Geert Wilders’ War Against Islam

Geert Wilders book in review (via. Islamophobia-Watch.com):

Wilders’ war against Islam

By the end of Marked for Death, we see what Wilders is leading up to – a horrifying vision of a fortress Europe, defending “freedom” through the deployment of totalitarian state powers to expunge Islam from the continent. His recommendations are reminiscent of the discriminatory social control measures taken against Jews and other minorities under Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

Wilders, of course, is careful to disavow violence and reiterate he hates Islam, not Muslims. But it is difficult to deny the implicitly violent subtext of his sweeping proposals, including a halt to all Muslim immigration, payments to settled immigrants to leave, cessation of building of mosques, and taxation of Muslim religious practices such as the headscarf. Most disturbing is his endorsement of Israeli-style “administrative detention” (indefinite internment without trial on security grounds) in Europe as part of criminal operations in Muslim communities; not to mention the forcible deportation of tens of millions of Muslims from Europe for “thinking” about “crime” or “Shari’ah”.

Yasmin Qureshi and Nafeez Ahmed examine the political programme presented in Geert Wilders’ Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me.

Independent, 4 June 2012

Don’t Be Fooled. Europe’s Far-right Racists are Not Discerning

French politician Marine Le Pen is among European far-right figures courting the Jewish community. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

A good piece, reconfirming what we have been saying all along:

(The Guardian)

On Saturday, in the Danish city of Aarhus, a Europe-wide rally organised by the English Defence League will try to set up a European anti-Muslim movement. For Europe’s far-right parties the rally, coming so soon after the murders in south-west France by a self-professed al-Qaida-following Muslim, marks a moment rich with potential political capital.

Yet it’s also a delicate one, especially for Marine Le Pen. Well before the killings, Le Pen was assiduously courting Jews, even while her father and founder of the National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was last month convicted of contesting crimes against humanity for saying that the Nazi occupation of France “wasn’t particularly inhumane”. Marine must disassociate herself from such sentiments without repudiating her father personally or alienating his supporters. To do so she’s laced her oft-expressed Islamophobia (parts of France, she’s said, are suffering a kind of Muslim “occupation”) with a newfound “philozionism” (love of Zionism), which has extended even to hobnobbing with Israel’s UN ambassador.

Almost all European far-right parties have come up with the same toxic cocktail. The Dutch MP Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigrant Freedom party, has compared the Qur’an to Mein Kampf. In Tel Aviv in 2010, he declared that ”Islam threatens not only Israel, Islam threatens the whole world. If Jerusalem falls today, Athens and Rome, Amsterdam and Paris will fall tomorrow.”

Meanwhile Filip Dewinter, leader of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang party, which grew out of the Vlaams Blok Flemish nationalist party, many of whose members collaborated with the Nazis during the second world war, has proposed a quota on the number of young Belgian-born Muslims allowed in public swimming pools. Dewinter calls Judaism “a pillar of European society”, yet associates with antisemites, while claiming that ”multi-culture … like Aids weakens the resistance of the European body”, and “Islamophobia is a duty”.

But the most rabidly Islamophobic European philozionist is Heinz-Christian Strache, head of the Austrian Freedom party, who compared foreigners to harmful insects and consorts with neo-Nazis. And yet where do we find Strache in December 2010? In Jerusalem alongside Dewinter, supporting Israel’s right to defend itself.

In Scandinavia the anti-immigrant Danish People’s party is a vocal supporter of Israel. And Siv Jensen, leader of the Norwegian Progress party and staunch supporter of Israel, has warned of the stealthy Islamicisation of Norway.

In Britain EDL leader Tommy Robinson, in his first public speech, sported a star of David. At anti-immigrant rallies, EDL banners read: “There is no place for Fascist Islamic Jew Haters in England”.

So has the Jew, that fabled rootless cosmopolitan, now suddenly become the embodiment of European culture, the “us” against which the Muslim can be cast as “them”? It’s not so simple. For a start, “traditional” antisemitism hasn’t exactly evaporated. Look at Hungary, whose ultra-nationalist Jobbik party is unapologetically Holocaust-denying, or Lithuania, where revisionist MPs claim that the Jews were as responsible as the Nazis for the second world war.

What’s more, the “philosemite”, who professes to love Jews and attributes superior intelligence and culture to them, is often (though not always) another incarnation of the antisemite, who projects negative qualities on to them: both see “the Jew” as a unified racial category. Beneath the admiring surface, philozionism isn’t really an appreciation of Jewish culture but rather the opportunistic endorsement of Israeli nationalism and power.

Indeed you can blithely sign up to both antisemitism and philozionism. Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik described himself as “pro-Zionist” while claiming that Europe has a “considerable Jewish problem”; he saw himself as simultaneously anti-Nazi and pro-monoculturalism. The British National party’s Nick Griffin once called the Holocaust the “Holohoax”, subsequently supported Israel in its war “against the terrorists”, but the day after the Oslo murders tweeted disparagingly that Breivik was a “Zionist”.

Most Jews, apart from the Israeli right wing, aren’t fooled. They see the whole iconography of Nazism – vermin and foreign bodies, infectious diseases and alien values – pressed into service once again, but this time directed at Muslims. They understand that “my enemy’s enemy” can easily mutate into “with friends like these …”.

The philozionism of European nationalist parties has been scrutinised most closely by Adar Primor, the foreign editor of Haaretz newspaper,who insists that ”they have not genuinely cast off their spiritual DNA, and … aren’t looking for anything except for Jewish absolution that will bring them closer to political power.”

Similarly Dave Rich, spokesman of the Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors antisemitic incidents in Britain, told me that far-right philosemites “must think we’re pretty stupid if they think we’ll get taken in by that. The moment their perceived political gain disappears they revert to type. We completely reject their idea that they hate Muslims so they like Jews. What targets one community at one time can very easily move on to target another community if the climate changes.” Rich’s words, spoken before the murder of Jews in Toulouse, now sound chillingly prescient. The president of the French Jewish community, Richard Pasquier, judges Marine Le Pen more dangerous than her father.

French Muslim leaders rallied round Jewish communities last week. Next week sees the start of Passover, a festival celebrating the liberation of Jews from slavery in Egypt, when Jews often think about modern examples of oppression. Let’s hope that French Jewish leaders use the occasion to rally round Muslim communities, and to remember that ultimately, racism is indiscriminate.

• This article was amended on 28 March 2012. It originally referred to the Community Security Trust as the Community Service Trust. This has now been corrected

Sweden’s Jews, Muslims Face Web Hate Rise: Study

We’ve always noted that Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism are linked and on the rise. (H/T: Benjamin Taghiov)

(The Local)

The number of xenophobic web sites have almost doubled since 2007 and Jews and Muslims wearing apparent religious symbols are subjected to significant discrimination in Sweden today, according to a new report from the Living History Forum (Forum för levande historia). 

“Sweden as a whole is a tolerant country but this report shows that racism is growing and is being professionalized on the internet. There is today a small but growing minority that harbour hatred against Muslims and Jews,” minister for integration, Erik Ullenhag, wrote in a statement on Monday.

The report, which was requested by the government and carried out by the Forum, also shows that an increased number of racist web pages have been created in recent years and that prejudice is being spread through schoolbooks.

According to the report, the number of racist sites in Sweden has almost doubled in two years. In 2009 there were around 8,000 xenophobic Swedish sites whereas today the authors of the report estimate an increase to 15,000.

