions while never meaningfully challenging the factual accuracy of the 130-page report on Geller and her anti-Muslim allies. While unsurprising and certainly not out of the norm for Geller, her response to the report underlines the bigotry, hatred and intolerance exhibited by many member of the Islamophobia network.

Last night, ThinkProgress editor-in-chief Faiz Shakir discussed the Islamophobia network with Keith Olbermann:

Germany’s Unhealthy Obsession with Islam

A Commentary by Rolf Schieder

German Islamophobes hold that their more liberal opponents are do-gooder Islamophiles and cultural relativists. German critics of Islamophobia claim their more conservative opponents are scare-mongers and slanderers. What both groups have in common is an obsession with Islam that doesn’t do Muslims, Christians or secularists any good.

The way the
politically motivated murders of 77 Norwegian children, adolescents and adults by a right-wing extremist were interpreted by the media as an attack on Islam was downright eerie. There were hardly any Muslims among the victims, nor was a mosque in Oslo blown up. It was not the beginning of a crusade against Islam. The victims were overwhelmingly young social democrats, who, if they could be assigned to a religious category at all, were mainly members of the Lutheran state church.

The killer, Anders Breivik, believes that the “Islamization” of Europe is a threat. But what he finds even more threatening is the “cultural Marxism” practiced by his fellow Norwegians. For him, their liberalism is a sign of cowardice and weakness. The term “cultural Marxism” is a reference to “cultural Bolshevism,” a concept from the 1920s, when lamentations about a general cultural decline were part of the standard repertoire of conservative political parties. Members of Germany’s so-called Conservative Revolution (ed’s note: mainly active in the period between World War I and World War II) saw the reasons for that decline in capitalism and consumerism, Westernization and individualization. In this sense, it is entirely correct to identify this mental climate as Breivik’s inspiration, as the historian Volker Weiss did in a recent opinion piece for SPIEGEL ONLINE.

But what does one gain from calling the killer a “right-wing brother of the jihadists,” as Weiss does, and characterizing the events in Norway as “the Talibanization of the Christian right”? This reinforces the old prejudice of the European left, namely, that religion in itself is always and exclusively dangerous. Yet this overlooks the fact that it was political, non-religious worldviews that inflicted endless suffering on humanity in the 20th century. It also suggests that there is a worldwide ecumenical movement of religions that are prepared to use violence and that have become a threat to the non-religious. In Weiss’s mind, the events in Norway represent a “fatal embrace” between “crusaders and jihadists.”

But if one is to establish a commonality between right-wing extremists like Breivik and jihadists, it lies not in a violent ecumenical movement, but in the shared psychosocial circumstances of the perpetrators. Terrorism is a problem among culturally uprooted, politically radical angry young men who are often educated but unsuccessful. They are men who rebel against a world in which they no longer feel at home. They have higher expectations of the world than it could ever fulfill.

In his influential book “Männerphantasien” (“Male Fantasies”), the German sociologist Klaus Theweleit offers a plausible explanation for the relationship between fascism and delusions of masculinity. If we consider the narcissistic outpourings of the mass murderer behind the Oslo and Utøya attacks, it is not difficult to recognize that he too dreamed the dream of the masculine knight — depicted as courageous, tough, white, potentially brutal but ultimately irresistible — who acts as the savior of a society portrayed as corruptible, soft, permissive, comfortable, feminine and in urgent need of purification. For Breivik, the sympathy that society expresses for the victims is presumably additional proof of its decadence. His goal was not to combat the Muslims, but to rescue his own society from disintegration.

A Sign of What Is Lacking

What, then, is the source of this obsession with Islam? Fifteen years ago, there were about 2 million Turkish immigrants in Germany. Today, Germany’s immigrants from Turkey are often lumped into a single category of “Muslims.” Their critics say that it is not Turkish parents’ own lack of education that prevents their children from doing well in school, but their religious affiliation. Muslim “headscarf girls” (ed’s note: a phrase coined by the controversial German author Thilo Sarrazin) are characterized as both a threat to feminism and dangerous baby-making machines obsessed with “demographic jihad.” Some cite the supposed threat of Muslim parallel societies, apparently ignoring the fact that for centuries Germans have lived in parallel societies consisting of Catholics and Protestants.

“Islam” has become a social phantasm. According to the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, the term “phantasm” refers to a negated and repressed lack. As well as individual phantasms, which point to a repressed deficiency and to unattainable objects of desire, there are also societal obsessions, which relate to socially repressed deficiencies and unattained desires. The phantasm does not describe a real object. Instead, it indicates what is lacking.

What are these deficiencies? What is lacking? It isn’t the same for everyone.
Thilo Sarrazin decries what he sees as a lack of German children. The German politician Klaus von Dohnanyi believes immigrants are more devout than Germans. Others admire their family values. Turks who celebrate loudly and raucously after their team has won a football match are praised for their national pride. We even grudgingly acknowledge the willingness of suicide bombers to sacrifice their lives. Our own population seems lazy, indecisive, fearful, spoiled and endlessly demanding in comparison.

The only possible conclusion seems to be that — to quote the title of Sarrazin’s best-selling book — Germany is doing itself in. But despite the commercial success of Sarrazin’s apocalyptic tome, it did not trigger any tangible change within German society. Thus, the faction of Islam’s critics continues to suffer in the midst of a population that supposedly lacks the collective will to defend itself.

We Are Actually Discussing Ourselves

Opposing this culturally pessimistic faction are the secularists who do not subscribe to the phantasm of Islam as the more aggressive and more powerful religion, but instead regard Islam as an anachronistic and — given their own belief in a secular society — ultimately illegitimate phenomenon. To these German intellectuals, the fact that an ailing Christian Church tries to help Muslims gain public recognition — for example, by advocating chairs in Islamic studies at universities — in a bid to save itself from demise, is doubly vexing.

For German secularists, what is lacking is a secular society. But Germany is still a long way from that. Almost two-thirds of Germans are members of a church, a number that, when compared with the 2 percent of Germans who are members of a political party, speaks to the still robust state of organized religion. Although we live in a secular state, it is not a secular society that the state seeks to protect, but a society that has a vibrant diversity of religious beliefs and worldviews and is therefore pluralistic.

There is a range of other deficiencies, wishes, fears and desires that motivate the phantasm of “Islam,” from the yearning for a homogeneous German population to a highly individualized social model that deconstructs all things institutional. The real problem is that we are not actually discussing Islam at all. Instead, we are — in the sense that we are talking about what we are not — actually discussing ourselves. For this reason, I would give the following piece of Kant-inspired advice: “Have the courage to use your own religio-political reason without referring to the Other of Islam.” It is not the dispute over the phantasm of “Islam” that is productive, but the impartial analysis of the goals of the religio-political parties that are at odds in our country.

This would remove an enormous burden from the everyday lives of Muslims. They could simply view themselves as a religious minority among others, like the Jews for example, a minority that seeks to practice its religion within the framework of what is legally permissible — nothing more and nothing less. Problems relating to education, integration and equality could then be addressed as such in a nuanced and appropriate manner without being immediately framed within the context of a culture war. German Muslims would be relieved of the need to justify themselves every time an Islamist suicide bomber commits an attack somewhere in the world. They would be seen primarily as German citizens and only secondarily as members of a world religion.

This would make it easier to differentiate between the idea of “Islam” and the many ways to be a Muslim man or woman in Germany, a country that guarantees religious freedom. Finally, the various Muslim organizations could calmly coordinate among themselves, without having to confront external pressures, regarding how they want to jointly interact with mainstream society.

Civilizing Religion

Without a fantastical view of “Islam,” the German debate over religious policy would then become both tougher and clearer. Secularists, who seek to make religion an entirely private affair, and so-called culturalists, who seek to give priority to Christianity, could no longer sustain their joint campaign against Islam. They would be forced to recognize that the respective social models they envision are completely contradictory. Constitutional liberals, on the one hand, would have to join forces with the secularists in demanding equal rights for all religions, thereby opposing the culturalists. On the other hand, they would have to support the culturalists in preventing what the secularists seek, namely, making religious matters private and eliminating religion from the public sphere.

Within such a framework, groups such as the “ex-Muslims” would also lose their unique credibility. When, for example, the German-Egyptian political scientist and Islam critic Hamed Abdel-Samad advocates limiting the influence of organized religion in Germany “to detoxify this society,” one could argue that the established religions in Germany promote anti-totalitarian and individual freedom and that they can look back on a tradition of keeping civil society alive. Germany’s religious policy is not based on the elimination of religions from the public sphere, but the civilization of religions through public religious education.

The Sharia Paranoia Industry is very lucrative

Source | By Adam Serwer

That’s according to a new report from the Center for American Progress, which tracks the funding sources of America’s most prominent Islamophobes. Over the past ten years, that money has flowed from primarily from seven foundations: The Donors Capital Fund; the Richard Mellon Scaife Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Newton and Rochelle Becker Foundation and Newton and Rochelle Becker Charitable Trust; the Russell Berrie Foundation, the Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund and the Fairbrook Foundation.

This funding has allowed the Islamophobic right to amplify and mainstream an anti-Muslim message that remained on the fringe while President George W. Bush urged a message of tolerance. Think tanks like Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security policy have used the funding to produce reports promoting the myth that most Muslim Americans are conspiring to replace the Constitution with Sharia law. It’s helped people like attorney David Yerushalmi design anti-sharia legislation being pushed in at least 23 states, in four of which those the bans have actually passed. It’s helped anti-Muslim writers like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, cited frequently by alleged anti-Muslim Oslo terrorist Anders Breivik, promote and sustain their work.

The campaign to persuade Americans that Islam is the enemy and that American Muslims are all potential radicals and terrorists has borne bitter fruit.

Last year a Washington Post poll found that almost half of Americans, 49 percent, now have an unfavorable opinion towards Islam, up ten points from 2002 and “the most negative split on the question in Post-ABC polls dating to October 2001.”

With the conservative media no longer held back by the need to support a Republican president who publicly espoused tolerance towards Islam, outlets like Fox News, National Review, and conservative talk radio have freely promoted Sharia Panic conspiracies — ones that have dovetailed neatly with conservative distrust for the president. Likewise, a few Republicans in Congress, such as Reps Peter King, Allen West, and Michele Bachmann, have used their authority to bolster the idea that America is at war with Islam and that most American Muslims are radicalized. Increasingly, religious right figures like Pat Robertson and John Hagee are embracing the rhetoric of Sharia Panic.

The flipside is that there’s no similarly well funded and single minded infrastructure opposing them. Groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Council and Muslim Advocates have recently tried to put forth an alternative narrative, pointing out that American Muslims have been key to preventing terror attacks. Likewise, civil liberties groups like the ACLU have debunked the idea that Islamic law is trumping civil law in American courts.

These efforts however, won’t succeed as long as Republican leaders continue to tacitly and sometimes explicitly embrace and enable those in the Sharia Panic Industry. Until Republican leaders try to appeal to the better angels of their constituents’ nature — rather than feeding on and profiting from their paranoia — things are unlikely to change.

5 Questions About Glenn Beck’s Restoring Courage Rally

By Andrew Belonsky | Source

1. Why Aren’t More Politicians Participating?

It was initially reported that at least four potential GOP presidential candidates — Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee — planned to attend Restoring Courage in Israel this week. Senator Joe Lieberman had also promised to participate in the event, which Beck describes as “an opportunity to demonstrate to the world that Israel does not stand alone.”

Well, the Senator pulled out last week, and none of the declared or potential candidates plan to fly over for Beck’s event. Well, almost none: Herman Cain, a long-shot candidate with little sustainable political power, is attending.

Does this mark the end of Beck’s pull among conservative leaders and their followers? Right wing leaders like Sarah Palin made a show of supporting Beck during his rally last August. But that was when Beck still had a widely viewed Fox New show.

Now that Beck’s departed the cable channel, it seems he’s lost some of his luster — among the mainstream, at least: Christian nationalist David Barton and controversial Pastor John Hagee, a pastor who has suggested that Jews brought on the Holocaust themselves, have endorsed Restoring Courage. Maybe that’s why people are staying away? The dearth of political leaders is especially odd because 80 Congressmen and women visited Israel this month. None were willing to show up to Restoring Courage?

Although, to be fair: Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are planning a “Defending the Republic” event come October, so perhaps the old boy’s still got it…

2. Is This the End of Glenn Beck?

On a related note, last year’s religion-tinged event Restoring Honor brought in about 100,000 attendees, depending on the various numbers. Only about 3,000 people, 2,000 of them Christians, showed up to the Caesarea Amphitheater for the opening night of Beck’s Israeli adventure, according to Hot Air.

He’s either not as popular in Israel as he would like to believe, or else “Restoring Courage” is on its way to being a huge flop, another indicator that Beck’s 15-minutes are almost up. We’ll know more after the rally’s main event, which happens tomorrow.

3. Will Beck’s Event Stoke Anti-Arab Sentiment Here At Home?

Though Beck and his partners want to strengthen ties between America’s conservative Christians and Israel’s right-leaning Jewish and Christian activists, that inter-religious cooperation also comes with plenty of anti-Islam sentiment.

“Old hatreds have begun to rear their ugly head once more, yet those who swore to never let it happen again are inexcusably sitting silently by and allowing the hate to fester,” Beck wrote on his website earlier this month. “The Muslim Brotherhood, long banned in Egypt, was immediately allowed re-entry and enjoys popular support. Turkey has moved aggressively towards Sharia Law and has befriended Iran – a nation who has renewed its long standing call to wipe Israel off the map. That is just the tip of the iceberg.”

The Brotherhood is but one of the many groups whose names are casually invoked to mean “Shariah law,” something Beck and his ilk see as a threat to the United States and to Israel. While some Islamic groups do indeed want to take down Israel, the Brotherhood does not.

As journalist James Traub explained in ‘Foreign Policy’ magazine the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t pose much of a political or terrorist threat:

…Not only because the Muslim Brotherhood is not Hamas, but because, in the wake of the thoroughly secular mass protest movement, the Brotherhood is no longer likely to attract a majority of Egyptian voters.

