Ikhwan is the Arabic for brothers.

Jamiat al-Ikhwan al-muslimun means the Muslim Brotherhood.

The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is:

Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.

The following quotation is from a letter to the editor of Noozhawk, Santa Barbara, by Donald Thorn. It is a useful timetable of the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power with the help of the Obama administration. We came to it via Creeping Sharia which has coined the word “Ikhwanization” to sum up the process.

Today, Egypt has a Muslim Brotherhood hard-liner president (Mohammed Morsi), and there are more calls for the destruction of Israel. There are new fears that the regime will invite al-Qaeda back into Egypt and open up a front with Israel along the Sinai.

Who helped the Muslim Brotherhood gain control? [The State Department] and the White House helped train the Brotherhood during Egypt’s elections, selling out Israel and U.S. interests in the Mideast. Even more troubling is the untold story of how the Obama administration secretly helped bring Islamofascists to power.

Consider the timeline:

»1) 2009: Brotherhood spiritual leader Qaradawi writes President Barack Obama and argues terrorism is a direct response to U.S. foreign policy.

» 2) 2009: Obama travels to Cairo and apologizes to Muslims and invites the Muslim Brotherhood, but snubs Israel and Mubarak.

» 3) 2009: Obama appoints a Brotherhood-tied-Islamist, Rashad Hussain, as U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which supports Muslim Brotherhood.

» 4) 2010: State Department lifts visa ban on Tariq Ramadan … grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood founder.

» 5) 2010: Hussain and Ramadan meet at an American sponsored conference attended by U.S. and Brotherhood officials.

» 6) 2010: Hussain meets in Egypt with Brotherhood’s grand mufti.

» 7) 2010: Obama meets with Egypt’s foreign minister, Gheit, who claims Barack said he was a Muslim.

» 8) 2011: The Brotherhood’s supreme leader calls for jihad against the United States, and Qaradawi calls “days of rage” against Mubarak and pro-western Mideast regimes. Cairo erupts into violence.

» 9) 2011: Obama fails to back his ally, Mubarak, then sends intelligence czar Clapper to Capitol Hill to claim the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate and secular.

» 10) 2011: The Brotherhood wins control of Egyptian parliament, vows to tear up 30-year peace treaty with Israel and re-establishes ties with Hamas and Hezbollah.

» 11) 2011: Obama demands Israel relinquish land to Palestine …

» 12) 2011: State Department formalizes ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, letting diplomats deal directly with Brotherhood officials in Cairo.

» 13) 2012: Obama releases $1.5 billion in foreign aid to new Egyptian regime.

» 14) 2012, June: Morsi becomes Egypt’s president and vows to instate Shariah law, turning Egypt into an Islamic theocracy.

» 15) 2012, June:  A delegation of once-banned Brotherhood terrorists join a Muslim Brotherhood delegation at the White House, meeting with a national security official.

» 16) 2012, July: Obama invites Morsi to visit the White House in September.

What does all this mean? The Muslim Brotherhood’s didn’t just suddenly take over in the Mideast or Egypt. It was helped along by a U.S. president sympathetic to its interests, over those of Israel and the United States.

It certainly looks that way. It looks like there has been an Ikhwanization of the US administration.

How should the US deal with the Muslim Brotherhood?

Karl Schake of the (estimable) Hoover Institution writes:

There is little doubt that the Muslim Brotherhood is not going to be a comfortable partner for the United States. …

The Muslim Brotherhood operates with decentralized national branches in many countries (including the United States). The different branches, however, share core beliefs. They clearly seek to attain political power in order to foster wide-ranging social change. Make no mistake, the Brotherhood is not a status quo political party. It would institute Sharia law, deny women the political and social latitude of men, and, if history is a precedent, be hostile to non-Muslims. …

In Egypt, the influence of the Brotherhood’s Islamist agenda accounts for less of their appeal than their long-standing opposition to the Mubarak government. Egyptian politicians are keenly aware that while most Egyptians support an Islamic government, polling of public attitudes indicates Islam is not a priority for Egyptian voters — only 3 percent of respondents in recent polls considered Sharia law an important issue. Egyptians are overwhelmingly concerned about security, the economy, and justice.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is not Hamas or Hezbollah …

Note that Hamas, an actively terrorist organization, is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood …

…  at least not yet. It does not bring violence into the political sphere. It was not the motivating force in toppling Hosni Mubarak; in fact, its members were late to the revolution. But the Brotherhood capitalized on its decades of political organization and social activism to dominate the elections.

This should not have been surprising; the Brotherhood had a structural advantage over all of the other political parties just forming. But the sharp decline in support for Brotherhood candidates in Egypt’s June 2012 presidential elections suggested that voters were irritated at the Brotherhood’s ineffectualness in Parliament, concerned that it broke its promise not to run a candidate in the presidential elections, and worried about Islamist domination of Egypt’s politics.