This follows a EU-wide trend where right wing extremist groups are using the internet to spread hate-propaganda.

According to the report, these are characterized by anti-Semitic and Islamophobic views, where conspiracy theories are the most recurring elements.

The Jewish group is often cast as world conspirators whereas the Muslim group is seen as physical occupiers, actively are on their way to taking over society through mass-immigration and rising nativity figures.

The Jewish community in Sweden consists of some 20,000 individuals and the Muslim community of 300,000. Fresh crime statistics show that there were 161 reports of crimes with anti-Semitic motives and 272 with Islamophobic motives last year.

But according to the Forum it is difficult to get a fair idea of the situation from these statistics as they are based on police reports and the authors believe there may be many more unrecorded cases.

“Above all this study shows that research and follow-ups into preventative actions regarding intolerance against Jews and Muslims is sorely needed,” said head of Forum for Living History, Eskil Franck, in a statement.

According to Ullenhag, Swedish authorities must further their knowledge about what causes the hate against these groups to grow in Sweden and how they should meet it. That, he said, is the aim behind the investigation regarding xenophobia that the government launched earlier this spring.

“We have learnt from experiences in other European countries that all the forces who want a tolerant society need to be active in the public debate. Prejudice against Jews and Muslims can never be normalized,” said Ullenhag.

When American research centre Pew recently investigated the development of religious conflicts and oppression worldwide between 2006 and 2009, Sweden distinguished itself as a country where hostilities related to religion are increasing the most.

France: Shooter Targeting North Africans, Caribbeans and Jews

Murder victim Abel Chennouf (left) was due to become a father with his partner (right)

A killer on the loose on a “powerful moped?” That’s kind of comical but the results have been tragic, as this murderer is going around targeting people of ethnic and religious minorities. (H/T: Zakariya Ali Sher) 

*Ahmed makes some good points:

This could be a “Muslim”. That the three French troops happened to be ethnic minorities might just be a coincidence. So it could be possible that this is a Muslim extremist who is targeting French troops and Jews.

Of course, the sensible thing is for people not to speculate until more evidence comes through. I did notice at Fox News Forums this morning however that they were all going mental over this, saying it is the fault of the French for letting all those Muslims in and having gun control. So if it ends up not being a Muslim, they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for politicising a horrendous spate of killings.

Lets not jump to conclusions.

Shootings in Toulouse and Montauban: What we know

(BBC)

Three gun attacks which left seven people dead and two wounded have sparked a security alert in south-western France, with fears that the same killer could be at work.

In each case the attacker is said to have been a gunman on a moped, using a weapon of the same calibre, striking in broad daylight.

All of the attacks took place within a radius of about 50km (30 miles), between the city of Toulouse and town of Montauban.

The first two shootings saw soldiers targeted but the third took place at a school.

What the victims have in common is that they belong to, or are associated with, ethnic or religious minorities – North African, Caribbean and Jewish.

That they were singled out is suggested by reports that, in at least one attack, the killer pushed aside a bystander to get to his victims.

A manhunt is under way and France has placed its national judicial police in charge of the investigation, with anti-terrorist investigators and specialists in serial crimes at its disposal.

While little has been reported about the identity or motivation of, in the words of Le Figaro newspaper, the “most wanted man in France”, some of the strongest clues may have been left by the first attack.

Cyber trail

Investigators believe it is “highly plausible” that the same .45 calibre gun was used in the first two shootings, a judicial source told France’s AFP news agency several days before the third.

On Sunday 11 March, Imad Ibn-Ziaten, a 30-year-old staff sergeant in the 1st Airborne Transportation Regiment, was shot dead around 16:00 (15:00 GMT) behind a school in a quiet district of Toulouse.

According to Le Figaro, Sgt Ibn-Ziaten, who was not in uniform, was unwittingly waiting for his own killer.

He had posted a small ad on a website to sell a Suzuki Bandit motorcycle, and the suspected gunman had arranged a meeting to see it.

The sergeant was found shot in the head, his motorcycle beside him.

French cyber police are working to extract clues from the two men’s internet exchanges, Le Figaro says.

Sgt Ibn-Ziaten had a clean service record, prosecutors stressed, rejecting suggestions that there could have been a gangland element to his murder.

‘Tattoo’

In the second attack, in Montauban on Thursday 15 March, 46 surveillance cameras picked up the gunman on his scooter, according to Le Figaro.

They showed “a man in dark clothing wearing a black helmet and riding a powerful moped”.

‘The Jews have stopped the billboard’ – American Atheists’ Leader Complains that ‘God is a myth’ ad near Hasidic Neighbourhood has Been Blocked

Bob Pitt of Islamophobia-Watch rightly questions whether Islamophobes who allied themselves with American Atheists over the Zombie Muhammad issue will now cry that Jews are attacking freedom of speech and expression, as they surely would if Muslims had stopped the billboard:

(via. Islamophobia-Watch)

by Bob Pitt

This time atheists found themselves answering to a higher power – a picky landlord. A Southside loft owner refused to allow a billboard questioning Judaism to be installed atop his S. Fifth Street building on Tuesday amid outrage in Williamsburg’s Hasidic community.

National atheist leaders tried to take out a month-long ad adjacent to Williamsburg’s Orthodox Jewish stronghold with text in English and Hebrew reading: “You know it’s a myth … and you have a choice.” But at the last minute, landlord Kenny Stier refused to allow workers from the advertising company Clear Channel into his building, according to American Atheists president David Silverman.

Silverman claims powerful neighborhood rabbis convinced Stier to block the non-believing billboard and called the religious leaders and the landlord “anti-atheist bigots”. “The Jews have stopped the billboard,” said Silverman. “It’s really ugly bigotry. As a former Jew, it’s repugnant to see Jews act like this.”

Several Hasidic leaders said they had nothing to do with the landlord’s decision to block the billboard, and Stier declined to comment. “I don’t want to get involved in this,” he said.

Councilman Steve Levin (D–Williamsburg) said the billboard showed a “severe lack of sensitivity” at a time when Brooklyn should be striving to have open conversations about religion.

“Even if we were to ignore the antagonistic placement of this billboard near the Williamsburg Bridge, the content of the message is conveyed in a disrespectful manner,” said Levin. “This does not appear to be a genuine attempt to engage in a dialogue, but is here merely to insult the beliefs of this community.”

The Brooklyn Paper, 6 March 2012

We look forward to Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, who have been enthusiastically supporting American Atheists over the “Zombie Muhammad” controversy, joining Silverman in condemning this development as an outrageous attack on freedom of expression – as they undoubtedly would if it had occurred in a Muslim neighbourhood. But don’t hold your breath.

Texas Schools Association Discriminates against Muslims as Well as Jews

A really egregious story out of Texas:

Texas schools association discriminates against Muslims as well as Jews

A Houston Islamic academy was denied membership to the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools after being grilled about the Koran and the mosque located at Ground Zero.

Iman Academy applied for membership to TAPPS in 2010, but the association denied the school’s request. After being rejected two years ago, Principal Cindy Steffens did not go public with the story, but The New York Times uncovered the Houston academy’s name last week and ran an article about the controversy.

TAPPS represents more than 220 private schools in the state. The association drew national attention last week after refusing to reschedule a basketball game for a Jewish Orthodox day school Robert M. Beren Academy in Houston, which could not play at the time because the players observed the Sabbath. After the parents threatened legal action, Beren was allowed to play its semi-final game.

