Islamophobe

oops, see anti-muslim, islam

SEE TWO

see hamas wod4

proxy for ?

neglected?

capt 618 3 26 --> two

see dominionism and evang

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islamophobe horwitz canary mission

https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-march-20-2019/

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see theocRacy apoc xian nat’l

'Deeply alarming': Christian fundamentalists see Trump’s military policies as biblical war

After U.S. President Donald Trump ordered missile strikes against Iran and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — the country's far-right Shiite fundamentalist leader since 1989 — was killed, a long list of other countries were drawn into the conflict. Iran launched retaliatory strikes against U.S. installations in Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was attacked by Iranian drones.

Meanwhile, Israel and Hezbollah (a pro-Iran Shiite militia in Lebanon) fired missiles at once another. From Riyadh to Beirut to Dubai, the Middle East is on pins and needles.

Trump is claiming that going to war with Iran is necessary from a national security standpoint. But MS NOW's Zeeshan Aleem, in an opinion column published on March 4, argues that Trump's Christian nationalist allies view the conflict as a holy war for evangelical fundamentalist Christianity.

"President Donald Trump can't get his story straight on why he launched a war against Iran," Aleem argues. "But some commanders in the U.S. military are apparently telling service members that they're on a mission to fulfill biblical prophecy. The independent journalist Jonathan Larsen reported that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has received more than 110 complaints from service members about their commanders' religious gloss on the war on Iran."

Aleem continues, "These complaints, according to Larsen's report, came from every branch of the military, across more than 40 different units, situated in at least 30 military installations…. MRFF President Michael Weinstein told Larsen that the complaints from service members shared a common feature: Commanders are describing the war as 'biblically sanctioned' and 'clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian End Times as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation."

Weinstein told Larsen, "Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100 percent accordance with fundamentalist Christian end-of-the-world eschatology."

When military commanders "are reportedly selling American aggression on Iran as a holy war," Aleem warns, it is "deeply alarming."

"Weinstein told Larsen that the complaints violate the Constitution's separation of church and state," Aleem explains. "But regardless of its legality, telling American troops that they're fighting for a Christian god against a Muslim country is medieval madness. It isn't the role of the U.S., per the Constitution, to promote any religion over another. Furthermore, the reported remarks from these commanders is likely to prompt U.S. service members to dehumanize Iran's population, and help set the stage for viciousness in combat and human rights violations. The military is not supposed to be a crusading political-theological movement, but a professional defense force."

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an 3 26

People are growing increasingly uneasy as President Donald Trump's attacks on Iran are looking more and more like they could be part of a right-wing religious fanatic's fantasy for the apocalyptic.

The Cradle Media's Jonathan Larsen wrote that American soldiers were given a pep-talk about the war in Iran. A U.S. combat-unit commander told them that the attack is part of “God’s divine plan." He said that President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus” for the specific purpose to ignite Armageddon.

“U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for 'Armageddon,' Return of Jesus Advocacy group reports commanders giving similar messages at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military," Larsen wrote.

The comments come as part of a lawsuit brought by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation; however, it is only one of "110 lawsuits brought in 48 hours from over 40 units across 30 installations," the report said. The complaints came from Christians, a Muslim and a Jewish soldier.

The Christian nationalist theory that Israel has a God-given right to much of the Middle East is one espoused by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. In a speech at a Christian Zionist church in Jerusalem in December, Huckabee conveyed his " purpose is to convert Israeli Jews to belief in Jesus in order to bring about the End Times," explained Religion Dispatches.

The concept is bad for anyone seeking peace in the Middle East, one 2024 report by Forward explained.

The sect of Christianity that Huckabee believes in holds that if they are able to remove Palestinians from the Holy Land, then Jesus Christ will return. He believes in “dispensational premillennialism,” which Forward describes as a belief that “the Rapture will come,” and deliver all evangelicals to Heaven as Israel is invaded by the armies of the world. It will cause Armageddon and prompt the return of Jesus Christ.

The language is making some fearful that the war waged wasn't really about Iran never obtaining nuclear weapons, which Trump claimed he destroyed last summer. It's a holy war, desperate to force Armageddon.

"Maybe it’s a bad idea to put people in charge of government who are eager for the rapture," lawyer and self-described nerd John Collins commented.

"Love when I'm in the military and my boss is, like, 'Time for Armageddon!'" commented author and journalist Emily St. James.

Writer and former Cato Institute policy analyst Will Wilkinson wrote, "Personally, I don’t think we should bring about Armageddon."

"One thing about the U.S., we definitely do not have insane religious zealots in charge,"said Heidi N. Moore, previously of the Wall Street Journal business side.

Writer and elections lawyer at the Cato Institute, Walter Olson, quoteda line from the 1965 song "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)" with lyrics by Tom Lehrer: "And this is what he said on/ His way to Armageddon.”

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Article III Project's Mike Davis says there will be “Hamas riots to scare the hell out of Republican voters” on Election Day | Media Matters for America

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mma

• Update (10/16/23):The Illinois man who fatally stabbed a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy had reportedly been worried about the “day of jihad” and had “been listening to conservative talk radio about the Israel-Hamas war and became increasingly concerned about his Muslim tenants.”*

Right-wing media spent days fearmongering about potential mass violence happening on Friday after a former Hamas political leader was reportedly mistranslated as advocating for a “day of jihad.” Despite a lack of evidence of a related threat to the United States, some called for increased surveillance and others gave advice on how to best avoid an attack.

Homeland security officials said there was no evidence of a “specific and credible” threat to Americans, and no “jihad”-inspired attacks appeared to occur, though there was a reported anti-Muslim attack in Illinois, in which a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy was killed.

• ## A former leader of Hamas called for protests in the “Islamic world,” but officials say there was no related “specific and credible” threat to the U.S., though there was one reported anti-Muslim attack in Illinois
  • On October 11, Khaled Meshaal, a former political leader of Hamas, released a video calling for people to “head to the squares and streets” for a day of protests in “the Arab and Islamic world” on Friday, October 13. Meshaal urged followers “who teach jihad” to use this “moment for the application,” but did not explicitly use the term “day of jihad.” Wired reported: “While Meshaal very specifically made the calls for protests in ‘the Arab and Islamic worlds,’ his comments were quickly mistranslated online to become a ‘global day of jihad,’ a phrase he did not use.” Reuters, [10/11/23; Wired, 10/13/23]
  • Experts say the term “jihad” is “not a single concept” but literally means “exerted effort” or “striving.” Interfaith Alliance and Religious Freedom Project of the First Amendment Center wrote that the term “jihad” has often been misunderstood since around the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and some extremist groups have appropriated the violent meaning. National Geographic, [10/24/23; Southern Poverty Law Center, Learning for Justice, accessed 10/16/23]

• • On Friday, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security official told reporters that they do not “at present have any specific and credible intelligence that would indicate any potential threat to the United States stemming from Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel at this time.”Newsweek reported that law enforcement in major U.S. cities stepped up security measures “while stating there have so far been no credible threats of violence associated with the so-called 'day of Jihad.'" Miami Herald, [10/12/23; Newsweek, 10/13/23]

• • Although there was no apparent “day of jihad” in the U.S., there was at least one recorded anti-Muslim attack over the weekend. A Chicago-based landlord has been charged with a hate crime after attacking a Palestinian American family, killing a 6-year-old child and wounding his mother. The Associated Press, [10/16/23]

• Right-wing media promoted the “day of jihad” as a credible domestic threat, calling for people to “not leave your homes”
  • Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk used the “global day of jihad” to say that “we have invited some of the most disgusting people on the planet into the West” and he hopes “something bad does not happen tomorrow” but that “we shouldn’t be surprised” if it does. He stated that the U.S. has allowed in “an unlimited flow of foreigners that do not show our religion, our culture, our worldview” and that “we have imported the dynamite right into our country.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/12/23]
  • Fox News host Sean Hannity claimed that October 13 has “officially been designated as a day of jihad — that means holy war — by Hamas leaders.”Hannity also said: “What, it wasn't enough for them to brutalize southern Israel — now they want to terrorize the entire world?” Fox News, *Hannity*, [10/12/23]
  • :{Fox News host:{ Jesse Watters said that “Hamas is calling for a global day of jihad” and that “if I were the FBI, I'd start surveilling college campuses.}:”
  • Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [10/12/23]}:

• • Right-wing political strategist Joey Mannarino posted that due to the call for a “Global Day of Jihad,” you should “not leave your homes that day unless there is an emergency.” Mannarino also pleaded with people to avoid “public transit," “airplanes,” and “public events.” Twitter/X, [10/11/23]

• • Conservative commentator Dana Loesch urged Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) to condemn “Hamas’s call for a global day of jihad.”Twitter/X, [10/12/23]

• • On Newsmax, former CIA officer Mike Baker warned that during the supposed “global day of jihad,” people should “watch what happens around you” and “understand the areas you’re moving in and out of.” Guest host Lara Trump endorsed this warning, calling it “great advice.” Newsmax, *Eric Bolling The Balance,* [10/13/23]

• • Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren complained about the lack of law enforcement to “help monitor” the “international day of Jihad.” Lahren posted in full, “So tomorrow is supposed to be an international day of jihad and major cities are in desperate need of law enforcement to help monitor. Really too bad that law enforcement has been demonized and defunded thanks to the Left. Brilliant work, losers.” Twitter/X, [10/12/23]

