SHARIA LAWS, NOT IN AMERICA

The intent of the Sharia laws was to construct a complete justice system with fairness to all members of society. Peace and a sense of security are the products of justice in a given society. The violations of justice and the rule of law are found in every faith, culture and political system, to varying degrees. In this respect no community is free of blame and no one can cast the first stone against another community.

American Muslims have placed their trust in the American justice system and will continue to oppose Sharia laws as they are currently applied in many places across the globe. I will be one of the first ones, if not the first one, to stand up against it. The Muslim majority in America is happy with the American system and does not want to have Sharia law here in America.

Continued - http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sharia-not-in-America-by-Mike-Ghouse-110622-556.html

Mike Ghouse is committed to building a cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. He is a speaker, thinker, writer and a frequent guest on Hannity show and nationally syndicated Radio shows and Dallas TV, Radio and Print Media. Over 1000 articles have been published on Pluralism, Interfaith, Islam, India and cohesive societies. Two of his books are poised to be released this fall on Pluralism and Islam. He is available to speak at your place of worship, work, school, college, seminars or conferences. His work is encapsulated in 27 blogs, four websites and several forums indexed at http://www.mikeghouse.net/.

  

Bigotry of Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain and Right wing Republicans

AA,

I am starting a series to take on the the Right wing Republicans... There are many things in this article that will become talking points to moderate Americans who want to fight back the right wingers attacking Muslims, Hindus, Jews and others, there is short poem written as an example tomake Texans, New Yorkers and Californians angry, it is to make the point about false accusations against Muslims.

There are four clear points communicated in this article and God willing more to come through 2012 Elections. I am going on a Drive America Tour this fall talking about building a cohesive America. If you can arrange with your local Democrats and Republicans party to speak, I will be happy to do that.

As a disclosure, I am a moderate Republican and there are plenty of us, but most of them are gutless like most Muslims are and are afraid to speak up. I will fight with them to bring moderates to the front, you are right, I may not succeed but will make  the points is crucial to activate the sleeping Moderate Americans to counter the right wing propaganda.   

I am writing a series and will be talking on American Politics, if you wish to add your comment to my articles to be published in Huffington Post, Washington Post, OpEd News, New York Times and other papers. I will be happy to include, please let me know if you wish to contribute a sentence or a paragraph to it, you must be willing to stand up for the attacks from right wing Muslims and right wing Christians. It is time now. Let’s us be the catalysts for a safe, secure America.

Let us act now as participants, rather than known protestors.

Please feel free to write your comment at the article to create momentum and not allow me to stand alone.

TAKING ON BIGOTRY OF NEWT GIINGRICH, HERMAN CAIN AND REPUBLICANS http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Bigotry-of-Newt-Gingrich--by-Mike-Ghouse-110622-717.html

Proving Islam is peace

Islam Should Prove It's a Religion of Peace
Muslims can start with better Quranic scholarship.
By TAWFIK HAMID

The following commentary by Tawfik Hamid is questionable. I do expect WSJ to verify a few basics, they have a responsibility to put out responsible statements.

Tawfik or WSJ need to provide the substantiation for these claims;

1. Many Muslims seem to believe that it is acceptable to teach hatred and violence in the name of their religion - seems to beleive?

2. Scholars in the most prestigious Islamic institutes and universities continue to teach things like Jews are "pigs and monkeys," - which ones?

Tawfik is BSing... a year ago, WSJ published an article by the Phoenix Doctor, he wrote about hate sermons in mosques, I asked them to prove... they did not. However, the writer finally
said, it used to be... I asked to him correct it. It used to be is different than giving a false impression that they are doing now...

He rightfully asks about the stoning of women for adultery... we need to come together on this and do our consulting and deliever an opinion to put an end to this.

I add apostasy to it. Some of the Muslims scholars that I have talked with are chickens, they agree that there should be no punishement for apostasy and that any one can choose to be a Muslim and go out of being a Muslim, and come back again, it is all about free will, but they did not have the guts to sign up at www.ApostasyandIslam.com their Job was important to them
than being righteousness.

Tawfiq has not seen the documentary Fitna.... his comments are not made about fitna, but something else. I have responded word for word to it. It is athttp://www.Quraan-today.blogspot.com

Every religion is for peace, the problem is not religion, it is the individuals, and you find them in every faith.

Mike Ghouse
###

Islam Should Prove It's a Religion of Peace
Muslims can start with better Quranic scholarship.
By TAWFIK HAMID

The film "Fitna" by Dutch parliament member Geert Wilders has created an uproar around the world because it links violence committed by Islamists to Islam.

Many commentators and politicians -- including the British government, which denied him entry to the country last month -- reflexively accused Mr.. Wilders of inciting hatred. The question, however, is whether the blame is with Mr. Wilders, who simply exposed Islamic radicalism, or with those who promote and engage in this religious extremism. In other words, shall we fault Mr. Wilders for raising issues like the stoning of women, or shall we fault those who actually promote and practice this crime?

Many Muslims seem to believe that it is acceptable to teach hatred and violence in the name of their religion -- while at the same time expecting the world to respect Islam as a religion of peace, love and harmony.

Scholars in the most prestigious Islamic institutes and universities continue to teach things like Jews are "pigs and monkeys," that women and men must be stoned to death for adultery, or that Muslims must fight the world to spread their religion. Isn't, then, Mr. Wilders's criticism appropriate? Instead of blaming him, we must blame the leading Islamic scholars for having failed to produce an authoritative book on Islamic jurisprudence that is accepted in the Islamic world and unambiguously rejects these violent teachings.

While many religious texts preach violence, the interpretation, modern usage and implementation of these teachings make all the difference. For example, the stoning of women exists in both the Old Testament and in the Islamic tradition, or "Sunna" -- the recorded deeds and manners of the prophet Muhammad. The difference, though, is that leading Jewish scholars agreed to discontinue these practices centuries ago, while Muslim scholars have yet to do so. Hence we do not see the stoning of women practiced or promoted in Israel, the "Jewish" state, but we see it practiced and promoted in Iran and Saudi Arabia, the "Islamic" states.

When the British government banned Geert Wilders from entering the country to present his film in the House of Lords, it made two egregious errors. The first was to suppress free speech, a canon of the civilized Western world. The second mistake was to blame the messenger -- punishing, so to speak, the witness who exposed the crime instead of punishing the criminal. Mr. Wilders did not produce the content of the violent Islamic message he showed in his film -- the Islamic world did that. Until the Islamic clerical establishment takes concrete steps to reject violence in the name of their religion, Mr. Wilders's criticism is not only permissible as "controversial" free speech but justified.

So, Islamic scholars and clerics, it is up to you to produce a Shariah book that will be accepted in the Islamic world and that teaches that Jews are not pigs and monkeys, that declaring war to spread Islam is unacceptable, and that killing apostates is a crime. Such a book would prove that Islam is a religion of peace.

Mr. Hamid, a former member of an Egyptian Islamist terrorist group, is an Islamic reformer and senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

Please add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum.

Holocaust in Gaza | Hypocrisy of U.S.-Israeli Acts

Two articles below my comments
1) Holocaust in Gaza
2) Hypocrisy of U.S. Israeli Acts of Terrorism

The stereotyping of "all Arabs" or "all Jews" are alike is a shameful categorization. No, they are as individualistic as Americans, Indians or any one. The silent majority of them go on about their lives letting a few evil men continue with their destructive actions, there Jewish and Arab Organizations whose wisdom seeks justice, the seed for peace.

The world puts Zionism in the same category as Islamists, Neocons, Hindutvadis and other groups, but they claim their role is to "seek and preserve" their heritage, where as the world sees them as extremists bent on "annihilation" of the others through devious means. You can trace all the world problems to them, the causers of conflicts. I believe not all of them are bad boys, only a few of them are, and the world needs to come to grips with it and laser point to those individuals who give birth to conflicts. They can be rehabilitated if only they know that peace comes through justice for all, and not advantages to one over the other.

Justice is the key to peace and placing responsibility on individuals will be the first step towards bringing justice to one and all.

Mike Ghouse


http://www.unnindia.com/english/story.php?catId=&Id=3823


HOLOCAUST IN GAZA
Rohini Hensman

In February 2008, Israel's Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai warned that if Hamas continued firing rockets, they would bring upon themselves a 'bigger shoah,' the word used by Israelis to refer to the Nazi genocide or holocaust. This statement came in the wake of attacks on Gaza which left 32 Palestinians dead, including eight children, the youngest a six-month-old baby. These regular attacks, combined with a blockade which deprived Palestinians in Gaza of food, fuel, potable water, medicines and educational materials, was the slow-motion shoah which had been taking place up to December 27. The full-scale bombing which began on that date is surely the 'bigger shoah' promised by Vilnai, and, according to Israeli reports, it was being planned as long back as February (1).

There were demonstrations against the Israeli bombing by outraged protestors throughout the world as the Palestinian death toll climbed to more than 300 in as many days, but Palestinians in Gaza felt that the international community were acting as mere spectators to the massacre. They were right. Protest demonstrations are not enough to stop a holocaust. Even less effective are sanctimonious statements by the UN and EU equating one Israeli life to more than a hundred Palestinian lives, which make the outright support for the massacre by George W. Bush almost attractive in its honesty. So what can we do?