Though Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi did win the election, the Egyptian voters expressed real concern about these issues during presidential polling. Exit polls suggest voters were even more distrustful of the military’s candidate, worried the secular candidate represented the Mubarak past. Voters also resented the military’s moves to usurp Parliament and the Constitution drafting process. For now, it looks like Egyptians are holding the Muslim Brotherhood accountable for their political actions, not just their ideological appeal. …

What they all agree on is that the US should continue providing Egypt with massive aid regardless of who is in power:

Even those political actors deeply suspicious of U.S. policies and resentful of our past actions want the United States to be a major participant in their countries’ transitions. … They want  American [economic] assistance — and they don’t have much sympathy for our current economic straits, given how much more dire are their own are. … They want us to actually care about their futures, not what they can do to advance our interests. …

But if what happens to them in no way serves US interests, why should the US care about them? There is something childish about such thinking.

The most worrisome thought dealing with Brotherhood and even Salafist politicians is not what will happen should they succeed, but what will happen should they fail. Moderate Muslims have been winning the argument over the past decade that al Qaeda’s nihilist vision isn’t the path. Restoration of the caliphate by any means is not the Islam most Muslims want. 

How can he possibly know that?

He is basing his conclusions on what diplomats said to each other when they met at Doha. How far are the communications of diplomats likely to reflect “what most Muslims want”?

He takes an optimistic view of what “the people” in the Arab world want, but issues a warning:

Elections in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya — even the glacially slow political change that the Gulf’s authoritarian governments are quietly experimenting with — demonstrate the people of the Arab world want accountable and transparent governments. They want institutions to constrain the power of rulers; they want grievances addressed; and they want the means by which to change their leaders if those leaders aren’t responsive to their concerns. The revolutions of the Arab spring have given citizens of those countries hope that political change can achieve those ends. If governments fail to produce that change, the al Qaeda narrative could again get traction in the disillusionment and despair that follows.

Is that something the US should fear? How much worse would al Qaeda be than the Muslim Brotherhood? How bad the Muslim Brotherhood will be, only time can show.

It is an interesting essay. Read it all here.

…  to which there’s a simple and obvious answer.

(The video comes from Weasel Zippers)

The religious terrorism of 9/11 was the first act in the Muslim conquest of America. The campaign was carried forward by the election, seven years later, of Barack Obama, lover of Islam, to the presidency of the United States.

This is from Canada Free Press, by Doug Hagmann:

Imagine yourself standing among the rubble of what once were the World Trade Center towers, still smoldering and riddled with the carnage of nearly three thousand people in the wake of the 9/11 attacks just a few days earlier. Smell the sickening and acrid smoky haze of death as it invades your nostrils and clings to your clothes. Regardless of where you look, all 360 degrees of your vision is filled with nauseating devastation. …

Like the rest of mainstream Americans, you are still stunned by the worst attacks on America since Pearl Harbor, [by] some obscure Muslim group known as al Qaeda.

Now imagine that I walked up to you and told you that ten years from that date, a man named Barack Hussein Obama II, who as a youngster in Indonesia studied the Qur’an and as a man, publicly admitted that the Muslim call to prayer was “one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset,” would occupy the White House. Then I proceeded to tell you that the construction of Islamic mosques would be at an all-time high across the United States, including the push for a new Islamic center less than a hundred yards of the very site on which we stood. I then added that a Muslim advocacy group known as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood (the ideological predecessor of Qaeda and Hamas), would be heavily involved in shaping U.S. policies ranging from domestic security to the implementation of Sharia (Islamic law) inside the United States.  …

I then tell you that the man in the Oval Office will not only apologize for America’s historical foreign policy to the Muslim world, but embrace the very entities behind the attacks. He will be the impetus behind a major change of the landscape in the Middle East that not only allows for our abandonment of Israel, but an antagonism toward our ally. It’s all part of a larger, more sinister globalist plan of an Islamic-Marxist alliance that’s been planned and in place for decades. He will open his office, and the whole of the U.S. government, to the Muslim Brotherhood, and will not only change fundamentally America, but will “change the world.” 

Convinced of my lunacy, you hastily leave, walking over the dust covered but still visible bloodstain on the walkway where at least one of the bodies landed after jumping from the raging inferno inside one of the towers. …

Back to the present day, I now ask that you be as intellectually honest with yourself as possible as you consider what your reaction would have been at that time, in that place and under the circumstances I described. Frankly, even I would have departed in disbelief. …

Few Americans in September, 2001, outside of the 13th Congressional district of Illinois or fellow politicians, knew the name of the man known as Barack Obama II, who was serving only his second term as a state senator. Few could have anticipated his meteoric rise from a community organizer just over a half decade before to White House denizen. I suspect that even fewer would have envisioned the rapid changes to the geopolitical landscape that resulted from this man after assuming the seat of power over the free world. …

Let’s take a look at what looked like lunacy in 2001.

