Prayer And Action

Fake Hate Crimes: An Islamist Weapon

Posted by Ryan Mauro on Aug 24th, 2010 and filed under FrontPage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Ryan Mauro is the founder of WorldThreats.com, National Security Advisor to the Christian Action Network, and an intelligence analyst with the Asymmetric Warfare and Intelligence Center.

Over the recent Fourth of July weekend, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) interviewed attendees of the 47th annual Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) convention about their experiences in dealing with “Islamophobia.” Shortly afterwards, on July 6, CAIR called on the FBI to investigate an act of arson at a Georgia mosque, saying that hate crimes were increasing because of a “vocal minority in our society promoting anti-Muslim bigotry.” The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) referred to it as one of the “incidents of Islamophobia [that] are on the rise in this country.” However, police later arrested a Muslim suspect.

As Daniel Pipes has documented for years, Islamist organizations in the West are quick to label crimes as anti-Muslim hate crimes as part of their effort to make Muslims feel under attack and to paint themselves as Muslims’ protectors. For example, immediately following the Fort Hood shooting, CAIR asked Muslims to respond by donating to it. “We need financial help to meet these crises and push back against those who seek to score political points off the Muslim community in the wake of the Fort Hood tragedy,” the fundraising pitch read. To no one’s surprise, an anti-Muslim backlash did not ensue.

Cutting through the propaganda requires understanding the ways in which crimes are misrepresented as hate crimes — and why. There are two main culprits to consider: Muslims who stage fake hate crimes and Islamist organizations that seek to exploit them.

Why would anyone fabricate a hate crime against himself or his mosque? History indicates a pair of common motives.

In some cases, the faker has an obvious political goal of demonstrating the supposed prejudice against Muslims. A classic example occurred in 2008, when a 19-year-old female Muslim student named Safia Z. Jilani at Elmhurst College in Illinois claimed that she had been pistol-whipped in a campus restroom by a male who then wrote “Kill the Muslims” on the mirror. The alleged attack occurred just hours after she spoke at a “demonstration called to denounce the anti-Islamic slurs and swastika she had discovered … in her locker.” A week later, however, authorities determined that none of this had taken place and she was charged with filing a false police report.

Similar incidents recently unfolded overseas. A Muslim community leader in London named Noor Ramjanally reported that he had been kidnapped by members of the quasi-fascist British National Party; he also said that he had received death threats and his home had been firebombed. His claim received widespread attention, causing him to boast, “I have got the whole UK Muslim community behind me now.” Ramjanally later was arrested for faking the crime. Furthermore, last year in Australia, a prominent imam, Taj Din al-Hilali, told police that his mosque had been vandalized. When confronted with the security tape, which shows that he is the one who kicked in the door, he insisted that it had been manipulated.

In other cases, individuals are driven to fabricate hate crimes not for political reasons, but to cover up more mundane criminal activity. Take the bizarre story of Musa and Essa Shteiwi, Ohio men who received media attention in 2006 after reporting several attacks on their store, the third being with a Molotov cocktail. A fourth “attack” then occurred, when an explosion was set off and badly burned the father and son, injuries from which they later died. CAIR highlighted it as a hate crime. However, investigators found that the two had set off the explosion themselves after they poured gasoline in preparation for another staged incident and one of them foolishly lit a cigarette. The pair had hired a former employee to carry out the previous attacks as part of an insurance fraud scheme.

Now let us turn to the motives of groups such as CAIR for exaggerating the prevalence of hate crimes against Muslims.

First and foremost, Islamists try to undermine and delegitimize their opponents by placing blame upon them for hate crimes. For example, a 2008 CAIR report attributes an alleged increase in hate crimes — “alleged” because the claimed increase is wholly contradicted by FBI statistics — to “Islamophobic rhetoric in the 2008 presidential election” and people who are “profiting by smearing Islam.” Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is specifically rebuked for titling a campaign ad “Jihad.”

CAIR’s 2009 report takes aim at the anti-Islamist film Obsession, a bête noir among promoters of the hate crime narrative. To cite one example of this approach, on September 26, 2008, law enforcement was notified that a 10-year-old Muslim girl at the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton had been attacked with pepper spray. A member of the board immediately attributed it to advertisements for the documentary. However, the FBI found no trace of chemicals in the mosque or on the alleged victim; the pepper spray was discovered inside the mosque four days later. It concluded that there was no evidence that a hate crime had occurred.

