Muslim Heretics Conference

Daniel Pipes’ Witch Hunt at a Public School

In September 2007, the Khalil Gibran International Academy, named for the noted Lebanese Christian poet, became the country’s first public school focused on Arabic language and culture.
According to the New York Department of Education (Brooklyn Eagle, 7/30/07) the school was using “the same curriculum packages as other New York City public schools,” and the chancellor of schools emphasized (Christian Science Monitor, 6/1/07) that its curriculum would be subject to departmental monitoring as with any other public school.
In short, according to New York schools chancellor Joel Klein, it was not so different from the 60-plus other dual language schools already operating in New York.
However, months before it opened its doors in Brooklyn, N.Y. the school came under fire from detractors who preemptively accused it of “imbuing pan-Arabism and anti-Zionism, proselytizing for Islam, and promoting Islamist sympathies” (New York Sun, 4/24/07). Charges were led by the New York Sun and its writer Daniel Pipes, a conservative Mideast historian who runs the Middle East Forum and Campus Watch.
Pipes sits on the advisory board of the Stop the Madrassa Coalition (New York Times, 4/28/08), created, according to the coalition’s blog (4/29/08), to end the “’soft jihad’…infiltrating our schools.” Although “madrassa” is Arabic for “school,” KGIA opponents used it to mean “a religious school” that would “impose a radical Islamic agenda in its classrooms” (CNN, 9/4/07).
Pipes has long argued that “Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage” (New York Sun, 4/24/07), and fellow Sun writer Alicia Colon wrote (5/1/07) that this “pandering to multiculturalism” must have “delighted Osama bin Laden.” She then called on her readers to “break out the torches and surround City Hall to stop this monstrosity.”
Special abuse was reserved for Debbie Almontaser, the school’s main founder who was also chosen to be its first principal. A prominent member of New York’s Arab-American community, Almontaser earned praise for her work forging interfaith and interethnic alliances (New York Times, 4/28/08), but that history was omitted when right-wing media painted her as “a classic ’stealth Islamist’” (Weekly Standard, 4/11/08) with “an Islamist/leftist agenda” (Pipe Line News, 4/19/07).
Almontaser was further characterized by Pipes (New York Sun, 4/28/07) as a September 11 apologist in connection to her statement, “I don’t recognize the people who committed the attacks as either Arabs or Muslims.” Pipes failed to include Almontaser’s following sentence (New York Times, 8/29/07): “Those people who did it have stolen my identity as an Arab and stolen my religion.”
Attacks on Almontaser intensified after the New York Post reported (8/6/07) that she had “downplayed the significance” of a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Intifada NYC.” The shirt was produced by the group Arab Women Active in Art and Media, a youth media group that shares office space with an organization on whose advisory board Almontaser sits. When asked about the word “intifada,” Almontaser explained to the Post that it literally means a “shaking off,” as of oppression, and that she doubted the girls were attempting to incite violence.
The Post began its article: “Activists with ties to the principal…are hawking T-shirts that glorify Palestinian terror,” and the following day (8/7/07) concluded that “the hijab-wearing principal…has issued a fatwa against the kids of New York.” “Why would this principal defend T-shirts celebrating a Palestinian uprising that has seen suicide bombers killing hundreds and hundreds of innocent Jews?” asked Rich Lowry, guest host on Hannity & Colmes (Fox News Channel, 8/10/07).
In August 2007, as a result of the media onslaught, Almontaser resigned. She has subsequently said that she was forced to do so and is now suing the city of New York. The case is still pending, but in a ruling that denied her request to prevent the Department of Education from hiring a new principal, Judge Jon O. Newman concluded (New York Times, 4/28/08): “This was a situation where she was subject to sanction not for anything she said, not for anything she did, but because a newspaper reporter twisted what she said, and the result of it was negative press for the city and the Board of Ed.”