On June 4, 2009, less than six months after assuming office, Barack Hussein Obama II delivered a speech in Cairo, Egypt, that ushered in dramatic changes within the Muslim world that would forever alter the political landscape of the Middle East. Perhaps acting in response to correspondence by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama is openly apologetic to the Muslim world while being passively aggressive to the nation of Israel, our only democratic ally in the Middle East. At the same time, he opens his arms to the Muslim Brotherhood while tactically omitting any reference or acknowledgment to then-Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak.

Less than a year later, Obama advances the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood by appointing a young lawyer named Rashan Hussain to the position of Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. … Hussain has tangential ties to the Muslim Brotherhood via common and connected entities.

That same year, the United States State Department under the direction of Hillary Rodham Clinton, lifts the visa ban on Tariq Ramadan, the Egyptian-born grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. Also in 2010, Rashan Hussain wastes no time in meeting with Tariq Ramadan at a U.S. sponsored conference, and meets with the Mulsim Brotherhood’s grand mufti in Egypt.

Promoting change in Egypt, … Obama has a private meeting with Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Egypt’s foreign minister. Gheit recounts the meeting to an audience of millions on Egyptian television [and says] that “the American president [Obama] told me in confidence that he is a Muslim.”

Events in Egypt move quickly, and the Mubarak government loses the support of the United States. Muslim Brotherhood Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi calls for “days of rage” in Egypt and throughout the Middle East, ultimately prompting riots in Egypt and elsewhere. Within months, Qaradawi, who was in exile from Egypt for 30 years, is welcomed back after the orchestrated fall of Mubarak.

The power vacuum that exists in post-Mubarak Egypt is quickly filled by the Muslim Brotherhood with the help of the U.S. State Department. It is at this time that Egypt’s new power structure advises Israel and the rest of the world that the peace treaty with Israel will be null and void.

While the Muslim Brotherhood assumes control in Egypt, Obama … makes demands that Israel revert land back to the Palestinians, calling for Israel to go back to their indefensible 1967 armistice lines. Obama also authorizes $1.5 billion in foreign aid to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in Egypt, while instructing his Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to assure congress that the Muslim Brotherhood has changed from their extremist roots to a secular organization. …

Obama also orders Department of Justice head Eric Holder to cease and desist any further criminal prosecution of the Muslim Brotherhood front groups and offshoots identified as co-conspirators who ultimately funded Hamas and other Islamic terror groups.

The Hillary Clinton State Department, meanwhile, dispatches William Taylor, special envoy to the Middle East and an associate of members to the Muslim Brotherhood, to Egypt to assist in the transition from the Mubarak regime.

It is disclosed that Hillary Clinton’s “body person,” Huma Abedin, the wife of disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner, has close and personal ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and by association, to Muslims connected to al Qaeda. This is further detailed in correspondence from U.S. House of Representative Michelle Bachman.

Today, well over a decade after the attacks of 9/11, we find infiltration of Islamists, Marxists, Communists … in nearly every area of American government. What Progressives have gleefully praised as a wave of democracy sweeping the Middle East known as the Arab Spring is nothing more than the foundation for a New World Order, where Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood are working in conjunction with their secular partners to forever change the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. Egypt is just one country, one regime, one piece of the global puzzle. There have been others, and there will be more. …

Obama exists and remains in the Oval Office to advance a specific agenda … [which] was set for him. It is an ambitious globalist agenda, one that will neutralize the United States while elevating the very people, groups and nations that attacked us on 9/11. But that’s only the first part. The rest of the agenda has yet to be implemented.

Lunacy? Let’s talk in ten years, perhaps as we stand on the rubble of what once was.

The conquest of America by the Marxist-Muslim axis is not yet complete. It can be  stopped in November if the electorate throws the Muslim-sympathizing Marxist, Barack Obama, out of the White House. It may be the last chance the Republic has of saving itself from subjugation to the worst of tyrannies.

*

As a postscript to the above, here is part of an article by Daniel Greenfield endorsing the pessimistic view that Obama has a vision of a New (Muslim) World Order, which he shares with the Muslim Brotherhood:

Tunisia, like Turkey and Egypt, had gone from being moderate and pro-Western to a Jihadist state run by Islamists drunk on apocalyptic visions of empire. And all of it had happened with Obama’s support and approval. Where the mobs didn’t do their job, Obama did it for them.

Obama did it for them in Libya … and his next target is Syria. The unification of Egypt and Syria was an old objective for both countries and had already taken place before on a temporary basis. Now that the Muslim Brotherhood has Egypt, it also must have Syria to recreate an Islamic version of the United Arab Republic. If the Brotherhood succeeds in overthrowing the Jordanian monarchy, there will be a golden Sunni Islamist chain stretching from North Africa down to the Persian Gulf and up to Turkey.

Obama’s backing for the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria will mean the fall of the last major non-Islamist regional power. With Iran and Iraq governed by Shiite Islamists, and Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia ruled by Sunni Islamists — Syria is the last great prize. Its conventional and unconventional weapons and its territory offer great rewards for either the Sunni Islamists, who will be able to push toward Iran, or the Shiite Islamists who will push toward Turkey.

