The World Turned Upside Down

by Mark Tapson

There are few more trenchant, fearless, and necessary cultural critics than Melanie Phillips. A columnist for London’s Daily Mail and winner of the 1996 Orwell Prize for journalism, she is the author of a number of books, most notably the brilliant Londonistan (2006), which chronicled the cultural decay that paved the way for England to become the epicenter of “Eurabia.”

Now her wide-ranging new book, The World Turned Upside Down, provocatively subtitled “The Global Battle Over God, Truth, and Power,” chronicles how the West has moved from the Enlightenment to the Age of Unreason, when rationality and truth have given way to ideology and propaganda. “Power,” she writes, “has now hijacked truth and made it subservient to its own ends. The result is a world turned upside down.”

I was honored to meet Melanie Phillips at her speaking engagement Monday at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons Hotel, and she graciously agreed to an interview.

MT: Ms. Phillips, you begin your new book by saying that on diverse issues ranging from Princess Diana to the war in Iraq to global warming, “society seems to be in the grip of a mass derangement.” What made you suspect that these random issues might be connected, and what explanation did you find for this phenomenon?

MP: Over many years, I wrote about a number of controversial issues which appeared to be all different from each other — ‘child-centered’ education theory, the consequences of divorce and lone parenthood, immigration, multiculturalism, minority rights, man-made global warming, the war in Iraq, Israel and the origin of the universe. Because they were all so disparate, it took me some time to realize that they had a couple of big things in common. They were fundamentally anti-west (yes, even the militant atheists who were after all gunning for the core beliefs of western civilization). And they were all issues on which, in the progressive circles that controlled public discourse, only one point of view was permitted. All dissent was mocked, vilified, and treated as totally beyond the pale. But since that dissent very often consisted of stating the facts in the face of ideology, prejudice or even – as with the deranged and obsessional hysteria against Israel – genocidal bigotry, reason itself along with the defense of life and liberty seemed to be turning into truths that dared not speak their name.

Please don’t mistake me – I’m not saying that there aren’t legitimate differences of opinion on such issues. But what I’m talking about goes beyond genuine disagreement. I’m talking about the sheer impossibility of bringing facts and evidence to the table, as it were, because the ‘progressives‘ hold that there simply cannot be any alternative to their ‘received truth’. They are in short impervious to reason, so that those who try to inject some evidence or alternative ways of thinking into the debate are demonized as evil or insane. These ideologies rest very often upon distortions, fabrications and lies, and yet intimidate opposition into silence. And that’s very frightening. It’s a totalitarian mindset.

At the same time, I also noticed that society seemed to be becoming generally more and more irrational. Emotion was increasingly taking the place of reason. There were displays of mass hysteria, as seen on the streets of Britain with the death of Princess Diana when epidemic ‘grief’ over someone no one knew other than through her carefully manipulated (and distorted) media image created an ugly mood that even threatened the monarchy itself. A very similar mass irrationality around a cult of personality onto whom people projected their hopes and fears took hold in America, when Barack Obama gained the Presidency having been portrayed, literally, as a second Jesus Christ – and during a campaign in which the copious evidence of his extremist background and associations was simply air-brushed out of the picture.

In addition, more and more people were subscribing to a range of weird and wacky beliefs, superstitions and cults, ranging from parapsychology, séances and ‘healing’ crystals to bizarre conspiracy theories involving the US government, UFOs and – almost invariably – the Jews.

I came to the conclusion that these apparently disparate issues and phenomena were intimately connected. Western society – particularly in Britain, but many of these trends were also on display in the US and other western countries – was just losing the plot wholesale. It seemed to be experiencing a wholesale repudiation of reason and progress, and was moving backwards into a darker, pre-modern pattern of anti-enlightenment and bigotry.

This was particularly striking, since western society tells itself that it is the very acme of reason – so much so that, particularly in Britain, progressives dismiss organized religion as just so much irrational mumbo-jumbo which stands in opposition to science, human rights and modernity. Yet these very people want to return the west to some pre-industrial nirvana of mud huts and communal living in order to ’save the planet’, take the side of jihadists who want to destroy human rights, and mount a kind of secular inquisition to destroy the careers and reputations of those who dare assert scientific evidence against ideological dogma.

I came eventually to the conclusion that, far from ushering in an age of perfect reason, equality and human rights, the secular onslaught against the Judeo-Christian heritage had seriously undermined rationality, the equal dignity of all human beings and their human rights. And indeed – curious as this may seem – at the very core of all these civilization-busting ideologies lies an animus against Jews, the religious codes of Judaism or the right to national self-realization of the Jewish people.

MT: You write that ordinary people seem to be more connected to reality, and that it is the intelligentsia who seem to be taking the most irrational and intolerant positions. What do you think accounts for this divide?

MP: On the issues of the day, it is the intelligentsia that sets the tone and content of the debate – and it’s the intelligentsia where the most irrational and bigoted views on these issues are to be found. That’s because the core of this phenomenon is the replacement of truth by ideology. Rather than following the evidence to arrive at a conclusion, ideology wrenches facts to fit a prior governing idea. Ideology is thus intrinsically inimical to both truth and reason.

It is the intelligentsia which is attracted to ideology – or the dogma of a governing idea. Non-intellectual people have little time for the rarefied world of theorizing, being generally too preoccupied with the daily grind of making a living. It is the universities where the ideologies of moral and cultural relativism and post modernism took an axe to the concepts of morality and objective truth; and so it is the intellectual classes – the supposed custodians of reason – who have turned into the destroyers of reason.

Moreover, the most highly educated are often the most high-minded. They therefore tend to be drawn towards theories promising utopia. But utopia never arrives. So frustrated utopians invariably create scapegoats upon whom to take out their anger. Hence the various secular inquisitions.

So the failure of the environmental vision of spiritual one-ness between man and nature has seen mankind blamed for despoiling the planet and imperiling the survival of life on earth. The failure to arrive at a perfect state of reason in which all injustice and suffering are ended has been blamed on religious believers. The failure of the apparatus of international law and human rights to prevent war and tyranny has been blamed on America. And the failure of the existence of Israel to bring about the end of ‘the Jewish problem’ has been blamed on those same Jews for its continuation.

MT: Speaking of “the Jewish problem,” you write at length about Jew-hatred in the book. Why is that so central to your argument?