Case Studies - Daniel Pipes’ Witch Hunt at a Public School

Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear, Bigotry and Misinformation”

In the last few weeks, 28 million copies of a DVD titled Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West have been distributed in key battleground states. The film features graphic, violent images and makes comparisons of Islam to Nazism. The DVD comes amidst concerns of increasing levels of ethnic and religious bias in US politics and the stoking of Islamophobia. We speak to Ibrahim Cooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and Isabel Macdonald of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, co-author of the new report “Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear, Bigotry and Misinformation.” [includes rush transcript]

Guests:

Isabel Macdonald, communications director at FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), and the co-author of FAIR’s new report “Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear, Bigotry and Misinformation.”

Ibrahim Hooper, National Communications Director for the Council on American-Islamic relations.

Rush Transcript

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• FAIR’s Report, “Smearcasting”
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JUAN GONZALEZ: John McCain has been widely praised for correcting a supporter at a campaign rally last week in Minnesota.

McCAIN SUPPORTER: I got to ask you a question. I do not believe in—I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him, and he’s not—he’s not—he’s an Arab. He is not—

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: No, ma’am. No, ma’am.

McCAIN SUPPORTER: No?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: No, ma’am. No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that’s what this campaign is all about. He is not. Thank you.

JUAN GONZALEZ: McCain was correct in telling the woman that Obama was not an Arab, but his response suggested that being called an Arab was itself a smear. The incident has raised concerns about increasing levels of ethnic and religious bias in US politics and the stoking of Islamophobia.

In the last few weeks, 28 million copies of a DVD titled Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West have been distributed as an advertising supplement in newspapers in key battleground states. It was paid for by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group established by the film’s Israeli producer with the goal of exposing what it calls the threat of radical Islam. The hour-long film features graphic, violent images and makes comparisons of Islam to Nazism.

NONIE DARWISH: The propaganda of Islam is very similar to the propaganda of Nazism. It’s the same hate speech, paranoia, and us against them.

WALID SHOEBAT: Secular dogma like Nazism is less dangerous than this Islamofascism that we see today. It’s less dangerous, because Islamofascism has a religious twist to it. It says God the Almighty ordered me to do this, not the Fuhrer, you know? So, it is way more dangerous. It’s trying to grow itself in fifty-five Muslim states. So, potentially, you could have a success rate of several Nazi Germanys.

JOHN LOFTUS: They’ve been very clear about it. They’re the same as Hitler’s goals, you know? Kill all the Jews, crush the democracies, destroy Western civilization.

ROBERT WISTRICH: They wish to strike down the West.

KHALED ABU TOAMEH: They want to defeat the West. They want to defeat Christianity. They want to defeat Judaism.

ALFONS HECK: If you recognize the danger and you don’t do anything about it, you are risking your demise.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the film Obsession. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, has filed complaints with the IRS and Federal Elections Commission, saying Clarion Fund has violated its tax-exempt status by distributing the film.

Ibrahim Hooper is the national communications director for CAIR. He joins us in Washington, D.C. And joining us here is Isabel Macdonald. She is the spokesperson for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, or FAIR, co-author of the new report “Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear, Bigotry and Misinformation.”

Before we go to this DVD that has been distributed to millions of people, almost 30 million people, I wanted to ask you, Ibrahim Hooper, about your response to McCain’s response to the person at his rally. He was widely hailed for finally cracking down on what people were saying at his rallies. What were your thoughts?

IBRAHIM HOOPER: Well, it’s a kind of a disturbing phenomenon that being called an Arab or a Muslim has now become a smear that has to be refuted. When she said, “Oh, he is an Arab”—“No, no, no, ma’am, he’s a decent person.” Well, I think you can be Arab, I think you can be Muslim, and still be a decent person, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: And how did that fit into your report, Isabel Macdonald, what we saw there at that rally?