This deadly tug of war is a crucial point in the rise of an Islamic regional order, and it is a tug of war in which Obama intends to play the definitive role. Obama paid tribute to Islamist tyrants in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, he helped orchestrate the fall of Egypt and now as the election approaches, the last missing piece [towards establishing the] Sixth Caliphate of the new Islamic world order is almost within his grasp.

Here’s Pat Condell, our fellow atheist, indignant about things that ought to rouse indignation in everyone, and as eloquent as always, protesting against (inter alia) the persecution of Christians in Arab countries.

It would be nice if someone could get Janet Napolitano (see the video immediately below) to watch this one.

How secure does Obama’s Secretary for Homeland Security make you feel when you watch this?

“I’m not to blame for any wrong I’ve done, because I’m a victim.”

It’s a statement often implied in defense of criminals. The accused may have murdered in cold blood, but he or she was maltreated as a child, subjected to sexual abuse perhaps, so is more to be pitied than blamed. It has proved to be an effective defense.

To ask “Can a victim not also be a villain?” is to ask an unintelligible question. What would be the use of a victim in our value scheme if he or she were also a villain? A victim, the prevailing sentiment implies, is innocent. Is pure. He or she is Pure Innocence personified.

It is not difficult to explain why being a victim has become a popular choice. Victimhood, even if entirely spurious, is commonly regarded now as a qualification for privileged treatment; routinely when it is claimed by persons identifying themselves with groups genuinely victimized in the past – certain ethnic minorities, homosexuals, or (ever less credibly) women. Victims are held in higher regard than achievers.

Besides which, it is a logical accompaniment to the popularity of compassion. In the West, nowadays, compassion is generally held to be the highest moral good.

Why? Well, to feel it is a quick fix, a drug for the ego. Little else makes one feel as good as immediately and reliably. And it can be bestowed in vast quantities without the bestower becoming any the poorer. Compassion is a supremely selfish emotion – which would be fine if only the selfishness of it were frankly acknowledged.

As it makes people feel good to show they are compassionate – by saying so, or in some cases by acting compassionately, gifting their energy, time, or possessions to their neighbors or even to remote strangers – it also makes people crave it. The need to give it stimulates the need to receive it. It’s abundant availability is a powerful inducement to neighbors and strangers to demand it; to put out their hands to receive it; to plead their superior neediness; to insist that they are pitiable; that they are victims.

Not that Western populations are divided into the pitying and the pitied; not at all – everyone can be both: everyone compassionate and charitable, everyone a victim. Everyone can have the kudos of being a pitier and at the same time the innocence of being pitiable. And with everyone getting double satisfaction, being most good and most innocent, the pitiable-pitying society is surely the happiest.

And surely, you might say, it is a truly good society? Everyone being nice to everyone, and no sufferer going unaided. A utopian Gemüthlichkeit. A mutually supportive community. Isn’t it the ideal, and hasn’t it been the ideal ever since St. Paul invented Christian morality? A universal economy of “love”?

Well, yes, it could make for pleasantness – if it were true; if the well-preened ego could rest with its philanthropy; if there were no evil in the human heart.

But because there is evil in the human heart, a feeling that everyone should be nice to everyone, however widespread, however popular and praised, will not in real life be quite enough to make it happen. In fact it seems that whenever and wherever compassion, pity, charity are most piously preached, just there are cruelty, humiliation, oppression most mercilessly practiced.

Christianity taps deep into the sentiment of pity with a God who (so the Christian myth runs) had himself tortured to death as a man in order to save mankind from innate sin, thus (the Christian myth fails to notice) planting harrowing guilt in its devotees. To cover if not to expiate that guilt, Christians are adjured to love their fellow human beings. Yet have any institutions inflicted as much mental anguish and physical agony on as many people for as many centuries as have the Christian Churches? Islam is a candidate, but Islam doesn’t preach universal love: it preaches mass murder, enslavement, and sadistic vengeance, so it escapes the charge of hypocrisy, at least in this regard.

What happens when victimization is idolized; when, as a result, there is competition in being more-victimized-than-thou; and when as a result of that, a perverted envy is born if someone is perceived as being the more victimized?

Let’s examine an actual case. I’ve said that Islam does not preach compassion. But Islam is intent on conquering the West, and to do so it is using all the opportunities that the West affords it. The very values, freedom and tolerance, that the West most esteems and embodies in its law, and that Islam would destroy, provide Islam with the means to destroy them. Muslims move into European countries and live freely. (Freely in more ways than one, as disproportionately large numbers of Muslim immigrants live on welfare handouts that the indigenous population pay for with their taxes.) They set up their mosques to preach, and their madrassas to teach their children, to hate the values of their host countries, and to love submission and intolerance. They can do so because the host countries are tolerant. If any of the indigenous people protest that Islam is manifestly incompatible with their values, their own law-courts in the name of tolerance punish them and not the Muslim immigrants. Much encouraged by this policy, some of the newcomers kill their new neighbors in acts of terrorism, intending to instill fear of Islam. But if any of the indigenous people consequently express fear and dislike of Islam, the Muslims cry that they are being subjected to irrational “Islamophobia”. Which is to say, they draw on Western compassion.

