U.S. military cites “institutional failures” over course teaching about a war with Islam

by The TIM Team

The U.S. military relieved Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley of his teaching duties and ordered that his course be redesigned after months of investigation into complaints that he told his class that the U.S. was at war with Islam. The course at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va., “Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism,” had been offered since 2004, initially as a look at the roots of violent extremism. But “institutional failures in oversight and judgment” led to changes in the course content two years ago, in which Islam was portrayed “almost entirely in a negative way,” said Col. Dave Lapan, spokesman for the chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said there were no plans to retrain the officers who took the class. A second military officer will receive administrative counseling over the matter, Lapan said. Among Dooley’s lessons was to ask students to apply the lessons of Hiroshima in planning for the war on Islam’s next phase, in which civilian populations would be targeted where required and whole cities could be destroyed at one time.

Wired.com, by Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman, 6/20/2012
Reuters.com, by David Alexander, 6/20/2012

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Right-Wingers Would Be Shocked to Learn That Islam Has Been Part of American History Since Its Founding

Homeland Security 'fusion' centers spy on citizens, produce 'shoddy' work, report says

The Department of Homeland Security has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a network of 77 so-called “fusion” intelligence centers that have collected personal information on some U.S. citizens — including detailing the “reading habits” of American Muslims — while producing “shoddy” reports and making no contribution to thwarting any terrorist plots, a new Senate report states.

The “ fusion centers,” created under President George W. Bush and expanded under President Barack Obama, consist of special teams of federal , state and local officials collecting and analyzing intelligence on suspicious activities throughout the country. They have been hailed by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano as “one of the centerpieces” of the nation’s counterterrorism efforts.

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/02/14187433-homeland-security-fusion-centers-spy-on-citizens-produce-shoddy-work-report-says?lite&ocid=msnhp

Right-Wingers Would Be Shocked to Learn That Islam Has Been Part of American History Since Its Founding

The Muslim faith is inextricably woven into the fabric of American history.

Islamophobia is back with a vengeance. Geller, a self-appointed hate czar, catapulted herself to racist celebrity back in 2010 with shrill denouncements of an Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan near the site of the World Trade Center. Since then, her repeat warnings of Islam’s foreign threat to America have resonated powerfully in a post-9/11 world where violent protests in the Middle East over a crude anti-Muslim film have triggered a fresh wave of anxiety.

It would undoubtedly shock Geller and her Islamophobic buddies to know that Muslims have been in America for so long they could almost have formed a welcoming committee to the Daughters of the Revolution.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/right-wingers-would-be-shocked-learn-islam-has-been-part-american-history-its-founding?akid=9507.85420.TyuYCr&rd=1&src=newsletter723791&t=5&paging=off

It's Not About Religion: A Conversation With Author and Middle East Expert Gregory Harms

This conversation about Harms' new book places responsibility for US foreign policy on the US population - even as it undresses the propaganda that distorts Americans' perception of the people in the Middle East and turns them against Muslims at home.

Now, Harms is back with a timely, challenging and important book, It's Not About Religion (Perceval Press). Harms' new book effectively undresses the insipid and insidious propaganda that distorts America's perception of the people in the Middle East and often turns them against Muslims at home. In a succinct 90 pages, Harms educates readers on the history of the Middle East, how the West has prevented democracy from taking shape throughout the region, and how America has continually invaded its countries, interfered with its elections, and simultaneously managed to convince many Americans that all the aggression and intervention is innocently committed in defense of American lives. Harms shows how our perceptions of Islam are dangerously wrong and how our beliefs about US foreign policy are often naive.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/11967-its-not-about-religion-a-conversation-with-author-and-middle-east-expert-gregory-harms

Agent Orange on Okinawa: The Smoking Gun

Now, for the first time, a recently uncovered U.S. army report reveals that, during the Vietnam War, the United States stockpiled 25,000 barrels of Agent Orange on the Pacific island. The barrels, containing over 1.4 million gallons of the toxic defoliant, were brought to Okinawa from Vietnam before being taken to Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean, where the U.S. military incinerated its stocks of the compound in 1977.

Contradicting decades of denial by Washington, the report is the first direct admission by the U.S. military that it stored these poisons on Okinawa. A series of photographs was also uncovered, apparently showing the 25,000 barrels in storage on Okinawa’s Camp Kinser, near the prefectural capital of Naha.

http://www.fpif.org/articles/agent_orange_on_okinawa_the_smoking_gun

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THE ZIONIST WAR AGAINST ISLAM

by desertpeace

Don't you think I am speaking about some rare cases of crazy rabbis hallucinating about ancient religious texts inside their parochial circles... These criminal rabbis are prominent and respected in their communities and have numerous followers, many with high college degrees from prestigious universities. * *

The Jewish war on Islam

By Khalid Amayreh   There is an undeclared but ferocious Jewish war against Islam going on these days. One would have to be blind and deaf to deny this brazen fact. In occupied East Jerusalem, government-backed Messianic Jews have been attacking and desecrating Islamic and, to a lesser extent, Christian holy places. In the last few days, millenarian Jews, protected by para-military Israel police, have been attacking and beating peaceful Muslim worshipers at the Aqsa Mosque esplanade. The Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest Islamic site in the world. According to observers of Israeli behavior in Occupied Jerusalem, the audacity and frequency of Israeli provocations at the Islamic sanctuary increased dramatically in recent weeks. Sheikh Ikrema Sabri, the former head of the Supreme Muslim Council, warned that Messianic Jewish groups were "hell bent on provoking bloodshed on a wide scale in Jerusalem." "These religious maniacs believe that by inciting violence and causing bloodshed, they would expedite the appearance of a mythical Messiah who would create a world-wide Jewish empire ruled from Jerusalem." The extremists, who are backed by powerful religious and manifestly fascist parties in the Israeli Knesset or Parliament, don't deny these accusations. Moshe Feiglin, a Nazi-like Israeli politician who believes non-Jews should be stripped of their national and political rights, including the right to vote, this week led dozens of extremists to the Aqsa Mosque esplanade where he called for the demolition of Islamic Holy places. Feiglin, also a prominent figure in the ruling Likud party, was arrested for a few minutes and then released to make further provocative statements against Islamic shrines. The brief arrest had nothing to do with his incitement, according to an Israeli police spokesman. Meanwhile, Jewish religious leaders continue to make statements and religious sermons offending Islam and Christianity. Some of the rabbis have even ruled that the status of non-Jews in general is not higher than that of animals such as donkeys. Interestingly, such brashly racist statements don't raise many eyebrows in Israel, neither among intellectuals nor politicians and religious leaders. Those who dare criticize the so-called "rabbinic sages" for indulging in this Talmudic hallucination don't do so out of rejection of Halakha or Jewish religious law, which views goyem or non-Jews, as animals walking on two feet, but rather because what is being said is politically wrong as could generate hostility for Jews among Gentiles. Jewish incitement against Islam and Muslims is by no means confined to the Palestinian arena. This week, Jewish circles posted anti-Islam posters in four subway stations in Washington D.C. The provocative add read: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man,” the ad reads. “Support Israel/Defeat Jihad.” The very same add was posted in a New York subway station two weeks ago, generating disgust and anger among Muslims. Well, Jews are urged to thoroughly and honestly read and examine their Talmud and Old Testament in order to find for themselves who is Civilized and who is savage. Anyone, Jew or gentile, can easily quote pornographically barbaric texts from both scriptures, underscoring the utter savagery and wickedness of religious Jewish thinking. Jews should examine their ancient and recent history before hurling epithets of savagery and terrorism at Muslims. Indeed, any honest comparison between Islam and Judaism would put Islam on a decidedly higher moral ground. In the final analysis, those living in glass houses, don't throw stones. But the anti-Islam Jewish circles, who unfortunately seem to represent a majority among Jews, have little concern for truth and honesty. Their ultimate goal is to spread lies, hatred, vindictiveness and malice. In fact, Jews, especially those supporting Zionism or Jewish Nazism, are probably the last people on earth who are qualified to lecture humanity on civility and savagery. The Jews were probably the first people on earth to carry out an organized genocide against another people for religious reasons. The Old Testament contains detailed records of this genocide. Some Jewish apologists might argue that is grossly unfair to blame contemporary Jews for controversial religious scriptures written more than 3000 years ago. Well, such a defensive reflex would probably be listened to were it not for the fact that for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Jews around the world, this genocidal mindset is still relevant today as it was 3000 ago. Don't we see and hear numerous rabbis out there who teach, even openly, that the life of a goy (non-Jew) has no sanctity and that a Jew might murder a gentile in order to harvest his or her organ if the Jew needed one! Don't you think I am speaking about some rare cases of crazy rabbis hallucinating about ancient religious texts inside their parochial circles... These criminal rabbis are prominent and respected in their communities and have numerous followers, many with high college degrees from prestigious universities. Today, Jews incite against Islam and Muslims on five continents. Their tacit message is "hate, hate, and hate." When you call people "savages" and "terrorists" and other names just because they are fighting for their freedom and human rights, you are effectively inciting to murder. Vilification and demonizing always precede murder. Murder, including mass murder, is the ultimate fruit of mass hatred and incitement. Jews ought to remember in case they have forgotten that before Auschwitz and Treblinka and Bergen Belsen, and even Kristalnacht, there was a Mein Kampf, the Nuremberg laws and the anti-Jewish mass hysteria. In light, one might ask: Is this anti-Islam mass hysteria what Jews are trying to generate and produce? Are Jews trying to affect a holocaust for Muslims in Europe, North America and Australia in order to allow Israel to build more colonies for fanatical Jews in the West Bank ? Jews reject both Islam and Christianity. The main reason for this illogical rejection is the timeless Jewish desire to retain and maintain the dubious prerogative of the "chosen people" But Jews can't be more deserving of heavenly salvation than other people just because some ancient Israelites worshiped God whereas other peoples and nations were pagans and worshipped idols. The Almighty doesn't calculate matters this way. God deals with men on an individual basis. There are "chosen" individuals, not chosen people, and it doesn't matter what ethnicity one belongs to. Today many Jews worship power, money and sex, while others, and they are too many, worship the new Golem of Zionism, or Israel. In the past, Jews tried and failed to poison and murder the Prophet of Islam. They also tried to decapitate and destroy the fledgling Muslim community in Madina by joining forces with the pagans of Arabia. Today's Jews are doing the same thing by joining ranks with hysterical Christian Zionists seeking world domination. This coalition of evil, too, will fail and Islam will triumph. But when Islam ultimately prevailed and Muslims built a huge Muslim state based on justice and tolerance, Jews enjoyed religious, political and economic freedoms. Jews didn't survive all these centuries because of their power. They survived because Islam catered for them and protected them from danger, near and distant. It is sad that Jews are now expressing their gratitude to Muslims by urging and instigating Westerners in America and Europe and elsewhere to hate and kill them.

