Category Archives: USA

Jihad Watch backs Hirsi Ali again

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s intervention into the cartoons controversy has been rejected by Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende who said “we don’t have much use” for Hirsi Ali’s views and questioned “whether this will help the debate in the Netherlands”.

For this reasoned response Balkenende has been denounced by Robert Spencer: “Jan Peter Balkenende will go down in history as a Neville Chamberlain who chose to appease thugs rather than to resist them; Ayaan Hirsi Ali will go down in history as a heroic figure who tried to stem Europe’s headlong rush to suicide.”

Dhimmi Watch, 11 February 2006

Abu Aardvark on the cartoons crisis

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Marc LynchMarc Lynch writes: “By emphasizing angry voices on both sides, but especially on the Muslim side, the media is playing into the hands of extremists. It’s typical of the media – sensationalism sells papers, and gets viewers. But it isn’t constructive.

“When Qaradawi says that Muslims should be angry and should boycott, but should not engage in violence, don’t report the first and ignore the second…. this is not a clash of civilizations, and we should stop treating it as such. Yes, most Muslims I know are angry and genuinely offended, but they aren’t violent about it.

“If a similar cartoon had been run about Jesus, or Anne Frank … or Martin Luther King, lots of Americans would be angry and genuinely offended. By focusing on the extreme voices, the media really does an injustice to the legitimate, human feelings and ideas of that vast majority of Muslims who deserve the right to be heard without being reduced to some cliche of Muslim rage.”

Abu Aardvark weblog, 9 February 2006

Somebody should point this out to Anthony Garton Ash, who in yesterday’s Guardian endorsed the prominent media coverage given to irrelevant and totally unrepresentative nutters like Omar Bakri and Anjem Choudary.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali backs cartoons provocation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Dutch politician and self-styled Muslim dissident urged Europeans to stand firm on Thursday in an international crisis over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, saying it was “necessary and urgent” to criticise Islam.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali praised newspapers in many countries which have printed the cartoons, considered blasphemous by many Muslims, but said others had held back for fear of criticising what she called “intolerant aspects of Islam”.

“Today I am here to defend the right to offend within the bounds of the law,” she told a news conference organised by her publisher during a visit to Berlin. “It’s necessary and it’s urgent to criticise Islam. It is urgent to criticise the teachings of Mohammad.”

Reuters, 9 February 2006

See also BBC News, 9 February 2006

And over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer hails “More heroism from the great Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who in a sane world would be Prime Minister of the Netherlands”.

Dhimmi Watch, 9 February 2006

Pipes on the ‘clash of civilisations’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The key issue at stake in the battle over the twelve Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad is this: Will the West stand up for its customs and mores, including freedom of speech, or will Muslims impose their way of life on the West? Ultimately, there is no compromise….”

Daniel Pipes in a predictable response to the Danish cartoons controversy.

New York Sun, 7 February 2006

See also the excellent reply at Mere Islam, 7 February 2006

Hitchens defends cartoons provocation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ex-leftist turned warmonger Christopher Hitchens writes: “… there is a strong case for saying that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and those who have reprinted its efforts out of solidarity, are affirming the right to criticize not merely Islam but religion in general…. if Muslims do not want their alleged prophet identified with barbaric acts or adolescent fantasies, they should say publicly that random murder for virgins is not in their religion. And here one runs up against a curious reluctance.”

Slate, 4 February 2006

Clinton warns of rising anti-Islamic feeling

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Former US president Bill Clinton warned of rising anti-Islamic prejudice, comparing it to historic anti-Semitism as he condemned the publishing of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.

“So now what are we going to do? … Replace the anti-Semitic prejudice with anti-Islamic prejudice?” he said at an economic conference in the Qatari capital of Doha. “In Europe, most of the struggles we’ve had in the past 50 years have been to fight prejudices against Jews, to fight against anti-Semitism,” he said.

Clinton described as “appalling” the 12 cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in September depicting Prophet Mohammed and causing uproar in the Muslim world. “None of us are totally free of stereotypes about people of different races, different ethnic groups, and different religions … there was this appalling example in northern Europe, in Denmark … these totally outrageous cartoons against Islam,” he said.

