Tag: Islam in America

Do We Believe in our Principles or not?


The author of the piece excerpted below asks this and three other pertinent questions related to the debate taking place in America regarding freedom of religion especially as it applies to Muslim Americans.  The answer to this first question is conditional, based on what is described below

I got home from vacation late on Friday night and was soon asked to join in the fracas around the planned Cordoba House two blocks from Ground Zero. In less than 36 hours after getting back to Washington, I was walking into the Fox News studio on Sunday morning. Welcome home.They asked about a letter that I had just signed supporting religious freedom for Muslims. I said we should ask three simple questions:

  1. Should we as Americans be able to worship and pray when and where we choose? Haven’t we fought for that?
  2. Are American Muslims … Americans?
  3. And, for those of us who are Christians (and I am an Evangelical Christian), are we obeying the commands of Jesus to love our neighbors? Aren’t Muslims our neighbors? So what might Jesus say to this controversy?

There was a brief silence from the Fox and Friends anchors. OK, they said, but what about “sensitivity” to the families that lost loved ones in 9/11? Well, I said, 59 Muslims also died on 9/11 because of a vile, cowardly, and criminal attack by al Qaeda. Does it honor them, or their families, by somehow connecting all American Muslims to that horrible attack?

Well, thank you for joining us today Reverend, they said. Thank you, I said, but how we handle this is very important–to what it means to be Americans or what it means to be Christians.

I was ready to talk about my friends Imam Feisal Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan, who are among the leaders of the vision to build a new community center committed to peace, interfaith dialogue, reconciliation, and bridge-building. I know them both and can testify to their long record on denouncing terrorism in the name of their religion and their consistent work for peace. Until very recently, Daisy says her main concern about the new interfaith center was whether there would be enough stroller space. Daisy called me Sunday to describe how their lives have been turned upside down. If Ground Zero is the “gaping wound” my Fox and Friends anchors described, what could be more helpful than a religious center dedicated to healing?

That morning, as I watched continued coverage, I was disappointed to hear the low level that discourse has dropped to.  The politicians who spoke to it sounded more like the people leaving nasty and false comments on YouTube videos than anyone deserving of public office. Well, it is the election season again.

This guilt-by-association “sensitivity” argument is very dangerous stuff. Millions of American Muslims are not responsible for the heinous crime of 9/11. And an imam’s desire to heal and build bridges should be a welcome thing. Exactly how far away from what places should Muslims be able to pray in America? Is there a measurement requirement that is emerging from all the other places in the country now where mosques are also being opposed?

Fundamentalism doesn’t only exist in Islam. The things someone like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell have said certainly are an embarrassment to other Christians — remember Robertson’s assertion that 9/11 was the judgment of God on America because of liberalism and feminism. So how about preventing fundamentalist churches that like Robertson from worshiping within 3 blocks of Ground Zero because of “sensitivity”?

How we handle this one will affect our future as a nation. Do we believe in our principles or not? Do we believe Muslims are also Americans or not? Are we an inclusive and pluralistic nation, or not?

Perhaps FoxNews that Rev. Wallis dealt with  was the network Obama was referring that is pervasive with its innuendo driven coverage of his faith?  In many people’s minds, the answer to the last two questions is a resounding no!

Related Articles

Political Zionism’s attempts at marginalizing American Muslims


Eight American Muslim imams went to Poland and Germany to witness first hand the historical places of the Holocaust in a trip co-sponsored by a German think tank and the Center for Interreligious Understanding, a New Jersey-based interfaith dialogue group. The imams issued a statement afterward that stated in part

We bear witness to the absolute horror and tragedy of the Holocaust where over twelve million human souls perished, including six million Jews.

We condemn any attempts to deny this historical reality and declare such denials or any justification of this tragedy as against the Islamic code of ethics.

We condemn anti-Semitism in any form. No creation of Almighty God should face discrimination based on his or her faith or religious conviction.

We stand united as Muslim American faith and community leaders and recognize that we have a shared responsibility to continue to work together with leaders of all faiths and their communities to fight the dehumanization of all peoples based on their religion, race or ethnicity. With the disturbing rise of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hatred, rhetoric and bigotry, now more than ever, people of faith must stand together for truth.

Together, we pledge to make real the commitment of “never again” and to stand united against injustice wherever it may be found in the world today.

Under the circumstances one would think the trip was successful in bridging gaps that have existed between the two faith communities as well as contribute towards decelerating the tensions between American Muslims and the rest of America surrounding the Park51 mosque.  It’s noteworthy the trip was covered by the Jewish outlet The Forward, but it has gone pretty much unnoticed by main stream media so America does not have the benefit of knowing of the outreach going on between the two parties and the rather optimistic outcome.  Too bad for America, which is in the throes of a new brand of anti-semitism.

What’s even worse is much of that Islamophobia is led by Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, who has come out and said the Park51 mosque should relocate

To many Americans, the decision of Abe Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, to oppose the so-called “ground zero mosque” seemed out of character. After all, Foxman is often treated by the media as an arbiter of tolerance; that he would come out in favor of Islamophobia was jarring.

The ADL’s private domestic spying operation had been going on since its inception, but after Foxman took over it engaged in operations like spying on anti-apartheid activists and other non-extremist groups. Foxman and the ADL became worried as much about direct domestic persecution of Jews as they were about opposition to Israel, and began to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Certainly, anti-Zionism can bleed into anti-Semitism, but Foxman has taken this to a cartoonish degree, demanding apologies from Americans for expressing views on Palestine that would be well within the mainstream in the context of Israeli domestic politics.

Foxman’s conservatism is clear in his selective outrage. He refused to condemn anti-Semitic statements by Sun Myung Moon’s Bush administration-allied Unification church, declined to protest Fox News’ frequent use of Nazi imagery for the purposes of political vilification — and, of course, in contrast to his opposition to an anti-Mormon film, he’s happily gotten on board with the anti-Islamic sentiment that even he acknowledges is key to opponents of the Park51 project near ground zero.

and who was against the aforementioned trip to Europe, so much so that he lobbied the US’ representative not to go on the trip.

Organizers of the trip say they were dismayed that the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman lobbied U.S. officials against participating. They also say the Investigative Project’s Steve Emerson, author of “American Jihad,” lobbied against the trip, arguing that one of the imams planning to participate had made Holocaust denial statements a decade ago.