MP: It’s important for two main reasons. First, because in our supposed ‘age of reason’ it is dismaying, to say the least, that open Jew-hatred has now become an apparently unexceptionable part of respectable discourse. Second, because the extraordinary conclusion I came to was that ideologies which would seem to have no connection at all to the Israel issue – such as environmentalism, moral relativism or scientism, for heaven’s sake – all turn out, when you scratch the surface, to have at their core a hatred of Judaism, Jewish moral precepts or Jewish peoplehood.

In other words, you can’t really understand the suicidal culture wars the west is waging against itself unless you understand the current eruption of Jew-hatred; and you can’t understand the current eruption of Jew-hatred unless you understand the suicidal culture wars the west is waging against itself.

MT: You note that the Enlightenment, which sought to sweep away all the problems of the world by freeing the intellect from religious suppression, has proven to be a failed utopian experiment. Where did the Enlightenment go wrong?

MP: It’s a mistake, I think, to assume that the Enlightenment was a homogeneous movement of thought. As Gertrude Himmelfarb has written, there were actually three Enlightenments – the English/Scottish, the French, and the American, and they were all different. While the English/Scottish Enlightenment thinkers were merely against clerical abuses but assumed the Judeo-Christian moral framework continued to set the ethical guidelines for society, French thinkers were against all religion.

What we are seeing today is the dominance of that French atheist position but also, even more important, the dominance of counter-Enlightenment thinking. This was embodied in the German Romantic movement which represented an onslaught against reason – and foreshadowed the totalitarian movements of the last century of which our current deformation of thinking, cultural totalitarianism, is but a mutant manifestation.

MT: Toynbee famously said that civilizations die by suicide, not murder. Are you optimistic or pessimistic that Western civilization can reverse its slide into unreason, re-embrace its Judeo-Christian values, and defend itself against the enemies of modernity and truth?

MP: Um… pass! Look, there are two historical examples that I have constantly in my mind. One is 18th century England, when people like me were sitting around in coffee-houses predicting the end of Britain because of the general culture of debauchery and moral collapse. Yet this turned into the 19th century, one of the greatest periods of British power in the whole of its history. So that’s one historical example. The other is ancient Rome – which collapsed.

So which will it be? Who can tell? Prediction is a mug’s game, is it not? The fact is that the ordinary people are beside themselves with anxiety and fury about the undermining and willed collapse by the intelligentsia of the culture to which they belong. Will they pull the west back from the edge of the cultural cliff? Who knows? All we can do is sound the alarm as loudly as we can.

Mark Tapson

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US State Dept: Israel Similar to Iran, Iraq and Sudan

by Chana Ya'ar

The U.S. State Department under Secretary Hillary Clinton claims that Israel violates religious freedom at the same level as Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan and China.

“Religious freedom can be restricted in a variety of ways, from the overt to the subtle,” explains the department's annual International Religious Freedom Report on 198 countries and territories surveyed by its foreign service personnel, released Wednesday for the period July 1, 2008 - June 30, 2009. A wide spectrum of efforts are used to undermine such rights, extending to multilateral, regional and global arenas, the report continues.

Part I of the Executive Summary discusses overall conditions during the reporting period in countries where “violations of religious freedom have been noteworthy.” Israel is listed among 30 nations selected for this category -- including Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen -- due to the emphasis of the Jewish State on maintaining the status quo with regard to respect for Jewish legal standards.

Israel's adherence to specific Jewish legal (halakhic) strictures are the basis for some of the American claims, though the State Department report does not note that non-adherence to these would violate Jewish religious freedoms. (For last year's State Department denunciation of Israel and responses, click here.)

The report complained, for instance, that three Messianic Jews were denied the right to immigrate to Israel during the reporting period. Other issues of contention included Israel’s unwillingness to recognize conversions performed in the country which do not meet criteria under Torah law, identification cards (Teudot Zehut) that differentiate between Jews and non-Jews, and the authority over marriages and burials exercised by the Chief Rabbinate, which is Orthodox.

All religions have freedom of worship in Israel -- unlike the other four countries mentioned above.

In addition, the report erroneously claimed that Israel extends protection only to Jewish holy sites, rather than to all holy sites as is mandated under the law. “The 1967 Protection of Holy Sites Law applies to holy sites of all religious groups within the country and in all of Jerusalem, but the Government implements regulations only for Jewish sites,” complained the report. “Non-Jewish holy sites do not enjoy legal protection under it because the Government does not recognize them as official holy sites."

Outright Lie

In fact, this last is an outright lie. Government security forces often prevent Jews from even approaching the Temple Mount, and numerous Jews have been arrested -- including a young bride and her father at one point -- for infractions as spurious as simply "moving their lips" on the site, because the area has been designated an official holy site for Muslims, where the Al-Aqsa mosque is located.

All Islamic sites are controlled by the Waqf, also known as the Islamic Religious Authority – due to the preference of the imams themselves, and under a special arrangement. Much damage has been caused and thousands of priceless artifacts from the First and Second Temple eras have been destroyed due to damage caused by construction near the Dome of the Rock mosque – which rests on the Temple Mount, where the Jewish Holy of Holies is located -- authorized by the Waqf.

Likewise the churches, which each fall under the authority of their own religious groups. For example, the Vatican controls its own churches, convents and monasteries, and even other properties. Israel has been involved in delicate talks with the Vatican over the issue of sovereignty of some 21 disputed properties in the Land of Israel for more than 11 years – and in fact, the Holy See has not even paid taxes on most of the properties.

To read the 2009 International Report on Religious Freedom's specific section on Israel, click here.

To read the U.S. State Department's full 2009 International Report on Religious Freedom, click here.

Chana Ya'ar

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Why Israel Shouldn’t Do Foolish Things

by Jennifer Rubin

The Palestinians’ response to the Obami-inspired 90-day settlement moratorium offer simply reinforces the foolishness of the endeavor:

An Arab League official said Monday that a possible three-month-long temporary freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank would be unlikely to be enough to prompt Palestinian and Arab support for Mideast peace talks.

“If the news is true about there being a settlement freeze that excludes Jerusalem and that takes the criticism off Israel, I cannot imagine that would be acceptable to the Palestinian side or the Arab side,” said Hesham Youssef, an official with the office of the secretary general of the Arab League.

