Category Archives: USA

Lib Dems form alliance with ‘anti-Semitic fringe groups’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Along with transforming themselves into the antiwar party, the Liberal Democrats have attempted to seduce British Muslims away from the Labour party by allying themselves with fringe Sunni Muslim fundamentalist groups. The Liberal Democrat calculation is that British Muslims have been radicalized, and that the views of sectarian, anti-Semitic fringe groups have a resonance in the Muslim community.”

National Review, 5 May 2005

This is the sort of nonsense the right-wing media in the US publishes about British electoral politics.

Islamism and democracy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Many moderate Islamists accept the legitimacy of democratic procedures (although many doubt their sincerity). They’re willing to participate, unlike the bin Ladenist types who reject democracy on principle. Having someone like the controversial al-Jazeera cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi consistently preaching the virtues of democracy to a vast al-Jazeera audience is worth a thousand marginal pro-American figures saying the same thing. Still, liberals (at least) can’t help but be disturbed by their socially conservative views on homosexuality, gender relations, the relationship between religion and state – to say nothing of their hostility to Israel.”

Marc Lynch (Abu Aardvark) offers some thoughts the US response to on democratic Islamism.

Washington Monthly, 5 May 2005

Pastor: no apology to Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

One of two Christian pastors found guilty of vilifying Muslims has vowed to go to prison rather than apologise.

The Islamic Council of Victoria want the offending pastors to acknowledge a finding that their comments incited hatred and severe ridicule of Muslims.

But the pastors’ ministry, Catch the Fire, rejects the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal finding. They are appealing to the Supreme Court on the basis that VCAT deputy president Michael Higgins was biased against the evangelical group.

David Perkins, for Catch the Fire Ministries, yesterday submitted to Judge Higgins that he had “ridiculed” pastor Daniel Scot’s religious beliefs.

“We have a pending action in the Supreme Court to which your Honour is a party,” he told the judge. Judge Higgins replied that he regarded his being made a party as “inappropriate.”

Mr Scot told the Herald Sun yesterday he could not and would not give any acknowledgment or apology that his conscience would not allow, and was prepared for jail.

He said his nephew was killed in Pakistan by Islamic extremists. “This is what Muslims do when they follow their religion,” he said, before suggesting he was the subject of Christian victimisation.

Religion News Blog, 4 May 2005

Robert Spencer rallies to the defence of this hero of free speech: “He was convicted on false pretenses. He has nothing for which to apologize.”

Dhimmi Watch, 5 May 2005

For the background to the case, see here.

Religious leaders denounce Robertson comments

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Religious leaders, left-leaning political activists and victims of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York joined Wednesday (May 4) to denounce recent comments Pat Robertson made about the escalating battle over the federal judiciary.

MoveOnPAC, a progressive group that provides financial backing to congressional candidates, said it’s launching a TV ad campaign repudiating the religious broadcaster’s Sunday (May 1) comments on ABC’s “This Week.”

Robertson, who had a brief 1988 GOP presidential bid, told “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos that federal jurists were a more serious threat to America than “a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings” and that Muslims were unfit to hold federal judgeships.

“And they have said in the Quran there’s a war against all infidels,” Robertson said. “Do you want somebody like that sitting as a judge? I wouldn’t.”

Religion News Servide, 4 May 2005

The making of the Arab menace

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Anti-Arabism and Islamophobia are so much a part of the political and cultural discourse on Arabs and Muslims in American society today that most do not even recognize it as racism. The fear mongering of the Bush administration and the right wing media pundits who make a living from demonizing Arabs and Muslims have inundated people with images of the violent Arabs bent on death and destruction. For media outlets like Fox Television, it is a way to sell their sensationalist news programs and for the current administration, a way to sell its wars.”

Excellent article by Rayan El-Amine from Left Turn, 28 April 2005

Has the additional merit of really pissing off Robert Spencer. See Dhimmi Watch, 3 May 2005

Pat Robertson: No Muslim judges

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Evangelist Pat Robertson is in trouble with U.S. Islamic organizations for saying Muslims should not serve in the president’s Cabinet or as judges. In an appearance on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” Sunday, Robertson, who ran for president in 1988, said if were elected he would not appoint Muslims to his Cabinet and that he was not in favor of Muslims serving as judges. “They have said in the Quran there’s a war against all the infidels,” Robertson said. “Do you want somebody like that sitting as a judge? I wouldn’t.”

World Net Daily, 3 May 2005

See also “CAIR calls on leaders to repudiate evangelist’s remarks”, CAIR press release, 2 May 2005

Robert Spencer reaches out to the masses

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jihad Watch billboard

“A knowledgeable and generous benefactor has enabled Jihad Watch to place a billboard in Los Angeles, and has asked that it feature three words unfamiliar to most Americans: dhimmitude, Eurabia, and Bat Ye’or.”

See here.

Can’t see it having much of an impact myself. You can imagine passing motorists scratching their heads and going “dhimmi what?” and “Bat who?”

Extremists should not be allowed to distort the true image of Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“They thrive on militancy and violence. They seek to strike terror and they kill and maim, yet they claim to serve the cause of Islam. These misguided people are found everywhere and unfortunately their number continues to swell – thanks primarily to poverty, injustice and the West’s double standard…. Terrorism, in every form and manifestation, should be condemned not by words but by action and extremists should not be allowed to distort the true image of Islam.”

Naushad Shamimul Haque opposes extremist distortions of Islam.

Arab News, 29 April 2005

Most of us would regard this as a balanced and reasoned argument. Not Robert Spencer, though. The very suggestion that poverty, injustice and double standards on the part of the West might have made a contribution to the rise of extremist Islamism reduces him to apoplexy:

“Yes, it’s all our fault. I would like to get into a little discussion of history with Naushad Shamimul Haque, and find out how he explains all those jihads that were waged by Islamic empires at a time when those empires had an overwhelming military superiority over Western non-Muslim lands. Was it poverty? Injustice? Double standards that led Muslims to conquer Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, Eastern Europe, North Africa, Spain, India, etc. etc. etc.?”

Jihad Watch, 1 May 2005

As distinct from the peace-loving, non-imperialist history of regimes adhering to Christianity, of course.

Anyone tempted to dismiss Robert Spencer’s arguments as the ravings of an isolated right-wing nutter should refer to the outcry that greeted actor Maggie Gyllenhaal’s suggestion that the US itself bore some responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.

See New York Daily News, 24 April 2005 and BBC News, 27 April 2005

For an article by one of Spencer’s co-thinkers from the US right, which actually encourages physical violence against Gyllenhaal (“massaging her scalp with a two-by-four”), see Front Page Magazine, 29 April 2005

Suspicious US persecutes Muslim reverts

Posted on by Bob Pitt

It’s not just US Muslims hailing from other origins that are taking the brunt of the now-suspicious society, but even those who were born and lived as full Americans then chose to revert to Islam are also feeling the unjust heat of persecution, for no reason other being “Muslim”, according to a report by a major US daily.

Islam Online, 30 April 2005

Posted in USA