Tariq Ramadan and John Rees Discuss French Left and Islamophobia

Tariq Ramadan

I am not generally a fan of Press TV, as it is generally heavily biased or lenient towards the Iranian regime, just as Fox News is to the Republican party, as Russia Today is biased towards Putin and AlJazeera to Qatar, etc. However this program below with Muslim scholar Dr. Tariq Ramadan and journalist John Rees is a good one. It discusses how Islamophobia is a cover for war and racism, as well as the peculiarities of the French left and why it is unique in its parlay with Islamophobia.

‘Sharia Law’ Laws

By: Steve Lehto

A legislator in Michigan has decided to jump on the anti-Sharia bandwagon and has proposed legislation to protect us from Sharia law. Tennessee has proposed such a law, and Oklahoma has passed one (although it was later struck down by a court and presumably will be tied up in the courts for a while). While this appears to be a trend, it is confounding.

First, here is Rep. Dave Agema, quoted in the Detroit News: “Our law is our law. I don’t like foreign entities telling us what to do.” His bill, he says, will prevent anyone “who tries to shove any foreign law down our throats.”

So, Agema is proposing a state law to keep “foreign entities” from “telling us what to do.” I presume he is being colloquial; who cares if they try and “tell us” what to do? We don’t have to listen, do we? Presumably, he is suggesting that there is some way that they can force us into doing something we don’t want to, unless there is a law preventing it. So he has proposed his bill, which will presumably protect us from this ominous threat.

Too bad he hasn’t read our Constitution. I’m not talking about the Constitution of the State of Michigan; I’m talking about the big kahuna: The Constitution of the United States. Article VI reads in part:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. [Emphasis added.]

Forgive my italicizing; the drafters of the Constitution didn’t feel the need to italicize the important parts of the document because they thought later generations would read it carefully for themselves.

So, what Dave Agema has missed — and the others who are trying to pass these stupid laws — is that when it comes to the law, the Constitution already trumps whatever a “foreign entity tell[s] us” to do. (See italicized portions above.)

Don’t get me wrong; I know that some people have heard of Sharia law being applied by parties willingly to their own disputes. That is, both sides to a dispute have decided to use Sharia law as a guide for settling their dispute. While you might not want it applied to your dispute, who cares how other people settle their disputes?

You may not know this, but across America everyday litigants choose to step outside the court system and let arbitrators decide their disputes for them. In these arbitrations, different rules are often applied. Rules of evidence are modified, juries are not used and appeals are barred. To a lawyer, those three things alone are enough to cause nightmares. Yet it is perfectly legal because the parties have agreed to resolve their dispute in that manner.

There have also been the oddball resolutions where parties have agreed to settle their disputes with a coin toss. Frankly, if I had to choose between Sharia law and a coin toss, I’d go with Sharia law. Does that mean we should outlaw the coin toss? Quick! Mr. Agema — I have another law I need you to work on!

The strange thing is that the law would be legally meaningless if passed. The Constitution is already the supreme law of the land; another legislative statement affirming the Constitution’s supremacy would not change or add anything. What is upsetting is that everyone knows these laws are simply being passed as anti-Muslim statements. After all, they serve no legitimate purpose.

Crazy Frank Gaffney in Ultra Fear-mongering Mode

Frank Gaffney

Even loyal Bush aides are not free from the Islamophobic machine. Suhail Khan debates Frank Gaffney on Anderson Cooper’s 360 and makes Gaffney look like a wacko.

 

Iranium: Clarion Fund’s Third Crusade

Third time’s the charm, so they say. Following the last two transparent failures to influence American politics with Islamophobia, the Clarion Fund (Aish HaTorah) is literally counting the seconds down until their “nationwide event” to reveal their newest scare-mongering dud: Iranium.

