George Zimmerman: Trayvon Martin’s Murderer Also an Islamophobe?

Zimmerman targeted a co-worker of Middle Eastern decent (h/t:Dawud Walid):

AUDIO: Witness Says George Zimmerman Repeatedly Bullied Him At Work, Targeted Him With Racist Jokes

(ThinkProgress)

Among the evidence in the Trayvon Martin case released by the Florida state prosecutor yesterday was a 15-minute interview with a former work colleague of George Zimmerman. The man, who is not identified by name, says that Zimmerman relentlessly bullied him at work.

Zimmerman, according to the witness, targeted him because he was Middle Eastern. He repeatedly called the man a “fucking moron” and mocked him using the voice of “Achmed the terrorist.” Zimmerman’s stories about the man would involve “bombing,” “I’ll kill your family” and other “jokes” about “Middle Eastern stuff.” According to the man, this went on “for days and days.”

Listen:

After a few months, Zimmerman was terminated. According to the witness, “he was fired for calling HR hotline so many times…he would complain about each and every manager and employee.”

Zimmerman is currently being investigated by the FBI, who reportedly may charge him with a hate crime.

Ali Sina vs. Sheila Musaji: Will the Real “Savage” Please Stand Up?

Sheila Musaji

Ali Sina has really been saber-rattling against The American Muslim’s Sheila Musaji.  As Musaji documents, Sina has received the support and blessing in this regard from the King and Queen of Islamophobia, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs.

For those of you who don’t know, Sina is one of the oldest and most nefarious Islamophobes to troll the internet–if Spencer is the King, Ali Sina is the Last Emperor of Islamophobia.  It makes sense then that Sina, Spencer, and Geller would find themselves in bed together.  They are truly a hateful trio.

Ali Sina has defended his view that “Muslims are savages”.  Sheila Musaji, after carefully documenting her exchange with him, quips:

I leave it to the reader to decide who is civilized and who is savage in this discussion.

This was the thought that went through my mind when I read the exchange between the two: not only does the foaming-at-the-mouth, hateful, and maniacal Ali Sina look completely loony compared to the thoughtful, tolerant, and intelligent Sheila Musaji, but the exchange between the two also typifies the difference between “their side” (loons) and ours (anti-loons and loon-watchers).

To be clear, when I make this dichotomy between “their side” and “our side”, it doesn’t have anything at all to do with “Muslims” and “non-Muslims”.  “Our side” includes people of all faiths (or no faith at all) dedicated to spreading peace, tolerance, and mutual coexistence, whereas “their side” includes, well, loons.

Read Sheila Musaji’s record of the exchange and decide for yourself which side you are on:

Ali Sina Launches Sharpened Olive Branch of Hate – updated 1/29/12

by Sheila Musaji

Today I received this email from Ali Sina with the heading “Sending you an olive branch”:

Dear Ms. Sheila Musaji

I read s [sic] few of your articles and see you have dedicated your efforts in [sic] maligning apostates, those who are fed up with Islam and want to protect the non-Muslim world from its onslaught. Of course you don’t see it that way. That’s okay. Maybe one day you will.

I have an offer for you. How about I send you a copy of my book, Understanding Muhammad? You read it. I promise by the time you are done you will no longer want to be a Muslim.

Now you may think this is ridiculous because nothing in the world can change your views about Islam. That is okay. Read it anyway. Read it, not with an open mind but with hatred in your heart against me. Read it with close mind and strive hard to deny all the evidences I present and try to find errors in it. Resist all my claims. By the time you are done reading the book you’ll lose your faith.

And what if you don’t? I promise you will. I have sent my book to hundreds of Muslims. They all promised to read it and get back to me showing my errors. I told them that I will publish their rebuttal. A percentage of them wrote back to thank me for opening their eyes. They are now fighting alongside me helping other Muslims leave Islam. Another group wrote to say I have a diabolic ability to induce doubt in Muslims and hence they stopped reading further. But most of them never replied. Not a single person has wrote [sic] back to do what they promised they’d do, i.e. refute me and show my errors. Not one person! Isn’t that something? Are you willing to take this challenge?

Should you agree to read the book I promise and refute it, I will publish your rebuttal and if you are correct I will withdraw my book from circulation, my membership from SION, and will stop my sites faithfreedom.org and alisina.org. There is also a financial reward of $50 K that I would give to you so you can donate to the charity of your choice.

If you are sincere you’d admit that by doing that you’d achieve a lot more than writing against me, Wafa Sultan (who is by the way my spiritual daughter) and other people in anti-Islam movement. After all these years I have gained some “notoriety.” If you refute my book I will stop my anti-Islam activity and people will notice. I’ve led thousands of Muslims out of Islam. Maybe many of them will want to take another look at Islam. Don’t say I am insignificant. Maybe in real life I am, but in the anti-Islam movement I have a name and a reputation. You’ll lose two days reading a book that you hate. In exchange you may eliminate a “notorious” enemy of Islam and in fact may even win him to your side. You know the story of Islam. Many of its great supporters were originally its staunch enemies. I could be one of them. Why not!  Don’t you believe in Allah’s power? All you’ve to do is read my book, which I will send to you in hard copy or in PDF, whatever is your choice. You can get help from your Muslim husband or imam or anyone you wish.

I am not going to publish this email, unless you ignore it. If you ignore it, will be evidence of your lack of sincerity. My offer to you is sincere and generous. I’ve dedicated 14 years of my life fighting Islam. I am ready to stop and even apologize publicly, should you read my book and prove it wrong. Your investment is only two days of your time. You have nothing to lose except your faith in a lie. That is not bad at all.

If you ignore my offer, I will publish this email. Since you’ve dedicated your life to malign SION and its members I want the world to know you are not a sincere person. But if you reply and read my book, we’ve opened the line of dialogue. You’ll either leave Islam as I predict, or you’ll refute it and I will join Islam. I will also publish your rebuttal, which will help others to see the truth.

I am sending you an olive branch. The ball is now in your court.

Kind regards, Ali Sina

Dear Ali Sina (whoever that might be),

The book that you are offering to send to me has been in print since 2008 (4 years) and is published by your own Faith & Freedom Publishing company.  It is sold at Amazon.com, and it is listed as selling for $157.71.  Another of your books Understanding Islam & Muslims is listed as having only one new copy available for $999.99 although it was published in November of 2011.

If you are such an effective voice speaking against Islam that you can GUARANTEE that any Muslim reading your book will leave Islam, it would seem that you would want your books to be widely disseminated.  At these prices, that isn’t likely.  Perhaps this one on one method of soliciting readership from particular individuals is how the book was meant to be distributed.

I think that this offer is just a ploy.  I would not provide you with my mailing address, any more than you would provide me with yours.  Why would any sane person provide their mailing address to a total stranger who hides behind a pseudonym?

Ali Sina is a pseudonym, and not your real name.  I have no idea who you are.  I only know you by your writings, and in your own words I find evidence that you are an individual I would be wise to fear, not because of your ideas, but because of your hatred.  Here are a few of your own statements:

—  “We strive for the unity of Mankind through the elimination of Islam, the most insidious doctrine of hate. Islam can’t be reformed, but it can be eradicated. It can’t be molded, but it can be smashed. It is rigid but brittle. That is why Muslims do not tolerate criticism of it. To eradicate Islam, all we have to do is tell the truth. It’s that simple. The truth about Islam is out. It’s all here in this site. Now it is up to you to spread it. With truth, the decent Muslims will leave Islam and with each Muslim that leaves, we gain a new soldier in our fight against terrorism. We are growing exponentially. The days of Islam are numbered and world peace is around the corner. Many of us will see that day. We might have to go through very tough times meanwhile. The storm is approaching.

— “We do not want to reform Islam. We want to eradicate it. Just as cancer cannot be reformed and the only way to cure the patient is to eradicate it, Islam cant be reformed either and it must be eradicated for the world to be saved.”

— “Islam, like fascism, appeals to people with low self esteem and low intelligence. Both these ideologies are irrational. They disdain reason, and hail devotion and submission to a higher authority. Like fascists, Muslims are triumphalists. They seek power, domination and control. They pride themselves in their strength of number, in their mindless heroism, in their disdain for life and in their willingness to kill and die for their cause. Islam is political and political Islam is fascism.”

— “Tarek Fatah proves my point that there is no such thing as moderate Muslim … Every “moderate” Muslim is a potential terrorist. The belief in Islam is like a tank of gasoline. It looks innocuous, until it meets the fire. For a “moderate” Muslim to become a murderous jihadist, all it takes is a spark of faith.”

— “I promise that if we continue this campaign of discrediting Islam and Muslim scholars, in no more than a quarter of century, Islam will be defeated. Islam will fall, like communism fell. Mark my words today, even if you think I am nuts. If we all work together, especially the ex-Muslims, we can get rid of Islam sooner than anyone can imagine. Iran is already anti Islamic. More than half of Iranians do not call themselves Muslims anymore. We are demolishing Islam from its foundation. The edifice seems to be intact. But don’t let appearances deceive you. This high tower of lies will come down at once.

— “If any city in the West is nuked I am 100% for nuking tens of cities in Islamic countries. I don’t see Muslims as innocent people. They are all guilty as sin. It is not necessary to be part of al Qaida to be guilty. If you are a Muslim you agree with Muhammad and that is enough evidence against you.”

— “We love you Muslims because you are humans like us. We are all related to each other. We are all limbs of the body of mankind. But you are diseased. You are infected by a deadly cult that threatens our lives. Your humanity is destroyed. Like a limb infected by flesh eating disease, now you are a threat to the rest of mankind. We will do everything to save you, to make you see your folly, and to make you understand that you are victims of a gigantic lie, so you leave this lie, stop hating mankind and plotting for its destruction and it domination. But if all efforts fail and if you become a threat to our lives and the lives of our children, we must amputate you. This will happen, not because I say so, but I say so because this is human response. We humans are dictated by our survival instinct. If you threaten me and my survival depends on killing you, I must kill you. Please come to your senses. Muhammad was not a prophet of God. He was an instrument of Satan to divide mankind so we destroy each other. It is a demonic plot to end humanity. Muhammad lied. He brought hate. Wake up please. You are putting the world, including your own lives in danger for a lie. Read my book and learn the truth about Muhammad. … Islam is disease. What does moderate Muslim mean anyway? Does it mean you are moderately diseased? This makes as much sense as saying, I am a moderate Nazi, or I am culturally a fascist. I only participate in their rallies. Let us call you by your name. You are a hypocrite. You are a useful idiot. You are part of the problem. In fact you are THE problem. If it were not for you, we would easily recognize our enemy and eliminating it, would be easy. But you shield the enemy. You muddy the waters. You confuse us to hide the beast among you. You do not fool me, even though you may fool the non-Muslims. I know your hypocrisy. I know how you hide and support the terrorists secretly but publicly you denounce him and portray yourself as our friend.

If these words were not enough for me to form a judgement about whether or not I would want to interact with you, your email is filled with statements that make my decision very clear.

You open with a false accusation that I “malign apostates”.  I don’t malign people that you call apostates and that I call people who have chosen another faith than that they were born into. Actually, I strongly uphold freedom of faith, and am a signatory to a statement initiated by Muslims declaring our commitment to that freedom.

I have no problem with anyone, including yourself, choosing whatever religious path (or no path) for themselves that they find meaningful.  I am puzzled by the fact that some converts from one belief system to another find it necessary to disparage the faith that they have left.  Forty years ago, I chose Islam.  That was a very personal and private decision, and I feel no need to defend that choice by in any way disparaging my former faith.  In fact, to behave in such a manner would cheapen my choice.  There are different paths that are suitable for different people.  God will judge, not any human being.