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No Love From Jewish girls desecrate Koran in Hebron

Ynet 24 July -- Two teenage girls caught on security cameras tearing Koran books inside the Cave of Patriarchs have yet to be questioned by police who have failed to track them down, four months after the incident.  The incident occurred four months ago when the Cave of Patriarchs was open to Jewish worshippers. The girls entered the cenotaph of Isaac, which is used for Muslim prayers, took two Koran books from a nearby stand and proceeded to tear the pages. Later on, they hurled the books, which are sacred to Islam, at the wall. Midway through the desecration, they were noticed by an Israel Border Guard officer who did not intervene. Another officer who was at the scene approached the girls and stalled them. And yet, since the event the girls have not been summoned by the police for further investigation..
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4259615,00.html

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Happy Ramadan Kareem From Window Into Palestine

The Holy Month of Ramadan is upon us. So let us make use of this opportunity to wish all our readers a very happy Ramadan Kareem, filled with peace, love and serenity, on behalf of us all here at Window into Palestine:)).  This is a month filled with peace, and forgiveness. Muslims practice fasting in this holy month whereby they refrain from their desires such as eating and drinking all day long throughout the month, the purpose being to not only please God, but also to share the sufferings to the poor and the needy. Fasting is an important part of many religions, and not just Islam. Hence, we extend our greetings to ALL our readers, no matter what religion they follow. It is, after all, all about peace and love. We are very lucky, and proud to announce that this is 6 happy Ramadan message from Window into Palestine (6 successful years of bringing the insight on what's really happening in Palestine under Israeli Occupation) with you all!

"It feels great to greet muslims on this special occasion. Whether it may be any special occasion,  we were always fortunate to share these splendid moments with you all. Thank you for everything and for being a reader of postings and especially sharing the postings to bring traffic to this blog. 

Stay blessed and happy always. Happy Ramadan kareem 2012 :)"


Message from Mohammad:

What is the point of fasting?

Fasting is nothing new or exclusive. As we said, it is known to many religions. Indeed, the concept of fasting goes beyond any one religion. The sole purpose of the practice is to "hold fast" to your conscious, and never let it go. It isn't about keeping oneself hungry or thirsty. It is about learning to control one's desires and emotions, and to fight against such things that might lead a person astray.

It is about patience. Desire leads a man towards wrong, such as desire for money, desire for a better living, desire for more money, and so on. Often in the course of his life, a person following his desires neglects his social duties, and might even resort to vile or criminal behavior in order to see his desires fulfilled. Hence, Ramadan teaches a man to be patient, and to think through his better judgement rather than letting his desires to do the thinking for him.

Fasting also helps people realize the sufferings of the poor and the needy, who virtually are fasting every day of the year in all but name. Once when you put yourself in someone's shoes can you truly understand how they feel. Hence, the rich are more inclined towards helping the poor in this holy month, which is the whole point of humanity.

Hence, you see, fasting isn't about any one religion. It is about humanity. If there was no concept of fasting, people would never understand the problems of the poor, and would increasingly let their desires lead them,

Importance of Ramadan for Muslims

Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic or Lunar Calendar, holds much importance among Muslims, and other people in general. In this month, good deeds are rewarded manifold. And in the odd nights in the last ten days of the month, i.e. 21st, 23rd......29th, there comes a night of peace and blessings and forgiveness. This is the night when the Holy Book, The Holy Quran was revealed to mankind. If someone gets lucky, their sins are washed away and their conscious is reborn.

The onset of Ramadan is determined by the sighting of the moon. It is expected to be sighted today in our region (inshaAllah), while in the Arab region, it is the first day of this blessed, holy month. But moon or no, Ramadan is upon us. So once again, a very happy Ramadan Kareem to ALL our readers. May God bless us all and enable us to reach Ramadan and end it peacefully, while learning something in the process. May God be with us all! (Ameen) :)

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SHIRAZ DOSSA: ISLAMOPHOBIA, CENSORSHIP AND THE HOLOCAUST

 

The Explanation We Never Heard

By Dr. Shiraz Dossa, St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada


Originally Published in the Literary Review of Canada

Six months after attending a controversial Tehran conference, a Canadian professor charges the media and his own university with ignorance and intolerance.Share | Shiraz Dossa teaches political theory and comparative politics (Iran, Lebanon, Israel, India) at St. Francis Xavier University. In his book The Public Realm and the Public Self: The Political Theory of Hannah Arendt (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1989) and in his articles, his focus has been the Holocaust and its legacy, Auschwitz and Christian conscience, Zionism and Palestinians, and Islam and the West.

It would be a shocking event in any university. It was doubly so in a university that takes pride in its “Catholic character.” Last December, St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, authorized a small Spanish Inquisition of its own to denounce a St. FX Muslim professor. It was launched by two Jewish professors and the Christian chair of the political science department (Michael Steinitz, Samuel Kalman and Yvon Grenier). My sin: I attended a conference in a Muslim nation on the Holocaust entitled The Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision. It took place in Tehran, Iran, in December 2006, and it was widely—and erroneously—described in the western media as a “Holocaust-denial conference.”

I have never denied the Holocaust, only noted its propaganda power. Yet my university tolerated this assault on me. I was stunned by the university’s illiteracy and bias. I was appalled by President Sean Riley’s attack on my reputation and his spurious comments on the conference. In his December 13, 2006, statement he insinuated that the “conference” was bogus and that it revealed a “deplorable anti-Semitism” that the “St. FX community” found “deeply abhorrent” and contrary to its “traditions.” Riley left little doubt that I was guilty of sullying my school’s reputation. St. FX in effect sanctioned a crusade against a Muslim Holocaust scholar, who also happens to be an outspoken critic of Israel’s brutality in occupied Palestine.