Islamist groups also use the fear created by their publicizing of alleged hate crimes and anti-Muslim sentiment to try to mobilize the community into opposing counterterrorism programs. As Daniel Pipes has noted, CAIR started down this path a decade and a half ago, when it described the prosecution of World Trade Center bomb plotter Omar Abdel Rahman and the arrest of Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook as hate crimes.

Similar tactics remain in play. In February 2009, the American Muslim Task Force and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) condemned the FBI after a story broke about the use of an informant in a mosque. They accused the government of an anti-Muslim conspiracy, saying that the informant was paid to “instigate violent rhetoric in mosques,” and threatened to end outreach efforts with the FBI. Then, in October 2009, a Michigan-based, pro-terrorist imam named Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who had been preparing his followers to wage war against the U.S. government, opened fire when the FBI tried to arrest him for criminal activity. Abdullah died in the shootout, but CAIR and the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA) are attempting to attribute his demise to foul play.

These groups assume the worst of the FBI’s intentions and try to make the Muslim community feel as if it is threatened by its own government committing state-sanctioned hate crimes. True to form, attendees of the ISNA convention this past July were told how the FBI supposedly is targeting Muslims and advised that they should not talk to FBI personnel without a lawyer.

In summary, while real anti-Muslim hate crimes deserve the harshest of condemnation, claims about anti-Muslim hate crimes always should be taken with a grain of salt. CAIR and other Islamist groups thrive off of convincing Muslims that they are under constant assault from roving bigots and an oppressive state. Individual Muslims then feel empowered to fabricate hate crimes in order to paint themselves as victims.

For Islamists, the fear, isolation, and suffering of the Muslim community are nothing more than weapons to enhance their own prestige and pursue their political agenda.

This article was sponsored by Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

Director Mueller, Say No to CAIR

Aug 11, 2010 12:05 am | Andrew C. McCarthy

CAIR is in no position to police the conversation about Islam and terrorism.

Visit National Review

At this point, the question about CAIR should be: Why does anyone care? Care about anything CAIR officials say, that is.

The notorious Council on American-Islamic Relations is back up to its old tricks. CAIR officials figure our ten-minute attention span has lapsed, and that we’ve probably forgotten by now that, in the 2007–08 prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) — a case in which several Islamists were convicted in a scheme that poured millions of dollars into the coffers of the terrorist organization Hamas — CAIR was named as, and shown to be, an unindicted co-conspirator. CAIR reckons that the heat is off, so it’s back on the “Islamophobia” soapbox, demanding an apology from FBI director Robert Mueller.

An apology for what? The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces had the temerity to invite Robert Spencer — one of the nation’s leading experts on Islamist ideology — to lecture federal agents on Islamist ideology.

Spencer’s lecture departed from the government’s “religion of peace” dogma, which holds that there is no Islamist aggression, that there is no civilizational jihad to destroy the West from within (never mind that CAIR’s progenitor, the Muslim Brotherhood, has bragged about its “sabotage” campaign), and that terrorism is not merely unconnected to Islam but, in fact, is anti-Islamic. According to this thinking, Islamist groups like CAIR have a monopoly on what Americans — including American law-enforcement and intelligence agents — are permitted to hear about Islam from academic, media, and government sources. No dissenting views are permitted, no matter how steeped the dissenters may be in Islamic doctrine and no matter how much these dissents accord with what your lyin’ eyes are seeing.

“When I speak with the American,” said Nihad Awad, “I speak with someone who doesn’t know anything.” Awad is now CAIR’s executive director. He made this statement at a Marriott Hotel in Philadelphia on Oct. 27, 1993, when he was the public-relations director for the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP). He and about two dozen other Islamist activists were meeting to brainstorm about how they might be able to continue supporting Hamas and to derail the Oslo Accords — the Clinton administration’s effort to bring a peaceful, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For Hamas supporters, there can be no peaceful two-state solution, because they deny Israel’s right to exist. That is why, to this day, the charter of Hamas (which was established at the startof the intifada in the late Eighties) calls for the elimination of Israel by violent jihad. But in 1993, the United States was cracking down on Hamas. It would soon be designated a terrorist organization, and providing material support to it would be made a crime.