I do respond, and respond strongly to those individuals who malign the faith of others whether through anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-Mormonism, anti-Hinduism, or any other form of religious bigotry.  I respond particularly to Islamophobes because I believe that the poison that they spread directly endangers the safety and security of American Muslims including my own children.  Islamophobia is real and dangerous.  You can repeat “Islamophobia is a fallacy” as often as you want, and that won’t make it a fact.

You make an offer that you call “sending an olive branch” that includes a veiled threat “If you ignore my offer, I will publish this email … I want the world to know you are not a sincere person”.

Your patronizing statement You can get help from your Muslim husband or imam or anyone you wishshows your contempt for women and their ability to make their own choices and decisions.  I don’t need someone else to help me make my choices.

Your assumption that I might be motivated either by some need to gain notoriety by engaging in a polemical debate with a person who has attained “some notoriety” or by greed in considering the possibility of financial gain as an incentive is offensive.

I decline your offer. I have no time or interest in writing a rebuttal of your book. I am not interested in convincing people to leave whatever faith they have. I don’t need your help to distribute my writings on any topic that I choose to write about.  I don’t care what faith you hold.  I don’t care if your site is online or not, in fact it is good it is there so that people can judge for themselves what sort of poison you are spreading.

I don’t believe that declining your “challenge” proves my insincerity, but the challenge itself provides even more evidence of your own insecurity.  There is something wrong with a worldview that promotes the idea that demonizing others somehow increases your own stature.

I am ignoring your veiled threat and publishing your email myself.  Others can judge for themselves the meaning of your offer and of my rejection of that offer.

“If it had been the will of your Lord that all the people of the world should be believers, all the people of the earth would have believed! Would you then compel mankind against their will to believe?”  [Qur’an 10:99]

“There shall be no compulsion in religion: the right way is now distinct from the wrong way. Anyone who denounces the devil and believes in GOD has grasped the strongest bond; one that never breaks. GOD is Hearer, Omniscient.”  [Qur’an 2:256]

”(O Prophet Muhammad) proclaim: ‘This is the Truth from your Lord. Now let him who will, believe in it, and him who will, deny it.’”  [Qur’an 18:29]

“Say, O Muhammad.  I worship not that which you worship, nor will you worship that which I worship.  And I shall not worship that which you are worshipping, nor will you worship that which I worship.  To you be your religion, and to me my religion.”  [Qur’an 109:1-6]

UPDATE 1/25/2012

I was just sent a link to an article that Ali Sina posted about a twitter argument he participated in with someone calling themselves @Rabbi.Shaul.  Sina is an atheist and they debated whether or not reason can prove that God exists.  Sina attempted to provoke the Rabbi into debating with him in a more formal format that would be published, and ultimately another Rabbi responded to Sina in a Youtube video saying that such a debate will not take place, and calling Sina on the carpet for his ego.

The whole thing is extremely lengthy, but Sina shows much about himself in his response.  He repeats his claims about Prophet Muhammad, and then says

But there was another element in shaping his character: The influence of Rabbis.

Judaism and Islam have a lot in common. They have basically the same eschatology and very similar teachings. For example few people know that stoning adulterers that is widely practiced in Islam originates from the Bible. Muhammad did practice stoning but he did not insert it in his Quran. But he said when a law is not clearly stated, Muslims should look into the Bible for guidance.

These are all secondary influences of Judaism on Islam. The main common feature between these two faiths is their intolerance. This intolerance in Judaic texts gave the narcissist Muhammad the power to do as he pleased. He could make his claim without needing to prove it and expect others to believe without questioning him. If they didn’t, he would threaten them with hellfire.

How could he get away with that? Why would people believed in his unproven and often irrational claims? The answer to this question is in Judaism. The Rabbis in Arabia had laid the psychological foundation for Islam among the tolerant pagans. For 2000 years they had preached that Yahweh, their god, is beyond reason, i.e. he is irrational, that his ways are different and they may appear unjust and even evil. But it is not up to humans to question God’s wisdom.

That kind of authority and power is a narcissist’s wet dream. By claiming to be the messenger of God, the same intolerant god of the Jews, Muhammad did not have to prove any of his claims. The reason Arabs fell into his trap was because of the groundwork laid by the Rabbis in Arabia.

Sounds as if he is not only Islamophobic, but also anti-Semitic.  And, a little later in this article this gem appears which shows that at the very least, he is a racist: We Persians are of the same genetic stock as Germans and we had a far superior civilization than Arabs.

It is both surprising and not surprising that Ali Sina has now been named to the Board of Directors of the newly formed Stop the Islamization of Nations SION which is a coalition SIOA, SIOE, and other hate groups, and which will be led by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.  It is not surprising because of the animosity towards Islam that he shares with Geller and Spencer.  It is surprising because of the fact that Geller herself is Jewish, and Ali Sina seems to have as much animosity towards Judaism as he does against Islam.

The Southern Poverty Law Center published a report citing Geller for hate speech.  The AFDI has been named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  The American Freedom Defense Initiative is the parent group of the SIOA.  Spencer, Geller, and Yerushalmi are featured in the SPLC reports Jihad Against Islam and The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle.

Pay Pal at least temporarily suspended Geller’s site Atlas Shrugs for being a hate site.

Spencer and Geller attempted to patent the SIOA trademark, but were refused by the U.S. patent office The government response, posted on the site, states, “The applied-for mark refers to Muslims in a disparaging manner because by definition it implies that conversion or conformity to Islam is something that needs to be stopped or caused to cease.  “The proposed mark further disparages Muslims because, taking into account the nature of the services (‘providing information regarding understanding and preventing terrorism’), it implies that Islam is associated with violence and threats,” the government agency said.  Again, Loonwatch has more here which include a number of hateful screen grabs from the SIOA facebook page.  Geller says that I engaged David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center to pursue this matter legally. Once again, these legal warriors did not hesitate to take the case pro-bono.

The Center for American Progress released a groundbreaking report Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.  The key researchers for this report were Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz Shakir.  The report itself is the result of a six month investigative project, and is 132 pages in length.  Geller is cited as part of this network.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) notes in a backgrounder about the SIOA “Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), created in 2009, promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy “American” values. The organization warns of the encroachment of shari’a, or Islamic law, and encourages Muslims to leave what it describes as the “falsity of Islam.”

Abraham H. Foxman of the ADL wrote an article The new shape of anti-Muslim hatred in which he calls out Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller (the co-founders of SIOA) by name as purveyors of this hatred.

Geller is featured in the People for the American Way Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism, and the NYCLU report Religious Freedom Under Attack:  The Rise of Anti-Mosque Activities in New York State, and the Political Research Associates report Manufacturing the Muslim menace: Private firms, public servants, and the threat to rights and security.
UPDATE 1/26/2012

Ali Sina posted a response to this article rejecting his demand that that I engage in a debate with him.

There are only a few points in his response that I consider to be worth discussing, because they are about me personally.

He says

I read a few of your articles. You write exclusively about people in the anti-jihad movement. You don’t refute them. You vilify them. You engage in ad hominem. All your articles are personal attacks. I haven’t seen once you refute what we say. You are a Muslim and this is how the brain of a Muslim works. Muslims ignore the criticism made against Islam. Instead they focus on the person criticizing Islam and try to discredit them. This is a pattern.

Obviously he has read very few of my articles or he would know that I do not write exclusively about Islamophobes.  Here is a link to a list of articles that I have written.  This is not difficult to find as I refer to this list of my articles right on the main page of TAM.  It would be impossible for anyone to simply read through the titles of my articles and still make the claim with a straight face that I “write exclusively” about Islamophobes.

He says

You have written many articles maligning the critics of Islam. Show us one where you have condemned your own brethren for disparaging other faiths. Show us where you have stood for the rights of the victims of Islam. Did you write any article sending it to an Egyptian media denouncing the Muslims for killing the Coptic Christians? Did you write anything for Pakistanis denouncing them for their blasphemy law? Of course not! Your goal is not to stop the barbarity of Islam. Your goal is to bambuzzle your own people so they lower their guards and not see Islam as a threat. There have been many fools and traitors like you in history. We Persians had the Salman.

Yes you have written articles claiming Islam allows freedom of religion. Those articles are for the consumption of non-Muslims and to deceive them. You never call upon Muslims to be tolerant. You know that they will laugh at you if you do. First of all you are a convert and secondly you are a woman. Will Muslims listen to you and ignore their own scholars, and ignore the Quran and the hadith? They tolerate you for now. You serve their purpose. To borrow a term from Lenin, you are a useful idiot for them. They let you say what you want and pull the wool over the eyes of their targeted victims. You are a deceived woman and the best person to deceive the westerners.

Again, reading my articles would show that this statement is very simply not only wrong, but a lie.

Here on The American Muslim, I have published thousands of articles, many of them discussing issues such as:

— speaking out against the repulsive customs of – child marriage  including discussion ofparticular cases, – and punishments for victims of rape, – and female genital mutilation, etc.
—against the views of extremist clerics like Anjem Choudary, or Sheikh Abdullah El-Faisal, orAnwar Al Awlaki, Ayman Zawahiri, etc.
— against the views of extremist groups like Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Majlis, South Africa, etc.
— against particular actions of Islamic organizations like the Canadian Shia Muslim Organization (CASMO) publishing an article by David Duke, or some British Muslims threatening Imam Usama Hasan because of his views on the compatibility of the theory of evolution with Quranic teachings regarding God’s creation of the world and human beings, or the Arab European League (AEL) publishing an offensive cartoon against the Jewish people on their website
— against extremist interpretations or translations of particular Qur’anic verses, e.g. Qur’an 4:34 or the Hilali-Khan or translation of the Qur’an, or the Saudi’s “revised” edition of Yusuf Ali’s translation
— against individuals or organizations promoting extremist views about various issues like – Salwa Al Mutairi suggesting that sex-slaves are allowed in Islam, – or the Malaysian Catholic Herald being told that it could no longer use the word “Allah” to mean God, – or Dr. Zakir Naiksaying that Muslims can’t wish Christians a Merry Christmas, – or the Darul Uloom Deoband’sdivorce by phone fatwa, , – or the Saudi forced divorce case, etc.
— about particular individuals or organizations accused of particular crimes,  – like the Florida Imams arrested for aiding the Pakistani Taliban, etc.
— publishing condemnations of particular acts of extremism and violence such as – the attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt, – or the killing of U.N. workers in Afghanistan, – or attacks on Christians in Muslim countries, – or the Fort Hood massacre, – or the deaths of 15 Saudi schoolgirls in a fire because they weren’t “properly dressed” etc.
— or publishing condemnations of extreme reactions to various current issues like the South Park cartoon, Molly Norris and “Draw Muhammad Day”, Opus cartoon
—publishing statements and articles advocating for   – protection of religious minorities and houses of worship, – and guardianship reform in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia pertaining to male control or ‘guardianship’ over women, – and confronting online radicalization of Muslim youth, – and freedom of faith and right to change one’s faith, – and freedom of speech, – and a spiritual jihad against terrorism, – and welcoming LGBT Muslims in mosques, – and a moratorium on all corporal punishment, including the death penalty, – and responsibility of Muslims to defend the Constitution of the U.S., – and condemning holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, – and promoting the value of being faithful Muslims and loyal Americans, – and against any laws for blasphemy – including Pakistan’s blasphemy law,  etc.
— publishing and regularly updating Muslim condemnations in statements, fatwas, articles, etc. of every form of extremism and terrorism as a major part of the work of The American Muslim

On TAM, we regularly call out those within the Muslim community that I identify as the “lunatic fringe”, discuss various interpretations of aspects of Sharia, condemn any interpretations that violate human rights.  The list above is a very short list of the thousands of articles on such subjects that we have published, many of which I have written myself.