• • MRC Newsbusters published an article calling ABC, CBS, and NBC “cowards” for “gently cover[ing] Day of Jihad.”The article claimed that “the ‘big three’ networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC engaged in acts of cowardice by vaguely tip-toeing through security concerns for Jewish community centers, schools, and synagogues due to what a former Hamas head demanded as a day of jihad and the rampant nature of open anti-Semitism and pro-slaughter of Jews on college campuses.” MRC Newsbusters, [10/13/23]

• • Fox News host Jeanine Pirro claimed that by “shutting down” schools and public places for the “day of rage,” the U.S. is doing “all the right things” but also showing that “we’re going to tremble if you say you are coming.” Watters responded by asking the FBI to focus on Palestinian supporters who “sound like they are about five seconds away from an act of violence.” Fox News, *The Five*, [10/13/23]

• • One America News Network host Chris Boyle falsely claimed that “the leader of Hamas has issued a call to action that Friday the 13th should be a day of jihad across the world” and asked, “How many jihadis could there really be slipping past the southern border?”He also lamented, “Should I be worried about the fact that increasingly large numbers of people on the terrorist watch list are slipping past our southern border while cries for international jihad grow louder?” One America News Network, *Nights with Chris Boyle*, [10/14/23]
  • TheBlaze’s Jason Howerton told followers to arm themselves and to “absolutely be strapped” in preparation for a “global day of jihad.” He posted in full: “Hamas founding member is calling for a ‘global day of jihad’ on Friday. He tells his followers to sacrifice their ‘blood and souls’ for Palestine. Do not be paranoid. But absolutely be strapped.” Twitter/X, [10/11/23]

1. ### After Hamas attack in Israel, right-wing media revert to post-9/11 tropes

10/13/23 10:25 AM EDT

2. ### CNN brings on warmonger John Bolton to baselessly claim that Iran directed Hamas attack in Israel

10/12/23 2:43 PM EDT

3. ### Right-wing media use Hamas’ attacks on Israel to fearmonger about immigrants in the United States

10/10/23

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Fox News’ Jesse Watters: “I don’t like how people try to differentiate between the Palestinians and Hamas”

10/16/23 6:31 PM EDT

Trump Doral welcomes antisemite who defends Nazis, portrays Jewish people as the enemy, and spreads Holocaust denial

10/16/23

Right-wing media fearmongered about a “day of jihad” coming to the US despite a lack of evidence

10/16/23

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NEW 419

https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/the-power-of-lies-inside-the-christian-rights-plan-to-remodel-the-us/

On April 3, USA Today published an array of stories under the banner, “Copy, Paste, Legislate,” exploring the political impact of model bills on state-level legislation — more than 10,000 bills from 2010 to 2018 — based on a two-year joint investigation with the Arizona Republic and the Center for Public Integrity. The lead story headline said it all: “You elected them to write new laws. They’re letting corporations do it instead.”

OK, it wasn’t quite all. While corporate influence was the strongest, figures revealed that conservative groups weren’t far behind: There were 4,301 bills from industry and 4,012 from conservative groups, far more than the 1,602 from liberal groups or the 248 classified as “other.” The hidden origins of these bills often hides their true intent. The most notorious such group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, for instance combines business interests with movement conservatives.

But within the fold of “conservative groups” there’s a whole other story to be told about the organizing of extremist religious conservatives, whose political mobilization, as I’ve noted in the past, played a crucial role in electing Donald Trump. Indeed, just the day before “Copy, Past, Legislate” was published, the Texas Senate passed SB-17, a bill that would protect anti-LGBTQ discrimination by all licensed professionals who claim to act on a “sincerely held religious belief.”

“It’s time for Americans to wake up to the harsh reality that the religious right, fueled by their fear of loss of power from the changing demographics in our country and their support from the Trump administration, is emboldened and aggressively pursuing all means possible to maintain white Christian power in America,” Rachel Laser, the president of Americans United For Separation of Church and State, told Salon. “Project Blitz, for example, has already introduced over 50 bills in at least 23 states this year alone,” she added.

One spin-off story published in the Nashville Tennessean dealt specifically with an anti-LGTBQ adoption model bill. (Simultaneously, NBC reported such bills were “’snowballing’ in state legislatures.”) The Tennessee bill came from Project Blitz, which was described as “a legislative effort with the stated aim to ‘bring back God to America.’” But as Salon has reported in the past, Project Blitz is much more sinister than that.

Frederick Clarkson, senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, was the first to discover its three-tier playbook, produced by a coalition of right-wing activists he’d long been following, including Texas Republican activist and pseudo-historian David Barton, whose book, “Jefferson Lies,” which tried to remake Thomas Jefferson as an evangelical hero, was canceled by its publisher under withering criticism from conservative and evangelical scholars (followup here).

“The authors of the Project Blitz playbook are savvy purveyors of dominionism,” Clarkson told Salon at the time. “They are in it for the long haul and try not to say things that sound too alarming. ​But they live an immanent theocratic vision.” Not all their allies would go all the way with them, Clarkson told me, but the theocratic end they envision is chillingly akin to “The Handmaid’s Tale” — reason enough to warrant far more attention than they’ve gotten so far.

The first tier of Project Blitz aims at importing the Christian nationalist worldview into public schools and other aspects of the public sphere, thesecond tier aims at making government increasingly a partner in “Christianizing” America,and the third tier contains three types of proposed laws that “protect” religious beliefs and practices specifically intended to benefit bigotry.

“Although category three is divided in three parts, you could also see it as having two main underlying intentions,” Clarkson explained. “First to denigrate the LGBTQ community, and second to defend and advance the right to discriminate. This is one way that the agenda of theocratic dominionism is reframed as protecting the right of theocrats to discriminate against those deemed second-class, at best. As the late theocratic theologian R.J. Rushdoony said, ‘Only the right have rights.'”

The broader findings revealed in “Copy, Paste, Legislate” help to expand our understanding by highlighting three significant patterns shared in various ways with Project Blitz, which are used to advance their theocratic agenda, often hiding it in plain sight:

1) Misleading Language That Inverts Common SenseProject Blitz does this repeatedly with the most fundamental terms: “religious freedom,” “First Amendment,” and so on. In doing so, it mirrors what corporations and insurance companies did with “transparency” in the “Asbestos Transparency Act,” switching the roles of victims and perpetrators, casting themselves as “victims of litigation filed by people harmed by asbestos,” and requiring mesothelioma victims to seek money from an asbestos trust — a lengthy process many won’t live long enough to benefit from.  How’s that for “transparency”?

2) Goalpost Moving The entire Project Blitz concept is premised on moving the goalposts. It’s built into the very structure of its three-tiered playbook, as well as the logic of the supporting arguments. A similar strategy was involved in promoting vouchers in Arizona, beginning with a voucher for students with disabilities, then following up with bill after bill offering vouchers to more and more students, eventually all of them, with no guarantee protecting the first group of recipients from getting lost in the process.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/advocacy-groups-warn-against-normalized-hate-speech-after-trump-continues-to-ridicule-rep-omar-despite-death-threats/

Advocacy groups, progressives, and politicians are warning about the dangers of “normalized hate speech” and Islamophobia after the latest round of threats targeting Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee and one of the first Muslim congresswomen.

“The political environment, led by an Islamophobe in the White House, has normalized hate speech and emboldened bigots in their actions,” Afaf Nasher, executive director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY), said Saturday.

“The rising threat of Islamophobia and white supremacy must be taken seriously,” he added. CAIR is the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group.

Nasher expressed relief that law enforcement tracked down Patrick Carlineo, of Addison, New York, who was arrested and charged on Friday with threatening to assault and murder Omar, a Democrat who represents Minnesota.

In a phone call to Omar’s office last month, the 55-year-old allegedly told one of her staffers: “Do you work for the Muslim Brotherhood? Why are you working for her, she’s an (expletive) terrorist. I’ll put a bullet in her (expletive) skull.”

While being questioned by the FBI after the incident, “Carlineo told the agents he is a patriot, that he loves President Trump, and hates radical Muslims in government,” the Elmira Star Gazette reported Friday, citing the complaint.

News of Carlineo’s arrest came after The Blast reported Wednesday that, according to court records, Omar was the target of an unrelated bomb threat in mid-March when she was the featured speaker for a CAIR event at a Los Angeles hotel.

A female caller, who dialed from a blocked number, reportedly left a voicemail saying: “What would you do if I told you your hotel was going to be bombed. That is exactly what’s going to happen if you allow the likes of Ilhan Omar into your hotel. She is a danger to American society and your hotel. You are not to allow her foot into there if you value your own safety. Do not allow her in there. Cancel the event.”

The newly reported threats provoked sympathy and support for Omar, including from activist Linda Sarsour and the advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace:

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muslim brotherhood plan for america duckduck 4/19

snopes 2017?

In early June 2017, conspiracy-oriented web sites began posting stories accompanied by a YouTube claiming that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had raided a house in Annandale, Virginia, and foiled a plot by the Muslim Brotherhood to take over the United States:

The Muslim Brotherhood’s strategic 30-year plan for taking over America from within was a closely-guarded secret until the FBI raided a house in Annandale, Virginia, where agents found a disturbing bundle of documents containing a blueprint for the Muslim takeover of our country. Now that the cat is out of the bag, we must do everything in our power to expose what’s going on, as startlingly, these American-hating vermin are in the final phase of their 5-step plan to destroy our country.

