Michael Savage blames Muslims for the Norway attack and rants his bigotry at Muslims

Listen to these few minutes to better understand Islamophobia and those who fuel it with hate talk and lies.

Muslim leader censures radical (OC Register)

March 22, 2011|By FRANK MICKADEIT
The Orange County Register

I'm happy to report that less than a half-hour after I hit the "send" button on yesterday's column, I received from an Southern California Muslim leader the following condemnation of statements by a radical Muslim leader:

"CAIR and the Muslim community unequivocally reject what appears in the 2006 video to be the speaker's support for targeting Israeli buses and cafes. The targeting of civilians is a crime that can never be justified, no matter what just cause it claims to serve."

The condemnation was from Hussam Ayloush , executive director of the Council for American-Islamic Relations for the Greater Los Angeles Area, and he was referring to a video that depicts Muslim leader Amir Abdel Malik-Ali at a UCI rally telling Muslim students that because Jews in Israel are willing to be martyrs, they must be willing to be martyrs, too. "They (Jews) know this is a new day. ... What do we do? Might be another 9/11."

If the Muslim community wants the Villa Park City Council to censure Councilwoman Deborah Pauly for her statements at a February protest rally, I'd asked Ayloush, shouldn't the Muslim community condemn its own leaders for hate speech?

Pauly had told the crowd in Yorba Linda: "Let me tell you what's going on over there right now – make no bones about it – that is pure, unadulterated evil. ... I know quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in paradise."

She says she was speaking about Malik-Ali and another controversial speaker at an Islamic Circle of North America fundraiser – not about Muslim families in attendance.

Ayloush still believes Pauly and other speakers were "demonizing American Muslims and supporting violence and discrimination against them under the pretext of protesting controversial speakers. The result of that incitement was protesters forming into a mob, yelling insults and threats against Muslims families, including children."

I agree her words might have encouraged shameful behavior by anti-Muslim bigots after she had left the stage. Whether or not she meant her outrage to apply only to the two speakers, it was reckless to say what she did.

Pauly, for her part, condemns the anti-Muslim hecklers. "It is unfortunate that a splinter group arrived at dusk as the ICNA fundraiser began. I did not even realize they had stayed into the evening until I saw that edited tape myself. I had already gone home. I strongly condemn the actions of that group, particularly yelling at women and children."

So we have mutual condemnation of hate-speech. But saying so for public consumption is one thing. Getting each side to believe and trust the other is harder to achieve.

Contact: 714-796-4994 or fmickadeit@ocregister.com

Church plans Quran-burning event

Mis-reading the Bible/Torah to Promote Terrorism and the Killing of Babies!

Meet the ideology that inspired the suspected extremist Jewish settlers who were involved in the torching of a mosque in the West Bank in Palestine last month and in other earlier cases of terrorism.

The Jewish Daily Forward wrote a revealing article that exposed the growing influence of extremist Jewish institutions and figures that are promoting teachings of violence, hatred, and genocide on the basis of radical biblical interpretations.

So far, such groups have had little success in recruiting supporters in the US, with the exception of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), which was characterized as "a right-wing terrorist group" by the FBI. Well, to be accurate, the JDL's founder, late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane appears to have one last loud supporter and follower. This follower is none but Joe Kaufman, the virulent Islamophobe from Florida.

Of course, extremism is not exclusive to the Jewish religion. All religions have their share of extremists. It is a must that the peaceful moderates from all religions work together to expose and isolate such radicals who wish to drag the world into their narrow-minded vision of division, hatred, and violence. Collectively and genuinely working toward justice and a culture of mutual respect will surely bring peace and harmony.

Read an earlier article that I wrote: Bible, Quran easily quoted out of context

---

Excerpts from the Forward article:

Rabbinic Text or Call to Terror?

The Jewish Daily Forward

By Daniel Estrin
Published January 20, 2010

Click to read the full article.

Jerusalem — The marble-patterned, hardcover book embossed with gold Hebrew letters looks like any other religious commentary you’d find in an Orthodox Judaica bookstore — but reads like a rabbinic instruction manual outlining acceptable scenarios for killing non-Jewish babies, children and adults.

“The prohibition ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’” applies only “to a Jew who kills a Jew,” write Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar. Non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and attacks on them “curb their evil inclination,” while babies and children of Israel’s enemies may be killed since “it is clear that they will grow to harm us.”...