The Iman Academy received a questionnaire as part of their application to apply for the TAPPS. Steffens said the questionnaire had provocative and loaded questions, including how the school addresses Christmas. Among the questions sent to Iman Academy and the other Islamic schools that applied were:

• Historically, there is nothing in the Koran that fully embraces Christianity or Judaism in the way a Christian and/or a Jew understands his religion. Why, then, are you interested in joining an association whose basic beliefs your religion condemns?
• It is our understanding that the Koran tells you not to mix with (and even eliminate) the infidels. Christians and Jews fall into that category. Why do you wish to join an organization whose membership is in disagreement with your beliefs?
• How does your school address certain Christian concepts? (i.e. celebrating Christmas)
• Does your school teach that the Bible is corrupt? When was the  Bible allegedly polluted? Does the Koran actually  state that the Bible is polluted?
• What is your attitude about the spread of Islam in America? What are the goals of your school in this regard?

In 2004, two other Islamic schools applied for membership and received a response letter that they perceived as hostile to their faith. They chose not to answer the questions, but Iman Academy did.

School officials were invited to an interview before the TAPPS board in November 2010, and Steffens said one board member said he wanted to discuss the “elephant in the room.” She said the board asked questions that seemed irrelevant to joining an association to play sports, such as asking her opinion about the mosque located near Ground Zero in New York City.

Steffens said another board member told her, “I know all Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.”

Houston Chronicle, 6 March 2012

US Atheist Group Targets Muslims and Jews

American Atheists has taken aim at Muslims and Jews with new billboards in Arabic and Hebrew. While atheists should be absolutely free to compete in the marketplace of ideas just like everyone else, this group isn’t merely offering an alternative to religion.

Despite their presumed appreciation for rational skepticism, the group appears to have been taken in by so-called “ex-Muslim” and confirmed loon, Ibn Warraq, and their negative portrayal of Islam sounds like it was cut-and-paste from a far right anti-Muslim hate site.

US atheist group targets Muslims and Jews

by Bob Pitt, Islamophobia Watch

CNN reports that the American Atheists organisation are targeting Muslim and Jewish communities with billboards in Arabic and Hebrew describing God as a “myth”.

Pamela Geller and Ibn Warraq

“We are not trying to inflame anything,” American Atheists president Dave Silverman is quoted as saying. “We are trying to advertise our existence to atheists in those communities. The objective is not to inflame but rather to advertise the atheist movement in the Muslim and Jewish community.”

Yeah, right.

American Atheists, you may recall, is the organisation involved in the “Zombie Muhammad” case, in which one of their members claimed that he was assaulted by a Muslim during a Halloween parade. After the case was dimissed because of lack of supporting evidence, American Atheists expressed outrage that the judge had refused to take the word of a white American over that of a “Muslim immigrant”.

The American Atheists website features a long essay attacking Islam and Muslims which the authors state is “greatly dependent upon the excellent books written or compiled by Ibn Warraq”. It contains passages like these:

Mohammedans prefer to be called Muslims – a term derived from the Arabic ’aslama, meaning ‘to resign oneself [to Allah]‘. They prefer their religion to be called Islam (from Arabic ’islam, meaning ‘submission’) rather than Mohammedanism. Most western scholars have gone along with this, rather than risk the wrath of purportedly peaceful members of ‘the third great Abrahamic faith’. Nevertheless, Mohammedanism seems to be a perfectly appropriate name for a religion which currently poses so great a threat to secular civilizations throughout the world….

Despite the occasionally tolerant references in the Qur’an to “People of the Book” (Jews and Christians in addition to Muslims), the non-Muslims need to be eliminated. Convert them or kill them, or make them pay a religious ransom to continue the private practice of their religion. (Of necessity, Muslims must reject the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.) Atheists and Agnostics, who deny the reality of Allah, are also wicked blasphemers. They need to be eliminated also. It is preferable to kill them.

True, the authors go on to state that intolerance is “a natural attribute of all monotheistic religions”. However, no extended essay can be found on the American Atheists site attacking Christianity and Christians in equally vitriolic terms.

But this has become a distinguishing feature of the so-called “new atheism”. The legitimate secular objective of separating church and state has been sidelined in favour of attacking minority ethno-religious communities, and Muslims in particular, often employing language which is indistinguishable from that of the racist right.

Newt Gingrich

Singling Out Islam: Newt Gingrich’s Pandering Attacks

The former House speaker regularly calls for treating Muslims differently — and his discriminatory remarks are mostly forgiven. 

It’s interesting to observe what qualifies as beyond the pale in American politics. For bigoted newsletters written two decades ago, Ron Paul is deemed by many to be disqualified from the presidency. I don’t fault anyone for criticizing those newsletters. I’ve done so myself. They’re terrible. So is the way he’s handled the controversy. But isn’t it interesting that Paul has been more discredited by years-old, ghostwritten remarks than has Newt Gingrich for bigotry that he’s uttered himself, on camera, during the present campaign? It’s gone largely ignored both in the mainstream press and the movement-conservative organs that were most vocal condemning Paul.

That’s because Muslims are the target. And despite the fact that George W. Bush was admirably careful to avoid demonizing a whole religious faith for the actions of a small minority of its adherents — despite the fact that Barack Obama too has been beyond reproach in this respect — anti-Muslim bigotry in America is treated differently than every other kind, often by the very same people who allege without irony that there is a war in this country against Christians.

In the clip at the top of this post, Gingrich says, “Now, I think we need to have a government that respects our religions. I’m a little bit tired about respecting every religion on the planet. I’d like them to respect our religion.” Of course, the U.S. government is compelled by the Constitution to afford protection to religion generally, and “our” religion includes Islam, a faith many Americans practice. That’s just the beginning of what Gingrich has said about this minority group. In this clip, he likens Muslim Americans seeking to build a mosque in Lower Manhattan to Nazis building next to the Holocaust Museum. He once suggested that the right of Muslims to build mosques should be infringed upon by the U.S. government until Christians are permitted to build churches in Saudi Arabia, a straightforward suggestion that we violate the Constitution in order to mimic authoritarians. He favors a federal law that would pre-empt sharia law — though not the religious law of any other faith — from being used in American courts, which would be the solution to a total non-problem.

And no surprise, for he regularly engages in the most absurd kind of fear-mongering. To cite one example:

I think that we have to really, from my perspective you don’t have an issue of religious tolerance you have an elite which favors radical Islam over Christianity and Judaism. You have constant pressure by secular judges and by religious bigots to drive Christianity out of public life and to establish a secular state except when it comes to radical Islam, where all of the sudden they start making excuses for Sharia, they start making excuses that we really shouldn’t use certain language. Remember, the Organization of Islamic Countries is dedicated to preventing anyone, anywhere in the world from commenting negatively about Islam, so they would literally eliminate our free speech and there were clearly conversations held that implied that the U.S. Justice Department would begin to enforce censorship against American citizens to protect radical Islam, I think that’s just an amazing concept frankly.

If Gingrich believed all of this it would be damning. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether it is more or less damning that his tone, and much of his substance, is in fact a calculated pander. Justin Elliott at Salon demonstrated as much when he delved into how Gingrich used to talk about these issues:

Gingrich’s recent rhetoric represents a little-noticed shift from an earlier period in his career when he had a strikingly warm relationship with the American Muslim community. As speaker of the House in the 1990s, for example, Gingrich played a key role in setting aside space on Capitol Hill for Muslim congressional staffers to pray each Friday; he was involved with a Republican Islamic group that promoted Shariah-compliant finance, which critics — including Gingrich — now deride as a freedom-destroying abomination; and he maintained close ties with another Muslim conservative group that even urged Gingrich to run for president in 2007.