The starkest instance of this is what has happened in America since the destruction on September 9, 2001, in a profoundly religious act of hatred, of the World Trade Center in New York, when Muslims piloted two airplanes into the Twin Towers and killed close on 3000 people.

Time passes. The scar remains on the face of the city. For most Americans it is a place of tragedy. But for Muslims it is a place of victory. And certain Muslims propose to build a mosque as close to it as they can. While many on the political Left are in favor of the project – citing freedom and tolerance to support their view – there is an outcry of passionate opposition from many more.

Daisy Khan, the wife of the imam who is the front man of the plan to build the mosque and Islamic Center on the sacred site, was interviewed on ABC TV (22 August, 2010) about the mounting opposition to the project. She ascribed it to hate of Muslims which, she said, went “beyond Islamophobia”, and was ““like a metastasized anti-Semitism”.

By “metastasized” she meant, presumably, that hatred for Muslims in America was more widespread, more threatening, more potentially lethal than the hatred for Jews (the existence of which her declaration acknowledged). “Islamophobia” is a lie that reveals a twisted envy of anti-Semitism.

There is in fact little evidence of “Islamophobia”. FBI reports of recent years show that hate crimes against Muslims are rare; that there are more hate crimes against Christians than against Muslims; and there are about nine times as many against Jews as against Muslims. (See here and here.)

Regardless of the facts of the matter, Ms Khan wanted to make the point that Muslims were the victims of prejudice and bigotry. As the terms “Islamophobia” and “anti-Semitism” carry connotations of irrationality, her words implied that any feeling against Muslims is wholly irrational. But is it?

Antagonism towards Islam since 9/11, however emotional much of it may be, is not reasonless. Reasons for it abound. The attack on the World Trade Center was carried out in the name of Islam, as many other violent attacks, murders, and plans for murderous attacks have been, both before 9/11 and after. Muslims fit the role of victimizers far better than that of victims. So while anti-Islam feeling may be felt as unfair by many Muslims, it is not irrational; and Ms Khan’s analogy with anti-Semitism is wide of the mark. Tactically, however, claiming victimhood to bolster her cause was a shrewd move. Building permission for the mosque and Islamic Center has been granted by the authorizing bodies, including the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

I wonder … Are these authorizing bodies dominated by the Left? And were their arguments legal or emotional? If emotional, did they appeal to tolerance and compassion? If so, why no compassion for the feelings of those who were outraged by the very idea of the mosque in that place? I wonder about these questions because the Left in general claims moral superiority and asks for political power on the grounds that compassion is its highest value and the guiding principle of its policies. As with Christianity – from which this piety derives – it proves over and over again, wherever the Left is in power, to be an empty ideal.

Earlier in this essay I asked, rhetorically, “has any institution inflicted as much mental anguish and physical agony on as many people for as many centuries as have the Christian Churches?” The answer must be, “none over as many centuries”, but take out that phrase and even the Christian establishments are out-matched by the collectivist/leftist regimes of the twentieth century, some of which are still extant. To elect a collectivist government, to trust the Left’s claim to be the guardian of victims, to believe that voting for the Left proves your compassion, is to fall for the Great Political Lie.

Jillian Becker   July 21, 2012

Did you hear the one about a crowd of terrorists holding a conference in the name of counter-terrorism? Sponsored by the Obama administration? What’s painfully funny about it is that it really happened.

Diana West writes at Townhall:

The Washington Free Beacon reported this week on the continuing omission of Israel from a U.S.-sponsored organization called the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF). At a recent forum meeting in Spain, Maria Otero, U.S. undersecretary of state for civilian security, democracy and human rights, delivered a speech titled “Victims of Terrorism,” but, in her roll call of victims, she didn’t mention Israel. The conference at which she spoke was described as a “high-level conference on the victims of terrorism,” but Israel wasn’t a participant.

It bears repeating because it is so fantastic: At an international conference devoted to victims of terrorism, the world’s leading victim or, better, leading target of terrorism — Israel — was nowhere in sight, or mind. 

Welcome to the GCTF — U.S. counterterrorism’s new “normal.” This 30-member organization got its official start last September as a “major initiative” of the Obama administration when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced its launch in New York.