Still, that’s not a risk Clinton or the Muslim Brotherhood’s more vocal American detractors are in the mood for. The “specific agenda” they fear is not that the Brotherhood will impose sharia, but that it could destroy Israel. The Brothers with whom I spoke were not only anti-Israel, but pro-Hamas. Israel has every reason to fear the prospect of a Muslim Brotherhood government. But would a secular democracy in Egypt be more sympathetic to Israel than an Islamist one? In Egypt, as elsewhere in the Arab world, elites have learned that accepting Israel’s existence is the price of admission to international good opinion.

Despite common opinion that the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and other Islamic parties will have to take a more moderate stance to curry international favor, and because they know Israel will always exist, it’s almost guaranteed that Beck and his fellow speakers, especially infamous Islamophobe Herman Cain, will use the next few days to stoke historic hatreds that are easily exploited for political ends.

4. Will Beck’s Event Stoke Anti-Mormon Sentiment?

Meanwhile, as Beck takes aim at Islamic organizations, Christian conservatives in the States are calling for a boycott of Christian TV Network for its support of Mormon Beck’s event.

“It is absolutely ridiculous for a supposed Christian TV Network, that purports to be propagating the gospel, like TBN, with major Christian figures like John Hagee and David Barton, to be supporting and advocating for a member of a satanic cult,” said Bill Keller of the 2.4 million-strong website LivePrayer.com

As Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaigns continue, we’re hearing sporadic discussion of long-simmering tensions between Evangelical and Mormons: a majority of Americans have previously said they wouldn’t vote for a Mormon president. Romney’s popularity shows that historic divides are being bridged; if Keller and other anti-Mormon Evangelicals actually gain traction, they could remind Christian voters about worries of which they had forgotten.

Plus, many LGBT activists and their allies are no fans of the Mormon Church for its role in pushing through Proposition 8, California legislation that bans marriage equality there. They’re sure to be displeased with the equally-hateful Beck’s display, and may misguide their disgust with him toward the church as a whole.

5. Do Beck and His Friends Really Support Israel?

Despite touting their love for Israel, do Beck and his fundamentalist Christian pals support it as a Jewish state or simply as the backdrop for their Christian rapture. Media Matters has a roundup of some of Restoring Courage’s comments on Judaism, and they’re not very flattering.

One endorser, Billy Graham’s son, Franklin, runs a group called Samaritan’s Purse. That group, like so many Evangelical groups, tries to convert Jews to Christianity. Their efforts include working with the Omega Project, which distributes Bibles to Russian Jews so that they will accept Jesus as their savior, an idea that flies in the face of traditional Jewish teaching.

Meanwhile, another backer, Tim LaShaye, author of the rapturous ‘Left Behind’ series, once said, “Some of the greatest evil in the history of the world was concocted in the Jewish mind,” and David Barton has been tied to neo-Nazi groups and wrote in his book that only Christians should hold public office.

While this crew may support Israel, their support for Jewish Israelis, rather than just Christian Israelis, is certainly suspect.

COVERING-UP, UNCOVERED: The Veil’s Revival

by Erin O’Donnell | Source

ONE EVENING in the late 1990s, Thomas professor of divinity Leila Ahmed saw a group of people gathered on Cambridge Common. All of the women were wearing hijab, the headscarf worn by some Muslim women but rarely seen at that time in the United States. Just the sight of hijab provoked a negative, “visceral” response in Ahmed, who was born and raised in Cairo in the 1940s, when even devout Muslim women of the middle and upper classes did not wear veils because they considered them old-fashioned. She took the appearance of veils in Cambridge, she explained recently, to mean that “there could be some fundamentalism taking root in America.”

That incident launched her on a 10-year study of women and Islam and their choices about the veil, and led ultimately to her new book, A Quiet Revolution (Yale). It also led her “into studying the very lively, complicated politics and history that were critical to—and in fact were the driving forces behind—both the unveiling movement of the early twentieth century and, later, of the re-veiling movement in the closing decades of the century,” Ahmed says. In the process, she says, she reexamined her own prejudices and reached surprising new conclusions about hijab. (Among women who wear it today, Ahmed explains, “hijab” usually refers to a veil that covers only the hair and neck; the burqa and niqab cover the face.)

Women in Egypt initially began to unveil around the turn of the twentieth century, as British occupiers sought to rescue Muslim women from what they took to be the oppression of Islam. But local women who unveiled had different reasons for doing so. “Unveiling,” Ahmed writes, “would become ever more clearly the emblem of an era of new hopes and desires, and of aspirations for modernity: the possibility of education and the right to work for both women and men, and of equal opportunity and advancement based on effort and merit.”

In the 1970s, most women began covering their heads again. After Egypt’s defeat in the Arab-Israeli War in 1967, groups that aimed to “Islamize” society, such as the Muslim Brotherhood—quashed under President Gamal Abdel Nasser—reemerged and flourished. At the same time, Saudi Arabia wielded increasing influence as an economic superpower that sought to spread its strict Wahhabi Islam globally. Islamist leaders of the period worked to persuade women to wear Islamic dress, but scholars who interviewed women during this period found that those who adopted it typically reported doing so willingly.

“As is the case sometimes today in America, many of the women who took on hijab did so against parental wishes,” Ahmed says. “Islamic dress gave them new authority as strictly observant religious women, and in a society where men and women were expected to maintain a certain separateness, it gave them the freedom to attend school and go to work—in offices, for example, shared with men—in ways that were socially acceptable. It certainly had some positive outcomes.”

The recent movement in Europe to ban Islamic dress for women echoes the old colonial concern for Muslim women, but Ahmed says it’s layered with something new. Hijab is now identified—wrongly, she believes—with violent strains of fundamentalist Islam. These assumptions, which she shared at the start of her research, “were quite mistaken,” she says now. “Certainly there are violent elements at the extreme edges, but the broad mainstream of the Islamist movement—according to all the experts—is overwhelmingly opposed to violence and committed to nonviolence.” She also emphasizes that the Muslim Brotherhood in particular has a long-standing commitment to social justice, including provision of education and medical treatment to the poor, and she believes such social activism is part of the organization’s legacy in America.

American Islam, she reports, was dramatically altered by 9/11, with more Muslims speaking publicly about their faith, and young Muslims insisting on a new dialogue within Muslim-American organizations. Immediately after 9/11, some women shed their veils to avoid harassment, but others began covering themselves for the first time in their lives. They cited a range of reasons: a desire to affirm their Muslim identity, to educate others and counter stereotypes, and sometimes to express solidarity with the Palestinians. Ahmed was particularly surprised to meet an American Muslim woman in Boston who said she hoped her headscarf would prompt other women to think about gender bias in society, including how clothing choices and physical appearance may influence the treatment of women.

Ahmed’s book has been widely reviewed in the United States and Britain, and she has faced some criticism for suggesting that the veil might symbolize a new kind of Muslim feminism in America; critics say it cannot shake its history as an emblem of oppression. Clearly, Ahmed responds, hijab can’t stand for empowerment in a place like Iran. “In a country where you’re free to choose to wear a veil, its meanings are worlds away from what it means when you’re forced to wear it,” she says. “That’s a critical point. The veil today has no universal meaning. Its meanings are always local.”

The Muslim Brotherhood Can Be a Moderate Voice in Islamist Politics

By Cameron Glenn | Source
In a country struggling to navigate an unprecedented transition to democracy, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt is positioned to make a strong showing in the upcoming parliamentary elections. While there is reason to be wary of the Islamist group, the U.S. decision to engage the Muslim Brotherhood diplomatically was necessary and practical. Not only are fears of their influence in Egypt’s government somewhat overblown, but the emergence of a moderate Islamist movement could even enhance our security interests. If Egypt’s Islamists are able to successfully reconcile Islam and democracy, it would discredit extremist groups who rely on violence, and not the political process, to achieve their goals.
An Egyptian government with a strong Islamist presence makes Americans understandably uneasy. The Muslim Brotherhood holds troublesome positions on the status of women, religious minorities, and Hamas. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasized that the contact will be limited and focused on democratic principles, but some lawmakers, like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), oppose all communication with a group “committed to violence and extremism.”
There’s no getting around the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has historical ties to individuals like Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who were influenced by the Brotherhood’s views early in life. But the minority of Islamists who support violent jihad became disillusioned with the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1970’s, when they denounced violence and condemned attacks on civilians. Rather than use force to achieve their goals, their actions show that they strive to become a legitimate political force.

Once given a role in government, practical concerns will likely overtake ideological ones. The experiences of Turkey and Iraq show that Islamists do not necessarily revert to their most extreme stances once in power. Instead, they often soften their ideological slant once they are forced to move beyond rhetoric and deal with actual policy issues.
In Egypt, this is already happening. The Muslim Brotherhood has conceded that women and Coptic Christians have a right to run for president. And they formed an unlikely alliance with the Wafd party, a liberal and secular group formed after World War I. Despite substantial differences in ideology, cooperation will bolster both parties’ chances in the upcoming elections.
Now that fair elections are an actual possibility, the Brotherhood must grapple with these strategic concerns, which has led to another problem: As they struggle to keep up with the tide of change, there is dissent in the ranks. The more conservative policies of the older generation are at odds with the younger generation’s focus on democracy and human rights.
So while all Muslim Brothers wish to maintain an Islamic identity in theory, what this means in practice remains a point of contention. Support for the group as a whole is estimated to be a healthy plurality, but the influence of any one faction will likely be diffused if members continue to split off to form their own parties.

In this uncertain environment, we have a chance to advance our own security interests. If the Muslim Brotherhood can emerge as a moderate Islamist movement, it has huge potential to act as a counterweight to Al-Qaeda, who has repeatedly criticized them for their opposition to violence. While Al-Qaeda relies on asymmetric force and impractical apocalyptic worldviews that have no place in any real political system, Egypt’s Islamists have a unique opportunity to discredit the notion that Islam is incompatible with democracy.
Although it may be fashionable for American politicians to run screaming from the word “sharia” we should be careful not to alienate those for whom the term simply describes the ideals of compassion and justice, rather than a strict legal code favoring oppression and anti-Americanism. We may not like the idea of limited contact with the Muslim Brotherhood, but there is a clear reason why we want these moderate voices to be heard.
Of course, Egypt has a long road ahead in the transition to democracy, and contact with the Muslim Brotherhood should still be approached with caution. But if the U.S. is truly committed to democracy in the Middle East, engaging with influential, non-violent parties — no matter how begrudgingly — is an important step in supporting democratic development.
More importantly, it is an opportunity to reshape the Middle East in a way that empowers moderate Muslim voices, pushing Al-Qaeda further into irrelevance.

Muslims Smash Right-Wing Stereotypes

By: Kelley B. Vlahos | Source

Of the many revelations and questions still unresolved following the recent riots in Britain, a novel yet not altogether surprising thread has emerged but has hardly been noticed by the mainstream media:

These riots were not dominated, driven nor taken advantage of by angry, ghettoized, Shariah-demanding Islamists.

Much to the chagrin, we can assume, of many a jihad-hunter here in the United States, which we know tried, early on, to insert an Islamofascist element to the street violence. Here’s Robert Spencer, fresh from having to distance himself from the Norwegian mass murderer who quoted Spencer’s anti-Islamic writings 64 times in his own hate-filled manifesto, on his blog, Jihad Watch, on Aug. 11:

Jihadists employ a variety of means of warfare to create a vacuum of stability and security for which they will claim Sharia is the only solution, because it is the only one they will allow. In this case, anarchy is already present, and they are encouraging its growth because they see in it an opportunity to peddle their wares.

Spencer linked to a brief and curious Associated Press report, datelined Cairo, on the day before that said “militant online forums are abuzz with calls to Muslims in Britain to launch Internet campaigns in support of the British rioters and to urge them to topple the government. … Dozens of contributors on Wednesday suggested Muslims in Britain should flood social media websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, with slogans and writings inciting the British youth to continue rioting.”

One “contributor,” according to the report, suggested that “chaos is useful to militants in London.”

The report is completely unsourced, suggesting that the “contributors” are nothing more than fringe forum feeders and comment posters, much like those who frequent Spencer’s site. One such Jihad Watch poster responded to the AP’s non-news story with this:

From “Istanbul_Chick”:

The islamopithecaii will not dare to start the rioting here in America because they know, unlike the British population, we’re armed to the teeth, myself included.

Rather they’re pressing their jihad here through politics and lawsuits.

I actually wish they’d start riots here because then their intentions and true nature would be there in living colour for all to see and they’d be viable, legitimate targets

Of course there has been no visible evidence that Muslims — “islamopithecaii,” “kuranimals,” “militants,” disenfranchised-over-indulged-immigrants or whatever the online jihad-hunters are calling them these days — were the majority, or even a sizable minority, of the thugs responsible for the looting and violence in Britain.

In fact, stories in contrast to that meme began emerging as it became more obvious that British Muslims were busy protecting not only their own businesses and places of worship, but their non-Muslim neighbors’ properties, too. In the course of this activity, three Birmingham residents of Pakistani descent were run over and killed. Court records and subsequent reports do not reveal the ethnicity of the perpetrators, but their names and witness reports suggest they were not members of the Muslim community.

The Wall Street Journal, probably hoping for this event to finally set off simmering racial/religious tensions, wrote a story shortly after, saying “the deaths led to an outpouring of anger from the city’s large population of Asians (Muslims from Asian countries).” The story quotes members of the community suggesting an ethnic war between “Asians” and blacks (the accused driver of the hit and run is reportedly Afro-Caribbean). The riots themselves were reportedly sparked by the police shooting of Mark Duggan, a black man with reported ties to gangs and drug dealing.

So far there have been no reports of racial violence between the two groups, nor violent demonstrations from the mourning Muslim community. So far, the courts and the media in Britain have kept a careful lid on the ethnic face of the street rioting and looting overall. Reports of those charged and arraigned in British courts so far tell a tale of mostly kids — 69 percent under the age of 24, 95 percent male and 70 percent residing in another city or neighborhood than where they were arrested.

Reporters who have sat in the courtroom say the suspects represent different backgrounds and class interests, though they rarely speak of race. Official statistics have included the names of those charged. Muslim surnames are certainly represented, but definitely not a majority.

“In the broadest sense, most of those involved have been young men from poor areas,” reported Paul Lewis and James Harkin at The Guardian last week. “But the generalization cannot go much further than that. It can’t be said that they are largely from one racial group.”

An analysis on Aug. 12 by Robert Lambert at Al-Jazeera was the first to make the point that “Muslims have played an important role in helping to tackle the looting and preserve public safety. This would be an especially important acknowledgement if it came from those Islamophobic commentators who consistently denigrate Muslims.”