He says

This is the truth about “no compulsion in religion.” You converted 40 years ago when you were young and inexperienced. We all did stupid things when we were young. Most of us gained wisdom as we aged. But once one converts to Islam the brain becomes numbed. Although others recover from their youthful follies a Muslim is trapped. But there is no reason to despair. My book can help. Whether you are old or young, when you learn the truth, you can no longer cling to lies.

This is simply a nasty, speculative, and meaningless attack on me as an individual that deserves nothing but contempt.

He closes his article with

Will you also publish my response to you?  Or if not, will you provide a link to this page in your site letting your readers see my response?  That would prove your sincerity.

In case anyone is in doubt about the sort of person attracted to and in agreement with Islamophobes like Ali Sina, here are a few comments at the bottom of his response article

— Sundried Atheist Why this maniacal obsession about Islam. Christianity and Judaism are just as dangerous and poisonous as Islam is. Their actions are just as diabolic.  In fact Islam owes its existance to the founders of Christianity and Judaism. So really, it is the Jews we should be taking it out on. All the silly rituals and barbaric rules, human/animal rights abuse all stem from Jewish laws. Jews are suibhuman, less evolved primates who should be eliminated in a peaceful manner. Such as by spraying them with mega toxic pesticides like you try to eliminate locusts and other field posts.
— Enlightened 25 “You’re not a racist, you’re a critique. You criticize those ideologies.” I am not talking about ideologies obviously it is absurd to hate the Koran, it is just a book (though a vile one). I am talking about the people that believe in those ideologies. Do you hate Nazis and communists? If you don’t then you should. If I am asked do I hate Muslims? Then my honest answer is yes. I cannot say I hate everything you believe in, everything you value, everything you stand for, but I don’t hate you personally, that would be a lie as well as self-deception on my part. Once I had a Muslim saying I should be put to death. Should I love that beast? Hell no, that person is my mortal enemy and I should hate him and if I was given the chance and was able to do it, I would destroy him. I say openly to the Muslims if you don’t hate me then you should, because I am out to destroy everything that is sacred to you.
— Ali Sina If your son becomes a Monster (or a good Muslims) you still don’t hate him. But you will allow him to be locked up for the protection of others. Your duty as a parent is to love your children. This does not mean you have to condone their evilness. Let the socity deal with your son according to the law. You don’t hide or protect him, but also you don’t have to hate him.  We humans are all sons and daughters, brothers and sisters in a large scale. Yes we have to stop the monsters among us, and if necessary eliminate them so they can no longer harm others. This does not mean we should hate them.

I have now responded to his attacks on me personally, and provided a link to his response which he says would show my sincerity.

UPDATE 1/28/2012

Today, Ali Sina wrote wrote a response to my comments of yesterday.  He objects to my saying that some of his previous statements seem to show that he is not only Islamophobic but also anti-Semitic and racist – and his response just makes his attitudes more clear.  This is part of what he said:

It seems that Ms. Musaji has some difficulty in comprehension. Or maybe she just pretends it, hoping she may confound her readers. I am against Islam. That does not make me Islamophobe. Islamophobia is a fallacy. You can say Islam-hater. That I agree. But one can’t be “phobic” of a belief. This is a deception. But as Hitler said, if a lie is repeated often it will be believed as truth eventually.

A good example is the word homophobia. This is also a deception. I believe homosexuality is a disorder no different from eating disorder or a personality disorder. Homosexuality is a sexual disorder, like sadomasochism, fetishism, zoophilia and pedophilia. Now these disorders are not all the same and have different implications, but they are all disorders. I am not a homophobe for considering homosexuality a disorder. Homo means same. I don’t have an irrational fear of men. But this lie was repeated so much that today most people have fallen for it. The idea was to stifle any criticism about this disorder and they succeeded. Now they even have gay pride parades, as if there is something to be proud of a disorder. This is how masses are manipulated through propaganda. They even shame you into silence. Few people dare to say homosexuality is not normal. They even gave it a chichi name “gay”, meaning happy. This is also a lie. Homosexuals are not happy.

Muslims are using the same deceptive tactic.  They want to stifle the legitimate discussion about Islam.  So they invented this lie and with the help of their leftist lackeys who gave us the fallacy of homophobia and they will repeat it until it is seen as truth.  But Islam is an ideology. No one can have an irrational fear of an ideology. You can strongly disagree with an ideology and you can even hate it, but you can’t be phobic of it.  Ideologies don’t have fangs. It is their believers who may have fangs. Now, it would be more logical to say Muslimphobia.  Muslims can hurt you. If you see a group of Muslims coming out of a mosque, you would be wise to run as fast as you can.

…  All cultures are not equal. Cultural relativism is another fallacy. We Persians had a much more superior culture that the Arabs. But after the invasion of Islam we were reduced into barbarians. We became like them. Now we are all barbarians. The first charter of human rights was written in Persia more than 2500 years ago.

…  It is not racist to say Muslims are savages any more than to say Nazis were savages. Islam is an ideology. It is not hacked into our genes. We can give it up and regain our civility. That is the whole purpose of what I do. Muslims are drowning in the cesspool of Islam. Just look at the pictures of Muslims when protesting in the streets. They are savages. I want to pull them out of Islam and restore their humanity.

Most Jews have given up their belief in the nonsense of their religion a long time ago. Most of them don’t believe in religion anymore. Those who do are like those rabbis, filled with bigotry and hate.  But they are the minority. Even when Jews go to synagogues it is for ceremonies. Religion can be a cohesive force. It brings out the spirit of fraternity and builds community.

The emphasis is mine.  Here is the gist of his argument:  I hate Islam, but that is not Islamophobia. I believe that “Muslims are savages”, but I am not a bigot.  I believe that “Homosexuality is a sexual disorder, like sadomasochism” but I am not homophobic.  I believe that Judaism is a religion of “nonsense”, those who believe in it are “filled with bigotry and hate”, but I am not an anti-Semite.  I believe that my culture is superior to others, but I am not a racist.  Terms like Islamophobia or homophobia are lies, there is no such thing.  I am sorry, but there is such a thing as anti-Semitism, there is such a thing as Islamophobia, there is such a thing as homophobia, there is such a thing as racism.  You can object to the use of one or all of those words, but the bottom line is that no matter what you call this ideology, it is hateful bigotry.

He also objected to my pointing out that the SPLC, ADL, PFAW, CAP, etc. have characterized SION and its leaders Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer as promoting an anti-Muslim agenda.  He refers to all of these organizations as “moon-bats”, “traitorous leftist organizations”, “lackeys”, who hate “the Judeo-Christian western values”, and “minions” of Muslims, that “are either run by Muslims or are sympathetic to Islam”.  He says that Paypal was “duped” and the U.S. government has been “misled” into believing that Islam is a religion.

Sina says that Pamela Geller “should be awarded the Nobel Prize for her humanitarianism and for her compassion.  Alas the Nobel Prize committee is so politicized that they think charlatans like Arafat, Obama and Al Gore are more deserving for that prize than good humans who truly serve mankind.”

He closes with “More on this subject tomorrow!”

Pamela Geller posted an article today titled Takedown which is a short introduction to Sina’s article by Geller.

I urge all Atlas readers, twitter followers, and facebook friends to go over to Dr. Ali Sina’s site and read this takedown of the nasty, libelous shill, Sheila Musaji of The American Muslim.

,,,  I have not fisked this liar and dissembler, because everything she has written about me, pages and pages, are lies, defamation and smear. All of it.  She serves the fourth reich, and she serves them well. And frankly, I was loathe to give her the notoriety and the traffic she so desperately craves. But Sina has been battling her lies (there is more here, Sheila Musaji and Fear of Freedom).

A minor point, but Paypal never suspended me. They sent me notice that complaints were lodged (by vicious trolls like Musaji no doubt), but they never did. Just another Islamic lie.

Dr.Sina honors me in his defense of my work.

Actually, Geller has written about me in the past, and shown herself in that case as in so many others to be confused about the meaning of truth-telling, and ready to attempt to conceal evidence of outright lies.

On April 30, 2008 Geller posted an article titled “Attacking Chesler: American Muslim Female Takes on Chesler”.  As could be expected she didn’t understand how I could possibly say anything negative about Chesler’s anti-Muslim writings.  Geller called me a “tool of jihad” who is tearing a “truthteller apart” while “doing nothing for my sisters”.  However, she did not directly address any of the specific points that I made in my article.  (Note:  Geller’s article still comes up on a Google search, and in a search of my name on her site, but if you click on the link you will only get an error message.  The article has been pulled).  My response to Geller’s claims in her article was the first item in a collection of information on Geller, who along with her partner Robert Spencer seem to be the most prolific Islamophobes. Please see my article   Pamela Geller Attempts to Make a Point, Muslims Shrug (SIOA/AFDI/Atlas Shrugs) for a complete background on this.

On May 2, 2008 Geller published an article titled Blah, blah, blah in which she accuses me of“deception, taqiyya- the deliberate dissimulation about religious matters that may be undertaken to protect Islam. And while this kind of double talk has the left doing the Islamists bidding, many of us know exactly what this shiz is. You can fool some of the infidels some of the times, but you can’t fool all of the kufirs all of the time.”

She opens this article with “Musaji over at American Muslim didn’t like my defending Phyllis Chesler.”  And she has included this link ( http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/04/attacking-chesl.html ) embedded in the words “defending Phyllis Chesler”.  This is a link to the now removed article that was written by Geller on April 30th.  Geller herself is sayng that she had written an article to which I responded, but the article is not there?  Why was the article removed?

As to my reference to PayPal, on June 12, 2010 Geller posted an article which she titled Paypal Cuts Off Atlas: Truth is the New Hate Speech in which she posts a copy of the email from Paypal which includes the statement However, after a recent review of your account, it has been determined that you are currently in violation of PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy.  Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance or the financial exploitation of a crime.  In Geller’s article and in PayPals email there is nothing about complaints being lodged, simply this statement that she is in violation of their acceptable use policy.  Geller’s own title says that PayPal had cut off Atlas Shrugs.  Although Geller and Ali Sina seem to want to blame me for some involvement with this PayPal incident, I had nothing to do with it.  So, if there was any confusion about exactly what happened with PayPal, that confusion came from Geller’s own statement.

And, of course Robert Spencer has to jump in and also post Ali Sina’s article with a short introduction by Spencer which doesn’t really add much to this saga.  Spencer does add one more insult by calling me an established liar and linking to a previous article of his attacking me by making this false claim.  Actually, if you read my article that Spencer is referring to Hutaree Christian Militia, Not an Isolated Phenomena you can make your own decision about this charge.  Spencer, like Geller has shown himself in that case as in so many others to be confused about the meaning of truth-telling, and ready toattempt to conceal evidence of outright lies.