Twenty-seven years ago, Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusuf al-Qaradwai traveled to America to organize Muslims across America, educating them with his diabolical plan for the compete Muslim takeover of America that would take 30 years to complete. It included a key tactic known as “Muruna,” where Muslims are able to violate Sharia Law in order to convince Americans that they are just like us. Just like an Ebola virus, Muruna is extremely effective, as Muslims are now able toseamlessly integrate into every facet of our society, as they make their way into our public school systems, our federal and law enforcement agencies, and key positions within our government.

But due to the raid, their game is up. Now that their highly-guarded secrets are out, we as Americans must stand up and expose what’s going on, while doing everything in our power to stop their rapidly approaching plans from coming to fruition.

We contacted the FBI about the alleged activity, but the bureau is unable confirm or deny ongoing investigations. However, Freedom Daily, along with the other sites that posted the story, are all known to regularly post misleading or false stories. Something as significant as an FBI raid to prevent a “takeover” of the United States would have been reported by trusted news outlets as well, if it were real.

Yusuf al-Qaradwai is a Sunni cleric from Egypt who is a well-known in the Arabic-speaking world. He is a controversial figure. Writing for The National in 2014, a news outlet in the United Arab Emirates, journalist Hassan Hassan noted:

Perhaps the most dangerous of such fatwas are those issued by influential clerics such as Yusuf Al Qaradawi, one of the Muslim world’s most prominent theologians. Sheikh Al Qaradawi, an Egyptian who heads the International Union of Muslim Scholars, has a rich legacy of advocating for the integration of Muslims into the modern world. He fought against extremist views and wrote several books addressing troubling trends in Muslim societies.

Recently, however, he has dedicated most of his public appearances to making political and religious statements that threaten to entrench radicalism within Muslim societies in the region and beyond. As a result, commentators in sections of the Arabic media started discussing a key part of the cleric’s legacy, namely issuing fatwas that sanction violence and stoke sectarian and religious hatred. Commentators have called on the cleric to consider the impact of his fatwas on the dozens of civilians across the region dying in suicide bombings that occur almost weekly.

In one of his best-known fatwas, issued in the 1990s, Sheikh Al Qaradawi permitted the use of suicide bombing as a defensive tactic against Israel. Since then, instead of retracting the fatwa, he has repeatedly responded by saying that he was not the only cleric to justify suicide operations and that his fatwa was tailored specifically for helpless Palestinians in their fight against the Israeli occupation.

Although Al-Qaradawi is a well-known figure in the Arabic-speaking world, we found no evidence to support the claim that law enforcement, either federal or local, raided a home in Annandale, Virginia in relation to an imminent 30-year plan for the Muslim Brotherhood to take over the United States.

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The horror of the New Zealand terror attack that targeted two mosques during Friday congregational prayers and left 50 people dead has raised important questions about the kind of ideas that inspire this senseless violence. In Canada, the 2017 Québec mosque shooting that left six Muslim men dead also forced the question: what drives the hate that leads to white nationalist terror?

Recently I attended a “free speech” conference on the outskirts of Toronto. In attendance at the event were lawyers from prominent legal firms and other professionals. When I challenged one of the speakers for remarks I felt promoted hatred against Muslims, I was physically assaulted.

I have long been examining the question of what fuels white nationalist hatred by documenting and mapping the “Islamophobia industry” in Canada.The industry is a constellation of individuals, media outlets, think tanks, politicians and organizations that purvey racism and Islamophobia. These include white nationalist and “alt-right” groups that are proliferating and expanding their reach in Canada from upward of 100 groups in 2015 to nearly 300 by 2018.

While the alt-right, neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups are the foot soldiers of the movement, there are other, more covert players that form the soft power of this widespread industry. These power brokers use cultural, political and economic ideas to influence, shape and inform white nationalist views. They help circulate bigotry by dressing it up as patriotism and purveying it through “respectable” channels.

I refer to this as the “liberal washing” of white nationalism, where politically camouflaged xenophobic, Islamophobic and racist notions are disguised under the veneer of liberal discourse such as “protecting democracy,” “freedom” and the “rule of law” from what are regarded as illiberal, anti-modern and anti-democratic minorities.

I had a front-row seat to liberal-washed hate messaging at the conference held by Canadians for the Rule of Law, a registered charity that seeks to challenge “political tribes” and “disruptors” who question the rule of law in Canada.

Teaching Islamophobic fear and bigotry

The idea that “Islamists” are infiltrating and imposing shariah law in Canada was a common narrative at this event and disturbingly echoed the views of the New Zealand shooter, whose manifesto spoke of Muslim “invaders” who were corrupting western civilization.

The vague deployment of the term “Islamist” at this conference reduced a broad political spectrum to a narrow epithet for the violent overthrow of democratic rule to install an Islamic State. The Islamist bogeyman became the dominant representation of Muslims. Fear-mongering about the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada was used as a clarion call to warn of impending threats to Canada’s freedom and democracy from Muslim neighbours, organizations, politicians, Muslim Student Associations and Islamic schools.

Preserving Canadian “values” from the corruption of minorities seems far more reasonable than shouting racist slogans in the street — except this liberal-washing of hate is simply another way of echoing and dog-whistling white nationalist, xenophobic ideals by masquerading them through more “civil” and “polite” discourse.

One of the supporting organizations of the conference was Act For Canada, an offshoot of Act For America, one of the most prominent anti-Muslim groups in the United States. Their website outlines their goals:

“ACT! For Canada is a forum for citizens concerned about the triumphalist brand of Islam that seeks to erode our cherished western principles of free speech and equality with the goal of eventual Islamic supremacy in the West ….”

Other groups supporting the conference included conservative media outlet TAG TV, the Bangladeshi Minority Rights group, B’nai Brith and several pro-Zionist groups that equate criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic and “illegal.” The conference alsoreceived funding fromDaniel Pipe’s Middle East Forum think tank that “protects western values from Middle Eastern threats” and “emphasizes the danger of lawful Islamism.”

A front row seat to hate

To set the tone for the day, conference organizers began with a condemnation of the New Zealand terror attack. Attendees were asked to rise for a moment of silence. It turns out the silence was not to commemorate the victims of this heinous hate crime, but rather to honour “free speech.”

I spent a long day of being a fly on the wall at this conference, hearing non-stop pro-Zionist rhetoric denying that Israel was oppressing Palestinians and consuming a steady diet of Islamophobic bigotry. Along with this came calls for preserving “Judeo-Christian democracy,” protecting against multiculturalism and the need to build a “coalition of the willing,” (the term used by George W. Bush to refer to countries who supported militarily or politically the 2003 U.S-led invasion of Iraq), to challenge “Islamists” and preserve the rule of law in Canada.

Most egregiously, in one session I attended, panellists repeatedly referred to the Al Noor mosque in New Zealand where the terror attack occurred as a “known site of radicalization” without citing any evidence. They complained the media was not publicizing this information. Despite their caution to say this was not a justification for the shootings, I was concerned their salacious and unfounded claim against the Al Noor mosque created further fear and hatred against Muslims.

I finally decided to intervene.

One of the panellists was Christine Douglass-Williams, who in 2017 was removed from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation for remarks described by non-profit organizations as Islamophobic.

I asked her about a speech she made in Iceland in which she warned Icelanders about the “Islamicist supremacist incursion into their country:”

“Islamic supremacists will smile at you and invite you to their gatherings, make you feel loved and welcomed but they do it to deceive you and take over you, your land, and your freedoms …Many friendly, seemingly ‘moderate’ Muslims are deceiving you …”

I asked her what her warning was for Canadians, given that’s what she told Icelanders.

Not so free speech

Douglass-Williams became defensive and said she was misquoted. I was paraphrasing, but I told her I took the information directly from an article she wrote. The moderator became angry and told me I couldn’t speak anymore. He told me to leave.

I protested and said I was trying to engage in a dialogue, to exercise my free speech rights, which this conference purported to uphold. The moderator, who is an “ethicist,” informed me I was now trespassing and had to leave....

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bs

ADL smears Canary Mission as “Islamophobic” for exposing Islamic anti-Semitism

APR 29, 2018 3:30 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER

Canary Mission, an estimable group, is not the first supporter of Israel to be smeared by the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL has likewise defamed Pamela Geller and me for standing against jihad terror and Sharia oppression. The ADL has also libeled the preeminent lawyer and orthodox Jew David Yerushalmi as an “extremist,” an “anti-Muslim bigot” […]

https://www.jihadwatch.org/tag/canary-mission

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/new-zealand-is-not-the-first-here-are-some-of-the-most-horrific-white-terrorist-attacks-and-plots-of-the-trump-era/

At least 49 people have been killed in a terrorist attack that New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has described as one of the country’s “darkest days.” The targets were two mosques in the city of Christchurch, and according to New Zealand police, the suspects were greatly influenced by far-right white nationalists of the United States. One of the suspects, according to police, published a 74-page manifesto demonizing Muslims and immigrants—and American terrorist Dylann Roof, who slaughtered nine African-American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, was cited as a role model in the document.

After Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana survived a shooting spree in June 2017, the right-wing media in the U.S. claimed that a wave of violence was coming from the left (never mind the fact that Sen. Bernie Sanders wholeheartedly condemned the attack and wished Scalise a speedy recovery). AM talk radio host Michael Savage even went so far as to that President Donald Trump’s critics needed to be “removed from the airwaves by the federal government for their constant drumbeat of hatred.” But the notion that terrorism is unique to either leftists or far-right Islamist groups like al-Qaeda, ISIS (Islamic State, Iraq and Syria) and Boko Haram is ludicrous—and the horrific attack in Christchurch follows a series of white nationalist, white supremacist or Christianist attacks or plots in the U.S.

Here are some of the most disturbing white terrorist attacks or alleged plots of the Trump era.

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https://thinkprogress.org/cpac-tries-to-circle-the-wagons-against-the-far-right-60408d44e7df/

no lnx

CPAC tries to circle the wagons against the far-right

Far-right grifters were kept at arm's length, but a few still managed to sneak in.

LUKE BARNES

MAR 2, 2019, 11:13 AM

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD — In 2019, CPAC seems to have gone out of its way to put on a drab, non-controversial conservative show.

There was none of the drama of 2017, when far-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos was disinvited just days before the event after a video of him condoning pedophilia emerged, and when neo-Nazi Richard Spencer roamed the CPAC halls rubbing shoulders with younger attendees.

This year, by contrast, a collection of white nationalists, far-right grifters and conspiracy theorists were kept at an arms’ length and mostly had to be content with roaming the Gaylord Hotel outside of the convention. Many were initially denied passes, but managed to wangle their way inside, although they had to be content themselves with posting about CPAC on Twitter, rather than having direct contact with attendees.

Among those spotted was Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist podcaster who lurked around the edges of CPAC like a vulture. Faith Goldy, a white nationalist who ran for mayor of Toronto in 2018 — getting 3.4 percent of the vote — was also present. Patrick Casey, the executive director of the far-right group Identity Evropa, tried to get into CPAC before being informed that his pass had been canceled. Casey then promptly launched into an angry tweetstorm about how CPAC wasn’t a forum for real conservatives anyway.

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Certainly the most amusing example of the far-right and its associated grifters attempting to get some form of CPAC cred occurred on Thursday afternoon, when noted pro-Trump trolls Laura Loomer and Jacob Wohl — both of whom were also denied their in their initial attempts to get into CPAC — held a “press conference” along with conservative lobbyist Jack Burkman to outline another set of spurious, unsubstantiated allegations, this time against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

The event rapidly devolved into farce, with Wohl talking over Loomer every time she tried to speak about her supposed “censoring” on social media, and journalists asking why a document marked “Strictly Private and Confidential” was being distributed to the public.

Wohl and Goldy were later spotted chatting to each other at CPAC, but wearing attendee and not media badges. It is not immediately clear why Wohl especially was allowed in, after being so pointedly denied entry earlier in the day.

Later that night Wohl made an appearance at an afterparty hosted by Turning Points USA, the conservative student group, which featured Donald Trump, Jr. and TPUSA leader Charlie Kirk. Among the (mostly college-aged) revelers was Enrique Tarrio, current leader of the far-right Proud Boys gang was also spotted roaming the halls.

On Friday, two members of the Proud Boys in New York City pled guilty to charges stemming from a fight outside the New York Metropolitan Republican club in 2018, where the Proud Boys viciously attacked counter-protesters.

But CPAC’s shooing away of far-right personalities, at least superficially, isn’t the sign of some conservative bulwark against far-right ideas.

Instead, CPAC this year has morphed into a celebration of Trumpism, not conservatism, and all the vitriol that comes along with it.

On Friday, for instance, Breitbart writer Michelle Malkin blamed moderate Republicans, including the “ghost of John McCain” for being in bed with “immigration saboteurs.” The crowd guffawed uproariously.

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https://readsludge.com/2019/01/17/20-house-republicans-donated-to-duncan-hunters-islamophobic-campaign/

Twenty House Republicans Donated to Duncan Hunter’s Islamophobic Campaign

Rep. Hunter falsely painted his Mexican-Palestinian American opponent as an infiltrator with ties to terrorists. But prominent House Republicans continued to back his campaign with big donations.

After years of statements that either hinged on or directly implicated Iowa Rep. Steve King as a supporter of white supremacy, House Republicans passed a resolution condemning King following a recent interview where he questioned why using the terms “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” was offensive.

Republicans like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy claim past leadership did not take King’s racism seriously, but McCarthy was in fact in charge of messaging for the party and asked reporters privately “to ignore King’s crazy racist rantings.” And despite years of objectionable statements, King also served as the co-chair for Ted Cruz’s 2016 Presidential campaign.

While the national GOP leadership finally decided to take action on King this week, other members of their caucus with similar histories of racist and offensive statements have not been condemned and in fact receive financial support from their Republican colleagues.

The most prominent example from the last election cycle is Congressman Duncan Hunter’s Islamophobic campaign for California’s 50th Congressional District.

After the Depart of Justice released a full 47-page indictment in August implicating Hunter in illegal campaign finance spending, Hunter’s lead began to slip in the polls. So with weeks left before the election, Hunter decided to try a new tactic: tying his opponent, who happens to be a Mexican-Palestinian man, with terrorism.

Running against Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, a former White House staffer during the Obama administration, Hunter began spending thousands of dollars on Facebook advertisements against his opponent. His statements and videos were blunt: they painted Campa-Najjar as a“national security risk” with family ties to terrorism who was “working to infiltrate Congress.” Campa-Najjar’s grandfather was involved in the 1972 Munich terror attacks, but Campa-Najjar never met his grandfather, who died 16 years before he was born. And perhaps mostly irrelevant to the situation, but something Hunter disputes without evidence, Campa-Najjar is a Christian. 

The ads argued that if Campa-Najjar received classified information, he would expose our interests abroad. Hunter’s advertisements did not provide actual critiques of Campa-Najjar’s platform or policy ideas. Rather, Hunter was trying to argue that Campa-Najjar was Muslim, and by proxy dangerous. Politifact calleda claim made in Hunter’s ad that Campa-Najjar was supported by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhood “an unsubstantiated accusation that rests on fear-mongering.”

[Still from a Duncan Hunter Facebook video ad that ran from Sept. 26, 2018 – Oct. 31, 2018]

Although it was the closest election in the district’s recent history, Hunter ultimately won re-election with 51.7 percent of the vote to Campa-Najjar’s 48.3.

Despite his viciously racist and Islamophobic campaign rhetoric, Hunter’s campaign pulled in thousands in donations from fellow Republican lawmakers. A Sludge analysis of post-election campaign finance reports found that 20 current and former elected officials, all Republicans, made contributions to Hunter’s campaign from their leadership PACs or their campaign committees, for a total of $56,700.

Of the elected officials from the House whose campaigns and PACs made donations, seven are retired: Brian Bilbray (R-Ca.), Dan Burton (R-Ind.), Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), Todd Akin (R-Mo.), John Kline (R-Minn.), John L Mica (R-Fla.), and Buck McKeon (R-Ca.),who Sludge found may be using his old campaign funds to help his current lobbying clients. 

The other thirteen were in office at the time of the contributions or are still in office, including Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), Darrell Issa (R-Ca.), Don Young (R-Alaska), Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), Lamar Smith (R-Texas), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Roy Blunt (R-Miss.), Sam Graves (R-Mo.), Scott W Taylor (R-Va.), Tom Cole (R-Okla.), and Tom Rooney (R-Fla.).

Apart from current and former House representatives, former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, the father of current White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, also contributed $5,000 through his leadership PAC, Huck PAC.

“Elected officials more than anyone know what kinds of events they’re going to, who they’re donating to, and what’s going on politically,” said Professor Robert McKenzie, an adjunct at Columbia University and the founding director of the Muslim diaspora initiative at New America, a non-partisan think-tank.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/how-muslims-won-the-american-war-of-independence/

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AN

Wednesday, the Dallas Morning News reported that the Tarrant County Republican Party will be meeting with the leader of an anti-Muslim hate group on December 29, less than two weeks before their upcoming January 10 vote on whether to remove county GOP Vice Chairman Shahid Shafi for being a practicing Muslim:

John Guandolo, a former FBI agent and founder of the Dallas-based group Understanding the Threat, trains police and other officials on dealing with the perceived threat of Muslims in the United States.

Guandolo has made statements equating all Muslims with terrorists and tweeted a picture of an unidentified Southwest Airlines employee earlier this year, calling the man a jihadi. His Twitter account was suspended in October after he claimed that Democrats were to blame for an attack that left 11 people dead at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies Understanding the Threat as a hate group.

Lest there be any speculation that the timing of these events is a coincidence, emails obtained by the Texas Observer show a Republican precinct chairman saying county officials "need to learn the truth" before taking the vote on Shafi.

By all accounts, Shafi, a trauma surgeon at Baylor Scott & White Health and Southlake city council member, is a hardline conservative who has served at several Texas GOP state party conventions. But a small contingent of Republican activists has been pushing for his removal anyway. Chief among them is Dorrie O'Brien, a GOP precinct chair in Grand Prairie affiliated with the anti-Muslim hate group ACT for America. O'Brien has repeatedly claimed, with no basis whatsoever, that Shafi is connected to terrorist groups and plans to take over the United States and impose Sharia law.

