Tag Archives: Ibrahim Hooper

The Muslims with No Name: Islamists Cover Up Their Existence in the Media

Posted on by
2

20130407_AP_SHSSSBy ANDREW E. HARROD, SAM NUNBERG:

As reported by U.S. News & World Report on April 4, 2013, the Associated Press (AP) has revised its definition of “Islamist” in the latest edition of the AP stylebook after the AP announced that it would likewise no longer approve of “illegal immigrant.”  This move, advocated precisely by a troubling Muslim group justifiably called Islamist in the past, shows once again how difficult it is for modern free societies even to identify their Islamist foes in the face of politically correct pressures.

Added to the AP stylebook in 2012, Islamist initially had the following entry: “Supporter of government in accord with the laws of Islam.  Those who view the Quran as a political model encompass a wide range of Muslims, from mainstream politicians to militants known as jihadi.”  The updated entry reads:

An advocate or supporter of a political movement that favors reordering government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam.  Do not use as a synonym for Islamic fighters, militants, extremists or radicals, who may or may not be Islamists.

Where possible, be specific and use the name of militant affiliations:  al-Qaida-linked, Hezbollah, Taliban, etc.  Those who view the Quran as a political model encompass a wide range of Muslims, from mainstream politicians to militants known as jihadi.

Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), praised “this revision” as a “step in the right direction” that “will result in fewer negative generalizations in coverage of issues related to Islam and Muslims.”  Hooper considered the “key issue with the term ‘Islamist’” to be “not its continued use,” but rather “its use almost exclusively as an ill-defined pejorative.”

Hooper had previously recommended on January 3, 2013, that the media “[d]rop the term ‘Islamist,’” which had “become shorthand for ‘Muslims we don’t like.’”  This term’s “almost exclusively pejorative context” has an “even more negative slant” when “often coupled with the term ‘extremist.’”  By analogy, Hooper rejected any hypothetical media references to the “‘Judaist government of Israel,’ the ‘Christianist leader Rick Santorum’ or ‘Hinduist Indian politician Narendra Modi’” when describing “those who would similarly seek governments ‘in accord with the laws’ of their respective faiths.”

“Many Muslims,” Hooper stated, who wish to serve the public good are influenced by the principles of their faith.  Islam teaches Muslims to work for the welfare of humanity and to be honest and just.  If this inspiration came from the Bible, such a person might well be called a Good Samaritan.  But when the source is the Quran, the person is an “Islamist.”

The “frequent linkage of the term ‘Islamist’” to various human rights violations was “strongly promoted by Islamophobic groups.”  This appeared to Hooper as attempts “to launch rhetorical attacks on Islam and Muslims, without the public censure that would normally accompany such bigoted attacks on any other faith.”  “Islam-bashers,” Hooper elaborated, “routinely use the term to disingenuously claim they only hate ‘political’ Islam, not the faith itself,” yet “fail to explain how a practicing Muslim can be active in the political arena without attracting the label ‘Islamist.’”

If retained at all by “media professionals,” Hooper recommended that “Islamist” appear only when a “group applies the term to itself,” analogous to the AP’s treatment of “fundamentalist.”  Absent such elimination or modification, “Islamist” entailed a “political and religious value judgment” that “is hardly fair or balanced.”

Hooper might well reject the “Islamist” label, for this term has in the past denounced CAIR in, for example, the Investigative Report on Terrorism (IPT)’s exhaustive 118-page report on CAIR.  IPT documents how CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in the successful 2008 prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development for financing Hamas terrorists, has its origins in American entities of the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate Hamas.  Accordingly, CAIR has an extensive history of apologizing for militant jihad and repressive sharia practices as well as CAIR functionary convictions for supporting Islamic terrorism.  Hooper himself has in the past stated that he would like to see the United States government become “Islamic” and implement sharia.
Read more: Family Security Matters

Andrew E. Harrod is a freelance researcher and writer who holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a JD from George Washington University Law School.  He is admitted to the Virginia State Bar.  He has published various pieces concerning an Islamic supremacist agenda at the Middle East Forum’s Legal Project, American Thinker, and Faith Freedom International.