The article goes on to note:

Gingrich’s warm relations with the Muslim community continued well into the mid-2000s. Around 2004, for example, he participated in a planning meeting of the Islamic Free Market Institute, according to an activist who also attended the meeting. “His tone was nothing like what you hear today,” recalls the activist. “He was very positive, very supportive. His whole attitude was that Muslims are part of the American fabric and that Muslim Americans should be Republicans.” By the standards of the Gingrich we know today, the Islamic Free Market Institute was essentially engaged in “stealth jihad.” The now defunct group, founded by conservative activist Grover Norquist in 1998 to woo Muslim Americans to the GOP, was involved in educating the public and policymakers about Islamic or Shariah-compliant finance. Its 2004 IRS filing reported the group spent tens of thousands of dollars to “educate the public about Islam[ic] finances, insurance, banking and investments.” To most people, there’s nothing nefarious about Islamic finance — there is a large international banking business centering on special financial instruments that are compliant with Islamic strictures against interest, and so on.

So in 2004 Gingrich attended a planning meeting of a group devoted to promoting Shariah-compliant finance. Fast forward to 2010 and here’s what he said in his speech to the American Enterprise Institute: “[I]t’s why I think teaching about Sharia financing is dangerous, because it is the first step towards the normalization of Sharia and I believe Sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.”

If an American politician suggested, of Christians or Jews, that they should be required to take a special loyalty oath before assuming office; that the government should restrict where they’re permitted to build houses of worship; that laws should be passed singling out their religious law as odious; that they don’t count when Americans talk about “our” religion; that their main lobbying group should be aggressively investigated: if any American politician said any of those things, they’d be regarded as an anti-religious bigot engaged in a war on Christianity.

Whereas the accusation that there’s something wrong with Gingrich’s rhetoric is met on the right with righteous indignation, as if he is the put-upon victim of political correctness or the elite media.

In the 1980s, the Ron Paul newsletters played on white anxiety about urban crime and racism toward blacks. It was awful. And apparently America didn’t learn its lesson, for Gingrich 2012, like Cain 2012 before it, is playing on majority anxieties about terrorism and xenophobia toward Muslims. This is particularly dangerous in the civil-liberties climate produced by Bush and Obama, where American citizens can be deprived of their liberty and even their life without charges or due process, a protection that is especially valuable to feared minorities.

Santorum: Equality ‘doesn’t come from Islam’ but from ‘God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob’

Rick Santorum

by Madeleine Morgenstern

Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum provoked an angry response from the Council on American-Islamic Relations Saturday for saying equality “doesn’t come from Islam“ but ”from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

“I get a kick out of folks who call for equality now, the people on the left, ‘Well, equality, we want equality.’ Where do you think this concept of equality comes from?” Santorum said during a South Carolina campaign stop Friday, ABC News reported. “It doesn’t come from Islam. It doesn’t come from the East and Eastern religions, where does it come from? It comes from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that’s where it comes from.”

The former Pennsylvania senator, a Catholic, has spoken openly about faith on the campaign trail.

“So don’t claim his rights, don’t claim equality as that gift from God and then go around and say, ‘Well, we don’t have to pay attention to what God wants us to do. We don’t have to pay attention to God’s moral laws.’ If your rights come from God, then you have an obligation to live responsibly in conforming with God’s laws, and our founders said so, right?” Santorum asked.

In a statement, CAIR communications director Ibrahim Hooper called Santorum’s remarks “inaccurate and offensive,“ and said the organization was sending the candidate a copy of the Quran so he could ”educate himself.”

“The Quran, Islam’s revealed text, is the best refutation of Mr. Santorum’s inaccurate and offensive remarks, which are unbecoming of anyone who hopes to hold our nation’s highest office. Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the same God and share religious traditions that promote justice and equality,” Hooper said. “We suggest that Mr. Santorum educate himself about Islam and the American Muslim community by reading the Quran that we will send to his campaign headquarters next week.”

What If They Were Muslim?: 300 Ultra-Orthodox Clash With Police Over “Gender Segregation Sign”

300 Ultra Orthodox Clash with Police Over Sign

Ultra-Orthodox, Israel Police clash in Beit Shemesh; officer wounded

(Haaretz)

A police officer was wounded as clashes erupted between ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israel police on Monday in two separate neighborhoods in Beit Shemesh.
Two residents were also arrested in the clashes.

Approximately 300 ultra-Orthodox Jews began chasing police officers, hurled rocks at them, and burned trashcans after police were called to remove a sign on a main street that orders the separation of men and women in the neighborhood. The sign has been removed and re-instated several times over the past two days.

Confrontations also occurred in another of the city’s neighborhood after a Channel 10 news crew attempted to film a news piece in the neighborhood. The crew was surrounded by ultra-Orthodox residents who began harassing the crew, who immediately called for police reinforcement.

Officers arrived on the scene, and clashed with residents who laid on the ground in order to protect those which the police sought to apprehend for questioning.

On Sunday, a Channel 2 news team was attacked and beaten by 200 ultra-Orthodox men at the same location on the street where the sign that was removed had been hanging.

After the assault on the Channel 2 news team earlier Sunday, one resident living nearby said that the sign in question has existed for six years already. He added that it does not order women not pass in the street, but to abstain from gathering on the sidewalk.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Hannukah and Merry Christmas to the loonwatchers who are celebrating this holiday season.

UK Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others join Christians to wish Happy Christmas 4 All

By Alexander Goldberg
(Reuters)

There are no Christmas trees in my home, not even a Chanukah bush, no sign of tinsel and no sound of children singing carols. If I was asked on Facebook to describe my relationship with Christmas, like most Jews I would opt for the  ‘it’s complicated’ or even the ‘separated’ status. The personage of Jesus, whose birthday it marks, is the main theological divide between Christianity and Judaism. So whilst a minority in my community do mark it in some way, it would be difficult for me as an observant Jew to do so. Perhaps therefore, it is surprising to some that I have joined the HappyChristmas4All campaign. So why?

For me, it comes down to good neighborliness. It gives me no satisfaction to see others denigrate another person’s religious festival or stop my neighbours from practising their beliefs. That’s why I joined the HappyChristmas4All campaign that has attracted over a thousand supporters on Facebook and captured the attention of the broadcast media in Britain. People have signed up for their own reasons, but in essence Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs and secularists have joined together to say Christmas in Britain must be respected. Some from other communities have gone further and I have learnt this week from both Muslim and Buddhist friends the meaning that the birth of Jesus has in their traditions.

The ‘War on Christmas’ myth needs to be debunked. I share similar concerns to my closest Christian neighbours that the festival risks becoming on one hand a secular consumerist feast or on the other a time when the majority of the population wrongly believes it has to play down celebrations so as not to offend others.

Consumerism is dangerous. The current global economic crisis has shown what happens when we borrow beyond our means. Christmas is a time of great debt for many families who face huge pressures to get those close to them expensive and highly marketed gifts. I share the concerns of those that see this consumerist festival is slowly usurping the religious one that promotes ‘Peace on Earth’ and encourages family gatherings. A religious Christmas is a tonic to this excess and a national consumerist festival is of no interest to any of us.