The reason given by the ADL/Foxman was they didn’t want an American official to be a part of the trip…read that he didn’t want the government or any official thereof to recognize the efforts of Muslims at bridging gaps with other faith based communities. If it were out of a real concern for the inappropriateness of US government representation, it would have stopped with the US government, but Foxman made a play to a Polish rabbi to ask him not to meet with the 8 imams

…Foxman called both Rosenthal and the White House to object. When it went forward anyway, he went beyond objecting to the participation of the U.S. officials and called a Polish rabbi who had a scheduled meeting with the imams and asked the rabbi not to see the group

So it is a lie that Foxman acted out of a concern for the US government’s representative appearing with the group; his objection was for anyone to meet with them, in other words for there to not be any dialogue at all between anyone and the 8 American Muslim imams. By isolating them no one would know, as is the case with most of the American public, the principled stand they would take in the matter of the Holocaust, and by extension any other contemporary issue.  The reason is clear, by isolating them Foxman is able to distort or misrepresent their views and continue the atmosphere of hostility between them and the western world.  This helps political zionism in its fight with the Palestinians who Israel has managed to lump with a Muslim world view which is portrayed as hostile to the state.  If a wide cross section of American Muslim religious leaders can come to a consensus on such a hot button issue intrinsically connected to the existence of Israel as the Holocaust, what else might they be able to agree on that’s important to the existence of Israel and thus influence Muslim opinion in other places of the world?  For a country that thrives on threats and lives to fight wars with its neighbors, fulfilling its purpose with wars and acts of aggression, peace/dialogue is a threat to its existence more than the strongest opponent.  That is the reason why Foxman opposed the trip in general because he knew the outcome would be what it was, that men of faith and principle would come to the conclusions that the 8 American Muslim imams did.  The one advantage Foxman has in his favor is the statement of the 8 imams will go largely unnoticed by media and the general public and his goal of isolating legitimate Muslim voices from the American discourse will have been accomplished.  For that Foxman no doubt will get more than his share of attaboys.

Letter from a Birminham jail revisited


Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party is the latest person in Obama’s party to undercut the commander-in-chief by saying the supporters of Cordoba House, while they have the RIGHT to build their community center where they want, should  build it elsewhere.  Harry Reid, running for reelection in Nevada as well as Dean are more concerned about their party’s health than the health of the Nation and are the worse examples of political hacks, people who live to advance the cause of a special,narrowly defined  interest not taking into account the greater good of the citizenry of the entire country.

In the face of such flight from principle it is apparent  that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may acknowledge the legitimacy of the Constitution’s right to religious expression  but when these very same individuals begin identifying with a group other than the entire citizenry of America they tend to dilute their position with the caveat ‘but they should build elsewhere’ thereby negating completely their concession and in the process become immoral.

Such was the conclusion arrived at by Martin Luther King as he sat in a Birmingham city jail in 1963, confronted by fellow white Christians who wanted to encourage him to go slower in his quest for overthrowing segregation in racist America.  The people he addressed in his letter  who agreed with the principle of desegregation were not throwing their weight behind King’s action of non-violent protest and social agitation because they didn’t want to upset the status quo, although that is exactly what they were doing  by agreeing segregation shouldn’t exist.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

In the parallel universe between 1960s  Birmingham, Alabama and 21st century America, “freedom” becomes freedom of religion and religious expression and “segregation” becomes denial of a place to worship at the place of one’s choice.  The comparison is real, palatable, and in all the fervor caused by the controversy very few people have spoken out against the Islamophobia that has embraced the opposition  movement to build the Cordoba House at another location.  Some people have even taken to a wholly unconstitutional position of building the cultural center on land provided to the developers by the state of  New York in what would clearly be a breech of separation of religion and state.  No one has thought for a moment about the ramifications this has for other faith communities that may be considered more main stream?  What would you say to a evangelical church that has permission to build on a property while government officials insist they build elsewhere or prominent members of society insisted such abrogation of that church’s decision.  Would that be considered coercion?

For those who say it is insensitive to build such an establishment close Ground Zero, that it’s presence exacerbates emotions towards Muslims and this should be avoided King answered that concern while sitting in a Birmingham jail so many years ago

I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

If you remove the adjective “white” every time it modifies moderate and replace “Negro” with Muslim, and where you find names of obstructionists who opposed King in his day you replaced with the Republican or Democratic party you would have the essence of the argument against those who say Muslims have the right, but……

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fan in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.

Dean, Reid, Clinton and Bush (the latter two having not made any statement on this issue) have done a disservice to citizenship and betrayed the trust they have to America to represent all of its citizens.  The rights given to all of us were unconditional and that as long as the citizen was in good standing with the law they are expected, nay encouraged, to practice those rights to the utmost of their ability.  Those who say, ‘yes, but……”  are the same obstructionists faced by King during the dark days of American segregation.  It is up to Muslims and other freedom loving Americans, freedom riders/fighters to agitate for total and complete freedom of expression for which they are entitled.  Nothing less is acceptable now as it wasn’t acceptable then.

Newt Gingrich is an idiot


This is what Newt Gingrich has said

The folks who want to build this mosque – who are really radical Islamists who want to triumphally prove that they can build a mosque right next to a place where 3,000 Americans were killed by radical Islamists – those folks don’t have any interest in reaching out to the community. They’re trying to make a case about supremacy. That’s why they won’t go anywhere else, that’s why they won’t accept any other offer.

This is the reality

“Imam Feisal has participated at the Aspen Institute in Muslim-Christian-Jewish working groups looking at ways to promote greater religious tolerance.  He has consistently denounced radical Islam and terrorism, and promoted a moderate and tolerant Islam. Some of this work was done under the auspices of his own group, the Cordoba Initiative. I liked his book, and I participated in some of the meetings in 2004 or so. This is why I find it a shame that his good work is being undermined by this inflamed dispute. He is the type of leader we should be celebrating in America, not undermining.”

Isn’t it  clear that the Republicans are not grounded in reality?

Why Muslims, why Islam?


The author of the article below asks some of the same questions posed on the pages of Miscellany101 concerning the vitriol that appears so openly in almost all circles of American life.  It’s a fair question to ask about this surge in attacks against Muslims physically, as detailed in the previous post below, as well as rhetorically as we have mentioned in countless articles on this blog.  I assert these attacks point to the schizophrenic nature of America; on the one hand we call ourselves a nation of freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, but on the other hand we demonize those who exercise their free will to do just those things.  Not all of us do, however which adds to the “sickness” of our Nation or more euphemistically, the duality of the country, for there are those like the interfaith groups made of Christians, Muslim and Jews who supported the right of the Cordoba House to be built near the site of the former WTC buildings destroyed in 2001 who claim such curtailment of rights and freedoms for all have no place in our democracy.