I have just checked the comments on the article that I mentioned in my update of 1/26, and they are still there.  Calling Christianity, Islam, and Judaism “diabolic”, calling Jews “suibhuman [sic], less evolved primates who should be eliminated in a peaceful manner. Such as by spraying them with mega toxic pesticides like you try to eliminate locusts and other field posts”, saying “I hate Muslims”, suggesting that you “will allow him (i.e. Muslims) to be locked up for the protection of others” — these are comments that go beyond the pale of any sort of civilized discussion.  This goes beyond bigotry into the realm of hatred.  Allowing such statements to remain on his site is a choice that Ali Sina has made, and that choice does reflect on him.  I am most concerned about the comments clearly calling for a genocide against Jews, and for locking up Muslims…

Goebbels would be proud, and Ali Sina and the other Islamophobes’ tactics show all to clearly theremarkable similarities between Islamophobic and anti-Semitic propaganda.  Geller’s baseless claim that I “serve the fourth reich”, must be projection.
UPDATE 1/29/2012

Sina is still carrying on a debate with himself on his site.  He is still demanding that I answer his questions about the interpretation of some particular Qur’anic verse, or what some Muslim scholar has said, or some hadith, or (the list goes on and on).  This is nonsense.  I have no obligation to discuss any of these issues with him.  And, I have provided him with links to all of my writings over the past many years, many of which have already discussed many of these issues.

Just as Muslims have given lengthy explanations for example of why particular verses of the Qur’an have been taken out of context to “prove” false points – Jewish scholars have had the need to explain particular aspects of their religion that have been misunderstood – for example what the Talmud says about the permissibility of killing non-Jews.   Rabbi David Eidensohn has a site devoted to defending the Talmud against various accusations.   The fact that there are verses in the Qur’an that can be interpreted variously is also not unique –  that there are verses that be seen as cruel and violent in the Bible (Old and New Testaments) cannot really be disputed.   What can be done is to attempt to marginalize those who continue to promote extremist interpretations of religious texts, and to promote false worldviews like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or the Protocols of the Elders of Islam.

You might want to read Hussein Ibish’s article Religion and violence: another look at Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, and the 2003 ADL report on The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics  and ask yourself if you don’t see how closely Ali Sina’s tactics mirror classic anti-Semitic tactics.

There is a site that maintains an archive of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda.  It is depressing reading, but over and over again I found examples of claims and statements that mirrored claims now being made by people like you Ali Sina against Muslims and Islam.  Here are a few examples:

– Nazi propaganda maintained that all Jews were responsible for the act of any Jew “The murder of Ernst vom Rath did not slow legal measures aimed at solving the Jewish Problem, but rather sped them up. The Jews living in Germany had to pay a fine of a billion marks to discourage them from repeating the cowardly murder.”http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/imbild1.htm
– Nazi propaganda maintained that Judaism was not a religion. “Argument 1: “You say that religion is a private matter. But you fight against the Jewish religion!” Counterargument: “Actually, the Jewish religion is nothing other than a doctrine to preserve the Jewish race.” (Adolf Hitler). “In resisting all government attempts to nationalize them, the Jews build a state within the state (Count Helmuth von Moltke). “To call this state a ‘religion’ was one of the cleverest tricks ever invented.” (Adolf Hitler). “From this first lie that Jewry is a religion, not a race, further lies inevitably follow.” (Adolf Hitler).” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/responses.htm
– Nazi propaganda maintained that the Jews hated all non-Jews and they wanted to destroy the Gentiles and dominate the world http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds15.htm  Further “Whether or not there is an organized Jewish government recognized by all the Jews is less important that the fact that there is a unified and conscious Jewish desire for world power. This is proved by a variety of political events that are taking place in plain sight today.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/aufkla01.htm
– Nazi propaganda maintained that a war against Judaism was a war against the devilhttp://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds15.htm
– Nazi propaganda maintained by distortions of the Torah and Talmud that Judaism teaches hatred http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds3.htm
– Nazi propaganda maintained that “The goal of the Jew is to make himself the ruler of humanity. Wherever he comes, he destroys works of culture. He is not a creative spirit, rather a destructive spirit.”  http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/catech.htm
– Nazi propaganda maintained that “Nearly all major inventions were made by Aryans.”  The Jews had no real creativity http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/catech.htm  Further “Wherever Jewry has appeared, it has never built anything. It has always and everywhere destroyed or torn down, sucking others dry to fill itself. From the days of the Romans to our day, Jewry in every century, in every people, was and remained a foreign body, a destroyer of real and ideal values, a denier of any upward progress, a plague for body and soul. It sneaks in through deceit and treachery, trickery and slyness, murder and assault, understanding how to establish itself.”  http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/esser.htm
– Nazi propaganda maintained that A GOOD JEW COULD NOT BE A GOOD GERMAN, that it was impossible for a Jew to honestly say “I am a “good German” and a “decent Jew”! Only a Jew has the insolence to make such a claim. I answer it only to reach the public and finally dispatch the absurd notion of the “decent Jew.” The fable of the “decent Jew” is not a German fable that has been handed down by our people and therefore something with educational value, but rather it is a shameless lie designed to lull the host people to sleep and appeal to hysterical weaklings.”  http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/oberlindober1.htm  And further “And you think you can be a “good German”! True, you do speak German, just as your racial comrades in other countries speak English, French, Spanish, and Polish, but you are no more a German than they are Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards, or Poles, since Jews are a foreign body in every people.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/oberlindober1.htm
– Nazi propaganda maintained “Each Jew individually, and Jewry as a whole, is without a home. Jewry undermines every people and every state that it infiltrates. It feeds as a parasite and a culture-killing worm in the host people. It grows and grows like weeds in the state, the community, and the family and infests the blood of humanity everywhere.  In brief, that is the pestilential nature of Jewry, against which every people, every state, every nation must, should, and wants to defend itself if it does not want to be the victim of this bloody plague.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/esser.htm

It is not possible for any decent human being not to see the incredible similarities between this Nazi propaganda and the propaganda of the Islamophobes.  In fact, many passages from Ali Sina’s work read as if he has simply taken one of these statements and changed “Jew” with “Muslim” or “Judaism” with “Islam”.

The Islamophobic echo chamber is reproducing Ali Sina’s articles and claiming that he has totally crushed me with his rapier wit.  Let the bigots continue discussing this among themselves, andcontinue stirring up a hornets nest of bigotry, and engaging in their what everyone “knows” distortions about Islam and Muslims, and following Baron Bodissey/Edward May’s Islamophobia manifesto and Nazi propaganda as their guide.

I leave it to the reader to decide who is civilized and who is savage in this discussion.  I will get back to reading the Qur’an.

“If your Lord had so willed, He could have made mankind one people: but they will not cease to dispute.” [Qur’an 11:118]

“And do thou be patient, for thy patience is but from God; nor grieve over them: and distress not thyself because of their plots. For Allah is with those who restrain themselves, and those who do good.” [Qur’an 16:127-128]

Oh mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (Not that you may despise each other). [Qur’an 49;13]

NOTE:  I do thank Ali Sina for correcting my spelling of pseudonym.
SEE ALSO

A Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industryhttp://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/a_whos_who_of_the_anti-muslimanti-arabislamophobia_industry

Islamophobia:  Real or Imaginedhttp://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/islamophobia_real_or_imagined

Ali Sina and Faith Freedom International, Sheila Musajihttp://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/ali_sina

SION:  Hate Groups Unite to Form an International Hate Coalition, Sheila Musajihttp://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/sion

Islamophobe Frank Gaffney Endorses Newt Gingrich’s Anti-Muslim Comments

Islamophobe Frank Gaffney Endorses Newt Gingrich’s Anti-Muslim Comments

By Eli Clifton

Newt Gingrich’s statement that he would only support Muslim presidential candidates if they “would commit in public to give up Sharia” was met by harsh comments from both Muslim American organizations and academic experts on Islamic law. “Newt Gingrich’s vision of America segregates our citizens by faith. His outdated political ideas look backward to a time when Catholics and Jews were vilified and their faiths called a threat,” said Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) Legislative Director Corey Sayolor.

But Gingrich’s anti-Muslim crusade found an ally with noted Islamophobe Frank Gaffney. Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy, leaped on Gingrich’s anti-Shariah comments yesterday in a column for National Review Online and on his radio show, Secure Freedom Radio. His column reads:

Newt is absolutely right in making such a distinction [between a “moderate person who worships Allah” or “a person who belonged to any kind of belief in sharia, any kind of effort to impose that on the rest of us]. The danger we currently face from the so-called Muslim world arises not from the fact that people are Muslim, but from the extent to which they adhere to the totalitarian, supremacist Islamic doctrine of sharia.

Speaking on his radio show yesterday, Gaffney took a similar line:

With his successive warnings about sharia…Newt Gingrich has, in my judgement, rendered a real public service. We must know who are enemies are and we must defeat, not accommodate, those who in the name of Sharia are obliged to wage Jihad against us. And we must keep America Sharia free.

But Gaffney’s concerns about religious and personal freedoms rarely extend to Muslim Americans. Last year, he said:

A mosque that is used to promote a seditious program, which is what Sharia is…that is not a protected religious practice, that is in fact sedition.

Newt Gingrich makes no secret of his hostility toward Muslims but Frank Gaffney’s defacto endorsement — he also picked up an endorsement from anti-Muslim activist and Gaffney ally Pamela Geller — might not be helpful as Gingrich attempts to appeal to moderate voters and chip away at Mitt Romney’s momentum in the primaries. Gaffney is a noted member of the Islamophobic far-right and his organization, the Center for Security Policy, was highlighted as a major nexus for the anti-Sharia initiatives sweeping the country in the Center for American Progress’s report, Fear, Inc.

Daily Kos and Glenn Greenwald on LoonWatch

Eric Allen Bell

In 2009, the Daily Kos published a positive review of our website.  So imagine my surprise when The American Muslim emails me a link to a recently published article on Daily Kos which is nothing short of a hatchet job against LoonWatch.  This article was authored by Eric Allen Bell and is entitled Loonwatch.com and Radical Islam.  Bell had the temerity to accuse LoonWatch of being “a radical Islamic front, covering up for terrorism”; he writes: “Loonwatch.com is in fact a terrorist spin control network.”

We would hardly bat an eye at this loony stream-of-consciousness article–Islamophobes have been accusing us of this since our site launched–except that this screed was published on the Daily Kos.  Why would a fellow progressive website take a swipe at us out of the blue?

This mystery solves itself when you look into who wrote the article.  His name is Eric Allen Bell, and he professes a soft spot for Robert Spencer, a man who was ranked by FAIR as the #2 leading Islamophobe in the country (losing out the number 1 spot to his boss, David Horowitz).  Spencer is the leader of the SIOA group, deemed by the SPLC to be a hate group.  Spencer’s organization has links to Neo-Nazi and skinhead groups in Europe.  Among other things, Robert Spencer joined a genocidal Facebook group and posted a genocidal video on his website.  This is the man that Eric Allen Bell calls “rational, sober and scholarly.”  Bell imagines some difference between  Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller even though they are close friends and colleagues-in-crime:

Robert Spencer with loon Pamela Geller

That explains why Bell’s article looks like something out of a loony anti-Muslim blog like BareNakedIslam, AtlasShrugs, or JihadWatch.  Bell uses the exact same talking points against us.  His main gripe seems to be why our site “ignores” the violent acts of terrorism committed by Islamic terrorists.  The answer to that is painstakingly obvious: our website’s mission statement is to document and expose Islamophobia.  To ask us why we don’t document Islamic terrorism would not be very different from asking us: why doesn’t your site talk about world hunger?  Whereas this might be a worthy topic to bring attention to, it is simply not part of our mission statement.  Surely, Bell understands that websites oftentimes specialize in one particular topic and simply do not have the resources to dedicate to every noble cause.

Bell’s accusation itself is steeped in his Islamophobia.  Imagine, for instance, if some white guy accused the NAACP of being “a black supremacist group” because they only fought racism against blacks instead of documenting violence and crime committed by blacks.  What would anyone call such a person but racist?