The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, suspects five of those arrested were involved in the torching and vandalizing of a Palestinian mosque last month in the neighboring Palestinian village of Yasuf...

In 2008, author Shapira was suspected of involvement in a crude rocket attack directed at a Palestinian village. Israeli police investigated but made no arrests...

In 2003, the head of the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, was charged by then-Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein with incitement to racism for authoring a book calling Arabs a “cancer.”

In 2006-2007, the Israeli Ministry of Education gave about a quarter of a million dollars to the yeshiva, and in 2007-2008 the yeshiva received about $28,000 from the American nonprofit Central Fund of Israel.

“The King’s Torah” reflects a fringe viewpoint held by a minority of rabbis in the West Bank, said Avinoam Rosenak, a Hebrew University professor specializing in settler theology. Asher Cohen, a Bar Ilan University political science professor, thought its influence would be “zero” because it appeals only to extreme ideologues.

But the book’s wide dissemination and the enthusiastic endorsements of prominent rabbis have spotlighted what might have otherwise remained an isolated commentary...

How did a nice Jewish boy end up joining Al-Qaida? (Haaretz)

American Al-Qaida member acknowledges his Jewish roots
By Haaretz (Israeli Newspaper), 6/14/2009

An American Al-Qaida member has for the first time acknowledged his Jewish ancestry, in an official video message released over the weekend by the international terrorist network.

Adam Yahiye Gadahn - who also goes by the name Azzam the American - declared his roots in a video which surfaced on Saturday, using the opportunity to urge Muslims to use "our weapons, funds and Jihad against the Jews and their allies everywhere."

"Let me here tell you something about myself and my biography, in which there is a benefit and a lesson," Gadahn says in the video, speaking in Arabic with English subtitles. "Your speaker has Jews in his ancestry, the last of whom was his grandfather."

Gadahn, 30, was raised in rural California and converted to Islam in the mid-1990s, when he moved to Pakistan and joined Al-Qaida. In 2006, the United States has charged him with treason and with providing material support to Al-Qaida. The FBI has placed him on its most wanted list and is offering a $1 million reward for his capture.

In the video, Gadahn describes his grandfather as a "Zionist" and "zealous supporter of the usurper entity, and a prominent member of a number of Zionist hate organizations? He used to repeat to me what he claimed are the virtues of this entity and encouraged me to visit [Israel], specifically the city of Tel Aviv, where relatives of ours live."

Gadahn's grandfather was well-known urologist Carl Pearlman, an active member of the Jewish community in Orange County California.

Gadahn says that despite his grandfather's attempt to impart the ideology, he could never embrace "the Jews' rape of Muslim Palestine. "

How can a person with an ounce of self-respect possibly stand in the ranks of criminals and killers who have no morals, no mercy, no humanity and indeed, no honor?" Gadahn says of Zionism. "Isn't it shameful enough for a person to carry the citizenship of America, the symbol of oppression and tyranny and advocate of terror in the world?"

Although Gadahn's Jewish roots have been reported before in the media, terrorism analyst Laura Mansfield told CNN that this was the first official acknowledgement. According to Mansfield, the video was probably taped in spring, prior to U.S. President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world in Cairo

CNN: U.S. Muslim leaders denounce al Qaeda's slur toward Obama

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Spiritual leaders of New York's African-American Muslim communities lashed out Friday at a purported al Qaeda message attacking President-elect Barack Obama and, using racist language, comparing him unfavorably to the late Malcolm X...

The al Qaeda statement, an 11-minute, 23-second audio message in Arabic with subtitles in English, appeared on the Internet on Wednesday. Its authenticity has not been confirmed.

The message said Obama represents the "direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X. Video Watch al Qaeda official criticize Obama »

The speaker also said Obama, former and current Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice and "your likes" fit Malcolm X's description of "house slaves."

An English translation of the message used the term "house Negroes," Malcolm X's term for blacks who were subservient to whites. The term refers to slaves who worked in white masters' houses. Malcolm X said those slaves were docile compared with those who labored in the fields...

On Friday, Imam Al-Hajj Talib 'Abdur-Rashid, recalling Malcolm X's legacy, said that he "stood for human rights and the principle of self defense ... international law. He would have rejected, and we who are Muslim African-Americans leaders reject, acts of political extremism."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations also condemned Zawahiri's comments in a statement issued Thursday.

"As Muslims and as Americans, we will never let terrorist groups or terror leaders falsely claim to represent us or our faith," the statement said. "We once again repudiate al Qaeda's actions, rhetoric and world view and re-state our condemnation of all forms of terrorism and religious extremism."