However, the article below is from an American Muslim, and it would be advantageous for you to read it carefully, for it is full of the spirit we claim is necessary in order for this country to succeed; the spirit of cooperation, freedom and tolerance.  I hope we take heed

Jesus, God’s Word that He cast into Mary, the Messiah of Israel who delivered the Good News of the Millennial Kingdom and saved the faithful remnant of Israel from the treason and apostasy of the Pharisees and
scribes, the only man ever to walk the earth without sin or error, would be saddened by (what many say today).

Where in the English-speaking media do we see wholesale falsification of Hinduism, Judaism, Taoism, Buddhism, or even Christianity? Yet that is almost all we see about Islam, incessantly, in movies, “news,” commentary, and virtually every mass-media information source from compulsory public education through old age.

It wasn’t like this when I was a child, sixty years ago. Then, we learned that “Islam” was a few dusty desert-dwellers milking camels and living in tents, and of no historical significance whatever. We certainly weren’t informed that pharmacy and medicine in Europe for a thousand years was based on Arabic writings, or that private enterprise free market capitalism was perfected in Fatimid Egypt long before our ancestors developed the European version from its Arabic roots. We didn’t know that the lost works of Aristotle were preserved in Arabic translations and restored to Europe through Muslim Spain. No one mentioned that algebra, surveying, astral navigation, refrigeration, and federalism all had Arabic origins.

But the Muslim empire persisted, in increasingly corrupted forms, for a thousand years, and then vanished into dust, as expected. And in America, when I was a child, sixty years ago, there were all of three Muslim neighborhoods in America ~ in Dearborn, Michigan, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Sacramento, California. Now there are over two thousand mosques, and over nineteen million Muslims in America, the vast majority born and raised in America, and a large plurality with no ancestral or historical heritage related to Islam.

In my lifetime, the population of Muslim America has grown at a rate not seen in the Muslim world in over ten centuries. This, despite an institutionalized demonization of Muslims hard at work since the development of mass media. And a lot of people commenting have believed the lie, even posting links to websites devoted to the demonization. It is not America’s Christians who are behind this falsification, people, and it is not without a very old motive.

A muslim “YMCA” two blocks from City Hall and two blocks from the World Trade Center? Why not? So what? Churches in downtown areas are being threatened with displacement because the cities want more tax revenue from the commercial zones of the cities. Religious organizations providing shelter for the homeless are under attack nation-wide by means of zoning regulations, building codes, and other regulatory “permit” requirements. Religion in America has been under attack ~ see  “The New First Amendment” for the legal history ~ for almost a century now. Of course, it’s not politically correct to malign a religion or a religious group.

Except muslims. Hmmm.

Try this and the other three articles linked at the top of the welcome page for a little “straight” information about those people so many love to hate. America is the closest thing in the world to a Muslim state. Our country was built on the premise of religious liberty, and it’s ingrained in our culture. Some abuse it, some capitalize on it, and some of the Arab states certainly have been trying to colonize American Islam for decades ~ and failing. But the American people live in religious congregations to a greater extent than any other people, we are a religious people despite what appears in the mainstream media

And one in twenty are Muslim. They don’t come knocking at your door, they don’t tell you how to live, they don’t seek government grants to finance social service programs or building projects, and you hardly know they exist unless they live on your street. So who’s stirring up all this controversy about a community center facility available to everyone? And why is it being made a national issue as the mid-term elections draw near?

See “Guide To Events”.

Nothing makes the headlines unless there’s an agenda behind it. Whose agenda is this hate-fest brouhaha?

Jihad Jane-JOKE!


Media has inundated the public with tales of a middle aged all American blonde blue eyed woman seducing people to commit acts of wanton murder and terror in the name of Islam.  It would be laughable if so many people weren’t gullible enough to believe it.  Instead what we have is a woman who was seduced by the internet and the cyber keyboard terrorists, no doubt many of them federal agents looking for the likes of her,  she met there. The Salt Lake Tribune has a very nice description of Colleen Renee LaRose

The life of the Pennsburg, Pa., woman who is due in federal court Thursday on terrorism charges is sounding ever more sad than scary.

“She’s had a hard life, so tough that her life story is like a country music song,” said a person close to the investigation.

The Nation in the grips of Islamophobia is desperate enough to ascribe the most heinous crimes to people whose lives are no more than the soap operas they see on television or the country music they listen.  LaRose’s boyfriend of five years says the entire time they were together she was neither religious no enveloped herself in or possessed Islamic garb yet some of the endearing images we’ve seen of her is a woman with a scarf on her head or wearing a menacing looking black face veil as if to underscore the threat she poses to the most dominant military power in human history.  Of course the imagery is meant to evoke a time when the US was at war with its other adversaries like Japan, Germany and the Soviet Union, and especially the latter in order to further the call for the war on Islam, and place one more example in the quiver of all terrorists are Muslim.  With the ever bending, adaptable, yet oft ignored rules concerning “terrorism” such a feat is not impossible to accomplish.

New Threat Source Identified at American Muslim Mosques


This alert dropped in my email box today and it’s worth getting out to the public in order to protect themselves from the next terror attack.
Latest news reports are that five terrorist cell groups have been operating in many of our masajid.  They have been identified as:  Bin Gossipin’, Bin Arguin’, Bin Fightin’, Bin Complainin’, and Bin Missin’.
Their leader, Shaitan Bin Iblis, trained these groups to destroy the muslim community. The plan is to enter the masjid disguised as Muslims and to work from within to discourage, disrupt, and destroy.
However, there have been reports of a sixth group. A tiny cell known by the name Bin Prayin’ is actually the only effective counter terrorism force in the masjid. Unlike other terrorist cells, the Bin Prayin’ team does not blend in with whoever and whatever comes along.

Bin Prayin’ does whatever is needed to uplift and encourage the muslim community.  We have noticed that the Bin Prayin’ cell group has different characteristics than the others. They have Bin Workin’, Bin Studyin’, Bin Fastin’, Bin Givin’ and Bin Patiently Perseverin’ in the cause of Allah!

NO MASJID IS EXEMPT!