ISABEL MACDONALD: Well, it definitely fits into a pattern by which we’ve seen the US media treating rumors that Obama is a Muslim as a smear. This stands in marked contrast to how the US press covered a very similar case in Poland in an election in 1990, in which the incumbent prime minister of Poland was rumored to be secretly a Jew, so just as we’re seeing now a campaign online, through talk radio, painting Obama as a Muslim. And obviously this bigotry is often based on ignorance, and so it gets confused with him being an Arab, as well. And I think that anti-Arab racism is a distinct thing that often overlaps with Islamophobia in the media. But in Poland, the way we saw the US media respond was to talk about what this whisper campaign said about the state of anti-Semitism in Poland. And we had the Washington Post weighing in—

IBRAHIM HOOPER: That’s a very good point.

ISABEL MACDONALD: The Washington—

IBRAHIM HOOPER: It’s a very—

AMY GOODMAN: Ibrahim Hooper, just one second. Then we’re going to go to you.

IBRAHIM HOOPER: Alright, sure.

ISABEL MACDONALD: We had the Washington Post talking about what a problem this posed for democracy, that in this election, there was all this talk about how a candidate was suspected of secretly being a Jew, and this was turning—was being reported to turn voters off of voting for that candidate. And it was covered as a story about anti-Semitism in the US media.

In the case of the rumor campaign against Barack Obama, labeling him a Muslim—and we now know that this was started, the person who’s taking credit for it, is a known anti-Semite who had run for office in Connecticut on a platform opposing “Jew power” in America.

AMY GOODMAN: Who?

ISABEL MACDONALD: His name is—

IBRAHIM HOOPER: Andy Martin.

ISABEL MACDONALD: Andy Martin. Andy Martin. Sorry, I just forgot it for a moment. And so, a known anti-Semite starting a whisper campaign about Obama being a Muslim, and all the American press can talk about is the fact that Obama is being smeared, not about the fact that a huge swath of humanity is being smeared in this election.

ISAMY GOODMAN: Ibrahim Hooper?

IBRAHIM HOOPER: Yeah, it’s a very good point. The arguments used to attack Islam and Muslims in America are the same arguments that anti-Semites used in pre-World War II Nazi Germany to attack the Jewish community, you know, that all Muslims want to take over America, they want to impose their culture on us, they want to destroy the indigenous culture, they want even to lust after, you know, women of other cultures. It’s the same argumentation that is used in anti-Semitism that’s used in Islamophobia.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Ibrahim Hooper, a lot of this takes on an aspect of the Crusades again. You often hear John McCain talking about the great threat of Islamofascism that America confronts. And this video, for example, it has almost a crusade, religious crusade, mentality to it.

IBRAHIM HOOPER: Yeah. You end up with a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you project to the rest of the world that somehow you’re in conflict with the faith of Islam, there are going to be those people in the Muslim world who say, well, I’ve got to stand up for Islam and do something. You know, so the whole idea of the conflict of civilizations is self-perpetuating.

And we need to get back to a situation where people talk to each other, they enter into dialogue. Even the King of Saudi Arabia recently held two sessions of interfaith dialogue, and I attended both of them, one in Mecca itself and another in Spain, brought in Christian, Muslim, Jewish leaders, Hindu leaders, Zoroastrian, all these religious leaders, to enter into dialogue to try and decrease this notion of the clash of civilizations.

AMY GOODMAN: Ibrahim Hooper, very quickly, talk about how this film Obsession was distributed to tens of millions of people. I mean, I understand although a few papers refused to put it in its pages, the DVD, about seventy, including the New York Times, distributed it on grounds that rejecting it would violate the sponsors’ right to free speech.

IBRAHIM HOOPER: Well, I have a feeling it was more on the grounds that ad revenues are going down and they need an infusion of cash. But, yeah, it’s a tremendous campaign. It’s unbelievable in its magnitude. We’re talking 28 million households, plus mailings, plus automated phone that are going to people in these swing states, saying, “We just sent you a DVD. Watch it and remember it when you go into the voting booth.” So it’s obvious they were trying to influence the presidential election by sending to only key swing states around the country.