Debunking Myths

The first necessity is to debunk myths that have successfully been used to vitiate all previous actions against Israel. Firstly, the myth that the founding of the Zionist state has anything to do with the Nazi genocide. In fact, the project was conceived decades before the Nazi holocaust, and was a straightforward colonial agenda in which European settlers would evict indigenous Third World people from their land and take it over. Gandhi saw this very clearly, which is why he refused to give the Zionists his support when they approached him, despite his sympathy for persecuted Jews (2).

The second myth is that criticism of or opposition to the Zionist state of Israel constitutes anti-Semitism, and is an attack on all Jews. This is not true; indeed, Jews are among the most trenchant critics not only of Israeli atrocities, but also of the whole idea of a Zionist state. The notion that Judaism and Zionism are one and the same is shared by anti-Semites and Zionists; the former assume that all Jews are responsible for the crimes of the Zionists, while the latter assume that all condemnation of Zionist crimes constitutes an attack on Jews. These assumptions, equally reprehensible, are simply two sides of the same coin.

The third myth is that there was ever a possibility of a two-state solution. There were two models of settler-colonialism debated by the Zionists. One model, supported by very few, was the South African one, where the indigenous Palestinians, though evicted from their land and herded into Bantustans, would be allowed to remain in the country. The majority view was that the indigenous population should be eliminated, like the indigenous peoples of North America and Australia. To this end, massacres were carried out to terrorise the population into leaving, a process then known as 'transfer of population' and now as 'ethnic cleansing', and ever since the Nuremburg trials considered to be a crime against humanity (3). Both sides saw Israel as swallowing up the whole of Palestine, and one look at a map of Palestine/Israel today shows that this has now been achieved, with the Apartheid wall carving up the West Bank into ghettos, while the very fact that Israel could blockade the Gaza strip so effectively shows that it, too, is nothing more than a ghetto.

If Israel controls the non-contiguous borders, the coastal waters, the ground water and air space of the proposed 'Palestinian state', if the people of Gaza can be starved and bombed simply because they exercised their franchise to elect a government which the Israeli state did not approve of, there could be no clearer proof that Palestinian self-determination is not an option so long as the Zionist regime remains. The struggle, therefore, is not for a separate Palestinian state but, as in Apartheid South Africa, for one democratic state with equal rights for all in the whole of historical Palestine. This would solve the problem of the second-class status of Palestinian citizens of Israel, the need for self-determination for Palestinians in the territories occupied in 1967, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees, all without driving Israeli Jews out of the country. It is the only possible solution (4).

The fourth myth is that Israel attacks Palestinians in self-defense. Take the most recent massacre, for example: it is claimed by Israel, and repeated by other politicians and the media, that it was Hamas which broke the ceasefire. Yet a careful scrutiny of ceasefire violations shows that once Hamas defeated Fatah and took control of the Gaza strip, violations from its side dropped almost to zero, until Israel broke the ceasefire by an air attack and ground invasion on November 4. Furthermore, throughout the ceasefire Israel implemented a siege and naval blockade of Gaza, defined as acts of war in international law. So it was Israel which broke the ceasefire in an act of aggression, and the legally elected Hamas government of Palestine which was acting in self-defence (5). This means that in international law, the murder of each one of the over 550 Palestinians killed in the most recent massacre, whether the vast majority of civilians or the small minority of guerrilla fighters, is a crime equivalent to the crime of killing one Israeli civilian.

Indeed, even before the December onslaught, it was clear that what Israel was doing in Gaza amounted to genocide according to the Genocide Convention (1948), reiterated in the Rome Charter of the International Criminal Court (2002), which includes: '(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part' (6). The launching of rockets into Israel by Hamas was, like the Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943, a response to impending extermination: a desperate bid for survival. The Zionists' hostility to anyone standing up for the rights of Palestinians led them in 1948 to murder Count Folke Bernadotte, who had negotiated the release of tens of thousands of prisoners from German concentration camps and was subsequently appointed UN Security Council mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict. More recently, their shameful abuse of Richard Falk, UNHRC Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine (himself an American Jew), who in December 2008 was denied entry, ill-treated and deported, suggests that only pragmatic considerations prevented them from assassinating him too (7).


What Needs to be Done?

According to twenty-one human rights activists (including Jews) from South Africa visiting the West Bank in July 2008, the situation in Palestine/Israel was 'worse, worse, worse than everything we endured. The level of the apartheid, the racism and the brutality, are worse than the worst period of apartheid;' 'What we went through was terrible, terrible, terrible – and yet there is no comparison. Here it is more terrible' (8). An international response at least as strong as the response to Apartheid South Africa therefore seems to be appropriate, and this is constituted by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel called for by Palestinian civil society groups on 9 July 2005, to be continued until the apartheid regime is replaced by a democratic one. This includes cultural, academic and sports boycotts, and a consumer boycott of Israeli goods (barcode starting with 729), as well as a boycott of companies investing in, sourcing from, or otherwise supporting Israel, and pressure on them to change their policies. It would also include pressure on governments to break off diplomatic, economic and military ties with Israel, pointing out that these constitute complicity with Israel's crimes (9).

There should be extra pressure on openly collaborationist regimes, like those of Mahmoud Abbas, Hosni Mubarak, and the Arab allies of Israel, which ought to be made to feel that their people will reject them unless they cease their complicity in Israeli crimes. Enormous pressure would also have to be brought to bear on the US, which assists Israel with billions of dollars annually as well as other forms of support. Given the indications that no change in US policy towards Palestine and Israel is planned by Barack Obama's administration, the pressure should begin immediately, before his inauguration. And pressure from within the US should be augmented by international pressure.

The US economy is in deep crisis, with more than $ 10 trillion of national debt, and the only reason it can keep bankrolling Israel is that the US dollar is treated as world currency and oil sales are denominated in it, so the US has been getting more or less unlimited credit from the rest of the world. Russia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries must be pressurised into supporting the rights of Palestinians by immediately denominating their oil sales in euro, in preparation for moving to roubles in the case of Russia, and a common Gulf currency in the case of the GCC countries. Countries like China and Japan, with their massive US dollar reserves, should make the extension of further credit conditional on the US ceasing to fund Israel as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and countries with smaller dollar reserves should shift their reserves to other currencies. Such a move is required not only by ethical considerations, but also by pragmatic ones: if the credit extended is used to rebuild the US economy, there is a chance that it might be returned, whereas if it is used to fund aggression against Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, it will never be returned. In this campaign, very little individual action is possible, and success would depend on putting collective pressure on governments to boycott the US dollar until the US ceases to engage in and support imperialist aggression. With very few exceptions, governments of the world are complicit in the atrocities being committed in Gaza, just as they were in the crushing of the Warsaw ghetto uprising (10), and strong public pressure would be needed to expose, condemn and end their complicity.

The myths enumerated above need to challenged in every forum, along with the more diffuse racism that constitutes their premise. We may disagree with the politics of Hamas, just as we may disagree with the politics of the British Labour Party, but it does not follow that we should condone the slaughter of all leaders and members of Hamas, their families, government employees, and random members of the Palestinian population which elected them to power, any more than we would condone the slaughter of all leaders and members of the Labour Party, their families, government employees, and random members of the British population which elected them to power. The fact that the US and EU cannot see this equivalence demonstrates that they are dominated by the same racism which allowed slavery to flourish and the indigenous peoples of North America and Australia to be exterminated. Where Black people are killing Black people, as in Rwanda, or White people are killing White people, as in Bosnia, there is a chance that the UN may take action, however weak and belated. But where White people are killing Third World peoples, as in Palestine, there is no hope that it will take any action unless citizens of the world put massive pressure on their governments to support a solution which can bring justice and peace to Palestine/Israel. It is good that there have been worldwide protests against the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, but a ceasefire would be no better than putting a sticking plaster over a festering wound, which will only erupt again sooner or later. The wound cannot heal until the infection has been eliminated by replacing the Apartheid state with a democratic one, and long-term, concerted action is required to achieve that goal.


Notes

(1) 'Israeli minister warns of Palestinian 'holocaust', Guardian, 29 February 2008, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/29/israelandthepalestinians1

(2) A.K.Ramakrishnan, 'Mahatma Gandhi Rejected Zionism,' The Wisdom Fund, 15 August 2001, www.twf.org/News/Y2001/0815-GandhiZionism.html

(3) The debates as well as the methods by which the ethnic cleansing of Palestine was achieved are meticulously recorded in Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2007

(4) See the One Democratic State Group website at www.odsg.org/

(5) 'On Sderot and Ashkelon,' Jews sans Frontiers, 30 December 2008, http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2008/12/on-sderot-and-ashkelon.html

(6) For this argument see Ilan Pappe, 'Genocide in Gaza, Ethnic Cleansing In the West Bank, 28 January 2008, http://www.countercurrents.org/pappe280108.htm

(7) Stephen Lendman, 'Obama v. Richard Falk on Israel and Occupied Palestine,' Countercurrents, 24 December 2008, http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman241208.htm

(8) Gideon Levy, 'Twilight Zone / "Worse than Apartheid",' Haaretz, 12 July 2008, www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1000976.html

(9) For details of the BDS campaign, see Global BDS Movement – Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions for Palestine, http://www.bdsmovement.net/ The website of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) also has suggestions for action, including signing a petition in support of UN General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, who has spoken out to condemn Israeli apartheid and called for boycott, divestment and sanctions www.ijsn.net/ Information about companies linked to Israel can also be found in the Boycott Apartheid Israel leaflet published by the Friends of Al Aqsa at http://www.aqsa.org.uk/Portals/0/Leaflets/LF_24_Boycott.pdf

(10) See Joseph Massad, 'The Gaza Ghetto Uprising,' The Electronic Intifada, 4 January 2009, http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10110.shtml

# # # ## #

Jack Stone, read these "lies"!