Of course it’s not “enough.” It’s never enough. Meanwhile, the Palestinians’ own refusal to recognize the Jewish state (oh yes, that) goes unremarked upon. And no, Israel will get little or zero credit for knuckling under to another incarnation of the same fundamentally flawed approach, which has not only set back the cause of peace but also has diminished whatever semblance of credibility Obama has been able to cling to.

But does Israel still get the planes? No, seriously. If the “hardware” was the reward for Bibi putting his government at risk and reducing his own credibility (when Israel says “no,” does the government really mean no?), it seems only fair that Israel should get to keep the bribe planes. And what about the promised veto of anti-Israel resolutions? Bibi has now, it seems, established the precedent that the support of the U.S. in international bodies is a bargaining chip between the U.S. and the Jewish state.

Those cheering or excusing the latest effort to “rescue” the peace talks make a fundamental error. The U.S. is acting in foolish and desperate ways. Israel cannot afford to be either, or to convey to the Jewish state’s enemies, especially the Iranian regime, that it will be cowed by the U.S.’s pressure tactics. Israel must, even if the U.S. does not, convey that its oft-repeated positions are more than words. Call it linkage — but if Israel isn’t serious about a futile settlement extension, is it serious about more weighty matters?

Bibi, in essence, blinked –something for which he is certainly deserving of criticism. Is it hard navigating the waters with an American president as hostile as this one to the Jewish state? Sure, but indulging foolishness is not a recipe designed to help improve the security of the U.S. or Israel.

Jennifer Rubin

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Ending “the Occupation” Is Not a Palestinian Priority

by Evelyn Gordon

In yesterday’s post, I explained why a settlement freeze decreases Palestinian motivation to make a deal by ensuring that foot-dragging entails no price. But conventional wisdom on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would counter that this argument has an obvious flaw. Surely, its advocates would retort, Palestinians already have the strongest of all possible motivations to sign a deal quickly — their burning desire to end the hated occupation?

In fact, no. As a new poll by the Ramallah-based Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre reveals, the occupation is nowhere near the top of ordinary Palestinians’ priority list — and neither are the settlements or Jerusalem.

The number-one concern for ordinary Palestinians is the economy, cited by a plurality of 22.4 percent. In second place is Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, at 18 percent. The hated occupation was relegated to third place, with 15.5 percent, followed by “the siege on Gaza” (9.4 percent). The settlements and Jerusalem trailed far behind, at 6.6 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively.

This means that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has no incentive to make any kind of deal because ordinary Palestinians don’t care enough about ending “the occupation” to make them willing to swallow the concessions a deal will entail.

A 2001 poll found that a whopping 80 percent of Palestinians believe “the rights and needs of the Palestinian people” cannot be met as long as Israel exists, regardless of its borders. An agreement would thus require them to accept that their “rights and needs” will not be perfectly met. It would spell the end of long-cherished dreams like “returning” the refugees and their descendants to Israel, or otherwise turning back the clock.

But giving up a cherished dream is hard. Most people will do it only in exchange for a major improvement in reality. And if settlements and the occupation are not actually oppressive enough to rate as burning issues for ordinary Palestinians, a deal cannot produce the massive improvement in reality that would compensate for abandoning their dreams.

Moreover, a people that views Hamas-Fatah reconciliation as more important than ending the occupation is clearly not interested in a deal; given Hamas’s commitment to “armed struggle” and Israel’s ultimate eradication, reconciliation can only take place on terms that would preclude any agreement.

Abbas already appears to have made his choice. Even as he has adamantly refused to negotiate with Israel for the last two years, his Fatah party has been engaged in ongoing talks with Hamas. And at a meeting with Fatah leaders in Ramallah on Monday, he told them reconciliation with Hamas was “at the top of the PA’s agenda.”

Under intense pressure from Washington, he may nevertheless agree to go through the motions of talking with Israel. But anyone who expects a deal to emerge from these talks is deluding himself.

Evelyn Gordon

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The Contagion Spreads: Jew Attacked in Genoa by Palestinian, Italians Flee

by CAMERA

By now, the relationship between anti-Israel propaganda and anti-Semitism is readily understood by everyone but the most evasive. Arab and Muslim extremists in the Middle East portray Israel as a monstrous nation and its inhabitants worthy targets of violence. It takes a while, but eventually, this hostility expresses itself in anti-Jewish incidents in Europe and to a lesser extent, in North America. Some people express outrage, but for the most part bystanders do nothing and in some instances, run away from the confrontation for fear of putting themselves in harm's way.

One recent manifestation of this process took place in Italy where an Israeli Jew, a student at Genoa University, was menaced by a Palestinian who apparently has done this sort of thing in the past. According to Ynet, his fellow students tried to protect him for a while, but eventually dissappeared in the face of the assault. The police refused to investigate the attack until pressed by Jewish community leaders. The student who was attacked is abandoned by most of his friends and condemned for calling the police:

"Only one lone Italian student came up to me and said that he was willing to testify to the police about what happened. All the rest – even the guy who shares my dorm room and witnessed the incident – saw everything but are afraid to be associated in the case. The house mother at the dorms came up to me and said, 'why are to turning to the police? It will ruin his life.' In her opinion, if I'm kicked out of the dorms it would be the best solution."

Robert Wistrich from Hebrew University in Jerusalem offers some insight into the process in a Nov. 15, 2010 interview in Arutz Sheva:

Wistrich explained that anti-Semitism today is directed not just towards Israel but towards Jews around the world. According to him, most people identify anti-Semitism with very obvious symbols and images, such as Nazis, fascist demonstrations, or calls to throw the Jews out of a particular country. However, as he explained, these images are much less visible today, and anti-Semitism in 2010 has changed its form. “In the last 40 years, the most dynamic form of anti-Semitism is the one that is transmitted through anti-Zionism and hatred of Israel,” explained Wistrich.

He believes that anti-Semitism based on hatred of Israel is easier to carry out since it is legal in most countries to say anything one wants against Israel and not be prosecuted by the law.

Addressing the question of whether differences exist between anti-Semitism of the past and modern anti-Semitism, Wistrich said that there are not many differences today, since boycotts of Jews which existed then and still exist now. “[A] boycott works first of all against the Jews who live in Israel and it works against Jews who are supportive of Israel. This is a clear continuity from the classic anti-Semitism that we knew in the past.”

The contagion spreads.