Europe’s Bad Muslim Terrorism Problem


Statistically, if you’re an Islamophobe, it’s even worse than America’s militant, jihadist, Islamofascist problem which was documented by the federal government as being 6% of all terrorism related attacks on America and American interests over the last 20 years!  According to Europol, the European Law Enforcement Agency which aims at improving the effectiveness and co–operation of the competent authorities in the Member States in preventing and combating terrorism for the last three years, of the 1596 acts of terrorism committed on the shores of European countries only 5 were related to acts committed by Muslims or which could be considered Islamic.  5! Doing the math means .3% of all Europe’s terrorism was committed by Muslims.  .3%! Yet there are still people, many of whom, unlike Miscellany101, who make a lot of money telling you the threat is catastrophic and existential in nature  to Europe.

Interestingly enough, for the year 2008 Europol  reveals that 18% of all arrests on terrorism charges were of Muslims who then made up 50% of the convictions for terrorism related charges.  The disparity in both the numbers arrested and the actual acts of terrorism committed versus the number of convictions makes a good case for how well fear contributes to the running of countries and setting of policy.  The next time someone comes to you with images of Islamic bogeymen lurking around every corner….pinch yourself and wake up from your slumber.  It’s only a dream.  Hat-tip to loonwatch.com

There is no Islamic militancy on American shores


Or so says this report out of Duke University.  I must say this is rather apparent to even the uninitiated in demagoguery; but unfortunately it’s not enough to stop people from making a profitable  cottage industry from fear and raising the frightening specter of  the menacing hordes of Muslims ready to pounce on and forcibly convert all who stand in their way.

The events came in rapid succession last year: Eight Raleigh-area men indicted on federal charges they conspired to commit terrorist acts. A Colorado man accused of conspiring to carry out a bomb attack in New York. An Army major who killed 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas.By all accounts there appeared to be a spike in the number of radicalized U.S. Muslims in 2009. Yet a new report from Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill says the problem of homegrown terrorism is “serious but limited.”

The report, issued this month, argues there is no widespread radicalization among American Muslims. Instead, it says American Muslims are becoming more American by engaging the political system and creating advocacy organizations to further their political goals.

“The level of the threat has been exaggerated,” said David Schanzer, a Duke professor who leads the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security and is one of the report’s three authors.

Perhaps it’s what is highlighted in red that scares people the most, much like the slave owners who wanted their slaves not to have the right to vote and thereby force a legislative end to their enslavement.   Having an accepted, respectable and respected American Muslim population that seeks legal redress on behalf of all Americans from the tyranny of big government, it’s invasive surveillance and abrogation of citizenship rights is not something people in power, and especially those in government want.

UPDATE:

LOONWATCH.COM does an excellent job of dispelling this myth of a militant Islam on the shores of America even further with some rather startling statistics gathered from a rather startling source.  Turns out the FBI and the Justice Department figures show that Islamic terrorism is at the bottom of the threat level barrel when it comes to Americans, only communist terrorists are lower in terms of the damage they have done on the shores of America since 1980.  If you want to know who are more terror inclined than Muslims check out loonwatch and ask yourself what is it government is trying to do by scaring you about Muslim terrorists and why.

From your neighbors


Love for Jesus Can Bring Christians, Muslims Together – Ibrahim Hooper

“Behold! The angels said: ‘O Mary! God giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him. His name will be Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and in (the company of) those nearest to God.’”

Before searching for this quote in the New Testament, you might first ask your Muslim co-worker, friend or neighbor for a copy of the Quran, Islam’s revealed text. The quote is from verse 45 of chapter 3 in the Quran.

It is well known, particularly in this holiday season, that Christians follow the teachings of Jesus. What is less well understood is that Muslims also love and revere Jesus as one of God’s greatest messengers to mankind.

Other verses in the Quran, regarded by Muslims as the direct word of God, state that Jesus was strengthened with the “Holy Spirit” (2:87) and is a “sign for the whole world.” (21:91) His virgin birth was confirmed when Mary is quoted as asking: “How can I have a son when no man has ever touched me?” (3:47)

The Quran shows Jesus speaking from the cradle and, with God’s permission, curing lepers and the blind. (5:110) God also states in the Quran: “We gave (Jesus) the Gospel (Injeel) and put compassion and mercy into the hearts of his followers.” (57:27)

As forces of hate in this country and worldwide try to pull Muslims and Christians apart, we are in desperate need of a unifying force that can bridge the widening gap of interfaith misunderstanding and mistrust. That force could be the message of love, peace and forgiveness taught by Jesus and accepted by followers of both faiths.

Christians and Muslims would do well to consider another verse in the Quran reaffirming God’s eternal message of spiritual unity: “Say ye: ‘We believe in God and the revelation given to us and to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and it is unto Him that we surrender ourselves.’” (2:136)

The Prophet Muhammad himself sought to erase any distinctions between the message he taught and that taught by Jesus, who he called God’s “spirit and word.” Prophet Muhammad said: “Both in this world and in the Hereafter, I am the nearest of all people to Jesus, the son of Mary. The prophets are paternal brothers; their mothers are different, but their religion is one.”

When Muslims mention the Prophet Muhammad, they always add the phrase “peace be upon him.” Christians may be surprised to learn that the same phrase always follows a Muslim’s mention of Jesus or that we believe Jesus will return to earth in the last days before the final judgment. Disrespect toward Jesus, as we have seen all too often in our society, is very offensive to Muslims.

Unfortunately, violent events and hate-filled rhetoric around the world provide ample opportunity for promoting religious hostility. And yes, Muslims and Christians do have some differing perspectives on Jesus’ life and teachings. But his spiritual legacy offers an alternative opportunity for people of faith to recognize their shared religious heritage.

America’s Muslim community stands ready to honor that legacy by building bridges of interfaith understanding and challenging those who would divide our nation along religious or ethnic lines.

We have more in common than we think.

Right-click here to download pictures. To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet.