Kahanist Joe Kaufman Slimes Muslim Kids

by M. T. Akbar
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Media Monitors Network
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/54549

"Kaufman may believe and hope that the current climate is ripe for his cheap anti-Muslim hate propaganda to be lapped up without much resistance or scrutiny. But Kaufman severely underestimates the intelligence and judgment of the American people whose values he clearly does not share."

----

Kaufman’s escapades and antics are less impressive than the comic book character, Dick Tracy, whom he seeks to emulate.

“Onion Award for Joe Kaufman for his consistent record of trashing everything Muslim with a broad brush of innuendo, association and excessive rhetoric.” -- Americans United for Separation of Church and State at the occasion of their annual meeting.

Joe Kaufman, the virulent Islamophobe and follower of the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, is at it again in his endless crusade to slime CAIR and demonize Muslims. In this most recent episode, the “gumshoe detective” wrote a piece for the universally-rejected Right-wing mouthpiece FrontPageMag absurdly titled “Chicago’s Hamas Youth.”

In his hit piece, Kaufman attempts to link Chicago area Muslim high school students who participated in an event to educate themselves on how to become better citizens with Hamas, a Palestinian militant group.

We read such gems from the article as:

“In the Spring of 2007, CAIR-Chicago sponsored its first Muslim Youth Leadership Symposium (MYLS)... At the venue, kids wore shirts with the MYLS slogan: “Constructive Citizenship for a better America.” But for CAIR, “better America” means a United States run by Hamas.” (emphasis added)

Obviously, CAIR has never stated such an absurd thing, yet facts do not matter a thing to anti-Muslim bigots like Kaufman who are all too content with forcing into Muslim mouths the words they wish to hear in order to stay in business.

Nowhere does Kaufman provide any evidence, statements, pamphlets, etc. supporting his absurd claim that for CAIR constructive citizenship equals an America run by Hamas.

Instead of focusing on the content of the event and the fact that esteemed individuals such as U.S. Congressman Keith Ellison (does he believe the congressman is a Hamas member?) has participated, he weaves ludicrous hard-to-follow guilt-by-association conspiracy theories, projecting his own paranoia onto the meaning of the event.(MORE)

I'm Home, but Still Haunted by Guantanamo

By Jumah al Dossari, former Guantanamo Bay detainee
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Published in the Washington Post

Reporter/writer's note:

I've covered the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2004 as military correspondent for The Post. Jumah al Dossari first caught my attention in October 2005, when I heard the story of his gruesome suicide attempt during a visit from his lawyer. Then known as Detainee #261, Dossari clearly was making a public plea for help. Though the U.S. military has said many times that all detainees at Guantanamo are treated humanely and that Dossari had been getting the help he needed, detention in Guantanamo apparently became more than he could bear. His wish to die humanized the desperation of many detainees held indefinitely at the facility.

U.S. officials maintained for years that Dossari was a dangerous terrorist who had been arrested after going to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban against U.S. forces. Dossari also spent some time in the United States and allegedly tried to recruit terrorists with fiery sermons, something that obviously raised concerns among his interrogators and jailers. Nevertheless, he was never charged with a crime, never admitted any connection to terrorism and was ultimately released to Saudi Arabia in July 2007.

His return to freedom has been smooth. He is employed, married and doing well. When I talked to him by cellphone from Dammam late last year, he spoke of a hope and a peace and a forgiveness that arose from his "black days" behind bars at Guantanamo.

-- Josh White
---

DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia

It has been a little over a year since I left the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but I still have trouble sleeping sometimes. On a recent restless night, I found a DVD entitled "United 93" beside the family television set. I had no idea what it was about, but I started watching. When I realized that it was about the hijacked American plane that had crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, I began to cry. It reminded me of a very simple question I had asked myself countless times during my 5 1/2 years in Guantanamo: When will humans start treating each other with respect, whatever our religion or color?

I arrived in Guantanamo in January 2002 after Pakistani forces handed me over to the United States, probably, I suspect, for a bounty. I had been in Afghanistan to assess the progress of a mosque-building project there, funded by people in my native Saudi Arabia. I knew that Afghanistan was a dangerous place, but I was paid for the trip and I needed the money, so I went. It is a decision I will always regret. When the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan in November 2001, I fled to Pakistan. At a border checkpoint, I asked Pakistani guards for help getting to the Saudi embassy. Instead, they put me in a prison, where I was kept for days with shackles on my legs.

