Ellis Washington at World Net Daily, 6 December 2008
Category Archives: USA
School cancels Christmas nativity in favour of Muslim Eid celebrations
Greenwood Junior School sent out a letter to parents saying the three-day festival of Eid al-Adha, which takes place between December 8 and 11, meant that Muslim children would be off school.
That meant planning for the traditional nativity play were shelved because the school felt it would be too difficult to run both celebrations side by side.
The move has left parents furious. Janette Lynch, whose seven-year-old son Keanu attends the school, in Sneinton, Nottingham, said: “The head has a whole year to plan for Eid and so she should be able to plan for both religious festivals. I have never heard of this at a school. It is the first year my son has been there and a lot of the mums like me were really looking forward to seeing the children in the nativity.”
Daily Telegraph, 3 December 2008
See also the Daily Mail, 4 December 2008
Yes, it’s another of those seasonal “Christmas banned because of Muslims” stories. However, according to a Press Association report, the performance has not in fact been cancelled but only postponed till January – and it’s not a nativity play but a pantomine (Cinderella, since you ask). A spokeswoman for Nottingham City Council is quoted as saying that in December the school will be staging “a range of events, including a Christmas carol concert and Eid celebrations”.
Predictably, the story has been seized on by the BNP. Under the headline “Nottingham school cancels Christmas to make way for Islam“, the fascists declare that “such outrages will inevitably progress from the exception to the norm, if Britain fails to embrace the BNP and continues its present headlong plunge into the abyss”.
The Nottingham Evening Post reports that Greenwood Junior School has received phone calls from BNP members accusing the school of responsibility for the “erosion of Christian values”. In other words, we have here yet another example of the mainstream media’s biased and inaccurate reporting giving a boost to the far right.
Inspector Andy Townsend, the local area commander, is quoted as saying: “There have been a lot of angry people phoning the school, some of whom are claiming to be from the BNP. Other agencies including the national press have contacted the school, including one journalist pretending to be a social worker. There’s also been vans pulling up and people taking pictures. We are dealing with the potential for disorder. No actual criminal acts have been committed but we are increasing patrols in the area around the school to keep the peace.”
Update: Needless to say, this distorted report has spread across the right-wing blogosphere. Here is a characteristic comment, by Phyllis Chesler: “Muslim fanatics are also demographically populating beachheads deep in the West where they are also demanding that their holidays be recognized in a more paramount way than Christian holidays are. Just yesterday, in England, a Nativity play was cancelled at a primary school because it interfered with the Muslim celebration of Eid.”
Mattel doll continues to propagate Islam
Remember this story? Well, apparently there’s now an entire website devoted to the campaign to save innocent Christian children in the US from falling into the clutches of Islam.
It’s run by Moms Ask Mattel for Accountability (MAMA) which describes itself as “a public education effort by concerned families to protect children from being invited to join Islam, without their parents’ knowledge or permission. Mattel, the largest toy maker in the world, is still selling a toy that says ‘Islam is the Light’ – the Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle & Coo Doll, in spite of protests by parents, media and store owners.”
‘Sharia law threatens America’ claims right-wing group
Shariah, or Islamic law, may be spreading around the world, but it isn’t going to be established in the United States without opposition, vow members of the United American Committee. Officials with the non-profit have erected a 48-foot-long billboard just outside of Detroit, home to one of the largest groups of Muslims in the U.S. “SHARIA LAW THREATENS AMERICA,” warns the sign
Wilders’ views on Islam merely ‘problematic’ says WSJ
“To his admirers, Mr. Wilders is a champion of Western values on a continent that has lost confidence in them. To his detractors, he is an anti-Islamic provocateur. Both sides have a point.”
The Wall Street Journal carries a “balanced” appraisal of the Dutch far-right anti-Muslim racist Geert Wilders. The most the WSJ is prepared to concede is that Wilders’ views on Islam are “problematic”.