And we still don’t know who’s behind this. The Clarion Fund, that claimed to distribute this, is really just a virtual organization. It appears to be a front for a group based in Israel called Aish HaTorah. They share—they shared offices, they shared personnel, and they’re refusing to say who is paying for this, that’s got to be a minimum $50 million campaign.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And you have filed a complaint with the IRS against the Clarion Fund?

IBRAHIM HOOPER: Yes, we filed an FEC complaint, because we feel it’s inappropriate for them to use their nonprofit status to try and influence a presidential election, and the same with the IRS, that they’re abusing their nonprofit status in undertaking this kind of campaign. We haven’t heard any results, but we’re hopeful.

AMY GOODMAN: Isabel Macdonald, this new FAIR report that you’ve come out with, who are the smearcasters?

ISABEL MACDONALD: We basically identify the top twelve smearcasters, on the basis of the reach of Islamophobes with a platform in the national media who have done most to contribute to a rising trend in Islamophobia that we’ve seen in recent years.

Now, the reason that we did the study is that what we’ve seen in recent years is quite shocking in this country. Just last year, the National Book Critics awarded for one of the highest literary prizes in this country—nominated for this award an explicitly Islamophobic book: Ruth Bawer’s While Europe Slept. On the New York Times bestseller list, we’ve seen several Islamophobic books in recent years. And now, this DVD Obsession is being distributed by seventeen newspapers, including the New York Times, to 28 million swing state voters. And at the same time, on talk radio, on cable television, all over the internet, we see these vile torrents of Islamophobia.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Could you quickly give us the names of some of these top twelve?

AMY GOODMAN: We have twenty seconds.

ISABEL MACDONALD: Bill O’Reilly, who has called for the criminal profiling of young Muslims, he says it’s not racial profiling, it’s criminal profiling. Michael Savage, who has called for the killing of 100 million Muslims. Bill O’Reilly, again, who has explained violence in Iraq as a result of the fact that these are Muslims, they are doing what Muslims do—this is the words of Bill O’Reilly—they’re killing each other, and they’re killing Americans.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to link to your website fair.org. Isabel Macdonald, thank you for joining us; as well, Ibrahim Hooper, thank you for being here, from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Democracy Now! | “Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear, Bigotry and Misinformation”

As Barack Obama surges ahead in the polls, the message is clear: America is ready for a black president - as long as he isn’t Muslim.

There is no doubt that calling someone a Muslim is now considered a slur in American politics. The US media has reported on “accusations” that Obama might be a follower of Islam (a claim that 12% of voters believe), as if practising the religion was somehow a crime. The link has been reinforced by the idea that Obama may be hiding his true religion, as some terrified voters have assumed.

When a John McCain supporter at a recent rally said she didn’t trust Obama because he was an Arab, the senator replied: “No. He’s a decent family man.”

While pundits have expressed anxiety that the white electorate may feign support for Obama while secretly voting for a white candidate, no one is even bothering to pretend they would ever vote for a Muslim. Or even want a Muslim to vote for them.

Fatemah Fakhraie, who runs the feminist Muslim website Muslim Media Watch, says: “I certainly don’t think anyone is chasing the Muslim vote. Hearing the word Muslim used as a smear is very damaging. It’s damaging to know that people in my country, the country I was born and raised in, don’t view me as American. It’s alienating for many US Muslims to feel like they don’t belong in their own homes.”

Yet Muslims in America are not surprised, according to Sayyeda Mirza-Jafri, a philanthropy consultant from New York, and are not letting it shake their faith in Obama. “Most people think: let him distance himself from us,” she says. “It’s not because he’s insensitive to the way Muslims feel. It’s the way America is. There is just so much Islamophobia. We know he’s a moral, good man.”