Eric Allen Bell tries to shield himself from accusations of bigotry by pointing out that he made some documentary about a mosque in Murfreesboro.  Yet, this would be like someone being opposed to segregated schools for black people on the one hand but on the other hand becoming absolutely livid against anyone who dared to deny that blacks are more violent than white people.  Readers can go to the racist website Stromfront to find plenty of people compiling lists of black violence and criminality just like Bell reproduced his list of Muslim violence and terrorism.

Bell argues that Muslims are more violent than people of other religions, which is in fact the exact same argument raised by–you guessed it–Robert Spencer.  My response to this is two-fold:

1) The threat of Muslim terrorism has been extremely exaggerated (in order to justify our wars in the Muslim world).  According to the FBI’s own database (available from 1980-2005), of the terrorist attacks in America less than 6% were committed by Muslims.  Readers should also refer to my May 2010 article which noted that since 9/11, there have been zero U.S. civilians killed from Islamic terrorism.  The situation is the same in Europe.  For the past several years, Europol has released an annual terrorism report, which showed that Islamic terrorism accounts for less than 1% of terrorism in Europe and has resulted in zero deaths.  In the half decade documented in these reports, the only injuries sustained from Islamic terrorism were to a security guard who “was slightly wounded.”

For the past several years, zero civilians in America and Europe have been killed by Islamic terrorism.  Yet, we are indoctrinated into thinking that Islamic terrorism represents some existential threat: you should be scared out of your wits and be losing sleep over Islamic terrorism.  This is war propaganda at its finest.  The reality is that you have a far greater chance of dying from being struck by lightning (about 67 Americans die of lightning every year) than being killed by an Islamic extremist (a whopping average of zero).

When confronted by this reality check, Islamophobes are quick to shift gears and insist that they are talking about Islamic terrorism in the “rest of the world.”  Yet, almost all of this Islamic terrorism takes place in countries that have been bombed, invaded, and occupied by the United States or its proxy Israel.  (India is the notable exception, although it should be noted that India has sustained a brutal occupation of Kashmir for many decades.)  Iraq currently leads the list.  If you look at Iraq before we started dropping bombs on it, Islamic terrorism was virtually non-existent in that country.  Is it Islam then that is to blame for this terrorism or our bombing, invasion, and occupation?

2) The type of terrorism that is included in such comparisons is what I call Amateur Terrorism (strapping a bomb on yourself to injure a security guard and kill yourself); it excludes the greater form of terrorism: Professional Terrorism (carpet-bombing an entire civilian population).  This is the violence committed by nation-states.  The United States and Israel are guilty of committing, in the words of the Nuremberg trial, “the supreme international crime”: waging wars of aggression.  When this form of violence is factored in, then the argument that Muslims are more violent seems untenable.  As Prof. Steven Walt noted, Americans have killed anywhere from 30 to 100 times as many Muslims as Muslims have killed Americans.  

I find it difficult to lecture Muslims about how violent they are when my own government, with the backing of the American people, has killed so many Muslims (and continues to do so on a daily basis).

In a way, our violence is worse than theirs, because ours is sanctioned by us: our duly elected members of government are the ones who launch these wars, with our blessing and support.  It is our uniformed soldiers who kill those Muslims.  Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda and such groups operate without governmental authority, without any sanction or permission from the Muslim population.  In fact, the Muslim population is often the victim of such terrorist groups.

Since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years, or 91% of her existence. Meanwhile, the country in the Muslim world we vilify the most, Iran, has not initiated a war since 1795, over 200 years ago.  (It was, however, attacked by its neighbor with the aid and encouragement of the United States.) Who is the more violent one again?

Here is a map of the Greater Middle East, showing countries that the U.S. has bombed or has bases in:

Meanwhile, the modern state of Iran has never attacked any of its neighbors or any other country in the region (or world).  But, Eric Allen Bell wants us to say that Islam and Muslims are the violent ones?

These two points constitute my argument, and if Eric Allen Bell wants to produce something more than a screed that belongs on Pamela Geller’s AtlasShrugs, that’s what he needs to refute.

One should also recognize that I am making a radically different claim than the Islamophobes when I point to American aggression.  There is nothing intrinsically different between the United States and the rest of the world that makes it more violent–or, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”–other than the fact that it has the power to do so.  I truly believe that absolute power corrupts absolutely: those vested with great power almost invariably abuse it, and it is for this reason that they must be held to account the most.

Compared to the United States, the forces of Radical Islam have virtually no power.  Since 9/11–more than a decade ago–the collective strength and resources of the “worldwide jihad” have been unable to kill a single civilian on American soil.  That’s how powerful they are.  In the grand scheme of things, Islamic terrorism is a nuisance of modern day existence, a threat akin to that of gang violence or drug cartels–it is not an existential military threat as it is made out to be.

There is no doubt that Radical Islam is repugnant to the senses and must be intellectually fought.  But attacking all of Islam and Muslims in general–targeting their religion and labeling Islam as uniquely violent–is the most counter-productive way of doing so.  More than that, it’s intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt.

*  *  *  *  *

There was some silver lining to Eric Allen Bell’s article.  Glenn Greenwald emailed me with the following response to Bell’s post (reproduced with his permission):

Danios- That post is disgusting, but it’s important to distinguish between what “Daily Kos” has written (which is basically the front-page writers) and what a diarist has written (which is basically the equivalent of a blog comment, since anyone can write one, and is not at all attributable to the site itself).

This post is by a diarist – he has no affiliation with Daily Kos, except that he’s posting there – and my guess is that it won’t be promoted to the front page through recommendations and most commenters will be critical.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge GG fan.  I wake up every day to read his column with my breakfast and check his blog for updates throughout the day.  There is no writer or political thinker I respect more than him.  So when Glenn sent me a follow-up email saying “you guys are doing great work”, you can imagine how elated I was.

Who the heck cares what some Eric Allen Bell-nobody thinks when the intellectual giant known as Glenn Greenwald has such positive words to say about us?

In any case, Glenn was absolutely right about Bell not being representative of the Daily Kos: another Daily Kos diarist, Devon Moore, posted an article against Bell and in support of LoonWatch, entitled Daily Kos Being Used to Further Classic Right-Wing Propaganda Against Loonwatch.

It’s good to see another Daily Kos diarist respond to Eric Allen Bell, but the question remains: what is such a hate-mongering bigot doing on a site like the Daily Kos?  I think it’s time to clean house, just like former AIPAC operative Josh Block was cleansed from the progressive system: if Block was given the boot for libeling others as “anti-Semites”, shouldn’t Bell be dropped for wrongfully calling others “jihadists”?  Send the Daily Kos a message to dump this anti-Muslim bigot by clicking here.

*  *  *  *  *

In other news, it seems we are closer than ever to seeing the debate between Robert Spencer and myself actually come to fruition.  I’ll keep you posted.

Update I:

The American Muslim’s Sheila Musaji posted a good article on the subject.  She notes that Eric Allen Bell is an atheist who dislikes all religion, not just Islam.  However, it’s important to point out that he has a special hatred for Islam and Muslims, who he believes are uniquely violent and intolerant compared to all the other peoples of the world.  This is why he would still be categorized as an Islamophobe in my book.  On the other hand, I don’t have any problem with atheists who dislike all religions; I do, however, have a problem with atheists who specifically target one religious community over others, especially if that community happens to be the most vulnerable in this country.  This of course was my problem with Christopher Hitchens.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.

The Muslim Comedian and the Islamophobe: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Interview

The Muslim comedian and the Islamophobe:  A funny thing happened on the way to the interview

by Sheila Musaji

Robert Spencer and his fellow Islamophobes are fond of asking Muslims impossible questions, demanding that Muslims “admit” to something or another, and developing tests for Muslims to “prove” that they are “one of us”.  Daniel Pipes had a test, David Horowitz had a petition he wanted Muslims to sign, Former Muslims United had a pledge against punishment for apostasy (created two years after an actual Muslim statement on this topic was issued) , the list goes on and on.  None of these are serious attempts at understanding anything.  They simply demand simple answers to complicated questions, or include some bigoted assumption within the question that no Muslim would agree with and demand a yes or no answer.

This is the infamous legal tactic exemplified by the question “Have you stopped beating your wife?  Answer yes or no!”

The most recent prove to me you’re not a radical Muslim test came out of a simple reqest for an interview with Robert Spencer by the Muslim comedian Dean Obeidallah.  Loonwatch lays out the background of this incident very well

Dean Obeidallah is working on an Islamophobia documentary and asked Robert Spencer if he could interview him. A simple request one would think? Spencer of course is chicken (as we have shown before), he doesn’t want to be exposed for the buffoon he is, and so he responded to Obeidallah with an inquisition-like (pun intended), 1,000+ worded questionnaire.

Isn’t this extremely odd? Spencer attempted to pass off his fear of this interview by claiming that Obeidallah was “running” from his questions. When Obeidallah called him out on not presenting the truth, Spencer begrudgingly published Obeidallah’s response:

Robert – I dont have the time to answer all ur questions in the midst of editing a film and all the other projects Im working on – in fact I didnt even finish reading all of them.

You dont know me but Im a rather direct person so so let me make this easy: If you are interested in being interviewed for our film, I can assure you that we will not quote u out of context or play any games with you- we will ask u straightforward questions – most of which Im sure u have been asked before.

If ur interested then lets please lock in a date when u will be in NYC and conduct the interview. If you’re not interested then lets not waste any more of each other’s time-I know we are both busy people.

Thanks, Dean

That’s pretty direct in my opinion. What is Spencer so scared of? Isn’t he the “champion of freedom,” defending the West against the Muslim hordes?

Here is an opportunity Spencer for you to put your cape on and be the champion of the “counter-Jihad” world!

Here is the 1,000 word plus questionnaire required by Spencer in order to consider being interviewed by Obeidallah, and I have taken the liberty of responding to the questions myself.

1. True or false: No comedy show, no matter how clever or winning, is going to eradicate the suspicion that many Americans have of Muslims. This is because Americans are concerned about Islam not because of the work of greasy Islamophobes, but because of Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; and Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; and Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; and Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; and Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; and Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; and Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh, who hatched a jihad plot to blow up a Manhattan synagogue; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; and many others like them who have plotted and/or committed mass murder in the name of Islam and motivated by its texts and teachings — all in the U.S. in the last couple of years

The only Americans who are concerned only about Muslims who have carried out or plotted terrorist actions are those who have fallen for Robert Spencer and other “greasy Islamophobe’s” big lie about the actual terrorism threat coming primarily from Muslims.  All of us need to be concerned about all such actions, including those by non-Muslims such as — Ray H. Adams, Jim Adkisson, Alabama Free Militia, Chad Altman, Animal Liberation Front, Army of God, Samuel Arrington, Jonathan Avery, Sergio Baca, Daniel Barefoot, Philip Bay, John Patrick Bedell, Kody Brittingham, Seung-Hui Cho, Demetrius Van Crocker, Daniel Cowart, Samuel J. Crump, James Cummings, Matthew Derosia, Jeremy Donahoe, John Earl,  Earth Liberation Front, Paul Ross Evans, David Anthony Fuselier, Matt Hale, Jeffrey Harbin, Kevin William Hardham, Lucas John Helder, Patricia Hughes, David Hull, Hutaree Christian militia, Idaho Mountain Boys Militia, Vadim Ignatov, Bruce Ivins, JDL, Jerry and Joe Kane, KKK, Joseph Konopka, William Krar, John F. Lechner, James Lee, Ryan Daniel Lewis, Thomas Hayward Lewis, Jared Lee Loughner, Davvie Love, Keith Luke, Dennies & Daniel Mahon, Alberto Martinez, David McMenemy, Jonathan Maynard, Justin Carl Moose, Donny Eugene Mower, Patriot Movement, Robert Pickett, Richard Andrew Poplawski, Project 7, Charles Carl Roberts, Daniel & Timothy Robinson, Dan Roberts, Scott Roeder, Daniel James Schertz, Paul Schlesselman,  Kyle Shaw, Joseph Stack, Rossie L. Strickland, Roger Stockham, Texas Militia, Frederick Thomas, Bruce & Joshua Turnidge, omar Falu Vives, James von Brunn, Lonnie Vernon, Clayton Waagner, Jeffrey Weise, Byron Williams, Alexander Robert Youshock..

