David Horowitz and Robert Spencer have a piece at FrontPage Magazine defending themselves against CAIR, the Southern Poverty Law Centre and the Center for American Progress, who have supposedly waged an “ugly campaign” to depict the authors as Islamophobes.

Horowitz and Spencer inform us that “the term ‘Islamophobia’ itself was invented by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the political fountainhead of Islamic terror”. It is “designed to create a modern-day thought crime” in an attempt to “abolish the First Amendment where Islam is concerned”.

The article has already been published at National Review Online, where it was given the misleading title “A rational fear of Islamism”. However, as Horowitz and Spencer make clear, their target is not Islamism but Islam itself:

Should those of us who are infidels – and therefore targets – not be concerned by a religion whose followers regard this Koranic incitement as the word of God: “Slay the pagans wherever you find them.” (9:5)?

Should Jews not be concerned by the Jew-hatred that permeates the sacred texts of this religion, whose prophet has said: “The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them, until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him” (Sahih Muslim 6985)? …

Should women not fear the expansion of a creed whose God likens a woman to a field men can till: “Your women are a field for you (to cultivate) so go to your field as ye will.” (Qur’an 2:223)? This God has decreed that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man (2:282), that men can marry up to four wives, and have sex with slave girls (4:3), that a son’s inheritance shall be twice the size of daughter’s (4:11), and that husbands can and should beat their disobedient wives: “Good women are obedient…. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.” (4:34). This God sanctions marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4). Islamic law codifies all this and adds from Islamic tradition justification for honor killing, female genital mutilation, and even the prohibition of women leaving their homes without permission from a male guardian.

With deteriorating relations between Turkey and Israel, some of Israel’s staunchest backers in the U.S. have seized on the diplomatic crisis to push for the U.S. to abandon its partnership with Turkey – including kicking the strategically-located Eurasian country out of the NATO alliance. The campaign, spearheaded by neoconservatives, ramped up this week with attacks demonizing Turkey from several Islamophobic commentators. Over the past few weeks, these Islamophobes have been accusing Turkey of trying to create an Islamist empire, one that would put Turkey at odds with the West and make it an enemy of the U.S.

Think Progress, 30 September 2011

Since Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s debate debacle last week, commentators and conservatives alike have been questioning his readiness and looking for another presidential alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Now, Colorado’s Tom Tancredo is piling on.

In a column for the Daily Caller, Tancredo, who ran twice for his party’s presidential nomination in an effort to inject the illegal immigration issue into the larger debate, is slamming Perry for his soft policies on illegal immigration in Texas – and what Tancredo calls his “Muslim blind spot.”

“What is not yet as widely known about Perry is that he extends his taxpayer-funded compassion not only to illegal aliens but also to Muslim groups seeking to whitewash the violent history of that religion,” Tancredo writes. “Perry endorsed and facilitated the adoption in Texas public schools of a pro-Muslim curriculum unit developed by Muslim clerics in Pakistan.”

Tancredo cites a study by The Center for Immigration Studies, which shows that 81% of the 279,000 jobs created in Texas in the past four years went to non-citizens, a high number of them illegal aliens, to discredit Perry’s central presidential argument – that he’s overseen a “Texas miracle” of job growth while the national economy continues to decline.

And in 2008, as Tancredo points out, Perry helped expand the Muslim Histories and Culture Project, a teacher-training program spearheaded by Texas Ismailis that introduces Islamic history and culture curricula into Texas schools.

While many of the GOP’s 2012 contenders have sought to distance themselves with Islam, Perry, Tancredo points out, refused to endorse a proposal in the Texas legislature to outlaw Sharia law in the state.

“What is it with Republican elites like Perry?” Tancredo writes. “Do they think Republican primary voters are stupid? Does Perry think he can talk tough in defending the Texas death penalty and then waffle on border security and taxpayer support for illegal alien children? Why does he think he can claim to be the ‘tea party candidate’ while endorsing a whitewash of Islamic extremism in Texas schools?”

KWGN, 28 September 2011

You’ll note that the main authority Tancredo cites in his attack on Perry is “Islam scholar [sic] Robert Spencer, head of Jihad Watch”.

“When four out of five of the Turkish chiefs of staff abruptly resigned on July 29, 2011, they signaled the effective end of the republic founded in 1923 by Kemal Atatürk. A second republic headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Islamist colleagues of the AK Party (AKP) began that day. The military safely under their control, AKP ideologues now enjoy can pursue their ambitions to create an Islamic order.”

Daniel Pipes at National Review Online, 27 September 2011

MIAMI — Islam and tea party activism clashed at a raucous meeting Monday night when a group of Broward County Republicans blocked a Muslim activist as a member of the party’s executive committee.

Republicans, who changed their rules to publicly vet Nezar Hamze and then vote on his application by secret ballot, said they didn’t oppose him because he was a Muslim – but because he is associated with the Center for American-Islamic Relations – but because he is associated with the Center for American-Islamic Relations, whose Washington-area affiliate was an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal terrorism indictment.

Hamze, CAIR’s South Florida director, said his local group had nothing to do with the suspect activities in Washington. He said CAIR advocates for civil rights for Muslims, who have been unfairly targeted ever since 9/11. “I’m aligned with Republican values. And I want to serve the party,” Hamze said, who earlier told a reporter that any effort to block him was the result of anti-Islamic “bigotry”.

At times, when he addressed the packed room at the Sheraton Suites in Fort Lauderdale, a few members shouted out among the crowd of about 300. “Terrorist!” said one man. “Let him speak!” said another.

Members of Broward’s Republican Party said Hamze was making a mockery of their rules and was trying to become a member as a publicity stunt. “I don’t have a positive impression of Mr. Hamze. I don’t think he will be an asset to our party,” said Scott Spages, who is involved in programs concerning radical Islam at his church, Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale.

In the end, the Broward Republican Executive Committee voted 11-158 to block him from committee membership. He can still attend meetings, but as a general member of the public. “Wow,” he said afterward. “If I had realized it would be like that, I wish they had just sent me a letter saying I was denied.”

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