The Long and Bloody Hypocrisy of U.S.-Israeli Acts of Terrorism
By Robert Parry

Israel, a nation that was born out of Zionist terrorism, has launched massive airstrikes against targets in Gaza using high-tech weapons produced by the United States, a country that often has aided and abetted terrorism by its client military forces, such as Chile's Operation Condor and the Nicaraguan contras, and even today harbors right-wing Cuban terrorists implicated in blowing up a civilian airliner.

Yet, with that moral ambiguity excluded from the debate, the justification for the Israeli attacks, which have killed at least 364 people, is the righteous fight against "terrorism," since Gaza is ruled by the militant Palestinian group, Hamas.

Hamas rose to power in January 2006 through Palestinian elections, which ironically the Bush administration had demanded. However, after Hamas won a parliamentary majority, Israel and the United States denounced the outcome because they deem Hamas a "terrorist organization."

Hamas then wrested control of Gaza from Fatah, a rival group that once was considered "terrorist" but is now viewed as a U.S.-Israeli partner, so it has been cleansed of the "terrorist" label.

Unwilling to negotiate seriously with Hamas because of its acts of terrorism -- which have included firing indiscriminate short-range missiles into southern Israel -- the United States and Israel sat back as the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza worsened, with 1.5 million impoverished Palestinians packed into what amounts to a giant open-air prison.

When Hamas ended a temporary cease-fire on Dec. 19 because of a lack of progress in those negotiations and began lobbing its little missiles into Israel once more, the Israeli government reacted on Saturday with its lethal "shock and awe" firepower -- even though no Israelis had been killed by the post-cease-fire missiles launched from Gaza. [Since Saturday, four Israelis have died in more intensive Hamas missile attacks.]

Israel claimed that its smart bombs targeted sites related to the Hamas security forces, including a school for police cadets and even regular policemen walking down the street. But it soon became clear that Israel was taking an expansive view of what was part of the Hamas military infrastructure, with Israeli bombs taking out a television station and a university building as well as killing a significant number of civilians.

As the slaughter continued on Monday, Israeli officials confided to Western journalists that the war plan was to destroy the vast support network of social and other programs that undergird Hamas's political clout.

"There are many aspects of Hamas, and we are trying to hit the whole spectrum, because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel," a senior Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Washington Post.

"Hamas's civilian infrastructure is a very, very sensitive target," added Matti Steinberg, a former top adviser to Israel's domestic security service. "If you want to put pressure on them, this is how." [Washington Post, Dec. 30, 2008]

Since the classic definition of "terrorism" is the use of violence against civilians to achieve a political goal, Israel would seem to be inviting an objective analysis that it has chosen its own terrorist path. But it is clearly counting on the U.S. news media to continue wearing the blinders that effectively limit condemnations about terrorism to people and groups that are regarded as Washington's enemies.

Whose Terrorism?

As a Washington-based reporter for the Associated Press in the 1980s, I once questioned the seeming bias that the U.S.-based wire service applied to its use of the word "terrorist" when covering Middle East issues. A senior AP executive responded to my concerns with a quip. "Terrorist is the word that follows Arab," he said.

Though meant as a lighthearted riposte, the comment clearly had a great deal of truth to it. It was easy to attach "terrorist" to any Arab attack -- even against a military target such as the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 after the Reagan administration had joined hostilities against Muslim forces by having U.S. warships lob shells into Lebanese villages.

But it was understood that different rules on the use of the word "terrorism" applied when the terrorism was coming from "our side." Then, no American reporter with any sense of career survival would think of injecting the word "terrorist" whatever the justification.

Even historical references to acts of terrorism -- such as the brutal practice by American revolutionaries in the 1770s of "tar and feathering" civilians considered sympathetic to the British Crown or the extermination of American Indian tribes -- were seen as somehow diluting the moral righteousness against today's Islamic terrorists and in favor of George W. Bush's "war on terror."

Gone, too, from the historical narrative was the fact that militant Zionists employed terrorism as part of their campaign to establish Israel as a Jewish state. The terrorism included killings of British officials who were administering Palestine under an international mandate as well as Palestinians who were driven violently from their land so it could be claimed by Jewish settlers.

One of the most famous of those terrorist attacks was the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem where British officials were staying. The attack, which killed 91 people including local residents, was carried out by the Irgun, a terrorist group run by Menachem Begin who later founded the Likud Party and rose to be Israel's prime minister.

Another veteran of the campaign of Zionist terrorism was Yitzhak Shamir, who also became a Likud leader and eventually prime minister.

In the early 1990s, as I was waiting to interview Shamir at his Tel Aviv office, I was approached by one of his young female assistants who was dressed in a gray and blue smock with a head covering in the traditional Hebrew style.

As we were chatting, she smiled and said in a lilting voice, "Prime Minister Shamir, he was a terrorist, you know." I responded with a chuckle, "yes, I'm aware of the prime minister's biography."

Blind Spot

To maintain one's moral purity in denouncing acts of terror by U.S. enemies, one also needs a large blind spot for recent U.S. history, which implicates U.S. leaders repeatedly in tolerance or acts of terrorism.

For instance, in 1973, after a bloody U.S.-backed coup overthrew the leftist Chilean government, the new regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet joined with other South American dictatorships to sponsor an international terrorist organization called Operation Condor which assassinated political dissidents around the world.

Operation Condor mounted one of its most audacious actions on the streets of Washington in 1976, when Pinochet's regime recruited Cuban-American terrorists to detonate a car bomb that killed Chile's former foreign minister Orlando Letelier and an American co-worker, Ronni Moffitt. The Chilean government's role immediately was covered up by the CIA, then headed by George H.W. Bush. [For details, see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege.]

Only weeks later, a Venezuela-based team of right-wing Cubans -- under the direction of Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles -- blew a Cubana Airliner out of the sky, killing 73 people. Bosch and Posada, a former CIA operative, were co-founders of CORU, which was described by the FBI as "an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization."

Though the U.S. government soon learned of the role of Bosch and Posada in the Cubana airline attack -- and the two men spent some time in a Venezuelan jail -- both Bosch and Posada since have enjoyed the protection of the U.S. government and particularly the Bush Family.

Rebuffing international demands that Bosch and Posada be held accountable for their crimes, the Bushes -- George H.W., George W. and Jeb -- have all had a hand in making sure these unrepentant terrorists get to live out their golden years in the safety and comfort of the United States.

In the 1980s, Posada even crossed over into another U.S.-backed terrorist organization, the Nicaraguan contras. After escaping from Venezuela, he was put to work in 1985 by Oliver North's contra-support operation run out of Ronald Reagan's National Security Council.

The Nicaraguan contras were, in effect, a narco-terrorist organization that partially funded its operations with proceeds from cocaine trafficking, a secret that the Reagan administration worked hard to conceal along with the contras' record of murder, torture, rape and other crimes in Nicaragua. [See Parry's Lost History.]

President Reagan joined, too, in fierce PR campaigns to discredit human rights investigators who documented massive atrocities by U.S. allies in Central America in the 1980s -- not only the contras, but also the state terrorism of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan security forces, which engaged in wholesale slaughters in villages considered sympathetic to leftist insurgents.

Generally, the major U.S. news outlets treaded very carefully when allegations arose about terrorism by "our side."

When some brave journalists, like New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner, wrote about politically motivated killings of civilians in Central America, they faced organized retaliation by right-wing advocacy groups which often succeeded in damaging or destroying the reporters' careers.

Double Standards

Eventually, the American press corps developed an engrained sense of the double standards. Moral outrage could be expressed when acts of terrorism were committed by U.S. enemies, while studied silence -- or nuanced concern -- would be in order when the crimes were by U.S. allies.

So, while the U.S. news media had no doubt that the 9/11 terrorist attacks justified invading Afghanistan, there was very little U.S. media criticism when President Bush inflicted his "shock and awe" assault on Iraq, a war that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths.

Though many Muslims and others around the world have denounced Bush's Iraq invasion as "state terrorism," such a charge would be considered far outside the mainstream in the United States. Instead, Iraqi insurgents are often labeled "terrorists" when they attack U.S. troops inside Iraq. The word "terrorist" has become, in effect, a geopolitical curse word.

Despite the long and bloody history of U.S.-Israeli participation in terrorism, the U.S. news media continues its paradigm of pitting the U.S.-Israeli "good guys" against the Islamic "bad guys." One side has the moral high ground and the other is in the moral gutter. [For more on the U.S. media's one-sided approach, see the analysis by Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher.]

Any attempt to cite the larger, more ambiguous and more troubling picture draws accusations from defenders of U.S.-Israeli actions, especially the neoconservatives, of what they call "moral equivalence" or "anti-Semitism."

Yet it is now clear that acquiescence to a double standard on terrorism is not just a violation of journalistic ethics or an act of political cowardice; it is complicity in mass murder. Without the double standard, it is hard to envision how the bloodbaths -- in Iraq (since 2003), in Lebanon (in 2006) and in Gaza (today) -- would be possible.

Hypocrisy over the word "terrorism" is not an innocent dispute over semantics; it kills.

Robert Parry's new book is Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq."

© 2009 Consortium News All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/116726/

Who Put Hate in My Sunday Paper?

Who put hate in my Sunday Paper?