It was quite an occasion; Hillary curled her hair. Seated next to her Turkish co-chairman, ensconced amid ministers from Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates …

All of which are or have been breeding-grounds of terrorists, and some of which – Turkey, Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan – are or have been active state sponsors of terrorism …

… and 18 other miscellaneous member-states plus the European Union, she then said the magic words: “From London to Lahore, from Madrid to Mumbai, from Kabul to Kampala, it’s innocent civilians who have been targeted …”

Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon? Poof, gone. And that’s the point: This new counterterrorism organization, with its related counterterrorism center coming soon to Abu Dhabi, is Judenfrei. Not coincidentally, it is also heavily Islamic. Eleven member-states — slightly more than one-third of the organization’s membership — also belong to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a bloc of 56 Islamic countries working to impose Islamic law (Shariah) on the world. Six of those 11 members additionally belong to the Arab League. Both groups have defined “terrorism” to exclude Israeli victims (sometimes U.S. soldiers), and “terrorists” to exclude groups dedicated to the destruction of Israel, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. It is no wonder the Arab-Islamic members would now unite in “counterterrorism” without Israel.

What is both shocking and shameful, however, is that the U.S. would, too. It shows that the U.S. has implicitly but clearly accepted the Arab League/OIC definitions of terrorism and terrorists. …

Their implied definition of terrorism is:  “Israel defending itself”. Their implied definition of terrorist: a Jew.

Under the Bushes … while Israel was not permitted to fight alongside coalition forces, at least it was still recognized for withstanding more than 60 years of Islamic terrorist attacks. Today, under the auspices of the Obama administration, Israel no longer rates mention even as a victim. “Big Satan” has thrown “Little Satan” to the sharks. Which says two things about Big Satan. Our institutions now see the world from the Islamic perspective, and, as far as the sharks go, we’re next.

And this is from politicalmavens.com by Rachel Raskin-Zrihen:

So, there’s this Global Counterterrorism Forum comprised of 32 countries, including the United States, Columbia, Canada, South Africa, Nigeria, Australia and New Zealand. It also includes the European Union, nine European countries, 10 Arab/Muslim countries and three Asian ones.

This group was formed last year, under the United States’ leadership, for policymakers and experts in the counterterrorism field to share insights and best practices.0

Great idea, right?

Inexplicably, however, not included in the forum is Israel, easily in the top three on the list of the world’s most frequent terror targets and likely the most skilled at fighting the scourge. …

Inexplicably? Not at all. It could not be more obvious: Obama loves Islam and hates Israel.

Since no explanation has been offered by our government, we are left to speculate about why this is happening, and I suspect that were they to deign to explain their actions, Obama Administration officials would likely say it’s about getting the nations where the terrorists are spawned to help fight them, without pissing them off by inviting the Jews. It’s the only thing they can say, really. But I’m not buying it. And I’m not the only one.

After it was learned that the United State’s “best friend and closest ally” was excluded from this forum, our country’s officials assured those expressing concern that “a way would be found” to include it.

I find it peculiar, since we created the forum and Israel is among our closest allies and an expert on the issue, that a special way must be found to include it, different from the way the others came to be on the panel, but, evidently, it does.

However, it’s been a year and nothing has changed. Maybe they thought no one would notice.

But, at least two U.S. Senators did notice and wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who attended this forum, and demanded to know why this glaring omission remains uncorrected.

Also, the Simon Wiesenthal Center took exception to the blatant insult, not to mention the stupidity of failing to include the player with the most direct experience with the phenomenon and the best track record at fighting it, and fired off an urgent letter of protest to Ms. Clinton.

The center’s founder, Rabbi Marvin Hier, reportedly wrote of his awareness that Turkey and some others “oppose an Israeli presence,” but notes that – SO THE EFF WHAT?

Are we trying to fight the most deadly dangerous threat to humanity to ever have slithered out of hell, or are we trying to appease the Arabs?

Answer: Obama and Hillary Clinton are trying to appease the Arabs.

Rabbi Hier also said that “having a Global Counterterrorism Forum and not including Israel, is like having a global technology conference and excluding the United States of America.” And, noting “there is no one with more experience at combating terrorism or educating civilians about it, than the State of Israel,” he said, “I think the time has come for the United States to make it very clear why Israel continues to be excluded.”

Me, too. But, I’m not sure we’ll get an honest answer, or, if we do, we’re prepared to hear it.

The first, and most obvious explanation, is that the Arab/Muslim contingent “objects” to the Jewish state’s inclusion. In other words, the bully objects to the victim’s presence at a discussion ostensibly designed to stop bullying.

Bullying is too mild a word, of course, but her point is good.

It’s a phenomenon similar to the so-called Anti-Racism conference in Durban, South Africa, which was actually an officially sanctioned, international Jew-and-Israel-bashing free-for-all, with a name that really only served to add insult to injury.

It’s another act of bullying, right in our face, and we – and by we I mean the United States and the rest of the free, normal-thinking world – is afraid to set the crazies off by defying their demands. …

This is unfortunate, obviously, because it’s proof certain that terrorism is working to cow even the world’s greatest powers.

In the light of this, the appointment of an Israeli as the UN Security Council’s top counterterrorism lawyer is simply astounding.