Four words and all hell breaks out


I’ve written before about the racial problem our country has; the new targets are Arabs and Muslims and anything that has to do with them in a positive light is enough to send seemingly intelligent people into an emotional tailspin that sees them plummet headfirst into the ground and explode.  I’ve also said the religious right of this country has made itself irrelevant with its racist banter that is usually inaccurate and divisive and not at all connected to its core beliefs in the divinity of Jesus and his message of eternal salvation.  It’s just something in us that likes to make trouble where there is none.  So I’m particularly amused at the uproar over the sign above in a Best Buy’s advertisement that seems to have sent many people off on their own suicide bent rantings.  Best Buy’s has been in the cross hairs of some of these people since 2006 when it was  said the company stopped recognizing Christmas by removing that word from its ads and using the more generic term “holidays” instead, and now to add insult to injury, the theory goes, they’re  further alienating Christians by recognizing a Muslim holiday over the more popular Christmas in their current ads.  I guess it didn’t occur to those “Christians” that perhaps Best Buy’s was trying to be inclusive in its sales pitch when it said, “Happy Holidays” by honoring and respecting those Christians who  don’t celebrate Christmas or don’t commemorate it on 12/25.   I guess the “Christians” who took offense at the lack of the word “Christmas” only see one view as sufficient to represent all of Christiandom, but Best Buy’s was smart enough to throw out the missing word “Christmas” red herring by the Christian right and came back with a strong statement which said in part

“Best Buy’s customers and employees around the world represent a variety of faiths and denominations. We respect that diversity and choose to greet our customers and employees in ways that reflect their traditions,” said spokeswoman Lisa Svac Hawks in a written statement to The Detroit News. “In addition to Happy Eid, you will see greetings of Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa and Feliz Navidad in various Best Buy communications during the holiday season.”

Oops.  I guess she told you, all you who had worked yourselves up in a lather over the absence of the word “Christmas”, never mind the absence of the spirit of Christmas, in an advertising campaign.  If it’s “Christmas” you want, then it’s “Christmas” you’re going to get!  Unfortunately that’s not good enough for many of the “religious right” who when confronted with the reality that another store they had targeted was using the word “Christmas” in their ads said the resulting ads were “offensive”, “patronizing”, a “joke”.  It’s apparent what these people are upset with is not the absence of a word, but rather the presence of people who or ideas which are different than themselves.  That’s called “xenophobia”….some of it’s synonym are racist, racialist; prejudiced, bigoted, intolerant and those describe the religious right to a Tee!  In closing, let me take the time to thank Best Buy’s for their understanding that America is made up of people and faiths  from all over the world many of which have been here since the inception of this country.  Their attitude towards the presence of such diversity is more American in spirit than any objection raised by the faux pas “religious right”.

Blowback-The Intended Consequence of American Foreign Policy-The Awlaki Interview


It was one of the themes of Ron Paul’s candidacy for president in 2008; American foreign policy would exact a price for Americans that they should neither have to pay or  or are not responsible for paying.  Blowback, a term coined by the CIA after their coup was responsible for re-installing the Shah of Iran to power in the early 1950s means the possible “unintended consequences” of American government’s  covert action against other countries, most notably those in the Middle East and elsewhere.  Paul used the term to refer to any policy of the US government, covert or otherwise that adversely affected the people to whom it was directed, but might have possibly been considered advantageous to American interests in the short term.  What Paul and his supporters, I counted myself among them, wanted to say was that American interventionist policy held no strategic long term advantage for anyone and the best course of action was for the US to not become obstructionist in its relations with foreign countries, especially those in the Middle East.

In the present much ado has been made about a certain Imam that might have inspired Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter of late, to commit his acts of murder and mayhem, saying the Imam, Anwar Al-Awlak used his firebrand rhetoric which he espoused while an Imam in an Arlington, Va masjid shortly after 911 and which left an indelible mark on Hasan until today.  However, that narrative is incomplete and at the same time convenient for the proponents of blowback, because it allows policy and public to aim their ire at the people who respond to acts of aggression against them in much the same way as they are assaulted.  Thanks to the American Muslim blog, I ran across a National Geographic interview with Al-Awlak while he was Imam of Dar al-Hijrah  masjid and the things he said at that time are a far cry from the firebrand rhetoric he is accused of using to incite people to acts of terrorism against America. In answer to the question of the climate in America created by the 911 catastrophe, al Awlak had this to say.

we stated our position clearly, and I even feel that it’s unfortunate that we have to state this position because no religion would condone this, so it should be common knowledge. But we were in a position where we had to say that Islam does not approve of this. There is no way that the people who did this could be Muslim, and if they claim to be Muslim, then they have perverted their religion.We encourage people to participate in blood drives, we encourage them to donate, and then we encourage the community to reach out. Part of the blame is on us that we haven’t been very active in reaching out to our fellow citizens, so that when these things happen we don’t have to go through this unfortunate backlash. We had a neighbor come in, and she said, “I’m coming to show my solidarity with you, to let you know that we are with you in this and that we are sorry for the difficult times you’re going through.” And then she said, “I wish you had came and visited me earlier, to give me an understanding of your religion. Although we were neighbors, we didn’t really hear from you.” This really is a message for us Muslims, that we need to reach out.

He defined “jihad” this way

The linguistic meaning of the word is “struggle.” The jihad of the individual would be to struggle against the evils of oneself. Therefore, it’s a continuous process of improvement. It is striving to become closer to God. That’s jihad for the individual.Jihad for the community is to protect the religion from any inside or outside enemy. So the jihad of the community would mean that if there is any internal corruption, we would struggle to get rid of it. And if there is an invading force from outside, then we would, too, struggle to defend ourselves, and that is where armed combat occurs. So actually, fighting is only a part of the jihad, and it’s considered to be a defensive force in order to protect the religion. If somebody defends their life, their property or their family, this is considered to be a jihad.

 

Could it be this was the ideology that attracted a searching Nidal Hasan to Awlaki at a time when he was looking for direction and purpose?  As we mentioned in an earlier post the place of worship in Virginia where Awlaki was imam was well known to federal authorities and worhshippers there remember Awlaki strongly condemning acts of terrorism on American soil, as the tone of the above interview seems to suggest.  In a heavy dose of foreshadowing, Awlaki while referring to bin Laden had this to say,

My worry is that because of this conflict,(i.e. in the Middle East-pre Iraq war)  the views of Osama bin Laden will become appealing to some of the population of the Muslim world. Never in the past were there any demonstrations raising the picture of Osama Bin Laden—it has just happened now. So Osama bin Laden, who was considered to be an extremist, radical in his views, could end up becoming mainstream. That’s a very frightening thing, so the U.S. needs to be very careful and not have itself perceived as an enemy of Islam.