The majority of Americans and Israelis are being duped by the Neocons. This group is bent on creating chaos and have consistently messed up peace in the Middle East and elsewhere. Imagine the world without them? They buy our Congressman and Senators and of course, like the obedient dogs, they sing the songs of the hand that feeds them, rather than looking at the genuine interests of America and Israel. Peace is not in their interests, peace does not give them a nice chunk of money, chaos does. We need to ask this group to take a vacation and see how much better the world would be without them, if we can pull some money and feed these rascals on their vacation, they will be happy and the world would be peaceful.

Their actions, rather pretensions to protect Israel and America's interest have hurt both the nations. Frightening and threatening others does not bring peace or security but a constant threat. It is time for the majority of the people of America and Israel to understand that they the Neocons are the cause of chaos and insecurity. Imagine the world without them.

Has anything good ever come out of these people? It is time for them to take a back seat and let peace and prosperity prevail. If Daniel Pipes can work for peace he will be very successful, as he is successful in creating hate, chaos and a disturbance in the society. May God give him sense to work for peace and security of America and Israel.

http://www.sociologyofislam.org

Who Put Hate in My Sunday Paper?
Written by Omid Safi

Monday, 29 September 2008

Uncovering the Israeli-Republican-Evangelical Networks behind the “Obsession” DVD

Something strange has been showing up inside the Sunday newspapers of millions of Americans the past few weeks. The material being included alongside comics, coupons, and advertisement for local stores is a controversial DVD called “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” Some 28 million copies of this DVD have been distributed for free so far in this fashion. In some ways the scale of this campaign, and its ideological venom, are unprecedented: many newspapers state that they had never previously distributed free DVDs as inserts, certainly nothing with such a charged content. The copies were distributed not randomly across the country, but in the “swing states” (Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, etc.) that are seen as a toss-up in the November Presidential elections between McCain and Obama. Obviously, someone is trying to influence the American electorate by playing on fear-mongering and hate-mongering themes. But who? Who is behind this massive, multi-million dollar campaign?

Answering that question proved harder than one might think, as the groups behind this DVD have worked hard to hide their tracks. The connections, which are partially concealed in the DVD and the distribution campaign, take one from groups in Israel, to pro-Israel lobby organizations in the United States, to Christian evangelical groups, and to Neoconservative think-tanks.

The “facts” presented by Obsession have already been refuted in several detailed presentations. For example, see the work of Obsessionwithhate.com and that of Sheila Musaji, as well as Altmuslim.com. Therefore, I am not going to make a point by point refutation of the contents of the DVD. My intention is to explore the networks that are behind the production and distribution of this DVD, with their clear goal of influencing the 2008 Presidential elections towards John McCain.

***

All politics is local, as well as global. That is particularly the case here. The distribution of the DVD affected me and my family at an intimate local level: up to 160,000 copies of this propaganda piece were distributed through our local community in North Carolina. The newspaper of the nearby city of Charlotte, distributed another 200,000 copies.

Upon contacting the local newspaper, the Raleigh-based News and Observer, and asking why such a hateful piece of propaganda was being distributed for free to all the subscribers, the response of the paper was less than impressive. Jim McClure, vice president of display advertising for The News and Observer, said: "Obviously, we have distributed other product samples, whether it's cereal or toothpaste."

Really? Is this where we are? That a DVD which includes 77 minutes of propaganda footage slicing together videos of violent Muslims with those of Nazis, suggesting that Muslims are out to destroy Western civilization, is comparable to cereal and toothpaste? Puhleeze...

The claims of the DVD, which claims to be an educational product and part of a non-profit production, are as follows:

*That the world stands today as it did in 1938. Radical Islam is as great, if not greater, of a threat than the Nazis presented to the world. And action [not specified] must be taken.

*That the attacks in Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya, and Iran present a global Muslim conspiracy against Israel and “The West.”

*A distinctive feature of the DVD is in fact the linking together of threat of radical Islam with passionate defense of Israel. Most of the figures who are paraded in the DVD, whether they are Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, are all passionate pro-Israel speakers who have a long legacy of speaking against Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims in general. The list includes such luminaries as:

• “Former PLO Terrorist Who Speaks Out For Israel”, Walid Shoebat, who claims to have been a “former Islamic terrorist” turned Christian Evangelical Zionist. Never mind that the Jerusalem Post has already dismissed the factuality of his claims.

• Nonie Darwish, with the tell-all website: http://www.arabsforisrael.com/ “Arabs for Israel”? Darwish also neglects to mention that she is another ex-Muslim turned both Christian and ardent supporter of Israel. In a world when virtually all Arabs and most Muslims view the Palestinian/Israeli tragedy as the burning political and moral issue of our time, how many Arabs in the world can be claimed as being passionate supporters of Israel?

• Carline Glick, a member of Israel On Campus Coalition.

• Daniel Pipes. If the Pro-Israel/Neo-conservative unholy alliance had a poster-child, Pipes would be it. Pipes is the most noted Islamophobe operating in the US. Pipes is also the Director of a Pro-Israel entity called “The Middle East Forum.” As for his one-sided commitment to Israel credentials, suffice it to say that he is the 2006 recipient of the “Guardian of Zion” award.

One could go on and on, but the above should give some indication that contrary to what the Clarion Fund claims on its website, the “experts” paraded on TV are not impartial and objective. They have a definite point of view, a passionate defense of Israel at all cost, even if that cost happens to be truth and facts.

Who Made this DVD?

Let’s come back to the claim of the local newspaper, that the distribution of this product is qualitatively no different than putting a free sample of toothpaste in the Sunday paper. For the sake of argument, let us take that analogy and go with it. How many of us would receive an unmarked package of toothpaste, and brush our teeth with it if it carries no label, no description of who has made it, and no account of whether any agency has vouched for its safety? If we do not take unmarked material to our teeth, why would we take a product like Obsession which refuses to disclose the network behind it into our hearts, into our schools, synagogues, mosques, churches, and civic institutions?

The Obsession DVD states that it is made by “Clarion Fund”. What does the Clarion Fund stand for? And who exactly are they? Their intentions are made a bit clearer through the use of their registered website: www.radicalislam.org. What exactly does “radical Islam” constitute? Who stands for it, and who opposes it? We are not told, aside from this: “Radical Islam poses a significant threat to the Western way of life. The Islamists’ ultimate aim is conversion and domination of the West, which they see as the root of all evil that must be eradicated.” This type of labeling without defining is as unhelpful as accusations of “Communist” in the 1950’s, or “unpatriotic” and “un-American” more recently. It is a catch-all, bogey man argument that is masquerading as analysis.

Who has produced the Obsession DVD? On the Obsession The Movie website, the producer is identified as Raphael Shore, who “is a documentary producer and founder of Clarion Fund, Inc., a new non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about national security threats.” Very well. So Raphael Shore is the founder of Clarion Fund, and the producer of Obsession. But who is Raphael Shore? This required a good bit of background research:

Raphael Shore and Aish HaTorah

Raphael Shore is part of a missionary Israeli “Jewish penitent” (baal teshuva) group, called Aish HaTorah (“Fire of the Torah”), whose mission has been to call “assimilated” Jews back to Judaism. They have been given 40% of the land in front of the “Western Wall” in Jerusalem by the Israeli government. In other words, they are very good terms with the Israeli regime, which is responsible for the demolishing of homes, non-issuing of building permits, and occupation in Palestine. Their founder, Rabbi Noah Weinberg has received recognition from the mayor of Jerusalem.

When we dig a bit deeper, it turns out that Raphael Shore, a Canadian rabbi, is also the director of the International wing of Aish HaTorah. His business card is available as a PDF on line:

Rabbi Raphael Shore

Director, Aish HaTorah International
Outreach Programs

One Western Wall Plaza
Old City, Jerusalem
Israel, 97500

So does this Obsession DVD fall within the purview of Aish HaTorah’s “outreach”? Given the intertwined nature of the political and the religious in Israel, it seems that Aish HaTorah has gone from evangelizing to Jews to waging a global propaganda campaign against Islam and Muslims, while also working hard to cover its tracks, as we shall see.

The connections between Aish HaTorah and Clarion Fund go even deeper. According to the paperwork filed with the Delaware state authorities, Clarion uses the same address as Aish HaTorah in New York. In 2006, the two directors of the Clarion Fund were Rabbi Shore and Jacob Fetman, who was also Aish HaTorah’s Chief Financial Officer. In 2007, it had three directors: Rabbi Shore, Rabbi Harris (who is the educational director for Aish HaTorah), and Rebecca Kabat, another Aish HaTorah employee.

The Israeli paper Haaretz noted that the Obsession DVD “has a largely Jewish and pro-Israel distribution network, though Shore is trying to expand the film's appeal.” As we shall see, this he accomplished by reaching out to Neoconservatives and Christian Zionists, but first some more on the film’s Pro-Israel distribution network.

Hasbara Fellowship and Honestreporting.com

Raphael Shore is also the director of Hasbara Fellowships, a group with the transparent website: http://www.israelactivism.com/ Here there is another connection to Aish HaTorah, as Hasbara is part of the Aish HaTorah network. And their activism on behalf of Israel is worn like a badge of honor.

The pattern is beginning to become clearer: how is it that a group with the stated goal of “Israel activism” is placing 28 million copies of a DVD warning Americans about the danger of “radical Islam”? In many of the screenings of this DVD, the audience was required to sign up for receiving material from the israelactivism.com website. How come 70 US newspapers accepted this DVD without doing the basic research to uncover the source (and prejudice) of this propaganda?