Many Texas Republicans are pushing back on the campaign to oust Shafi, including Land Commissioner George P. Bush, outgoing state House Speaker Joe Straus, and Travis County Republican Chairman Matt Mackowiak.

The fight is leading to rifts in the Texas GOP, which was rattled in the midterms as Democrats captured two House seats, 12 state House and 2 state Senate seats, and dozens of judgeships amid the groundswell of turnout for Democratic Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke. The epicenter of that tension is Tarrant County, home to Fort Worth and Arlington, which for years has been the largest red county in Texas but narrowly went for O'Rourke this year.

Unfortunately for Texas Republicans, at the exact moment they need to reflect on their failure with suburban voters and become more inclusive, their crazier elements are demanding attention.Last week, GOP activist Ray Myers posted"Damn Right, I'm a WHITE NATIONALIST and very Proud of it," on Facebook. Myers worked on the committee that helped the Texas GOP draft their party platform, which calls for abolishing the Voting Rights Act, hate crime laws, state vehicle inspections, divorce, Medicaid, the Seventeenth Amendment, the IRS, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Departments of Commerce, Labor, Energy, Education, Interior, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development.

So a bitter fight over whether a loyal conservative should be ejected from a party office because he's Muslim is the last thing the Texas GOP needs right now.

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rww

Right-wing political operative Newt Gingrich is warning that the 2018 election results are proof that “the Left is waging—and winning—a linguistic war.” In a commentary first published at Fox and distributed via email over the weekend by Gingrich Productions, Gingrich wrote that “the linguistic war of condemnation, hatred, and intimidation being waged every day by the Left”is just part of what he claims as the problem.

“The efforts to steal the governorships of Georgia and Florida and the Senate seat in Florida are only the tip of the iceberg of illegality and hostility that the Left now practices routinely.”

Gingrich’s amped-up rhetoric about the “illegality” and “hostility” of “the Left” is evidence of his own long expertise in waging linguistic warfare. As People For the American Way President Michael Keegan wrote back in 2011 when Gingrich decided to run for president, “Gingrich is an enthusiastic participant in the right wing’s divisive and destructive McCarthyism, portraying his political opponents as enemies of America’s very existence.”

Indeed, before Gingrich was forced out of his position of speaker of the House, before he had repositioned himself as an advocate for “Rediscovering God in America,” and long before his former mistress and current wife was serving as Trump’s ambassador to the Vatican, Gingrich was responsible for bringing an especially toxic approach to partisan politics.  More specifically, as RWW noted in 2012:

His entire political careerhas been based on destructive, vicious, negative attacks on his opponents. In the 1990s, his GOPAC produced “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,”an infamous list of words that Gingrich said Republicans should use to smear and denigrate their opponents. Among the suggested words was “destructive,” along with “traitors,” “sick,” and “betray.”  Gingrich perfected the kind of hyper-partisan politics of destruction that are currently making it harder to run the country, and harder to attract decent people to run for office. Obviously, decency hasn’t been a barrier for Newt’s own ambitions.

Gingrich’s recent piece aggressively promotes far-right smears against activists who challenge racism and white nationalism. “The Left claims and occupies more and more linguistic ground with each new fight,” he wrote:

Defense of the Founding Fathers becomes defense of white, racist, slaveowners.

Defense of American identity becomes an act of white male domination. …

Wanting to obey the law in counting votes becomes an effort to suppress votes and disenfranchise poor people, minorities, and immigrants.

And then things get really Orwellian—or perhaps Trumpian—with Gingrich attributing to Democrats and “liberal media” exactly the kind of behavior that right-wing activists and media are engaged in:

Every day, we are watching Democrats break and stretch the law for the sole purpose of winning, while they attack Republicans for wanting an honest count of legal voters.

Democrats and their liberal media allies know that if they repeat something often enough it begins to be accepted as truth.

However, the Left’s interest in winning the language war is only the first step toward legitimizing real threats and mob behavior.

Once they win the language fight, they can claim moral superiority. Once they have gained moral dominance, they can do anything to their opponents because they will be presumed right, and their opponents will be presumed wrong.

Gingrich doesn’t spell out the solution, but seems to be teeing things up for conservatives to turn to him for the answer: “Developing the conservative solution to the left’s linguistic war is a major step toward winning elections in 2020 – and preserving our society.”

And who better to turn to than Gingrich, Inc., right? While Gingrich has spent much of the past decade allied with dominionists and Christian-nation activists to promote his “Rediscovering God in America” books and video brand—and turning to them to promote his failed 2012 presidential bid—he has also never given up his core competence as a political smear artist.For example, at the Heritage Foundation in December 2016, Gingrich said the right should stop using the term “news media” and replace it “the propaganda media.” Before he rose to the speakership in 1996, he made a name for himself for calling Democrats “pro-communist” in late-night soliloquies he delivered from the House floor to an empty chamber, as he leveraged the new C-SPAN cable channel.

President Trump, of course, has been an ardent deployer of the “language as a weapon of control” strategy. Gingrich has praised Trump, saying that the president has “brought out into the open how truly anti-American much of the left is and how much it stands for a set of values that all of us, if you looked at it carefully, would find horrifying.”

And Gingrich has joined Trump’s efforts to discredit both the investigation of his 2016 campaign and his Democratic opponents.“Democratic dishonesty is a lot greater threat to freedom than some unproven Russian conspiracy,” Gingrich said earlier this month, adding, for good measure, “Democrats will end up stealing a lot more votes than Putin ever dreamed of taking.”

During the 2016 campaign, against “those who would impose a totalitarian secularism on us.” That was a recycled version of comments he made in 2011 atJohn Hagee’sCornerstone Church, where he memorably said he was “convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time [my grandchildren are] my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”

Tags: Newt GingrichChurch-StateElection 2018Election 2020Republican Party

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RU sonali new study 80 cands, mostly lose muslim advocates .org

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SEPTEMBER 7, 2018 11:29 AM

Frank Gaffney Labels Muslim Candidates ‘Sharia Supremacists’

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https://www.alternet.org/fringe-christian-group-close-senate-chaplain-prays-destruction-military-freedom-organization

Tuesday of this week, a fundamentalist prayer group associated with U.S. Senate chaplain Barry Black published what is known as an imprecatory prayer. It began: “Father, we ask that You take down Mikey Weinstein and his FFRF [sic] group," an apparent reference to Weinstein's group, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and the 22-page complain it recently filed against Air Force Brig. Gen. John Teichert, as Salon reported last weekend. The MRFF complaint alleges serious violations of Air Force regulations stemming from Teichert's online ministry, and was filed on behalf of 41 clients, 32 of whom identify as Christian.

To underscore the prayer’s apparent threat, it ineptly quoted Psalm 37:22: "For those who are blessed by Him shall inherit the earth, but those who are curses [sic] b [sic] Him shall be cut off." That's an approximate quotation from the King James Bible; in numerous other translations the word "destroyed" is used in place of "cut off."

Weinstein has previously described such “imprecatory prayers" as "code words" used by the Christian far right to "troll for assassins," or at least to legitimize possible acts of violence. “We view this as a clear and present threat against me, my family and the foundation, and we take it very seriously,” Weinstein told Salon.

Weinstein's organization, which is not popular among fundamentalist members of the military, has received previous threats, he said. “But this one is inextricably intertwined with the U.S. Senate, and that is intolerable.” His lawyers are drafting letters to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others, he says, demanding redress.

One MRFF staff member has resigned this week, Weinstein said, "because of pressure from his or her family over the threats that these individuals face, even in their own homes, for being connected with MRFF." And that was before the emergence of this potentially threatening prayer, he added.

What's the connection between that prayer asking God to "take down" Weinstein and the U.S. Senate? Capitol Hill Prayer Partners, the group that issued the prayer, "has served in on-site prayer under the full blessing of the Office of the Chaplain of the United States Senate" since its founding in 1994, according to the online biography of Sara Ballenger, its founder and president. Chris Rodda, the MRFF's director of research and author of "Liars for Jesus," a survey of religious-right fake history, confirmed that the group holds a semi-official status on Capitol Hill.

"We intend to have our legal counsel send a demand letter to the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, demanding that they completely disengage with this fundamentalist Christian terrorist organization," Weinstein said. A similar letter will be sent to retired Navy Adm. Barry Black, the current Senate chaplain.

Weinstein says he plans to send a separate "demand letter" to Ballenger at the listed address of Capitol Hill Prayer Partners in Herndon, Virginia, demanding "that she cease and desist" and take down the prayer in question. "In addition, we intend to have a counsel reach out and file an official complaint with the U.S. Capitol Police," he said.

In an email to Salon, Rodda cited a report on the 2014 event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Capitol Hill Prayer Partners as further evidence of the group's “close relationship with Chaplain Barry Black, in the form of both a personal note from Black to Ballenger and the fact that Black was a speaker at this Capitol Hill Prayer Partners event.”

According to Rodda, Ballenger has a lengthy history of associating with fringe religious positions and dubious figures, especially on the anti-Muslim far right. It's unclear whether Black, the Senate chaplain, is aware of this. Rodda found the report about Capitol Hill Prayer Partners' 20th-anniversary event, for instance, on the website of Koome Ministries, which was founded by a man named Kamal Saleem, who was keynote speaker at the event.