Homa Khaleeli on Barack Obama and the slur of being called ‘muslim’ in US politics | World news | The Guardian

By PAUL SCHEMM Associated Press Writer
CAIRO, Egypt October 19, 2008 (AP)

Egyptian shop owners and passing Muslims perform afternoon prayers in front of their shops in…

Egyptian shop owners and passing Muslims perform afternoon prayers in front of their shops in downtown Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2008. Business grinding to a halt for daily prayers is not unusual in conservative Saudi Arabia, but until recently it was rare in the Egyptian capital. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

(AP)

The Muslim call to prayer fills the halls of a Cairo computer shopping center, followed immediately by the click of locking doors as the young, bearded tech salesmen close shop and line up in rows to pray.

Business grinding to a halt for daily prayers is not unusual in conservative Saudi Arabia, but until recently it was rare in the Egyptian capital, especially in affluent commercial districts like Mohandiseen, where the mall is located. But nearly the entire three-story mall is made up of computer stores run by Salafis, an ultraconservative Islamic movement that has grown dramatically across the Middle East in recent years.

“We all pray together,” said Yasser Mandi, a salesman at the Nour el-Hoda computer store. “When we know someone who is good and prays, we invite them to open a shop here in this mall.” Even the name of Mandi’s store is religious, meaning “Light of Guidance.”

Critics worry that the rise of Salafists in Egypt, as well as in other Arab countries such as Jordan and Lebanon, will crowd out the more liberal and tolerant version of Islam long practiced there. They also warn that the doctrine is only a few shades away from that of violent groups like al-Qaida — that it effectively preaches “Yes to jihad, just not now.”

In the broad spectrum of Islamic thought, Salafism is on the extreme conservative end. Saudi Arabia’s puritanical Wahhabi interpretation is considered its forerunner, and Saudi preachers on satellite TV and the Internet have been key to its Salafism’s spread.

Salafist groups are gaining in numbers and influence across the Middle East. In Jordan, a Salafist was chosen as head of the old-guard opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood. In Kuwait, Salafists were elected to parliament and are leading the resistance to any change they believe threatens traditional Islamic values.

The gains for Salafists are part of a trend of turning back to conservatism and religion after nationalism and democratic reform failed to fulfill promises to improve people’s lives. Egypt has been at the forefront of change in both directions, toward liberalization in the 1950s and ’60s and back to conservatism more recently.

The growth of Salafism is visible in dress. In many parts of Cairo women wear the “niqab,” a veil which shows at most the eyes rather than the “hijab” scarf that merely covers the hair. The men grow their beards long and often shave off mustaches, a style said to imitate the Prophet Muhammad.

The word “salafi” in Arabic means “ancestor,” harking back to a supposedly purer form of Islam said to have been practiced by Muhammad and his companions in the 7th century. Salafism preaches strict segregation of the sexes and resists any innovation in religion or adoption of Western ways seen as immoral.

“When you are filled with stress and uncertainty, black and white is very good, it’s very easy to manage,” said Selma Cook, an Australian convert to Islam who for more than a decade described herself as a Salafi.

“They want to make sure everything is authentic,” said Cook, who has moved away from Salafist thought but still works for Hoda, a Cairo-based Salafi satellite channel.

In most of the region, Salafism has been a purely social movement calling for an ultraconservative lifestyle. Most Salafis shun politics — in fact, many argue that Islamic parties like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinians’ Hamas are too willing to compromise their religion for political gain.

Its preachers often glorify martyrdom and jihad — or holy war — but always with the caveat that Muslims should not launch jihad until their leaders call for it. The idea is that the decision to overturn the political order is up to God, not the average citizen.

But critics warn that Salafis could easily slide into violence. In North Africa, some already have — the Algerian Salafi Group for Call and Combat has allied itself with al-Qaida and is blamed for bombings and other attacks. Small pockets of Salafis in northern Lebanon and Gaza have also taken up weapons and formed jihadi-style groups.