Hasbara Fellowship’s own websites includes the following pieces of information about their genealogy and mission. All of the following are direct quotes:
• “Hasbara Fellowships, a program spearheaded by Aish International, educates and trains university students to be effective pro-Israel activists on their campuses.”
>in other words, they freely acknowledge the link to Aish HoTorah International.

• “Started in 2001 in conjunction with Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hasbara Fellowships brings hundreds of students to Israel every summer and winter.”
>This is perhaps the most intriguing connection and startling confession, that Hasbara has a direct connection to the Israeli regime’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which acts as the official and national propaganda center for the Israeli state. To recapitulate, there is a direct link between the Obsession DVD and the Israeli state through Hasbara Fellowship.

• ”So far, Hasbara Fellowships has trained over 1,400 students on over 250 campuses, providing its participants with the information, tools, resources, and confidence to return to their campuses as leaders in the fight for Israel's image.”
>This points to the acknowledgement that the struggle over Palestine/Israel is going to be fought—rhetorically, one hopes—on college campuses. In fact, college campuses formed the primary site of the distribution of the Obsession DVD before the newspaper campaign. The primary audience on college campuses have been Jewish organizations (like Hillel) and College Republicans. We will come back to this connection between Jewish groups and Republicans later. Shore himself has stated that: “The evangelical Christians and the Jews tend to be the softest market…”.

Raphael Shore has previously written at length about his passionate advocacy on behalf of Israel on the pages of Aish HaTorah’s newsletter. His earlier works had been produced alongside an entity called “Honestreporting.com”, with a self-description as follows: “Israel is in the midst of a battle for public opinion – waged primarily via the media. To ensure Israel is represented fairly and accurately 'HonestReporting' monitors the media, exposes cases of bias, promotes balance, and effects change through education and action.” In other words, Honestreporting.com sees itself as a media advocacy organization on behalf of Israel, with the requisite “Fair and Balanced” claims. Honestreporting.com has worked with Clarion Fund and Aish HaTorah in producing more pro-Israel material. And it is a family affair: the founder of Honestreporting is Rabbi Raphael Shore’s twin brother, Ephraim Shore. [Ironically, Raphael was so concerned that his brother had become involved with Aish HaTorah that in 1992 he went to Israel to “rescue” his brother from he seems to have regarded as a “big hoax”, and a cult-like milieu. Instead, Raphael too became part of Aish HaTorah!]

Haaretz reported that “Obsession” is described as “Honest Reporting's newest documentary film.” Honestreporting.com’s own website confirms this: “HonestReporting is proud to have been a former marketing partner during the initial production of this award-winning documentary.”

Shore, recognizing that the credibility of his propaganda would be undermined if its correction to Israeli-spin organizations were revealed, told Haaretz (in an unusually frank slip) that they “have told Honest Reporting to take it off their site ‘a dozen times.’” The connections between Obsession and Israeli groups like Aish HaTorah and Jewish advocacy groups on behalf of Israel like Hasbara Fellowship and Honestyreporting.com is beyond dispute. The producers of the documentary just don’t want you to know about it.

One of the other elements that the producers of the Obsession DVD may not want you to know about is their political agenda. The article read: "McCain's policies seek to confront radical Islamic extremism and terrorism and roll it back while [Barack] Obama's, although intending to do the same, could in fact make the situation facing the West even worse."

The spokesperson for the Clarion Fund, Gregory Ross, did not deny that this article had appeared on their site, he was only upset that they had been caught with it! The Clarion Fund has been established as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. These types of non-profit organizations are not to endorse one political candidate over another, precisely what Clarion seems to have done, and is now busy hiding its track records. NPR reported on this, and the possibility of a forthcoming FEC probe.

Who is paying for the “Obsession Project”?

We do not know for sure, and the Clarion Fund people are not saying. They admit that the names they give for the funders on their material are bogus aliases. Shore states that 80% of the funding for the Obsession DVD has come from one source, a “Peter Mier”. Yet he goes on to say that these are just aliases! In other words, it is hard to know for sure who is paying for the production and even more importantly the distribution of what the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), the main distributor for Obsession, refers to as the “Obsession Project.”

Given that EMET estimates that this project cost tens of millions of dollars, the signs seem to point to none other than Sheldon Adelson, the Jewish Republican billionaire, discussed below.

Who Distributes the DVD?

According the New York Times, when Shore and Co. could not find any traditional distributor for their propaganda, they formulated a strategy of working with Neo-Conservative organizations like Heritage, College Republicans, and above all, Jewish organizations.

NPR has reported that an organization called Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), is also responsible for distribution of the Obsession DVD. Like Honestreporting.com, the “Middle East Truth” being bandied about here is yet another self-described Zionist/pro-Israel understanding of the reality whose policies are in line with Likud militant expansionism, with the stated mission of support for Israel, and opposing any “concessions” from Israel as part of a peace agreement with Palestinians, even the withdrawal from the occupied territory of Gaza. The positions of EMET are the positions of Likud party in Israel, and that of the illegal Settler movement. It was EMET that on March 25th, 2008 sponsored a showing of Obsession on Capitol Hill.

Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET),, the distributor for Obsession, also has an open connection to the Republican Party, which they flaunt on their website: “EMET was also requested to help the Republican Policy Committee with a Sense of the Congress resolution talking about Israel’s inherent right to defend itself…” In other words, Clarion Fund claims to be non-political, but uses a pro-Israel ally of Republicans to distribute its product.

Leading the work of this Endowment has been Sarah Stern, who formerly worked as the National Policy Coordinator for the Zionist Organization of America and later on served as the Director of the Office of Legislative and Governmental Affairs of the AJC (American Jewish Congress).

In short, the distributors of the Obsession DVD are the most ardent and fanatical supporters of Israeli Likud militant expansionism, a fact that the Obsession DVD conveniently omits, and the newspapers who spread the 28 million copies of this DVD like a virus never looked into. EMET also has a cozy relationship with the right-wing Jewish billionaire Sheldon G. Adelson, who has a proven track record of using his wealth to push both Israeli Likud-type and Republican agendas. Adelson has a long-standing and public relationship with the arch-Likud Netanyahu that Haaretz has reported on previously. A recent investigative piece in the New Yorker proved many details of Adelson’s political agenda in both the United States and Israel. Adelson, who owns many casinos in Las Vegas, has been a longtime contributor to the Zionist Organization of America, Sarah Stern’s former employer. Now that Stern is at EMET, she has sponsored lecture series and seminars on Capital Hill in name of Adelson, to extend his influence into the Congress.

Adelson is usually listed as by Forbes as the third richest American, and the sixth richest person in the world. His personal wealth is estimated as exceeding $20 billion. The Washington Post reports that he has already given over 200 million dollars to Jewish and Israeli causes, including the Birthright program, to which he makes a $25 million annual contribution.

To place Adelson on the political spectrum, it is good to recall that he has described himself as a critic of AIPAC—from the far right! In other words, he feels that AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) has been too soft on Palestinians. (!) Adelson has been a longtime contributor to Jewish and Republican causes, including the campaigns of George W. Bush. Initially, he had designs of spending $250 million dollars to set up an organization called Freedom Watch to keep Obama out of the White House. Freedom Watch, conceived of as the Right’s answer to Moveon.org, has been a meeting ground between Jewish Republicans and former officials of the George W. Bush administration. Such is the agenda of Adelson, the person whose influence is behind the EMET folks distributing the Obsession DVD.

Who else serves on the board of EMET (Endowment for Middle East), the Pro-Israeli lobby group? A who’s who of Israeli officials and ultra-Zionists in the United States:

• Ambassador Yossi Ben-Aharon: Formerly, the Chief of Staff for Ytzak Shamir, and Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

• Ambassador Yoram Ettinger. “Minister for Congressional Affairs at Israel's Embassy in Washington (with a rank of an ambassador), Israel's Consul General in Houston and Director of Israel's Government Press Office.”

• Lenny Ben-David: “Israel's Deputy Chief of Mission (number two diplomat) in Washington after being appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”, who in addition has “held senior posts in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for 25 years, in both Washington and Israel.”

In addition to Israeli officials, the EMET Board also includes:
• Neo-Conservatives such as R. James Woolsey, Frank Gaffney (another Neo-Con who has received awards from the Zionist Organization of America), Ariel Cohen (from the Neo-Conservative bastion Heritage), David Dalin (from the Neo-Con Hoover Institute and also Heritage).

• Ardent pro-Israel lobbyists such as: Daniel Pipes, Caroline Glick (deputy managing editor of Jerusalem Post), Meyrav Wurmser (the former director of the highly biased MEMRI, a propaganda organization founded by members of the Israeli Defense Force), Also serving on the Board of EMET are many of the “talking heads” would-be experts of Obsession, such as Walid Shoebat.

• Christian Zionists: EMET also reaches out to Christians—or one should specify, Christian Zionists—by featuring Rev. James. M. Hutchens, who founded an organization called The Jerusalem Connection International.