Saleem was one of a trio of "self-proclaimed former Muslim terrorists" who became celebrities on the Christian right, Rodda explained, but were later exposed as frauds. Saleem enthralled right-wing audiences with his implausible tales of working for Yasser Arafat, Moammar Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein before finding Jesus, but there's no evidence that any of them were true. He appears to have been an evangelical Christian for many years before outing himself as a supposed former terrorist. 

MRFF had pursued "these Islamophobic fraudsters since 2008, when they were hired to speak at the Air Force Academy,” Rodda wrote to Salon. In 2011, the "three ex-terrorists" became the focus of an investigation by CNN's Anderson Cooper. Rodda wrote about them again at that time in an article for the Huffington Post. Nothing about their stories made sense, but they were key players in a widespread propaganda campaign whose constituency was eager to believe them, so it took sustained effort to discredit them. (A big-picture account can be found in "Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream"; Salon author interview here.) And even three years after being exposed as a near-certain fraud, Saleem was CHPP’s keynote speaker.

“The U.S. Senate should not be engaged with someone like this,” Weinstein said, “asking God to kill people and destroy them.”

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gohmert, bachman and horowitz rant on mus brohood infiltration of gov't/mccarthy

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/political-rhetoric-fuels-bigotry-against-muslims-study

cdv

Trump looks outward from the United States with dreams of walls on the U.S.-Mexico border that will somehow magically stop what he and his supporters consider/view as a brown "invading" horde, human "vermin" that will "infest" white American society. Nonwhite immigrants and migrants are also to be put in concentration camps by the tens of thousands for an indefinite amount of time while Trump and his enforcers decide how best to remove them from the country.

Trump's racially authoritarian presidency should not be a surprise. He has been remarkably direct and transparent during his public life about his bigotry and disdain towards those who are not white and Christian. The prison camps and detention centers (including prisons for babies) which Trump and his enforcers have created for brown and black migrants and refugees were previewed by his public hostility towards and campaign against Muslims.

Ultimately, Donald Trump's racism, nativism and bigotry have such great power because many millions of white Americans (and an entire political party) share his values. In all, Donald Trump is a symptom, not a cause, of much deeper problems in American society.

New research from Dalia Mogahed, who is the Director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, and The George Washington University political scientist John Sides, in conjunction with The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group (a voter sentiment research collaboration of analysts and scholars from across the political spectrum) details the wide range of bigotry towards Muslims in America and how such attitudes harm the country's social fabric and democracy.

Their new report “Muslims in America: Public Perceptions in the Trump Era” finds that:

Unique data from the July 2017 wave of the VOTER Survey (Views of the Electoral Research Survey), as well as other surveys, reveal thatAmericans’ attitudes toward Muslims in the U.S. are distinctly unfavorable.Although Americans ascribe some positive traits to most Muslims — such as caring about their families — they ascribe negative traits to many Muslims as well. This negative stereotyping of Muslim Americans is more prevalent than stereotyping of Christians. It is also quite out-of-step with the actual attitudes and characteristics of Muslim Americans....

Finally, there is substantial support for policies targeting Muslims — including restrictions on travel to the U.S. from Muslim-majority countries, surveillance of mosques in the U.S., and screenings at airports. Nearly one-in-five Americans would even deny Muslims who are U.S. citizens the right to vote. The civil rights and liberties of Muslim Americans have a tenuous status in American public opinion.

Thus, the social equality of Muslims faces significant hurdles. These hurdles will be even harder to overcome given our present political discourse, when harsh characterizations of Muslims come not only from the fringes of American political life, but from elected officeholders at all levels of government.

Authoritarians--a group which also overwhelmingly supports Donald Trump and the Republican Party--also possess great animus towards Muslims. This hostility is also directed at nonwhites and those groups viewed as "un-American" more generally.

Negative stereotypes of many racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups are often tied to a constellation of culturally conservative or ethnocentric values. Stereotypes of Muslims showed this same pattern. Views of Muslims were more negative among those who identified as conservative, those who tended to prioritize conformity, those who believed that being Christian was important to being American, and those who did not believe that growing racial diversity would enrich the United States. Similarly, those who expressed some support for nondemocratic political systems — having “the army rule” or a “strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress or elections” — had less favorable views of Muslims.Dalia Mogahed and John Sides' research explains this as:

Views of Muslims were also connected to views of other social groups. Previous research has shown that white people with less favorable views of many different racial, religious, and cultural minorities — such as black people, Jews, atheists, gays and lesbians, and illegal immigrants — also have less favorable views of Muslims.

The “Muslims in America: Public Perceptions in the Trump Era" report concludes:

Given the prevalence of negative stereotypes of Muslim Americans and the willingness to target them for surveillance and screening, it is relevant to ask: what might change these attitudes and produce a public view of Muslim Americans that more accurately reflects their actual attitudes and characteristics?

In the meantime, growing partisan polarization in views of Muslims and Islam only invites greater political conflict. Muslims’ own experiences reflect this conflict. In the 2016 ISPU survey, 42 percent of Muslim children in K–12 schools reported being bullied because of their faith, compared with 23 percent of Jewish children, 20 percent of Protestants, and 6 percent of Catholics. (One in four cases of bullying Muslim children involved a teacher or administrator as the bully.) Similarly, 60 percent of Muslims reported discrimination because of their religion, compared to 38 percent of Jews, and less than 20 percent of Protestants and Catholics. Muslims (38 percent) and Jews (27 percent) were also the religious groups most likely to fear white supremacist threats to their personal safety or that of their family because of the 2016 election.Ironically, one change agent has been President Trump himself. His often controversial views of Muslims appear to have produced a backlash among Democrats and independents, both of whom became more favorable toward Muslims and Islam in 2015–2016. As a result, opinions among Americans, overall, have become more favorable. The challenge, however, is that the views of Republicans have not shifted as much, if at all, in that direction. Democrats and Republicans have become more polarized on this issue, as on many other issues.

I recently spoke with Dalia Mogahed and John Sides about their new research on bigotry towards Muslims, what their findings reveal about the rise of Donald Trump and the extreme right-ward turn of the Republican Party, and the serious threat to American democracy represented by animus and racism towards Muslims and other groups.

Your new research is damning for what it reveals about anti-Muslim animus in the United States. How do these attitudes vary over time? Are they fixed? More intense at some moments than others?

Dalia Mogahed: You are correct of course, the results are indeed extremely concerning.  It is important however to point out that even according to our research, while the percentages are much higher than any one who cares about equality would want, most Americans do not hold these views.  It is important to hold the basic truth that our country’s social and moral norms still fall on the side of at least basic acceptance of Americans that are Muslim.  That said, according to my research, negative public opinion regarding Muslims ebbs and flows in concert with domestic political rhetoric and not violent acts carried out by Muslims in the name of Islam. Spikes in negative public perception of Muslims tracks against election cycles, especially among Republicans, as well as the run up to war with Muslim majority countries, and not actual terrorist attacks carried out by a Muslim.

As you point out, these trends are indeed “damning” for what they suggest about the degree to which we are all being manipulated by a political agenda that benefits from fear. Notice that our report also found that holding anti-Muslim perceptions is correlated with greater support for authoritarian views. Fear kills freedom.What do we know about how Donald Trump and the Republican Party's hostility towards Muslims influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential election?

Mogahed: Unfortunately, those sentiments were key motivators for many Trump voters as has been documented by several subsequent studies following the election.  When voters are motivated by fear or hatred of “the other” they also tend to favor a “strong leader” and be more willing to relinquish basic freedoms and surrender power to the government-- hardly core conservative values.  But that’s just it, when people are manipulated by false information and fear they act in opposition to their own interests and values.

Anti-Muslim animus is a powerful type of political currency. What does your new research--and other work--reveal about its dimensions and how it plays out among the electorate?

John Sides: Our report shows that negative perceptions of Muslim-Americans do not just involve a concern that they are terrorists or sympathetic to terrorism. Those perceptions involve a more fundamental concern that Muslim-Americans do not actually want to be American.

I view these negative perceptions as a "reservoir" of sentiment that can be mobilized by political entrepreneurs. In 2016, for example, Trump's focus on the threats posed by Muslims -- and Clinton's rejection of that view -- made the public's perceptions of Muslims more related to their preference for Clinton or Trump than had been true in recent presidential elections.

That helped Trump more than Clinton. There had long been a substantial fraction of Obama voters with less favorable views of Muslims, and the campaign's focus on Muslims arguably helped shift some of those voters to Trump.

How do you measure anti-Muslim animus? How does it compare to "prejudice" and "racism"?

Mogahed: Islamophobia, or anti-Muslim animus, prejudice or even “racism” take many forms.  One is on the social level, which is what our report measures.  This is manifested in everything from micro-aggressions or discrimination against Muslim perceived individuals to targeted attacks on Muslims and those perceived to be.  According to the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU)’s 2017 and 2018 poll of American Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Protestants and those of no faith, Muslims are the most likely to report experiencing discrimination because of their religion.  But it is important to note that this is not the only — or even the most harmful — way Islamophobia is operationalized.