What follows is my view of the events of last December, and my interpretation of the responses to them in the media and at my university.

Two Fallacies

The anti-intellectual storm at St. FX was driven by two fallacies pushed by the media and the literati. The first is that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has dismissed the Holocaust as a “myth” and threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.” In fact, Ahmadinejad has not denied the Holocaust or proposed Israel’s liquidation; he has never done so in any of his speeches on the subject (all delivered in Farsi/Persian). As an Iran specialist, I can attest that both accusations are false. U.S. Iran experts such as Juan Cole and UK journalists such as Jonathan Steele have come to the same conclusion.1

As Cole correctly notes, Ahmadinejad was quoting the Ayatollah Khomeini in the specific speech under discussion: what he said was that “the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time.”2 No state action is envisaged in this lament; it denotes a spiritual wish, whereas the erroneous translation—“wipe Israel off the map”—suggests a military threat. There is a huge chasm between the correct and the incorrect translations. The notion that Iran can “wipe out” U.S.-backed, nuclear-armed Israel is ludicrous.

What Ahmadinejad has questioned is the mythologizing, the sacralization, of the Holocaust and the “Zionist regime’s” continued killing of Palestinians and Muslims. He has even raised doubts about the scale of the Holocaust. His rhetoric has been excessive and provocative. And he does not really care what we in the West think about Iran or Muslims; he does not kowtow to western or Israeli diktat. Such questioning and criticism are not new: Jewish scholars such as Adi Ophir, Ilan Pappe, Boas Evron, Tom Segev and Uri Davis have been doing it for two decades. None of this is Holocaust denial.

The second western fallacy is that the event was a Holocaust-denial conference because of the presence of a few notorious western Christian deniers/skeptics, a couple of a neo-Nazi stripe. It was nothing of the sort. It was a Global South conference convened to devise an intellectual/political response to western-Israeli intervention in Muslim affairs. Holocaust deniers/skeptics were a fringe, a marginal few at the conference. The majority of the papers focused on the use and abuse of the Holocaust in Arab, Muslim, Israeli and western politics, a serious and worthy subject for international academic discussion.

Out of the 33 conference paper givers, 27 were not Holocaust deniers, but were university professors and social science researchers from Iran, Jordan, Algeria, India, Morocco, Bahrain, Tunisia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Syria. In attendance were five rabbis (anti-Zionist rabbis, to be sure) who agreed with Rabbi Dovid Weiss of New York that Israel’s occupation policy was “evil” and un-Jewish, and the Holocaust could never justify it—but who insisted, like me, that the Holocaust was a reality. None of us knew that a few deniers/skeptics would be in attendance. This is not at all unusual in the Islamic world. In southern conferences, one rarely knows who will be appearing until one gets there.

The Iranian Institute of Political and International Studies (IPIS), an elite school of advanced politics and policy studies that offers MA and PhD programs, sponsored the Iran conference. It was not sponsored by the Iranian president Dr. Ahmadinejad; he did not attend or participate in the conference. It was not a Holocaust-denial conference by any stretch. That’s all false.

President Riley and his supporters at St. FX bought the denial fallacy that had been concocted by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Jewish Defense League, and peddled by media outlets such as The Globe and Mail. On December 11, 2006, the Simon Wiesenthal Center sent out a condemning press release about “Iran’s Holocaust Denial Conference” to news media in the U.S. and Canada.3 It was the Zionists and the neo-Nazis who, for very different, self-serving reasons, depicted it as a Holocaust-denial conference and sold it to willing, anti-Iranian Islamophobes.

Comparative Appearances

Coincidentally, on December 11, 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice officially welcomed Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to Washington on behalf of the U.S. government. Lieberman also met Senator Hillary Clinton and ex-President Bill Clinton. The Americans were not at all troubled by their guest’s stance on the Palestinians. Avigdor Lieberman is committed to ridding Israel of its Arabs—in effect, to ethnic cleansing. In the Israeli media (Ha’aretz), he has openly been labelled a racist and a fascist. U.S. critics have called him the Israeli David Duke.

Canada silently acquiesced in Lieberman’s inclusion in the Israeli cabinet. And in January 2007 Peter MacKay addressed the Herzliya Conference in Israel affirming Canada’s attachment to “freedom and democracy,” “values” that “make Canada and Israel so close.” He was there in his official capacity as Canada’s foreign minister. MacKay refused to meet with the leaders of the new elected Palestinian government (Hamas). The government of Canada is not concerned that an anti-Arab ethnic cleanser is Israel’s deputy prime minister. Canadians do hypocrisy rather well.

Consider also, in this connection, an event held at St. FX in September 2006, just three months before the Tehran conference. St. FX and the Religious Studies Department hosted a conference on Catholic-Jewish dialogue. One of the invited speakers was Rabbi Richard Rubenstein, a “distinguished” academic, according to his hosts. He did little to advance the Catholic-Jewish dialogue.

Instead, he launched a vicious attack on Islam, its Prophet and Muslims in the West as a fifth column corroding Christian civilization from within. The good rabbi declared that “genocide” and the “murder” of non-Muslims lay at the heart of Islam. Rubenstein seemed to believe his views would be well received. And apparently they were—by the largely Catholic-Christian audience.

St. FX chancellor Bishop Raymond Lahey and I were on the response panel; I condemned Rubenstein’s anti-Muslim tirade and his labelling of Islam as “Islamo-Fascism,” which in my view is as offensive, racist and false as denying the Holocaust. Bishop Lahey, in his comment, said nothing about Rubenstein’s anti-Islamism. This was a St. Francis Xavier University conference that occurred with the blessing of university president Riley and university chancellor Bishop Lahey, and St. FX provided a public platform to an anti-Muslim, anti-Iranian racist rabbi. My point in making the comparison is that this was still a scholarly, enlightening conference although tainted by Rubenstein’s hate-speech. So was the Iran conference on the Holocaust, although tainted by the presence of a few western, Christian Holocaust deniers.

Islamophobia

So how and why did this attack on my reputation occur?

The Globe and Mail fired the initial shot in its editorial on December 13, 2006. It was followed by a declaration of war on me by its “pundits” John Ibbitson and Rex Murphy, dilettantes extraordinaire on the Holocaust and the Middle East. Neither of these journalists has credibility in either field. Ibbitson hectored me in his usual CNN mode, got most things wrong and casually libelled me in the process.4 Since 9/11, he hasn’t let up on Islam or Muslims. Murphy, in his column “Eichmann in Tehran,” displayed his cerebral deficits and his ignorance of Islam, Iran and Hannah Arendt with enviable facility.5 Like Ibbitson, Murphy impresses those intellectually just a cut above the Trailer Park Boys. It is worth noting that these Christian boys have unlimited latitude in The Globe and Mail to trash Muslims even as they defend “civilization,” Israel and Jews.

My university joined the assault on me forthwith. Chancellor Lahey assured The Globe and Mail’s readers, in his letter to the editor on December 14, 2006, that the conference and my attendance were “contrary” to the “[promotion of] truth” and indeed “worthy of contempt.” It is significant that Riley and Lahey have no scholarly expertise on Islam, Iran or the Holocaust either. I believe they wanted to assure the white, mainstream Canadian community, including Canadian Jews, that “Catholic” St. FX was on their side, and this desire far outweighed their obligation to defend academic freedom. Since I was in Iran as a Holocaust expert, and not representing St. FX or Catholics, I found this a bizarre response. Are Riley and Lahey at the helm of a university committed to the academic freedom of its entire faculty, which includes Muslims? Or is St. FX’s hyped “inclusiveness” only for Christians and Jews? I have been a St. FX professor for 18 years, a full professor since 1996.

Was it an accident that I was swarmed—by petition—by Jewish and Christian professors, with the blessing of St. FX’s Catholic leaders? The petition oddly defended my “academic freedom … to espouse any views that he pleases,” but then negated my right to do so by being “profoundly embarrassed by his participation in the Holocaust-denial conference held in Tehran.” It garnered a fair number of signatures from current and retired professors—about 24 percent of the total faculty at St. FX. But surely these righteous folks are not racist? Surely this could not happen at St. FX, a Catholic institution with its Coady International Institute tradition of decency? It is crucial to stress that many townspeople were incensed by St. FX’s behaviour, among them Miles Tompkins, a direct descendant of Coady’s founder, J.J. Tompkins, and of Moses Coady. In a letter to the local paper, The Casket, on March 21, he chastised St. FX’s conduct and also noted that my “political science department’s response was an embarrassment to the University.”