Lambert, a Brit, said he wasn’t surprised that the Muslim community acted “swiftly to protect shops, businesses and communities against looters.” He said he first saw their “street skills” put to the test in 2005 “when volunteers from the Muslim Association of Britain and Muslim Welfare House ousted violent supporters of Abu Hamza from the Finsbury Park Mosque.”

More recently, Muslim bravery has been seen in Brixton when extremists spouting the latest manifestation of Al Muhajroun hatred were sent packing out of town. In all these instances, and so many more, the brave Muslims involved have received no praise for their outstanding bravery and good citizenship, and instead faced a never ending barrage of denigration….

Now, we realize that Spencer’s group is called “Jihad Watch,” not “Islamic Community Hero Watch,” but it’s certainly worth noting that he has had nothing to say about the riots and British Muslims since it became apparent there was no Shariah revolution on which to assail.

Truth is, the positive things happening in the Muslim immigrant community never seem to get the full media treatment. We’re so used to hearing about “ghettos” of the unassimilated in London and France, fatwa-inspired extremists chasing cartoonists and authors and cutting down filmmakers, honor killings, headscarves and British deference to Shariah — that we can hardly think of anything else when it comes to Muslims living in Europe.

Here in the U.S., thanks to a right-wing agenda hell-bent on conflating the growing xenophobic ripples in society with a river of post-9/11 paranoia, surging economic insecurity, and politically driven neonationalism that tacitly condones open social discrimination against other Americans and legal residents based on their piety and their religion, Muslims here have hardly enjoyed what one would call “evenhanded” treatment in American media culture, either.

If there were such fairness in reporting, we would realize that Muslim-Americans are more “Main Street, USA” than we are often led to think. If anything, they might be a little bit happier, and a lot more confident in the future than the rest of us.

Shiny, Happy Muslims…

A major poll [.pdf] issued by Gallup’s Center for Muslim Studies and the newly established Abu Dhabi Gallup Center in early August found that 60 percent of Muslims living in America feels as though they are “thriving,” up 19 points from a similar survey in 2008 and higher than any other faith group surveyed, save for American Jews.

They also feel their life is on an upward trajectory, more than any other faith group, including Catholics, Protestants, Mormons and Jews. Some 64 percent say their standard of living is increasing.

This and earlier surveys of the community released by Pew in 2007 [.pdf] and Gallup in 2009 [.pdf] indicate that Muslims here are far more integrated than their counterparts in Europe, according to Gallup. Muslim Americans, and especially Muslim women, are above the national averages in employment and education stats. According to the 2009 poll, 40 percent of Muslims had a college degree, compared to 29 percent of the general population. Some 42 percent of women had college degrees, compared to 29 percent of women in the general population. Also in that poll, 70 percent of Muslims in America reported having a job, compared to 64 percent of Americans generally. At the same time, one in three Muslim American women was working in a professional capacity and one in six was self-employed, according to the survey.

In the 2007 poll, American Muslims did not stand out as more low income than the rest of Americans, yet in countries like England, France and Germany, Muslims were far more likely to be living in poverty compared to the general population. Also in those countries, Muslims were way more likely to consider themselves “Muslim first” — Britain in particular, where 81 percent of Muslims there felt that way — compared to America, where less than half of Muslims considered themselves “Muslim first.”

More recently, like other groups, Muslims expressed some dissatisfaction with their cities and communities, but they register more optimism than other faith groups that their problems will be fixed.

According to the most recent poll, Muslims here abhor political violence. In fact, they were far more likely (78 percent) than Catholics (39 percent), Protestants (38 percent), Jews (43 percent) and Mormons (33 percent) to say that military violence against civilians is never justified.

They are also more likely than any group to say individual violence against civilians is never justified. Some 95 percent insist that U.S. Muslims have no sympathy for al-Qaeda. Of all the other religious groups, Jewish Americans believe them the most — some 70 percent agree that American Muslims have no tolerance for the extremists believed responsible for 9/11 and for other terrorist acts across the globe.

The same goes for loyalty to the U.S. — 93 percent of Muslims surveyed believe that American Muslims are loyal. Again, 80 percent of Jews believe them, while only 56 percent of Protestants think this is true. In the 2009 Gallup Poll, only 45 percent of all Americans believed that Muslims were loyal to their country.

Not everything is positive, of course. While Muslims put more faith into elections than other religious groups in America, they are still the least likely to vote. They strongly believe (60 percent) that Muslims are discriminated against in American culture. While 91 percent of Americans of other faiths have confidence in the military and 75 percent in the FBI, only 70 percent and 60 percent of Muslims do, respectively. This should come as no surprise since Muslims in the U.S. have taken the full brunt of the war on terror. Despite their willingness to work with the FBI, for example, mosque leaders across the country have complained about government surveillance and infiltration and mistrust, particularly in recent years.

Also, the 2007 Pew Poll indicated that nearly a quarter of young Muslims felt that suicide bombing was justified in certain circumstances, compared to 13 percent of all Muslims surveyed in the poll. Experts suggested at the time that the poll had been weighted by African American Muslims (20 percent of all U.S. Muslims, according to the poll, and more recent converts) who tended to express less desire to integrate, and felt more discrimination than their Asian, foreign-born counterparts (this is true in later polls, too).

While Walid Phares, who saw the Pew Poll as cause for alarm, told me, “It is precisely because an indoctrination is taking place. It means that a huge jihadi political effort is ongoing within the United States to brainwash young minds,” others saw natural youthful bravado and rebellion in the numbers and said they still trailed far behind the negative sentiments held by young Muslims in Europe.

The latest Pew Poll did find one positive indicator where age was concerned. The 2007 poll indicated that only 40 percent percent of Muslim youth (ages 18 to 29) felt they were thriving, the lowest of all Americans. Today, that number is up to 69 percent — on par with the rest of their peers in other faith groups.

For the last decade, American Muslims have used as shameless props and foils in shrill political debates, targeted by hyperbolic demagoguery, scapegoated for the country’s deeper social and economic problems. Overall, these polls help smash the stereotypes and provide much more depth and complexity to this group of Americans, who today number more than 2.3 million strong.

Too bad we don’t hear more about them.

“The findings of the recent Gallup poll about the vibrancy of the American Muslim community should come as no surprise: it points to the strength of the same pluralistic national framework that neoconservatives have been working so hard to destroy,” said M. Junaid Levesque-Alam, a Muslim American who publishes the Crossing the Crescent blog.

“The mainstream media has all too readily blurred out the broader picture of Islam in America and zoomed in on one or two sensational cases — probably because fear sells, whereas patience and wisdom carry considerably less value in the neoconservatized ‘market of ideas.’”

The fear of terrorism has definitely ignited the negative view of Muslims here, but even that is suspect. A recent book by Charles Kurzman notes that only 40 people have perished to terrorism in the U.S. since the 9/11 attacks compared to 140,000 murders in the U.S. in that time. He also offers a provocative argument that is sure to set the jihad-hunters’ hair on fire — that there are actually very few Islamic terrorists in the world today, period.

Will the data stand up to the sensational headlines? Probably not. According to some of the loudest voices in right-wing politics today, jihadists are not only infiltrating the government and the military, but the U.S. court system and public utilities, too. Christian conservative leaders — even those who run universities and serve as role models — say Islam is not a true religion. We spent an entire summer debating whether an Islamic center should be built near the 9/11 site and years debating whether President Obama is a Muslim in disguise.

It’s probably safe to say that while the Muslim community may have advanced, the general perceptions of it by the rest of America has not gone beyond middle school. A Pew Poll released last August found Americans’ favorable view of Islam had actually declined, from 41 percent in 2005 to 30 percent in 2010.

Unfortunately, this sad view will probably be reinforced doubly as the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches and all the old tropes and fears start to bubble up once again.

Heaven knows there are wingnuts cracked enough to hope for riots on the streets here in the U.S. — a final reckoning if you will — but if what happened in the U.K. is any indication, their worst prejudices won’t be validated, at least when it comes to the Muslims.

Muslim Brotherhood: Structure & Spread

Ikhwanweb.com

First: Membership Structure

The process of recruiting new members, within the public activity of MB, has certain phases. The first phase is represented in the direct call through direct communication with people. Actually MB group started with seven persons including Hasan al-Banna himself, the founder of MB and this is mentioned in his diaries. The number began to expand gradually due to the direct communication with people. Al-Banna undertook the task of communicating directly with people throughout Egypt, consequently he visited villages and towns calling for his Da”wa.
As for the second phase of recruitment process, it is represented in the political recruitment adopted by al-Banna to establish a well-knit membership procedure. During the MB third congress in 1935, al-Banna stipulated the membership prerequisites and its degrees. The third phase denotes the recruitment of mujahid members. Al-Banna instituted a new system known as `Usra (The smallest unit of MB structure) which represents the practical area of MB spiritual education and Tarbiah (training). When the MB membership had been divided into categories, the “`Usra “membership was limited to MB active members.
Al-Banna wrote in his diaries (Proceedings of Third Congress) a paragraph subtitled (The Practical Structure of Muslim Brotherhood) in which he mentioned the following:
1-The main offices and bodies of MB should work for cultivating members spiritually and psychically in a way consistent with MB values and strengthening them. To do so, the MB membership varies into three degrees:
General membership: given to every body accepted by district administration provided that this person shows his readiness to be righteous, agrees to sign membership form and pays a volunteering subscription.
Brothers” membership: given to every Muslim accepted by the district administration- the member of this category is called “Associate Member”.
Practical membership: given to every Muslim accepted by the district administration and agrees to maintain his duties (Al-Banna detailed these duties); such a member is called “Active Member”.
Jihad membership: limited to Active Members that the general executive bureau (GEB) realizes his observance of duties and commitments.

Three Parallel Lines

Imam Hasan al-Banna established the MB Da”wa to be a general one depending on a substructure of knowledge, Tarbiah (training) and jihad which represent basic pillars of comprehensive and all-encompassing Da”wa.
Consequently the group adopted the following methods to achieve this concept:

The system of study circles to achieve knowledge line.
The system of `Usar al-Takween (The smallest units in the preparation stage) to achieve the line of Tarbiah (training).
The system of `Usar al-`amal (Action Unit) to achieve the line of jihad.

1- Study Circles System
This system achieves “Knowledge” which is the first pillar of Da”wa along with the principle of publicity in calling for Islam and Islamism. Mosque is the natural target for establishing such circles.

2- `Usar al-Takween Achieving Tarbiah (training) Line

While the study circles system aims at strengthening general attachment to Islam, the objective of `Usar system is to achieve special attachment to Islam and stimulating all powers, consequently there are two forms of `Usar:
`Usar al-Takween entrusted with preparing and cultivating MB members,
`Usar al-`amal entrusted with stimulating one”s powers in the continuous daily work for implementing Islam entirely or partially.

Now, it is time to shed light on characteristics of the membership three degrees, namely Nas?r (Advocate), Munaffidh (a member who has the characteristics of piety, obedience and jihad) and Naq?b (a leader with specific characteristics).
Every membership category has its own stipulations and requirements. The person entrusted with education and Tarbiah (training) should take into consideration such requirements and give every person the due membership and help him attain perfection in terms of this membership.

Following is a brief summary of the characteristics of membership degrees.
The first category of membership is” Nas?r”; In this category of membership the focus is directed to faith, loyalty and Tarbiah (training). This stage is a test of confidence which shapes and defines the next stage but it is considered the least degree in terms of stipulations and requirements.
The second category of membership includes Munaffidh, A`mil (Active) or Mujahid. It stands for the member who has got the characteristics of piety, obedience and Jihad.
The third category of membership is Naq?b. It stands for the person entitled to practice education and Tarbiah (training), take pledge of allegiance, participate in taking decisions and know the MB secrets. Moreover, he has the right to lead. This necessitates high degree of Tarbiah (training), absolute confidence along with many other requirements which make eligibility limited to a few people.

Second: the wide and fast spread of the group (place and category.)

In the statement of the fifth congress of MB, ten years after its establishment, Hassan al-Banna identified some characteristics of the group, including “the wide spread in cities and villages”. He mentioned how the group was first established in Alesma”elia governorate, then its existence in Cairo “till its circulation all over Egypt, from Aswan to Alexandria.
The MB widely spread as a political organization, since the 30s and especially in the 40s, during and directly after the Second World War. The group recruited many members, established scouts groups and weapon gatherers, a militant special outfit (Attantheemul khaas.) In the 40s- twenty years after its establishment- the group had, approximately, two million members and two thousand branches all over Egypt.
Al-Banna spent ten years intensifying the group”s pillars and imprinting it with “a pedagogic” stamp. This orientation granted the group a relatively free atmosphere for work. Al-Banna was really aware of his spontaneous and objective capabilities, so he was not involved in any conflict with political parties and associations; even he utilized the differences between all of them to promote the pillars of his Da”wa.
The group prevailed in the Egyptian society from the very beginnings; it concentrated on the social, educational and service fields and had an organizational existence at many levels, including: domestic mosques which it established, small educational institutions for teaching religion and eliminating illiteracy, hospitals, and some commercial and industrial projects. After the Second World War, the group assumed a great role in distributing and printing books, and issuing magazines.
“The mosque wasn”t only a place for worship, but for Tarbiah (training) as well. It represented a place for gathering and mobilizing people, and selecting the good characters to be members of the group. When the group moved the main headquarter to Cairo, the most important development of activities was the concentration on universities, schools and Alazhar. It established a new section for students, and began forming relevant militant groups. Another important development was that the group began to face political issues, having different opinions from that of the government and parties, these two developments strengthened each other.” Judge Tareq Albeshri said, commenting on the group”s widespread activities through mosques.