CAMERA

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An Extremist Sharia Makeover

by Joe Kaufman

For the past month-and-a-half, the Islamic Society of Milwaukee (ISM) has been sponsoring a program attempting to whitewash the effect that Sharia law, if implemented, would have on American society. Teaching the courses was Zulfiqar Ali Shah, an individual tied to various radical Muslim groups, including a Hamas charity. Does the ISM really believe that a known extremist can put a good face on Sharia, and what does this say about those who advocate for Sharia?

Sharia or Islamic law is the legal code which determines how Muslims lead their lives – for many, every aspect of their lives. Like any judicial code, it is subject to interpretation. It could deal with simple matters, such as how one makes monetary investments, or it could be used towards the most horrific practices of barbarity, as seen in numerous areas throughout the Muslim world.

Zulfiqar Ali Shah is the Religious Director of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee (ISM), located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Born in Pakistan, he obtained his Masters degree in Sharia law from Islamic University in Islamabad. He is what is known as a “Sharia scholar.” In fact, he is the former President of the now-defunct Sharia Scholars Association of North America (SSANA).

As such, one would think that Shah would be the perfect person to discuss the benefits – if there are any – that Sharia law can bring to Americans.

From October through November, 2010, that was Shah’s goal, in a six-week course that he led held at the Men’s Masjid of ISM, entitled ‘Is Islamic Shari’ah a Threat to America?’ However, when one looks at Shah’s background, one might not only view Sharia law as a threat, but they may view Shah as a threat, as well.

Prior to his employment at ISM, Shah was involved with a variety of Muslim extremist groups. One of them was the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the American arm of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan.

Shortly before till shortly after the September 11th attacks, ICNA was using the web to urge its followers to give “material support” to groups connected to al-Qaeda. Attached to this call for material support was a link to the main website that was raising funds and recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Qoqaz.net, a.k.a. Jihad in Chechnya. Also, on this same web page were links to the official websites of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban.

Shah was the National President (Ameer) of ICNA, while this was going on.

In August 2006, ICNA was the top donor to JI’s main charity, the al-Khidmat Foundation (AKF), while AKF took a delegation to the home of the global head of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, to hand deliver him six million rupees ($99,000). The purpose of the money was to provide assistance to Hamas for the perpetration of future terrorist attacks against Israelis, or in Mashaal’s words, to “wage jihad.”

Shah was the National President of ICNA, while this was going on, as well.

Between his terms as ICNA President, Shah became Chairman and CEO of the now non-existent (in part due to the efforts of this author) Universal Heritage Foundation (UHF), a 31-acre Islamic propagation center, located in Kissimmee, Florida, just minutes from Walt Disney World. Muzammil Siddiqi, the former National President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), another extremist Muslim organization, co-founded UHF with Shah.

One of the keynote speakers for the group’s December 2003 inaugural event (‘Islam for Humanity’) was supposed to be Abdur-Rahman al-Sudais, the chief cleric of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Past statements al-Sudais made, including his call for the murder of Jews, Christians and Americans, led to his appearance being cancelled and the venue being changed.

Shah, himself, has also been known to make offensive statements towards others. In June 2001, he stated about Jews, “If we are unable to stop the Jews now, their next stop is Yathrib (The Prophet’s city of Medina), where the Jews used to live until their expulsion by Prophet Muhammad. That’s the pinnacle of their motives.”

Shah is, as well, seen in video footage obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) praising terror fighters (mujahideen) in Kashmir and calling for violent jihad, at a Cleveland, Ohio rally held in July 2001.

Another radical Muslim organization Shah was involved in was KindHearts, an Islamic “charity” that was established in January 2002 and was shut down by the FBI in February 2006. KindHearts was found to have provided more than $16 million to Hamas.

At the time that the doors of KindHearts’ offices were being padlocked and KindHearts’ funds were being frozen, Shah was acting President of the group’s South Asia Division.

While Shah’s credentials as a “Sharia scholar” may be exceptional, all of the above has shown that he is the last person to be lecturing Americans on what is good or not good for their country. Indeed, with his involvement in KindHearts alone, he probably shouldn’t be giving lectures anywhere, except behind prison bars.

Is Islamic Sharia a threat to America?

Maybe the answer lies with those who are teaching it.

Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate and the founder of CAIR Watch. He has been responsible for the closure of at least one terror-related charity and has convinced a number of government officials to shun the Hamas front group, CAIR. In June 2009, he won a lawsuit brought against him by seven Dallas-area radical Muslim organizations.

Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor assisted with this report.

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Collaborating With the Enemy in the War on Terror

by Rich Trzupek

The American Civil Liberties Union ^[1] (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights ^[2] (CCR) have injected themselves into the war on terror as never before, leaping to the defense ^[3] of the man often described as the spiritual leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula: Anwar Al-Awlaki. There’s little doubt that Al-Awlaki provided aid and inspiration to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian “underpants bomber,” and to the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad. He has also called for the murder of civilians like Salman Rushdie and the young Seattle cartoonist who initiated “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.” Yet, despite the danger that Al-Awlaki continues to represent to the free world, the ACLU and the CCR filed suit in federal court to protect the radical cleric’s “rights.”

Al-Awlaki’s father, Nasser Al-Awlaki, asked the two groups for help after he learned that the Obama administration has targeted his son for assassination. Because the cleric was born in New Mexico, the ACLU and CCR maintain that he is entitled to due process in America’s legal system. Defending his organization’s decision to defend Al-Awlaki, Vincent Warren, the executive director of the CCR, said:

That’s what we do. We file lawsuits. …[W]e don’t believe the US should be wreaking violence for political reasons. It should be up to a court, not just the US government, to decide whether al-Awlaki poses a threat. The US should not be conducting the killing of US citizens outside the legal process, far away from any battlefield.

The proposition that the US is “wreaking violence for political reasons” is patently ludicrous. The United States is at war with a determined enemy and the fact that this particular conflict involves asymmetrical warfare does not relieve the president of the United States from his duties as commander in chief. Al-Awlaki isn’t “far away from any battlefield” because he and his fellow terrorists have defined the battlefield as the whole planet earth. Furthermore, the congressional war resolution passed on September 14, 2001 remains in force. That resolution authorizes the president to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against nations, organizations or persons that he deems to have helped bring about the 9-11 attacks and to use such measures to prevent future acts of international terrorism. Thus, when Al-Awlaki decided to join forces with al-Qaeda, he not only became an enemy of America, he forfeited his rights as an American. He’s a combatant.