Was this then an un-Christian lapse, an un-Catholic aberration? It would seem not. We tend to forget that Catholic anti-Semitism has always had two strands, anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish. The anti-Jewish strand has been dominant in western culture for several centuries. In the post-Holocaust period, however, the anti-Muslim strand, which survived the Crusades, got a new lease on life and quickly superseded anti-Jewish anti-Semitism for obvious reasons. As a result, Muslims now bear the brunt of western anti-Semitism and Islamophobia is de rigueur in the liberal Christian West, in support of our war on the “Axis of Evil,” including Iran. The anti-Iranian, anti-Muslim current at St. FX is not accidental; it is the distilled voice of Canadian Islamophobia in these times.

Final Thoughts

Universities are places of discontent; they provoke disputes, they offer critiques of conventional and, often, false views. A university that tailors its teaching and research to the prejudices of its alumni or corporate backers is a travesty. Academic freedom is not conditional on the approval of the university or of university colleagues. Nor is the reputation of the university as an institution tied to the scholarly focus of its faculty or to the controversial subjects that faculty may pursue in their field of expertise.

Iran’s elites have protected Jews since Cyrus ruled West Asia. Anti-Semitism is a Euro-American problem, not an Islamic one. Iranian opposition to Israel and its wars on Muslims/Palestinians is ethical and political; it has absolutely nothing to do with hating Jews qua Jews. It is a great pity that Sean Riley and Bishop Lahey ignored St. FX’s motto, an injunction to first ascertain Quaecumque Sunt Vera, Whatsoever Things Are True, and instead tolerated the assault by St. FX’s ignorant crusaders on the reputation of their Muslim colleague.

I would be remiss if I failed to note that two St. FX officials behaved honourably, with the kind of Catholic decency that befits our university, throughout the course of this episode of academic McCarthyism. Academic Vice-President Dr. Mary McGillivray and the Dean of Arts, Dr. Steven Baldner, tackled the controversy with integrity and respect for the liberal values that St. FX symbolizes. As well, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) strongly supported my academic freedom. In his letter to The Globe and Mail on December 14, 2006 (which the paper did not print), Executive Director Jim Turk stated that “academic freedom is to protect the right of academic staff to speak the truth as they see it without repression from their institution, the state, religious authorities, special interest groups or anyone else.”6

Notes:

Jonathan Steele, “If Iran Is Ready to Talk, The US Must Do So Unconditionally,” The Guardian, June 2, 2006, and “Lost in Translation,” The Guardian, June 14, 2006.

Juan Cole, “Hitchens the Hacker; And, Hitchens the Orientalist; And, ‘We Don’t Want Your Stinking War!’,” “Informed Consent,” May 3, 2006 www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html

Simon Wiesenthal Center, “Holocaust Survivors in Three Cities Across North America Join Together to Confront Iran’s Conference of Holocaust Deniers and Revisionists,” News Release, December 11, 2006.

John Ibbitson, “Even a Scholar’s Academic Freedom Has Its Limits in Canada,” Globe and Mail, December 14, 2006, page A7.

Rex Murphy, “Eichmann in Tehran: Horror Revisited,” Globe and Mail, December 16, 2006, page A31.

Canadian Association of University Teachers, “Statement on the Controversy over Professor Shiraz Dossa,” News Release, December 14, 2006 www.caut.ca/en/news/comms/20061214dossa.asp

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Making Islamophobia Mainstream

How Muslim-bashers broadcast their bigotry

By Steve Rendall and Isabel Macdonald

A remarkable thing happened at the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) nominations in February 2007: The normally highbrow and tolerant group nominated for best book in the field of criticism a work widely viewed as denigrating an entire religion.

The nomination of Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West From Within didn’t pass without controversy. Past nominee Eliot Weinberger denounced the book at the NBCC’s annual gathering, calling it “racism as criticism’’ (New York Times, 2/8/07). NBCC board president John Freeman wrote on the group’s blog (Critical Mass, 2/4/07): "I have never been more embarrassed by a choice than I have been with Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept. . . . Its hyperventilated rhetoric tips from actual critique into Islamophobia."

Though it didn’t ultimately win the award, While Europe Slept’s recognition in the highest literary circles was emblematic of a mainstreaming of Islamophobia, not just in American publishing but in the broader media.

The term “Islamophobia” refers to hostility toward Islam and Muslims that tends to dehumanize an entire faith, portraying it as fundamentally alien and attributing to its followers an inherent, essential set of negative traits, such as irrationality, intolerance and violence. And not unlike the charges made in the classical document of anti-Semitism, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, some of Islamophobia’s more virulent expressions—like While Europe Slept—include evocations of Islamic plots to dominate the West.

Islamic institutions and Muslims, of course, should be subject to the same kind of scrutiny and criticism as anyone else. For instance, when a Norwegian Islamic Council debates whether gay men and lesbians should be executed, one may forcefully condemn individuals or groups sharing that opinion without pulling all European Muslims into it, as did Bawer’s Pajamas Media post (8/7/08), “European Muslims Debate: Should Gays Be Executed?”

Similarly, extremists who justify their violent actions by invoking some particular interpretation of Islam can be criticized without implicating the enormously diverse population of Muslims around the world. After all, reporters managed to cover the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh—an adherent of the racist Christian Identity sect—without resorting to generalized statements about “Christian terrorism.” Likewise, media have covered acts of terrorism by fanatics who are Jewish—for instance, the Hebron massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein (Extra!, 5–6/94)—without implicating the entirety of Judaism.

In works such as Orientalism and Covering Islam, cultural analyst Edward Said criticized an ideology that he argued treated peoples of the Middle East and Asia, particularly Muslims, as the “other”—inherently different from and inferior to the people of “the West.” It’s not hard to find support for his thesis in U.S. establishment journalism.

In reporting on an Iraqi family’s refusal to accept a cash payment after their son was shot dead by private U.S. security contractor Blackwater, the L.A. Times (5/4/08) emphasized that the “shooting and its aftermath show the deep disconnect between the American legal process and the traditional culture of Iraq,” explaining that “traditional Arab society values honor and decorum above all.”

Similarly, a New York Times news article (8/25/08) about the Afghan response to a U.S. military attack in Afghanistan that killed 90 civilians noted that bombings and house raids “are seen as culturally unacceptable by many Afghans who guard their privacy fiercely,” while the detention of hundreds of Afghans without trial was said to have “stirred up Afghans’ strong independent streak and ancient dislike of invaders.”

Why is it necessary to invoke cultural stereotypes to explain why you won’t accept an envelope full of cash after mercenaries kill your child? Or to explain quite normal opposition to being bombed, detained or aggressively searched? Because the widespread assumption in the U.S. media is that people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the Muslim world, are fundamentally unlike Americans.

There are many varieties of Muslim-bashing on display in the media. One strain holds that Islam is inherently evil or violent—a “bloody, brutal type of religion,” as televangelist Pat Robertson put it (700 Club, 4/28/06). Robert Spencer, who has authored two New York Times bestsellers on Islam and is a frequent cable news guest, puts a scholarly face on Islamophobia, arguing that (Emory Wheel, 2/21/07) “jihad as warfare against non-believers in order to institute ‘Sharia’ worldwide . . . is a constant element of mainstream Islamic theology.”

Islamophobes like Fox News and talk radio host Sean Hannity dwell on “the silence of moderate Muslims,” whom Hannity says (Hannity & Colmes, 7/13/07) are insufficiently “critical against those that would hijack their religion”—placing a burden on Muslims to take responsibility for extremist fringe elements of their religion that is not likewise applied to Christians. Also exemplifying this form of Islamophobia is CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck, who said to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress (Glenn Beck, 11/14/06). “Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies”; on his syndicated radio show, Beck warned (Glenn Beck Program, 8/10/06):

All you Muslims who have sat on your frickin’ hands the whole time and have not been marching in the streets and have not been saying, “Hey, you know what? There are good Muslims and bad Muslims. We need to be the first ones in the recruitment office lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head.” I’m telling you, with God as my witness . . . human beings are not strong enough, unfortunately, to restrain themselves from putting up razor wire and putting you on one side of it.