The Washington Post reports:

The United Nations has promoted a former Israeli government attorney to a job as the Security Council’s top counterterrorism lawyer, making him the only Israeli national serving in a senior security position within the U.N. Secretariat …  David Scharia has been appointed legal coordinator for the Counter-Terrorism Committee executive directorate, where he will oversee a team of 12 international legal experts who advise the 15-nation Security Council on its counterterrorism efforts. The appointment would not typically be notable were it not so uncommon for Israelis to reach the upper levels at the United Nations. … Of the more than 44,000 international employees within the United Nations, only 124 are Israeli, according to the U.N. None serve in the top ranks of the most sensitive political jobs, which are responsible for maintaining international security, mediating peace deals and coordinating humanitarian assistance.

Why suddenly is an Israeli appointed to such a job at the UN?

A plausible explanation may be that the UN fears a cutting off of funds by the US Congress. (See here and here and here and here.)

Our preference would be for Congress to cut off all funds to the disgusting UN. The UN should be wiped off the face of the earth. See our post Why the UN must be destroyed, June 12, 2012.

A report by Naijaurban (Nigeria):

Security agents said they discovered the bodies of at least 50 people, mostly women and children, who were burnt to death in the house of a pastor of the Church of Christ in Nigeria in Matse village.

Family members of the victims said the people burnt at the pastor’s home were people who ran into the home for safety after fulani herdsmen invaded their village on Saturday morning, killing over 20 people.

“Fulani herdsmen” is a phrase reporters in Nigeria like to use to refer to Muslim murderers. But Muslim murderers they are. They kill Christians not because they are herdsmen but because they are Muslims.

The killers followed these people to the church house, set the house ablaze and prevented people from leaving by standing at the exit and shooting at people who came out through the door.

For more on such acts of religion in Nigeria see our posts:

Christians murdered by Muslims, March 9, 2010

Muhammad’s command, March 30, 2010

Suffering children, May 11, 2011

Victims of religion, October 16, 2011

Acts of religion in Nigeria revisited, October  16, 2011

Christians slaughtered by Muslims in Nigeria, October 17, 2011

Boko Haram, the Muslim terrorists of Nigeria, November 10, 2011

More acts of religion in Nigeria, January 19, 2012

Who was Yasser Arafat? He was the grandfather of world-wide terrorism. Of his many crimes, his multitude of victims, we’ll mention in particular just one. His savages hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro and threw the wheelchair-bound Leon Klingoffer overboard to drown in 1985. But Reuters think Arafat was one of the great, good, noble heroes of the twentieth century:

Footnote: A topical reminder. Arafat was responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972. The Olympic Games organizers refuse to commemorate them.

The Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) conspired with the Holy Land Foundation to fund Hamas, the death-cult terrorist organization that the Palestinians in Gaza have elected to govern them. As a result CAIR has been named a co-conspirator with the Holy Land Foundation which was found guilty of the crime, but CAIR remains “unindicted”. [Why?] It pretends to be the protector of American Muslims aganst a totally imaginary campaign of persecution which it dubs “Islamophobia”.

In fact, CAIR is a menacing organization dedicated to imposing oppressive sharia law on all Americans.

This is from American Thinker:

On June 5, 2012, a radical Islamic organization, CAIR-Florida, sent out a mass mailing with this message:

“CAIR Florida has been receiving an increase in complaints by law abiding American Muslims inappropriately targeted by law enforcement for questioning. This is a direct result of Islamophobic training CAIR has discovered many law enforcement officers in Florida are receiving. Join us this Saturday for an important program to learn how to protect yourself, your family, and your community against harassment by law enforcement or discrimination by businesses.”

Without verifiable proof of such “discrimination by businesses,” “Islamophobic training” or “inappropriate targeting by law enforcement”, this email appears to be a blatant slander of the tolerant American society and its legal system. The extensive influx of Muslim immigrants in recent years is the best evidence that they are treated better in the U.S.A. than in their own countries of origin.

So what motivates CAIR to besmirch their host country and stir discontent? The answer lies in the old playbook developed by the radical Left and now passed on to the new radical players: calculated fear mongering. Such messages are designed to keep American Muslims misinformed, scared, and running for CAIR’s protective cover.

In this example, CAIR was promoting its own so-called “Civil Liberties” Conference titled “Know Your Rights,” with the apparent purpose of encouraging Muslim immigrants to disobey American laws, resist law enforcement efforts, and game the system with frivolous lawsuits against local businesses and government agencies that result in more political power and personal enrichment – all under the aegis of CAIR.

The email included this flyer:

… CAIR’s faith-based protection racket is now working its way to replace all other means of social interaction for Muslim immigrants, aiming to become the only game in town for all American Muslims.  By the rules of this game, in exchange for “protection,” they dare not assimilate and integrate into the larger society, accept American traditions and values, and – most importantly – dare not leave Islam.

The framework for such games has been inadvertently established by the fallacious multiculturalist doctrine.  …

Omar M. Ahmad, founder of CAIR, once said: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant… The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” It is apparent that CAIR’s goal is not so much to contribute to the American society, but rather to replace our constitutional republic with an oppressive Islamic theocracy.  Their efforts to set up the groundwork for this have been so far successful.

