Category Archives: USA

Muslims ‘about to take over Europe’ says Bernard Lewis

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bernard LewisIslam could soon be the dominant force in a Europe which, in the name of political correctness, has abdicated the battle for cultural and religious control, Prof. Bernard Lewis, the world-renowned Middle Eastern and Islamic scholar, said on Sunday.

The Muslims “seem to be about to take over Europe,” Lewis said at a special briefing with the editorial staff of The Jerusalem Post. Asked what this meant for the continent’s Jews, he responded, “The outlook for the Jewish communities of Europe is dim.”

Soon, he warned, the only pertinent question regarding Europe’s future would be, “Will it be an Islamized Europe or Europeanized Islam?” The growing sway of Islam in Europe was of particular concern given the rising support within the Islamic world for extremist and terrorist movements, said Lewis.

Lewis, whose numerous books include the recent What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East, and The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, would set no timetable for this drastic shift in Europe, instead focusing on the process, which he said would be assisted by “immigration and democracy.” Instead of fighting the threat, he elaborated, Europeans had given up.

“Europeans are losing their own loyalties and their own self-confidence,” he said. “They have no respect for their own culture.” Europeans had “surrendered” on every issue with regard to Islam in a mood of “self-abasement,” “political correctness” and “multi-culturalism,” said Lewis, who was born in London to middle-class Jewish parents but has long lived in the United States.

Jerusalem Post, 29 January 2007

Over at Jihad Watch, raving Islamophobe Robert Spencer observes that the Jerusalem Post report shows that “my areas of agreement with Lewis are much larger than any areas of disagreement I may have with him”.

Obama-bashing a new low for Fox

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ObamaOn Jan. 19, Fox News’ morning show “Fox and Friends” took a turn for the worse when one of the most recent, inexcusable examples of yellow journalism and “Islamophobia” occurred by an attempted exploitation of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama’s childhood.

Obama, a converted Christian, was smeared as a potential covert anti-American terrorist with the announcement that Obama had attended an Islamic madrassa more than 35 years ago while living with his Muslim stepfather in Indonesia.

Madrassa literally means “school” in Arabic, but Fox took this news as if Obama is a potential threat to America’s security as a potential president while continually announcing that Obama’s middle name is Hussein.

“Fox and Friends” host Steve Doocy said the first thing they teach in madrassas is to “hate America” and said that Obama’s first 10 years of his life were spent in Indonesia hating America.

Daily Aztec, 25 January 2007

Religious leaders join in support of Detroit mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Detroit mosque vandalisedIn a show of unity, religious leaders linked arms Thursday in front of a Detroit mosque that was vandalized this week with graffiti that read “Go Home 9-11 Murderers.”

Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Arab leaders joined together at the old Islamic Center of America to condemn the attack, the latest in a string of crimes directed against Islamic houses of worship in metro Detroit. The attack on the center is “unacceptable to people of faith,” said Rabbi Josh Bennett, of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield.

The gathering was organized by the Detroit-based Interfaith Partners program of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion. The attacks are “an expression of ignorance,” said the Rev. Dan Appleyard, of Christ Episcopal Church in Dearborn. Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said Thursday’s event “was an example of America at its best.”

Detroit Free Press, 26 January 2007

Jihad Watch joins right-wing applause for Dispatches programme

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Robert Spencer Undercover Mosque

Robert Spencer joins Little Green Footballs and the British National Party in enthusiastically endorsing “the Dispatches documentary that recently uncovered Islamic supremacism being preached in mosques that had been considered moderate. This underscores the necessity of doing what so few dare to do: discuss the elements of Islam that are fueling the jihad.”

Jihad Watch, 25 January 2007

Detroit mosque vandalized

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Detroit mosque vandalisedA Detroit mosque was vandalized this week with anti-Muslim graffiti that reads in large capital letters: “Go Home 911 Murderers.”

The original Islamic Center of America, on the corner of Joy and Greenfield roads, was struck sometime early Monday or late Sunday, said local Muslims. The mosque moved in 2005 to a new building on Ford Road in Dearborn, but the old one still stands.

On the front of the vandalized mosque, under its name, someone spray-painted in green “You Idol Worship” and then the comment that appeared to blame them for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “It’s painful,” said Nabil Zbib, 36, of Dearborn, who spotted the graffiti on Monday and reported it to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Last week, the Shi’ite mosque hosted a news conference at its location in Dearborn, criticizing Northwest Airlines for what it said was biased treatment against a group of Muslims who were not allowed to board a connecting flight in Germany to Detroit. The mosque and the council received hate e-mail after the news conference, but it’s unclear whether this vandalism is related to that.

“This is hurtful for the entire Muslim community, to see such enmity directed towards Muslims,” said Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Other Shi’ite mosques in Dearborn and Detroit have been vandalized in recent weeks, but it’s unclear whether those cases are connected to this latest incident.

WZZM, 23 January 2007

Posted in USA

CAIR calls for probe into New Jersey mosque fire

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A national Muslim civil rights group wants authorities to investigate a weekend fire that damaged a mosque as a potential bias crime.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations on Tuesday asked authorities to launch a hate crimes investigation into the fire that damaged a rear porch and wall at the National Islamic Association mosque in Newark on Sunday.

