October 23, 2006

Rep. Hunter to CNN: "YOU CAN'T BE ON BOTH SIDES."

Notes on Today’s CSM Article on Radical Islam in the U.S. as Compared to Europe

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Radical Islam finds US 'sterile ground'
Home-grown terror cells are largely missing in action, a contrast to Europe's situation.

It is good that the CSM finds evidence to this effect. However, the article contains a number of statements which may be overly reassuring. For example:

"The success of ... Saudi-inspired religious zealotry in Europe was in large part because the Saudis put up the money to build mosques and pay for imams," says Ian Cuthbertson, a counterterrorism expert at the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research. "The American Muslim community was rich enough not to require Saudi money to build its mosques."

This would be news to people including:

• Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer. From his web site:

At Judiciary Hearing, Schumer details how top officials in the Saudi government help finance schools and mosques in the US and Middle East that spread militant teachings

• Reza F. Safa, author of "Inside Islam:"

Of the more than 1,200 mosques in America, more than 80 percent have been built within the last 20 years - thanks in large part to Saudi money, according to Reza F. Safa, author of "Inside Islam."

"Saudi Arabia alone has spent $87 billion since 1973 to spread Islam throughout the United States and the Western hemisphere," Safa said.

• The 60+ Congressional sponsors and co-sponsors who introduced H.R. 2037: Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005:

To halt Saudi support for institutions that fund, train, incite, encourage, or in any other way aid and abet terrorism, and to secure full Saudi cooperation in the investigation of terrorist incidents, and for other purposes.

...(5) A report released on January 28, 2005 by Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom found that Saudi Arabia is the state most responsible for the propagation of material promoting hatred, intolerance, and violence within United States mosques and Islamic centers, and that these publications are often official publications of a Saudi ministry or distributed by the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C.

Here's another observation from the Christian Science Monitor article that may be open to question:

In mosques in America, it's fairly common for imams to preach assimilation, says Mr. Zogby. That's not as true in Europe, particularly in poorer neighborhoods where sermons can be laced with extremism.

This seems to imply that radical Islam is not preached in mosques in the U.S., or taught in the affiliated schools. This would be a surprise to Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal. From counterterrorism expert Harvey Kushner, author of "Holy War on the The Home Front: The Secret Islamic Terror Network in the United States:"

In 1997, there were over a hundred Islamic day schools and more than a thousand Sunday or weekend schools in the United States, many of them affiliated with mosques, all expanding the reach of Wahhabi doctrine.

For years, mainstream America wasn't watching what was taught in Islamic religious schools, but 9/11 put these learning institutions in the spotlight. The USA Patriot Act allowed the government to look into mosques for the first time. What investigators found was very disturbing. The Saudis, either directly or through intermediary groups such as the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), are pouring "truckloads" of money into American mosques and schools, New York Senator Charles Schumer told a congressional subcommittee." In exchange, they demand that these mosques and schools toe the Wahhabi line. Saudi textbooks that preach violence against infidels can be found in some American Muslim schools."

In February 2003, the American Jewish Committee and the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace released an analysis of ninety-three textbooks published by the Saudi Ministry of Education and used between 1999 and 2002. The books, American Jewish Committee Executive Director David A. Harris told a congressional committee, "reveal a widespread presence of contempt towards Western civilization and followers of other religions.

According to the study the teachings include:

• Islam is the only true religion.
• Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Muslim world.
• Christians and Jews are infidels.
• The West is a "decaying society" and the source of Muslim misfortunes.
• There can be no peace between Muslims and non-Muslims.
• Jews are wicked
• Israel does not exist on world maps.

...It is of little comfort that, in defense of the books, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told CBS's 60 Minutes that "85 percent of what was being taught in the schools was not hateful."

The CSM article notes that there are no Islamic ghettos in the U.S., but then appears to jump to the conclusion, that Islam in the U.S. excludes what Steve Emerson has called, the "cultural jihadist," i.e. the otherwise peaceful person who encourages other Muslims to violence. From the CSM article:

"What we have here among Muslim-Americans is a very conservative success ethic," says John Zogby, president of Zogby International in Utica, N.Y., whose polling firm has surveyed the Muslim-American community. "People come to this country and they like it. They don't view it as the belly of the beast. With very few exceptions, you don't see the bitter enclaves that you have in Europe."