 

CAIR to Media: ‘Stop Using the Term Islamist’

Posted on by
3

images (13)By Ryan Mauro:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), identified by the U.S. government as an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, issuggesting  a New Year’s resolution for the media: Stop using the term “Islamist.”

CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, who expressed his desire for “the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future” in 1993 and, again, in 2003, writes that the media shouldn’t say “Islamist” anymore because it is “currently used in almost exclusively pejorative context.”

Hooper argues that being an Islamist isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He quotes from the Associated Press Stylebook that describes an Islamist as a “supporter of government in accord with the laws of Islam. Those who view the Quran as a political model encompass a wide range of Muslims, from mainstream politicians to militants known as jihadi.”

This, he says, is no different than a Christian politician being influenced by Biblical values. But Christian politicians are influenced by the Bible as a moral influence. There’s no authoritative Christian doctrine on how a “Christian State” should be run.  As the definition itself says, Islamists view their religion as a system of governmental “laws” and a “political model.”

Hooper says that Muslims are unfairly called Islamists when there are political disagreements — sort of like the word “Islamophobe,” which he hypocritically uses in the very same sentence.

The attempt to eliminate the word “Islamist” from the media’s vocabulary is a reflection of what was said during a secret U.S. Muslim Brotherhood meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 that the FBI wiretapped. Two officials that founded CAIR the following year were present.

“Forming the public opinion or coming up with a policy to influence …the way the Americans deal with the Islamists, for instance. I believe that should be the goals of this stage,” said Hamas operative Abdel Haleem al-Ashqar.

The meeting participants, who repeatedly referred to themselves as Islamists, understood that friendly media coverage was essential to their goal of influencing public opinion and policy towards them. As pointed out by the Investigative Project, future CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad said at that meeting:

“The fourth goal is becoming open to the media in the U.S. and the Western society to ease the intensity of the campaign and to explain the legality of the opposition led by the Islamists,” he said.

The government determined from these transcripts that deception was an integral part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s procedure. In a 2007 court filing, federal prosecutors state: “From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists …the conspirators agreed to use deception to conceal from the American public their connections to terrorists.”

Read more at The Clarion Project

Related articles

The Jihad On Free Speech

Posted on by
Reply

speechIBD:

Islamofascism: Islamists have launched a hostile takeover of American  language through an increasingly aggressive and organized censorship campaign  that threatens free speech.

Over the past few weeks, there have been an alarming number of cases of  Muslim pressure groups trying to force Americans to conform to a pro-Islamic  speech code.

They’ve insisted on censoring any speech or expression that offends them,  including TV ads, Christian symbols, speeches and even parts of speech.

In some cases, the targets of their wrath have caved in to their demands.

•  Last week, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester, Mass., canceled a talk  on Islam by author Robert Spencer after local Muslim groups, egged on by  Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, enlisted a sympathetic  Boston Globe reporter to smear Spencer as a “bigot.”

“We applaud the diocese’s decision,” CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper  gloated.

•  Last month, Hooper penned a column demanding the Associated Press drop  from its new Stylebook the word “Islamist” to describe militant Muslims who  support jihad and Islamizing the West, such as members of the Muslim Brotherhood  and CAIR itself. He doesn’t like the “pejorative” ring to it, accurate as it  is.

CAIR already got the U.S. government to scrub the term. Now it’s bullying the  press not to use it.

•  CAIR at the same time is running ads on buses in Chicago and San Francisco  redefining the term jihad. The whitewash campaign, dubbed “MyJihad,” aims to  convince Americans that jihad merely means “to struggle,” not wage war.

•  Speaking of ads, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the  Muslim Institute for Interfaith Studies joined forces last week to condemn as  “racist” a light-hearted Super Bowl commercial featuring an Arab walking through  a desert with a camel. Coca-Cola dropped everything and consulted with the  groups on bended knee.

“We did express regret that the ad had been misunderstood,” Coke said.