Muslim physicist leaves U.S. after losing security clearance
Making good on his promise to leave his adopted country after 28 years rather than stay and feel like a second-class citizen, Abdul Moniem El-Ganayni and his wife caught a flight out of Pittsburgh on Wednesday en route to Cairo.
Preceding them were all their belongings, including a treasure trove of books that the scientist, Muslim cleric and Islamic scholar has collected over the years. Left behind were a vacated apartment overlooking Highland Park, his wife’s large Italian family, scores of friends and supporters and a legal fight on its way to appeal.
The Egyptian-born physicist, a U.S. citizen since 1988, lost his security clearance late last year, along with his job at the Bettis nuclear propulsion lab in West Mifflin, where he’d worked since 1990.
The clearance was revoked by order of Jeffrey Kupfer, acting deputy energy secretary. He said he had “reliable information” that Dr. El-Ganayni was a security risk but refused to let him see any evidence or defend himself.
The scientist filed a federal lawsuit seeking an independent review, charging retaliation for statements he made opposing the war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s post-9/11 treatment of Muslims. He said the government invoked national security as a smokescreen to hide its lack of evidence.
On Tuesday, the last remaining count of his lawsuit was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Terrence McVerry, who had already ruled that the court lacked jurisdiction on two other counts. His lawyers say they will appeal to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in their client’s absence.
So instead of enjoying a Thanksgiving turkey as he has each year since arriving in the United States, Dr. El-Ganayni spent yesterday reuniting with Egyptian relatives he hasn’t seen in a quarter-century.
Anti-Muslim rhetoric in the US election
Shahed Amanullah examines the efforts of US presidential candidates to incite fear of Muslims, and the role of Muslim grassroots political activists in confronting this.
Muslim Fifth Column seeks to ‘advance the seditious program they call Sharia’
“In Stealth Jihad, Robert Spencer has performed an invaluable public service. He has ‘connected the dots’ on the enemy within, the Fifth Column that the Muslim Brotherhood and its foreign enablers have established in America – and other nations of the West – to advance the seditious program they call Sharia. This book should be required reading for every government official – and everyone else committed to the survival of our country in the face of this ominous threat.”
Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, gives his enthusiastic approval to the latest exercise in Islamophobic paranoia from Robert Spencer.
Baptist church in Florida again offends Muslims with message
A Baptist church in Florida is once again creating tension with its Muslim neighbors over a marquee message. A sign posted outside First Conservative Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., reads, “God loves you, Allah hates.”
A local television station interviewed a Muslim woman who said she took offense. “What have I done?” asked the woman, who is not identified. “What have I done to deserve that kind of hatred in my neighborhood?”
She said she was driving by the church with her children when the sign caught her attention. “The thing that bothers me so much is that this is in my neighborhood, where I live with my children,” she said. “To know that people that feel this way are in my neighborhood is scary.”
It isn’t the first time the independent Baptist church has grabbed attention with its marquee, which is updated regularly to confront passersby with messages about doctrinal, social or world-religion issues.
“We find it an integral part of communicating the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Pastor Gene Youngblood says on a website, Truthsthatfree.com.
In 2005 the church made news by posting a sign that read “Islam is evil and believes in murder, Surah 9-29” contrasted with, “Jesus teaches peace, Matt. 5-9.”
In 2003 local Muslims were upset when the church sign read “Jesus forbade murder Matthew 26-52 Muhammad approved murder Surah 8-65.”
Youngblood says on his website that he loves Muslims and would like to see many of them accept Christ, but the sign’s purpose is to warn people of “false teachers” and “untruth from theologically unsound doctrine.”
US Treasury submits to Shariah
“The US Treasury Department is submitting to Shariah – the seditious religio-political-legal code authoritative Islam seeks to impose worldwide under a global theocracy.”
Frank Gaffney warns against the latest threatening development in the creeping Islamisation of western civilisation.