Author: Michael Carl
Publication: Wnd.com
Date: March 3, 2011
URL: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=270121
Denounce plans to investigate domestic terrorism
Muslim groups today cried foul over what they
allege is a growing "cottage industry of hate" in America.
The Arab American Institute and the Muslim
Public Affairs Council held a joint forum in Washington they touted as the
answer to U.S. Rep. Peter King's domestic terror hearings set to begin next
week.
In a prepared statement for the packed Rayburn
House Building hearing room, Arab American Institute Executive Director Maya
Berry said that "Islamophobia" is on the increase, lifting quotes
from three members of the U. S. House.
"Islam, quote, is very vile, very vicious
and we've allowed it to come into this country because we ride around with
bumper stickers that say, 'Coexist,'" Berry quoted.
"'There are too many mosques in America,'
'I am running for the people of the 2nd North Carolina District who are good,
hard-working Christian people,'" Berry also quoted.
"These were the comments of Congressman
Allen West, Chairman Peter King and Congresswoman Renee Ellmers, respectively,"
Berry said.
Berry continued by saying that she believes
dialogue is important.
"When different people with different
views on issues, it's important that we are able to engage in a discourse
and dialogue about them. When it's elected officials who are talking about
the American Muslim community, often about the Arab-American community in
a way like this, it's a slightly different kind of dynamic," Berry said.
Berry lamented the reputation that American
Muslims have and then turned over the microphone to Matthew Duss of the Center
for American Progress.
Duss attributes some of the anti-Muslim sentiment
to the economy. However, Duss claims that hawkish neo-conservatives are using
the economy and policy differences to advance an anti-Islamic agenda.
"The tea party movement and the divisions
within the conservative movement right now on the question of foreign policy
are as big as they ever have been in many decades. We saw this at CPAC, the
Conservative Political Action Conference, where the opposing sides, the Rand
Paul-ites, have real questions about America's role in the world," Duss
said.
"We see Islamophobia as being one of
the issues that a number of neo-conservatives, those conservatives who support
a much more robust and militaristic approach to world affairs, are using to
paper over some of the differences," Duss continued.
"I think we saw the result of these efforts
in this mixed response in a number of people on the right to events in Egypt.
We clearly had people demonstrating non-violently for and in favor of freedom
and democracy and yet so many could only respond to this with these alarmist
views that it was a Muslim Brotherhood takeover and an Islamist takeover,"
he claimed.
Duss said that Barack Obama's election as
president was the springboard that allowed the "freak flag" to fly.
"The people who have been steeped in
this discourse have been allowed to let their freak flag fly so to speak.
I think the stuff was always there and it's really come to the fore,"
Duss said.
"One of the key parts of this argument
is the creeping Shariah argument, We've seen more people adopting this, the
idea that Shariah law as they define it, quote, a military, religious doctrine
of war as it was defined in a report from the Center for Security Policy is
in and of itself a threat to the United States," he said..
Duss added that anti-Muslim feeling in the
United States has prompted over a dozen states to propose or pass anti-Shariah
provisions.
Oklahoma voters passed an anti-Shariah referendum
but a federal judge ruled that some provisions were unconstitutional.
Other states that have passed or introduced
anti-Shariah bills are Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming, South Carolina, Louisiana,
South Dakota and Georgia.
Institute for Global Engagement Senior Fellow
Suhail Khan said a "cottage industry of hate" has appeared and called
out specific anti-Muslim activists and accused them of a smear campaign.
"These people have grown in their ability
to get their hateful message out there, their misinformation and their fear
mongering, in intensity, in recent years that we've seen now, particularly
on the net," Khan said.
"Who are they? As Matt pointed out, you
have folks like Frank Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy. People like
David Horowitz, Robert Spencer, Andrew McCarthy, Pamela Geller. It's a real
small group, but they've formed very cohesive networks that has kind of parceled
out different chores when it comes to each facet of this work," Khan
stated.
"You have Frank, who purports to be a
national security expert. You have Andrew McCarthy who kind of brings the
legal side of this. Robert Spencer, who has no training in Islam or any knowledge,
who comes out to try to be the expert on Islam itself, and then throws up
a lot of different verses and instances about Islam the faith," Khan
claimed.
"Pam Geller is kind of the blogger on
the ground. Then you have David Horowitz who is the ex-communist and has now
seen the light and has come out to sound the alarm bells first about communism
and now about the threat of Islam," Khan added.
Asked by WND to respond, Center for Security
Policy Senior Fellow Clare Lopez said Suhail Khan "is the scion of a
staunch Muslim Brotherhood family but somehow yet is accepted in conservative
circles."
She contended the two sponsoring groups are
also not who they represent themselves to be.
"The Muslim Public Affairs Council's
declared ideology is closely aligned with the Shariah-adherent one of the
Muslim Brotherhood," Lopez explained.
"The Arab American Institute is a staunch
anti-Israel supporter of the Palestinians - soft on both Hamas and Hezbollah,
neither of which it terms terrorists - but calls Israelis 'Nazis,' has spoken
out against the Patriot Act, and is a supporter of Democratic politicians,
a strong backer of Barack Obama," she said.
Later in the forum, Deepa Iyer claimed "Islamophobia"
has led to "an anti-immigration attitude in the U. S."
"It hurts minorities and leads to racial
profiling. It's also led to a hateful view of mosque building," Iyer
said. "These groups have said untrue and hurtful things like building
mosques is a sign of the Muslims conquering a land.
Iyer made this claim even though the former
Imam of the Ground Zero Mosque project Feisal Abdul Rauf was quoted as saying
that the Ground Zero Mosque site had "iconic value."
Lopez explained that Muslim practice has been
to build mosques in conquered territories where non-Muslims are treated harshly
and often lose their rights.
"Historically under Islamic law, conquered/subjugated
'people of the book' (Christians and Jews) could - and often did - lose their
'protected status' and actually became second-class citizens under humiliating
dhimmi laws for any infringement of this law on slander against Islam, Allah,
Muhammad or Shariah," Lopez asserted.
Those violations carried heavy penalties.
"The consequences were often executions,
pogroms, slaughter and genocide of an entire community - for the infringement
of a single individual," Lopez stated.
King, chairman of the Committee on Homeland
Security in the House, wants to conduct hearings this month on the "radicalization
of the American Muslim community and homegrown terrorism."
King has criticized the Obama administration
for not addressing more seriously the threat of domestic terrorism.
He's also suggested that leaders in the Muslim
community haven't been jumping forward with cooperation. King said he's not
trying to target the Muslim community but instead wants to look at the facts
of current cases.
"It's the fact that there's a real threat
coming from this attempted radicalization of the community, and it's in many
ways coming from overseas," he has said.