•  Islamist groups like CAIR are feverishly trying to insert their own word  “Islamophobia” — into the popular lexicon. They use this term, ad nauseam, to  describe anyone who speaks critically of the violent nature of Islam.

•  Recently they petitioned the United Nations to take action to limit free  speech when it’s deemed offensive to Muslims, citing a “striking increase in  Islamophobia.” They hope to one day criminalize it, and they’re inching closer  and closer to that goal.

•  Swayed by such international pressure, the Pentagon last month ordered  crosses and other Christian symbols removed from military chapels where our  soldiers pray in Afghanistan. Why? They insult the local Muslims.

Crescent moons and other Islamic symbols are perfectly fine, however, and  will remain at the mosques the U.S. has erected on those same bases for Afghan  interpreters and security trainees.

Here’s what’s really outrageous about this trend: In many cases, the Muslims  demanding greater respect for Islam are the very reason it gets such a bad  rap.

Some of the same Islamic groups arguing that their religious rights supercede  everyone else’s free-speech rights have actually been read their rights as  terrorist suspects.

Several former officials of CAIR, for example, now sit in prison on  terror-related convictions.

And the Justice Department has ID’d its founder and the entire organization  itself as unindicted terrorist co-conspirators, after linking them to both the  terrorist group Hamas and the radical Brotherhood in the largest terror-finance  case in U.S. history.

Unless Americans want to live under de facto blasphemy laws, they’d better  start standing up to these Islamofascists.

 

CAIR’s Thought Police: At It Again

Posted on by
Reply

img_01831-450x300

 Ibrahim Hooper

By Deborah Weiss

The thought police over at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are urging journalists to delete the word “Islamist” from their lexicon.  Though CAIR claims that the word stems out of bigotry, CAIR’s real agenda is to protect Islam — and Islamists — from so-called “defamation.”

The Associated Press Style Book is a guide for journalists which lays out rules for spelling, punctuation, and other guidelines.  In its most recent edition, it added the word “Islamist,” which it defines as: “Islamist: supporter of government in accord with the laws of Islam.  Those who view the Quran as a political model encompass a wide range of Muslims, from mainstream politicians to militants known as jihadi.”  Generally, the word “Islamist” is used to distinguish those who want to practice Islam as a spiritual faith, as opposed to those who interpret it and apply it as a political ideology.  Those in the latter category desire the merging of mosque and state.

On January 3, 2012, Ibrahim Hooper, national spokesperson for CAIR, published a column suggesting that in the New Year journalists should refrain from using the word “Islamist.”

He complains that news reports unfairly focus on Islamists and notes that there are no news reports of “Christianist,” “Hinduist,” or “Judaist” political leaders.  He further insists that the word “Islamist” is used almost always “pejoratively” by “Islamophobic groups and individuals” who link the word to terrorism, persecution of religious minorities, and human rights violations committed in the name of Islam.  Hooper whines that such “bigoted attacks” unfairly target Islam because they are not equally hurled at other faiths.

Hooper goes on to claim that often the word “Islamist” is used by “Islam-bashers” who “disingenuously” claim to hate political Islam, though deep in their hearts they hate all Islam.  As proof of his assertion, he accuses the alleged Islamophobes of failing to explain how a practicing Muslim can be politically active without attracting the label “Islamist.”  After all, he writes, Muslims who wish to serve the “public good” and are merely “influenced” by their faith are slapped with the label “Islamist.”  He professes that they just want to work for the “welfare of humanity and to be honest and just,” and if that same inspiration had eminated from the Bible instead of the Quran, they’d be deemed “good Samaritans.”

However, Hooper allows one exception for when use of the word “Islamist” is acceptable, and that is when it is used by Islamists themselves.

And therein lies the rub.  It’s not really the word to which Hooper is objecting.  It is the negative connotation which serves to “defame Islam.”  In the eyes of CAIR and other Islamist organizations, anything that sheds a negative light on Islam or Muslims constitutes “defamation,” even if it’s true. This is a definition at odds with that in the American legal system which requires defamation to consist of a false statement of fact.