Another category of Islamophobia finds militant Muslims lurking around every corner and paints them as an existential threat to the U.S. and its allies. The documentary Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West (2006), which has been a mainstay of David Horowitz’s “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” describes “radical Islam” as a menace comparable to Adolf Hitler that, according to the film’s website, “is threatening, with all the means at its disposal, to bow Western civilization under the yoke of its values.” The film was distributed as a paid insert by many major newspapers to tens of millions of subscribers in electoral swing states in September 2008 (Editor & Publisher, 9/13/08).

Meanwhile, Daniel Pipes has warned of an Islamic threat to America posed by Muslim groups ranging from the college campus-based Muslim Student Associations to secular groups like the American-Arab Anti-Defamation League (Inter-Press Service, 2/24/05). Pipes, whose opinions have been featured in outlets from NPR to USA Today to Fox News, suggests (Middle East Quarterly, 3/8/06) a stealth takeover by an ill-defined “Wahhabi lobby” is in the offing, arguing (IPS, 2/24/05) that “in the long term . . . the legal activities of Islamists pose as much or even a greater set of challenges than the illegal ones.”

The “war on terror” has bolstered a class of Islamophobic self-proclaimed “Islamic terrorism experts,” such as NBC terrorism analyst Steven Emerson, who notoriously proclaimed (CBS News, 4/19/95) that the bloodthirstiness of the Oklahoma City bombing was “a Middle Eastern trait.”

Some strains of Muslim-bashing share a good deal in common with the racist pseudo-science of eugenics—most notably Mark Steyn’s writings about the “demographic decline” manifest in Europe’s growing Muslim population. Pipes struck a similar note with his warnings (National Review, 11/19/90) that “Western societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene” and that “Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.”

This range of anti-Muslim views finds its vehicles in a variety of online, radio and print outlets. Some of the harshest Muslim-bashing can be found in the right-wing blogosphere (Little Green Footballs, Front Page, WorldNetDaily, Gates of Vienna, Michelle Malkin.com, Daniel Pipes.org) and on the websites which link to these blogs and generate their own anti-Muslim content (Middle East Forum, Campus Watch, Jihad Watch, Militant Islam Monitor), as well as on right-wing talk radio, where hosts like Michael Savage rabble-rouse with overtly bigoted commentary like (Savage Nation, 7/2/07), “When I see a woman walking around with a burqa, I see . . . a hateful Nazi who would like to cut your throat and kill your children.”

Lengthy treatises that attempt to put a more scholarly facade on Islamophobia provide fuel for those fires. In addition to Bawer’s book, recent years have seen publishers like Regnery unleashing a number of successful books that are inarguably Islamophobic: Mark Steyn’s New York Times best seller America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (2006) and Robert Spencer’s two Times bestsellers, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (2005) and The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion (2006), join other Muslim-bashing books from overseas, including Melanie Phillips’ Londonistan (2006) and Orianna Fallaci’s The Force of Reason (2004), that have thrived in the U.S. book market.

The Islamophobia generated in these backwaters finds its way into the mainstream, accessing a national platform and audience through such tributaries as the cable TV and radio shows hosted by Fox News’ Sean Hannity and CNN Headline News’ Glenn Beck. Islamophobic ideas get important institutional support through conservative newspapers such as the New York Post, which regularly publishes Pipes’ columns, and many more centrist papers carry internment apologist Michelle Malkin’s nationally syndicated column.

Together, these Muslim-bashing outlets constitute what is, in effect, a network. Funded by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, a prominent right-wing foundation, Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum is connected to a range of other right-wing think tanks; its editors and editorial board include representatives from the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Founda-tion, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Pipes’ Campus Watch and Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch operate out of David Horowitz’s Freedom Center. Prominent members of this net- work also have official connections; Pipes, for instance, was appointed by George W. Bush to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace in 2003.

Muslim-bashers often have much more certainty than expertise, as exemplified by Alan Dershowitz (Boston Globe, 6/5/08), who traced “the beginning of Islamic terrorism in America” to the assassination of Robert Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan—a Palestinian Christian. But whether its promoters’ fears are reality-based or not, Islamophobia is a force to be reckoned with.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3648

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Islamic Movement compensates Akko residents

Leaders of movement's northern branch divide $77,000 among 17 families whose homes were damaged during Yom Kippur riots, but say they don't believe this should exempt State from its 'moral obligations towards citizens'Leaders of the Islamic Movement's Northern Branch on Wednesday decided to compensate the Arab residents of Akko whose homes were damaged in the Yom Kippur riots. During a meeting in the Old City the leaders divided over $77,000 among 17 families in order to assist them in repairing the damage to their homes.

Deputy director of the northern branch, Sheikh Kamal Khatib, told the families that "just as Jews can live anywhere they wish, so can Arabs, and we will not allow a few people who think this is solely a Jewish country to ruin that."


He added that "Akko was a Muslim Arab city before (its) mayor was even born. We will not agree to a second Nakba." Khatib was responding to a speech made by Akko Mayor Shimon Lankry during the city's Simchat Torah festivities, in which he said that "Akko was always ours and will remain ours forever and ever."


Khatib retaliated by stating, "What the mayor said allows those same bullies that acted out on the holiday eve to repeat their actions. I say to the mayor – Akko was a Muslim Arab city before its mayor was born. If he wants to stay 'Ahalan Wa Sahalan,' and if not, he can get out."


Two days after the riots broke out the Islamic Movement issued a statement promising compensation to families whose homes were damaged. The funds were gathered at local mosques, where worshippers were asked to donate to the cause.


"We are doing this out of faith because it is our way, but that doesn't mean it's a substitute for the moral obligations of the State and the municipality towards these citizens," said Sheikh Mohammad Moadi, who heads the northern branch. "Our people have to know that we support them. They are not alone."

The families whose homes were damaged expressed their anger at the municipality's conduct after the latter ordered them to vacate the hotels in which they have been residing over the past two weeks, and return to their homes.


"We are in very real danger, but considering their offer to put us up in a two-bedroom apartment maybe we are better off going back home," said Mediha Ramal, resident of Akko.

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"'Obsession' DVD: Who Put Hate in my Sunday Paper?"

Obsession DVD: Who Put Hate in My Sunday Paper?
Uncovering the Israeli-Republican-Evangelical Networks behind the “Obsession” DVD
Omid SafiSomething strange has been showing up inside the Sunday newspapers of millions of Americans the past few weeks. The material being included alongside comics, coupons, and advertisement for local stores is a controversial DVD called "Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West." Some 28 million copies of this DVD have been distributed for free so far in this fashion. In some ways the scale of this campaign, and its ideological venom, are unprecedented: many newspapers state that they had never previously distributed free DVDs as inserts, certainly nothing with such a charged content. The copies were distributed not randomly across the country, but in the "swing states" (Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, etc.) that are seen as a toss-up in the November Presidential elections between McCain and Obama. Obviously, someone is trying to influence the American electorate by playing on fear-mongering and hate-mongering
themes. But who? Who is behind this massive, multi-million dollar campaign?

Answering that question proved harder than one might think, as the groups behind this DVD have worked hard to hide their tracks. The connections, which are partially concealed in the DVD and the distribution campaign, take one from groups in Israel, to pro-Israel lobby organizations in the United States, to Christian evangelical groups, and to Neoconservative think-tanks.

The "facts" presented by Obsession have already been refuted in several detailed presentations. For example, see the work of Obsessionwithhate.com and that of Sheila Musaji, as well as Altmuslim.com. Therefore, I am not going to make a point by point refutation of the contents of the DVD. My intention is to explore the networks that are behind the production and distribution of this DVD, with their clear goal of influencing the 2008 Presidential elections towards John McCain.

***

All politics is local, as well as global. That is particularly the case here. The distribution of the DVD affected me and my family at an intimate local level: up to 160,000 copies of this propaganda piece were distributed through our local community in North Carolina. The newspaper of the nearby city of Charlotte, distributed another 200,000 copies.

Upon contacting the local newspaper, the Raleigh-based News and Observer, and asking why such a hateful piece of propaganda was being distributed for free to all the subscribers, the response of the paper was less than impressive. Jim McClure, vice president of display advertising for The News and Observer, said: "Obviously, we have distributed other product samples, whether it's cereal or toothpaste."