The categorical spread:

The Islamic reformist movements(IRM) – especially, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) – basically and may be exclusively spread in the modern social classes, especially the middle class, so it was different from religious movements which the Arab Islamic world experienced till after the end of the nineteenth century; because- then- they concentrated on the traditional social classes.
Some believes that there was a link between the spread of the Islamic trend in the Arab countries among the middle class and the modernization processes in this world; actually, this is in concord with the Islamic religion faculty of penetrating all the society classes (Aristocratic, middle and lower.) with its comprehensive teachings. But modernization processes represent the aptness for more spread. The spread of the IRM in the middle class rather than the radical ones which usually spread in the lower classes- is due to the characteristics of middle class in the Arab world, which is oriented to reciprocal reformative change, not violent change.
The most prominent phenomena of modernization were the wide range of Tarbiah (training) and industry, and development of cities, the important result of which was the wide range of the middle class. The middle class has a high political spirit- compared to other classes- and great aspirations concerning policy and a better life, which helped it enthusiastically participate in policy.
There were several elements that led a huge number of the middle class to be enlisted in religious groups:
1-The effect of modern Tarbiah (training):

The educational process includes creating new values instead of traditional ones. Tarbiah (training) represents the social activity tool of eradicating traditional society bonds. Educators of religious lessons- especially the Islamic history- are affected by religious ideological romantic impacts.

2- The political experience:
In fact, religious opposition movements” emergence is due to the exposure of ideologies and parties which represented the middle class, this exposure is due to their failure in authority, or an intensified political oppression which led to withdrawal and ineffectiveness, therefore depriving them of the legitimacy to represent middle class.

3- The modernization impact:
Rushing towards the quick modernization trial in societies in which Islamic groups had an important role, and its consequences, represented a significant element in the collapse of current social and political institutions.
4- The economic crisis:

Among the defects of current regimes is the economic organization failure to meet the increasing aspirations of middle class, and also the reason for the exposure of the middle class secular parties as failures.
The MB group does exist in all the classes, from the upper one to the lower, but it”s mostly dominant in the middle one, which is the main source for recruitment, it is represented by the small merchants in cities and the new comers to the city from the country.
University students in cities, whose origins go back to towns and villages, are very important.
The MB also prevails in the educated circles and the modern social category as well.
Spread in the educated circles may be due to the emergence of Islamic Wakefulness inside universities since the 70s. The leader students represented the organizational cadres in the regions. They may be the same figures who represented the syndicalistic movement, which raise the Islamic banner in unions and syndicates.
The MB suffered a lot of ordeals in the 50s and 60s, which helped promote and spread their Da”wa among the youth along with the written output of the MB cadres and intellectuals, such as: (Abdulqader “Uda, Said Qutub, Sheikh Muhammad al-Ghazali, Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi…etc)
The movement experiences a relative absence among the ranks of workers, peasants and the uneducated. These ranks represent an empty sphere in the Islamic arena.

Third: Organizational hierarchy:

1- The basic regulations: the first by-law organizing and codifying work within MB group- as mentioned by Hassan al-Banna- has been initiated between 1930 and 1931 A.D., and in September 1945, the group ratified a modified by-law presented by Hassan al-Banna who called it “The Basic Regulations of Muslim Brotherhood organization (BRMBO).” Three years later, al-Banna recommended some amendments to the Constituent Board (CB), after reading the recommendations twice, the CB agreed to amend the regulations of the group.
After the nomination of “Hassan al-Hudaibi” as a chairman of the group, the General Executive Bureau (GEB) ratified a new interior by-law, which interpreted the basic regulations using the entitled authorities of the GEB according to article 32 of this law to establish the necessary body for implementing the group”s aims, and article 62 which allows revisiting the current law and amendment. In July, 1982, the group ratified a new by-law “The Basic Rule”, justified by the widened activities of the group and the previous experience. The last amendment concerned with the limitation of chairman term of office, instead of staying in office for life.

The above-mentioned chart begins with the Constituent Board (CB) from which the primary authority of MB emanates. This board takes the place of general assembly in other organizations because it is impossible for the MB general assembly to convene due to its large number which amounts to some millions in that time. Consequently it was substituted by the constituent board.
The CB represents nowadays the MB general advisory council and the general assembly of GEB. It includes MB members who anticipated in working for Da”wa. The mission of this constituent board is to supervise the Da”wa, choose Executive Bureau members and elect a comptroller.
The CB convenes regularly in the month of Muharram (the first Islamic month) to discuss the executive bureau reports concerning the plan of Da”wa activities for the new year, elect new members if the time is due, discuss the comptroller report about the last year accounts and the expected budget for the year to come, elect a new comptroller (if the time is due provided that the new comptroller is one of the CB members and is not nominated to chairman position) and to discuss other affairs and suggestions.
There may be an extraordinary convention of the constituent board if needed or in case that Executive Bureau (EB) or twenty members called for it. If that happened, the chairman is the one who presides over the meeting or the general deputy if the chairman was absent or delegated his deputy. In case that the general deputy is absent, the eldest member presides over the meeting. The meeting will be valid if attended by the overwhelming majority (half of members plus one) unless a certain number is stipulated.
The constituent board has the right to grant its membership to any MB member during any meeting provided that the nominated member meets the following conditions:
He is an established member.
His age is no less than 25 lunar years.
He joined Muslim Brotherhood for 5 years at least.
He has the due moral, cultural and academic qualification.

As for the GEB elected by the constituent board, it consists of 12 members voted into office from among the board members except for the chairman. Nine of the elected members should be from Cairo, and three from the other governorates.
The GEB candidate has to meet these conditions:
1- He has been a member of constituent board since three years at least.
2- He has the necessary moral, practical and academic qualifications.
3- His age is no less than thirty years according to Islamic calendar.
After those members are balloted and the final results are declared, the member takes an oath to maintain and keep the MB principles and values, hold confidence in the leadership abide by their decisions even if they were not consistent with his opinion, then he takes the pledge of allegiance.
The constituent board then elects from among the nine members of Cairo a deputy, general secretary and a treasurer. The GEB membership lasts for two years then new elections are to be held.
The member can be elected for more than a term. In case of a vacancy before the term is over, the person who came next in votes occupies this position.

The Chairman:

The chairman is elected by the constituent board in the presence of no less than four-fifth of its members; three fourths of them must vote for him. In case that the legal quorum is not present, the session would be adjourned to no less than two weeks and no more than four weeks since its first convention. If the quorum is not complete again, the session would be adjourned under the same conditions but the scheduled meeting and its objectives must be declared; the chairman is to be nominated in this session by three fourths of the attendance votes regardless of their number.
The chairman has to meet the following conditions:
1- He has been a member of the constituent board since five lunar years at least.
2- He must be one of knowledge and good character in addition to being acquainted with scholarly affairs.
Having been elected, the new chairman takes an oath of loyalty then he would be given a pledge of allegiance by the CB members and by the members of the group either directly upon meeting him or through those members” leaders.
1-The General Headquarter (GH):
This is the main headquarter of the MB, the chairman and the executive bureau. This acts as a junction point for the horizontal and vertical MB hierarchy formed at the end of thirties. Actually till the beginning of the Second World War, there was nothing but some dispersed branches in certain provinces. These branches would take instructions directly from the general headquarter that was branched into administrative sub bureaus in 19 governorates. Moreover, the general headquarter was subdivided into 300 districts, in the same way as governmental division system; the districts were divided into branches which were considered the basic units in the group structure.
The general headquarter has a board of directors made up of the chairman of the administrative bureau, in most cases the same chairman of the main branch or any member the executive bureau may nominate him. He may be neither a head of a branch nor a member therein. The board of directors also includes a deputy, a secretary and a treasurer; in most cases they occupy the same positions in the main branch. The other administrative bureau members are the districts heads and members of the constituent board in the bureau constituency, administrative activity representatives in addition to a visitor of the GEB whose viewpoint is of consultative nature and who has no right to vote.
The district board of directors is made up of the main branch head and the heads of other branches in the district, the branches visitors, the GEB visitors and the main branch activity representatives.
The branch board of directors is made up of five persons, one of them is selected by the general headquarter to be the branch head, the others are elected by the branch general assembly provided that two of them are deputies, the third is a secretary and the fourth is a treasurer. The election must be run secretly.
The member of branch board of directors must be at least 21 lunar years old, and must be one-year member of the board, during which he did not violate the membership duties.
The branch member has to meet the following conditions:
1- His age is no less than 18 years.
2- He has a good character and never been sentenced for immoral practices.
3- He fully comprehends the MB principles, and fulfils his duties.
4- He pledges to pay a monthly subscription regularly to the branch administration.
5- He takes upon himself to abide by MB laws and gives the pledge of allegiance.
The branch is subordinate to its respective district and the district is subordinate to its respective administrative bureau which in turn is subordinate to the general executive bureau. Communication runs between theses units upwards or downwards in the same sequence.
The intellectual framework of the MB has really affected its regulatory formation. Actually, the comprehensiveness of thought which is a characteristic of the movement has reflected itself in the organizational structure of the movement which overwhelmed the individual from all sides and regulated his social life and family relations in a way that results in full intermingling with the group.

2-Regulations Amendment in 1982:
In 1982 the group amended the main system. They justified that saying:” Due to increasing group fields of activity and in the shadow of its experiences, and to keep up with the present conditions and requirements, the general advisory council, instituted according to the provisional by-law that was approved on 10/05/1982 by the honored chairman, discussed in its meeting convened on 29/07/1982 the by-law and decided on amendment.
The new amendment provided that the MB administrative bodies are the chairman, the general executive bureau and the general advisory council.
The chairman of the MB is the main responsible person in the group; he is the one to head the general executive bureau and the general advisory council. As for the general executive bureau, it is the supreme executive body of the MB which is to supervise the promulgation of Da`wa and to direct its policy and administration. It is made up of 13 members other than the chairman, its term of office is four lunar years, and the member may be nominated for more than a term.
The general advisory council is the legislative authority of the MB; its decisions are binding and its term of office is four lunar years.
Amendments followed forth afterwards so as to consolidate the principle of consultation through basal elections- i.e., through the bases and ranks of the MB- among all administrative and regulatory bodies, giving much attention to institutionalism instead of individualism in managing the group.

3- The regulatory Congress phenomenon:
Having moved in 1932, along with the group general executive bureau, to Cairo, and having concluded the leading and basal administrative group establishments, al-Banna sought to hold general congresses for the group. Such congresses acted as regulatory frameworks that control approving and reviewing plans and policies in addition to developing insight concerning the coming stage necessities.
Al-Banna was eagerly anxious to hold such general congresses. The first congress came in May 1933, the second came lately in the same year, the third in March 1935, the fourth in 1937 and the fifth came in January 1939. These congresses had its importance in establishing values of consultation, exchanging viewpoints and regulatory and political reviewing of decisions. They represented all the group administrative bodies including the executive bureau, the general advisory council and the central advisory councils.
Al-Banna dedicated himself, during the stage of establishment to work for organizational structure of the group, so he strived to model it in a well-knit framework that manifested itself in theses general congresses.
Thanks to his personal and psychic capacities, Hasan al-Banna managed to establish some positive administrative and regulatory principles and traditions, including the general congresses phenomenon held under his personal auspices and his active following up. He was keen that all the group administrative bodies should take part in theses congresses and in their deliberations and discussions. The number of the attendance was great, and the discussions in the special committees run in detail.
Al-Banna managed to establish regulatory and administrative senses through delegating authorities in all leading posts in the MB administrative hierarchy.
4- Limiting the Chairman Term of Office:
At the beginning of Shaban month in 1416 A.H, the MB deputy chairman stated that the group leaders made an administrative decision limiting the MB chairman office term to renewable six years instead of selecting him for lifetime as run before. The decision reflected developments in the internal system of the group that permitted circulation of the chairman post, setting an example to the Egyptian political powers that support and follow persons not ideas.
Bibliography:
1- “Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Society” by Muhammad Shawqi zaki
2- “The Political Islam in Egypt”, Al-Ahram Political and Strategic Studies Centre. 1992 AD, Cairo; by Hala Mustafa.
3- “The Qur`an and the Sword, conflict of State and Religion in Egypt” Nabil Abdul Fattah
4- “Organizational Structure of Political Islam Groups in Arab World and its impact on their Political behavior (Egypt as Case Study) by Muhammad S`ad Abu-`Amoud.
5- “The Approach to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood” by Sa`eed Hawwa.
6- “The Collection of Messages” by Hasan al-Banna.
7- “The political Islam in the Arab World” by Muhammad Darif.
8- “A Study of Arab Strategy in 1958” Al-Ahram Political and Strategic Studies Centre.
9- “Radicalism in the Arab World” by Richard Heriar and Wokmigan.
10- “The Ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood” by Dr Richard Michael.
11- “Internal Democracy within the Egyptian Political Parties, Comparative Study 76-1987, faculty of Economics and Politics doctoral thesis, not published 1993; by Wahid Abdul Maj?d.
12- “(Liberty) of the Islamic Movement: Future Viewpoint, Papers in Self-criticism; by Dr Abdullah An-Naf?s.
“Islamic Movements in Egypt and the Issue of Multi-party political System” 76-1986, faculty of Economics and Politics doctoral thesis 1994; by Abdul `Ati Muhammad Ahmad Abdul Halim.

Commentary: MB and Democracy, Mutually Exclusive?

Ikhwanweb.com

Latest events in the Middle East, particularly Egypt following the January 25 revolution, have proven that the conservative Muslim Brotherhood is the true pro-democracy advocate, compared to liberal groups which ironically behaved so undemocratically after the fall of the regime. The MB is a staunch supporter of free choice, freedom of expression, peaceful rotation of power, respect to the rule of law, and protecting the rights of electoral minority.

The Muslim Brotherhood declared from the beginning of the transition period in Egypt that free elections are the only way to express the peoples’ choice, achieve democratic society and replace military council with civilian elected government, at a time where so-called liberal or secular groups attempted to circumvent the will of people following an overwhelmingly transparent referendum, extend military rule for years until new constitution is drafted by a select group that meets their narrow political interests, regardless of the interests of the entire nation.

Therefore, putting the MB on one side, and pro-democracy opposition on the other as this article is suggesting, implies that MB and democracy are mutually exclusive, which indeed defies realty on the ground in many Middle East countries revolting against their oppressive secular regimes. This belief is not just hollow promises, but translated into actions which have been felt across the world and earned the MB international respect and recognition, and led governments such as the US, which was untill few months ago wary about even the notion of MB winning elections, into accepting MB as fully credentialed democractic parter potentially in power.

10th Anniversary of 9/11 and Muslim Americans: the Need for a New Narrative

Source | By John L. Esposito and Mona Mogahed

While post-9/11 resulted in necessary Western government responses to counter international and domestic terrorism, this tragic event has been widely exploited by far-right neocons, hardline Christian Zionist Right and xenophobic forces. Islam and mainstream Muslims have been brush-stroked with “terrorism,” equated with the actions of a fraction of violent extremists. Major polls by Gallup, PEW and others reported the extent to which many Americans and Europeans had and have a problem not only with terrorists but also with Islam and all Muslims.