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U.S. State Dept Sends CAIR Official To Mali

Posted on July 30, 2010 by creeping

From the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report:

Local media is reporting that the executive director of Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) – Michigan has traveled to the African nation of Mali on a program underwritten by the US State Department. According to an interview with Dawud Walid:

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations — Michigan, wrapped up his second visit to the African nation of Mali on Friday. He also serves as assistant imam at Masjid Wali Muhammad in Detroit and board trustee for the Metropolitan Detroit Interfaith Workers’ Rights Committee.

This is your second trip to Mali? What program are you participating in there?

This is my second time participating in a delegation organized by Michigan State University, which aims to build religious and cultural ties between American religious and civic leaders with Malian counterparts. The program is underwritten by the U.S. State Department. On Saturday (July 17), Islamic studies professor Achmat Salie from Oakland University and I spoke at the third annual Malian Association for Peace and Tolerance Conference in the capital of Bamako. There were representatives from a number of North and West African countries … from the Islamic, Catholic and Evangelical faith groups. Speakers and attendees came from countries such as Nigeria, Mauritania and Senegal.

What is the purpose of the program?

At the conference, I spoke about the state of interfaith cooperation in America. I stated that Muslims in America have many challenges from Islamophobia to unjust government policies that profile us. However, we have interfaith partners that stand in solidarity for fairness and justice with Muslims and that this is an American tradition. I also mentioned the shooting of Imam Luqman and discussed the case with some leaders.

What do the people of Mali know about Detroit?

People in Mali know little about Detroit, or that there are so many Muslims in America in general. People were pleasantly surprised at the amount of Muslims in Detroit and how the community is so diverse.

What other countries have you traveled to?

I’ve traveled to 15 different countries, including United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Malians by far are the most hospitable nation of people that I’ve ever encountered even though they are (one) of the poorest on Earth. Average household income is about $275 per year. [

Previous posts have documented numerous networking visits by foreign Islamic leaders to US Muslim Brotherhood organizations under the State Department’s International Visitors program but this is the first trip abroad of a US Brotherhood leader financed by State that has been documented by the GMBDR since April 2006 when Ahmed Younis, then National Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), traveled to Tajikistan as part of a Central Asian U.S. Speaker trip.

Documents released in the Holy Land Trial have revealed that the founders and current leaders of CAIR were part of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as identifying the organization itself as being part of the US. Brotherhood. A recent post discussed an interview with the Deputy leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in which he confirms a relationship between his organization and CAIR. Investigative research posted on GMBDR had determined that CAIR had it origins in the U.S. Hamas infrastructure and CAIR and it leaders have a long history of defending almost all individuals accused of terrorism by the US. government, frequently calling such prosecutions a “war on Islam.”

More Islamic expansions in San Diego, Santa Barbara, Ann Arbor

Posted on July 28, 2010 by creeping

The recession has hit everyone except Islamic groups in the U.S. A sampling of three recent multi-million dollar expansions. Where is all the money coming from?

Inside the Islamic Society of Santa Barbara’s Quest to Build a Community Center

“There’s always been a need for a center,” said cofounder Mukhtar Khan, who was born in Saudi Arabia, came to UCSB in the ’70s, and stuck around ever since. “We’re just Muslim people who want to practice our religion peacefully and teach our children.”

Ever since Khan and friends officially formed the society in 1984 — and even prior, since he also founded the Muslim Student Association (MSA) at UCSB in 1975 — they’ve debated whether to convert an existing and empty church into a mosque, buy property and build from scratch, or simply put resources elsewhere and deal with their modest digs. In fact, all of those options have been pursued in one way or another over the years, but a decade ago, the society settled on building from scratch. They finally purchased some land in Goleta in 2001, and have been trying to build there ever since.

Who is the Muslim Student Association?

Founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, MSA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum as one of the Brotherhood’s likeminded “organizations of our friends”[1] who shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation. These ”friends” were described by the Brotherhood as groups that could help teach Muslims “that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands … so that … God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions.”

Our Mission is to secure the future of Islam in America…

The Michigan Islamic Academy, a private school within the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor at 2301 Plymouth Road, is planning a $1.8 million expansion including eight new classrooms and a gymnasium.

According to Tarek Nahlawi, a member of the school’s Board of Education, the new building will replace eight temporary classrooms currently rented from nearby office buildings. The school serves approximately 200 K-12 students and does not presently have a gymnasium for sports and other activities.

The Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor’s website has three links, the first goes to unindicted co-conspirator to a terror financing trial – CAIR – an organization with numerous of its leaders jailed on terrorism charges.