2. True or false: The fact that there are other Muslims not fighting jihad is just great, but it doesn’t mean that the jihad isn’t happening. This comedy show simply doesn’t address the problem of jihad terrorism and Islamic supremacism.

This is not a true or false question.  The question contains more than one element, and requires a more complex answer than is possible with a simple true or false.

3. What do you make of the fact that Islamic supremacists from the Muslim Brotherhood invented the term “Islamophobia” in order to deflect attention away from jihad violence and Islamic supremacism, and intimidate opponents thereof?

Spencer believes that he knows who coined the term “Islamophobia”.  There are certainly a number of different theories about when the term was first used.  It really doesn’t matter who used the term first.  The term itself has come to be used to describe a particular form of bigotry against Muslims and Islam, just as anti-Semitism has come to be used to describe a particular form of bigotry against Jews and Judaism.  It’s primary use is to direct attention towards outright bigotry.

4. What do you have to say about the fact that FBI statistics show that there is no “Islamophobia”?

Actually, FBI statistics do not show that there is no “Islamophobia”.  What the most recent “hate crime statistics” do show is that there have been fewer hate crimes committed against Muslims in the U.S. than there were against Jews.  Whether this might also reflect a reticence to report such crimes on the part of members of some refugee communities particularly has been discussed.  And, the same report documents the fact that the actual hate crimes against Muslims, while still lower than those against Jews, have increased by 50% over the last year.  Hate crimes statistics are only one of many possible indicators of prejudice and bigotry.

Other possible indicators of Islamophobia including EEOC complaints about work related discrimination, and a trend towards an increase of anti-Muslim, anti-Islam rhetoric from public figures, Christian andJewish clergy, and even elected representatives would appear to show that this is a word describing a real phenomenon.

5. What do you have to say about the fact that many “anti-Muslim hate crimes” have been faked by Muslims, and that Jews are eight times more likely than Muslims to be the victims of hate attacks.

For every category of hate crime there have been people who have taken advantage of an opportunity to further their own agenda and claim a hate crime where none existed.

There are hundreds of such cases.  Here are just a few:

— In Florida LB Williams, a 50-year-old black man, his wife of nearly seven years Donna Williams, who is white, and their bi-racial daughter found a cross burning in their driveway.  This was reported and investigated as a hate crime, but it turned out that Mr. Williams faked the whole thing in an attempt to stave off a divorce.
— In Anderson, California, a black high school student staged a fake hate crime because she was angry with her father for not picking her up on time.
— A Jewish student at George Washington University faked an anti-Semitic hate crime

The issue is not that there are some despicable individuals who will lie about hate crimes, but that there are far too many legitimate hate crimes against minorities.

6. True or false? Since the Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated in its own words to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within,” one easy way to do that would be to guilt-trip non-Muslims into being ashamed of resisting jihad activity and Islamic supremacism, for fear of being accused of “Islamophobia.”

Another impossible true or false question.  To think that every American Muslim is somehow privy to internal Muslim Brotherhood plots, or has ever even met a member of the Muslim Brotherhood for that matter is nonsense.  The Muslim Brotherhood document that Spencer refers to has had a lot of questions raised about its authenticity.

7. True or false: Negin Farsad, with her “eye-catching mini dresses,” etc., has more to worry about from observant Muslims than she does from “Islamophobes.”

Negin Farsad is a competent Muslim woman who can speak for herself.  Ask her the question.  My guess (as a Muslim woman myself) would be that she would say that Muslim women have as much to worry about from Muslims holding extremist interpretations of Islam, as from Islamophobes.  Being an extremist and being observant are not the same thing.

8. What do you think of this: When you call Geller (and by implication, me) a “Muslim hater,” I believe that you are ascribing people’s legitimate concerns about jihad and Islamic supremacism to “hate,” and that the only effect of this will be to make people who have those legitimate concerns to be even more suspicious of Muslims, which will only lead to more of what you call “Islamophobia.”

Geller is called a “Muslim hater” because of the hateful things she herself is documentedas saying.  — ”Devout Muslims should be prohibited from military service. Would Patton have recruited Nazis into his army?”  — I would like to feel all warm and fuzzy and embrace the moderate Muslim/ meme but they show no evidence of their existence – not in any real number anyway. The only voices of reason in the Muslim world are lapsed Muslims or apostates. — We can pretend or we can strategize on how to defeat our mortal enemy. — Muslims have no right to invoke Moses and Abraham. — Muslims have no right to invoke Moses and Abraham. — There are no moderates. There are no extremists. Only Muslims. — Islam is not a race. This is an ideology. This is an extreme ideology, the most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the earth.

And, here are a few of your own quotes, Mr. Spencer — Islam itself is an incomplete, misleading, and often downright false revelation which, in many ways, directly contradicts what God has revealed through the prophets of the Old Testament and through his Son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh… For several reasons… Islam constitutes a threat to the world at large. — no American official should be taking an oath on the Qur’an, since—as we have been pointing out here for over three years now—there are so many elements of traditional and mainstream Islam that are at variance with our system of government, our Constitution, and our entire way of life. — there is no reliable way to distinguish a “moderate” Muslim who rejects the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism from a “radical” Muslim who holds such ideas, even if he isn’t acting upon them at the moment. — The misbegotten term “Islamo-fascism” is wholly redundant: Islam itself is a kind of fascism that achieves its full and proper form only when it assumes the powers of the state. — there has been no widespread, sustained, or sincere Muslim outcry against the jihad terrorist enterprise in general. — there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists.

Geller and Spencer’s hateful rhetoric could fill a book.  Refusing to acknowledge this sort of speech as hatred will only make Muslims not only suspicious of those who engaged in such speech, but proves to us that Islamophobia really does exist.

9. Is there a plan behind your demonizing and smearing of all anti-jihadists? Do you want to create “Islamophobia” in order to claim privileged victim status for Muslims and exempt them from reasonable law enforcement scrutiny?

Actually, no we would like to shine a bright spotlight on Islamophobia and it’s purveyors so that decent people can see it for what it is and reject it as bigotry pure and simple, so that we can stop wasting time responding to bigotry against all Muslims and use that time to work together to fight against actual Muslim and non-Muslim extremists.

10. What kind of work have you done to raise awareness about the escalating persecution of non-Muslim minorities in Muslim societies, which is far worse in Egypt, Pakistan and elsewhere than Muslims have it here? Why not?

Dean Obeidallah is an American Muslim comedian.  He is not responsible for solving all of the problems of the world, even those directly involving Muslims anymore than every Christian is responsible for solving all of the problems of the world directly involving Christians.  Spencer, you are Catholic, what have you done to raise awareness about the pedophilia crisis in the Catholic Church, or about the genocide of Muslims by Christians in Bosnia, or about brutality and slaughter by the Christian Lord’s Resistance Army in Africa, or about numerous other crimes involving Christians?  It’s ludicrous to believe that every individual member of any religious group is personally responsible for every injustice committed anywhere in the world by anyone who shares the same religion.

11. On what basis do you imply that those who are defending freedom against jihad are “exhibiting behavior which is less than consistent with the values of this nation”? What have you done to resist the Muslim Brotherhood’s stated agenda of “sabotaging” this nation “from within”?

You are not defending freedom against jihad, you are consistently demonizing Muslims.  And, it is not only Muslims who are openly stating that this is bigotry.  There is a reason that the ADL (A Jewish anti-defamation group) has said that Pamela Geller & Robert Spencer’s Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA) is a “group that promote an extreme anti-Muslim agenda”.  There is a reason that The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated SIOA as a hate group, and that they are featured in the SPLC reports Jihad Against Islam and The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle.  There is a reason that Geller and Spencer are featured prominently in the Center for American Progress “Fear Inc.” report on the Islamophobia network in America.  There is a reason that Geller is featured in the People for the American Way Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism.  There is a reason that Geller is featured in the NYCLU report Religious Freedom Under Attack:  The Rise of Anti-Mosque Activities in New York State.  There is a reason that Geller is featured in the Political Research Associates reportManufacturing the Muslim menace: Private firms, public servants, and the threat to rights and security.  There is a reason that the SIOA’s trademark patent was denied by the U.S. government due to its anti-Muslim nature.  There is a reason that they are featured in our TAM Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industry.  There is a reason that Gellerand Spencer are featured in just about every legitimate report on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred.

12. Aside from the murder of a Sikh by an idiot shortly after 9/11, what evidence do you have of any backlash against Muslims to which you refer so off-handedly in the WaPo? Where are Muslims suffering violence, discrimination, harassment of any kind? Even you expected far worse than you got when you went to the South — and the level of harassment you did get was no worse than what I get in my email every day. So why the overblown claims about it?

You need to do a little research yourself, and might start with the following collections of resources:

– ALARMING STATEMENTS Note, previously divided by year and now consolidated into one collection
– Alarming statements by elected officials and political organizations
– Answers to Peter King’s Claims About the American Muslim Community
– Claim That All Terrorists are Muslims Ignores History (sections on Christian extremism and terrorismand Jewish extremism and terrorism were divided 4/08)
– Existing reports and studies on radicalization and the American Muslim Community
– INCIDENTS OF ISLAMOPHOBIA – Prejudice, Racist, or Violent Incidents at MOSQUES – Incidents, hate crimes –  Tariq Ramadan incident – and Khalil Gibran Academy incident and Obsession film incident– Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week incident
– Islamo-Fascism?:  Deceptive Labels & Propaganda are Counterproductive
– Islamophobia: Real or imagined
– MEDIA, Propaganda & Perception
– Polls, statistics, and surveys relating to Islam and Muslims
– A Long History of Injustice Ignored
– A Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industry
– What everyone “knows” about Islam and Muslims

13. And yes, what do you think about these recommendations?

Do Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah really want to eradicate “Islamophobia”? As long as Islamic jihad and supremacism continue, a comedy tour will never do the trick. But here is an easy way. They can call on Muslims in the U.S. to do these things:

1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively, sincerely, honestly, and in deeds, not just in comforting words, not just “terrorism,” but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. In line with this, clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by stating unequivocally that American and Israeli civilians are innocent people, teaching accordingly in mosques and Islamic schools, and behaving in accord with these new teachings.
3. Teach, again sincerely and honestly, in transparent and verifiable ways in mosques and Islamic schools, the imperative of Muslims coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis, and act accordingly.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach sincerely against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively and honestly work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities

1 and 2.  Please see the thousands of fatwas, statements, articles, etc. by Muslims denouncing extremists committing violent acts in the name of Islam in our TAM collection Muslim Voices Against Extremism and Terrorism.  Type “lunatic fringe” into the search engine of TAM for numerous articles denouncing particular extremists and extremist groups.  See my article American Muslims must defend the Constitution of the United States in which I said America is a secular and democratic nation with a clearly marked wall between church and state (thank God!).  One of the reasons America has been a beacon to the world is the freedom that all Americans have to practice any (or no) religion.  As an American Muslim I don’t believe that America can be defined as anything but a secular democracy (secular meaning neutral towards religion, not devoid of religion or hostile to religion) in which all religions are free to worship.  I don’t want to see Shariah, or Biblical law, or any other religious law replace the Constitution, and I don’t want to see any kind of a theocracy in place based on any religion.  I agree with Rabbi Arthur Waskow that “When those who claim their path alone bespeaks God’s Will control the State to enforce their will as God’s, it is God Who suffers.” All civilians are innocent including Americans, Israelis, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Iranians, etc.