There is also State-sponsored Islamophobia, in the form of the criminalization of Muslim communities through the unfounded use of mass surveillance of Muslim institutions, discrimination at the border and in the immigration process, the overuse and misuse of sting operations and a “countering violent extremism” framework that casts an entire religious community as a pool of suspects.  A recent ISPU reportfound that a Muslim perceived man accused of an ideologically motivated crime receives an average of four times the jail time as someone not perceived to be Muslim accused of a nearly identical ideologically motivated crime.

There is other research which demonstrates the role of white Christian nationalism in support of Donald Trump. Does your work complement those findings?

Sides: Our report comes from a survey conducted months after the election. So it's not an account of what happened in 2016. But as I noted above, views of Muslims did play a larger role in voters' choices in 2016 than in recent elections. (That's based on other analysis from my forthcoming book on the election.) But what happened during the campaign and since the election is perhaps counterintuitive: views of Muslims also became more favorable. A variety of surveys show this. The main reason is that Democratic views of Muslims have shifted — arguably in reaction to Trump.

As a result, Democrats and Republicans are now further apart in their views of Muslims. This is a troubling dynamic. Increasingly, the parties differ in their views on a host of issues connected to racial, ethnic, and religious minorities. That sets the stage for an increasingly divisive and emotionally charged politics.

Is there any political cost to Republicans for embracing anti-Muslim bigotry as a political strategy?

Mogahed: As for any political cost for expressing anti-Muslim sentiment, there does not appear to be much of a cost in the Republican party.  Ironically however, this vitriol has actually improved American public opinion of Muslims over all, as Shibley Telhami recently discovered in his study. The bright side of all this is that far from demobilizing Muslims, it has coincided with a surge in Muslim civic engagement.

Considering this new research (and your other work) what causes you the most worry about American democracy in this moment and what gives you hope — if anything?

Mogahed: What causes me the most worry about American democracy is the fact that such a significant percentage of our electorate is misinformed about people they perceive to be unlike them and are voting and approving of policies based on misinformation.  Thomas Jefferson always taught that a well informed citizenry was the bedrock of our democracy which means the very foundation of our freedom is being undermined with fear mongering and demagoguery.

What does give me hope is that this type of thinking is still not the new normal.  It is still a vocal minority of Americans despite the ubiquitous anti-Muslim political rhetoric and  media imagery.

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Tomgram: Arnold Isaacs, Promoting Islamophobia in America

Honestly, if you’re trying to grasp our strange new world, this Washington Post*headline gets you at least part of the way there: "New NSC Chief of Staff Is From Group That Believes Muslims Are Plotting to Take Over U.S." No, that NSC isn’t the National Student Clearinghouse or the Norfolk Southern Corporation or the National Sports Center. It’s the National Security Council, the outfit that advises the president on, well, national security, and that happens to be headed by new National Security Advisor John Bolton, a man who never saw a country he couldn’t imagine bombing. Now, as its Bolton-appointed chief of staff, it has a genuine Islamophobic crackpot by the name of Fred Fleitz. He previously was vice president for policy at Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy, an outfit that, as the *Postputs it, "propagates the conspiracy theory that Islamists have infiltrated the U.S. government in a plot to take over the country" (and that’s barely to crack the surface of its mania about Islam). 

By the way, you remember that flap about Roseanne Barr calling former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett a spawn of the Planet of the Apes, right? If not, it’s not your fault. Since that controversy exploded across the Twitternet ("Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes = VJ"), our president has been transforming himself into King George III, claiming unprecedented powers over this country and, if he has his way, the world, while there have been so many other manic explosions in our media world that it’s mindboggling. On such a planet, attention spans are understandably short. Nonetheless, it might be worth revisiting the Barr controversy briefly, in light of the Fleitz appointment, since the racist comparison of Jarrett, an African American woman, to an ape proved explosive, yet the other half of Barr’s insulting equation ("Muslim Brotherhood") was barely noticed. 

As the invaluable Juan Cole writes at Informed Comment, however, Barr seems to have picked up much of her Jarrett slam from Gaffney and Fleitz’s center, which has worked hard to “single out Jarrett as a baleful influence on Obama and... connect her to Iran [where she was indeed born], and then implicitly to the Muslim Brotherhood. (Only, the Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni Muslim organization and Iran is Shiite).” Oh yes, and Jarrett isn’t Muslim. 

Well, small points indeed in an American world where wearing the label Islamophobe seems to disqualify you from nothing -- certainly not the presidency or becoming secretary of state or, for that matter, chief of staff of the NSC. It's no longer a problem at all, as TomDispatch*regular Arnold Isaacs makes all too clear today. *Tom

Giving a Pass to Anti-Muslim Bigotry

Islamophobia Enters the Government, Is Incorporated into the Law, and Becomes Increasingly Acceptable in America

By Arnold R. Isaacs

Imagine that a nominee for secretary of state had shared platforms with white nationalist Richard B. Spencer and been given a major award by his National Policy Institute, which describes itself as "an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States and around the world." With that on his record, is it likely the nominee would have been confirmed, or nominated in the first place, to head the State Department?

Or what if someone under consideration for a top White House job had written an admiring foreword for a book by Holocaust denier David Irving or perhaps one by the psychologist and alt-right sympathizer Kevin MacDonald, who describes Jews as "a hostile, adversary elite” conducting "ethnic war" against Christianity and "traditional institutions of European-American culture"? Would such an endorsement keep him from being named as the president's national security advisor?

Click here to read more of this dispatch.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176434/tomgram%3A_arnold_isaacs%2C_promoting_islamophobia_in_america

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islamophobia INC

brigette gabriel sp nat'l sec org

nathan leah islamophobia industry bk

https://default.salsalabs.org/Tfeaa463c-23bb-4102-81f5-0e98bc847113/ac94ac0d-31ce-11e7-960b-0a8abee05f34

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G9G79oImG4&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=bfba66b4-958e-44d8-93be-aabb1978e904

48 min

5/18

Across the United States, there has been a growth in organizations that portray Islam as a threat. Over two years, the number of groups that make up what’s become known as the Islamophobia industry has more than tripled. This investigation reveals the tactics these groups use to instigate a fear of Islam, including how they manipulate social media to create a false narrative that Muslims are trying to take over the country. Anti-Muslim messages proliferate social media with bought-in followers, fake accounts and robotic amplifiers. The investigation also shows how these organizations try to suppress the rise of a Muslim political voice in America. It uncovers the “dark money” that has fuelled the rapid growth of Islamophobia Inc. - tens of millions of dollars which is funnelled through secretive, anonymous donor funds. We unveil the donors of the dark money and ask; what do they ultimately hope to achieve? Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribeFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglishFind us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeeraCheck our website: http://www.aljazeera.com/

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Kansas, a federal jury convicted three white male militia members Wednesday of plotting to massacre Somali immigrants at a mosque and an apartment building in Garden City. Gavin Wright, Patrick Stein and Curtis Allen were found guilty of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, after an FBI informant said they were plotting to use guns and car bombs to mass murder Somalis. The three belonged to a militia called the Crusaders. At trial, their lawyer admitted the trio referred to Muslims as “cockroaches” but argued they hadn’t meant to go through with their plot.

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https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/reports/2011/08/26/10165/fear-inc/

Download this report (pdf)

Read the report in your web browser (Scribd)

Download individual chapters of the report (pdf):

• Introduction and summary
• Chapter 1: Donors to the Islamophobia network
• Chapter 2: The Islamophobia misinformation experts
• Chapter 3: The grassroots organizations and the religious right
• Chapter 4: The right-wing media enablers of anti-Islam propaganda
• Chapter 5: The political players
• Conclusion

Video: Ask the Expert: Faiz Shakir on the Group Behind Islamophobia

On July 22, a man planted a bomb in an Oslo government building that killed eight people. A few hours after the explosion, he shot and killed 68 people, mostly teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on Norway’s Utoya Island.

By midday, pundits were speculating as to who had perpetrated the greatest massacre in Norwegian history since World War II. Numerous mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, speculated about an Al Qaeda connection and a “jihadist” motivation behind the attacks. But by the next morning it was clear that the attacker was a 32-year-old, white, blond-haired and blue-eyed Norwegian named Anders Breivik. He was not a Muslim, but rather a self-described Christian conservative.

According to his attorney, Breivik claimed responsibility for his self-described “gruesome but necessary” actions. On July 26, Breivik told the court that violence was “necessary” to save Europe from Marxism and “Muslimization.” In his 1,500-page manifesto, which meticulously details his attack methods and aims to inspire others to extremist violence, Breivik vows “brutal and breathtaking operations which will result in casualties” to fight the alleged “ongoing Islamic Colonization of Europe.”

Breivik’s manifesto contains numerous footnotes and in-text citations to American bloggers and pundits, quoting them as experts on Islam’s “war against the West.” This small group of anti-Muslim organizations and individuals in our nation is obscure to most Americans but wields great influence in shaping the national and international political debate. Their names are heralded within communities that are actively organizing against Islam and targeting Muslims in the United States.

Breivik, for example, cited Robert Spencer, one of the anti-Muslim misinformation scholars we profile in this report, and his blog, Jihad Watch, 162 times in his manifesto. Spencer’s website, which “tracks the attempts of radical Islam to subvert Western culture,” boasts another member of this Islamophobia network in America, David Horowitz, on his Freedom Center website. Pamela Geller, Spencer’s frequent collaborator, and her blog, Atlas Shrugs, was mentioned 12 times.