Playing down Christmas celebrations is not the answer either. We should not make it into some inert ‘Winterval’ or generic ‘Holidays’ which is increasingly popular in the United States. There is a tendency to roll the Jewish holiday of Chanukah into Christmas and celebrate the Holiday period along with Kwanzaa, Chinese New Year and Thanksgiving. Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate it if someone offers me Happy Chanukah greetings or wants to play ‘spin the dreidel.’ But let’s face it — Chanukah is a minor Jewish festival whilst Christmas is one of the most important days of the Christian calendar. So why ‘big up’ Chanukah or have our neighbours downplay Christmas? Indeed, critics of the term ‘Happy Holidays’ deem it to be either consumerist in its origins or an attack on the centrality of Christmas for the majority of the population in the United Kingdom and the United States.

The ‘War on Christmas’ seems to take away enjoyment for the majority of people and only a few bitter secularists and some ideological extremists, who want to be on the fringe of society, want to see that happen. Surely a Christmas tree or lights on the Main Street or at City Hall can’t possibly offend anyone. The notion is simply ridiculous. I used to get phoned up by public sector workers two weeks before Christmas when I was the Senior Race Equality Officer at the UK Government’s Commission for Racial Equality. They were concerned that placing a Christmas tree in the town hall would offend non-Christians. In the main, the same authorities were marking Eid, Diwali and Chanukah where there were sizeable relevant populations. So I asked them, why not Christmas? I told them that I would be offended if 85% of the population could not celebrate their festival. Point taken, my advice was often met with relief and I am probably responsible for saving a dozen or so Christmas trees in town halls across Britain.

Journalists have been fascinated by the numbers of religious leaders from Jewish, Muslim and Sikh backgrounds joining in with this call to respect Christmas. Even the orthodox Chief Rabbi of Britain, Lord Sacks, joined in. On a recent visit to the Scottish Parliament, he stated that “Jewish and other faith communities love the fact that Christians celebrate Christmas… When I go to Trafalgar Square and hear carols being sung, I feel uplifted.”

When they ask me what I am doing this Christmas, I tell them that I have a role. The country still needs people to work or volunteer. At Christmas time, members of my family offer to take colleagues shifts at work or volunteer in understaffed charities in order to help others take the time off to celebrate their festival, or else look in on those that may be lonely over this period. And when asked, I urge members of my community to do likewise. In other words, to show respect for Christmas and their neighbours. Happy Christmas for all…

Muslims and Jews Defy Stereotypes, Come Together Over Coney Island Bagels

Food is a good way to create friendship. The story below will probably blow the Islamophobes’ mind away, maybe they will start to protest this bagel shop now because it spells the Islamization of Coney Island? (hat tip: Keio Pamudji)

Coney Island Bialys and Bagels, Jewish Bagel Shop, Rescued By Muslim Cab Drivers

(Huffington Post)

A 91-year-old New York Jewish bagel shop about to go under was saved by two former Muslim cab drivers who vowed to keep it kosher.

Coney Island Bialys and Bagels was set to close its doors in September, with longtime owner Steve Ross citing a bad economy as the culprit, the Jewish Daily Forward first reported.

But Peerzada Shah and Zafaryab Ali couldn’t let that happen, so the two former New York cab drivers and one-time roommates bought the store together.

Ali had worked at the shop for about 10 years and didn’t want to see the iconic neighborhood store shut down. Shah went to culinary school in Manhattan and was knowledgeable about ovens and baking equipment, the Jewish Daily explains. Both men immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan.

Ross’ grandfather, Morris Rosenzweig immigrated from Poland and opened the shop in 1920.

Some might wonder whether the “geopolitics that divide Muslims and Jews” pose a problem, but all three men say it doesn’t factor in anywhere.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ali told the New York Daily News. “I make the food for everyone.”

A longtime customer also told WPIX he didn’t have any issues with the religion of the two men.

The new business partners are renovating certain parts of the shop, but plan to use the same recipes, equipment and the kosher menu, MSNBC points out.

Joseph Jackson has worked at the shop for 30 years and decided to stay with the new owners.

“The two men are very, very good-natured, well-intentioned and just good people,” Jackson told MSNBC. “They want to keep the bakery kosher and I want to help them succeed.”

And he’s not the only one who wishes them well.

“I’d like to see them flourish because they’re making a product that my grandfather brought to this country,” Ross told the New York Daily News.

Daily Bruin: Jews and Muslims Unite Against Bigotry Instigated by David Horowitz Freedom Center Ad

David Horowitz

Fear Inc. did a great job in tracking the network that funds Islamophobia. David Horowitz is one recipient of Islamophobic largess. He spends the money by paying Robert Spencer of JihadWatch and Daniel Greenfield of Sultan Knish amongst other activities.

Horowitz is very interested in college campuses, he was the originator of “IslamoFascism Week,” an Islamophobic event that catered to all the usual hatemongers. Now it seems he is putting advertisements in college newspapers. The results of the ad campaign seem to have backfired as they have brought Muslims and non-Muslims closer together instead of driving them apart.

Letter to the editor: David Horowitz ad unites Jewish, Muslim communities

(Daily Bruin)

Friendship can be forged under the most unlikely circumstances. Therefore, we formally thank the David Horowitz Freedom Center for providing us with this opportunity to find common ground against a common problem.

On Oct. 13 , the David Horowitz Freedom Center published an ad in the Daily Bruin titled “Not All Fears Are Phobias,” wrongly identifying Islam as a perpetrator of terrorism worldwide. By submitting the ad to our campus newspaper, the DHFC sought to bring its politics of division and fear to our campus community. Instead, it became a rallying point between two populations with viewpoints that often conflict. J Street U at UCLA and the Muslim Student Association have joined in solidarity to demonstrate to campus that we must rise above messages that intend to tear us apart.

No, really. This wouldn’t have happened if you had not published this. David Horowitz, you are truly a peacemaker.

The ad presents one step in a campaign to isolate the American Muslim community, all but labeling the entire community a security threat. The David Horowitz Freedom Center attempts to legitimize a policy of exclusion and suspicion of American Muslims and galvanize a susceptible population against them.

The Horowitz ad has made students on campus feel uncomfortable, upset and unsafe. While Muslim students feel it attacks their personal identity, others see the ad as unrepresentative of their values. This ad creates an environment where a specific community feels unsure of whether it can express its identity without fear of backlash or condemnation. The university has an obligation to protect its students in this capacity, especially when UCLA is among the most diverse campuses in the United States.

The campus Muslim community expressed widespread dismay and unease over the message embedded in the ad. They were outraged at being implicated in the actions of extremists, a tiny percentage of the overall population. Many members of the MSA felt unsafe and wary of a campus that might have endorsed a blanket criminalization of a religion rather than attributing blame to the individuals who committed the crimes.

If the David Horowitz Freedom Center really wanted to combat extremism, it would be urging us to communicate and learn from our classmates instead of preaching a dogma of intolerance. In actuality, placing the ad encourages the spread of extremism, divides our community and leads to demonization of student populations.

How can an organization that is against anti-Semitism condone Islamophobia? We feel that anyone against the former yet allowing the latter is applying a double standard to our neighboring communities. From J Street U’s standpoint, the Jewish values that we have been brought up on will not allow us to condone the oppression of any society, for our community is not exclusive to this experience. Our religious and ethnic memory is stained with millennia of oppression, and we pity those who have not learned from it. Our community suffered greatly, and we will do whatever we can to make sure others do not have to.