True to form, America did just the opposite, entering into what George Bush and others in his administration and the  media called the “clash of civilizations”, an inevitable war of the worlds, and blowback ensued, which is just what the fanatics on both sides of the divide, in Washington and in cities across the Middle East wanted.  Throughout the Iraqi war the constant refrain was the occupation of Iraq by American troops  made America less safe today than it was before and the radicalization of people like Awlaki is proof of that.  Even in the words of the milquetoast Washington Post, Awlaki didn’t become radicalized until he returned to Yemen in 2004, the land of his parents, and witnessed  firsthand the destruction of a nominal agrarian society by an aggressive American foreign policy toward  Yemen and other countries in the Middle East. The fact that Yemeni authorities arrested him once and tried to identify him with a group he had previously eschewed and whose tactics he had condemned played no small part in his about face to  today.  Blowback; and the ability of policy wonks to point to him and by extension Hasan as a reason for repressive measures against Arab/Muslim citizens of the United States, as well as increased vigilance, read, military spending and government intrusion into the lives of all citizens is a convenience of blowback that the initiators and proponents cannot  overlook.  Quite simply, many in government want dissension and strife in areas of the world and if need be at home as well, to justify their continued occupation of such areas amidst huge military and government appropriations.  Anything that can be done to justify this trend is acceptable in their rational, and blowback becomes just another tool, at the risk of ordinary citizens, for the interference of government in people’s lives, either as oppressors or liberators or saviors.

 

Ft. Hood


Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly went to his workplace at Ft. Hood, Texas shot and killed 12 people.  It is reported that Hasan is a Muslim…………….so what?  The religion he professes is not a crime, the act of killing 12 people is and that’s what he has to stand trial for.  We here at Miscellany101 do not subscribe to the notion of collectivism even though it is an idea rooted in Christian theology.  In that ethnic-centric philosophy, all humanity will be judged or held accountable for the sins of the original progenitors of the species but we find it more reasonable and rational to believe that every one is responsible for what he or she does and not what is foisted upon them by birth, nationality, species or one’s correligionists.  Israel has used this rationale to justify it’s oppression and slaughter of Palestinians under its control as well as  threaten those living anywhere else in the world, but Miscellany101 finds that racist and xenophobic and smacks of a bygone and dark era of modern Western history.

It’s sad to see members of the Islamic faith think it necessary to go through super human lengths and acts of condemnation that folks like CAIR and others have gone through to distance themselves from the guilt of collectivism that 21st century America and her allies have put the Muslim world through.  Even as this piece is being written, there are reports of a shooting taking place in Orlando, Florida that some are saying has resulted in two deaths yet no one is asking members of the suspect’s religion to make any genuflections before the public in acts of contrition and neither should they, nor is there any speculation about the religious beliefs of the individual, as that too is irrelevant.  Yet, societal conditions that go far beyond proper citizenship and allegiance are made upon members of the Islamic faith with the most incendiary language used when  dealing with the issue of Islam and Muslims in America.  It’s sad to see the press leading the way in this public electronic lynching as witnessed by Charlie Gibson’s  ABC News  lead on Thursday’s broadcast identifying the gunman as “Muslim Hasan” as if “Muslim” were somehow affixed to his name.  Regrettably, this attitude has become the norm when dealing with “crime” here in America; regardless of the anecdotes attributed to Hasan’s motive, what he did was certainly no more than a crime, religion is at best tangential to this tragedy.  Acts of murder and/or retribution are as old as this Republic, and are  practiced by every tribe, group, race, ethnicity, religion known to man.  There are laws in place to deal with illegal behavior, but our society has not yet criminalized “belonging” to a group or holding beliefs that others may find abhorrent.

What then is America’s fascination with Muslims and their criminal behavior as opposed to the criminal behavior of “criminals” of other religions or origins unknown? Obviously 911 has had an enormous impact on the American psyche but the main impetus of this hate driven agenda is the attempt to grab the heart and soul of America by some through the machinations of big government.  The hypocrisy of that movement to use the full force of government to fix special interest grievances is no more apparent than in the birther and anti-health reform movements now sweeping the country which claims an Obama led administration is somehow orchestrating the total involvement of government in their lives just months after one of the most intrusive governments in modern history  that of George Bush, relinquished its fear mongering hold  on a terrified America.  It doesn’t matter to the denizens of hate and fear that Hasan was probably like all the other military vets who loathed a foreign policy that put them in a foreign land as an occupier for an indeterminate period of time….(this year has been the deadliest year for military suicides since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) and that Hasan probably wanted to do the infamous suicide by cop, but stopped along the way to kill scores of people.  Nor do those who are angry with big government and especially Obama’s big government see anything wrong with police teams swarming over Ft. Hood, while soldiers trained to fight in urban settings much like what was taking place on their own base were left unarmed and unable to defend themselves.  No one sees the contradiction in a policy that tells US service personnel they must defend freedom abroad but are not capable of defending themselves on their own soil……i.e. every soldier should have been armed with their personal firearms for protection for just  such an emergency as presented itself that fateful Thursday.   What people have been able to do is avoid discussion of those issues of a foreign and national policy which directly impact the lives of EVERY American and turn it into a hate fest reminiscent of McCarthyism like suspicion of 12% of a population that holds the same values as everyone else.  It’s amazing…..we still have not reached a level of sophistication to see beyond the narrow minded ritual of divide and conquer still being carried out to detract public attention from matters of substance and instead get them to embrace issues that are inconsequential to the health and longevity of this Republic.  I dread the thought that we have to go through another 30-60 years of civil rights struggles for Muslim Americans, much like we’ve had to with other ethnic groups now peacefully inhabiting our shores.  I’m sorry we haven’t learned that age old lesson……every man is responsible for his actions alone, just like Major Hasan.

UPDATE

 

RussellMurder on military installations isn’t as uncommon as one would have you believe, but to focus on the ethnicity of this particular murderer when that hasn’t been done at any other time in recent memory, ignoring the trauma government decisions regarding war and the deployment of the US military has caused the American people at a time when there is talk of potentially expanding the war effort into Iran is macabre and sinister….and might we add typcially neoncon-like.  Lest we forget, a few short months ago, five people were killed on a military installation in Iraq by someone who had been seeking help, didn’t find it and decided to take matters into his own hands.  Nothing at all was said about his religious motivation or lack thereof or even what drove him on his murderous rampage other than his inability to cope with what are supposed to be his duties as a soldier and no demands nor inquiries were made by society in general to have revealed to us all the secrets behind John Russell’s descent into murderous mayhem.  Such knowledge while vital to the likes of mental health professionals, is not something that would satisfy our thirst for justice; and notice how silent we have remained in the face of Russell’s onslaught until now.  Yet pundits across the political landscape of America are with a straight face able to demand that conditions for service to our country, and perhaps even citizenship should change because someone with the name “Hasan” has committed the same act as others who wear a military uniform have done before him.  Why main stream media and punditry haven’t been called out for their hypocrisy is an indication of where present day America is in today’s climate of fear and loathing.  It is the sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in today that despite all the information we have available to us, we still choose to go down that path of our ancestors, which leads to fratricide and destruction.  Wake up America your standard of living is in peril not because of any one group of people’s presence in  your midst but rather because of our inability, lack of will, to work together to ignore the voices of gloom and hate.  If we succumb to them we have no one to blame but ourselves for the catastrophe that is sure to follow.