3.  There are numerous existing studies, polls, and statements about radicalization in the Muslim community and how the community is working to counter attempts by extremists to radicalize individuals here.  The efforts within the Muslim community are numerous.  MPAC alone has many ongoing efforts including the NATIONAL GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN TO FIGHT TERRORISM and BUILDING BRIDGES TO STRENGTHEN AMERICA: BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE COUNTERTERRORISM ENTERPRISE BETWEEN MUSLIM AMERICANS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT.  Also type “radicalization” into the TAM search engine for numerous articles, etc.

4.  Why would American Muslims be responsible for building comprehensive programs in other countries.  We are Americans.

5.  Muslims have already done this.  And, in fact, many of the actual arrests made of individuals plotting some terrorist act were made because of tips from American Muslims.

To sum up, yes you are an Islamophobe.  The fact that you and your partner Pamela Geller have shown time and time again that you have a tenuous grasp of the concept of “truth telling”, and haveattempted to conceal evidence when you’ve been caught in lies and distortions is shameful.  The fact that you have also shown time and time again that you have no qualms about exploiting a tragedy to further your own agenda is shameful.  The Belgian shooting tragedy, and the Hollywood shooting tragedy are just two of the most recent examples.

The fact that you are a middle aged man whose primary means of earning a living comes from being paid to churn out anti-Muslim propoganda is shameful.

A little comedy, preferably satirical about Islamophobes and their tactics wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Update Robert Spencer and David Horowitz jointly published another version of these 5 questions on Front Page Magazine.

Frank Gaffney Links The Center For American Progress To The Muslim Brotherhood

By Eli Clifton

The Center for Security Policy’s Frank Gaffney and “lawfare” expert Andrew McCarthy offered their response to the Center for American Progress’ Islamophobia report, “Fear, Inc.“, in a 10-minute segment on Gaffney’s radio show this week.

Gaffney and McCarthy, who both are mentioned in CAP’s report as part of the influential “Islamophobia network,” make a series of unfounded allegations against CAP and the report.

McCarthy, the author of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, has made no secret of his dislike for Muslims and progressives. His eagerness to create a grand-conspiracy between the two was on full display during the interview.

But Gaffney and McCarthy take a turn into uncharted, and wildly unsubstantiated, territory when they float the theory that the CAP report was, as Frank Gaffney declares, a product of “a red-green axis between George Soros’ friends and beneficiaries on the radical left like the Center for American Progress and the Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood most notably.”

Listen here (Gaffney’s theory of a “red-green axis” starts at 3:45):

Gaffney, and his allies like Robert Spencer and David Horowitz, have been desperate to paint Fear, Inc. and CAP as a radical institution aligned with violent Islamists. But their attempts to make their fantasies a reality has resulted in some bizarre attempts at guilt-by-association.

Gaffney, McCarthy, and most critics of the report — Islamophobe Pamela Geller said the authors should “choke on their own vomit” — are eager to discredit CAP and the report’s authors using factually baseless attack and wildly speculative conspiracy theories. McCarthy responded to Gaffney’s “red-green axis” theory that, “the evidence [that radical Islamists and the Center for American Progress] cooperate is so strong, that the real question that the interesting quesiton is ‘why this happened’ not ‘whether it happened.’

Conveniently, neither McCarthy nor Gaffney provide any actual evidence of this bizarre theory. But the report does show plenty of evidence of their hostility toward American Muslims. In 2009, Gaffney announced there is “mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims but may actually be one himself” and, after the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) banned Gaffney for making baseless accusations against board members, he declared that the Muslim Brotherhood had “infiltrated” CPAC.

While Gaffney might be finding fewer friendly audiences for his anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, he and his friends still have a home on AM radio, every weeknight.

Omar Baddar: Who is Brigitte Gabriel?

Omar Baddar

This is a decent video from anti-loon Omar Baddar exposing the insanity, contradictions and bigotry of Brigitte Gabriel:

Senator James Inhofe’s un-American Call to Racially and Ethnically Profile Passengers

The un-American Senator James Inhofe

The Republican senator from Oklahoma has called for passengers to be “racially and ethnically profiled,” because according to him, “all terrorists [or at least 90% of them] are Muslims.”  Yes, that’s true: all terrorists are Muslims…except of course the 94% that aren’t.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fQnFJ9RMws&feature=player_embedded 300 250]

Does the good senator not know the ugly history of racial profiling?  Based on this same logic, white racists justify the racial profiling of blacks.  A white supremacist on the white nationalist websiteStormfront.org says:

Blacks looking ghetto in an affluent neighborhood should send up flags. For some reason, I doubt that they are there to do the plumbing, though I am sure they wouldn’t mind relieving you of a few of your more valuable items.

These white nationalists ask, just like Inhofe: “why should my white wife be considered on the same level as a ‘ghetto’ black guy?”

That racist forum is in fact full of calls for a return to racial profiling.  And they justify their belief based on “practicality” just like Inhofe and other loons do.  These white nationalists argue that according to the Department of Justice, blacks are seven times more likely to commit murder than whites:

Racial differences exist, with blacks disproportionately represented among homicide victims and offenders
In 2005, homicide victimization rates for blacks were 6 times higher than the rates for whites.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm

…In 2005, offending rates for blacks were more than 7 times higher than the rates for whites……………..

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm

In another thread, they argue that blacks commit fifty times the number of violent crimes as whites.  There are also other points brought forth by such people, such as the fact that one in twenty adult black men are incarcerated.  Or that “more than three times the number of black Americans live in prison as in college dorms.” Or that over 55% of offenders admitted under the age of 18 are black.And on and on…All justifications to legalize racial profiling.

So if you justify profiling on airplanes by arguing that 90% of terrorists are Muslims (which is false anyways), then by that same logic you ought to be OK with profiling blacks, especially those “ghetto blacks” who happen to be walking through the suburb.  Whatever arguments you use to justify profiling of Arabs/Muslims can be used for blacks…What?  You’re not OK with that?  Then why is it OK to do that to Muslims or Arabs?

I am an American, and I oppose these un-American calls to racially and ethnically profile.  I don’t believe in such discrimination, and know that it is prohibited by the fourth and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution (that annoying document that right wingers always try to circumvent).  If you don’t believe in the ideals of this country, then kindly leave.  You, Senator Inhofe, are un-American.

And if you want to lament about your wife being pulled aside for extra searching, maybe think about changing the war mongering policy that has been shoved upon us by the right wing.  You can’t reallykill hundreds of thousands of Muslims, and not expect there to be a handful of disgruntled Muslims who seek revenge.

I know that people are annoyed by the added costs of airport security.  Well, I have a very low cost solution: the U.S. would save trillions of dollars if it withdrew all troops from foreign lands, and stopped aiding the state of Israel.  (Then put the money into universal health care.)  That would take away the motivations of Islamic extremists.  But I get it: you don’t want to do that…then stop complaining when that policy ends up fueling terrorism.  You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

 

Rod Parsley:”The Devil Stole My Money”

You might remember Rev. Rod Parsley from the 2008 election when Sen. McCain was forced to repudiate his endorsement due anti-Islamic comments.

From Mother Jones:

Rod Parsley, a fundamentalist pastor who John McCain praised as a “spiritual guide” during the 2008 presidential campaign, is in big trouble—demonic trouble. Parsleyhas claimed that Islam is “the greatest religious enemy of our civilization and the world,” and argued that the historic mission of America is to see “this false religion destroyed.” (You can watch a video highlighting those comments here. After weeks of controversy, McCain finally repudiated Parsley in May 2008.) But it’s not Islam that’s causing Parsley problems these days. It’s Satan himself. The Columbus Dispatchreports that Parsley is saying his ministry is under a “demonically inspired financial attack.” Here’s the clip from his television program, “Breakthrough”:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d0jUTxf2Go&feature=player_embedded 300 250]

The proximate cause of Parsley’s trouble, it seems, is a $3 million deficit for the fourth quarter and a $3.1 million legal settlement over a 2006 incident in which a two-year-old child in a Parsley-affiliated daycare center was spanked so hard that his “buttocks and legs were covered with welts and abrasions”:

The boy, then 2, said he was spanked with a “knife” by a substitute teacher. His parents, Michael and Lacey Faieta, believe it was a ruler…. The Faietas said Parsley refused to meet personally with them and that the church did not apologize or take accountability for the beating…. Mr. Faieta said he and his wife were “disgusted” and “saddened” by Parsley’s words.

The devil works in mysterious ways.

(h/t Right Wing Watch)

 

Robert Spencer Dodges Debate with LoonWatch

One artist’s depiction of Robert Spencer

LoonWatch.com, recently published a devastating rebuttal of chapter four of Robert Spencer’s bookThe Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades.

The article no doubt knocked Spencer flat on his backside.  In one swift move, LoonWatch completely neutralized one of his main lines of argumentation against Islam and Muslims–his pet issue of “dhimmitude” which he recurrently brings up to fear monger.  One cannot underestimate the importance he gives to this issue–after all, he registered DhimmiWatch[dot]com!  It is arguably his favorite topic.

Spencer issued a half-hearted (non)reply to the rebuttal.  LW immediately counter-replied, completely pummeling Spencer.

And now…silence.  Spencer, who has no real job other than this, has suddenly become as quiet as a mouse.  What happened, Spencer?  Cat got your tongue?  Where did all the bravado go?

It’s not like Spencer is averse to going twelve rounds in debate…In fact, he had a debate with Omer Subhani on this very issue, and Spencer churned out not one but three (!) articles rebutting Subhani.  (See here, here, and here.)  Notice the blustering confidence Spencer exudes in those articles.  Unfortunately, Subhani was by his own admission very busy during the time that he wrote his rebuttal (he’s a law student) and therefore was unable to do the in-depth research that we did.

Notice how detailed Spencer’s replies to Subhani are (complete with photographs that Spencer took of his own personal library and rotund self). It is clear that Spencer’s multiple replies took a lot of effort and time (he doesn’t have a real job like Omer Subhani does).  So how come LoonWatch doesn’t get just one article rebutting our article on the same exact topic that Spencer was earlier willing to write three rebuttals of?  Well, we all know the answer to that: Spencer has been defeated in debate, is boxed in, and has no possible way to respond to the points raised.  And so the once ferocious Muslim eating tiger has turned into a cowardly chicken.

Omer Subhani recently blogged about my rebuttal and Spencer’s non-response:

…An entire chapter of Spencer’s book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), was refuted and his response was monumentally weak and disingenuous…

Spencer is always whining about debating these issues. Now someone has come up and punched him in the nose. Will he respond, or will he avoid the conversation, thus proving the falsity of his claims that Islam treated Jews worse than Christianity? I ain’t holding my breath.

Mr. Subhani, we aren’t holding our breath either.