We have reported on Clarion’s last two anti-Muslim films: Obsession (see: Obsessionforhate) and Third Jihad. Those films featured a number of Islamophobic “experts” we have exposed on this site (i.e. Daniel Pipes, Brigitte Gabriel, Walid Shoebat, Steven Emerson) who specialize in making lucrative careers off Islamophobic fear. Those two films were disturbingly similar to other sophisticated propaganda films that demonize entire populations. Jack Shaheen, an Oxford University research scholar and author of four books on racism, stereotyping and propaganda, describes the film Obsession as “very convincing.” He says:

“Goebbels would be proud. This film has a place in cinema history with the racist film Birth of a Nation and the Nazi film Triumph of the Will because it so cleverly advances lies to vilify a people.”

Those are the old films. But with this new film will Clarion reform its alarmist ways and instead present us with an insightful, balanced, and objective analysis of the situation in Iran? A quick look at some of the film’s interviewees tell us, no.

Iranium, like its predecessors, seems to rely on a highly edited mix of expert and pseudo-expert commentary. Among the most glaring pseudo-experts is Frank Gaffney; noted on this site for his adherence to the “stealth jihad” conspiracy. Gaffney is founder of the Center for Security Policywhere he lobbies for hardline neoconservative security policies. Gaffney is a prolific writer on the Washington Times’ anti-Muslim editorial page where he has seriously argued that President Obama is a secret Muslim, lambasted Obama for daring to reach out to the Muslim World, and accused Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan of facilitating a Sharia take-over… twice.

Due to his obvious conflict of interest, Gaffney’s presence as a film expert raises serious doubts about the credibility of the film. Since Gaffney is a neoconservative lobbyist, he writes security “analysis” that favors neoconservative policy prescriptions. In other words, it is not in his policyinterest to provide us with an objective analysis. Hence, he has been duly noted for the idiocy of his hyper-inflated anti-Sharia report.

If all of Clarion’s films have relied on pseudo-expert testimony that supports a pre-defined policy prescription, then why should we take seriously their hyping the Iranian threat? Is the purpose to inform the public or to influence them to vote a certain way? Iranium appears to be just another expensive attempt to influence American politics by scapegoating the Islamic/Iranian boogeyman.

People who are inspired by the Clarion Fund should flip the scenario around. Would it be acceptable for me to create a serious documentary entitled Israelanium featuring Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu? Would it be right if my film deliberately blurred the line between extremism and Judaism? Somehow I think charges of anti-Semitism would immediately ensue, but this same crowd of people has no problem using the same cut, paste, and smear tactics against Muslims.

Don’t get me wrong. The Iranian government should be subject to all the international laws and standards that all nations are held to. There are important concerns about which people need to get good, balanced information. So for this reason the film Iranium promises to harm our national debate even more by injecting inflammatory, one-sided propaganda into the discourse at a time when people need clear-headed assessment.

So while Clarion prepares for another Muslim-fearing mulligan, let’s hope that this film follows its cousins as another embarrassingly epic failure. Perhaps our efforts to restore sanity will overcome their march to keep fear alive.

 

Forward.com: Zionist Groups Stoke Fear of Islam for Political Profit

After we published our article on The Connection Between Zionism and Organized Islamophobia — The Facts, we had some knee jerk responses by people who obviously hadn’t read the article claiming that we were dabbling in anti-Semitism. This was of course a wrong headed and false charge as many have since admitted and now a leading Jewish magazine has opined as much.

Some Zionist Groups Stoke Fear Of Islam for Political Profit

Opinion

By Matthew Duss

After the last several months, it should be clear that the controversy over the Park 51 Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero is about more than sensitivity to the families of the 9/11 victims and the sacredness of the site where their loved ones were murdered. In places as far from Lower Manhattan as Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Temecula, Calif., Muslim houses of worship, and the people who pray in them, have come under attack by conservative activists as representing an American beachhead for Muslim extremism.

Whether it’s Newt Gingrich peddling false stories of “creeping sharia” (strict Islamic law) to an audience of very serious people at the American Enterprise Institute, or the Washington Times running endless editorials and op-eds from conspiracy theorists like Frank Gaffney warning that President Obama “may actually still be a Muslim,” or Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney shamelessly and falsely asserting that Park 51 leader Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has “terror-related connections,” it’s clear that quite a few conservative elites see political profit in stoking Americans’ fear of Islam.