Islamophobia grew exponentially, as witnessed in America’s 2008 presidential and 2010 congressional elections, Park 51 and post-Park 51 anti-mosque and so-called anti-Shariah campaigns, as well as increased hate speech and violence. The massacre in Norway is a tragic signal of this metastasizing social cancer. Anders Behring Breivik’s 1500-page manifesto confirmed the influence of the hate speech spread by American anti-Muslim (Islamophobic) leaders, organizations and websites.

It is truly time for a new narrative, one that is informed by facts, and that is data-driven, to replace the shrill voices of militant Muslim bashers and opportunistic politicians chasing funds and votes. Key findings from the recently released Abu Dhabi Gallup Report, Muslim Americans: Faith, Freedom, and the Future, offer data that provide a good starting point — a very different picture of Muslims in America today.

Far from the image of a fifth column of foreign, terrorist sympathizers and shariah-imposing boogeymen, data indicates that Muslim Americans are actually among the most integrated, optimistic, thriving, and loyal citizens of this country. Astonishingly, despite the hate speech, discrimination and erosion of their civil liberties, American Muslims remain optimistic about their status and future in America. Muslim Americans report being better off and more optimistic in 2011 than they were in 2008. Their life evaluation ratings have increased more than any other American religious group: 60% are thriving in 2011, up 19 percentage points from 2008. They are also more hopeful about their future than any other major religious group. They rate their lives in 5 years at 8.4 on a scale of 0 to 10, compared with 7.4 to 8.0 among other major religious groups and are more likely to see their standard of living getting better in 2011 (64%) than they were in 2008 (46%). More than other groups, Muslim Americans believe the economy in 2011 vs. 2008 has improved more than that of other groups. They tend to vote Democrat and are happier with the political climate since the election of Obama (8 in 10 Muslim Americans approve of Obama’s job performance, the highest of any other major religious group).

In contrast to their critics who question their loyalty and charge that Muslim Americans do not reject terrorism, Muslim Americans (78%) are most likely to reject violent military attacks on civilians and are most likely (89%) to reject violent individual attacks on civilians versus other major U.S. religious groups. 92% say Muslims living in this country have no sympathy for Al Qaeda

Yet, despite data that indicates Muslim Americans are loyal to the U.S., 10 years after 9/11 significant minorities of their fellow citizens continue to question their loyalty. Thus, while 93% of Muslim Americans believe they are loyal to America, 80% of Jews, 59% of Catholics, and 56% of Protestants believe this to be the case. Not surprisingly, 60% of Muslim Americans believe that most Americans are prejudiced toward Muslims and data shows that roughly half (between 47%-66%) among other religious groups agree. 48% of Muslims (by far the highest of any other group) say they have personally experienced religious or racial discrimination in the past year.

At the same time, 57% percent of Muslim Americans have confidence in the honesty of elections, the highest of all other major U.S. religious groups, and are among the most open group to other faith communities, with 44% classified as “integrated,” 48% as “tolerant,” and only 8% as “isolated.”

For many, one of the most astonishing findings of the Gallup poll may well be the common ground that Muslims share with Jewish Americans in their political and social views. After Muslim Americans themselves (93%), Jewish Americans (80%) are more likely than Catholics, Protestants, and Mormons (59% or less) to see U.S. Muslims as loyal to America. They say that there is prejudice toward U.S. Muslims in higher numbers (66%) than do Muslims (60%). Jews (74%) and Muslims (83%) in America are the most likely to say the Iraq war was a “mistake.” And perhaps most surprising, a substantial majority of Jewish Americans (78%) and Muslim Americans (81%) support a future in which an independent Palestinian state would coexist alongside of Israel.

This September 11th provides an opportunity to remember the past but also to recognize that truth is stranger than fiction, the fiction constructed by preachers of hate whose fear-mongering has infected our popular culture and society. Now is the time to reassess and rebuild our national unity on the facts.

Islam and Europe: An Equal and Opposite Reaction

Source | By Eric Walberg

Ramadan exemplifies the powerful spiritual calling of Islam. Dry fasting is more a test of the spirit, the will, proof of devotion, than just some health gimmick. And it is precisely this cultivation of mass “mind over matter” that frustrates Western secularists, so used to indulging every consumer fetish on a whim. Why are Muslims so stubborn in nurturing ancient beliefs and rituals when they fly in the face of modern capitalist society? Secular critics dismiss Islam as a harmful, even dangerous anachronism. Why disrupt one’s busy day five times to pray, slow down the whole economic order for an entire month every year, ban alcohol and interest — the bedrock of Western society?

Yet the now rich and self-satisfied secular West, after centuries of conquest and imposition of its colonial and now neocolonial order, has found itself at a nightmarish deadend. Wars, riots, drug addiction, corruption, famine, ecological Armageddon … There is little to cheer for and no coherent explanation for the impasse and the way forward. So the demand that the Muslim world follow in Western footsteps rings hollow.

For non-believers, there are social laws that can help to understand Islam’s continued relevance. One is Mayer Rothschild’s dictum: “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws.” The other is Carl Clausewitz’s “War is the continuation of policy by other means.” Together, they point to the underlying economic and political problems which have led to the current crisis. In a nutshell, the dominance of banks (as opposed to governments representing the popular will) in controlling economic affairs has created a world where politics serves their particular needs (interest and profit), and the politics which promotes the interests of banks is — just look around — war and speculation (read: pillage and theft).

This is the “logic” underlying modern Western society, especially in the past three decades, with the alternative to capitalism, the Soviet Union, now dismantled, discredited, and more or less absorbed into the Western economic order. This triumph over the “enemy” left the field open to the Rothschild-Clausewitz mechanism. Electoral democracy is vaunted, but is a threadbare facade, for while the popular will consistently rejects war and banker hegemony, no political party is able to get elected to represent this popular will.

Believers need no explanation for the why and how of Islam and the devilish deadend the West now faces. Islam advocates a social order where there are no one-sided usurers using their monopoly on money to control economics and politics, a social order where peace (Islam) is the highest attainment of society, the goal of all “policy”, to which all should submit. If presented with the choice between the current chaos and the true Islamic alternative, there is little doubt that the Islamic alternative would be the overwhelming choice of the common people, both in Europe and America, despite the fact that Muslims represent only 2-8 per cent of the population in the West.

Of course, this social order is the ideal. The history of Islam witnessed periods of benign and far-from-benign rule. It began with military victories and the spreading of the Caliphate from Atlantic to Pacific. The majority of conquered peoples decided to adopt this powerful religion, converting from polytheism, Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism, though, contrary to Western prejudice, not “by the sword”. Throughout the various Islamic political orders, Christians, Jews and others continued to profess their faiths, enjoying a peaceful coexistence with Muslims. There was no period of imperial conquest and genocide equivalent to the Western imperial order from the fifteenth century to today.

The westward march of Islam was stopped in Spain and on the fringes of Byzantium by Emperor Charlemagne in the ninth century. The Iberian peninsula — Al-Andalus — was the pearl of Islamic civilisation from 711 to 1492, as a province of the Umayyad Caliphate, and later the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Emirate of Granada.

Islamophobes portray Europe today as in danger of a new Muslim conquest, politicians and mass media egging on the likes of Norway’s Anders Breivik, who calls for the ethnic cleansing of all Muslims from Europe, much like Christian conquerors expelled Muslims and Jews following the reconquest of Spain in the fifteenth century. But consider for a moment the legacy of Moorish Spain. This period saw Muslims, Jews and Christians living in harmony, creating a prosperous, peaceful society, a highpoint in Spain’s history. Under the Caliphate of Cordoba, Al-Andalus became a beacon of learning, and the city of Cordoba became one of the leading cultural and economic centres in both the Mediterranean basin and the Islamic world.

As part of the Alliance of Civilisations, Spain is now rediscovering this Golden Age before the Christian re-conquest of Spain, which saw the torture, murder, forced conversion and expulsion of Muslims and Jews, and the genocide of American natives following the “discovery” of the American continent by Christopher Columbus. While Al-Andalus lasted eight centuries, the post-Islamic period of Spain has lasted only six centuries, and suffers poorly in comparison to the Islamic Golden Age that preceded it.

This was acknowledged by Spain’s current leader, Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, when he co-sponsored the Alliance of Civilisations along with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2005, as a way to “bridge the divide” between the West and Islam, through projects in youth, education, media, and migration. Forums have been held in Madrid (2008), Istanbul (2009) and Rio de Janiero (2010).

Given the current tyranny of money that characterised Western civilisation, it is not surprising that the Zapatero/ Erdogan attempt at bringing peace and understanding among the founding faiths of Spain and the Middle East is greeted with sneers and resentment by Israel and its supporters in the West. Israel-firsters such as Soeren Kern twist the positive moves to bring East and West together as a cover for “Muslim countries in the Persian Gulf and North Africa funnelling large sums of money to radical Islamic groups in towns and cities across Spain”.

But there is a more enduring dialectic at work in Europe. Despite the Israel lobby’s energetic efforts to blacken Islam, the wave of revulsion against Israeli apartheid continues to grow throughout Europe, but especially in Spain. Ilan Pappe describes how all Israeli ambassadors to Europe are more than glad to end their terms, complaining about their inability to speak in campuses and whining about the overall hostile atmosphere in Europe these days. The Israeli ambassador to Spain, Raphael Schutz, just finished his term in Madrid, and in an op-ed in Haaretz’s Hebrew edition he summarised what he termed as a very dismal stay, charging that he was the victim of local and ancient anti-Semitism, comparing the situation to the Inquisition of five centuries ago.

In “Why the Spanish hate us”, Schutz states that the people of Spain are anti-Israeli because subconsciously they are anti-Semitic and still approve of the Inquisition. He ignores the fact that the Muslims were the main victims of the Inquisition, that Jews fought and suffered side by side with their Muslim allies as the Christian invaders flood into Spain. Claiming that Spaniards who criticise Israel are racist and motivated by 500-year-old Christian bigotry rather than by Israeli’s criminal policies is just a feeble attempt at hasbara (public diplomacy) by desperate Israeli diplomats who have long ago lost the moral battle in Europe.

The Kerns and Schutzes are supported by Spain’s real latterday Inquisition, the National Intelligence Center (CNI), which published a report in July, warning of tens of millions of dollars coming to Spain from Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to support Muslims, and calling for close monitoring of these funds. The CNI’s report hinted that the money would be used to promote Islamic courts, remove girls from schools, and encourage forced marriages. The Spanish government’s knee-jerk response was to call for all donations from the Gulf Arab states to be channelled through a government-controlled “Islamic Commission of Spain”.

The CNI pointed to the Kuwaiti government’s funding of the construction of mosques in Catalonia, from which Islamic preachers are supposedly “spreading a religious interpretation that opposes the integration of Muslims into Spanish society and promotes the separation and hate towards non-Muslim groups.” Qatari donations are made through the Islamic League for Dialogue and Coexistence in Spain, a group the CNI says is “linked to the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria”.

While the CNI talks only of the need to monitor funds, such as Kern argue that this is all part of a conspiracy by Muslim countries to take back Spain. He points to “the UAE, together with Libya [sic] and Morocco”, which paid for the construction of the Great Mosque of Granada. Says Abdel Haqq Salaberria, a spokesman for the mosque: “It will act as a focal point for the Islamic revival in Europe. It is a symbol of a return to Islam among the Spanish people and among indigenous Europeans.” Worse yet for Islamophobes, Muslims in Cordoba are demanding that the Spanish government allow them to worship in the main cathedral, which was originally the Great Mosque of Al-Andalus and is now a World Heritage Site.

Pointing to Saudi financing of the construction of Islamic Cultural Centres and mosques in Madrid and elsewhere, Kern conjures up the Saudi Wahhabi bugaboo, arguing that most Muslim immigrants in Spain are poor, and their low standard of living and low level of education make them susceptible to Saudi propaganda, ignoring the fact that Saudi Arabia is a close ally of the US, that Wahhabism is the quietist brand of Islam, and the only real way to improve the security situation is to raise the standard of living and level of education of the poor.

Despite such cries of “Wolf!”, attempts to reintegrate Islam into the fabric of Spanish culture are proceeding. Morocco recently co-sponsored a seminar in Barcelona titled “Muslims and European Values” explaining that the construction of big mosques would be “a useful formula” to fight Islamic fundamentalism in Spain. According to Noureddine Ziani, a Barcelona-based Moroccan imam: “It is easier to disseminate fundamentalist ideas in small mosques set up in garages, than in large mosques that are open to everyone.” Using this logic, Spain should welcome more Libyan funding of Great Mosques, rather than participate in NATO’s efforts to destroy the Libyan state and create real grounds for terrorism.

Ziani also said that Islamic values are compatible with European values and that the so-called Western “Judeo-Christian” civilisation is really an “Islamo-Christian” one. The cultural construct “Judeo-Christian heritage” entered the English language only in the 1940s as a reaction to Nazism, and is used by the imperial elite in its “clash of civilizations” targeting Islam. A concept useful to a largely Christian empire where Jewish elites play a powerful role, but one which is rejected by serious scholars, both Christian and Jewish. Talmudic scholar Jacob Neusner calls it a “secular myth favoured by people who are not really believers themselves”. Not only Ziani but American scholars such as Richard Bulliet argue for the use of “Islamo-Christian” to characterise Western civilisation.

Spain suffered several terrorist bombings in the wake of 9/11, notably the 2004 11-M bombings in Madrid, but no evidence was ever presented to suggest Al-Qaeda or Muslims were the perpetrators. Many observers point to Basque and other independence movements as the culprits, or even the Spanish police themselves as part of a false-flag operation. The reality of Spain today is not the existence of any external threat from Islam, but on the contrary, domestic unrest due to the economic crisis and political paralysis.

This gloomy situation prompted concerned young people to boycott Spain’s elections in May and — ironically — emulate their largely Muslim Arab Spring heroes by constructing tent cities in protest at the lack of meaningful democracy. Just as Egyptian revolutionaries borrowed techniques from their Western counterparts to throw off their taskmasters, so Spaniards are emulating them in turn — a true Alliance of Civilisations. European, US and Canadian youth are also impressed by the endurance, the resolution of Palestinians in the face of Israel and its supporters, a 21st-century Judeo-Christian Inquisition persecuting Muslims, not only in Palestine, but in so-called Eurabia and North America.