“I am afraid that this Salafism may be transferred to be a jihadi Salafism, especially with the current hard socio-economic conditions in Egypt,” says Khalil El-Anani, a visiting scholar at Washington’s Brookings Institution.

The Salafi way contrasts with the Islam long practiced in Egypt. Here the population is religious but with a relatively liberal slant. Traditionally, Egyptian men and women mix rather freely and Islamic doctrine has been influenced by local, traditional practices and an easygoing attitude to moral foibles.

But Salafism has proved highly adaptable, appealing to Egypt’s wealthy businessmen, the middle class and even the urban poor — cutting across class in an otherwise rigidly hierarchical society.

In Cairo’s wealthy enclaves of Maadi and Nasr City, robed, upper-class Salafis drive BMWs to their engineering firms, while their wives stay inside large homes surrounded by servants and children.

Sara Soliman and her businessman husband, Ahmed el-Shafei, both received the best education Egypt had to offer, first at a German-run school, then at the elite American University in Cairo. But they have now chosen the Salafi path.

“We were losing our identity. Our identity is Islamic,” 27-year-old Soliman said from behind an all-covering black niqab as she sat with her husband in a Maadi restaurant.

“In our (social) class, none of us are brought up to be strongly practicing,” added el-Shafei, also 27, in American-accented English, a legacy of a U.S. boyhood. Now, he and his wife said, they live Islam as “a whole way of life,” rather than just a set of obligations such as daily prayers and fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.

A dozen satellite TV channels, most Saudi-funded, are perhaps Salafism’s most effective vehicle. They feature conservative preachers, call-in advice shows and discussion programs on proper Islamic behavior.

Cairo’s many Salafist mosques are packed on Fridays. Outside Shaeriyah mosque, a bookstall featured dozens of cassettes by Mohammed Hasaan, a prolific conservative preacher who sermonizes on the necessity of jihad and the injustices inflicted on Muslims.

Alongside the cassettes, a book titled “The Sinful Behaviors of Women” displayed lipstick, playing cards, perfumes and cell phones on the cover. Another was titled “The Excesses of American Hubris.”

Critics of Salafism say it has spread so quickly in part because the Egyptian and Saudi governments encouraged it as an apolitical, nonviolent alternative to hard-line jihadi groups.

These critics warn that the governments are playing with fire — that Salafism creates an environment that breeds extremism. Al-Qaida continues to try to draw Salafists into jihad, and its No. 2, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri, praised Salafists in an Internet statement in April, urging them to take up arms.

“The Salafi line is not that jihad is not a good thing, it is just not a good thing right now,” said Richard Gauvain, a lecturer in comparative religion at the American University in Cairo.

The Salafis’ talk of eventual jihad focuses on fighting Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, not on overthrowing pro-U.S. Arab governments denounced by al-Qaida. Most Salafi clerics preach loyalty to their countries’ rulers and some sharply denounce al-Qaida.

Egypt, with Saudi help, sought to rehabilitate jailed Islamic militants, in part by providing them with Salafi books. Critics say President Hosni Mubarak’s government sees the Salafists as a counterweight to the opposition Muslim Brotherhood.

The political quietism of the Salafis and their injunctions to always obey the ruler are too good an opportunity for established Arab rulers to pass up, said novelist Alaa Aswani, one of the most prominent critics of rising conservatism in Egypt.

“That was a kind of Christmas present for the dictators because now they can rule with both the army and the religion,” he said.

The new wave of conservatism is not inevitable, Aswani maintains, noting that his books — including his most popular, “The Yacoubian Building” — have risque themes and condemnations of conservatives, and yet are best-sellers in Egypt.

“The battle is not over, because Egypt is too big to be fitting in this very, very little, very small vision of a religion,” he said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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ABC News: Ultraconservative Islam on Rise in Mideast