Al-Awlaki is no more entitled to legal protections in a time of war than a Confederate soldier was in 1863. What the ACLU and the CCR are suggesting is the equivalent of requiring Union soldiers to obtain writs from a judge approving each and every target wearing a grey uniform before pulling a trigger at Gettysburg. In time of war, it is both the president’s right and his duty to decide how to prosecute that war and where to attack the enemy.

At least one CCR board member has gone public with her misgivings over the organization’s decision to take this case. Karima Bennoune, a law professor at Rutgers School of Law who is of Algerian descent, broke with the CCR on this issue. It should be noted that Bennoune leans far to the Left when it comes to prosecuting this war. She has supported CCR’s efforts to oppose both enhanced interrogation methods and rendition. Nevertheless, Bennoune had this to say ^[4] about her organization’s efforts to defend Al-Awlaki: “Anwar al-Awlaki is not a detainee; he is still at liberty and able to gravely harm others by inciting and advocating murder,” she said. Bennoune continued:

Since the inception of the case there has been increased mystification of who Anwar al-Awlaki is in liberal and human rights circles in the United States. This may in part have resulted from the fact that a highly reputable organization like CCR was willing to represent his interests, and described him only as “a Muslim cleric” or “an American citizen,” and repeatedly suggested that the government did not possess evidence against Awlaki.

Both the CCR and the ACLU have drifted well beyond their stated purpose over the years and their defense of Al-Awlaki is the latest example of this trend. Rather than defending the rights of all American citizens, both organizations now act as advocates for their preferred causes. For example, the ACLU uses some of its considerable resources to oppose the rights ^[5] of ordinary Americans to protest against mosques being built in their communities and to speak the truth about Islam. A statement by the ACLU asserts in part:

The Constitution guarantees the right of private citizens to protest, and the ACLU would vigorously defend that right if infringed by the government. But making Muslims – or any other religious group – feel unwelcome in local communities conflicts with our Founders’ vision of religious liberty and tolerance.

Yet the ACLU’s outrage here is clearly selective. Citizens stand up to make the reprehensible Westboro Baptist Church feel “unwelcome” all of the time. These Americans aren’t in conflict with the “Founders’ vision of religious liberty and tolerance.” Rather, they are standing up to a group of hateful bigots who are making a mockery of religious liberty and tolerance. Many Americans oppose the construction of mosques in their communities for the same reason. It is more and more apparent that Islam, even when presenting itself as “moderate,” is all too often a front for the Islamist program, which is fundamentally inconsistent with religious liberty and tolerance. Yet the ACLU seeks to deprive concerned Americans of the right to say so.

This is the very brand of Islam that Anwar Al-Awlaki believes in. He speaks for that portion of the worldwide Muslim community which believes that Islam and Islamic law must be the dominant forces in the world. Toward that end, Al-Awlaki, like all of his fellow true-believers, stands ready to lie, cheat, steal and murder to defeat anyone who gets in the way of his mission. At the top of that list stands a powerful and determined nation: the United States of America. When an individual is part of an organization that has publicly avowed its willingness to do anything in order to take down a nation, most reasonable people would conclude that such an organization is at war with that nation. When a top lieutenant in such an organization has planned attacks against that nation and has repeatedly called for even more attacks, most reasonable people would conclude that such a fellow is in fact an enemy soldier. It’s disturbing and sad that the ACLU and CCR have drifted so far to the Left that they are incapable of understanding this obvious truth. We can only hope that the courts, like Barack Obama and Karima Bennoune, recognize just how foolish and naïve efforts to defend an enemy like Anwar Al-Awlaki truly are.

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2010/11/17/collaborating-with-the-enemy-in-the-war-on-terror/

URLs in this post:

[1] American Civil Liberties Union: http://www.aclu.org/our-work

[2] Center for Constitutional Rights: http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-comba

[3] leaping to the defense: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/11/defending-an-active-terrorist.html

[4] had this to say: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/01/al-qaida-online-inspire-magazine

[5] oppose the rights: http://www.aclu.org/map-nationwide-anti-mosque-activity

Rich Trzupek

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Hizballah's American Operations

by IPT News


For weeks, leaders of the Lebanese-based terrorist group Hizballah have been waging an international extortion campaign. Blood will flow, they promise, if a United Nations tribunal indicts any of its members in connection with the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

"What we do know," Hizballah's No. 2 man, Sheikh Naim Qassem told the BBC earlier this month, "is that such an indictment is a warning bell equivalent to lighting the fuse, to igniting the wick for an explosion, and is dangerous for Lebanon."

Earlier, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah dismissed the investigation as a tool of the United States and Israel and warned that his organization views cooperation with the tribunal as "an assault on the resistance."

The tribunal may conclude its work by the end of the year, with as many as six Hizballah officials facing indictment, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Other reports indicate Hizballah and its allies have detailed plans to seize control of Beirut if the indictments are issued. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley has criticized Hizballah for its "attempt to create a false choice between justice and stability."

While Iran is believed to be its most significant patron, Hizballah has an array of supporters within the United States. Some provide political/propaganda support while others engage in an array of criminal activity, directing the proceeds back to Lebanon.

Whether any of those supporters are willing to do more – and carry out violence for Hizballah – is something that worries counter-terror officials who can't say for certain how likely such a development might be.

In February, the Director of National Intelligence issued an unclassified report to Congress that noted Hizballah has not attacked U.S. interests in more than a decade. "However," then-DNI Dennis Blair said, "[W]e cannot rule out that the group would attack if it perceives that the United States is threatening its core interests.… Hizballah is the largest recipient of Iranian financial aid, training, and weaponry, and Iran's senior leadership has cited Hizballah as a model for other militant groups."

The Investigative Project on Terrorism examines Hizballah support in the United States with a three-part series, beginning with a look at just how long it has been here.

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(Part one of three) The indictment reads like a couple of grifters who finally ran out of luck. They talked of selling Oxycontin, of faking an automobile accident, and of using "Lebanese lightning" - arson - for insurance fraud all in hopes of scoring fast cash. But Hor and Amera Akl weren't simply trying to get rich, federal investigators say.