The Islamophobes turn the truth on its head, attacking the Alliance of Civilisations as a “one-way bridge” undermining European society. But the West’s relations with the Muslim world show just the opposite — the West has invaded and continues to try to shape the Muslim world to meet capitalism’s requirements. That Muslims stubbornly hold to their beliefs and traditions is an important contribution to the search for a way forward for a crisis-ridden world.

Britain’s riots prove that Muslims are a boon to European society, being inherently peaceful and law-abiding. Muslims from the East London Mosque and the Islamic Forum Europe played an important role in helping to fight the looting and preserve public safety. Three Muslims died in Birmingham defending shops from looters, though in the media they were merely called Asians. “When accused of terrorism we are Muslims, when killed by looters, we become Asian,” a Muslim student told Al-Jazeerah bitterly.

Rather than the “clash of civilisations” advocated by Islamophobes, those who seek social and economic justice can find inspiration in the eternal truths of Islam, looking to Europe’s own Islamo-Christian heritage — past and present — to discover an alliance of civilisations that rejects war, theft, moral degeneration and racism. This is the lesson that Ramadan offers to the West today.

Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly. You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/. Walberg’s Postmodern Imperialism is available at http://claritypress.com/Walberg.html

Hate Group Head Pamela Geller, Breitbart Label SPLC “Threat To Freedom”

Source | by DAVID BADASH
Pamela Geller, the head of a Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) certified hate group has decided to add the SPLC to her new “Threat to Freedom Index.” Geller, who writes the anti-​Islam Tea Party radical blog Atlas Shrugs, is also the head of the anti-​Islam hate groups, American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).

Geller, who calls the SPLC an “über-​left communist group,” most recently made national news when it was discovered that she had been in contact with Anders Behring Breivik, aka the Norway Shooter, a right-​wing Christian domestic terrorist who shot to death 77 people in Oslo, Norway, and at a youth camp nineteen miles away.

Geller, by the way, stands accused of scrubbing her blog, Atlas Shrugs. Specifically, according to former conservative blogger, Little Green Footballs (LGF) founder Charles Johnson, Geller posted an “Email From Norway” in 2007 that Johnson says “sounds a lot like the Oslo terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik,” and now seems to be removing evidence that she knew of its of its violent rhetoric.

It’s important to note here that the SPLC is “an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that promote tolerance,” according to Wikipedia. In other words, they’re the good guys. “The SPLC classifies as hate groups organizations that denigrate or assault entire groups of people for attributes that are beyond their control.”

“In 1971, Morris Dees and Joseph J. Levin Jr. founded the SPLC as a civil rights law firm based in Montgomery, Alabama. Civil rights leader Julian Bond soon joined Dees and Levin and served as president of the board between 1971 and 1979. The SPLC’s litigating strategy involved filing civil suits for damages on behalf of the victims of hate group harassment, threats, and violence with the goal of financially depleting the responsible groups and individuals. While it originally focused on damages done by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, throughout the years the SPLC has become involved in other civil rights causes, among them, cases concerned with institutional racial segregation and discrimination, the mistreatment of aliens, and the separation of church and state.”

Readers of The New Civil Rights Movement are very familiar with the good and important work the SPLC does, most-​notably, labeling Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council and Bryn Fischer’s American Family Association, along with Peter LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth About Homosexuality as hate groups.

“Geller has seized the role of the anti-​Muslim movement’s most visible and influential figurehead.” writes the SPLC. “Her strengths are panache and vivid rhetorical flourishes — not to mention stunts like posing for an anti-​Muslim video in a bikini — but she also can be coarse in her broad-​brush denunciations of Islam. Geller does not pretend to be learned in Islamic studies, leaving the argumentative heavy lifting to SIOA partner Spencer. She is prone to publicizing preposterous claims, such as President Obama being the “love child” of Malcolm X, and once suggested that recent U.S. Supreme Court appointee Elena Kagen, who is Jewish, supports Nazi ideology. Geller has mingled with European racists and fascists, spoken favorably of South African racists and defended Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic. She is a self-​avowed Zionist who is sharply critical of Jewish liberals.”

For her part, Geller, on media-​mogul Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website, states, ludicrously, but oddly reminiscent of language used by the SPLC itself,

“Freedom is more embattled in America today than ever. My group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), has begun tracking the activities of numerous active groups that are threats to freedom in the United States today on our Threats to Freedom Index. We plan to augment it periodically and publish it annually.

“All Threat to Freedom groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign American Constitutional freedoms and/​or lawful initiatives for American self-​defense.”

“Threat to Freedom group activities can include misrepresentation of anti-​terror and other law enforcement initiatives, attempts to restrict the freedom of speech regarding Islamic jihad or other threats to freedom, defamation of freedom fighters, disinformation campaigns in the mainstream media regarding attempts by the U.S. and Israel to defend themselves, and more.”

In other words, the SPLC was mean to me.

(Image: Facebook)

Tariq Alhomayed: Do the Egyptians trust the Muslim Brotherhood?

By TARIQ ALHOMAYED | Al-Arabiya.net

What is happening in Egypt today is a state of bickering, not all bad and indeed in some parts good, carried out by Egyptians in general and political groups in particular, especially with regards to calls for a civil state, or at least a state of law, following the Egyptian revolution.

The simplest example of this is the controversy about the declaration of constitutional principles, which the Muslim Brotherhood alongside other Islamic groups oppose, whilst they have been accepted by civil political forces. The declaration of principles does not mean depriving the Muslim Brotherhood, or Islamic groups in general, of access to power, but rather it means ensuring the future of Egypt and its democracy, just as it means that the country will be heading in the right direction towards becoming a state of law, whether it is ruled by the Brotherhood or any other political force. This matter deserves the acceptance of all Egyptians, just as it deserves tremendous political and media effort on the part of civil forces to explain the idea to ordinary Egyptians, to educate the Egyptian public about the importance of declaring the principles of the constitution now, and before the entire political process is completed.

Of course, the Muslim Brotherhood’s rejection of the constitutional principles means that they have fallen into the trap they had set for the young people and other civil political forces. The Brotherhood has been extensively preoccupied with minor issues after the fall of Mubarak, rather than the issue of ensuring the future of Egypt, which is the most important. The Brotherhood’s mere rejection of the declaration of principles makes Egyptians skeptical of the sincerity of the organization. Is the group, for example, sincere in its talk about democracy, and the transfer of power, or does the Brotherhood intend to secure power, and then change the rules of the game? Declaring the constitutional principles now is like declaring the rules of football, before all Egyptian political forces, of all kinds, take to the political playing field, with elections and so on, according to the rules of the game which are known and agreed in advance, instead of the rules of the game being developed inside the political arena.

The fear of all fears for today and tomorrow – if the constitutional principles are not declared – is that the Muslim Brotherhood will play the game of the “Maghreb goal” after the elections in Egypt. This, for those who do not know, is the way football was often played in the neighborhoods of Saudi Arabia. Usually children would play in the afternoon, and usually before Salaat al-Maghreb the losing team would begin to exert pressure to score one more goal in order to nullify the result. Here, the two teams are playing for the “Maghreb goal”, meaning that whoever scores the final goal before the Salaat al-Maghreb is the winner, even if the other team had scored more goals previously. Often, if the losing team’s players are physically stronger or more experienced, thus intimidating for the opposition, they would wait until just before Salaat al-Maghreb and then exert all their effort to score. This is a form of trickery, or Taqiyya [Shiite principle whereby true intentions or beliefs may be concealed when an individual is under threat].

Therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood’s rejection of the declaration of principles today can be considered a political version of the “Maghreb goal”. Following the overthrow of Mubarak, the Brotherhood wants to exclusively rule Egypt, and this is a danger to Egypt as a whole. The Brotherhood’s lack of acceptance for the declaration of constitutional principles is an opportunity for all Egyptian civil political forces to explain to the Egyptians the seriousness of their country becoming an extremist state like Iran. Those who want to rule Egypt must offer a political project to serve the people, not Islamic slogans and promises, otherwise the post-Mubarak era will become more dangerous than the reign of Mubarak itself.

(Published in the London-based Asharq Alawsat on August 16, 2011.)

Editorial Comment:

It seems that the writer doesn’t know “any”thing about the Egyptian circumstances since the revolution. To be clear, the Supra-Constitutional principles had been rejected -in advance- through the referendum over constitutional amendments in March. On the other hand, we can’t neglect the fact that not only the Muslim Brotherhood are rejecting these principles.

The majority of political parties, political activists and non-politicized citizens are standing against the proposed principles. In Egypt, The MB sees that there is no need for any extra constitutional amendments or declarations. Therefor, The Muslim Brotherhood is rejecting the imposing of any declarations on the Egyptian people, and if these principles put on a referendum before the Egyptian voters, No one -including the Muslim Brotherhood- will refuse its results.

Fox’s Bolling: ‘We’re Keeping An Eye On’ Chris Christie’s Muslim Judge Appointee

By Ben Armbruster | Source

Yesterday on Fox Business, host Eric Bolling ran an entire 7-minute Islamophobic, fearmongering segment hyping the myth that Sharia law is creeping its way into the United States. As evidence, Bolling cited a Muslim American who in 2009 “ran over the daughter because of her unwillingness to partake in an arranged marriage.” Bolling also referenced New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) decision to appoint a Muslim judge to the state’s bench:

BOLLING: We have a judge right across the river, Chris Christie is appointing a Muslim judge, and this may or may not happen, he may have a completely objective view on American case law. It remains to be seen. We’ll keep our eye on it.

Bolling’s fear-mongering panel featured Fox’s go-to Muslim basher Bo Dietl, whose contribution to the segment included expressing his concern that “judges who are from the Islam can become judges in America.” Media Matters has the video:

Bolling doesn’t seem to be phased by the fact that the “creeping Sharia” canard has absolutely no basis in reality. But beyond that, he should also check the facts in his evidence. Here’s what actually happened with the father who killed his daughter for refusing an arranged marriage:

On Feb. 22, Faleh al-Maleki was convicted of killing his daughter. … Prosecutors had pressed a first-degree murder charge. They characterized his actions as an “honor killing,” a controversial term that refers to a family member or members killing a relative, usually a girl or young woman, whose behavior is judged to have tarnished the family honor. … The jury found Faleh guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree murder, finding that he didn’t plan the act in advance.

As for Christie, he said recently that he’s “disgusted” by the “ignorance” of the right-wing attacks on him for appointing a Muslim judge. “This Sharia Law business is crap,” he said, “I’m tired of dealing with crazies.”

Debunking stereotypes of Muslim Americans

BY JUSTIN ELLIOTT | Salon.com

Gallup asks Americans of different faiths about terrorism, prejudice and foreign policy — with surprising results

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Gallup has released a major new study on attitudes of the Muslim community in the United States, as well as views of Muslims among other religious groups.

The report, which is based primarily on polling conducted in 2010, covers politics, social identity and religious engagement. And some of the results radically undermine popular stereotypes of Muslims Americans. They, for example, are the religious group that is most likely to reject attacks on civilians by individuals (like terrorists) or the military.

Muslim Americans are also more likely than any other religious group to report discrimination in the last 12 months.

For context and analysis of the report (.pdf), I spoke with Mohamed Younis, a Washington-based senior analyst at the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center.

What was the single most surprising result in this poll to you?

It would definitely be the fact that Jewish Americans are more likely than Muslim Americans to say that Muslims face prejudice in the United States. Sixty-six percent of Jewish Americans agree that most Americans are prejudiced toward Muslims in the United States; 60 percent of Muslim Americans agree with that statement. That was something I don’t think a lot of people expected.

Do you have any theories as to why that is?

At the study’s launch event, Rabbi David Saperstein argued this may be because the Jewish community has a large component of people who are socially and politically liberal-minded, and more likely to find that there is prejudice against minorities and want something done about it. Another reason could be that Jews generally are a community that has experienced a lot of distrust, allegations of disloyalty and prejudice — whether it’s in the U.S. or in Europe. In this poll, American Muslim and American Jewish perspectives, even on foreign policy issues like Iraq, are all very similar and closer to each other than to a lot of the other religions.

What about the fact that Muslim Americans are actually most likely to oppose attacks on civilians?

We asked the question in a couple of ways. We asked about military attacks on civilians, and we also asked about individual or nonmilitary group attacks on civilians. We found that Muslim Americans have the highest rates of saying that it is never morally justified. Some of the other religious groups were much more likely to say that military attacks on civilians could be justified. I think what you’re seeing there is a confidence in the military — and the idea that a more institutionalized type of violence will be done in a more responsible manner. Muslims see it differently. That’s consistent with their confidence level in the military, which, at 70 percent, is the lowest of any religious group in the U.S. Historically in Gallup polling, the military tends to have rates of confidence in the high 80s and low 90s all the time.

Also to a greater degree because of their faith, Muslim Americans identify with civilians dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s fair to say most likely Muslim Americans are keeping track of what’s happening in these countries more closely than the average person in America who has no connection to that part of the world whatsoever. It’s important to note that Muslim American attitudes about violence and civilians are actually very consistent with the polling we do globally within Muslim-majority countries. Muslims in countries across Asia and the Middle East also have extremely high rates of respondents who say that military attacks or individual attacks on civilians are never justified.

Is there one area of the poll where the response contradicted a popular stereotype about Muslim Americans?

Definitely one area is in the identity question. We asked how strongly respondents identified with a series of things: the United States, your religion, people around the world in your religious group, etc. What we found is that Muslim Americans are as likely to say that they extremely strongly or very strongly identify with the United States as they are to say about identifying with their religion. In the discourse in the United States about Muslim Americans is this fear that if Muslims organize on the level of religious community, they become more isolated, less loyal to the U.S. and less integrated. But we actually found the opposite. We found that those Muslims who do attend places of worship regularly are actually more likely to be politically active, registered to vote, and are less likely to report stress or anger the day before the interview.

The report also includes some recommendations. What are the most important?