Really? Is this where we are? That a DVD which includes 77 minutes of propaganda footage slicing together videos of violent Muslims with those of Nazis, suggesting that Muslims are out to destroy Western civilization, is comparable to cereal and toothpaste? Puhleeze...

The claims of the DVD, which claims to be an educational product and part of a non-profit production, are as follows:

*That the world stands today as it did in 1938. Radical Islam is as great, if not greater, of a threat than the Nazis presented to the world. And action [not specified] must be taken.

*That the attacks in Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya, and Iran present a global Muslim conspiracy against Israel and "The West."

*A distinctive feature of the DVD is in fact the linking together of threat of radical Islam with passionate defense of Israel. Most of the figures who are paraded in the DVD, whether they are Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, are all passionate pro-Israel speakers who have a long legacy of speaking against Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims in general. The list includes such luminaries as:

• "Former PLO Terrorist Who Speaks Out For Israel", Walid Shoebat, who claims to have been a "former Islamic terrorist" turned Christian Evangelical Zionist. Never mind that the Jerusalem Post has already dismissed the factuality of his claims.

• Nonie Darwish, with the tell-all website: http://www.arabsforisrael.com/ "Arabs for Israel"? Darwish also neglects to mention that she is another ex-Muslim turned both Christian and ardent supporter of Israel. In a world when virtually all Arabs and most Muslims view the Palestinian/Israeli tragedy as the burning political and moral issue of our time, how many Arabs in the world can be claimed as being passionate supporters of Israel?

• Carline Glick, a member of Israel On Campus Coalition.

• Daniel Pipes. If the Pro-Israel/Neo-conservative unholy alliance had a poster-child, Pipes would be it. Pipes is the most noted Islamophobe operating in the US. Pipes is also the Director of a Pro-Israel entity called "The Middle East Forum." As for his one-sided commitment to Israel credentials, suffice it to say that he is the 2006 recipient of the "Guardian of Zion" award.

One could go on and on, but the above should give some indication that contrary to what the Clarion Fund claims on its website, the "experts" paraded on TV are not impartial and objective. They have a definite point of view, a passionate defense of Israel at all cost, even if that cost happens to be truth and facts.

Who Made this DVD?

Let’s come back to the claim of the local newspaper, that the distribution of this product is qualitatively no different than putting a free sample of toothpaste in the Sunday paper. For the sake of argument, let us take that analogy and go with it. How many of us would receive an unmarked package of toothpaste, and brush our teeth with it if it carries no label, no description of who has made it, and no account of whether any agency has vouched for its safety? If we do not take unmarked material to our teeth, why would we take a product like Obsession which refuses to disclose the network behind it into our hearts, into our schools, synagogues, mosques, churches, and civic institutions?

The Obsession DVD states that it is made by "Clarion Fund". What does the Clarion Fund stand for? And who exactly are they? Their intentions are made a bit clearer through the use of their registered website: www.radicalislam.org. What exactly does "radical Islam" constitute? Who stands for it, and who opposes it? We are not told, aside from this: "Radical Islam poses a significant threat to the Western way of life. The Islamists’ ultimate aim is conversion and domination of the West, which they see as the root of all evil that must be eradicated." This type of labeling without defining is as unhelpful as accusations of "Communist" in the 1950’s, or "unpatriotic" and "un-American" more recently. It is a catch-all, bogey man argument that is masquerading as analysis.

Who has produced the Obsession DVD? On the Obsession The Movie website, the producer is identified as Raphael Shore, who "is a documentary producer and founder of Clarion Fund, Inc., a new non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about national security threats." Very well. So Raphael Shore is the founder of Clarion Fund, and the producer of Obsession. But who is Raphael Shore? This required a good bit of background research:

Raphael Shore and Aish HaTorah

Raphael Shore is part of a missionary Israeli "Jewish penitent" (baal teshuva) group, called Aish HaTorah ("Fire of the Torah"), whose mission has been to call "assimilated" Jews back to Judaism. They have been given 40% of the land in front of the "Western Wall" in Jerusalem by the Israeli government. In other words, they are very good terms with the Israeli regime, which is responsible for the demolishing of homes, non-issuing of building permits, and occupation in Palestine. Their founder, Rabbi Noah Weinberg has received recognition from the mayor of Jerusalem.

When we dig a bit deeper, it turns out that Raphael Shore, a Canadian rabbi, is also the director of the International wing of Aish HaTorah. His business card is available as a PDF on line:

Rabbi Raphael Shore
Director, Aish HaTorah International
Outreach Programs

One Western Wall Plaza
Old City, Jerusalem
Israel, 97500

So does this Obsession DVD fall within the purview of Aish HaTorah’s "outreach"? Given the intertwined nature of the political and the religious in Israel, it seems that Aish HaTorah has gone from evangelizing to Jews to waging a global propaganda campaign against Islam and Muslims, while also working hard to cover its tracks, as we shall see.

The connections between Aish HaTorah and Clarion Fund go even deeper. According to the paperwork filed with the Delaware state authorities, Clarion uses the same address as Aish HaTorah in New York. In 2006, the two directors of the Clarion Fund were Rabbi Shore and Jacob Fetman, who was also Aish HaTorah’s Chief Financial Officer. In 2007, it had three directors: Rabbi Shore, Rabbi Harris (who is the educational director for Aish HaTorah), and Rebecca Kabat, another Aish HaTorah employee.

The Israeli paper Haaretz noted that the Obsession DVD "has a largely Jewish and pro-Israel distribution network, though Shore is trying to expand the film's appeal." As we shall see, this he accomplished by reaching out to Neoconservatives and Christian Zionists, but first some more on the film’s Pro-Israel distribution network.

Hasbara Fellowship and Honestreporting.com

Raphael Shore is also the director of Hasbara Fellowships, a group with the transparent website: http://www.israelactivism.com/ Here there is another connection to Aish HaTorah, as Hasbara is part of the Aish HaTorah network. And their activism on behalf of Israel is worn like a badge of honor.

The pattern is beginning to become clearer: how is it that a group with the stated goal of "Israel activism" is placing 28 million copies of a DVD warning Americans about the danger of "radical Islam"? In many of the screenings of this DVD, the audience was required to sign up for receiving material from the israelactivism.com website. How come 70 US newspapers accepted this DVD without doing the basic research to uncover the source (and prejudice) of this propaganda?

Hasbara Fellowship’s own websites includes the following pieces of information about their genealogy and mission. All of the following are direct quotes:
• "Hasbara Fellowships, a program spearheaded by Aish International, educates and trains university students to be effective pro-Israel activists on their campuses."
>in other words, they freely acknowledge the link to Aish HoTorah International.

• "Started in 2001 in conjunction with Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hasbara Fellowships brings hundreds of students to Israel every summer and winter."
>This is perhaps the most intriguing connection and startling confession, that Hasbara has a direct connection to the Israeli regime’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which acts as the official and national propaganda center for the Israeli state. To recapitulate, there is a direct link between the Obsession DVD and the Israeli state through Hasbara Fellowship.

• "So far, Hasbara Fellowships has trained over 1,400 students on over 250 campuses, providing its participants with the information, tools, resources, and confidence to return to their campuses as leaders in the fight for Israel's image."
>This points to the acknowledgement that the struggle over Palestine/Israel is going to be fought—rhetorically, one hopes—on college campuses. In fact, college campuses formed the primary site of the distribution of the Obsession DVD before the newspaper campaign. The primary audience on college campuses have been Jewish organizations (like Hillel) and College Republicans. We will come back to this connection between Jewish groups and Republicans later. Shore himself has stated that: "The evangelical Christians and the Jews tend to be the softest market…".

Raphael Shore has previously written at length about his passionate advocacy on behalf of Israel on the pages of Aish HaTorah’s newsletter. His earlier works had been produced alongside an entity called "Honestreporting.com", with a self-description as follows: "Israel is in the midst of a battle for public opinion – waged primarily via the media. To ensure Israel is represented fairly and accurately 'HonestReporting' monitors the media, exposes cases of bias, promotes balance, and effects change through education and action." In other words, Honestreporting.com sees itself as a media advocacy organization on behalf of Israel, with the requisite "Fair and Balanced" claims. Honestreporting.com has worked with Clarion Fund and Aish HaTorah in producing more pro-Israel material. And it is a family affair: the founder of Honestreporting is Rabbi Raphael Shore’s twin brother, Ephraim Shore. [Ironically, Raphael was so concerned that his brother
had become involved with Aish HaTorah that in 1992 he went to Israel to "rescue" his brother from he seems to have regarded as a "big hoax", and a cult-like milieu. Instead, Raphael too became part of Aish HaTorah!]