"The culture is qualitatively different [in the American Muslim community] from what we've seen from public information from Europe, and that actually says very positive things about our society," says Jonathan Winer, a terrorism expert in Washington. "We don't have large populations of immigrants with a generation sitting around semi-employed and deeply frustrated. That's a gigantic difference."

While it is true that the U.S. does not have the large populations of underemployed Muslims that Europe has, it may be jumping to a conclusion to assume that there is no culture of radical Islam in the U.S.

From Dr. Wafa Sultan, one of Time magazines' 100 most influential people in the world:

Muslims at my house say, "wait a few years -- we will replace the U.S. constitution with sharia law, here in the U.S." They are working for that. They don't say it to your face, but they are working for that.

From Steve Emerson:

There are essentially two types of jihadists. The hard-core military jihadists who are prepared to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States. They have already been indoctrinated. All they await is a charismatic leader or the external order that gives them a green light. Secondly, there is the far greater number of what I call "cultural jihadists." The cultural jihadists are not willing to carry out attacks themselves, but rather, they provide the moral support for the military jihadists.

They are the ones that believe that Israel or the US carried out 9-11. In the trial of the would-be NYC Herald Square bomber, an undercover informant for the NYPD recounted an astonishing observation. He said that as he made his rounds among two different mosques, he encountered a virulent hatred for the United States. This does not mean that all mosque members hate the United States-I know of mosques and Islamic leaders who genuinely foreswear violence--but it does tell us that there is a problem that has been brewing here for a long time. For example, I can show you a tape of a Hamas rally held in New Jersey where thousands of people in attendance-women, children and men-are all chanting slogans such as "We buy paradise with the blood of the Jews." Do I think that all of them are terrorists? Of course not. But they are cultural jihadists.

And here's a first-hand account posted here by commenter A.M. Whittaker, a resident of Virginia:

I live in a large building complex where over 60% of my neighbors are Arab Muslims. I have had many heart-to-heart discussions since the events of September 11th and despite the fact that the neighbors who will speak to me are educated and doing well financially, there is such a different ethic and view of others outside their faith.

It is they who refuse to communicate.

Muslim-owned shops in this area threw out Danish products and held meetings to protest the cartoons.

They live apart from their non-Muslim neighbors and do not join in community activities or national celebrations (as I have been informed by many of my Muslim neighbors) i.e. the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving as it is forbidden for them to do so.

They laud Christians and Jews as, People of the Book, yet their hatred against Israel, Jews, the Catholic Church, Christians, those of other faiths, and the United States is far more vehement than our outpourings on these pages. Consider the most popular pop song they sing is, <quote>'I Hate Israel'</quote>. It is sung in all the local Arab clubs in my area - especially at the hookah shisha lounges.

Please visit: ['Bully Bush', 'Vampire Sharon' In Egyptian Music Video]

and: [Meet the man behind 'I hate Israel' (and other popular favourites)]

This is the face of ordinary Muslims.

Could you imagine a similar song in the US called, I Hate Muslims being tolerated by the mainstream?

To be a good Muslim, one is obligated to follow the words and direction of Mohammad, just as to be a good Christian, one is obligated to follow the words and direction of Jesus.

They are diametrically opposite commissions.

It is also interesting to note that I did not see any Muslims who gathered to condemn and protest the actions of September 11th - or any other time fellow Americans have been attacked. I cannot remember one instance when Muslims gathered en masse in Washington to support the United States. I did not see any Muslim rescue workers or volunteers at either Ground Zero or the Pentagon. (I am originally from New York and lived near the Pentagon.) So by their silence and apathy towards their fellow Americans, one infers that they support terrorism. they certainly don't support this country.

While my local church immediately invited a Muslim speaker to explain how the American Islamic community felt after September 11th, there weren't any other Muslims in attendance or reciprocation of fellowship by the local mosque.

My Ethiopian and Sudanese neighbors have some interesting insights from their perspective that are less flattering. These people have moved here and are trying to assimilate as quickly as possible into the American way of life.

What a contrast!

If the American Muslim community wants to distance themselves from Islamists and terrorists, they should be more visible and strive to become part of the American community.

This is an Islamic community in the U.S., in the state of Virginia, where it is common in social gatherings to sing songs of hate. Such a culture is by definition one of cultural jihad, one that encourages hate and violence.

The CSM article contains much good news. But as shown here, it appears to be overly reassuring on a number of points.