One thing we have been talking about with civil society organizations is increasing the opportunity for education and engagement in and among faith groups, particularly with the Jewish American community. That’s because we found there are a lot of similarities between Muslim and Jewish Americans on many of the poll questions. The fact that we see less of a suspicion of Muslim Americans among Jews than among other groups shows that there is fertile ground for cooperation.

With regards to government, the rate of reported discrimination among Muslim Americans was 48 percent. They’re the most likely religious group to say they’ve experienced discrimination in the last year. That’s on par with Hispanic and African-American rates of reporting discrimination. So we’re suggesting there needs to be a more comprehensive nationwide strategy to study the level of prejudice and discrimination targeted toward Muslims specifically. And a majority of all the other religious groups said that Muslim Americans are facing prejudice in the United States. So the fact that we have such a high rate of respondents who report this who are not Muslim means that this is something that needs to be investigated more closely.

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

Using Shariah to create fear

By BARBARA FERGUSON | ARAB NEWS

Critics argue that such legislation is based on anti-Islamic paranoia, noting that the US Constitution forbids the imposition of Shariah law — or any religious law — on anyone in this country and that Muslims make up only one percent of the American population and would have no ability to impose Shariah even if they did have a desire to do so.

Shariah is a set of rules that govern personal conduct, family relationship and religious practices for Muslims.

But this has not stopped State Rep. Dave Agema, R-Michigan, who has just proposed such anti-Shariah legislation which Muslim leaders there say is an attack on Islam.

In June, Agema proposed legislation that would ban the implementation of foreign laws. While the language of the proposal does not say it directly, it would ban Shariah or Islamic law. Agema told the Detroit News that the law is intended to preserve American laws.

“No foreign law shall supersede federal laws or constitution or state laws or constitution,” Agema said. “Our law is our law. I don’t like foreign entities telling us what to do.”

Under Agema’s proposed legislation, Shariah law would not be recognized in Michigan courts.

Many in the Muslim community believe he is directly attacking their religious beliefs and lifestyle.

“Agema … is a reflection of a segment of the Republican Party that is openly xenophobic and Islamophobic,” Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Michigan chapter, told reporters.

State Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, told journalists she plans to speak out about the bill and Victor Begg, a prominent Republican and co-founder of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan, called the bill “appalling.”

“Some in our party find it politically opportune to target my faith by sponsoring an innocuous sounding bill, knowing well that their intent is so-called ‘creeping Sharia,’” Begg told reporters.

Agema rejected the criticism: “If anybody has a problem with this that means they don’t agree with US laws,” he said. “If they don’t want it passed then they have an ulterior agenda. It shows the people accusing me of that (bigotry) are guilty of it themselves.”

A surprise critic of the anti-Shariah rhetoric has become one of the most eloquent:

“The threat of the infiltration of Shariah, or Islamic law, into the American court system is one of the more pernicious conspiracy theories to gain traction in our country in recent years. The notion that Islam is insidiously making inroads in the United States through the application of religious law is seeping into the mainstream, with even some presidential candidates voicing fears about the supposed threat of Shariah to our way of life…”

Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the (Jewish) Anti-Defamation League, wrote last week in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Foxman, who understands the dangers when people exploit a religion for their own racist intent, noted that the bills were based “on model legislation issued by the American Public Policy Alliance, an unabashedly anti-Muslim advocacy group that defends the legislation as seeking to ‘protect American citizens’ constitutional rights against the infiltration and incursion of foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines, especially Islamic Shariah Law.’”

“These measures are, at their core, predicated on prejudice and ignorance,” wrote Foxman, who has taken his own rounds of criticism for this editorial in the JTA. “They constitute a form of camouflaged bigotry that enables their proponents to advance an idea that finds fault with the Muslim faith and paints all Muslim Americans as foreigners and anti-American crusaders.

“Let us…reject those who seek to divide us for political gain, or those who wish to stereotype and scapegoat an entire people because of their religious faith,” Foxman said.

Yet many Americans remain confused about Islam and Shariah. Acknowledging this, the White House released a report last week outlining a new strategy to reach out to local communities, and to educate community leaders about the religion.

The document is entitled: “Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States.”

“It seems obvious that these are individuals who are blinded by hatred and who have a personal agenda, writes Sheila Musaji in The American Muslim.

But acknowledges that leaders must stop using ignorance of a religion as a basis to promote themselves through fear: “Unless the hateful statements made about Islam and Muslims by government officials and elected representatives are publically challenged by other officials and representatives, and unless Islamophobes stop being considered as the go to experts on Islam and Muslims, then this report will have little or no effect on improving relationships with the American Muslim community.”

Racism and Islamophobia in America

Source | by Eric Walberg

Three books recently published by the American radical publisher Clarity Press reflect different aspects of racism in the US, which even under a black president is unfortunately alive and well, promoted in US policy at home and abroad — if not officially.

Devon Mihesua, American Indians: Stereotypes and Realities
Stephen Sheehi, Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims
Francis Boyle, The Palestinian Right of Return Under International Law

Top on the list of course is the continued second-class status of African-Americans, who make up an outsized proportion of prisoners, the unemployed and those living in poverty. One’s colour is enough to keep the black-and-white status quo intact, despite the cosmetic boost that Barack Obama’s election gave to the nation’s blacks.

But the endemic racism that Native Americans have experienced despite more or less blending in with the increasingly Hispanic and Asian mix of today’s America (most Native Americans are of mixed race) is a sad legacy that is equally endemic.

The irony is that Native American culture is revered around the world and by many Americans, especially by the young, as it appeals to the sense of unity of man and nature, recognises and respects the mystery of life: the fact that humans are one small part of a vast and beautiful world which is full of magic. It is only as people “grow up” that they lose this sense of mystery and accommodate themselves to a heirarchical, anthropocentric reality with no use for the romantic animism that allowed the natives to live in harmony with nature for thousands of years.

Devon Mihesua, a Choctaw from Oklahoma, sets out the many distortions of the image of Native Americans perpetrated by the mainstream media and demolishes them one by one in American Indians: Stereotypes and Realities, already a classic, first published in 1996 and newly republished this year by Clarity.

One of the many images that stand out to someone who grew up in North America and which Mihesua corrects is “Cowboys and Indians”, which should be “US Army and Indians” since “cowboys and Indians rarely fought each other. Besides, the first cowboys were Mexican Indians.” The English language itself reinforces the worst stereotypes, such as “Indian givers” (read: “US government givers”) and Columbus “discovering” America. Indeed, 1492 marks not a step forward in mankind’s history, but rather the beginning of the first and most horrific genocide in mankind’s history, with the premeditating killing of at least 10 million in North America alone.

The history of Native Americans is full of ironies. War Department officials maintained that if the entire US population had enlisted in the same proportion as Native Americans in WWII, the response would have rendered Selective Service unnecessary. As soldiers, they were respected as disciplined and brave. Comanche soldiers were given the vital task of encoding secret messages in the Pacific based on their native language. The code they developed, although cryptologically very simple, was never cracked by the Japanese; but they never received any special recognition from the government after the war.

Mihesua’s book is intended for the general public but also as a school text, and though it deals with grim material, it is full of fascinating details of native life. Living in earth lodges (wigwams), longhouses, grass houses or thatched-roof homes much like Europeans, most Indians never saw a tipi, for example. Indians were “conquered” largely via biological warfare, as they lacked immunity to European diseases. The European claim that they were “heathen” was a mere tactic to condone their decimation. It was the Dutch who introduced “scalping” to North America (to save transport costs for bounty hunters paid per Indian scalp): a revered tradition dating back to ancient Greece.

More than 60 per cent of the food consumed around the world today comes from the Indians, including corn, tomatoes, potatoes, many varieties of beans, chili peppers, squash, pumpkins, avocados, cacao, raspberries and strawberries. The main staple of the plains Indians, the 60 million buffalo that grazed the open plains, were wiped out by Europeans eager to steal the Indians’ land.

The Indians were just as “civilised” as the Europeans, in terms of technology and culture, though no North Americans had a writing system before the European invasion. Their societies were egalitarian, with division of labour according to sex, where the sexes were considered equal and each had their decision-making traditions. In fact the Iroquois Confederacy was used as a prototype by the American revolutionaries in writing the American Constitution.

The book has many illustrations. It includes oral histories, discourses on religion, anthropology, politics and economics of Indian societies. The author used the term Indian in the first edition, and writes that she now uses Indigenous, since Native Americans or First Nation are equally European in derivation. There are a mere 2.1 million Indians today, and they refer to themselves by their tribal name (the Navajos are Dinees, for example) — over 700 tribes are still extant. Mihesua’s aim is to encourage teachers to demand history books that truly reflect the country’s heritage, not just “feel-good” books which “tell more about the persons writing them than about the Indians”.

In Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims, Stephen Sheehi, director of the Arabic Program at the University of South Carolina and author of Foundations of Modern Arab Identity, deals with the most recent manifestation of this social plague, which reached a crisis point following 9/11. The victimisation of Muslim Americans can only be called racism, since the overwhelming majority of American Muslims are nonwhite, and the few white Muslims are automatically considered even more suspect as potential “terrorists”.

The Muslim experience brings the black and Native American experiences together, though few Native Americans are Muslim. The structure of Islam and native religions seems radically different on the surface — the former strictly monotheistic, the latter polytheistic; however, the transcendence of spirit and the underlying unity of man and nature are very much central tenets of Islam, as they are for Native Americans. Muslims, like the Native Americans, live their spirituality and find it inseparable from their daily lives and interactions with others and nature, something that threatens the very foundation of secular capitalism.

The mouthpieces of Islamophobia — fear and hatred of Islam — in the US today include both academics like Bernard Lewis, Fareed Zakaria, Thomas Friedman, David Horowitz, and many politicians, with John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the vanguard. Their theories and opinions operate on the assumption that Muslims, particularly Arab Muslims, suffer from particular cultural lacuna that prevent their cultures from progress, democracy and human rights. It is no surprise that such ex-Muslims as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali feminist-turned-Islamophobe, and revisionist Muslims such as Indian-Canadian feminist Irshad Manji are feted by Western media, as their antics reinforce the Islamophobes’ arguments.

While Islamophobia is not new, Sheehi demonstrates that it was refurbished as a viable explanation for Muslim resistance to economic and cultural globalisation during the Clinton era. Moreover, the “theory” was made the basis for an interventionist foreign policy and propaganda campaign during the Bush regime and continues to underlie Barack Obama’s new internationalism.

Following 9/11, the ceiling of acceptable hate-speech against Muslims, particularly Arabs, was blown off. “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity,” wrote Ann Coulter two days after 9/ 11. “We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.” Since 9/11, Muslims, Arabs, Iranians and Islam itself have been the objects of derision and hatred in public, on TV and radio, and in print.

Sheehi demonstrates how such bigotry was translated into a sustained domestic policy of racial profiling and Muslim- baiting by agencies such as Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. It condoned widespread surveillance by the government, profiling in the street, at airports, in mosques and universities. Muslims have their movements tracked, their associations, finances and charitable giving monitored. They are systematically spied on, coerced and persecuted.

And not only Muslims. Once it’s ok to do this to Muslims, it becomes ok to suspend basic civil liberties of all suspected “terrorists”. Peaceniks and ecological activists are given the same treatment more and more. Pastor Martin Niemöller’s reflection on the descent into fascism in Germany — “First they came for the communists … Then they came for the Jews … Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me” — is as true as it was in 1946.

Islamophobia has institutionalised US government violations of international law, such as freezing habeas corpus, torture, renditions, extrajudicial kidnappings and assassination, even total war against and occupation of sovereign countries. They are all justified using Islamophobic stereotypes, paradigms and analyses as well as foils such as Hirsi Ali and Manji.

Sheehi examines the collusion between non-governmental agencies and lobbies and local, state and federal agencies in suppressing political speech on US campuses critical of racial profiling, US foreign policy in the Middle East and Israel. While much of the direct violence against Muslims on American streets, shops and campuses has subsided, Islamophobia runs throughout the Obama administration, serving an ideological function in the age of economic, cultural and political globalisation.

Liberals such as Democratic leader Howard Dean argue that it would be “a real affront to people who lost their lives” on 9/11 to build an Islamic Center two blocks away from the World Trade Center. “I think it is great to have Mosques in American cities; there is a growing number of American Muslims.” But Dean says they should “become just like every other American, Americans who happen to be Muslims… I hope they will have an influence on Islam.” Translation: co-opt and assimilate Muslims into American culture, so as not to pose a threat to US hegemony, and work within Muslim communities globally to bring them into the American fold a la the Christian missionaries of old, willing handmaidens in the imperial project, what black Americans referred to derisively as “Uncle Toms”.

The rampant Islamophobia of the past decade and the liberal answer of assimilation makes clear that Islam is the remaining enemy after the defeat of Communism. It too must be conquered to ensure US world hegemony, with revisionist American Muslims in the front lines. “Fight fire with fire,” so to speak.

There are voices in the West that try to fight back. Tariq Ali counters in response to the “civilization-mongers” that there were a range of political possibilities in Muslim countries, that western civilization itself had prevented the exercise of Western-style democracy in the Muslim world, leading their citizens to find political expression through Islam: “After WWII, the US backed the most reactionary elements as a bulwark against communism or progressive/ secular nationalism. [In Iran] the secular opposition which first got rid of the shah was outfoxed by British Intelligence and the CIA. The vacuum was later occupied by the clerics who rule the country today. … The 70-year war between US imperialism and the Soviet Union affected every single ‘civilization’.” We are all victims of imperialism, all losers, our cultures distorted and perverted rather than merely anachronistic, including American culture and Islam itself.

Sheehi points to an important difference between the manifestation of Islamophobia in the US and Europe. Muslim communities in the US eagerly assimilate and have a high median income and education level compared to other American minorities, while many European Muslim communities tend to be more insular.

The European version is grounded in anxiety arising from the colonial past. The colonial centres have always been uncomfortable with interacting with brown people as equals, compounded by the transposition of feelings of resentment, and anger over the loss of imperial power while still having to bear the social, cultural and economic consequences of their colonial past.

European Islamophobia also finds its origins in anxiety about and hatred of its own European “other”, namely European Jewry. Pre-WWII Europe feared a Jewish conspiracy to subvert Christian society. In the post-Holocaust era, this is no longer politically correct, so Europe’s traditional fear of Jews has been displaced onto its newer Muslim immigrants, even by the traditionally anti-Jewish far right such as Le Pen’s National Front and the British National Party, which are now Zionist and racist at the same time.