So the real agenda of CAIR and its ilk is not to stop “bigotry” against Islam or Muslims, but to whitewash and obfuscate the truth and propagate a disinformation campaign about, yes, Islamist terrorism, Islamist persecution of religious minorities and Islamist human rights violations, all of which are done in furtherance of the ultimate goal of Islamist Supremacy.

Read more at Front Page

 

 

Islamist Group Tries to Kill Use of “Islamist”

Posted on by
2

IPT News - January 4, 2013

After doing everything it can to ensconce a new word, “Islamophobia,” into conversational English, the nation’s most visible Islamist group is trying to stop use of a well-established word: Islamist.

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper released a column urging journalists to “Drop the term ‘Islamist.’”

It was added to the latest Associated Press Stylebook – the guide for spelling, punctuation and other rules – that is used by journalists at the smallest community papers and the largest television networks, Hooper wrote. AP defines Islamists as “Those who view the Quran as a political model encompass a wide range of Muslims, from mainstream politicians to militants known as jihadi.”

Journalists should ignore that, Hooper argued, because it is used in a negative way, and used by “Islam-bashers” who really hate the faith of Islam but want to cover their tracks. “Yet they fail to explain how a practicing Muslim can be active in the political arena without attracting the label ‘Islamist.’”

Plenty of practicing Muslims work bravely in opposition to Islamist ideology. Britain’s Quilliam Foundation was started by Muslims who walked away from radical Islamist thought and now counter the arguments Islamists offer.

“Challenging extremism is the duty of all responsible members of society,” the foundation’s website says. Not least because cultural insularity and extremism are products of the failures of wider society to foster a shared sense of belonging and to advance liberal democratic values. With Islamist extremism in particular, we believe a more self-critical approach must be adopted by Muslims.” [Emphasis added]

Hooper may have had the Investigative Project on Terrorism in mind with his comment, as we try to distinguish between the faith of Islam as practiced by individuals, and its application as the foundation for political action and law. When devout Muslims espouse this “separation between mosque and state,” Hooper dismisses them as “a mere sock puppet for Islam haters and an enabler of Islamophobia.”

Hooper’s demand that “Islamist” be removed from the lexicon is ironic, since his bosses seemed more than comfortable placing themselves firmly in the world of “Islamists” back in 1993. CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad joined two dozen Hamas supporters in Philadelphia for a fall weekend in an urgent meeting called to discuss ways to “derail” the U.S.-brokered Oslo Accords.

The FBI bugged the meeting room. Transcripts entered into evidence during a 2008 Hamas-financing trial show the participants referred to “Islamists” dozens of times. Ahmad helped lead the meeting, helping determine who might attend and calling it to order.

The FBI described the group as Hamas members and supporters. “Hamas’ agenda was not only to eliminate Israel,” prosecutors wrote, “but also to sabotage the Oslo Accords and to replace the secular PA regime with an Islamist government that would control all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.”

Awad, who remains CAIR’s executive director nearly 20 years later, addressed the meeting about media strategies.

“The fourth goal is becoming open to the media in the U.S. and the Western society to ease the intensity of the campaign and to explain the legality of the opposition led by the Islamists,” he said. [Emphasis added]

Ahmad, who served as CAIR chairman emeritus until 2009, also discussed media strategy for Islamists in America.

“The first goal was relating to activism among Muslims and Palestinians but we must broadcast our point of view in U. S. media. There is a very good reason for that which is bringing the voice of the Islamists to the surface, keeping them informed and explaining their positions in order to case the severity of allegations of radicalism and other things,” Ahmad said. [Emphasis added] “This will also make our position known to Muslims and sympathizers whom we cannot reach via our media tools.”

A speaker identified only as “Akram” told the group opposition to the Oslo deal did not “have anything to do with any living conditions. We have undisputable rights in Palestine as Islamists. They don’t change with the changing of the events.” Later, he said Islamists were the only ones willing to oppose the agreement publicly.

“We must be clear that we oppose this thing 100% and that we, the Islamists … different from what is being suggested for Palestinian activism,” Akram said. No one disagreed.