The solidarity shown by non-Muslim students for fellow Muslim students has helped to mitigate the dismay experienced by the MSA and wider Muslim community. Several members of the Muslim community stated that they felt reassured by the display of shared sympathy and very much appreciated the verbal expressions of support. The MSA and J Street U at UCLA decided to take this opportunity to collaborate and show the campus that personal friendships and logical arguments always trump fear.

It’s not only about the Jewish and Muslim communities. No community on or off campus should be demonized or disrespected. Instead of fostering fear and rejection, it’s our duty to try to understand each other’s cultures or viewpoints. The great thing about UCLA is the diversity of its student community. It takes special courage to approach the “other,” but it is always worth the risk.

J Street U and the Muslim Student Association at UCLA envision a campus where we’re not afraid to share our experiences, our cultures and our identities. Everyone does not need to agree, but everyone should be allowed to present their own viewpoints. The kind of ad that propagates fear of the “other,” but doesn’t allow that “other” community to speak for itself, is not what we need on campus. We don’t want a campus where people are scared of each other and where students are discouraged from interacting with people whom they disagree with or see as different. With this collaboration, we have taken our first step toward realizing this vision. We invite the campus community to join us.

This message is a joint response from J Street U at UCLA and the Muslim Student Association, written in collaboration between Fowzia Sharmeen, Jared Schwalb and Gabriel Levine, a UCLA alumna, fourth-year student and third-year student, respectively.

Muslim Savior of Holocaust Jews

CAIRO – Delving into untold stories of the Holocaust, a new film is shedding the light on heroism of Muslims who risked their lives to rescue Jews from the Nazi brutality.

“This film is an event,” Benjamin Stora, France’s pre-eminent historian on North Africa, told The New York Times.

“Much has been written about Muslim collaboration with the Nazis. But it has not been widely known that Muslims helped Jews.”

The film, “Free Man”, traces the heroism of the founder of the Grand Mosque of Paris in saving Jews from the Nazis.

It tells the story of Algerian-born Kaddour Benghabrit who rescued Jews in France from the Nazi brutality.

Benghabrit provided shelter and Muslim identification documents to scores of Jews to help them escape arrest by Nazi troops.

He also used the Grand Mosque of Paris to shelter more than 100 Jews from persecution.

Despite hiding Jews inside, Benghabrit used to give mosque tours to German officers and their wives to deceive them.

The movie premiered this week in France after four years of travel and research. It is also to be released in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the Holocaust refers to “systematic state-sponsored killing of Jewish men, women, and children and others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.”

The commonly used figure for the number of Jewish victims is six million.

But the figure has been questioned by many European historians and intellectuals, chiefly French author Roger Garaudy.

Muslim Heroes

Stora says that there are many untold stories about Muslim heroism to save Jews from the Nazis.

“There are still stories to be told, to be written,” he said.

Director Ismael Ferroukhi says that he encountered many stories about Muslim heroism during the film making.

One account came from Albert Assouline, a North African Jew who escaped from a German prison camp.

Assouline said that more than 1,700 resistance fighters, including Jews, found refuge in the mosque’s underground caverns, and that the imam provided many Jews with certificates of Muslim identity.

The film comes almost five years after Robert Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, revealed in his 2006 book, “Among the Righteous,” stories of Arabs who saved Jews during the Holocaust.

The book included a chapter on the Grand Mosque of Paris.

“One has to separate the myth from the fact,” Satloff told The New York Times.

“The number of Jews protected by the mosque was probably in the dozens, not the hundreds,” he said.

“But it is a story that carries a powerful political message and deserves to be told.”

Satloff recalled a 1940 Foreign Ministry document shown to him by the current mosque rector Dalil Boubakeur about the Nazi suspicions of the mosque’s role in sheltering Jews.

“The chief imam was summoned, in a threatening manner, to put an end to all such practices,” the document says.

The mosque’s role in sheltering Jews from the Nazis was explored by a television documentary tilted “A Forgotten Resistance: The Mosque of Paris” in 1991.

Another children’s book “The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Saved Jews During the Holocaust,” published in 2007, also highlighted the mosque’s role.

Ferroukhi, the director, urges the France government to take the film about the Muslim heroism to schools.

“It pays homage to the people of our history who have been invisible,” he said.

“It shows another reality, that Muslims and Jews existed in peace. We have to remember that — with pride.”

Jews and Muslims in America: More in Common Than We Think

(cross-posted from AltMuslim)

A new Gallup poll shows that American Muslims and Jews – in addition to having a shared religious minority experience – share a great deal of political and social views, as well as a deeper than expected affinity.

By Joshua Stanton, August 14, 2011

Contrary to common assumptions, many Jewish and Muslim Americans enjoy warm relations. Yet we are only beginning to understand how and why this is so. A Gallup report released last week goes a long way to explaining this unexpected trend, which shows that the two diverse communities have more in common than is often thought.

The report, “Muslim Americans: Faith, Freedom, and the Future”, reveals that overwhelming numbers of Jewish Americans believe Muslim Americans are loyal to their country – 80 per cent to be exact. Aside from Muslims themselves, no other religious community demonstrates such confidence in the loyalty of America’s Muslim citizens.

Further, it seems that Jewish and Muslim Americans share a number of common political views – even about issues as contentious as the Middle East conflict. The same study indicates that 81 per cent of Muslim Americans and 78 per cent of Jewish Americans support a two-state solution, which would enable Israel and a future independent Palestinian state to live side by side. While dialogue about the Middle East conflict remains contentious, the vision for a long-term solution appears surprisingly similar.

How could this be? Why would two communities, so often portrayed as being at each other’s throats, not only have confidence in each other but have similar perspectives on even the most contentious issues?

One possibility is a shared immigrant experience. Jewish immigrants, who arrived in multiple waves of immigration but most visibly in large numbers at the end of the 19th century, often used education as a means of gaining a foothold in America and of finding a way to contribute to their new country. It now appears that Muslims are taking a similar approach. In fact, 40 per cent of Muslims surveyed in a 2009 Gallup report, “Muslim Americans: A National Portrait”, note that they have attained a college degree or higher. This makes Muslim Americans the second most likely of any religious group, behind Jewish Americans, to attain at least a college education. It seems that Muslim Americans may be carving out a niche and contributing to American society today much as their Jewish counterparts did a century ago.

While Jews and Muslims in America may have highly educated communities, both groups also exhibit fear about perceptions that others hold of their traditions. According to last week’s report, Jewish and Muslim Americans are more likely than adherents of any other tradition to conceal their religious identity.

It may be an understanding of what this means that has caused what may best be described as significant empathy on the part of many Jewish and Muslim Americans. While 60 per cent of Muslim Americans polled by Gallup say that they experience prejudice from most Americans, a remarkable 66 per cent of Jewish Americans say that most Americans exhibit prejudice against Muslims. This means that Jewish Americans are aware of anti-Muslim prejudice more than any other religious community.

Fear and other negative responses to prejudice may compound the overall drive for Jews and Muslims to obtain a higher education and find a niche in the United States. This process may also create stress for members of both communities. According to the 2009 Gallup report, 39 per cent of Muslim Americans and 36 per cent of Jewish Americans report experiencing a lot of “worry”. This worry may correspond to fear of prejudicial treatment and a desire to conceal one’s religious identity. Overt displays of religious identity and the push to succeed in a new society may come into tension for both communities, though this is a hypothesis that warrants further research.

In short, Jews and Muslims share profoundly in their experience in the United States. As small religious minorities, each under two per cent of the American population – with Muslim Americans perhaps a fraction of that figure – they maintain a sense of marginalisation. Yet their response to this adversity is one of contribution to society through significant investment in personal education, which in turn creates new opportunities.