Further reading:

The Church’s Doctrine of “Perpetual Servitude” was Worse than “Dhimmitude”

Robert Spencer is on the Ropes; Spencer’s Bumbling Reply to LoonWatch

Update:

Robert Spencer argues in his book that the Jews historically fared (much) better in Christian Europe than they did in the Islamic world.  It was this claim which I thoroughly debunked.  After I published my article, two of our readers (hat tip: Reza and Nabeela) pointed out that even Daniel Pipes–an Islamophobe and one of Spencer’s own buddies–said in an interview:

Rachael Kohn: As an historian, you would know that Jews had comparatively better time under Muslim rule than they did under Christian rule. When did it change so radically?

Daniel Pipes: It was very radical and quick. The Jewish experience from the origins of Islam in the 7th century, until rather specifically in 1945, was better under Muslim rule than under Christian rule. And since 1945, it’s been better under Christian rule than Muslim rule. One can see it for example by exchange of populations. Jews fled the Christian countries for the Muslim countries, until 1945.

As late as the 1930s, when Jews fled Germany to go to Turkey. Since then, it’s been the reverse. I think this points to the fact that things change. You know, what looked like it was a permanent thing, the fact that Jews were better off in Muslim countries, just changed on a dime, in a moment, just changed. It also points to the fact that the Muslim world is going through a very difficult stage now, and it’s presumably a temporary one. It’s comparable again to Germany in the middle of the last century. It was a horrible, horrible period, did a lot of damage to Germany and to the outside world, but the Germans came out of it. And so the key now is to figure out how the Muslim world can come out of this particularly difficult time that it’s in.

Daniel Pipes even refers to Professor Mark R. Cohen’s book Under Crescent and Cross as an “excellent study.”  (It is this book which I used as a template, and which convincingly outlines why life for Jews was so much more tolerable in the Islamic East as compared to the Christian West.)

Pipes noted (as did I in my rebuttal) that although dhimmis were second-class citizens, at least they were citizens–unlike the Christian world where they were excluded from society altogether; saysPipes:

…Non-Muslims were allowed to live under Muslim rule with the legal status of dhimmis (protected persons). They paid higher taxes and enjoyed fewer privileges, in return for which they had the right to practice their own religions. Such sanctioned toleration has no Christian counterpart; under Islam, Jews were second-class citizens but they were part of the legal landscape, not the problematic anomaly they presented the Christian world.

And he concludes:

In pre-modern times, they lived markedly better under Islam than under Christianity.

(Notice the words “markedly better.”)

To be clear, I don’t consider Daniel Pipes to be a reliable source, simply because he is a biased Islamophobe.  But the point here is that Spencer considers Pipes to be a reliable scholar.  Furthermore, it illustrates how even a staunchly anti-Islam ideologue such as Pipes (and Spencer’s comrade-in-arms) is forced to admit what Spencer in his unbelievable revisionism cannot: Jews fared better in the Islamic world than the Christian one.  In other words, Pipes could not keep a straight face and argue Spencer’s point. This indicates the depths of Spencer’s lack of scholarship and sophistication.

 

Yaakov Neeman, Israeli Justice Minister, says Jewish Law Must become Binding

Yaakov Neeman

Will we be hearing condemnations from Pamela Geller, Rabbi Jonathan Hausman or Robert Spencer for this call to replace secular law in Israel with Jewish Law? Don’t hold your breath. (viaHuffington Post)

JERUSALEM — Israel’s justice minister called for Jewish law to become binding in Israel, causing a stir Tuesday that cut to the heart of the country’s simmering secular-religious divide.

Yaakov Neeman’s office tried to contain the uproar Tuesday by saying his words were taken out of context and that he had no intention of replacing Israel’s current legal system. But his comments touched a raw nerve among secular Israelis wary of what they consider to be religious coercion by the Orthodox Jewish minority.

Neeman, an observant Jew, told a rabbinical conference on Monday that the Bible contains “a complete solution to all the things we are dealing with.”

“Step by step we will bestow religious law upon the citizens of Israel and transform religious law into the binding law of the state,” he said. Israeli newspapers said the rabbis attending the conference applauded him wildly, but some lawmakers later attacked his remarks as antidemocratic.

Secular Jews make up about 80 percent of the Jewish population. While many participate in some religious observances, only the Orthodox adhere to Judaism’s strict regimen of rules, including praying three times a day and not driving on the Sabbath.

Opposition lawmaker Haim Oron warned of a “troubling process of Talibanization” in Israel.

In the wake of the commotion, Neeman’s office put out a statement Tuesday saying he spoke only “in broad terms” about “the importance of Jewish law in the life of the state.”

The minister’s remarks did not imply “a call to replace state laws with religious laws, either directly or indirectly,” the statement said.

Speaking in the parliament Tuesday, Neeman said his remarks had been misunderstood. He added that rabbinical courts could provide practical help. “The justice system in Israel is overworked,” he said, “and therefore disputes should be encouraged to be transferred by mutual agreement to an alternative judging system.”

A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no immediate comment.

The notion of instituting religious law in a democratic society is a sensitive one in Israel, which is largely secular but marks the Jewish Sabbath and all Jewish holy days as national holidays and has always allowed rabbinical authorities control over procedures like marriage and divorce.

Secular Israelis are afraid that a wider application of religious law would bar them from activities such as driving, shopping or even turning on the television on the Sabbath.

Heavily religious Jerusalem, which has experienced a flight of secular Jewish residents over the past two decades, is the site of the most faith-based friction.

Over the summer, police clashed repeatedly with ultra-Orthodox protesters enraged by the city’s decision to open a parking lot on the Jewish Sabbath, when driving is banned by religious law. More recently, ultra-Orthodox activists have demonstrated against an Intel Corp. chip-making plant in Jerusalem because it operates on the Sabbath.

 

Cenk Uygur Obliterates Closet Islamophobe

Cenk, posing as a Bollywood hero

Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks Obliterates Closet Islamophobe

Cenk Uygur, the host of The Young Turks, rips this closet Islamophobe a new one.  I especially like how he made sure to mention George Bush’s intention behind invading Iraq (the Biblical prophecy of Gag and Magog), which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.  (But of course those civilians don’t count, since they are brown Moozlems.)

Cenk could have sealed that argument by mentioning the Christian version of Al-Qaeda, none other than the fundamentalist Evangelical Blackwater group, which has killed scores of civilians.  And he could also have mentioned the thousands of Christians who believe in the Joel’s Army theology and the general surge of Christian fanaticism in the U.S. military.

One other point: the conservative loon mentioned the idea that 90% of mosques in America are owned and operated by Saudi Arabia.  This is a blatant lie commonly peddled by Islamophobes.  “But you can google it!”  Believe it or not: but not everything on the interwebs is true.  *gasp*  In fact, the vast majority of mosques in America run on local donations.

Joy “7 million Muslims in the World?” Tiz

Then in that same breath she says that they are funded by the Muslim Brotherhood, when in fact the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood runs contrary to that of the “Wahhabi” (Salafi) strain of Islam followed in Saudi Arabia.

But anyways, I must say that Cenk did a great job (and I give him a 10 out of 10).  Here is the debate:

Cenk vs Conservative [Loon] on Muslims in the Military

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFsV1tHEvzA 300 250]

TYT Nation: Extreme Right Wing’s Un-American Reaction to Ft. Hood Shooting

TYT Nation: Extreme Right-Wingers Un-American

The Young Turks

Many of us here at LoonWatch.com are fans of The Young Turks, so we decided to post some of their videos on the Ft. Hood Shooting along with some commentary:

Hate Mail of the Day: From Amsterdam

Hate Mail of the Day

We get hate mail here quite often at loonwatch, this one comes from someone calling themselves “Ryan Reynolds.” His IP tracks him to Amsterdam. It isn’t a death threat but just someone who really hates us. He left this as a comment on the recent Geert Wilders piece.

Author : Ryan Reynolds
E-mail : ryan@reynolds.com
URL :
Comment:
F*** you and f*** your sick, twisted religion…

If you were wondering, yes, we did censure the curse words.

Bat Ye’or: Anti-Muslim Loon with a Crazy Conspiracy Theory Named “Eurabia”

“The Islamic State of Eurabia”

Bat Ye’or: Anti-Muslim Loon with a Crazy Conspiracy Theory Named “Eurabia”

We all have them: crazy uncles or senile grandparents raving about one conspiracy theory or the other on the dinner table. “Man landing on the moon was a big hoax,” or “Elvis really didn’t die but went to live with Mickey Mouse in Disney World.” We’d smile and continue eating our leftover mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, then politely ask to be excused on account of work early the next morning, the car ride back home full of mirthful post-dinner analysis of the crazy dinner table conspiracy talk.

So when we first read about Bat Ye’or, a lady with no educational qualifications to speak of, who came up with the crazy conspiracy theory entitled “Eurabia,” we here at LoonWatch barely reacted. If a zany lady comes up with some insane theory, we’re certainly not going to take her seriously, at least not any more than the crazy old McCain lady.

The sad reality, however, is that Bat Ye’or is now being used by leading Islamophobes as a primary source for their research and subsequent analysis.  So who is Bat Ye’or?  Well, first of all, her name is not Bat Ye’or.  That’s just her “screen-name.”  For many years, she kept her real identity a secret, and only wrote under this moniker, which is Hebrew for “daughter of the Nile.”  She also had another screen-name, which was Yahudiya Masriya, Arabic for “Egyptian Jewess.”  Her real name is Gisele Littman, and she’s vitriolically anti-Muslim and anti-Islam.

She has written a handful of articles and books–with the basic theme that Muslims have savagely oppressed Non-Muslims (“dhimmis”) throughout history.  These resources written by her are used as reference sources by famous Islamophobes like Robert Spencer (the face behind the xenophobic websites Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch). Spencer hailed Bat Ye’or as “the pioneering scholar of dhimmitude, of the institutionalized discrimination and harassment of non-Muslims under Islamic law.”  Daniel Pipes, an Islamophobic professor, cites her work numerous times. She has emerged from relative obscurity to fame, her work being the backbone of Islamophobic (mis)characterization of Islamic history.

Pamela Geller, admin of the anti-Muslim site Atlas Shrugs, declares: “Bat Ye’or is the world’s foremost leading scholar on Islam.” Amazing how the “world’s foremost leading scholar on Islam” has no educational background and absolutely no credentials at all from a recognized university; truly amazing that anyone can become the world’s leading scholar on Islam with just a library card, a keyboard and internet connection, and of course the key ingredient of all–an all encompassing hatred of Islam.  Can one imagine the world’s leading scholar on Judaism being an Anti-Semite?  This just in: the world’s foremost leading scholar on Judaism is an Anti-Semitic Hamas member. Absurd!

Bat Ye’or is Not a Scholar

Bat Ye’or is not a scholar; she does not have the credentials of a historian from any recognized university.  She is referred to as an “independent researcher,” a euphemism for a random person who goes to the library, opens up some books, and starts writing. Adi Shwartz, a journalist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, rightfully points out Bat Ye’or’s lack of credentials:

Europe allowed the immigration of millions of Muslims to its territories…and will ultimately…transform Europe into a continent under the thumb of the Arab and Muslim world. Europe is dead, and in its stead “Eurabia” has arisen.

This controversial thesis belongs to Bat Ye’or, the pen name of a self-taught Jewish intellectual who was born in Egypt and who currently lives in Switzerland. She refuses to reveal her real name for security reasons, she says, but her thesis is just the prologue to far-reaching conclusions and extreme statements…While her ideas were once almost completely ignored, nowadays, because of the prevailing consternation in Europe regarding its complex relations with the Muslim world, she is receiving more attention, though she is still quite far from entering the European mainstream…

Bat Ye’or’s opinions have made her a controversial figure, as has the fact that she is not an academic and has never taught at any university. She conducts her research independently.

Professor Robert Wistrich, head of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, says of her: