Category Archives: Islam

Robert Spencer: In Iraq, pope views mosques and churches destroyed by the Islamic State, laments ‘our cruelty’ 4 (1)

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by Robert Spencer

The pope was making a theological point, that all human beings are sinful, and that this destruction is a manifestation of that sinfulness. But it is also noteworthy that he ascribed the destruction he saw to all of humanity, and decried nations that sell weapons, but never said a word about why the ruined buildings he saw were destroyed in the first place. The Islamic State destroyed mosques because the people who attended them did not accept their authority, and were thus apostates in rebellion against the caliphate. It destroyed churches because they were places of unbelief (see Qur’an 5:17, 9:30, etc.) and shirk, the association of partners with Allah in worship. But there was never any possibility that the pope might ask the assembled Muslim leaders to fight against jihad violence and teach their people to refrain from jihad violence. After all, the pope has committed himself and the Catholic Church to the proposition that Islam is peaceful and has nothing to do with terrorism, so as far as he was concerned, there was nothing for him to ask the Muslim leaders about. And that rendered the trip a useless and indeed counterproductive exercise.

“Pope Francis dismisses ‘heresy’ charges for his commitment to Christian-Muslim dialogue,” by Claire Giangravé, Religion News Service, March 8, 2021:

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Aboard the papal flight back from Iraq, the first papal trip since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Pope Francis addressed criticism of those who have accused him of being “one step away from heresy” in his commitment to promoting human fraternity among the world’s faiths.

“There are some critics who say the pope is not brave but reckless, that he’s taking steps against Catholic doctrine, that he’s one step from heresy,” the pope told journalists on Monday (March 8).

Francis said that his decision to speak with Muslim religious leaders and promote interreligious dialogue is “always made in prayer, in dialogue, asking for advice.” He said that his efforts to mend Christian-Muslim relations, far from being “capricious,” are in keeping with the doctrine laid out by the Second Vatican Council….

On Saturday (March 6), the pope met in Najaf, a holy city to Shia Muslims, with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most prominent Shiite leader. The historic meeting, which lasted roughly 45 minutes, was the first official meeting between a pope and a prominent Shiite representative.

The pope described al-Sistani as “a humble man” who has “wisdom and prudence,” adding that “it was good for my soul to encounter him.” Francis said the meeting was “a duty in his pilgrimage of faith” to promote human fraternity among religions….

It was the tragic decimation of the Yazidi ethnic community by the Islamic State group following the 2014 occupation of Northern Iraq that inspired the pope to make the trip, he said. The book “The Last Girl” by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Nadia Murad, which described the suffering of the Yazidi people, “provided the background for the decision,” he said.

On Sunday (March 7), Francis viewed the ruins of mosques and churches in Mosul, the capital of the Islamic State during the occupation. He said he “had no words” after seeing the scale of destruction. “Human cruelty, our cruelty, is impossible to believe,” he added.

The pope also criticized those nations selling weapons, though he didn’t single out any particular country….

Among the topics addressed by the pope during the trip was the question of the suffering of immigrants, which has been a main focus of this pontificate. Francis met with the father of a 3-year-old boy who died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea. The picture of Alan Kurdi’s body became a symbol of the plight of immigrants and refugees in Europe and beyond….

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. 

John Kachelman, Jr.: Civilization’s Tragic Redundancy 4.5 (2)

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by John Kachelman, Jr.

Even the briefest survey of man’s civilization highlights a redundancy of the “rise and fall” of world Empires. History validates that many World Powers rested securely because they possessed the most modern weaponry, astute military strategists, astonishing engineering feats, renowned politicians and a worldwide economy. But the unimagined occurred…the World Power lost its power.

There is one historical constant—a nation ascends to the apex of the world’s power. Its economy is the desire of all, its strength is envied and it presents the promise that if any can live within its borders then all problems will vanish. However, this constant has an ominous corollary—with every “rise” comes a “fall.” National greatness is fragile. Many great Empires have been erased and shuffled to obscurity (i.e. the Hittite Empire). National greatness celebrated by one generation can be surrendered by the next generation.

The history of civilization validates the troubling fact that nations focused on self are destined for the dust bins of history. The very instant that the national attention is turned toward personal gratification and moral standards are ignored, a decay of that nation begins. Consequently, all of their great accomplishments (politically, economically, militarily and religiously) become a tragic footnote in the evolving chronicle of earth’s history.

There is only ONE absolute means for total security of a nation. That security is a national adherence to and willing consent with the Almighty God’s directions. “Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He has chosen as His heritage” (Psalm 33:12).

The tragic redundancy of civilization’s rise and fall is being repeated in our “modern” era. The record of the sociological movement of the world (and particularly our nation) traces a number of events that have decimated the God-ordained family unit, erased the morality and ethos of civil behavior, and repudiated the necessary trust for divine strength and protection. An observable move away from a focus on the Lord God Almighty of the Bible and toward mortal knowledge has been recorded. Personally, I think the movement possibly began with the repudiation of God and the supernatural at the turn on the 18th Century. This rejection of God became evident with World War 1. The aftermath of the Great War brought sociological shifts of unimagined damage to those seeking “freedom” from God.

The current Presidential election is a cultural war that will decide the fate of the United States of America. After November 3, 2020, Americans will see either the total “transformation” of our nation or the opportunity of the citizenry to reclaim the “greatness” that characterizes the “exceptionalism” of America. I believe this is a valid point that many ignore.

Today’s cultural war has been highlighted with specificity in the comments of the presumed Democratic Presidential candidate—Joe Biden. Biden, and the Democratic Party, proposes a number of disastrous promises. The final form of the Democratic platform of the campaign is yet to be released but we are given strong hints as to their real objectives. This article highlights perhaps the most destructive objective of the Democratic Party.

I recall in public high school homeroom every day we would stand and face the flag of the United States of America place our hands over our hearts and recite the pledge of ALLEGIANCE to this nation. Then we would be seated as a classmate would select his/her favorite biblical text, go to the front of the class and read that text from a Bible that was always openly displayed on the teacher’s desk. The daily Bible readings were simply scheduled—we would go down the desk rows and each day the reading would be given and the next sitting in the row would be expected to come to homeroom with his/her Bible reading ready. After the Bible reading the homeroom teacher would lead the entire class in the Lord’s Prayer. In this fashion, the public educational system reminded pupils of our heritage of faith and their required fidelity to uphold elementary civics.

But, in 1962 the United States Supreme Court held, in Engel v. Vitale, that it was unconstitutional for students to be required to recite official prayers in the public schools. That ruling slowly disseminated until today it is impossible to mention basic Judeo-Christian beliefs or profess allegiance to our nation’s Constitution.

This heinous development is now highlighted by the Democratic Party’s presumed Presidential candidate.
Monday 20 July 2020 Joe Biden spoke to the Million Muslim Votes Summit. On a video call with Sharia law advocate and radical Islamic activist Linda Sarsour, Biden said, “If I have the honor of being president, I will end the Muslim ban on day one, day one.”

Adding to this flagrant repudiation of America’s basic foundations, Biden said that American children should be taught more about Islam in schools. “One of the things I think is important, I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith.”

Biden continued praising Islam: “Hadith from the Prophet Muhammad instructs, ‘Whomever among you sees a wrong, let him change it with his hand. If he is not able, then with his tongue. If he is not able, then with his heart.'” Muhammad, the founder of Islam owned slaves, partook in the slave trade, viewed women as a possession on the same level as a camel, commanded terror and ruthlessness toward any one not a Muslim. And these evils are now simply redefined as actions of the Islamic “heart.”

Joe Biden’s stated position is clear: “I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith.”
The United States of America was founded upon the principles enunciated by the Lord God Almighty—Jehovah of the Bible. NOT by the angry Allah of Islam who delights in blood, gore and oppression.

How benevolent is this Islamic religion which Joe Biden wishes to upon our public schools? It is a religion marked by terror, hatred, bloodshed, bigotry, cruelty, arrogance, and all other evil attitudes and actions of Satan. It has stood against every humane principle upon which our great nation was founded.

Recently the Daily Caller News Foundation published an article with this title: “Islamic school tortures and chains kids between 2 and 10 years old, Children finally free form horrific nightmare” (July 22, 2020). It reported an incident in Nigeria. I have experience in Nigeria and specifically with the Boko Harem. Dealing with Islam always involves conflict just as reported in this article. Fifteen children were freed after being held and tortured at an informal Koran school in Nigeria. The children were found with scars and wounds, indicating they were tortured. Three chains used to tie the children’s legs were recovered. The children’s ages ranged between two and ten. Unregulated Islamic schools are common in Nigeria and often exposed for gross mistreatment of students.

Now, do YOU understand that this is the reality which Joe Biden, and the Democratic Party, seek to bring to the public schools of the USA? This is the coming reality of the Muslim objective in Michigan when the police are defunded and no law exists, THEN Sharia Law will be installed!

Joe Biden and the Democratic Party are delighted that public prayers to Jehovah God and the readings of the Bible are banned. They are delighted in contemplating the introduction, teaching and enforcement of Islamic Sharia Law! They blasphemously reject Jehovah God of the Bible and eagerly embrace Allah of the Koran!

God’s judgment will come upon our nation just as it has historically fallen upon any nation that rejects Him. The most modern weaponry, astute military strategists, astonishing engineering feats, renowned politicians and a worldwide economy cannot forestall this judgment! God’s prophet spoke to such a nation saying, “You are of no account, and your work amounts to nothing; he who chooses you is an abomination…Behold, all of them are false; their works are worthless. They are wind and emptiness” (The Bible, Isaiah 41:24, 29).

Note: John Kachelman, Jr. is a Christian patriot, preacher, and missionary for Jesus Christ to foreign countries. He lives in Montgomery, AL.

Bill Lockwood: Stealth Jihad and the Islamization of America 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Islam divides the entire world into two sectors: “Dar-al-Islam” (House of Islam) and “Dar-al-Harb” (House of War). The only countries that are considered to be at peace with Islam are those which enforce Shari’a Law. This is because Islam does not recognize the right of any other religion to exist. America at large is thus a part of the “House of War.”

World Domination

Muslim leaders world-wide have been bold and blatant that their efforts are toward an Islamic-dominated world. Iranian leader Ahmadenejad declared it (2006); Leading Muslim cleric in the UK Anjem Choudary insisted that the Muslim flag will one day “fly over the White House;” the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) chair Omar Ahmad confessed in 1998 that the Islamic goal is “to become dominant worldwide;” and the Muslim Brotherhood has given us “The Project”—a 100 year-plan to establish “Islamic government on earth.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, created in Egypt in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, claims to have more than 70 affiliated terrorist organizations throughout the world. It states that “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

Note that they define “jihad” for us. It involves “dying in the way of Allah.”

“Jihad” is the sacred obligation to impose Islam upon the entire world. This is not the creation of a few extremists or the hijacking of a peaceful religion by a handful of radicals. Jihad is mandated in the writings of the Quran, was practiced in bloody earnest by the false prophet Muhammad, and is overwhelmingly defined by classical theologians, jurists and traditionalists as a military concept of “waging war.”

According to the eminent scholar of Islamic history and culture at Princeton University, Bernard Lewis, the late Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton,
[the] term ‘jihad’ has usually been understood as meaning ‘to wage war.’ The great collection of hadith all contain a section devoted to jihad in which the military meaning predominates. …According to Muslim teaching, jihad is one of the basic commandments of the faith, an obligation imposed upon all Muslims by God, through revelation … It must continue until the whole world has either accepted the Islamic faith or submitted to the power of the Islamic state.

Students in public schools today learn the “5 Pillars of Islam” inclusive of prayer, alms, pilgrimage, and so forth. However, the instructional materials in our public schools normally do not include the 6th Pillar. Jihad is the 6th Pillar. So important was “Jihad” (Religious fighting for Allah) that Muhammad declared it the second most important deed in Islam. (Hadith by Bukhari, Vol. 1, no. 25).

Some Muslim clerics inform us that “jihad” can mean “inner struggle” as in a person who “struggles” for inner mastery over sin. This definition is “taqiyya”—or lying. Jihad, in the authoritative materials of Islam, uniformly means fighting for political mastery.

Muhammad himself stated that “The person who participates in Jihad (Holy Battles) for Allah’s cause and nothing compels him to do so except belief in Allah and His apostle, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to paradise (if he is killed.)” (Vol. 1:35).

Some Muslims may ignore jihad or disregard it—and we are glad they do– but it is certainly not defined in the authoritative Islamic texts as “inner struggle.” Further, this is not a matter of “interpretation”—but of either acceptance or rejection by Muslims.

It is very difficult for Christians to understand, but Islam is a militant movement which has as its primary aim not spiritual, but political goals. The ultimate purpose of Islam is the establishment by force of a worldwide Islamic state where Shari’a law is enforced.

Muslim Brotherhood

This brings us back to the Muslim Brotherhood. Their outlined strategies for western world takeover include the “appearance of moderation,” the “use of deception to mask good,” the “extensive usage of social networks,” and to “cultivate Islamist intellectual community;” “using Western institutions until they convert them into the service of Islam.”

Changing the laws of the United States is the primary target. Stealth Jihad. As Muslim Brotherhood leader Qaradowi stated, “jihad can be fought with the pen, then the sword.”

The great world-class scholar and former president John Quincy Adams warned America regarding Islam. His comment was that Muhammad had

poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. The essence of his doctrine was violence and lust: to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature. … Between these two religions [Islam and Christianity], a war of twelve hundred years has already waged. The war is yet flagrant … while the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motive to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.

Bill Lockwood: Islam, Christianity, and Roman Catholicism 0 (0)

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by Bill Lockwood

Julia Ioffe, writing in Foreignpolicy.com, makes a classic mistake in an article entitled “If Islam is a Religion of Violence, So Is Christianity” (6-14-2016). Apparently miffed that the general populace draws such conclusions as that “Islam is bad and Christianity is good” in the wake of mass shootings in America, Ioffe says it is a “hateful hypocrisy” to “single out Islam.”

She overtly blares out “I am tired of hearing, from Bill Maher and from Donald Trump, that Islam is inherently violent. “I am even more tired of hearing that Christianity is inherently peaceful.”

And how does she demonstrate that Christianity can be a “religion of violence”, and that Islam can be peaceful? She slogs through history, recent and ancient, to show atrocities committed by those who claimed to follow Christ, such as the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. On the other hand, she gives illustrations of peace-loving Muslims. “Islam, as it was practiced in medieval Span, was beautiful and peaceful, too.”

Since Ioffe’s investigative method is flawed, she erroneously concludes, “No religion is inherently peaceful or violent, nor is it inherently other than what its followers make it out to be.”

What About These Things?

While it is true that observers of religious people judge and asses the religion itself by the examples that people live before them, this does not explain the religion itself, nor the formative teachings of that religion. This methodology is about as thin as seeking to determine the official Democratic Party platform by asking Democrats on the street what are their feelings about the issues of the day.

This is clumsiness, to say the least. Many atheists have used this same flawed principle in defending atheism. Many atheists live admirable lives, they tell us. No argument here—but their morality does not derive from their atheism. It is bootlegged straight out of Christianity.

Severed branches of trees have enough sap left to keep the leaves green for a while. So also, atheists have enough “moral sap” leftover to keep them moral–but neither humanism nor atheism provide in and of themselves any moral substance.

This illustration now sets us up to examine Ioffe’s assertions.

Christianity

How should one assess a religious standard? How should one examine what that religion teaches? How can one determine what a religion “inherently is?” Ioffe condemns that Christianity can be violent. How so? She uses the illustration of Dylan Roof, who killed nine people in the middle of a Bible study in Charleston, S.C. but who declared allegiance to “the white supremacist cause” and “pointing to the Council of Conservative Citizens” which claims to “adhere to ‘Christian beliefs and values.’”

Christianity cannot be accurately assessed by examining people who did not live up to the standard set by Christ in the New Testament, regardless of the institutions to which they belong. The Lord Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, taught completely the opposite of what Roof practiced, including love your neighbor as yourself.

The same is true regarding the endless pointing to the Middle Age Roman Catholic Church and its atrocities, which Ioffe does in her article. She does this to point to bloodletting committed by Catholics in the “name of Christ.” She is not alone here—men such as Bill Maher do the same thing.

The American people need desperately to learn that the Roman Catholic Church is not a representative of Christ upon the earth, nor is it the church about which one reads on the pages of the New Testament, regardless of what the papacy asserts, and regardless of what name is invoked while perpetrating crime.

The Roman Catholic Church is the direct result of a brazen apostasy from the New Testament over the ages. Read the New Testament yourself and see that there is no pope, no papal infallibility, no Vatican State, no infant baptism, no baptism of desire, no baptism of blood, no rule of celibacy, no monasticism, no inherited sin, no immaculate conception, no bodily assumption of Mary, no praying to the saints, no rosary, no purgatory, no indulgences, no canonized saints, no veneration of saints, no sacraments, no lent, etc.

Official Roman Catechism’s and Encyclopedia’s admit that these doctrines “developed over the centuries.” The Roman Church through the ages simply adopted myriads of foreign doctrines, then wedded itself to a state apparatus and became a mixture of “church and state” which even sent armies into the field to shed blood on behalf of the Vatican!

Yet, this is what Ioffe uses to say that “Christianity” can be violent. It is interesting that journalists are supposed to go original sources. But not in this case. She wants us all to assess the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ by means of Rome. We are not so easily misled.

Islam

Here we come to something entirely different. Muslims as a group, behave in different ways, depending upon how many of them occupy a territory or nation. As percentages to population rises, so does violence. Why is this? Once again—go back to the original source, Ioffe. What do you find?

The one perfect Muslim was Mohammed. What did he do? How did he behave? Multiple verses in the Koran command the use of the sword (Surah 9:5; 9:73; 47:4, etc.). Islam, in its inception, waged war on all who did not accept Allah and Mohammed as his prophet. Mohammed was a war-lord of the Middle Ages style who led his followers in numerous battles. Violence is not an “apostasy” from a peace-loving Mohammed, but an imitation of him and his “inspired” commands from Allah.

When Mohammed died, not one person on the entire peninsula of Arabia disagreed with the man. This is not explained on the basis of freedom. His dying words were to carry on to “fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of truth (even if they are) the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (Surah 9:29).

Note the choices the founder of Islam gives to conquered peoples. One, Accept Islam. Two, pay the jizya (poll-tax on non-Muslims). This is the cornerstone of the entire system of humiliating regulations that institutionalize inferior status for non-Muslims in Islamic law. Three, prepare to war with Muslims.

Peaceful co-existence in a pluralistic society, of which Ioffe writes, is not one of the choices.

Does any of this sound anything like what was taught by the Savior of the world? No, Julia Ioffe. The religions of the world are inherently what their founders actually taught, not what later followers may or may not do. It is interesting that Ms. Ioffe did not once reference Christ Himself or His teaching when cross-examining Him. Nor did she look to see what Mohammed actually taught. Both are easily referenced.

It is something for which we ought to be thankful that not all Muslims faithfully carry out Mohammed’s “inspired” orders. But this is only because they do not live down to the standard set by their founder. On the other hand, it is sad that many professed Christians do not live up to the standards set by the Lord Jesus Christ found on the pages of the New Testament.

Robert Spencer: Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren hosting call with pro-Tehran lobby group NIAC 0 (0)

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by Robert Spencer

Which side are they on? The answer to that is clear.

Democratic presidential contenders Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) are slated to host a conference call with an Iranian-American advocacy group that has been accused of lobbying on Tehran’s behalf.

Along with Reps. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) and Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), Sanders and Warren are scheduled to speak Wednesday evening with members of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). The group played a central role in what former Obama national security adviser Ben Rhodes called the administration’s pro-Iran Deal “echo chamber,” spinning journalists, lawmakers, and citizens.

The Democratic candidates’ willingness to engage with NIAC—a group that aggressively pushed the accord and has strongly advocated against U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic—reflects their desire to see America reenter the nuclear deal, which released up to $150 billion in cash to the regime. Much of that money has gone to fund Iran’s regional terror operations, including recent attacks on American personnel stationed in the region.

NIAC has deep ties to Iran’s regime, including senior officials like Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Zarif worked closely with NIAC founder Trita Parsi, who, in turn, consulted with the Obama administration.

Parsi lobbied Congress against sanctions on Iran in 2013 and met with Obama administration officials at the White House dozens of times leading up to the nuclear deal’s signing in 2015. Multiple U.S. officials and senior congressional sources informed the Washington Free Beacon that Parsi helped the White House craft its messaging as it tried to sell the nuclear deal to the public. The NIAC chief met with Rhodes, among other top officials, during multiple visits throughout the Obama era.

Rhodes delivered a keynote speech at the 2016 NIAC leadership conference.

NIAC was ordered to pay more than $180,000 in 2013 to the legal defense fund of Hassan Daioleslam, an Iranian-American writer, after a failed defamation lawsuit. Daioleslam had accused NIAC of failing to disclose its clandestine lobbying efforts to undo sanctions on Tehran, the Free Beacon previously reported. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said Parsi’s work was “not inconsistent with the idea that he was first and foremost an advocate for the regime.”

JW: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/01/bernie-sanders-and-elizabeth-warren-hosting-call-with-pro-tehran-lobby-group-niac

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His new book is The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. 

Robert Spencer: Elle Magazine Puts White Linda Sarsour on Its List of ‘Women of Color in Politics to Watch in 2020’ 0 (0)

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by Robert Spencer

Elle magazine seems somewhat embarrassed by its list, published last week, of “20 Women of Color in Politics to Watch in 2020.” The article now carries this prominent disclaimer: “The below list was compiled by She the People, a national non profit network of women of color committed to social justice and voter mobilization. A previous version of this story did not make clear that the list was compiled by She the People and not ELLE magazine.” This was added because Elle faced a backlash for including the vehemently anti-Semitic Leftist activist Linda Sarsour on the list. But no one seems to have noticed another problem: the list is of “women of color,” and Sarsour is white.

Such minor quibbles will fall on deaf ears among Leftists. For the Left is at war not just with conservatives, but with reality itself. This has been clear for quite some time. Instead of trying to achieve some reconciliation with the nature of things as they are, the Left is growing ever more divorced from truth, reason, and ineluctable facts. For example, witness the hijab-wearing feminist (an oxymoron just as much as a white “woman of color,” as white is not a color in the Left’s world) Linda Sarsour’s magical race transformation.

It has been absurd enough to see Sarsour, a hijab-wearing defender of that most misogynistic of legal codes, Sharia, emerge as a champion of women’s rights and a feminist leader. But that was rational compared to the weapons-grade absurdity that Elle, or She The People, is now serving up regarding this palest of “women of color.”

The stage was set for Elle to anoint Sarsour as a “woman of color in politics to watch in 2020” several years ago, when the blogger Elder of Ziyon made an amazing discovery: Linda Sarsour claimed she “magically changed from white to a ‘woman of color’ in an instant,” just by putting on a hijab.

It’s true: in a Vox video published in January 2017, Sarsour said: When I wasn’t wearing hijab I was just some ordinary white girl from New York City.

But in an April 2017 interview of this hero of feminism, there is this: After watching Michelle Pfeiffer’s character in Dangerous Minds, Sarsour decided to become a high school teacher, “inspiring young people of color like me, to show them their potential.” She graduated a year early, gave birth to her eldest son, and enrolled in community college.

In the ensuing controversy, Linda Sarsour doubled down, saying: I’m Palestinian. If I want to say “I’m black,” I’m black!

What did being Palestinian have to do in Linda Sarsour’s crowded mind with her spurious claim of blackness? Well, it’s a fictional nationality, so Sarsour might as well take on a fictional race to go along with it. Maybe she was saying that since she had already made one fantasy a cornerstone of her public identity, adding another couldn’t hurt. As The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process demonstrates, the “Palestinians” as a people were indistinguishable from the neighboring Arabs. The “Palestinian” ethnicity or nationality was never known or mentioned throughout human history until the 1960s, when Yasser Arafat and the KGB invented it as a stick to beat the Israelis with. Tiny Israel arrayed against 22 hostile Arab countries looked like the plucky, heroic underdog; but the tinier “Palestinian” people facing the massive Israeli war machine reversed the narrative.

PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said this in 1977: The Palestinian people does not exist.

The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a “Palestinian,” I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem.

However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

If Islamic jihadis (with considerable help from Marxist strategists) can invent an entire ethnic group, why can’t Linda Sarsour, a proud member of this invented ethnic group, change races? For “tactical reasons,” in order to identify with the fashionable victim classes instead of with the universally designated oppressor, white people?

Elle’s article shows that Sarsour’s tactic has worked wonderfully, and reality can take the hindmost. The Left left it behind long ago, and if you still pay attention to it, you’re just not woke.

PJM: https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/elle-puts-white-linda-sarsour-on-its-list-of-women-of-color-in-politics-to-watch-in-2020/

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His new book is The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. 

Pamela Geller: The Ground Zero Mosque Project Is Back 0 (0)

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by Pamela Geller

Lest we forget, the building of the intended “Islamic center” was destroyed in the 911 Islamic attacks. Human remains were found on the site. 9/11 families were joined by immigrants from India, Russia, Egypt, Israel, Africa, Iran and Europe to show opposition to the construction of a mega-mosque at our protest at Ground Zero. Others flew in from overseas to speak or just to share their particular ethnic communities’ experiences at the hands of moslems.

The news was buried under two dense paragraphs and five large photos in an article in New York YIMBY about a different project: “Construction has also yet to begin on 51 Park Place, which is slated to become a 71-foot-tall, 16,000-square-foot Islamic cultural center.”  The infamous Ground Zero Mosque project, a long buried effort to build a triumphal mosque at the site of the worst jihad terror attack in American history, is back.

Construction has yet to begin, but it will: the shady developer behind the Ground Zero Mosque scheme, Sharif El-Gamal, has been working to build this sinister structure for years.

We defeated the Ground Zero Mosque project once before.  The 16-story mosque that El-Gamal initially planned to build there has not been built.  Our efforts in showing what an insult it was to the American people and to the victims of 9/11, and how many Muslims worldwide would inevitably view it as a triumphal mosque built on the site of a jihad attack, defeated it.  Tens of thousands of people came out for our rallies in lower Manhattan against this celebration of this 9/11 attacks, and El-Gamal was beaten in the court of public opinion.

It was a long battle.  President Obama announced his support for the mosque at an Iftar dinner, no less.  Then-mayor of New York City and current presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg supported the mosque as well, claiming hysterically that “if we don’t build it, the terrorists will win!”  The media actively campaigned for it — the elites in their increasingly fragile ivory towers relentlessly stumped for the Cordoba mosque (euphemistically called an Islamic center with a prayer space) for years.

And yet despite all this opposition and much more, the people stood up and fought the Ground Zero Mosque and won.  An army of Davids.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.  Crains New York reported on El-Gamal’s new project in 2015 in a story that demonstrated how the developer was hoping to sneak his triumphal mosque into existence: “Mr. El-Gamal’s Soho Properties has proposed a 667-foot condominium tower at lower Manhattan’s 45 Park Place.  The glass skyscraper, which has yet to break ground, will include at least 15 full-floor units of 3,200 to 3,700 square feet, and average prices higher than $3,000 a square foot, according to plans released to Bloomberg by the developer.”

That sounded normal enough.  But then the article added: “Adjacent to the tower, Soho Properties will build a public plaza connected to a three-story Islamic museum and prayer space.”  An Islamic prayer space is a mosque.  The article also said: “An Islamic museum ‘is just as much of an insult,’ Pamela Geller, a blogger and one of the center’s most vocal opponents, wrote in an email.  ‘It will be like having a museum touting the glories of the Japanese Empire at Pearl Harbor.’”

I think an Islamic museum at Ground Zero dedicated to the half-billion victims of jihadi wars, land appropriations, sharia, cultural annihilations, enslavements, and sharia enforcement is an excellent idea, but is that what Sharif El-Gamal had in mind?  Of course not.  And how did El-Gamal plan to finance this?  The answer was predictable.  The New York Post reported in May 2016 that “the developer of the failed Ground Zero Mosque has nailed down ‘Sharia-compliant financing’ for a new, luxury condominium tower and Islamic cultural museum on the same site, he and his banking partners said.”

Then in May 2017, the New York Times ran a story entitled “Condo Tower to Rise Where Muslim Community Center Was Proposed.”  The Times said that “45 Park Place, a 43-story condominium that will soon rise three blocks from the World Trade Center,” was “something of a consolation prize for the developer,” as it “replaces the developer’s 2010 plan to build a 15-story Islamic mosque and cultural center on this site, an idea that erupted into a national controversy and cable news network bonanza.”

In the last couple of years, there has been virtually no news about this “Islamic museum.”  But the New York YIMBY story shows that the project has been advancing under cover of darkness.  A 71-foot-tall structure is three stories high, as in the revised plans announced in 2015.

El-Gamal has many friends and allies among New York City’s political and media elites.  It is likely that de Blasio city officials and the New York Times and other city papers all met with El-Gamal and agreed to keep the reporting on this project to an absolute minimum, so that it could get built without incurring the righteous anger of the public again.  The first time around, they courted publicity and tried to make El-Gamal a hero.  We demolished that and destroyed their plans.  So now they’ve clearly decided to go ahead surreptitiously.

It is disgusting that El-Gamal continues to taunt Americans and poke at America’s most egregious recent memory.  El-Gamal was there when we had tens of thousands in the streets opposing his Ground Zero mosque.  He knows how angry and upset people get at these Islamic structures on the site of jihad war.  The 9/11 Muslim terrorists extolled Allah no fewer than 90 times in their last letters.  Will those letters be on display at this Islamic cultural center/museum?

There is an important lesson to be learned here — and one we would be wise to adopt.  They never stop.  No matter how absolutely they lose, how many setbacks they suffer, they keep on pursuing their supremacist goals.

The Ground Zero Mosque project was and is a middle finger to the American people.  There has never been a mosque of reconciliation and healing built on the site of a jihadi attack.  Ever.  It is, on the other hand, an Islamic pattern to build triumphal mosques on the cherished sites of conquered lands.  History is riddled with triumphal mosques built on the sites of jihad attacks or appropriated from other religions: the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque on the site of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and innumerable mosques built on the sites of Hindu temples that were demolished by Muslims all attest to that.

And now it looks as if Sharif El-Gamal is going to be able to build his own triumphal mosque at Ground Zero after all.

GR: https://gellerreport.com/2019/12/gzm-back.html/

Pamela Geller is the founder, editor and publisher of The Geller Report and President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). She is the author of Fatwa: Hunted in America (foreword by Geert Wilders) (Dangerous Books), The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America (foreword by Ambassador John Bolton) (Simon & Schuster) and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance (WND Books). She is also a regular columnist for numerous publications.

Robert Spencer: Loyola Marymount University: It’s “Islamophobic” to be “Counter-Jihad” 0 (0)

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by Robert Spencer

The Los Angeles Loyolan tells us that it is Loyola Marymount University’s “award-winning, student-run news organization,” and it is not surprising that it would have won awards from the people who give out awards these days, because like all campus papers, it is a reliable guide to how deeply the far-Left indoctrination that most professors are conducting is taking root in their unwitting students. One of those students is the Assistant Opinion Editor for the Los Angeles Loyolan, a young man (I know that because he helpfully informs us that his pronouns are “He/Him/His”) named Cristobal Spielmann, who is, like all well-informed, duly woke students today, horrified at the prospect that someone would be so “racist” as to oppose jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression of women and others.

Inside Higher Ed may weep bitter crocodile tears over my noting the ominous assumptions behind Spielmann’s words, as the young fellow is only a child, but he is a child putting his views out in the public forum, and consequently must deal with public dissent from his views – at least until he and his fellow fascists secure power.

And Spielmann’s views are indeed ominous. I am an “anti-Muslim extremist,” he claims in an extended complaint against Loyola Marymount’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter, and offers this as his explanation of why: a pamphlet I wrote “takes every opportunity to paint the near entirety of Islam and the Quran as violent while creating a paranoid ‘us vs. them’ narrative of the West in a moral struggle with Islam.”

In reality, of course, the West is not in the least engaged in a moral struggle with Islam. Many Muslims, however, are in a moral struggle with the West and other non-Muslim entities. Apparently it is “Islamophobic” to take any notice of that. It is objectionable enough just to note that the Qur’an has passages calling for violence against non-Muslims. Did I misquote the Qur’an, or state its contents inaccurately? Spielmann had the residual honesty not to go so far as to say that, and of course he would not have been able to say it if he meant to tell the truth at all, since I don’t misquote or misrepresent the Qur’an. He just doesn’t like what I said about it, because it doesn’t fit the way he wants to pretend that the world is.

Even worse, “This isn’t even the first time that the LMU chapter of YAF has engaged in Islamophobia. Last fall semester, YAF posted a counter-jihad poster…”

So now it’s “Islamophobic,” at least at Loyola Marymount University, even to oppose jihad and to post a “counter-jihad poster.” Apparently now even opposing jihad, the imperative that led Mohamed Atta and his comrades to murder 3,000 people on September 11, 2001, and that has been the driving force behind over 36,000 terror attacks worldwide since that date, is “Islamophobic.”

This has been a long time coming. The seeds of it were planted the first time the establishment media labeled opposition to jihad terror and Sharia oppression “anti-Muslim.” If it’s anti-Muslim to oppose those things, then the establishment media narrative that such violence and oppression is perpetrated only by a tiny minority of extremists that misunderstands its own religion is false – but of course no establishment counterterror analyst has ever taken notice of that.

I have for years pointed out that when foes of jihad terror are smeared as “anti-Muslim” and “Islamophobic,” without any attempt whatsoever to delineate a proper and respectable response to that terror, then all resistance to the advancing jihad is stigmatized, and ultimately becomes impossible. That is exactly where we are now, in the thoroughly indoctrinated mind of young Cristobal Spielmann and millions of others like him. Leftist professors all over the country are turning out people like Cristobal on a daily basis. Before too long they will likely make it altogether impossible to say the slightest negative word about jihad mass murder, and when they do so, they will think they are doing something righteous. By that time even the most happily blinkered Leftist may wake up to what is happening. But it will be too late.

FPM: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/loyola-marymount-university-its-islamophobic-be-robert-spencer/

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His new book is The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. 

Alex Newman: Schools Busted Promoting Islam 0 (0)

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by Alex Newman

Government schools in Michigan are under fire after an investigation by the Thomas More Law Center, a non-profit legal group, exposed a massive tax-payer funded propaganda program glorifying Islam and denigrating Christianity. Teachers were targeted in the controversial scheme, with the expectation that they would pass the lies on to their students.

The investigation began after TMLC discovered that teachers were being forced to take a two-day “training seminar” on Islam. The program, run by a Muslim “consultant” and self-proclaimed “social justice” advocate, bombarded hundreds of public-school teachers with anti-American and anti-Christian extremism masquerading as “culturally responsive teaching.”

Among other concerns, the training program was “riddled with falsehoods and errors of omission that were clearly meant to deceive,” the Law Center explained. For instance, there was no truthful information provided to teachers on either jihad (holy war) or Sharia (Islamic) law, which are two of the cornerstones of Islam.

Teachers were told that while the Bible had been changed, the Koran had come straight from Allah to Muhammad. “Her message was clear: The Koran is superior to the Bible,” the Thomas More Law Center explained in a statement about its findings, adding that the Muslim “consultant” was paid $2,500 per day to indoctrinate teachers.

The “consultant,” Huda Essa, also dismissed concerns about terrorism, saying it had nothing to do with Islam. Perhaps not surprisingly, the program also taught Michigan teachers that white Christian males were more dangerous to the public than Islamic extremists whose holy book commands them to wage never-ending war against infidels. Essa accused America of “genocide,” too, while ignoring Islam’s 1400 year history of exterminating non-Muslims across the Middle East and North Africa, TMLC said.

“We found that the teachers were subjected to two days of Islamic propaganda, where Islam was glorified, Christianity disparaged, and America bashed,” said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Law Center, after the investigation was completed. “This type of infiltration amounts to an Islamic Trojan horse within our public-school systems. No other religion gets this kind of special treatment in our schools.”

As part of the investigation, the Law Center filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the workshop. Within the materials received, the conservative-leaning non-profit legal group obtained audio recordings of the “diversity” presentation forced upon Michigan teachers.

What Thompson found most disappointing about the ordeal was the fact that not a single one of the over 400 teachers subjected to this particular “training” session publicly challenged the bizarre teachings. It was not immediately clear whether this was due to fear of reprisals, agreement with the consultant’s extremism, or other causes.

Similar tax-funded “training” seminars for educators by the same Islamist have taken place in California, Georgia, Texas, Florida, and more. In fact, the consultant’s website openly brags about all the educators across America who have been subjected to the same propaganda, which has been filtering down into school classrooms for years.

It seems that, with one key exception, any and all religions are now being welcomed and promoted to gullible children in government schools in America today — Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Humanism, Atheism, and so on, are all celebrated. By contrast, only Christianity and the Bible, the foundations that America and the West were founded upon, is blacklisted, ridiculed, denigrated, and openly attacked.

The Takeaway

Especially in a Christian nation like America, this tax-funded anti-Christian indoctrination should be considered totally unacceptable. It represents an existential threat to liberty, peace, and prosperity. Parents and taxpayers need to stop these abuses now, before the ongoing “fundamental transformation” America becomes impossible to reverse. Protecting one’s own children is a great place to start.

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU or on Facebook

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