In secret recordings with an FBI informant, the Toledo, Ohio, couple discussed how their crimes would benefit the terrorist group Hizballah. They'd smuggle hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to Lebanon. Some of the money could buy pickup trucks Hizballah could use to fire rockets at Israel. They claimed to have high-level contacts in the terrorist group.

They'd keep a percentage as a commission, their June indictment says.

Just a few months earlier and more than 1,300 miles away, authorities arrested three Miami-area men in connection with an alleged conspiracy to export electronics items including cameras and video game consoles to a mall in Paraguay in a scheme to benefit Hizballah. The U.S. Treasury Department designated the Galeria Page shopping center in 2006, saying it served as "the central headquarters for Hizballah members in the TBA [Tri-Border Area]."

It is owned and operated by Hizballah members, who pay "a regular quota to Hizballah based on profits" generated at the shopping center.

While these prosecutions are new, American-based criminal activity benefitting Hizballah dates back at least to the early 1990s, records show.

Credit card and insurance fraud, drug trafficking and counterfeiting are criminal activities involving Hizballah members that were highlighted in a 1994 FBI Intelligence report obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism via the Freedom of Information Act. In language that tracks closely with allegations in the Akl case, the report said the motivation seems to be a mix of personal gain while "an unknown percentage of the profits is specified for Hizballah coffers."

More than a dozen cases of Hizballah support – from relatively small-scale criminal enterprises to attempts to supply the terrorist group with equipment and satellite technology – have been generated since then.

In recent years, however, there is a developing concern that Hizballah operations in the hemisphere may shift from financial support to operational activity. And to do that, terrorists are tapping into narco-trafficking networks in South America's tri-border region of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. It is mostly speculative, but the concerns rise with increasing tensions over Iran's nuclear weapons program, fears of another possible war between Israel and Hizballah and expectations the United Nations will implicate Hizballah in the 2005 bombing attack that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Testimony Sept. 22 before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee underscored the unknown nature of Hizballah's international capabilities. In response to a question from Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter said Iran remains a chief provider of money and arms to the terrorist group:

"Hizballah remains a highly effective terrorist organization and political organization with quite incredible capability, both within the Levant but also elsewhere -- they have a global network of individuals. And within the Levant they have highly sophisticated weaponry that they have, in the past, used against Israel.

The big question mark for us has always been not their capability but their intent. Currently, we do not assess there to be a clear intent to attack the United States, but should that intent change, they undoubtedly have the capability to launch attacks against the U.S. and the West on a relatively global scale."

Brown asked "if there's an escalation between Iran and Israel that we will see more of a threat here in the United States?"

"Yes," Leiter said.

It's not clear that relevant agencies are as concerned. Rep. Sue Myrick, R-NC, has asked the Department of Homeland Security to create a task force to investigate possible Hizballah activity along the U.S.-Mexican border and the possibility that terrorists could be smuggled into the country through alliances with drug traffickers. Homeland Security officials have dismissed the issue, saying "DHS does not have any credible information on terrorist groups operating along the Southwest border."

But in his award-winning 2008 series "Breaching America," published in the San Antonio Express-News, journalist Todd Bensman detailed examples of terrorists who have crossed into the United States from Mexico. He quoted testimony and a statement to reporters by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who cited "indications that leaders of other terrorist groups may be contemplating ...having persons come across assuming identities of others, and trying to get across the border. It is intelligence that indicates there have been discussions on that."

Another official who spoke publicly about the issue, Adm. James Stavridis, then the commander of U.S. Southern Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2009 that there is "a direct connection between Hizballah activity and the narco-trafficking activity."

In July, the Kuwaiti newspaper, al-Seyassa, reported that Mexican authorities arrested Jameel Nasr earlier this summer. The newspaper cited Mexican authorities as saying that Nasr took instruction from Hizballah leaders in Lebanon and had been "entrusted with forming a base in South American and the United States to carry out operations against Israeli and Western targets."

Officials today shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the notion that Hizballah might use that base to expand its American operations, said Michael Braun, who retired from the Drug Enforcement Agency as its operations chief in 2008.

The group makes millions of dollars smuggling drugs from the Tri-Border Area to Europe and the Middle East. "They are masters at identifying and exploiting existing global smuggling infrastructures for whatever it is they want to do," Braun said. "They've successfully developed the global contacts to get virtually anything done or anything moved."

It's all part of what he calls the "currency of contraband."

"Corporate Hizballah" has created alliances with drug cartels throughout the region. Those partnerships don't have to be limited.

"It's not just drugs," Braun said, who advises the U.S. Department of Defense. "It's tens of millions of dollars you're talking about. You can't just walk past it. This is the money that is allowing these guys you're trying to kill to live and breathe and grow."

If Hizballah does choose to target the United States, those alliances can be easily exploited.

"I am more concerned about the guys who, when asked by corporate – 'we need you to move a satchel' – those are the guys" Braun said. "They've got the ability to do it."

Established Presence

Law enforcement records show Hizballah members have lived and operated in the United States for years.

In a separate FBI report, also obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, an FBI supervisor responsible for Hizballah-related investigations [whose name was redacted] in 1997 summarized some of the investigations at that time. Hizballah members in the U.S. "raised and collected hundreds of thousands of dollars which were sent to support Hizballah activities in Lebanon."

Foreign intelligence surveillance wiretaps from that period show those members "receive directions for their terrorist activities in the United States from leaders of HIzballah who reside outside the United States."

A ranking Hizballah operative in the United States serves as a "direct communications link between Hizballah leadership in Lebanon and Hizballah members in the United States and he collects funds for Hizballah headquarters in Lebanon," the memo said. The money helps support the group's terrorist activities.

Some Islamist organizations considered mainstream have trouble accepting Hizballah's designation as a terrorist group. In 2000, Abdurrahman Alamoudi, then one of the nation's most influential Islamist political operatives, defiantly expressed support for Hizballah in a rally across the street from the White House. Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society's (MAS) Freedom Foundation, shared the stage with Alamoudi and raised his fist in agreement.

Officials at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have refused to label Hizballah as a terrorist group. Instead, they focus on the group's success in Lebanese electoral campaigns and cast it as "part of their democratic governments."

The 2009 national convention for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) featured a panel that portrayed Hizballah as the passive victim of an Israeli onslaught during the 2006 war. There was "no reason why Hizballah should not remain armed," author Cathy Sultan said.