There are many more connections to pro-Israel organizations responsible for the distribution of Obsession:
• The producer, Raphael Shore, used Karyn Leffel from Hasbara Fellowship to establish links on college campuses. Yes, the same Hasbara of Pro-Israel media advocacy.
• The producers of Obsession also worked with the most lunatic fringes of the Christian evangelical movement to distribute their propaganda. This included above all else Christians United For Israel (CUFI), who mailed out many copies of the DVD from their mailing center. And the Founder and National Director of Christians United For Israel? None other than the same pastor John Hagee that McCain had initially sought an endorsement from. The same John Hagee who routinely describes Islam as evil, and sees the restoration of Israel as a necessary step towards the return of Christ. Hagee is one of the leading Christian Zionists in America today, and those who know about the tortured history of this variety of Zionism know how easily it has veered towards anti-Semitism, even justifying Hitler as being God’s hunters to drive Jews out of Europe to Israel, so that the Israeli state could be established (thus anticipating Christ’s return).
• Clarion Fund has also worked with other Republican groups to distribute their propaganda. NPR reported that a political consultant named Joe Wierzbicki was screening the film on 9/11 in Dearborn, MI. Who is paying for the screening and hiring Wierzbicki? Interestingly enough, Wierzbicki is the PAC coordinator for an organization called “Our Country Deserves Better”, with one specific goal: to defeat Barack Obama. Their website states: “Our Country Deserves Better than Barack Obama - and with your help we can ensure that Barack Obama is defeated on November 4th.”

The lines of connection between the makers of the allegedly impartial and non-profit Obsession and politically partial Republican groups and pro-Israeli expansionist Jewish organizations continues to grow…

• The last of the verified connections so far is between the producers of Obsession and the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC). The RJC worked hand in hand with Christians United For Israel to mail out copies of a book titled Standing With Israel to a large number of American Rabbis and leaders of the Jewish community. The package also included a copy of the Obsession DVD, and an approving letter from a former Israeli ambassador to Jews, encouraging them to strengthen connections with Christian Zionists.

The Republican Jewish Coalition is yet another group that the Clarion Fund and the Endowment for Middle Eastern Truth has worked which has taken a partial political position for the forthcoming election. On their website, the Republican Jewish Coalition states that Barack Obama and Joe Biden and their supporters “have handed Ahmadenijad [sic] a big win.”

***

Islam or Radical Islam?

Perhaps a word should be added here about the distinction between Islam and Radical Islam. In the last few years, we have indeed seen a number of terrorist acts around the world which have resulted in the death of thousands. While the bulk of these have not emanated from Islamic organizations, many have. (Of course the majority of the victims of acts of terrorism even in these latter cases have been other Muslims.) No doubt, a critical look at the ideology of terrorist groups is more than called for in today’s political climate. What many would object to, however, is painting all Muslims and all of Islam with the same brush.

The Obsession DVD opens by making a sharp distinction between Islam and Radical Islam. The producers of the documentary state, adamantly, that they are not anti-islam or anti-Muslim, but that they are only against “Radical Islam.” Leaving aside for a moment the debates over what constitutes “radical Islam”, and how pervasive it actually is, there is an uncomfortable disconnect between this claim on their website and the claims made inside the DVD: the people paraded as would-be experts do not in fact share this neat dichotomy between Islam and “Radical Islam.” The many speakers paraded here have a documented history of making blanket statements against Islam—all of Islam—and all of Muslims.

Let’s take one example, the very first speaker shown on camera: Walid Shoebat.

Shoebat’s claim to fame is that he claims to be an ex-“Islamic terrorist”, turned Christian and lover of Zion. If he claims to have produced bombs to kill citizens, why is he not in prison? Muslims are routinely jailed for much less and indirect accusations. Nevertheless, let us examine Shoebat’s track record regarding some of his more audacious claims about Islam (not just “radical Islam”):

• That Obama is a Muslim. Yes, that old myth again. Sadly, some 13% of American citizens believe this to the case, in spite of the fact that Obama is a committed Christian. Who knows how many more people are moved against Obama due to this rumor, which both Hillary and the Republicans have spread against him.

• “The Arabic speaking communities in America, however, do indeed support Osama bin Ladin and Hamas.” [For some reason, Afghans and Iranians do not, he states.] Shoebat goes on to say: “The less they know about Islam the more peaceful they are.” In other words, the Islamophobic assertions that peaceful Muslims are not peaceful because of Islam, but in spite of Islam; where as “radical Muslims” are precisely radical and violent because of Islam. Something about that logic seems flawed, since it deprives human beings of the agency to actually interpret their own tradition in both beautiful and hideous ways.

• He has been even more forceful in asserting that Islam is evil. His exact words: "Islam is not the religion of God -- Islam is the devil." Let us be explicit here: The Obsession DVD claims that it is not targeting Islam, it is targeting “Radical Islam.” The first person featured in the DVD sings a different tune, literally demonizing all of Islam.

• Shoebat’s solution to Palestine/Israel, as told to the right-wing “Religious Zionist” Israel National News (the voice of the illegal Settler movement in West Bank and Gaza) is as follows: tear down the Dome of the Rock, and reestablish the Solomon’s Temple on the Temple Mount. The Settler radio embraced him as “the former terrorist turned lover of Zion.” The question is whether this is the kind of person that one should take impartial advice from. It makes as much sense as taking advice about Judaism or African-American history from David Duke.

For one other example, we could look at another of the talking heads in the documentary, the Lebanese Christian Brigitte Gabriel, who appeared before the Christians United For Israel conference on July 27th 2007 (sponsored by Pastor Hagee) and opined:

The difference, my dear Christian friends, between Israel and the Arab world is quite simply the difference between civilization and barbarism. It’s the difference between good and evil and this is what we’re witnessing in the Arabic and Islamic world. I am angry. They have no SOUL! They are dead set on killing and destruction. And in the name of something they call “Allah,” which is very different from the God we believe in, because our God is the God of love.

No fair-minded person would take Gabriel’s hateful words as authoritative teachings of the Christian tradition, or as exemplifying Christian love. And yet the producers of Obsession want the viewers to take Gabriel as an authoritative expert on Islam and Muslims. Somehow when Gabriel describes the whole “Islamic world” as having “no soul”, I suspect that we are no longer in the realm of “we are not talking about Islam, we are talking about Islamic radicals” position that the producers of Obsession hide behind. No wonder that the NY Times described her as a “radical Islamophobe.”

Christ reminded us that by their fruits (and words) you shall know them. And the words of these hate-filled so-called experts speak for themselves.

Conclusion

The massive scale of the Obsession campaign raises a number of disturbing questions: it does point to the ease with which foreign groups from Israel have established non-profit organizations in the United States to sway US elections by working with fringe from the pro-Israel lobby, Republican, and Evangelical community. While their ideology is marginal, their wealth and influence is anything but marginal. Non-profit organizations seeking to exert a political influence is not illegal, but non-profits seeking to endorse political candidates and swaying elections is, and this is precisely what the network behind the Obsession DVD seeks to do.

The “Obsession Project” also does point to the eroding standards of journalism. Why has mainstream American journalism been so slow to pick up on these networks, all of which are publicly available, with some investigation?

The Obsession Project also points to the ever-increasingly poisonous political climate in our country, where demonizing an entire ethnic or religious community seems to be becoming more and more commonplace. We have seen African-Americans, Hispanic, Muslims, Gays and Lesbians, and others characterized in such a fashion. Perhaps no community in the West has been the victims of millennia-long persecution and “Other-ing” campaigns as has the Jewish community. That makes it all the more devastating, and disappointing, that centrally-situated and powerful Jewish organizations from both Israel and the United States are now deploying the same Other-ing strategies against other minority groups, with hardly a voice of dissent being heard from other Jewish organizations. Indeed, Obsession is already tearing down bridges of dialogue between Muslim and Jewish groups across the country that had taken years to establish.

It is readily admitted that Israel remains both a rallying cry and a source of tension for many American Jewish organizations and American Jews. There are important fissures in the American Jewish community over all issues, including that of Israel. No one group speaks for all American Jews, who have often had an exemplary legacy of peace and justice activism. Indeed, one can point to many American Jews who have taken the lead in criticism of Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians. One important question that has yet to be answered is whether propaganda like Obsession will be met with silence by the Jewish community, or if it will be spoken against by all (Muslims, Jews, Christians, etc.) who are committed to peace and social justice.

Lastly, we do note from historical experience that campaigns like this tend to increasingly lower the bar of what is acceptable speech as opposed to “hate speech.” Make no mistake about it: there will be follow up projects. The Clarion Fund has already declared that its next project is a documentary titled The Third Jihad. The synopsis is as follows: “How is radical Islam operating inside the West? Is a subversive ‘cultural jihad’ underway? How does radical Islam plan to bring America to its knees? What is the endgame?” This documentary is set for an October 2008 release date. In other words, if Obsession was about the danger of Radical Islam “over there”, Third Jihad will make the case that this same threat exists “over here.” One shudders at the thought of the hate these pieces of propaganda are producing against members of the American Muslim community.

We can either keep going down this slippery slope of accusations and blanket generalizations, or we can bond together and rise up to say Enough! The point is not only that Muslims are being targeted, it is the very poisoning of our cultural discourse, and our hopes for a pluralistic American society that can welcome and embrace pluralism. To quote Martin Luther King, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.” What we need now is less of the hateful heat of Obsession (and its networks), and more light from all of us who are committed to a just and pluralistic future for all of us.

Towards that day, starting today….

Omid Safi
Professor of Religious Studies
University of North Carolina

Chair for the Study of Islam Section
American Academy of Religion*

Contact: omid@email.unc.eduThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

*The opinions here are the personal opinions of the author, and do not reflect University of North Carolina or the American Academy of Religion.

http://omidsafi.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=9

Obesssion DVD and CAIR

CAIR’s Indifference to Obsession DVD Distribution
by Sheila Musaji

This week, 28 million copies of a DVD of the film “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” will be distributed free of cost in newspapers across the country. I was unable to find anything in the Muslim media, or on the websites of any of the major Muslim organizations in the U.S. including where is CAIR, and this leads me to ask where is CAIR when we actually need them. (I am stressing CAIR’s responsibility only because they are the only major organization whose mission is to be an advocate for American Muslims.) According to their vision and mission statement: “CAIR’s vision is to be a leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding. CAIR’s mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.” The following is what I have been able to discover in the media about this propoganda campaign.