Their claim on Palestine was not limited to the West Bank and Gaza, Ahmad said, agreeing it was not a wise strategy to say so publicly.

“We’ve always demanded the 1948 territories,” Ahmad said.

“Yes,” an unidentified speaker responded, “but we don’t say that publicly. You cannot say it publicly. In front of the Americans…”

“No,” Ahmad agreed, “we didn’t say that to the Americans.”

Nearly 20 years later, Ahmad’s organization doesn’t want Americans to say the same words he and his colleagues embraced.

“Unfortunately, the term ‘Islamist’ has become shorthand for ‘Muslims we don’t like,’” Hooper wrote. “It is currently used in an almost exclusively pejorative context and is often coupled with the term ‘extremist,’ giving it an even more negative slant.”

This is revisionist history. In addition to Hamas supporters, fundraisers for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad used the “Islamist” in laudatory fashion. During a 1989 conference by Sami Al-Arian’s Islamic Committee for Palestine, Cleveland Imam Fawaz Damra described heroic battles Islamists waged in sparking the intifada against Israel.

“We acknowledge that Islamists were absent from the arena of jihad for a long while, Damra said. “This is not the time to examine the causes of that absence. But this was their return with an unflagging spirit, determined to do battle and to confront ….an important development. Then occurred the fleeing operation, executed by six mujahideen towards the middle of the fifth month of ’87. This was followed by specific operations executed by these youth, one of the most important of which was the killing of the Military Police chief in Gaza. In other words, the events rekindled the spirit of hope and the spirit of self-confidence in the people.”

Damra would later describe Al-Arian’s committee as “the active arm of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine” and urge people to write checks intended for the Jihad to “write it in the name if the Islamic Committee for Palestine, ‘ICP’ for short.”

Evidence also showed that Al-Arian served as secretary on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s governing board.

CAIR defended both men.

CAIR officials also have supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, even as it rammed through a constitution that epitomizes Islamist aspirations and makes religious law the law of the land. The Brotherhood has no problem calling itself Islamist.

If the word is to be used, Hooper wrote, it “should not be used unless a group applies the term to itself.” So the Brotherhood can be called “Islamist.”

CAIR doesn’t use the term itself, not “to the Americans,” anyway, but we’ve offered a tiny sample of the examples of Islamists using the word privately. CAIR’s background – the FBI cut off contact with the group in 2008 over questions about “whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS – should be taken into consideration by anyone entertaining Hooper’s request to serve as language cop.

By the way, the AP did remove a related word from the newest Stylebook: Islamophobia.

Ex Brotherhood Official Showcases Islamist Doublespeak

Posted on by
Reply

IPT News
August 10, 2012

It “is no difficult task for Allah” to bring America to its knees, a prominent former Muslim Brotherhood official said at a recent discussion in Egypt.

American leaders are “all criminals” plotting to stifle Arab revolutions and defend “that criminal and plundering state of Israel,” Kemal Helbawy, the Brotherhood’s former spokesman in the United Kingdom, said in a video dated July 26 and posted this week by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“If we use all the capabilities at our disposal properly, America will be brought to its knees and will be defeated like the Soviets in Afghanistan,” he said. “This is no difficult task for Allah.”

The remarks came during a sit-in outside the American embassy in Cairo.

Behind him is a poster of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheik considered the inspiration behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who is serving a life sentence in the United States for a subsequent plot to bomb New York tunnels and landmarks. New Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has promised to seek Abdel Rahman’s release when he meets U.S. officials.

Helbawy left the Brotherhood last spring, blasting the group for trying to monopolize power in Egypt after a peaceful revolution ousted former President Hosni Mubarak. But Helbawy remains a staunch Islamist and, despite a long record of violent rhetoric, is welcomed among American Islamists and academic groups.

He hailed Osama bin Laden as “a great mujahid” last year just after the American raid in Pakistan killed the al-Qaida leader. He prayed that bin Laden “join the prophets, the martyrs, and the good people” and questioned whether America’s proof al-Qaida was behind the 9/11 attacks “was a trick and a bait … All evidences and indications refer that the Americans are the ones who planned this matter, not the Afghans who have weak resources.”