Such hostility toward Muslims is unfortunately not marginal in the pro-Israel community — unless one is prepared to define the huge annual policy conference of one of Washington’s foremost lobbies as “marginal.” At an AIPAC conference in March 2009, to take just one example, terrorism expert Steve Emerson spent 40 minutes stoking the worst fears of the mostly elderly attendees with a talk called “Tentacles of Terror: The Global Reach of Islamic Radicalism.” It could just as easily have been called “Scaring the Living Crap Out of Bubbe and Zayde.” As long as Jews are encouraged to believe that scary Muslims are hiding under every American bed, the idea is perpetuated that support for the Jewish state is a zero-sum contest between favoring Israel and favoring Arabs and Muslims. For too many American Jews, smearing Islam is seen as a legitimate expression of Zionism.

Groups like The Israel Project, the Middle East Media Research Institute and Middle East Forum seem to exist for no other reason than to spotlight the very worst aspects of Muslim societies. Magazines like Commentary and the Weekly Standard regularly traffic in the crudest stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims, and promote the harshest measures for dealing with them. Musing over the appropriateness of targeting Palestinian civilians during the Gaza conflict, Standard contributing editor Michael Goldfarb wrote approvingly, “To wipe out a man’s entire family, it’s hard to imagine that doesn’t give his colleagues at least a moment’s pause.”

Martin Kramer, a fellow at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy, president of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and frequent AIPAC panelist, took things even further, suggesting that Israel’s siege on Gaza, could, by depressing population growth, “crack the culture of martyrdom, which demands a constant supply of superfluous young men.”

In 2007, in what could be seen as a precursor to the current uproar over the Park 51 Islamic cultural center, Middle East Forum Director Daniel Pipes played a key role in flaming controversy over the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a planned New York City public school emphasizing the study of Arabic language and culture. Pipes asserted that such a school represented a potential threat simply by virtue of teaching Arabic.

It would be wrong, however, to pretend that these sorts of smears have been the work solely of conservatives. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, a liberal who promotes himself as Israel’s leading public defender, regularly rehearses the most clownish calumnies against Israel’s adversaries, real and perceived. Citing the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini’s collaboration with the Nazis, Dershowitz wrote, “the Palestinian leadership, supported by the Palestinian masses, played a significant role in Hitler’s Holocaust.” The obviously ahistorical stupidity of that claim aside, it hardly needs pointing out that a similar attempt to lay collective blame upon Jews would be immediately — and rightly — condemned, by Dershowitz and others.

Hatred of Arabs has also had a home in one of America’s oldest and best-respected liberal magazines, The New Republic, for over three decades, courtesy of owner and editor-in-chief Marty Peretz, who never seems to tire of identifying ways in which Arab society is “hidebound and backward,” as he wrote in 2007. Observing the devastation in Iraq, Peretz wrote: “I actually believe that Arabs are feigning outrage when they protest what they call American (or Israeli) ‘atrocities.’ They are not shocked at all by what in truth must seem to them not atrocious at all. It is routine in their cultures.” Peretz reiterated that view in September of this year. “Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, especially for Muslims,” he wrote. “This is a statement of fact, not value.”

While it’s tempting to dismiss Peretz as a racist old kook, he does serve as editor-in-chief of a major magazine, and he has been able to help define the boundaries of acceptable liberal discourse for 30 years. And he has chosen through those years to place the most retrograde anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bigotry — including constant denials of Palestinian nationhood — within those boundaries.

It wasn’t so long ago that Jews in America were targets of similar slander and knee-jerk opposition. Liberal American Jews have been at the forefront of all of America’s struggles against bigotry, but they need to do a better job of calling out the hate in their own communities. Moderate Muslims are often called upon to condemn the extreme rhetoric of their co-religionists. It is not too much, at long last, to call upon moderate Zionists to do the same.

Matthew Duss is National Security Editor at the Center for American Progress.