Jewish immigration to America may have peaked over a century ago, while Muslim immigration is still relatively new. But both communities share in their drive not only to make America their home but to attain a prominent role in that newfound homeland. Both communities would do well to recognise the remarkable parallels in their experiences as immigrants to America – as would Americans in other religious communities. The potential for collaboration is clear, while the narrative of conflict has been significantly debunked.

Joshua M. Z. Stanton is co-founder of the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue and Religious Freedom USA, as well as a Schusterman Rabbinical Fellow at Hebrew Union College. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

Jewish group fights beach harassment

Anti-assimilation organization warns girls bathing on Israel’s seashores not to be fooled by Arab men posing as Jews

Yair Altman

Published: 07.17.11, 13:08 / Israel Jewish Scene

The Organization for Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land (Lehava) has decided to start “defending the daughters of Israel” on the country’s beaches.

According to the organization, many Arab men are posing as Jews, courting and harassing the beautiful women. In response, a “coast guard” aimed at fighting the alleged phenomenon has been set up.

In recent weeks, Lehava members have been handing out dozens of leaflets to Jewish women on the beaches of Bat Yam, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Caesarea and Eilat, asking them to maintain their Jewishness and not to give in to the non-Jewish men’s appeals.

The organization decided to do something after receiving complaints from many women who claimed to be harassed by non-Jewish men on the beach.

“Last year we discovered that there are many gentiles arriving at the beaches, but not in search of the sun or water,” said Benzi Gopstein, one of Lehava’s leaders.

“Due to the multiple complaints,” he explained, “we decided to promote a campaign at the start of the bathing season this year in order to prevent situations in which girls discover that the ‘Yossi’ they are dating is actually ‘Yusuf’, prevent sexual harassment and assimilation.

“The volunteers handing out the leaflets are all seculars, as the religious public only visits segregated beaches, which don’t have the Arab problem. We’ve also started distributing a clip on Facebook and YouTube and we hope the girls will open their eyes.”

‘There are enough Jewish men around’

Gopstein noted that the “coast guard” is also called “The committee for defending girls on beaches across Israel“, and that its members are volunteers living in the beach area.

He said that the patrol members use convincing methods only. “We turn to the girls with a plea: ‘There are enough good Jewish men you can go out with.’”

He stressed that “the letter of the rabbis’ wives (calling on Jewish girls not to date Arabs) was intended for the religious public. Now we are turning to the secular public and saying that you don’t have to be a religious girl in order to marry a Jew, you don’t have to be religious in order to want your son to remain Jewish, and its part of the people of Israel’s duty to remain Jewish.

“At the moment we are operating in several cities, but I believe that following the clips we’ll reach other places too.”

American Jew refused entry to Israel on suspicion of converting to Islam

Fuller-Bennet. Now allowed in the country after a lengthy battle.

What if they were Muslim?

By Amira Hass

Two years after participating in a Taglit-Birthright tour, Harald Fuller-Bennett was denied entry into Israel. The Shin Bet claimed he had links to terrorists and suspected him of no longer being Jewish.
With regard to a young American Jew named Harald Fuller-Bennett, the Taglit-Birthright project to some extent achieved its goal. The project brings young Jews from around the world for a trip in Israel “in order to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants’ personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people,” to quote its own words. And indeed, about two years after coming on a Taglit-Birthright tour, Fuller-Bennett intended to visit Israel again.

But this time, the people working to diminish the distance between him and Israel were two Tel Aviv lawyers, Omer Shatz and Iftach Cohen, and Jerusalem District Court Judge Yoram Noam. Together, they overturned a bizarre attempt by the Shin Bet security service to accuse him of having connections with terrorists and intending to convert to Islam – for which reasons it barred him from entering Israel for 10 years.

Fuller-Bennett is now 30 years old. On his Taglit-Birthright tour in January 2008, he said, “I gained a lot of sympathy for Israelis and for the multitude of challenges they face (and the many mistakes the government is currently making in facing them ). We had a number of engaging Israeli military members on our bus. I am still Facebook friends with some of them. My conversations with them taught me much about the complexity of modern Israel, and the difficulty of being born into a state with a siege mentality.”

Fuller-Bennett joined a group within the Taglit program called “Peace, Pluralism and Social Justice.” He is not certain that this subgroup of Taglit is still active, but the fact of its existence shows the organizers recognized that there are young Jews whose interest in Israel has not eliminated their capacity for criticism. “We had questions about Israel but wanted to see for ourselves,” Fuller-Bennett said.

But it was not his participation in Taglit’s “most lefty, peacenik” group, as Fuller-Bennett defines it, that made the Shin Bet decide this employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture was dangerous.

‘Suspicious conduct’

That happened on May 2, 2010, when he and his girlfriend (now his fiancee ) landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport for a week-long visit to Israel. This would have been his third visit to the country. But to their astonishment, after his passport was stamped for entry, he was taken aside, interrogated and put on a plane back to the United States. The fresh stamp was crossed out with two diagonal lines and the additional stamp: “Denied Entry.”

“About a week after I was denied entry, Noam Chomsky and a Spanish clown were denied,” he recalled.

The Shin Bet investigator asked him where they intended to go. “To Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and perhaps Bethlehem,” where a friend of his girlfriend lives, he answered. Afterward the state would claim, in response to the suit filed by Shatz and Cohen, that Fuller-Bennett had been “briefed to conceal his intention to enter Judea and Samaria,” and that “his conduct during the questioning at Ben-Gurion Airport aroused the questioners’ suspicion.”

Indeed, as Fuller-Bennet wrote me by email from his home in the U.S., “I was quite nervous during the investigation, especially when the investigator became accusatory and suspicious because of my travel to Syria and Sudan. I had never been interrogated in such a manner before, and I am a naturally easygoing person not accustomed to, nor expecting, such treatment. I’m sure I acted oddly as a result.”

When he realized he was being denied entry, he wrote, “I felt like shit. I felt like an idiot for being naive and not getting a ‘clean’ passport, and for being nervous during my interrogation despite the fact that I had absolutely zero intention of doing anything remotely activist-like in Israel other than possibly going to Bethlehem (which I hear many foreign Christians do every year ).”

A few months after he was sent back to the U.S., he contacted attorneys Shatz and Cohen. In October 2010, they asked the Interior Ministry to explain the deportation and inform them whether a denial of entry order had been issued, and if so, for how long, so that they could request its cancelation.

Having received no reply, the lawyers wrote again in January 2011, this time warning they would go to court if they did not receive an answer. The answer was: “Your client’s entry into Israel was denied by the security authorities because he is suspected of links to hostile terrorist elements.”

The petition to the Jerusalem District Court, in its capacity as a court of administrative affairs, was filed in March 2011. The state’s response, filed on June 29, 2011 by Deputy Jerusalem District Attorney Moran Braun, asked the court to reject the petition. To defend the Shin Bet’s decision to deny Fuller-Bennett entry, Braun wrote: “Information was received about anti-Israel protest activity in which the plaintiff took part; moreover, the possibility arose that the plaintiff had converted to Islam.”

But at the hearing on June 3, Braun said the claim that Fuller-Bennett had ties to terrorists was “mistaken.” And while there had been concern that he might have converted to Islam, “Today we have presented our position and we are not insisting on this.” In short, he added, the ban on Fuller-Bennett entering Israel had been canceled.