The London-based Quilliam Foundation, which works to counter jihadist influence, called this ”the latest example of senior Muslim Brotherhood members giving different messages to different audiences. When speaking to mainstream audiences Helbawy presents himself as a moderate reformer; when speaking to Islamists he praises Osama bin Laden. This doublespeak undermines trust between Muslims and non-Muslims and hinders genuine efforts to tackle extremism and terrorism.”

Quilliam warned western governments to treat the Brotherhood “with the greatest suspicion,” adding that there are moderates in the group, but “anyone who thinks that the Muslim Brotherhood as a whole has ‘reformed’ is clearly deluded.”

Helbawy demonstrated that doublespeak two years earlier, during the 10th annual conference of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy. The event attracted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat and first Muslim elected to Congress.

He was on a panel on “Improving Relations between the U.S. and the Muslim World.” In his abstract for the conference, Helbawy waxed fondly about the benefits of democracy and life in the West. As a Muslim, he said he he “deeply appreciate[s] most of the values and blessings of the democratic society and wish that Muslim countries were more like the UK or Europe in this respect.”

“God created us into different nations, tribes, people, ethnic groups and races to know each other,” he wrote, “so as a Muslim I am fulfilling one of the many aims and objectives of my existence when I meet and know and work with other people to improve community relations. More broadly, living in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society enables us to appreciate our differences and overcome obstacles towards greater understanding.”

That lovely, humanistic embrace was absent in Helbawy’s 1992 speech in Oklahoma City before the Islamic Association for Palestine – a Hamas propaganda wing – and the Muslim Arab Youth Association:

Do not take Jews and Christians as allies. For they are allies to each other. Oh Brothers, the Palestinian cause is not of conflict of borders and land only. It is not even a conflict of human ideology and not over peace. Rather, it is an absolute clash of civilizations, between truth and falsehood. Between two conducts – one satanic, headed by Jews and their co-conspirators – and the other is religious, carried by Hamas, and the Islamic movement in particular, and the Islamic people in general who are behind it.

Lastly I am going to say something about Imam Hassan al-Banna, may he rest in peace, who had been trying to establish 70,000 fighters, and he started with the first battalion with 10,000 fighters, and today the Palestinians became strong fighting battalions. Let us stand and support this great nation and the future is for Islam. And I ask God’s forgiveness for you and for me and the Muslims. We ask God to give victory to our brothers and we ask God to release the leader of the Intifada, [Hamas founder] Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, praise be upon him.

Statements like that may have prompted government officials to prohibit Helbawy from coming into the United States in 2006 for a New York University conference. It’s not clear why the Obama administration saw fit to reverse that course, or why Secretary Clinton would agree to appear at a conference with someone espousing such hostility toward Jews and Christians and outward support for terrorist groups like Hamas.

Read more

Muslim Witch Hunts

Posted on by
Reply

By Daniel Greenfield

In response to Congressman Peter King’s hearings on Islamic radicalization, Muslim Brotherhood stooge Suhail Khan authored an article denouncing the hearings as a “witch hunt.” He was echoed by Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR who also branded the hearings a “witch hunt.”

The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson caught on to this original idea, declaring the hearings, “Peter King’s Modern Day Witch Hunt.” Bob Herbert at the New York Times joined him in branding the hearings a “witch hunt.” At USA Today, an op-ed weighed in on “The Danger of a Muslim Witch Hunt.”

Democratic pols also got in on the act. Congressman Keith Ellison declared the hearings a “witch hunt” and Congresswoman Judy Chu complained that a “witch hunt for Muslim radicals will do little to make our nation safer.”

Wherever you turned, from CNN to Jon Stewart, the consensus of Muslim terrorists and their media collaborators was that investigating Islamism was just like hunting for witches. Except that terrorists exist and witches don’t—a minor fact that was lost on the progressive camp which often mistakes its own talking points for magic spells that alter the nature of reality.