AFP, 30 January 2006

Danish paper sorry for Muhammad cartoons

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Denmark’s largest selling broadsheet newspaper last night issued an apology to the “honourable citizens of the Muslim world” after publishing a series of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked protests across the Middle East. In a lengthy statement the editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten admitted that the 12 cartoons, one of which depicted Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban, had caused “serious misunderstandings”. Carsten Juste said: “The 12 cartoons … were not intended to be offensive, nor were they at variance with Danish law, but they have indisputably offended many Muslims, for which we apologise.”

Guardian, 31 January 2006

Robert Spencer reports this under the headine “Danish newspaper caves to Muslim intimidation”.

Dhimmi Watch, 30 January 2006

And the fascists chime in with a report headed “Denmark on Islamic jihad list”. They suggest: “Perhaps this is just a taster of things to come, an opportunity for Muslims to test the backbone of western governments and opinion formers, a ‘recce’ mission to see just how far the Muslims have to push before the west gives way.”

BNP news release, 31 January 2006

Muslim woman kicked out of US court over hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Tacoma judge is under fire for kicking a Muslim woman out of his courtroom after she refused to remove her head-scarf. “I felt humiliated,” said 37-year old Mujaahidah Sayfullah, who has worn her head-scarf in court before.

She says she couldn’t believe it when first the bailiff and then Tacoma Municipal Court Judge David Ladenburg told her as she sat in the audience that either her head-scarf could go – or she could. “He said, ‘well, if you’re not gonna do it then I’m going to have to ask you to remove yourself from the courtroom,'” she said.

She left, fearing the judge would take it out on the relative who was on trial.

Judge Ladenburg stands by his decision. “It’s my understanding and belief that the Muslim religion does not prohibit the removal of head-coverings either for males of for females,” he says…noting that unless he learns that an exception should be made, there’s a courtroom standard that must be upheld.

Ladenburg says it wasn’t religious discrimination…but Mujaahidah says it sure felt like it, and that’s why she’s telling her story. “Just for it to be exposed, and the public be aware that people are able to blatantly discriminate based upon their position of power,” she said.

The Council on American-Islamic relations has sent a note to Ladenburg, notifying him of the allegations against him. Ladenburg says he plans to respond.

KOMO 1000 News, 30 January 2006

‘The legacy of jihad’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jamie Glazov:  There are scholars and critics amongst us who argue that the terrorists have exploited and hijacked Islam to serve their own violent ends. In their view, Islamist terror is a perversion of the true Islam. What do you think?

Andrew Bostom:  This is ahistorical prattle, which unfortunately appears to have been accepted by President Bush and his key advisers…. Furthermore, in a recent speech President Bush insisted that the “ideology” of the most notable Muslim terrorists, who he maintained “distort the idea of jihad,” is “very different from the religion of Islam” and indeed “exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision.” The President’s even more specific and assertive comments regarding jihad were a profound disappointment. Indeed, such words could have been written and uttered by the most uninformed, or deliberately disingenuous apologists for this devastating, and uniquely Islamic institution, well over a millennium old, and still wreaking havoc today.

Front Page Magazine, 30 January 2006

Muslim group asks radio host to apologize

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim civil liberties group demanded an apology Thursday from the host of a Los Angeles-area radio show for making fun of a stampede that killed hundreds of Muslims during an annual pilgrimage. The Council on American-Islamic Relations asked for an apology from KFI-AM 640 host Bill Handel, who allegedly made fun of the deaths the same day they happened during a segment he called the “Annual Stampede Report.”

According to the civil liberties group, Handel imitated the people screaming and then joked that the Muslims at the pilgrimage should use a helicopter to monitor pilgrimage traffic, as is done in Los Angeles with the freeways. The group quoted Handel as saying: “This is Mahmoud Nolan. Hajj in the Sky. There is an accident…. Ali lost his sandal on the on-ramp to the Martin Luther King Jr. freeway.”

In March 2004, KFI issued an on-air apology after the group filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission following a skit that claimed Muslims have sex with animals, don’t bathe and hate Jews.

Associated Press, 27 January 2006

For Little Green Footballs, this is yet another example of “whining” by “thin-skinned Muslim advocacy groups” who are trying to “shut down free speech in the US”.

LGF, 27 January 2006