The first worshippers arriving at the mosque before 6 a.m. prayers found the back porch and part of a wall ablaze, said Ashraf Latif, the mosque’s president. “They ran and got some mats and started beating the fire, and someone else got some water and they put it out before the fire department got there,” he said.

Latif said the fire appeared to have begun in some coils of rope that someone put on the back deck. An investigator with the fire department who came said he smelled some accelerant on the ropes,” Latif said.

John Brown, a spokesman for the Newark Fire Department, said the cause of the fire will not be determined until Thursday at the earliest. He could not comment on Latif’s assertions that a flammable substance was detected.

Latif said the mosque has received some anti-Islamic mailings in recent years, but nothing that caused its members undue concern. There have been no overt threats recently, he said.

“Historically, there has been no anti-Islam sentiment in Newark,” he said. “This is a great place. We just want a full investigation to determine if this was set by someone outside the community for whatever reason, or if it was some bum trying to get warm.”

The mosque, which has 140 registered families who worship there, was not seriously damaged by the fire, Latif said.

Associated Press, 23 January 2007

Racial slurs used during assault on Palestinian students in North Carolina

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called on the FBI to investigate a group assault on three Palestinian students in North Carolina as a possible hate crime.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the students were allegedly assaulted by “at least 15 members” of the Guilford College football team. During the attack, the assailants reportedly called the students “terrorists” and “sand n**gers.” Two of the victims suffered severe injuries. Three Guilford College students were arrested and charged with “ethnic intimidation.”

CAIR news release, 22 January 2007

Hitch confronts ‘the Islamist menace’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HitchensIn the Winter 2007 issue of City Journal Christopher Hitchens reviews Mark Steyn’s book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, not uncritically. He does take issue with Steyn’s sneers at Martin Amis, pointing out that liberals like Amis share much of Steyn’s hostility towards Islam and Islamism.

Hitchens writes: “Mark Steyn’s book is essentially a challenge to the bien-pensants among us: an insistence that we recognize an extraordinary threat and thus the possible need for extraordinary responses. He need not pose as if he were the only one with the courage to think in this way.” To prove his point Hitchens quotes Amis’s vile anti-Muslim diatribe from last September – which proposes subjecting the Muslim community as a whole to travel bans, racial profiling, strip searches and deportation – while at the same time describing his chum as “profoundly humanistic and open-minded”.

(To be fair, Hitchens does baulk at a statement from Sam Harris, who has written: “The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.” Hitch characterises this as an “irresponsible remark”. You could say.)

The basic problem with a lot of liberals, Hitchens says, is that “they cannot shake their subliminal identification of the Muslim religion with the wretched of the earth: the black- and brown-skinned denizens of what we once called the ‘Third World’.” Furthermore, this inexplicable sympathy with the oppressed has given rise to “the stupid neologism ‘Islamophobia’, which aims to promote criticism of Islam to the gallery of special offenses associated with racism”.

Like Steyn, Hitchens warns against “the Islamist project of a ‘soft’ conquest of host countries”. He tells us that “Europe’s multicultural authorities, many of its welfare agencies, and many of its churches treat the most militant Muslims as the minority’s ‘real’ spokesmen … encouraging the sensation that many in the non-Muslim Establishment have a kind of death wish”. With evident approval, Hitch cites Steyn’s complaint that “most of the Christian churches have collapsed into compromise: choosing to speak of Muslims as another ‘faith community’ … and reserving their real condemnation for American policies in the war against terrorism”.

Overall, despite minor criticisms, Hitchens endorses “Steyn’s salient point that demography and cultural masochism, especially in combination, are handing a bloodless victory to the forces of Islamization”.

Californian Islamophobes disrupt talk on Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stockton anti-Muslim hecklerOne woman was forced to leave early in the two-hour program after she accused guest speaker Tarek Mourad of lying, yelling that Islam’s holy book teaches Muslims to kill Jews and Christians and that Muslims are trying to take over the Western world.

Another was nearly arrested by Stockton Police Chief Wayne Hose, who said he came to the talk on his day off to learn more about Islam. The woman, who would only give her name as Barbara, handed out photocopied pages from a book critical of Islam and on numerous occasions interrupted Mourad’s talk to read passages about Islam that conflicted with her Christian views.

Hose finally called a police officer to the library in case the interruptions continued and after “Barbara” asked if he was Christian. “Don’t talk to me,” Hose told her, rejecting her offer of anti-Muslim reading material. “I can’t hear what he (Mourad) has to say.”

Mourad, an engineer from Santa Clara, was invited to the Chavez Library after making a similar presentation in Tracy. He explained the six basic beliefs, including a belief in God and a day of judgment, to the five “pillars” of Islam, such as praying five times a day and making a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam.

His presentation, which happened to be on the Muslim New Year, turned to near chaos during the question-and-answer session. Hose and librarian Mary Jo Gohlke, who organizes adult programs at the library, each nearly pulled “Barbara” from the audience of nearly 70 people after she wouldn’t stop reading aloud. Barbara recommended the audience read “Islam and Terrorists,” issued by a company that publishes Christian-themed books and written by a convert from Islam to Christianity.

“Just go back and listen to Pat Robertson on TV,” yelled one man, who walked out in a huff.

Stockton Record, 21 January 2007

You’ll note that the book the anti-Muslim heckler is brandishing is Walid Shoebat’s Why I Left Jihad.