Gauging the depth and nature of Hizballah activity here is challenging, said Bill Kowalski, former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Detroit field office. That field office has handled numerous Hizballah-related financial crimes. His telephone often rang with calls from agents in other districts, Kowalski said, seeking information about Michigan connections with Hizballah-linked suspects throughout the country.

"Clearly they are not as violent against the U.S. in the U.S, as some other groups, but historically they have negatively impacted U.S. interests as severely as any other terror organization save for al-Qaida," Kowalski said. "There remains in CONUS [the continental United States] a large cadre of individuals who view Hizballah as legitimate or semi-legitimate and have difficulty dealing with US intelligence or law enforcement who characterize the group harshly as a terror group."

In subsequent reports, the Investigative Project on Terrorism will delve more deeply into some of the prosecutions fueling Hizballah terror and into the overt nature of domestic support for the group.

IPT News

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Executive Summary: LA Law Enforcement Conference on "Radicalization" Features Islamist Radicals who have Impeded U.S. Counterterrorism Efforts

by Steven Emerson

Note: This is an executive summary of Steven Emerson's full assessment of MPAC's record. To see the full report, click here.

Two leaders of an Islamist organization, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), are scheduled to lecture Southern California law enforcement officials Monday about radicalization despite a history of opposing U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

Salam al-Marayati and Edina Lekovic will join high-ranking officials from all law enforcement agencies from Greater Los Angeles at the two-day conference in Pismo Beach, Calif., entitled "Radicalization Conference 2010: Radicalization and Homegrown Violent Extremism."

Throughout its history, MPAC and its leaders have issued statements in support of terrorist groups like Hizballah and, perhaps most significantly, disseminating incendiary statements that actually cause Muslims to be radicalized. The group also has followed a consistent pattern of opposing U.S. counterterrorism efforts and defending designated terrorist organizations and their supporters.

Those positions also involve perpetuating the false narrative that U.S. policy is engaged in a war against Islam. MPAC has taken aim at many U.S. counter-terrorism efforts and prosecutions. For example:

• In a March 2003 Los Angeles Times article discussing the FBI's relationship with Muslim American communities, al-Marayati attacked the FBI for allegedly profiling only Muslims for prosecution, a demonstrably false charge. "[T]he FBI's policy of targeting people because of their race and religion…That's what they've been doing since the attacks, and we don't know of any case that has resulted in the arrest, indictment or prosecution of a terrorist," al-Marayati said.
• Even though the LA Fusion Center – consisting of representatives of the FBI, Los Angeles Police and Los Angeles Sheriff who exchange intelligence – is hosting this conference on radicalization, MPAC frequently criticized the creation and use of fusion centers. In April 2009, the organization supported a statement released by the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT) calling for their elimination: "We are fully united in asking the Obama administration to address … use of McCarthy-era tactics, most notably dissemination of Islamophobic analysis by federally-funded 'fusion centers' to local law enforcement agencies."
• MPAC has also targeted the FBI's use of informants and undercover officers whom MPAC alleges instigate terrorist plots. Despite the fact that informants are widely used including in drug, gang, and organized crime investigations, a February 2009 MPAC press release argued that "federal law enforcement cannot establish trust with American Muslim communities through meetings and town hall forums, while at the same time sending paid informants who instigate violent rhetoric in mosques…"

In April 2009, after federal authorities disrupted an alleged plot to bomb synagogues and fire missiles at American military aircraft, Al-Marayati continued his attacks against law enforcement. Asked in an interview whether it was useful to have informants in mosques, Al-Marayati replied by suggesting that the defendants, later convicted, were not real terrorist threats:

"These were individuals who were either petty criminals or gullible people who were guilty of stupidity. They were not imminent threats to our country, as the FBI has stated," Al-Marayati told Fox News. "We want those tax dollars to be used to fight al-Qaeda…"

In a 2003 counterterrorism paper, MPAC advocated the removal of Hamas, Hizballah, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad from the government's list of terrorist groups. The organization argued that Washington's "preoccupation" with these groups "raises the question as to whether targeting Palestinian groups serves true national security interests or is based on political considerations."

And in one of the most high profile cases, MPAC repeatedly went to bat for Sami Al-Arian, a University of South Florida professor arrested in 2003 for allegedly serving as North American leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a designated terrorist organization said to be responsible for the deaths of two Americans and more than 100 Israelis. Yet, despite all of this indisputable evidence showing Al-Arian to be an officer in a murderous Islamic terrorist organization, MPAC and al-Marayati defended Al-Arian when he was first arrested, protested that he was being put on trial and even defended him after Al Arian pled guilty in 2006 to one charge of making and receiving contributions of funds, goods, and services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A month earlier, , al-Marayati had lauded Al-Arian at a fundraising dinner as a man who "defied the odds in a system that is unfair," adding, "[T]here is no way that you can get a fair trial in view of any of these issues today."

However, the judge presiding over Al-Arian's case saw things differently. Judge James S. Moody, Jr., said Al-Arian continued to lie about seeking "only aid for widows and orphans. Your only connection to widows and orphans is that you create them, even among the Palestinians."

One reason for MPAC's participation in the conference may be traced to the involvement of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Sheriff Lee Baca has become a fixture at events sponsored by Islamist organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and frequently defends their radicalism.

During a House committee hearing earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., questioned Baca his close relationship with CAIR. The Los Angeles Times reported that Baca responded "When you attack CAIR… you attack virtually every Muslim in America." Souder then noted the testimony of an FBI agent identifying CAIR as a Hamas front. Corps," Baca shot back. "…. CAIR is not a terrorist supporting organization."

The record indicates otherwise. CAIR was listed as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Hamas funding trial of HLF, been described in court as a Hamas front by an FBI agent and had its relationship with the FBI severed based on exhibits which leave open the question "whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS."

In featuring MPAC officials, who claim to speak for all Muslims, as speakers before this prestigious law enforcement conference, the organizers and the participants confer respectability on an organization that has helped foster radicalization, not counter it. This action abets a deception deliberately perpetrated by MPAC that it is a "moderate" group that is opposed to Islamist terrorism. For a more extensive examination of MPAC's statements supporting terrorist groups, its record of issuing incendiary statements claiming that the FBI and USG are involved in "selective prosecution" of Muslims simply because of their religion (see the IPT's dossier on MPAC here.)