After several weeks, I was blindfolded and flown with other detainees to a U.S. military base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Upon our arrival there, we were thrown to the ground. Someone hit my head and forced his boot into my mouth. Despite the freezing Afghan winter, I spent several weeks in an open tent circled with barbed wire. I still have scars from my time in Kandahar. One is from a cigarette that was extinguished on my wrist and the other from the time I was pushed to a floor covered with broken glass.

One night about two weeks after our arrival, some soldiers came and cut off my clothes and put me in an orange suit. They fitted me with very tight goggles so that I could not see and put something over my ears so that I could not hear. I was chained to the floor of a plane for several hours, then again to the floor of another for what seemed like an eternity. When they pulled us off the second plane, we had no idea where we were.

It was Guantanamo.

We were taken to Camp X-Ray, which consists of cages of the sort that would normally hold animals. Imprisoned in these cages, we were forbidden to move and sometimes forbidden to pray. Later, the guards allowed us to pray and even to turn around, but whenever new detainees arrived, we were again prohibited from doing anything but sitting still.

Physical brutality was not uncommon during those first years at Guantanamo. In Camp X-Ray, several soldiers once beat me so badly that I spent three days in intensive care. My face and body were still swollen and covered in bruises when I left the hospital. During one interrogation, my questioner, apparently dissatisfied with my answers, slammed my head against the table. During others, I was shackled to the floor for hours.

In later years, such physical assaults subsided, but they were replaced by something more painful: I was deprived of human contact. For several months, the military held me in solitary confinement after a suicide attempt. I had no clothes other than a pair of shorts and no bed but a dirty plastic mat. The air conditioner was on 24 hours a day; the cell's cold metal walls made it feel as though I was living inside a freezer. There was no faucet, so I had to use the water in the toilet for drinking and washing.

I was transferred to the maximum-security Camp Five in May 2004. There I lived -- if that word can be used -- in a cell with cement walls. I was permitted to exercise once or twice a week; otherwise, I was alone in my cell at all times. I had nothing to occupy my mind except a Koran and some censored letters from my family. Interrogators told me that I would live like that for 50 years.

While I was in Camp Five, the military gave me a piece of paper that laid out the allegations against me. I had been in Guantanamo at that point for 2 1/2 years. My lawyer later told me that I had received this paper as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that detainees were to be allowed to have court hearings. We never got the promised hearings; instead, we went through military hearings at Guantanamo in which we were not shown any evidence or allowed to have lawyers. All we got was the piece of paper.

Some of the allegations were silly. One said that I had gone to Afghanistan for military training in 1989. The truth was that I had told an interrogator about a trip I had made to Afghanistan for a weekend as an overweight 16-year old after the war with the Soviet Union there ended. This trip was sponsored by the Saudi government, which had helped fund the Afghan mujaheddin and was celebrating -- with the United States -- the defeat of the Soviets.

Only one of the allegations seemed to be directly related to what is called the "War on Terror." It said that I had been "present at Tora Bora." No other details were provided. I had never heard of Tora Bora (although I later learned that it was Osama bin Laden's suspected hiding place, where U.S. forces battled the Taliban in December 2001). Later, I learned that a Yemeni detainee had told interrogators that I had been there, along with many others, because he hoped to be released if he was seen as cooperating with the U.S. military.

I know that there have been newspaper stories saying that I recruited people to go to al-Qaeda training camps. But the sheet of paper the military gave me said nothing about recruiting, which is not something I have ever done.

There were many times in Guantanamo when I felt as though I was falling apart, like a sandcastle being washed out by the tide. I lost all hope and faith. The purpose of Guantanamo is to destroy people, and I was destroyed. I decided that I preferred death to life, and I attempted suicide several times.

Once, during a break in a meeting with my attorney, I cut my arm with a razor and tried to hang myself. I do not remember it, but apparently my attorney returned earlier than I had told him to and found me suspended by my neck from the cell wall, unconscious and covered in blood. I broke a vertebra but survived with surgery.

Between suicide attempts, I tried desperately to hold on to the few fleeting moments of light that presented themselves to me. I met every few months with my attorneys and felt better whenever they were in Guantanamo, but my despair would return within a day of their departure. On occasion, I was helped by compassionate guards. After the beating in Camp X-Ray, a young female guard appeared at my cage, looking to make sure that no other guards were watching. "I'm sorry for what happened to you," she whispered to me. "You're a human being just like us." These words were a temporary balm for my bruises and loneliness. Ultimately, though, I believe it was God who did not allow me to die.