Florida: CAIR-ex gets Human Rights position, quickly seeks ban on Christian prayers

Posted on June 27, 2010 by creeping

You can take an Islamist out of CAIR, but you can’t take the CAIR out of the Islamist. And if you put an ex-CAIR member on a so-called “human rights commission” you can be sure that the rights of most humans will be in danger of sharia law, as proven in this story below. Check out the byline too – the ACLU doesn’t have a problem with Capitol Hill becoming a mosque every Friday, but do in Jacksonville?

ACLU To City: Stop Prayer At Sessions

Group Says Practice Violates Establishment Clause Of Constitution

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter Wednesday to Mayor John Peyton and City Council President Richard Clark asking that the city stop opening council sessions with sectarian prayer.

According to ACLU attorneys, the practice divides the community along religious lines and violates the establishment clause of the constitution. The issue arose when Dr. Parvez Ahmed, a Muslim, was nominated to the Human Rights Commission earlier this year. Councilman Don Redman and Ahmed had an exchange about prayer at one of the meetings that became widely controversial.

According to the ACLU, that issue has caused a number of complaints over Christian-themed prayer to start council meetings.ACLU attorneys said if the City Council does not stop the practice in the next 30 days, it will file a lawsuit.

Video: Lawsuit Coming If Prayer Not Halted

“The practice that the city is doing right now basically says Christianity is the faith that people in Jacksonville should be practicing,” said Benetta Standly, of the ACLU. “We want the city to really respect the diversity of all the people in the city.”

“We’ve got a 19-member body, all of whom are Christians,” Clark said in a phone interview. “I think a prayer is very appropriate, and I plan on continuing that practice. My hope is that (Councilman) Jack Webb in the next council year as president continues to practice. I think it’s certainly something we should do to ask to have a higher power look out after us a little more as we make these decisions for the city.”

Clark said the council is not forcing a Christian prayer on anyone, adding that just happens to be the makeup of the council. He said prayers would also be accepted, for instance, from a Jewish Rabbi or a Muslim.

The ACLU said it would be accepting if the council decided to have a rotating prayer schedule at each meeting, such as having a Muslim prayer one week, a Buddhist prayer the next week and a Christian prayer the week after that, for instance.

So the ex-CAIR flack is teaming with his pals at the ACLU (which seemingly has a division dedicated to CAIR lawsuits) to force Islamic prayers in an all-Christian body or no prayers at all. Jacksonville dhimmis haven’t seen anything yet but are probably starting to regret allowing the “Master of Deception” into their ranks.

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TN: Congressional candidate warns of Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR threat

Posted on March 19, 2010 by creeping

A Congressional candidate in Tennessee’s 5th district, Lonnie Spivak, recently posted a piece on his blog about the growing infiltration by the Muslim Brotherhood and groups like CAIR. More importantly, he addresses potential ways to deal with the threat of creeping sharia. Excerpt below, from Radical Political Islam: How can we stop the this unseen enemy within?:

The information revealed as a result of the Holy Land Foundation Trial is not well-known within our government agencies. As a result, the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) and various other groups continue to operate freely within the United States, putting Americans in danger.

Unfortunately, it is necessary to be suspicious of mosques being built in Middle Tennessee and around the country. Many of these mosques are being funded with Saudi money and the deeds are being held as property of Muslim Brotherhood front groups.

How do we confront this growing problem?

The best way for us to confront these overt and covert radical Islamic groups operating within the United States is at the local level. We must give our local sheriffs and police forces basic counter-terrorism training. It is essential that they are empowered with the knowledge and the resources necessary to recognize and confront those who are suspected of contributing to terror and practicing Sharia law within our borders. We must root out these front groups for Hamas, freeze their funds, prosecute when necessary and deport those living illegally in the U.S.

The truth is, we are still at war and cannot deny that one battlefield is within our borders. Muslim extremists are using our political correctness against us and are patient and willing to do anything necessary to complete their goals. Of the approximately 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, most are willing to coexist and live peacefully. If, however, only one percent subscribe to radical beliefs and lean towards violent jihad we have an enormous problem.

Our understanding and vigilance will be a good first step, but we must be willing to go the distance. Insist that our legislators give those who are responsible for our security the tools and the power to take the fight to our enemy. This will help guarantee our security and enable us to preserve our Republic for our children and grandchildren.

Read it all here.

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