The United States doesn’t hunt witches. It’s the Muslim world that has an unfortunate propensity for engaging in witch hunts.

While the progressive media complex was whipping itself into a frenzy denouncing any investigation of Saudi mosques and organizations as a witch hunt—the Saudis were conducting actual witch hunts. While Congressman King was trying to fight the War on Terror— they were declaring a War on Sorcery.

In Washington D.C. witch hunts might be a metaphor, but in Riyadh, they’re a top priority. While the Saudis operate a revolving door for Islamic terrorists, including the ones we send over to them for rehabilitation, they take important things like witchcraft seriously. A Saudi Al-Qaeda terrorist can expect to spend a little time at a plush rehabilitation facility before being set free to head off to the next conflict zone. But Saudi witches and sorcerers mercilessly have their heads chopped off in car parks.

A Saudi witch hunt is not a committee hearing; it is an actual unit of the Islamic religious police which is tasked with fighting witches and sorcerers, who according to the authorities, in the absence of the Jews, are responsible for most of the problems in the land. While American liberals insist that Islam is as modern as microprocessors and as moderate as vanilla ice cream, in the holy land of Islam, Sharia thugs are storming the dens of palm-readers, faith-healers and old women with too many cats around the premises in a 7th century witch hunt conducted with 21st century technology.

Muslim witch hunts aren’t only limited to Saudi Arabia. In Iran, Ahmadinejad’s allies have been accused of being sorcerers. In Pakistan, witch hunts end the old fashioned away, with a bonfire. One woman, accused of burning the Koran in a magical ritual, had her fingers cut off, her eyes poked out and gasoline poured all over her body. “She burnt the Koran, so we burnt her,” was the explanation.

Read the rest at Front Page

SEAL training range won’t show woman as target

Posted on by
Reply

By Kate Wiltrout, NORFOLK

The Navy will not use a target depicting a Muslim woman holding a gun at a new training range for SEALs in Virginia Beach.

The announcement came hours after the Council on American-Islamic Relations asked the Pentagon to  remove the target. A picture of the cardboard target, which shows a woman in a headscarf  holding a pistol, was published in The Virginian-Pilot on Tuesday. The  image shows verses of the Quran hanging on the wall behind the woman,  which also generated criticism from the group.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Washington-based council, said  in the letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta dated Friday that the target “is  offensive and sends a negative and counterproductive message to trainees  and to the Muslim-majority nations to which they may be deployed.”

Panetta’s press office did not respond to a request for comment. Late Friday, Lt. David Lloyd, a spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Group 2, said the materials in question would not be used on the close quarters combat training range, which was dedicated Monday at Joint Expeditionary Base Fort Story.

“We have removed this particular target and Arabic writing in question from the range in the near term, and will explore other options for future training,” Lloyd said.

Naval Special Warfare Group Two, which oversees SEAL teams 2, 4, 8  and 10 at Joint Expeditionary Base LIttle Creek, has not yet put the $11.5 million facility to use.

The 26,500-square-foot  building contains 52 interconnected spaces, including mock-ups of  markets, a hospital, schools, a bank, a bus depot and two mosques. It will allow small groups of SEALs to practice enemy engagement at close range.

Many of the details were taken from actual raids over the past  decade, Capt. Tim Szymanski, the commodore of Naval Special Warfare  Group 2, said during a tour of the facility Monday.

Szymanski said SEALs must differentiate in a split second between  civilian bystanders and potential enemies, and noted other cardboard cut-outs  on the range would show people holding animals, not weapons.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Islamic group, said it’s  important that military units not be trained to see Muslims as enemies,  even if they are fighting in Afghanistan or other Muslim-majority  nations.

Read more at The Virginian – Pilot

‘It’s Perfectly Constitutional’: Kansas Governor Signs Bill Blocking Islamic Law in Courts and Government Agencies

Posted on by
1

The Blaze:

(The Blaze/AP) — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has signed a law aimed at keeping the state’s courts or government agencies from basing decisions on Islamic or other foreign legal codes, and a national Muslim group’s spokesman said Friday that a court challenge is likely.