Freedom-loving Americans who oppose premeditated destruction of their cultural and political integrity are being silenced with lawsuits and the myth of “Islamophobia.” Their opponents have learned how to take advantage of democratic liberties, such as the right to free speech, free expression, free press, free assembly, freedom of religion, and equal protection before the law.  But in a society the Islamists are planning for us, there will be no place for any of these individual freedoms, as evidenced by the Sharia-based totalitarian systems currently being implemented in the Middle East by the international Islamist alliance known as the Muslim Brotherhood.

All world cultures, Western and Muslim alike, share the same moral conviction, which is commonly reflected in their laws: those who show contempt for human life by committing remorseless, premeditated murder justly forfeit the right to their own life.

No. That is not true. Islam does not share the moral convictions of the West. It does not forbid its followers to murder, it only fobids them to murder fellow Muslims [eg. Koran 48:29]. And even that prohibition is honored more in the breach than the observance. Every single day Muslims are killed by other Muslims, in large numbers.

By this moral and legal standard, shouldn’t remorseless radical groups that profess contempt for our individual freedoms and actively promote their demise, forfeit their own right to enjoy these very individual freedoms? Shouldn’t their premeditated efforts to destroy the rule of law make them ineligible to be protected by these very laws? …

They should. But CAIR is favored, assisted, sustained, encouraged by the Obama administration:

The White House has recently admitted to having hundreds of behind-the-scenes meetings with CAIR …

When Eric Holder’s DOJ routinely steps in as muscle for CAIR’s ongoing litigation jihad; when Muslim employees are instigated to bring about unreasonable lawsuits against their employers; when American Muslims feel overwhelmed or bullied into silence by radical groups that claim to “represent” them, good and honest Americans must say “enough is enough” and, in the absence of government protection of their interests, resort to individual action and seek effective alternatives.

The Florida chapter of Stop Islamization of America has done just that. Calling CAIR-Florida’s flyer “offensive to our law enforcement officers and to Florida business owners,” they have created this counter flyer:

The advance of Islam must be resisted. Powerful, well-funded Islamic organizations can be frustrated. Stopping the creep takes organization, determination, thought, planning, tireless work, and much courage.

We at the American HQ of TAC are proud to announce that our British editor, Sam Westrop, wearing one or two of his several political activist hats, has chalked up a victory by all these means in London.

Two victories, in fact, as this press release reveals:

A report published by Stand For Peace exposing the extremist views and backgrounds of several foreign speakers invited to preach at a large conference in London has forced the cancellation of the event.

Organised by the Al-Muntada Trust, the ‘Month of Mercy’ was due to be held on 8th July at the Grand Connaught Rooms, but following numerous complaints and discussion with the police, the venue has stated that the conference will not go ahead.

Al-Muntada has an extensive history of hosting some of the UK’s worst hate preachers over many years. The views of the proposed speakers at the conference included justifying suicide bombings, glorifying jihad, promoting venomous homophobia, questioning criticism of female genital mutilation, spreading antisemitism, and encouraging reprehensible bigotry against Shia Muslims.

The report was compiled with research assistance from the Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy, which monitors anti-democratic and illiberal forces abroad. It was then discussed with MPs, the Home Office and security services, and was published on the Stand for Peace website.

Concerns were initially dismissed by the venue hosting the event, with one senior member of management stating that the conference “didn’t bother me at all”. But after several anti-extremist blogs and websites picked up on the report, hundreds of people complained directly to the venue and lobbied their MPs, resulting in the cancellation. The venue cited “the safety and security” concerns when they cancelled the event, saying that they had engaged in “careful consideration and liaison with the local police force”.

Sam Westrop, Associate Director of the Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy, said:

“The cancellation represents a victory for fair minded people of all faiths. By giving out the relevant information about extremist speakers, Stand for Peace was able to demystify the event’s purpose. Many people are intimidated by such events taking place around them, and lack the tools to investigate the true nature of what will be preached at them. By simply referring to public statements speakers have made in the past, members of the public were able to point out the worrying agenda that the event seemed to be pursuing. We commend the Connaught Rooms for changing their mind in the face of public concern.”

The Grand Connought Rooms cancellation follows a recent and similar warning about the activities of the Palestinian Forum in Britain (PFB). The PFB planned a ‘cultural’ event in Manchester, featuring speakers who have supported terrorism, including Azzam Tamimi and Saudi hate preacher Mohammed Al-Shareef. After StandforPeace and other campaigning organisations disseminated background information provided by the Institute, the hosting venue forced the PFB to cancel the speakers.

Notes for editors:

Stand For Peace is one of the UK’s leading anti-extremism organisations. It closely monitors and analyses extremist activity across the UK, thanks to its network of informers, and its expert researchers and analysts.

The Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy is a London-based think-tank which promotes better understanding of democratic and anti-democratic forces in the Middle East.

If it can be done there, it can be done here. It is being done here – in Florida, for instance. All it takes is organization, determination, thought, planning, tireless work, and much courage.