This phenomenon has repeated itself in every European country in the past decade, with far-right parties gaining rapidly by exploiting fears of the “Islamification” of Europe, the degeneration of institutionalised secularism, the bankrupting of the welfare state, and the “demographic bomb”. Most notorious has been Holland’s Geert Wilders with his Freedom Party. He has compared the Quran to Mein Kampf and called for a “headscarf tax”.

Such bigots are working to form a Europe-wide International Freedom Alliance, even including the US and Canada; an “Atlanticist Islamophobistan”, according to analyst Pepe Escobar. Considering that US and Canadian Muslims make up less than two per cent of the population, this leads to “the surrealist American phenomenon of Islamophobia without Muslims”.

Tariq Ramadan is one of the few media personalities given a chance to counter this slide towards a Euro-Reich; he argues that forcing Muslim immigrants to abandon their traditions merely reinforces racism. “What we need is a new narrative, a new ‘we’, a mutlicoloured, multicultural European identity. Europeans need to psychologically integrate that into their world view.”
***
The racism against Native Americans and Muslim Americans comes together in US Middle East policy, with the victimisation of Palestinians. US domestic racism is projected internationally on the Middle East in the unqualified support of Israel as a Jewish state, as argued by University of Illinois law professor Francis Boyle in The Palestinian Right of Return in International Law. Boyle is both a brilliant academic and a controversial political figure, as adviser to Provisional Government of the Palestinian Authority since 1988.

If Boyle has any bias, it is in favour of victims, especially Native Americans and Muslims. He has served as special prosecutor in the International Tribunal of Indigenous Peoples and Oppressed Nationalities in the United States of America, as adviser to the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria vs the Russian Federation, as counsel to Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Slobodan Milosevic, and as adviser to American activists intent on impeaching both US president George W Bush and US President Barack Obama. In all cases, he charged the accused with committing genocide and crimes against humanity.

But he is no Don Quixote. He also drafted the US domestic implementing legislation for the Biological Weapons Convention, known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which was signed into law by President George H W Bush.

Boyle argues that the two-state solution for Israel-Palestine would not only create an unviable Palestinian Bantustan-type nation, but that the current state of Israel and its illegal settlements already amounts to a Jewish Bantustan- type nation, and that neither is viable. That one is Jewish and privileged and the other Arab and poor and oppressed; it merely reflects the inherent racism underlying this projection of US power in the Middle East.

The just resolution of the Palestinian right of return is at the very heart of the Middle East peace process. Nonetheless, the Obama administration intends to impose a comprehensive peace settlement upon the Palestinians that will force them to give up their well-recognised right of return, accept a Bantustan of disjointed and surrounded chunks of territory on the West Bank in Gaza, and recognise Israel as “the Jewish State”, as newly demanded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and seconded by all US officials and mainstream media.

Boyle compares the current situation in Israel-Palestine with the collapse of Yugoslavia which he observed and participated in. “The correct historical analogue here is not apartheid South Africa, but instead the genocidal Yugoslavia that collapsed as a state, lost its UN membership, and now no longer exists as a state for that very reason.” Boyle “played a role in propelling this historical and principled process forward and ushering in the final extinction of the genocidal Yugoslavia as a state by debunking its legal, moral, and political right to survive and exist in front of the entire world for all humanity to see”.

Israeli settlements are “clearly illegal and criminal”, and “all these so-called settlers are committing war crimes, except the children, who are obviously not old enough to formulate a criminal intent.” Even before Operation Cast Lead, Boyle proposed that the UN General Assembly set up the “International Criminal Tribunal for Israel” as a “subsidiary organ” under Article 22 of the UN Charter, a suggestion endorsed by Malaysia and Iran, and supported by several dozen Arab and Muslim countries.

Boyle cannot be faulted for his legal brilliance. He devastatingly exposes the underlying racism in US-Israeli Middle East policy, portraying Israel as genocidal, and showing a way for the world to bring it to its knees. Boyle is a maximalist, rejecting any compromise with Israel. For him the endgame is “Sign Nothing, Win It All!”

But Israel-Palestine is neither South Africa in the 1980s nor Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Neither of these countries was created by and became indivisible with the US empire. Israel is a much harder nut to crack. Which is not to say that it won’t crack. Frankly, I don’t know where to place my bets on how this last racist nation state will be dismantled. I can only hope Boyle’s optimism is warranted.

What can one conclude from these very different studies about how to overcome racism, which is alive and well not only in the US but around the world? The authors present different approaches — Mihesua concerned with education, Sheehi with deconstructing the myths, Boyle with fighting in the international arena the monsters responsible for inflicting their racist policies on the world.

Reviewed by Eric Walberg
http://ericwalberg.com/
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1057/cu22.htm

Eric Walberg is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Eric Walberg

Robert Spencer Admits “Islam Makes” Most Muslims “Very Moral”

Source: Loonwatch.com

It wasn’t long ago that Robert Spencer, a leader in the anti-Muslim movement, was arguing that “the only good Muslim was a bad Muslim.” Now he has suddenly “reversed” his position on Islam during a recent interview with Fox News’ Alan Colmes. Colmes did a pretty good job challenging Spencer on the holes in his anti-Muslim ideology: his double standards vis-à-vis Islam and Christianity, his downplaying the peaceful teachings of the Quran, his support for Pam Geller’s extremist and “meaningless” rhetoric, etc. Spencer spent most of his time on defense, often interrupting Colmes just when he was making a solid point.

Colmes could have done a better job refuting the point Spencer tried to make with the case of would-be terrorist Faisal Shazad. Spencer claimed that Shazad wholly and independently justified his actions by Islam when, in fact, he justified his deeds citing American foreign policy. This is what he really said:

“I want to plead guilty 100 times because unless the United States pulls out of Afghanistan and Iraq, until they stop drone strikes in Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen and stop attacking Muslim lands, we will attack the United States and be out to get them.”

Shahzad cited the numerous civilian deaths as primary justification for perpetrating retaliatory terrorism, along with vague platitudes about the Quran, justice, and the afterlife; very little to do with normative Islamic teachings and mostly to do with drone strikes and civilian “collateral damage,” as Danios pointed out. Tellingly, Shahzad plainly violated mainstream Islamic teachings about fulfilling pledges and being a good neighbor. The judge rightly told him, “I do hope you spend time in prison thinking about whether the Koran gives you the right to kill innocent people.”

If this is the example Spencer wants to cite, then that’s a debate that I am happy to have. As in this case, Spencer’s own examples often turn out to be proofs against him. The raw data is simply on the side of those people, Muslim and non-Muslim, who wish to live together in a peaceful democratic society. Perhaps Colmes can be forgiven for not pressing him on this point (after all, he does work for Fox News). But it was this exchange at the end of the interview that was truly magical:

Robert Spencer Finally Admits Islam Makes Muslims Good People:

Colmes: Robert, excuse me, is there anything positive about Islam you could say?

Spencer: Islam makes a lot of people be very moral and upright and live fine lives.

Colmes: That’s good right? And wouldn’t that be true of most Muslims?

Spencer: I would certainly say so, yeah, I never have denied it.

At some point, Spencer must have had a “change of heart” and decided all his years of attacking Muslims as a whole, the Prophet, and the Quran wasn’t really fair. More likely, however, is that when pressed in public on his anti-Muslim ideology, Spencer retreats to the “political correctness” he regularly derides in liberals, lest the viewers think he is nothing but a hard-nosed bigot. Because I remember specifically when Spencer denied the fact that most American Muslims are normal, ethical people:

“I have written on numerous occasions that there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists. While Americans prefer to imagine that the vast majority of American Muslims are civic-minded patriots who accept wholeheartedly the parameters of American pluralism, this proposition has actually never been proven.”

And again, who can tell the difference between peaceful Muslims and terrorists? Spencer observes:

“I have maintained from the beginning of this site and before that that there is no reliable way to distinguish a “moderate” Muslim who rejects the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism from a “radical” Muslim who holds such ideas, even if he isn’t acting upon them at the moment. And the cluelessness and multiculturalism of Western officialdom, which make officials shy away from even asking pointed questions, only compound this problem.”

Spencer had written on numerous occasions and maintained from the beginning that there is no practical difference between the average American Muslim on the street and an indoctrinated, foreign, psychotic jihadist. Did he really forget he said all that? Because Anders Behring Breivik, the Norway shooter, didn’t forget when he justified killing liberal race traitors, echoing Spencer’s talking points about multiculturalism and Islam:

“Tell me one country where Muslims have lived peacefully with non-Muslims without the Jihad

…How many thousands of new Europeans must die, how many one hundred thousand European women should be raped, millions robbed and tractor discarded before you understand that multiculturalism + Islam does not work?”

And again the killer repeats Spencer’s belief in the alleged absence of moderate Muslims:

“And then we have the relationship between conservative Muslims and so-called “moderate Muslims”. There is moderate Nazis, too, that does not support fumigation of rooms and Jews. But they’re still Nazis and will only sit and watch as the conservatives Nazis strike (if it ever happens). If we accept the moderate Nazis as long as they distance themselves from the fumigation of rooms and Jews?…. For me it is very hypocritical to treat Muslims, Nazis and Marxists differ. They are all supporters of hate-ideologies. Not all Muslims, Nazis and Marxists are conservative, most are moderate. But does it matter? A moderate Nazi might, after having experienced fraud, choose to be conservative. A moderate Muslim can, after being refused to enter a club, be conservative, etc.”

And where in the world could he have gotten the idea that Muslims and Nazis are the same?

Is Spencer willing to acknowledge the plethora of errors in his long track record of extremist hate speech, or are his comments to Colmes yet another implementation of Islamic taqiyya on his part? Taking a lesson out of the jihadist playbook, are you Robert? Judging by your latest round of hateful vitriolic spew, in which you railed against the “propaganda line” that “Islam is a religion of peace,” it seems like you are.

Why Aren’t There More Muslim Terrorists?

Source | By Aaron Ross

Immediately after last month’s terror attacks in Norway, Islamic extremism shot to the top of almost every list of suspected culprits. Among the soothsayers of creeping Shariah, there was never any doubt who was responsible. Others’ more rational, if hasty, assessments of Norway’s threat matrix pointed to the same (wrong) conclusion. For all their differences, both lines of reasoning shared a common assumption: that the sheer volume of Muslim terrorists out there made their involvement likely. Or as Stephen Colbert skewered the media’s rush to judgment: “If you’re pulling a news report completely out of your ass, it is safer to go with Muslim. That’s not prejudice. That’s probability.”
Charles Kurzman begs to differ. In his new book, The Missing Martyrs, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill sociology professor rejects that Muslims are especially prone to violent extremism. “If there are more than a billion Muslims in the world, many of whom supposedly hate the West and desire martyrdom,” he asks, “why don’t we see terrorist attacks everywhere, every day?”

In theory, we should. After all, there’s any number of ways a terrorist committed to murdering civilians could attack (and our gun lobby certainly isn’t making weapons harder to get a hold of). But we don’t. No Islamist terrorist attack besides 9/11 has killed more than 400 people; only a dozen have killed more than 200.

As it turns out, there just aren’t that many Muslims determined to kill us. Backed by a veritable army of fact, figures, and anecdotes, Kurzman makes a compelling case. He calculates, for example, that global Islamist terrorists have succeeded in recruiting fewer than 1 in 15,000 Muslims over the past 25 years, and fewer than 1 in 100,000 since 2001. And according to a top counterterrorism official, Al Qaeda originally planned to hit a West Coast target, too, on 9/11 but lacked the manpower to do so.
Even so, it sure seems there are a lot of Muslims committed to the West’s destruction. What else to make of the celebrations in Middle Eastern streets after 9/11? Or Pew Research Center opinion polls of multiple predominantly Muslim nations showing significant support for suicide bombings? But Kurzman warns against conflating anti-Americanism with actual willingness to engage in terrorism. In reality, he says, the young man sporting the bin Laden T-shirt in Islamabad is probably more like the American teenager in Berkeley with the Che poster on his dorm room wall than a future Al Qaeda jihadist.
Yet even if only 1 in 100,000 Muslims is a terrorist, that still leaves something like 15,000 terrorists from a global population of around 1.5 billion Muslims. Surely that’s enough to inflict serious damage? It could be—and Kurzman concedes that Islamist terrorism should be taken seriously—but in practice, several factors conspire against Al Qaeda and its allies’ aspirations of regularly striking Western targets with spectacular attacks.
For one thing, Islamist terrorists are bitterly divided between globalist groups like Al Qaeda and localists like the Taliban and Hamas. The Taliban, for instance, opposed (and still opposes) Al Qaeda’s international ambitions, so much so, Kurzman claims, that its foreign minister sent an envoy to warn American and UN officials in the summer of 2001 about a possible, albeit unspecified, attack. Meanwhile, rifts within the Muslim world about issues like democracy, liberalism, and the role of women have crippled support for global jihadists. Insistent that all streams of Islamic thought conform to their rigid doctrines (and willing to murder fellow Muslims to make the point), Al Qaeda and its affiliates have alienated millions of potential supporters, rendering themselves far easier targets for unsympathetic Middle Eastern regimes to go after. 
After pressing his case with almost prosecutorial precision for the first two-thirds of the book, Kurzman’s analysis veers off the rails as he detours into an alternately banal and pedantic discussion of everything from America’s need to balance liberty with security to the lexicological origins of sociology. In a case of epically bad timing, he devotes the better part of six pages to praising recently discredited philanthropist Greg Mortenson as “a role [model] for American foreign policy.” Kurzman is unfortunate more than anything else here, but after arguing that American foreign policy doesn’t really affect Muslims’ views of the US, his sudden fawning over Mortenson’s in-vogue “hearts and minds” counterterrrorism strategy is somewhat befuddling.    

Still, Kurzman’s hard-headed empirical approach to an issue so often locked in emotion-fueled back and forth makes The Missing Martyrs (or at least most of it) a must-read. Early on, he states his aim: “to reduce the panic by examining evidence about Islamist terrorism—the actual scale of it and the reasons it is not more widespread.” It’s an important goal—perhaps more so now than at any point in recent memory—and Kurzman has made a valuable contribution.
Aaron Ross is an editorial intern at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Follow him on Twitter and email tips and insights to aross [at] motherjones [dot] com.