The Religious Warmongering of the New York Times


NYTLeave it to the main stream news media to editorialize about the necessity for religions to confront one another in the timber box times we now live in.  With the nation’s first black president who many in American society want to delegitimize because of his color, his origin or his ethnicity, the editorial which appears here in the New York Times is just one more attempt to kill two birds with one stone; the black president many wish they never had and the menacing Islam which many think he, Obama, represents.

One should come to expect the type of bombast which fills Ross Douthat’s editorial; after all the New York Times hasn’t been known for being very accurate here lately, with all their false articles about WMDs and its  reporters cavorting with government officials while engaged in outing covert agents of various intelligence agencies.  It comes as no surprise to me therefore that the Times has printed such inflammatory statements about Islam and it’s coexistence with the aspirations of an hegemonical Pope Benedict like, “in making the opening to Anglicanism, Benedict also may have a deeper conflict in mind — not the parochial Western struggle between conservative and liberal believers, but Christianity’s global encounter with a resurgent Islam.” (I never thought Islam was out for the count or dying?  How can it therefore be ‘resurgent’?) Or this quote, “Where the European encounter is concerned, Pope Benedict has opted for public confrontation. In a controversial 2006 message in Regensburg, Germany, he explicitly challenged Islam’s compatibility with the Western way of reason — and sparked, as if in vindication of his point, a wave of Muslim riots around the world.” (Does Douthat think the confrontation should extend to the shores of America too?) Why Benedict, at least according to Douthat,  wants to pick a fight with Islam is beyond me.  Maybe it’s because Europe sees itself  threatened by the existence of Muslims in its midst and wants to expell them much like they did in the 15th century with its pogroms against Muslims they expelled from Spain. In some way I would hope a parallel can be drawn sothat a papal inspired  Europe could understand the frustration Palestinians feel about having an alien force on their soil whose compatibility is different from their own, but I don’t think that’s going to happen because frankly Europe, like America, is fine tuned for war and confrontation, to use the editorial’s word(s) and there’s is very little else, like empathy or understanding or even peace for that matter, that they are interested in.  It pains me to see a religious figure dial into the lustful emotion of hate and distrust the way this Pope has.  I am reminded of his meeting with GWB and wonder if they two didn’t share a scriptural text or two to talk about their worldly ambitions; after all, it is this perfect dichotomy between the Church and temporal power that allows them to say to one another, ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’ isn’t it?  Glen Greenwald does a pretty good job of dissecting Douthat’s editorial on a political level here.

What interests me however is the benign reaction the Muslim world has exhibited toward Benedict’s remarks, which some Muslims took offense to because of the defamation of the Prophet,  alluded to in the Douthat editorial.  You can read the official Muslim response here where a certain group of scholars extended every olive branch there is to the Pope who is being encouraged by his parishioners the likes of Douthat to “confront” Muslims in order to gain Anglican converts.  The Muslim response linked to above contains over 50 references to the word “love” in describing their relationship to God and their fellow man and several references the need for “peace” between the different groups of the world.  I would think a thoughtful, considerate and judicious clergyman would want to inspire and encourage such sentiments among members of another faith, not incite or aggravate their opposites.  In an extraordinary attempt at conciliation meant to allay already heightened fears, concerns, paranoia on the part of papal Christendom, the Muslim reply to Benedict begins thus

Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world’s population.
Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no
meaningful peace in the world. The future of the world depends on peace between
Muslims and Christians.
The basis for this peace and understanding already exists. It is part of the very
foundational principles of both faiths: love of the One God, and love of the neighbour.
These principles are found over and over again in the sacred texts of Islam and
Christianity. The Unity of God, the necessity of love for Him, and the necessity of love of
the neighbour is thus the common ground between Islam and Christianity.

and remains consistently conciliatory throughout.  Nowhere in the Muslim response is their any attempt to touch on the hot button issues that are usually brought up in discussions between Muslims and non Muslims.  Doing so would be distracting at best and tend to feed the appetite of any already hungry desire for war between the two faiths.  Instead these “scholars” appear to want to emphasize a common ground that can support a foundation of understanding and mutual respect.  I wish that had been the tone of Douthat’s editorial and not the one that seems to encourage Benedict to go down the road of his predecessors whose hands have stained the annals of history with the blood of their religious conquests, read murder, of European Muslims. However, such is the tone of main stream media and the New York Times these days, which is known for reporters who have told Muslims, ‘suck on this’.

Muslim Spies in Congress: A Classic Misdirection Play


Chris Gaubatz Chris Gaubatz, pictured on the right next to Representative Andre Carson, along with his father have produced what they think is an explosive book about the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR,  a Muslim civil rights organization’s attempts to infiltrate Congress with spies as interns.  Yes, this is another in a long line of attempts to discredit, denigrate, pollute Islam’s presence in America, and you the reader should ask yourself the question why is so much effort being made to destroy a religion in the land of the free and the home of brave.  The book in question is called Muslim Mafia, and the writer, Chris’ dad, Dave Gaubatz is literally on the fringe when it comes to sanity in today’s America; you can read about his dubious past here.  Among some of his more enlightened pronouncements is the one where he says when talking about the Obama campaign, ‘We are now on the verge of allowing a self admitted ‘crack-head’ to have his finger on every nuclear weapon in America.’ His tendency to make things up out of thin air is continued in the aforementioned book.  What’s disturbing about it, apart from the fact he prostituted his son to lie and deceive the people who work in the offices of CAIR where he stole memos from them, no doubt that the FBI already possessed, to prove his theory of spying, is the fact this book was announced by four members of Congress, one of whom wrote the forward for the book…….a bit of self-promotion never hurt anybody I guess.  This is the same Congress, an institution where one of their own esteemed members has already been outed as a spy!