In July 2007, a colonel told me that I was going home. He did not explain why I was suddenly no longer too dangerous to live in freedom. Four days later, I was put on a Saudi government plane. When we landed in Riyadh and I saw my family, I was overwhelmed. We all cried and hugged. I said hello to someone I thought was my sister only to hear her say, "Daddy." I looked at her face again and saw that it was my daughter, who had grown from a 7-year-old child to a 13-year-old young woman while I'd been gone.

In Guantanamo, I was very angry with the people who had decided to hold me thousands of miles from home without charging or trying me. I was very angry with the people who kept me in isolation even when I was at my most desperate. I was very angry about having no rights at all. I was not angry with Americans in general and I even drew comfort from some, such as my lawyers and the kind soldier. But I could scarcely comprehend how U.S. policy had allowed me to be treated as I had been.

On the plane ride home, though, I decided that I would have to forgive to go on with my life. I also know that Sept. 11 was a great tragedy that caused some people to do dark things that they would not otherwise do. This knowledge helped me forget my miserable existence in Guantanamo and open my heart to life again, including to my recent re-marriage.

When I was watching "United 93," I thought of the soldier who had offered me compassion in Guantanamo. Her words reminded me that we all share common values, and only by holding on to them can we ensure that there is mercy and brotherhood in the world. After more than five years in Guantanamo, I can think of nothing more important.

ALSO READ:

Who are the 16 Saudis released from Guantánamo?

"Teddy" Parents Speak out

By Ismail Kamal Kushkush, IOL Correspondent


KHARTOUM — Now that the dust has settled, some parents are speaking out to set the record straight about the controversy of the "Mohamed" teddy bear.

"We want to clarify things. We are the stakeholders as parents," Isam Abu Hasabu, the chair of the private Unity High School's Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), told IslamOnline.net.

"Not one parent complained about Ms. (Gillian)Gibbons," he maintained.

Gibbons, a British female teacher, decided to give a name to a teddy-bear that would be used for a class-project.

Her class's 6-7 year-olds chose the name Mohamed, it being the name of more than one student in the classroom.


The teacher then sent letters to the parents informing them about the project in September.
Sudan reportedly launched legal action against Gibbons on the grounds that parents accused her of insulting Islam.

"No family complained," insisted Abdel Mahmoud al-Koronky, another student parent.

"Gibbons' mistake was that she gave the letters to the students [directly]; not to the school-director, who would have revised or refused it," he said.

IOL has learned that investigations are now focusing on a school employee, Sara Al-Khawadh, who passed a letter of complaint against Gibbons to the State of Khartoum's Ministry of Education.

Khawadh has been sacked from the school.

Gibbons, a mother of two, was initially sentenced to fifteen days in prison, but was pardoned by President Omar Al-Bashir thanks to the good offices of two British Muslim peers.


Politics


Some parents also blamed cultural differences for the teddy bear controversy.

The parents blamed the fuss on anti-West sentiments running high in the Arab-African Muslim country.

"People did not quietly review what actually happened," said Koronky.

"She behaved innocently. If she had a secret agenda, she would have not sent letters to the parents," he reasoned.

"She apologized. Did anyone split her heart to know her [real] intentions?"

Koronky said anti-West sentiments have been extra-tense, citing the Danish cartoons lampooning the Prophet and what many in Sudan believe to be mis-portrayal of the Darfur crisis in the West.

"Some in the pubic opinion wanted to settle scores with British foreign policy," believes the former diplomat, who once served in London.

British Prime Minister Jordon Brown has recently warned Khartoum of tougher sanctions over the Darfur conflict.

Koronky was himself the subject of widely media-covered accusations of holding a "slave-girl" in his London residence.

"I support the teacher out of my religious ethics. I was once attacked by the Christian Right in Britain."

He was later cleared of the accusations.

Some parents also blamed cultural differences for the teddy bear controversy.

"This was a mistake because of different culture values," said Abu Hasabu, the PTA chair.

"This teacher was new. She came with an idea that some educational practices would be acceptable."

Koronky agrees with the cultural difference argument.

"The symbol of an animal is different from culture to culture," he notes.

"Teddy-bears are viewed as 'friendly' in the West. But a bear here is seen a wild and beastly."