Haaretz reported that "Obsession" is described as "Honest Reporting's newest documentary film." Honestreporting.com’s own website confirms this: "HonestReporting is proud to have been a former marketing partner during the initial production of this award-winning documentary."

Shore, recognizing that the credibility of his propaganda would be undermined if its correction to Israeli-spin organizations were revealed, told Haaretz (in an unusually frank slip) that they "have told Honest Reporting to take it off their site 'a dozen times.’" The connections between Obsession and Israeli groups like Aish HaTorah and Jewish advocacy groups on behalf of Israel like Hasbara Fellowship and Honestyreporting.com is beyond dispute. The producers of the documentary just don’t want you to know about it.

One of the other elements that the producers of the Obsession DVD may not want you to know about is their political agenda. The article read: "McCain's policies seek to confront radical Islamic extremism and terrorism and roll it back while [Barack] Obama's, although intending to do the same, could in fact make the situation facing the West even worse."

The spokesperson for the Clarion Fund, Gregory Ross, did not deny that this article had appeared on their site, he was only upset that they had been caught with it! The Clarion Fund has been established as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. These types of non-profit organizations are not to endorse one political candidate over another, precisely what Clarion seems to have done, and is now busy hiding its track records. NPR reported on this, and the possibility of a forthcoming FEC probe.

Who is paying for the "Obsession Project"?

We do not know for sure, and the Clarion Fund people are not saying. They admit that the names they give for the funders on their material are bogus aliases. Shore states that 80% of the funding for the Obsession DVD has come from one source, a "Peter Mier". Yet he goes on to say that these are just aliases! In other words, it is hard to know for sure who is paying for the production and even more importantly the distribution of what the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), the main distributor for Obsession, refers to as the "Obsession Project."

Given that EMET estimates that this project cost tens of millions of dollars, the signs seem to point to none other than Sheldon Adelson, the Jewish Republican billionaire, discussed below.

Who Distributes the DVD?

According the New York Times, when Shore and Co. could not find any traditional distributor for their propaganda, they formulated a strategy of working with Neo-Conservative organizations like Heritage, College Republicans, and above all, Jewish organizations.

NPR has reported that an organization called Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), is also responsible for distribution of the Obsession DVD. Like Honestreporting.com, the "Middle East Truth" being bandied about here is yet another self-described Zionist/pro-Israel understanding of the reality whose policies are in line with Likud militant expansionism, with the stated mission of support for Israel, and opposing any "concessions" from Israel as part of a peace agreement with Palestinians, even the withdrawal from the occupied territory of Gaza. The positions of EMET are the positions of Likud party in Israel, and that of the illegal Settler movement. It was EMET that on March 25th, 2008 sponsored a showing of Obsession on Capitol Hill.

Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET),, the distributor for Obsession, also has an open connection to the Republican Party, which they flaunt on their website: "EMET was also requested to help the Republican Policy Committee with a Sense of the Congress resolution talking about Israel’s inherent right to defend itself…" In other words, Clarion Fund claims to be non-political, but uses a pro-Israel ally of Republicans to distribute its product.

Leading the work of this Endowment has been Sarah Stern, who formerly worked as the National Policy Coordinator for the Zionist Organization of America and later on served as the Director of the Office of Legislative and Governmental Affairs of the AJC (American Jewish Congress).

In short, the distributors of the Obsession DVD are the most ardent and fanatical supporters of Israeli Likud militant expansionism, a fact that the Obsession DVD conveniently omits, and the newspapers who spread the 28 million copies of this DVD like a virus never looked into. EMET also has a cozy relationship with the right-wing Jewish billionaire Sheldon G. Adelson, who has a proven track record of using his wealth to push both Israeli Likud-type and Republican agendas. Adelson has a long-standing and public relationship with the arch-Likud Netanyahu that Haaretz has reported on previously. A recent investigative piece in the New Yorker proved many details of Adelson’s political agenda in both the United States and Israel. Adelson, who owns many casinos in Las Vegas, has been a longtime contributor to the Zionist Organization of America, Sarah Stern’s former employer. Now that Stern is at EMET, she has sponsored lecture series and seminars on
Capital Hill in name of Adelson, to extend his influence into the Congress.

Adelson is usually listed as by Forbes as the third richest American, and the sixth richest person in the world. His personal wealth is estimated as exceeding $20 billion. The Washington Post reports that he has already given over 200 million dollars to Jewish and Israeli causes, including the Birthright program, to which he makes a $25 million annual contribution.

To place Adelson on the political spectrum, it is good to recall that he has described himself as a critic of AIPAC—from the far right! In other words, he feels that AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) has been too soft on Palestinians. (!) Adelson has been a longtime contributor to Jewish and Republican causes, including the campaigns of George W. Bush. Initially, he had designs of spending $250 million dollars to set up an organization called Freedom Watch to keep Obama out of the White House. Freedom Watch, conceived of as the Right’s answer to Moveon.org, has been a meeting ground between Jewish Republicans and former officials of the George W. Bush administration. Such is the agenda of Adelson, the person whose influence is behind the EMET folks distributing the Obsession DVD.

Who else serves on the board of EMET (Endowment for Middle East), the Pro-Israeli lobby group? A who’s who of Israeli officials and ultra-Zionists in the United States:

• Ambassador Yossi Ben-Aharon: Formerly, the Chief of Staff for Ytzak Shamir, and Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

• Ambassador Yoram Ettinger. "Minister for Congressional Affairs at Israel's Embassy in Washington (with a rank of an ambassador), Israel's Consul General in Houston and Director of Israel's Government Press Office."

• Lenny Ben-David: "Israel's Deputy Chief of Mission (number two diplomat) in Washington after being appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu", who in addition has "held senior posts in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for 25 years, in both Washington and Israel."

In addition to Israeli officials, the EMET Board also includes:
• Neo-Conservatives such as R. James Woolsey, Frank Gaffney (another Neo-Con who has received awards from the Zionist Organization of America), Ariel Cohen (from the Neo-Conservative bastion Heritage), David Dalin (from the Neo-Con Hoover Institute and also Heritage).

• Ardent pro-Israel lobbyists such as: Daniel Pipes, Caroline Glick (deputy managing editor of Jerusalem Post), Meyrav Wurmser (the former director of the highly biased MEMRI, a propaganda organization founded by members of the Israeli Defense Force), Also serving on the Board of EMET are many of the "talking heads" would-be experts of Obsession, such as Walid Shoebat.

• Christian Zionists: EMET also reaches out to Christians—or one should specify, Christian Zionists—by featuring Rev. James. M. Hutchens, who founded an organization called The Jerusalem Connection International.

There are many more connections to pro-Israel organizations responsible for the distribution of Obsession:
• The producer, Raphael Shore, used Karyn Leffel from Hasbara Fellowship to establish links on college campuses. Yes, the same Hasbara of Pro-Israel media advocacy.
• The producers of Obsession also worked with the most lunatic fringes of the Christian evangelical movement to distribute their propaganda. This included above all else Christians United For Israel (CUFI), who mailed out many copies of the DVD from their mailing center. And the Founder and National Director of Christians United For Israel? None other than the same pastor John Hagee that McCain had initially sought an endorsement from. The same John Hagee who routinely describes Islam as evil, and sees the restoration of Israel as a necessary step towards the return of Christ. Hagee is one of the leading Christian Zionists in America today, and those who know about the tortured history of this variety of Zionism know how easily it has veered towards anti-Semitism, even justifying Hitler as being God’s hunters to drive Jews out of Europe to Israel, so that the Israeli state could be established (thus anticipating Christ’s return).
• Clarion Fund has also worked with other Republican groups to distribute their propaganda. NPR reported that a political consultant named Joe Wierzbicki was screening the film on 9/11 in Dearborn, MI. Who is paying for the screening and hiring Wierzbicki? Interestingly enough, Wierzbicki is the PAC coordinator for an organization called "Our Country Deserves Better", with one specific goal: to defeat Barack Obama. Their website states: "Our Country Deserves Better than Barack Obama - and with your help we can ensure that Barack Obama is defeated on November 4th."