A DVD of the film “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” has been bundled inside more than 70 newspapers and magazines and delivered nationwide to subscribers. “There is no greater threat than radical Islam,” said Gregory Ross, spokesman for the Clarion Fund, a New-York based nonprofit organization that is paying newspapers to distribute the DVD. “It needs to be pushed to the forefront of the political discussion.” (Controversial film on Islam delivered nationwide, Yonat Shimron)

Copies of the DVD were distributed free at the DNC, and at the RNC by the recently formed group watch obsession.org. Earlier this year, the Florida Attorney General required employees to watch this video.

The DVD seems to only be distributed in swing election states. (‘Terror’ DVD Getting Delivered to Millions This Weekend—via Newspapers, Gregg Mitchell) “Aimed at voters in the battleground states the week of September 11, the film is more than a scare tactic or a campaign ploy. It smacks of classic propaganda, boosted through this clever marketing deal by association with the authority of the New York Times brand. The point is to frighten viewers and, it seems clear, to frighten American voters across the country in order to raise security concerns ahead of all other issues in the election.” (Right-Wing Terror Film Delivered To Swing-State NY Times Readers, Denise Dennis)

The DVD is being distributed as paid advertizing: “According to reports in the Huffington Post, 28 million copies of the film are being delivered this week. The DVD has already been inserted into copies of The New York Times distributed in Midwestern states. This weekend and next, it is slated to be distributed in many newspapers in the electoral battleground states of Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and Colorado, in addition to North Carolina.” (Muslims Rap DVD in Advertiser, Tim Funk) “Funding is coming from a New York-based group called the Clarion Fund, a shadowy outfit whose financial backers are unclear. ... Although supposedly a 501 c(3) non-profit, this week the Clarion Fund’s website featured an article supporting John McCain.” (Pro-McCain Group Dumping 28 Million Terror Scare DVDs in Swing States, Eric Ose)
‘’The threat of Radical Islam is the most important issue facing us today,’’ reads a paragraph on the sleeve of the DVD. ‘’But it’s a topic that neither the presidential candidates nor the media are discussing openly. It’s our responsibility to ensure we can all make an informed vote in November.’’ (Is DVD a wake-up call or propaganda?, Josh Drobnykj)

“Anyone can see an electoral vote pattern to the targeted areas, with almost all of the battleground or “swing” states represented. (The daily newspapers in only one such state appear to have refused the ad, Minnesota.) These papers have allowed themselves to be caught up in a “neo-con” propaganda scam in the context of the presidential campaign, and during 9/11 week. As of Saturday, September 13, the rationalizations of the publishers and ad personnel at the two N.C. newspapers were either beggarly excuses for new sources of revenue, or politically naïve in the extreme. (Delivering Propaganda, As If It is Toothpaste, William E. Jackson, Jr.)

And, even fringe groups like the United American Committee are getting in on the distribution and advertising of this DVD and sent out an email saying: “We are assisting in the distribution of MILLIONS of copies of the film ‘Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West’ launched by the Watch Obsession Committee. THIS SATURDAY an airplane hauling a banner with a menacing photo of bin-Laden will be flying over Los Angeles promoting the film, and at the same time a truck with the same message will be circling the streets of L.A., everyone in America must see this film and wake up to the threat posed to our way of life by Islamic aggression.”
Representatives from both presidential campaigns said they were not aware of the DVD mailing. (DVD on radical Islam offends Lemoyne recipient. Carrie Cassidy)

We think we have a watchdog in Washington, D.C. and that they are looking out for the community when it is under attack. This is not the first time that that watchdog has turned out to be toothless, deaf, dumb, and blind. This propoganda campaign against Islam and Muslims is one of the most serious concerted efforts to marginalize and demonize the entire American (and International) Muslim community that I can remember seeing in 30 years of Islamic work, and CAIR is silent when we need them to be speaking out loudly.

It is time for ordinary Muslims to demand answers from CAIR and our other national organizations. What are their resources, and where is the money going? Why is such a major incident being ignored?

In 2006 a Washington Post poll found that 58% of Americans say there are more violent extremists within Islam than in other religions and 46% have a negative view of Islam. In 2007, a CNN poll found that 53 percent of Americans believe conflict between Islam and Christianity is “inevitable,” up from 45 percent in 2003.

You can bet that this campaign will negatively influence the attitudes of Americans towards Islam and Muslims and that a poll done anytime in the next few months will show that percentage to have risen again, dramatically. You can also bet that lots of ordinary Muslims will have to answer questions from their co-workers, school-mates and neighbors in the coming weeks, and where will they get some help? Why is it that our key advocacy organization with a paid staff is unable to flag and identify issues and act proactively on behalf of the community?
As a community we need to wake up and realize that we need to be much more proactive at the grass-roots and to demand more of our national organizations. Contact CAIR National at:
453 New Jersey Avenue, S.E. Washington, DC 20003 Tel: 202.488.8787 Fax: 202.488.0833 info@cair.com

Note: The Huffington Post has a list of the newspapers distributing the DVD
SEE ALSO: numerous resources in online article at http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/cairs_indifference_to_obsession_dvd_distribution/0016693

Separating Jihadists fact and fiction

Glenn Carle dares to write, “Separating Jihadists fact and fiction”

Throughout the history of mankind, insecure men have found their false security in rattling up others, they have been wrong and will continue to err. You cannot have security when others around you are not; neither can you have peace when others can’t.

The Neocons believe in keeping the Americans frightened, and when we are vulnerable, they get away doing things that are not in the interest of our nation. Their polices have done nothing but destruction around the World and they have figured out the formula very well; to rule, you have to keep the public scared all the times and it is okay to manufacture the facts and tread on immorality.

It is like the 6 o’clock news, for 20 minutes all you see is murder, robbery, arson and other evils of the society, it is indeed a minute tiny speck of the truth but not the whole truth. Because you, your family members and your friends have made back home safely. Terrorism is there, but much of it is cooked up by the Neocons and their bonded media men. It is time to dare the scare.

Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker and a Writer. He is president of the Foundation for Pluralism and is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing interfaith, political and civic issues. He is the founding president of World Muslim Congress with a simple theme: Good for Muslims and good for the world. His comments, news analysis and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net. Mike is a Dallasite for nearly three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at MikeGhouse@gmail.com

Glenn Carle: Separating Jihadists fact and fiction
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, July 16, 2008

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-carle_16edi.ART.State.Edition1.4d54fa7.html

Glenn L. Carle, a member of the CIA's Clandestine Service for 23 years, retired in March 2007 as deputy national intelligence officer for transnational threats.

Sen. John McCain has repeatedly characterized the threat of "radical Islamic extremism" as "the absolute gravest threat ... that we're in against." Before we simply accept this, we need to examine the nature of the terrorist threat facing our country. If we do so, we will see how we have allowed the specter of that threat to distort our lives and take our treasure.

The "Global War on Terror" has conjured the image of terrorists behind every bush, the bushes themselves burning and an angry god inciting its faithful to religious war. The inclination to trust our leaders when they warn of danger is compelling, particularly when the specters of mushroom clouds and jihadists haunt every debate.

In my 23 years in the CIA, I drafted or was involved in many of the government's most senior assessments of the threats facing our country. I have devoted years to understanding and combating the jihadist threat.

From that experience base, I suggest that the next commander in chief base his counterterrorism policies on the following realities:

• We do not face a global jihadist "movement," but a series of disparate ethnic and religious conflicts involving Muslim populations, each of which remains fundamentally regional in nature and almost all of which long predate the existence of al-Qaeda.

Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary threats whose shadows are made large by our fears. Al-Qaeda is the only global jihadist organization and is the only Islamic terrorist organization that targets the U.S. homeland.

Al-Qaeda remains capable of striking here and is plotting from its redoubt in Waziristan, Pakistan. The organization, however, has only a handful of individuals capable of planning, organizing and leading a terrorist operation. Al-Qaeda threatens to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, but its capabilities are far inferior to its desires.

Even the "loose nuke" threat, whose consequences would be horrific, has a very low probability. For the medium term, any attack is overwhelmingly likely to consist of creative uses of conventional explosives.

• No other Islamic-based terrorist organization targets the U.S. homeland, is part of a "global jihadist movement," or has more than passing contact with al-Qaeda. These groups do and will, however, identify themselves with global jihadist rhetoric and may bandy the bogey-phrase of "al-Qaeda." They are motivated by hostility toward the West and fear of the irresistible changes that education, trade and economic and social development are causing in their cultures.
These regional terrorist organizations may target U.S. interests or persons in the groups' historic areas of interest and operations. None of these groups is likely to succeed in seizing power or in destabilizing the societies they attack, though they may succeed in killing numerous people through sporadic attacks such as the Madrid train bombings.

• There are and will continue to be small numbers of Muslims in certain Western countries – in the dozens, perhaps – who seek to commit terrorist acts, along the lines of the British citizens behind the 2005 London subway and bus bombings. Some may have irregular contact with al-Qaeda central in Waziristan; more will act as free agents for their imagined cause. We need to catch and neutralize these people. But they do not represent a global movement or a global threat.