The lawyers therefore agreed to withdraw the petition. Judge Noam ordered the state to pay Fuller-Bennett’s court costs, because the Interior Ministry rescinded its entry ban only after the petition. And Fuller-Bennett would like to make it clear he is in fact an atheist.

The Road to “All Muslims are Terrorists”

It’s been travelled before.

Aside from the fact that real democracies don’t persecute their minorities, Jews are reminded in many pieces of scripture to never forget when we were “strangers in a strange land” (see the book of Exodus). Maybe this is one reason why Muslim-bashing ticks me off so much. As a group, we should know what it’s like — if not us personally, then our parents.

Nowadays, though, we have discovered that, after centuries of being despised by zealots and Christian-tinged nationalists, we have suddenly been mailed gold membership cards to a newly-constituted “Judeo-Christian” country club [others need not apply]. We’ve arrived, we tell ourselves. They love us. Things have changed.

Well, I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but the folks who hated Jews last year have simply moved on to new enemies. They haven’t stopped their hating, and I don’t trust their unctuous expressions of new-found love. The religious right responsible for so much of the bigotry toward Muslims (and previously Jews and African Americans) still can’t decide whether they want to kiss us, convert us, wear tallit and sing in Hebrew, or keep blaming us for Golgotha. By the time they realize we really aren’t converting any time soon, I suspect they won’t love us quite so much. And then it will be time for us to die in their End Times scenario. All this is to say – we’re really still the enemy. But ever since the Holocaust it’s just been, well, a bit awkward to say things like that in polite company. But give it time. They haven’t really changed.

Yet Jews are not their only enemies. Blacks, gays, tree-huggers, socialists, progressives, unionists, Hispanics, immigrants, flag-burners, pacifists, anti-globalists, anti-imperialists, secularists, atheists – the list is pretty long – everyone’s a target. And it has always seemed so obvious to me that much of their hostility to Muslims is that Islam is simply their number one religious competitor.

But none of this is new.

A few years ago, while doing some genealogical research, I came across a 1909 immigration document which recorded a family member’s recent arrival in America on a ship from Antwerp. I always found it odd that the shipping company had recorded all this information (but more on this in a second):

19y; male; single; can read/write;
Citizen of: Russia, Race: Hebrew;
Last Residence: Russia, [town] Destination: NY, NY; Has ticket;
Passage paid by brother;
In possession of: $25; Has been in US before in NY;
Never in prison or supported by charity;
Not a polygamist or an anarchist;
Place of Birth: Russia, [town]

In that year, 1909, many Jews were sympathetic to movements advocating anti-authoritarian forms of government based on justice, not nationalistic slogans. After all, nationalism had never been kind to Jews in Europe. For reasons of both fact and perception, most Jews were presumed to be anarchists in 1909.

And a cautious nation couldn’t be too careful about letting such troublemakers into a society whose ideal was British and German Protestantism. Organizations such as the Boston-based Immigration Restriction League were alarmed that so many of these new Jewish immigrants were “undesirable” that they helped legislate large fines on steamship companies which failed to screen them out (thus the detailed steamship records above). The League’s Numerical Limitation Bill was hardly subtle: restrictions were harshest on eastern and southern Europeans (Jews and Italians). The Dillingham Commission further restricted such immigration and totally eliminated Asians. The American nativists of the time believed these foreigners were inherently “lesser breeds” and incompatible with a superior Christian, European society – something echoed frequently by Tea Party types in the U.S. today and by Islamophobes like Geert Wilders. The League’s charter:

We should see to it that the breeding of the human race in this country receives the attention which it so surely deserves. We should see to it that we are protected, not merely from the burden of supporting alien dependants, delinquents, and defectives, but from what George William Curtis called “that watering of the nation’s lifeblood,” which results from their breeding after admission.

Sound familiar?

First they came for the Jews, then the Muslims. Who’s next?

Andrew Brown: Islamophobia and antisemitism

The money quote from the article,

“But with Muslims, in Britain today, there is a feeling that the civilised, funny, clever ones aren’t really proper Muslims at all. And don’t think that these civilised, funny, clever people people don’t notice it.

This is subtle and pervasive – more of a smell than a substance – and I’m not sure whether it’s a very diluted version of the stench that comes off Condell or Robert Spencer or something essentially different.”

I couldn’t have said it better than that.

Islamophobia and antisemitism

by Andrew Brown (Guardian)

The great thing about being in Dubai last week was being a foreigner once more. It’s how I spent much of my childhood, how I grew up, and how I feel most at home; but it brings professional rewards as well as personal pleasures. I was for the first time in my conscious life in an environment where the most important thing about Muslims was not that they were Muslims. It gave me a moment of sudden awareness, like waking in a log cabin without electricity when all the background hum and tension of electric motors that you never normally hear is suddenly audible by its absence.

The people I was hanging out, and sometimes drinking, with were Muslim intellectuals whom I know and like in England. They’re not in any way discriminated against in this country, as far as I can tell: their lives are not impeded by the kind of people who think that Muslims are a problem to be solved. The kind of crude and open prejudice that flourishes online – and go and look at comments on the Telegraph website, or the videos of Pat Condell, if you want to know what I mean – is very rare in liberal circles, and when we catch ourselves at it, we feel guilty.

But there is a more subtle and general sort of prejudice which holds that Condell is not an extremist outcast. Richard Dawkins, for example, has praised Condell, and used to sell his videos on his website, which reminds of the way that Oswald Mosley remained a member in good standing of the English upper classes until the outbreak of the second world war, despite his views on Jews.

What I realised in Dubai was that in England today Muslims can’t escape being Muslims, any more than Jews in England in the 20s or 30s could escape being Jewish. They can’t just be unremarkable, as Jews in England can be now.

In Dubai, or neighbouring Sharjah, being a Muslim did not matter in the same way. Obviously, people made a huge amount of fuss about Islam. But when you’re in a room full of Muslim academics and students arguing about culture, or censorship, or why there is so little science in the Arab world, the arguments themselves make one thing wholly plain. Neither side is more Muslim than the other. None of the flaws of the Islamic world are essential or intrinsic to it. They may be widespread, and in some cases quite horrible. But they’re all cultural and not just religious.

I don’t mean by this that all the bad bits are cultural and all the good bits religious. That’s both false and simplistic. Cultures can be both good and bad and both are still authentically Islamic. But the whole idea of an “essential” or “true” way of being Muslim makes little sense when looked at historically, no matter how important, indeed indispensable, that style of argument is between Muslims. The same is of course true about “real” Christianity, or, for that matter, “real” atheism.

We don’t have any real difficulty accepting this about Christians in this country. Except for a few noisy bigots, it’s accepted that nice, good Christians are just as Christian as nasty and vile ones: that Jesus would be just as much at home among the Quakers as in Ian Paisley’s congregation; in fact most Guardian readers believe that he would like the Quakers more. Certainly this is true about Jews. No one really believes that Lionel Blue is less Jewish than the chief rabbi (unless the chief rabbi does).

But with Muslims, in Britain today, there is a feeling that the civilised, funny, clever ones aren’t really proper Muslims at all. And don’t think that these civilised, funny, clever people people don’t notice it.

This is subtle and pervasive – more of a smell than a substance – and I’m not sure whether it’s a very diluted version of the stench that comes off Condell or Robert Spencer or something essentially different. Either way, it is a smell of which I spend most of my life unaware, and Muslims notice much more often. I shall try to flare my nostrils a little more often.