Conference organizers are ignoring available evidence of MPAC's radicalism, instead believing the organization to be an appropriate partner in countering radicalism. Now it's time to ask whether the other organizers of the event were aware of MPAC's history of radicalism and counter-productive "counter-terrorism" assistance. And if they were aware, or did not bother to ask questions since MPAC is so prominent in Southern California, what does that say about the ability of these law enforcement groups to truly detect threats to American society?

Steven Emerson, IPT News

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Muslims Project Islam's Worst Traits onto Israel and the Jews

by Raymond Ibrahim


Sometime back, I noted that Muslims have been projecting the worst aspects of Islam(ism) onto the Copts, Egypt's Christian minority. This raised more questions: Is Islamist projection onto the Copts a unique phenomenon? Do Muslims project against other non-Muslims? Is there a trend?

To answer this question, it seemed logical to begin with how Islamists approach their archenemy: Israel and the Jews. Thinking this may be difficult to prove—it is one thing to hate your enemy per se, another to project unconsciously your worst traits onto them—I expected this might require some research. I went to MEMRI and, lo and behold, in mere minutes, came across three blatant examples. Consider the following excerpts, especially the italicized portions:

On September 7, Egyptian cleric Abdallah Samak made the following remarks on Al Rahma TV: "The Jews are known for their merciless, murderous, and bloodthirsty nature… The number one characteristic of the Jews – which appears in the Bible – is that they are always prepared for combat. They believe that it is their fate and destiny to be in a state of perpetual war. This is not what we want. We are seekers of peace and security. We seek to spread love. But we are dealing with a people, a society, that believes that its destiny is linked to war. The number one characteristic of the Jews is that they are a people that believes that its destiny is linked to war. They cannot live without war. They can only live if they attack others. They can only live through annihilation, revenge, and mercilessness."

In fact, the notion of "perpetual war" is straight out of Muslim doctrine and history—best recognized by the word "jihad"—and has no corollary in Judaism or any other religion. Even temporary truces are permissible only when Muslims are weak and incapable of going on the offensive: according to sharia, once Muslims are strong enough and have proper leadership (e.g., a caliph), they are obligated to expand the realm of Islam through offensive jihad until, in the words of the Koran, "all religion belongs to Allah" (8:39). History unequivocally attests to this approach. Moreover, while the Old Testament certainly contains many allusions to violence, these are of a historical, as opposed to doctrinal, nature. Conversely, Koranic verses dealing with violence have been codified in sharia and thus have a juridical and perpetual quality (note the word "until" in the most violent passages of the Koran, e.g., 9:5 and 9:29; see here for more on the differences between Judeo-Christian and Muslim violence). Finally, by quickly adding that Muslims "do not want" perpetual war, but instead seek "to spread love," Samak reveals that, immediately after evoking "perpetual war," Muslims naturally came to his mind, betraying a rather telling train of thought.

On October 8, Palestinian journalist Khaled Amayreh made the following remarks on Press TV: "The Israelis are trying to divert the attention of the world from the Nazi-like crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, by inventing an imaginary threat called Islamism. The people who are trying to take over the world, including superpowers... you know... are Zionism, not Muslims. … The only people who are taking over Europe and the United States—they do that by lying and by mendacity—are the Zionist Jews... [The notion that God promised the land of Israel to the Jews attempts] to legitimize land theft in the name of God, just like those colonizers in North America, who killed millions of Native Americans, and they called it 'Manifest Destiny,' and they celebrated genocide on a day called Thanksgiving. So this man [co-debater] is trying to justify land theft, ethnic cleansing, and genocide by attributing all of this to the Almighty.

Again, aspects that are part and parcel of Islam are projected onto the Jews. After bemoaning that the Jews have "invented an imaginary threat called Islamism," he himself evokes fairy tales of Jews taking over the world. Next, he ascribes "lying and mendacity" to the Jews when, in fact, deception is a well codified aspect of sharia law, and permeates Islamist society. Finally, he accuses Jews and Americans of appealing to God "to justify land theft, ethnic cleansing, and genocide," when, truth be told, the history of Islam is riddled with conquests, land theft, and ethnic cleansing—all in the name of God. The overwhelming majority of what is today called the "Muslim world" was taken from non-Muslims by violence and bloodshed. Even the Arab-Israeli conflict is a byproduct of the fact that Muslims took, by conquest (circa 638), a piece of land that, centuries earlier, belonged to the Jews. As for ethnic cleansing, history has forgotten the many peoples and languages that were either cleansed or absorbed by the early onslaught of Islam. Modern examples include Turkey's genocide of Christian Armenians and Khartoum's current "cleansing" of Sudan's infidels (polytheists and Christians).

On October 10, Egyptian cleric Galal Al-Khatib, while comparing the Shi'as to the Jews, made the following comments on Al-Rahma TV: "Jews accuse all their enemies of being infidels… The Jews believe that all non-Jews will end up in the Hellfire for all eternity… Both the Jews and the Shiites sanction the killing of those who disagree with them. Like the Jews, the Shiites employ treachery and deception to kill those who disagree with them. They use the same methods to get rid of their opponents. The Jews allow the plundering of their opponents' property…"

First, few religions are as keen on dividing the world between believers and infidels as is Islam, which divides the world into the Abode of Islam (where sharia is enforced) and the Abode of War (where it is not), holding that the armies of the former must war upon the latter—as we have seen, whenever they can. Moreover, through the doctrine of "loyalty and enmity," Muslims are commanded to disassociate themselves from non-Muslims. As for the Jews "employ[ing] treachery and deception to kill those who disagree with them," as mentioned, this is straight out of Muslim doctrine. Indeed, Muhammad himself ordered the assassination of several poets for simply offending him; more to the point, he permitted the assassins to lie to their victims, in order to win their trust, and get close enough to them to murder them. Finally, Islam unequivocally legitimizes plundering the infidel—a longtime source of motivation for the soldiers of Islam.

According to one academic article devoted to projection and violence, "Projection allows the killer to project his (unacceptable) desire to kill (torture, rape, steal, dominate, etc.) onto some target group or person. This demonizes his target, making it even more acceptable to kill." Little wonder, then, that Israel and the Jews—the number one targets of Islamists—are daily being portrayed by their antagonists as no better than the Islamists themselves.

Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of The Al Qaeda Reader, and guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.