The threat from Islamic terrorism is no larger now than it was before Sept. 11, 2001. Islamic societies the world over are in turmoil and will continue for years to produce small numbers of dedicated killers, whom we must stop. U.S. and allied intelligence do a good job at that; these efforts, however, will never succeed in neutralizing every terrorist everywhere.

We must not delude ourselves about the nature of the terrorist threat to our country. We must not take fright at the specter our leaders have exaggerated. In fact, we must see jihadists for the small, lethal, disjointed and miserable opponents that they are.

Glenn L. Carle, a member of the CIA's Clandestine Service for 23 years, retired in March 2007 as deputy national intelligence officer for transnational threats.

Rand:Designs for Muslim World

Wow! What a report!

Beginning from the end of the article, “When the European nations began their long campaign to colonize and conquer the rest of the world for their own benefit, they brought their academic and missionary resources to help them with their task.”

This was the same pre-crusade tactic used by the European Kings, when they were threatened by the invading Arab Kings, they came out with a blue print to protect their kingdoms, that gave birth to the idea of Islamophobia:

1. To label the Invading Kings as Muslim, as that was one of the ways to get their subjects to stand behind them and fight for them.

2. To mis-translate the Qur'aan to inculcate animosity towards the invading people.

3. To paint the religion negatively and as a Mohammedan cult.

4. To reinforce this strategy they roped in the Pope to issue a fatwa approving crusades.

Their Blueprint worked well for them and the Arab Kings were pushed back and defeated.
http://quraan-today.blogspot.com/2008/03/islamophobia-and-quraan.html

I am surprised at the ease with which Abdul Sattar Ghazali writes this “The recent summit, termed the ³Secular Islam Conference,² in St. Petersburg, Florida, almost coincided with the release of the latest Rand Report. A small group of self-proclaimed secular Muslims from North America and elsewhere gathered in St. Petersburg for what they billed a new global movement to correct the assumed wrongs of Islam and call for an ³Islamic Reformation.²”

The intent of the conference was Muslim bashing feeding frenzy. http://religionandspirituality.com/islam/view.php?StoryID=20070313-014058-4963r#

Due to this fact, not one of the mainstream Muslims, including the progressive ones, chose to participate in the conference. – More at:
http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2007/03/secular-islam-summit-update.html

“The report warned that moderate groups can lose credibility and therefore effectiveness if U.S. support is too obvious” It is not just US, funding by any government has a hook in it, if it is genuine goodness, it will pay off, but usually it is not.

I tend to agree with the statement “The report defines a moderate as a Muslim who supports democracy, gender equality, freedom of worship and opposition to terrorism.” I am glad it did not define like the Neocons, which is any Muslim who bashes Islam is a moderate Muslim to those shortsighted bigots.

These guys are always scheming and planning. If they just start living the live like the moderates, they can enjoy their lives too.

Mike Ghouse
http://www.worldmuslimcongress.com/

# # #
Rand Corp: New Designs for Muslim World

By TMO April 26, 2007
Listen to this article. Powered by Odiogo.com

http://muslimmedianetwork.com/mmn/?p=946

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

The semi-official U.S. think tank, Rand Corporation, suggests creation of
networks of the so-called moderate Muslims to promote US policy objectives
in the Muslim World.

In its latest report, Building Moderate Muslim Networks the Rand Corp
advocates that the building of moderate Muslim networks needs to become an
explicit goal of U.S. government policy, with an international database of
partners and a well-designed plan.

Just as it fought the spread of communism during the Cold War, the United
States must do more to develop and support networks of moderate Muslims who
are too often silenced by violent radical Islamists, according to the Rand
Corporation report issued on March 26, 2007.

The lead writer of the report, Angel Rabasa, says that the United States has
a critical role to play in aiding moderate Muslims, and can learn much from
the way it addressed the spread of communism during the Cold War.

³The efforts of the United States and its allies to build free and
democratic networks and institutions provided an organizational and
ideological counter force to communist groups seeking to come to power
through political groups, labor unions, youth and student organizations and
other groups.²

The report defines a moderate as a Muslim who supports democracy, gender
equality, freedom of worship and opposition to terrorism. This looks an
amplification on its two previous reports - ³Civil Democratic Islam:
Partners, Resources, and Strategies² (March 2004) and ³US strategy in the
Muslim World after 9/11² (December 2004) - which also suggested supporting
moderate Muslims and exploitation of inter-Muslim religious differences.
Interestingly, a novelist turned research scholar, Cheryl Benard, is the
author of Civil Democratic Islam and co-author of the Dec. 2004 and March
2007 reports.

In the December 2004 study, Rabasa had suggested to exploit Sunni, Shiite
and Arab, non-Arab divides to promote US policy objectives in the Muslim
world. Echoing this theme, the latest report recommends reaching out to
Muslim activists, leaders and intellectuals in non-Arab countries such as
Turkey as well as in Southeast Asia and Europe.

The report recommends targeting five groups as potential building blocks for
networks: liberal and secular Muslim academics and intellectuals; young
moderate religious scholars; community activists; women¹s groups engaged in
gender equality campaigns; and moderate journalists and scholars.

The report warned that moderate groups can lose credibilityand therefore
effectivenessif U.S. support is too obvious. Effective tactics that worked
during the Cold War include having the groups led by credible individuals
and having the United States maintain some distance from the organizations
it supports. ³This was done by not micro-managing the groups, but by giving
them enough autonomy,² Rabasa said. ³As long as certain guidelines were met,
they were free to pursue their own activities.²

To help start this initiative, the report recommends working toward an
international conference modeled in the Cold War-era Congress of Cultural
Freedom, and then developing a standing organization to combat what it
called radical Islamism.

The recent summit, termed the ³Secular Islam Conference,² in St. Petersburg,
Florida, almost coincided with the release of the latest Rand Report. A
small group of self-proclaimed secular Muslims from North America and
elsewhere gathered in St. Petersburg for what they billed a new global
movement to correct the assumed wrongs of Islam and call for an ³Islamic
Reformation.²

The St. Petersburg conference, held on the sidelines of the Intelligence
Summit, was carried live on (Islamophobe) Glenn Beck¹s CNN show. Some of the
organizers and speakers at the convention were well-known thanks to the
media spotlight: Irshad Manji, author of The Trouble With Islam, and Ayaan
Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch parliamentarian and author of Infidel were but a
few there claiming to have suffered personally at the hands of ³radical²
Islam.

One participant, Wafa Sultan, declared on Glenn Beck¹s show that she doesn¹t
³see any difference between radical Islam and regular Islam.² Other
participants were the now public ex-Muslim Ibn Warraq and self-proclaimed
ex-terrorist Tawfiq Hamid.

Surely, the ³moderate² Muslim agenda is promoted because these ideas reflect
a Western vision for the future of Islam. Since the Sept. 11 attacks,
everyone from high-ranking officials in the Bush administration to
anti-Islam authors have prescribed a preferred remedy for Islam: reform the
faith.

The Rand Reports about Islam appear to be part of a grand strategy to
³change the face of Islam² as revealed by US News and World Report on April
15, 2005. The report entitled Hearts, Minds, and Dollars: In an Unseen Front
in the War on Terrorism, America is Spending MillionsŠTo Change the Very
Face of Islamreads: ³From military psychological-operations teams and CIA
covert operatives to openly-funded media and think tanks, Washington is
plowing tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to influence not only
Muslim societies but Islam itself.²

According to the well-planned leaks to US News and World Report, this
strategy for the first time stated that the United States has a national
security interest in influencing what happens within Islam. The report also
confirmed that it is, in fact, the US which has been funding an American
version of Islam, called ³Moderate Islam.²

The Rand reports try to create a fictitious vision of Muslims and of Islam,
where it is antihuman, uncreative, authoritarian, and intrinsically against
Western societies. It is an ethnocentric view of Islam that dominates
current representations of Islam that are reductive, predominantly negative,
and encouraging a culture of Islamophobia.

The complexities of the so-called fundamentalism and extremism in the past
100 years or so, whether it be Christian, Hindu, Jewish or Muslim, need to
be understood in the context of modernization, the process of
secularization, the changing nature of religious institutions, the
post-colonial experience in developing countries, globalization, the divide
between wealthy and poor, contesting political power, and the impact of
totalitarian regimes on civil society.

What is not mentioned in the RAND reports is that the reason for the
alienation of Muslims from the West is the ³double standards² the West so
brazenly practices when dealing with Muslim nations. America already has a
very tarnished image in the Islamic world. It has already alienated a great
majority of Muslims throughout the world through its misguided foreign
policy. Who in their right mind will believe that this asinine assault on
Islam and Muslims will win America friends in the Islamic world?

Now a word about the Washington-based semi-official think tankthe RAND
Corporation. Among other government departments, the Rand Corp conducts
studies for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the
Unified Commands, the defense agencies, the Department of the Navy and the
U.S. intelligence community. Obviously, writers of the three reports on
Islam may be considered neo-Orientalists with clear intention to undermine
Islam.

When the European nations began their long campaign to colonize and conquer
the rest of the world for their own benefit, they brought their academic and
missionary resources to help them with their task. Orientalists and
missionaries, whose ranks often overlapped, were the servants of an
imperialist government who was using their services as a way to subdue or
weaken an enemy.

The academic study of the Oriental East by the Occidental West was often
motivated and often co-operated hand-in-hand with the imperialistic aims of
the European colonial powers. The foundations of Orientalism were in the
maxim ³Know thy enemy². This equally applies to the modern day Orientalists
of such semi-official think tanks as the Rand Corporation.