HarmanJane Harman, democrat from California has been recorded discussing making a deal with some Israeli intelligence officer who was being monitored by the feds through a court approved wiretap.  Harman was to throw the full weight of her office behind getting the Justice Department to drop the charges against two AIPAC officials….the DOJ inevitably did just that,  who were accused for spying for Israel in exchange for being appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee with the help of said Israeli officer. It doesn’t help Harman’s supporters to know that Harman had been under investigation since 2006 and that DOJ attorneys had decided she indeed committed a crime in her discussions with the Israelis.  That doesn’t seem to matter to the likes ofReps. Sue Myrick (NC), John Shadegg (AZ), Paul Broun (GA), and Trent Franks (AZ), who claim the Muslim menace is imminent and deadly and by extension trumps anything Harman ever did.  Yet, the CAIR’s  literature used by Gaubatz to expose their dastardly plot reveals them to be no more than a public advocacy group for the rights of Muslim Americans and a lobbying organization with far less effectiveness than AIPAC.

The second part of the misdirection involves diverting attention away from the efforts Muslims have made to report, bring to the attention of authorities or police,  members of their community only to have their efforts denied, like the community in California that reported an obviously errant Muslim who it later turned out was a FBI informant only to have one of their own arrested and the  subject of a government investigation.   Or how about the Muslim community leader,  known as an Imam, who was arrested by federal authorities because while he agreed to help law enforcement round up radical leaning Muslims he refused to do so surreptitiously. Left with examples like this Muslim communities throughout America feel helpless to stop what are many times government inspired plots of violence against American citizens because such disclosure to or cooperation with federal authorities often leads to negative consequences to otherwise law abiding citizens.   Perhaps this high publicity appearance of the four horsemen congressional representatives was meant to get the members of CAIR and other Muslim civil rights groups to come running back to federal officials begging to be accepted by them and agreeing to any terms dictated by law enforcement to counter any negative publicity generated by this “book”.  I hope that doesn’t happen, and it shouldn’t.   The Muslim community has done more than  their share to show good faith in working with law enforcement  to eliminate any threat to the security of American citizens….many of them Muslims.  This spurious book, Muslim Mafia, is the thanks they get for that.

I have some good Muslim friends


Tenn_mayorYeah, right.  In a throwback to ‘some of my best friends are Negro’, this Tennessee mayor applies the stereotype to Muslims to cover up his ignorance contained in an email he forwarded where he asks readers to remember a series of “Muslim” terrorist attacks. For example, “Remember the MUSLIM bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993! To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors.”

Choosing to ignore the scores of Muslim victims of 911 and the rather dubious aftermath of the attacks where calls for a more honest and open investigation are being made everyday, Clarksville Mayor Johnny Piper wants to lie and mislead people about that fateful day in American history in order to score points on the Islamophobia battlefied.  In the process he gets most everything wrong, like the assertion that the stamp is new, and its creation was ordered by President Barack Obama, when in fact it has appeared in five of George W. Bush’s eight years in office.

The politics of hate, lies and distortion are being ramped up as people find purpose and comfort in such tactics to reinforce stereotypes and prejudices that have long simmered under the American collective psyche.  People of reason and faith should recognize the tactics of the Pipers of America, call them out on it and discard them as quickly as such people spring up.

Turning the other cheek is not a Jewish thing to do


I like context.  Things when viewed in context offer a remarkable clarity to things that may appear to be seperate and completely irrelevant.  American authorities have become somewhat hysterical about the handful of Somali American young men who appear to be leaving the US to go back to Somalia to wage jihad.  In officials’ wildest dreams, they think after fighting in Somalia these same young men would return to the States and resume the fight here.  Huh?  Somali-Americans are doing everything they can to cooperate with federal and local authorities and no doubt this whole idea is the brain child of Hollywood scriptwriters of action movies seeking to cast the next group of bad guys to be bowled down by an overly aggressive American administration.

What these same writers left out is the other side of the story, the rest of the story, where this type of pan-nationalist recruitment goes on everyday with people who hold dual loyalties between America and ‘choose your other country and insert here’.  I’m sure this story of Jewish Americans who go to help their second home has as much traction if not more than that of any Somali adventurist.   Sometimes, however the Jewish American jihadist tends to confuse his loyalties and winds up fighting for the wrong “good guys” against American interests.  However those who possess singleness of mind can find themselves filling slots their adopted country needs filled in order to justify its territorial grab of Palesinian land which further entrenches them in a place they are not wanted for which they need to fight to defend.  It’s sad young men such as the two examples above don’t see themselves as cannon fodder for states’ interests that have nothing at all to do with them as individuals or their survival.

American Teens are fighting back in Israel

Later this year, 21-year-old Ephraim Khantsis will pack a couple of suitcases, say good-bye to his mother, leave his home in Brooklyn, and move to Israel. On arrival in Jerusalem he will enroll in a yeshiva, or religious school, that is popular with Americans. After a few months he will make his way north, to a place this young American feels is his true home: the Jewish settlement of Kfar Tapuach.

Khantsis, who is in the process of applying for Israeli citizenship, will fit right in. Like the assassinated Brooklyn-born rabbi Meir Kahane, the man some in Kfar Tapuach consider their spiritual leader, Khantsis believes that all Arabs and Palestinians should be forcibly removed from territory controlled by Israel, including the West Bank.

“It’s the most humane way to solve the situation,” Khantsis—who has just graduated from Stony Brook University, on Long Island, with a degree in computer science—says, sipping a soda in an Israeli-run kosher pizzeria in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, this past June. He acknowledges that he is advocating ethnic cleansing.

There are now more than a quarter of a million Jewish settlers living among almost 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank—and many of the radicals resisting Obama’s wishes are American. The approximately 100,000 U.S. immigrants in the West Bank and Israel have been influential from the beginning of the movement, and many of them have been among the most extreme of the pioneers: Kahane founded a political party that was deemed racist and banned from the Knesset before he was assassinated in Manhattan in 1990; Brooklyn-born Baruch Goldstein shot dead 29 Palestinians in Hebron in 1994; and a group of settlers in Hebron, whose spokesman is New Jersey–born David Wilder, was involved in a violent confrontation with the Israeli military last year.

Israeli immigrants, Somali jihadists, both fighting American allies but given two different designations.  That’s the beauty of yellow journalism and distorted history.  One man’s terrorist is another man’s guerilla/freedom fighter.  The next time you hear of someone leaving the shores of America to fight in a land far, far away, remember it’s not just Muslim American who may be doing that.