Hundreds of Israelis are running for a seat in the Knesset. Only one is running for a seat in Congress.
Category Archives: USA
French Muslims treated to condescending lecture on integration from Haaretz
“France’s Muslims must embrace the responsibilities of French citizenship if they want to enjoy the rights of that citizenship. But many in France’s Muslim leadership are ambivalent at best, and at worst hostile, to the idea of becoming French, even though community support is essential to success. The historical experience of Jews in France could have profound relevance for French Muslims if they are willing to listen.”
Toni Kamins in Haaretz, 7 May 2012
Muslim woman wins $5 million punitive damages from AT&T for discrimination
A Kansas City woman who converted from Christianity to Islam has been awarded $5 million in punitive damages by a jury who found the telecommunications giant AT&T created a “hostile work environment” after her conversion, according to a judge’s order issued Friday.
Susann Bashir, a 41-year-old married mother, sued AT&T unit Southwestern Bell for what she said was a pattern of offensive and discriminatory conduct by her supervisors that began when she converted to Islam in 2005, six years after she started working for the company as a network technician.
After Bashir started wearing a religious head scarf known as a hijab, and attending Friday mosque services, her managers and co-workers called her names including “terrorist,” and told her she was going to hell, said her attorney Amy Coopman. A manager repeatedly told her to remove her hijab, insulted her for wearing it, and once physically grabbed Bashir and tried to rip the hijab off her head, according to the suit.
‘Rejecting Islamophobia’ counter-conference overshadows bigotry
The Arab American News has an extensive report on Pamela Geller’s so-called “human rights” conference in Dearborn – which barred Muslim women and Arab Americans from attending – and on the counter-conference “Rejecting Islamophobia: A Community Stand Against Hate”.
More responses to Sam Harris on Muslim profiling
Sam Harris’s blog post calling for racial and religious profiling of Muslims at airports has prompted some excellent replies.
See “Sam Harris, ‘Profile the Muslim looking people!'”, Loonwatch, 2 May 2012
And Chris Stedman “Sam Harris, will you visit a mosque with me?”, Huffington Post, 2 May 2012
Wilders calls on Muslims to leave Islam
PVV leader Geert Wilders has called on Muslims throughout the world to leave Islam. He made his call in a speech in New York, to promote his English-language book Marked for Death.
Wilders claims that his book explains that Islam is a “totalitarian ideology” and is an encouragement to freedom-loving Muslims to turn their back on Islam. “I support those who fight for freedom in the Islamic world completely. The Arab, Turkish, Iranian, Pakistani and Indonesian peoples have enormous potential. If they could free themselves of the yoke of Islam, if they could stop seeing Mohamed as their role model and if they could break away from the rancorous Koran, then they could achieve amazing things,” Wilders said in his speech.
California: student senator’s Muslim costume causes controversy
Leaders of Muslim student groups at the University of California, San Diego, are upset after a photo of a student senator dressed in Muslim garb circulated on the Internet.
Student Senator Ashton Cohen took a photograph at a campus party dressed in a robe and head-covering, with three women whom a caption identified as his “three wives,” according to the UCSD Guardian. Now, leaders of the Muslim Student Union and Arab Student Union, and Students for Justice in Palestine are admonishing him for “Islamophobia.”
“I was offended and disgusted that someone would think that’s OK to wear to a party,” Students for Justice in Palestine and Arab Student Union President Noor El-Annan told the Guardian.
Pipes and Emerson claim that potential Republican vice-presidential candidate has an ‘Islam problem’
The candidate is New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and his “Islam problem” is that he isn’t against Islam. See Matt Duss’s comments at Think Progress.
Sam Harris advocates profiling Muslims
Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and leading proponent of the “New Atheism”, has a piece on his blog advocating racial and religious profiling by airport security:
“We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it…. Needless to say, a devout Muslim should be free to show up at the airport dressed like Osama bin Laden, and his wives should be free to wear burqas. But if their goal is simply to travel safely and efficiently, wouldn’t they, too, want a system that notices people like themselves?”
Dearborn: Arab American Institute meeting shatters anti-Muslim narrative
Yesterday, more than a hundred people gathered at a town hall at the Doubletree Hotel in Dearborn, Michigan to stand in solidarity with the Arab American and American Muslim communities against Islamophobia. The town hall, organized by AAI and local community groups, was held in response to an anti-Muslim conference at the Hyatt in Dearborn, organized by Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, and other leading Islamophobes.