The new law, taking effect July 1, doesn’t specifically mention Shariah law, which broadly refers to codes within the Islamic legal system.  Instead, it says courts, administrative agencies or state tribunals can’t base rulings on any foreign law or legal system that would not grant the parties the same rights guaranteed by state and U.S. constitutions.

“This bill should provide protection for Kansas citizens from the application of foreign laws,” said Stephen Gele, spokesman for the American Public Policy Alliance, a Michigan group promoting model legislation similar to the new Kansas law. “The bill does not read, in any way, to be discriminatory against any religion.”

But supporters have worried specifically about Shariah law being applied in Kansas court cases, and the alliance says on its website that it wants to protect Americans’ freedoms from “infiltration” by foreign laws and legal doctrines, “especially Islamic Shariah Law.”

Brownback’s office notified the state Senate of his decision Friday, but he actually signed the measure Monday. The governor’s spokeswoman, Sherriene Jones-Sontag, said in a statement that the bill “makes it clear that Kansas courts will rely exclusively on the laws of our state and our nation when deciding cases and will not consider the laws of foreign jurisdictions.”

Muslim groups had urged Brownback to veto the measure, arguing that it promotes discrimination. Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said a court challenge is likely because supporters of the measure frequently expressed concern about Shariah law.

Hooper said of Brownback, “If he claims it has nothing to do with Shariah or Islamic law or Muslims, then he wasn’t paying attention.”

Both the Washington-based council and the National Conference of State Legislatures say such proposals have been considered in 20 states, including Kansas. Gele said laws similar to Kansas’ new statute have been enacted in Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee.

Oklahoma voters approved a ballot initiative in 2010 that specifically mentioned Shariah law, but both a federal judge and a federal appeals court blocked it.

There are no known cases in which a Kansas judge has based a ruling on Islamic law. However, supporters of the bill have cited a pending case in Sedgwick County in which a man seeking to divorce his wife has asked for property to be divided under a marriage contract in line with Shariah law.

Supporters argue the measure simply ensures that legal decisions will protect long-cherished liberties, such as freedom of speech and religion and the right to equal treatment under the law. Gele said the measure would come into play if someone wanted to enforce a libel judgment against an American from a foreign nation without the same free speech protections.

“It is perfectly constitutional,” he said.

Read more

 

CAIR Spokesman Says Jews Thriving In Arab World

Posted on by
3

 

GMBDR:

A spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has said in a newspaper interviewer that there are “thriving Christian and Jewish populations” in Arab countries such as Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. According to a report in the St. Petersburg Times:

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic relations, said Graham was incorrect. “There are lots of Christian churches and synagogues in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, Indonesia, Qatar, Kuwait. … If you go to any number of so-called Muslim countries you will see thriving Christian and Jewish populations.” One member of the Iranian Parliament is Jewish, Hooper noted. “The only one where you don’t see it, where you can’t have a Christian church or synagogue is Saudi Arabia,” Hooper said.

In fact, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, the Jewish populations of the four Arab countries mentioned above have been reduced since 1948 to about 210 individuals from a pre-1948 population of about 275,000:

  • Egypt: 1948 Jewish population: 75,000 2004: Less than 100
  • Syria: 1948 Jewish population: 30,000 2003: Fewer than 100
  • Lebanon: 1948 Jewish population: 20,000 2008: Fewer than 100
  • Iraq: 1948 Jewish population: 150,000 2004: Approximately 35 2008: Less than 10

Documents released in the Holy Land Trial have revealed that the founders and current leaders of CAIR were part of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as identifying the organization itself as being part of the US. Brotherhood. A recent post discussed an interview with the Deputy leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in which he confirms a relationship between his organization and CAIR. Investigative research posted on GMBDR had determined that CAIR had it origins in the U.S. Hamas infrastructure and CAIR and it leaders have a long history of defending almost all individuals accused of terrorism by the US. government, frequently calling such prosecutions a “war on Islam.”