The lines of connection between the makers of the allegedly impartial and non-profit Obsession and politically partial Republican groups and pro-Israeli expansionist Jewish organizations continues to grow…

• The last of the verified connections so far is between the producers of Obsession and the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC). The RJC worked hand in hand with Christians United For Israel to mail out copies of a book titled Standing With Israel to a large number of American Rabbis and leaders of the Jewish community. The package also included a copy of the Obsession DVD, and an approving letter from a former Israeli ambassador to Jews, encouraging them to strengthen connections with Christian Zionists.

The Republican Jewish Coalition is yet another group that the Clarion Fund and the Endowment for Middle Eastern Truth has worked which has taken a partial political position for the forthcoming election. On their website, the Republican Jewish Coalition states that Barack Obama and Joe Biden and their supporters "have handed Ahmadenijad [sic] a big win."

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Islam or Radical Islam?

Perhaps a word should be added here about the distinction between Islam and Radical Islam. In the last few years, we have indeed seen a number of terrorist acts around the world which have resulted in the death of thousands. While the bulk of these have not emanated from Islamic organizations, many have. (Of course the majority of the victims of acts of terrorism even in these latter cases have been other Muslims.) No doubt, a critical look at the ideology of terrorist groups is more than called for in today’s political climate. What many would object to, however, is painting all Muslims and all of Islam with the same brush.

The Obsession DVD opens by making a sharp distinction between Islam and Radical Islam. The producers of the documentary state, adamantly, that they are not anti-islam or anti-Muslim, but that they are only against "Radical Islam." Leaving aside for a moment the debates over what constitutes "radical Islam", and how pervasive it actually is, there is an uncomfortable disconnect between this claim on their website and the claims made inside the DVD: the people paraded as would-be experts do not in fact share this neat dichotomy between Islam and "Radical Islam." The many speakers paraded here have a documented history of making blanket statements against Islam—all of Islam—and all of Muslims.

Let’s take one example, the very first speaker shown on camera: Walid Shoebat.

Shoebat’s claim to fame is that he claims to be an ex-"Islamic terrorist", turned Christian and lover of Zion. If he claims to have produced bombs to kill citizens, why is he not in prison? Muslims are routinely jailed for much less and indirect accusations. Nevertheless, let us examine Shoebat’s track record regarding some of his more audacious claims about Islam (not just "radical Islam"):

• That Obama is a Muslim. Yes, that old myth again. Sadly, some 13% of American citizens believe this to the case, in spite of the fact that Obama is a committed Christian. Who knows how many more people are moved against Obama due to this rumor, which both Hillary and the Republicans have spread against him.

• "The Arabic speaking communities in America, however, do indeed support Osama bin Ladin and Hamas." [For some reason, Afghans and Iranians do not, he states.] Shoebat goes on to say: "The less they know about Islam the more peaceful they are." In other words, the Islamophobic assertions that peaceful Muslims are not peaceful because of Islam, but in spite of Islam; where as "radical Muslims" are precisely radical and violent because of Islam. Something about that logic seems flawed, since it deprives human beings of the agency to actually interpret their own tradition in both beautiful and hideous ways.

• He has been even more forceful in asserting that Islam is evil. His exact words: "Islam is not the religion of God -- Islam is the devil." Let us be explicit here: The Obsession DVD claims that it is not targeting Islam, it is targeting "Radical Islam." The first person featured in the DVD sings a different tune, literally demonizing all of Islam.

• Shoebat’s solution to Palestine/Israel, as told to the right-wing "Religious Zionist" Israel National News (the voice of the illegal Settler movement in West Bank and Gaza) is as follows: tear down the Dome of the Rock, and reestablish the Solomon’s Temple on the Temple Mount. The Settler radio embraced him as "the former terrorist turned lover of Zion." The question is whether this is the kind of person that one should take impartial advice from. It makes as much sense as taking advice about Judaism or African-American history from David Duke.

For one other example, we could look at another of the talking heads in the documentary, the Lebanese Christian Brigitte Gabriel, who appeared before the Christians United For Israel conference on July 27th 2007 (sponsored by Pastor Hagee) and opined:

The difference, my dear Christian friends, between Israel and the Arab world is quite simply the difference between civilization and barbarism. It’s the difference between good and evil and this is what we’re witnessing in the Arabic and Islamic world. I am angry. They have no SOUL! They are dead set on killing and destruction. And in the name of something they call "Allah," which is very different from the God we believe in, because our God is the God of love.
No fair-minded person would take Gabriel’s hateful words as authoritative teachings of the Christian tradition, or as exemplifying Christian love. And yet the producers of Obsession want the viewers to take Gabriel as an authoritative expert on Islam and Muslims. Somehow when Gabriel describes the whole "Islamic world" as having "no soul", I suspect that we are no longer in the realm of "we are not talking about Islam, we are talking about Islamic radicals" position that the producers of Obsession hide behind. No wonder that the NY Times described her as a "radical Islamophobe."

Christ reminded us that by their fruits (and words) you shall know them. And the words of these hate-filled so-called experts speak for themselves.

Conclusion

The massive scale of the Obsession campaign raises a number of disturbing questions: it does point to the ease with which foreign groups from Israel have established non-profit organizations in the United States to sway US elections by working with fringe from the pro-Israel lobby, Republican, and Evangelical community. While their ideology is marginal, their wealth and influence is anything but marginal. Non-profit organizations seeking to exert a political influence is not illegal, but non-profits seeking to endorse political candidates and swaying elections is, and this is precisely what the network behind the Obsession DVD seeks to do.

The "Obsession Project" also does point to the eroding standards of journalism. Why has mainstream American journalism been so slow to pick up on these networks, all of which are publicly available, with some investigation?

The Obsession Project also points to the ever-increasingly poisonous political climate in our country, where demonizing an entire ethnic or religious community seems to be becoming more and more commonplace. We have seen African-Americans, Hispanic, Muslims, Gays and Lesbians, and others characterized in such a fashion. Perhaps no community in the West has been the victims of millennia-long persecution and "Other-ing" campaigns as has the Jewish community. That makes it all the more devastating, and disappointing, that centrally-situated and powerful Jewish organizations from both Israel and the United States are now deploying the same Other-ing strategies against other minority groups, with hardly a voice of dissent being heard from other Jewish organizations. Indeed, Obsession is already tearing down bridges of dialogue between Muslim and Jewish groups across the country that had taken years to establish.

It is readily admitted that Israel remains both a rallying cry and a source of tension for many American Jewish organizations and American Jews. There are important fissures in the American Jewish community over all issues, including that of Israel. No one group speaks for all American Jews, who have often had an exemplary legacy of peace and justice activism. Indeed, one can point to many American Jews who have taken the lead in criticism of Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians. One important question that has yet to be answered is whether propaganda like Obsession will be met with silence by the Jewish community, or if it will be spoken against by all (Muslims, Jews, Christians, etc.) who are committed to peace and social justice.

Lastly, we do note from historical experience that campaigns like this tend to increasingly lower the bar of what is acceptable speech as opposed to "hate speech." Make no mistake about it: there will be follow up projects. The Clarion Fund has already declared that its next project is a documentary titled The Third Jihad. The synopsis is as follows: "How is radical Islam operating inside the West? Is a subversive 'cultural jihad’ underway? How does radical Islam plan to bring America to its knees? What is the endgame?" This documentary is set for an October 2008 release date. In other words, if Obsession was about the danger of Radical Islam "over there", Third Jihad will make the case that this same threat exists "over here." One shudders at the thought of the hate these pieces of propaganda are producing against members of the American Muslim community.

We can either keep going down this slippery slope of accusations and blanket generalizations, or we can bond together and rise up to say Enough! The point is not only that Muslims are being targeted, it is the very poisoning of our cultural discourse, and our hopes for a pluralistic American society that can welcome and embrace pluralism. To quote Martin Luther King, "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars." What we need now is less of the hateful heat of Obsession (and its networks), and more light from all of us who are committed to a just and pluralistic future for all of us.

Towards that day, starting today….

Omid Safi
Professor of Religious Studies
University of North Carolina

Chair for the Study of Islam Section
American Academy of Religion*

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