Geller and Spencer co-founded the organization Stop Islamization of America, a group whose actions and rhetoric the Anti-Defamation League concluded “promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy “American values.” Based on Breivik’s sheer number of citations and references to the writings of these individuals, it is clear that he read and relied on the hateful, anti-Muslim ideology of a number of men and women detailed in this report&a select handful of scholars and activists who work together to create and promote misinformation about Muslims.

While these bloggers and pundits were not responsible for Breivik’s deadly attacks, their writings on Islam and multiculturalism appear to have helped create a world view, held by this lone Norwegian gunman, that sees Islam as at war with the West and the West needing to be defended. According to former CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman, just as religious extremism “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged,” the writings of these anti-Muslim misinformation experts are “the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.” Sageman adds that their rhetoric “is not cost-free.”

These pundits and bloggers, however, are not the only members of the Islamophobia infrastructure. Breivik’s manifesto also cites think tanks, such as the Center for Security Policy, the Middle East Forum, and the Investigative Project on Terrorism—three other organizations we profile in this report. Together, this core group of deeply intertwined individuals and organizations manufacture and exaggerate threats of “creeping Sharia,” Islamic domination of the West, and purported obligatory calls to violence against all non-Muslims by the Quran.

This network of hate is not a new presence in the United States. Indeed, its ability to organize, coordinate, and disseminate its ideology through grassroots organizations increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Furthermore, its ability to influence politicians’ talking points and wedge issues for the upcoming 2012 elections has mainstreamed what was once considered fringe, extremist rhetoric.

And it all starts with the money flowing from a select group of foundations. A small group of foundations and wealthy donors are the lifeblood of the Islamophobia network in America, providing critical funding to a clutch of right-wing think tanks that peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islam—in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted talking points that anti-Islam grassroots organizations and some right-wing religious groups use as propaganda for their constituency.

Some of these foundations and wealthy donors also provide direct funding to anti-Islam grassroots groups. According to our extensive analysis, here are the top seven contributors to promoting Islamophobia in our country:

• Donors Capital Fund
• Richard Mellon Scaife foundations
• Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
• Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust
• Russell Berrie Foundation
• Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund
• Fairbrook Foundation

Altogether, these seven charitable groups provided $42.6 million to Islamophobia think tanks between 2001 and 2009—funding that supports the scholars and experts that are the subject of our next chapter as well as some of the grassroots groups that are the subject of Chapter 3 of our report.

And what does this money fund? Well, here’s one of many cases in point: Last July, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned a conservative audience at the American Enterprise Institute that the Islamic practice of Sharia was “a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.” Gingrich went on to claim that “Sharia in its natural form has principles and punishments totally abhorrent to the Western world.”

Sharia, or Muslim religious code, includes practices such as charitable giving, prayer, and honoring one’s parents—precepts virtually identical to those of Christianity and Judaism. But Gingrich and other conservatives promote alarmist notions about a nearly 1,500-year-old religion for a variety of sinister political, financial, and ideological motives. In his remarks that day, Gingrich mimicked the language of conservative analyst Andrew McCarthy, who co-wrote a report calling Sharia “the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time.” Such similarities in language are no accident. Look no further than the organization that released McCarthy’s anti-Sharia report: the aforementionedCenter for Security Policy, which is a central hub of the anti-Muslim network and an active promoter of anti- Sharia messaging and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In fact, CSP is a key source for right-wing politicians, pundits, and grassroots organizations, providing them with a steady stream of reports mischaracterizing Islam and warnings about the dangers of Islam and American Muslims. Operating under the leadership of Frank Gaffney, the organization is funded by a small number of foundations and donors with a deep understanding of how to influence U.S. politics by promoting highly alarming threats to our national security. CSP is joined by other anti-Muslim organizations in this lucrative business, such as Stop Islamization of America and the Society of Americans for National Existence. Many of the leaders of these organizations are well-schooled in the art of getting attention in the press, particularly Fox News, The Wall Street Journal editorial pages, The Washington Times, and a variety of right-wing websites and radio outlets.

Misinformation experts such as Gaffney consult and work with such right-wing grassroots organizations as ACT! for America and the Eagle Forum, as well as religious right groups such as the Faith and Freedom Coalition and American Family Association, to spread their message. Speaking at their conferences, writing on their websites, and appearing on their radio shows, these experts rail against Islam and cast suspicion on American Muslims. Much of their propaganda gets churned into fundraising appeals by grassroots and religious right groups. The money they raise then enters the political process and helps fund ads supporting politicians who echo alarmist warnings and sponsor anti-Muslim attacks.

These efforts recall some of the darkest episodes in American history, in which religious, ethnic, and racial minorities were discriminated against and persecuted. From Catholics, Mormons, Japanese Americans, European immigrants, Jews, and African Americans, the story of America is one of struggle to achieve in practice our founding ideals. Unfortunately, American Muslims and Islam are the latest chapter in a long American struggle against scapegoating based on religion, race, or creed.

Due in part to the relentless efforts of this small group of individuals and organizations, Islam is now the most negatively viewed religion in America. Only 37 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Islam: the lowest favorability rating since 2001, according to a 2010 ABC News/Washington Post poll. According to a 2010 Time magazine poll, 28 percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, and nearly one-third of the country thinks followers of Islam should be barred from running for president.

...

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Horowitz and Spencer’s Islamophobia

by Matt Duss

In a recent article for National Review Online, David Horowitz and Robert Spencer criticized the Center for American Progress’s report “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.” Following a familiar formula, the authors play the victim, accusing CAP of peddling “conspiracy theories” about anti-Muslim activists like themselves.

Even a cursory glance at our report, however, shows we have done no such thing. Quite the contrary, the dissemination of hateful anti-Muslim ideas by Horowitz, Spencer, and others is done right out in the open. CAP’s contribution was to document these efforts, to draw together the various strands in order to properly view them as part of a coherent whole — an organized campaign to spread misinformation about the religious faith of millions of Americans.

The authors first take issue with our use of the term “Islamophobia,” claiming “the purpose of the suffix — phobia — is to identify any concern about troubling Islamic institutions and actions as irrational, or worse as a dangerous bigotry that should itself be feared.” This is false. As my co-authors and I note in our report, we don’t use the term “Islamophobia” lightly. We define it as an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from America’s social, political, and civic life.

We think that any fair-minded reader of Horowitz and Spencer’s work, which our report extensively documents, would conclude that it qualifies.

Engaging in exactly the sort of careless slander that our report examines, the authors then deride similar reports from what they refer to as “[Muslim] Brotherhood fronts like CAIR [the Council on American-Islamic Relations], and jihadist apologists like the Southern Poverty Law Center.” Interestingly, they spare the Anti-Defamation League, which released a backgrounder earlier this year declaring that Spencer’s group, Stop Islamization of America, “promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam.”

Spencer’s group, the Anti-Defamation League wrote, “seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy ‘American’ values.” Should the Anti-Defamation League also be lumped with the “jihadist apologists”?

Rather than addressing such charges, however, the authors spend the majority of their response listing reasons why Islamic extremist terrorism represents a genuine threat to American security. But they are rebutting an argument we have not made. As evidenced by the considerable amount of work CAP has produced on the subject, we take the issue of national security extremely seriously — far more seriously than Horowitz and Spencer’s selective, inflammatory, and unscholarly rendering of the Islamic peril suggests that they themselves do.

It is enormously revealing that Horowitz and Spencer do not address the actual argument made in “Fear, Inc.,” which is that they, along with a small cadre of self-appointed experts and activists, promote the idea that religiously inspired terrorism represents true Islam. (“Traditional Islam itself is not moderate or peaceful,” wrote Spencer in 2006. “It is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers.”) They also promote the idea that Sharia law is incompatible with a modern society (“There is no form of Sharia that does not contain . . . [the] death penalty for apostasy,” wrote Spencer, obviously ignorant of the manner in which Islam is practiced by millions of Sharia-adherent Muslims in the United States).

The unmistakable implication of these claims is that all observant Muslims should be viewed with suspicion simply by virtue of being observant Muslims. That’s obviously Islamophobic. (It also flies in the face of the evidence. Earlier this year, the largest study of Muslim Americans ever done, the Muslim American Public Opinion Survey, found that “involvement with the mosque, and increased religiosity increases civic engagement and support for American democratic values.”)

It is worth noting here the irony of Horowitz and Spencer’s accusing CAP of promulgating a conspiracy theory, because, as the Anti-Defamation League’s backgrounder also notes, a conspiracy is precisely what those authors themselves allege in regard to American Muslims’ supposed efforts to infiltrate the American legal system with Islamic Sharia law. (For an examination and rebuttal of those claims, see CAP’s previous issue brief, “Understanding Sharia Law.”)

And finally, a word about the venue in which Horowitz and Spencer’s piece was published, National Review. While we don’t share many of this magazine’s positions, we recognize it as an institution of American conservatism and a key player in the American political debate. Its imprimatur matters, which is why we’re concerned that that imprimatur should be granted to characters like Horowitz and Spencer.

Back in the 1950’s, the stridently anti-Communist John Birch Society made very similar claims about the threat of Communism that Islamophobes now make about the threat of Islam. At one point, Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society, wrote that Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower was “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.”

National Review’s founder and editor, William F. Buckley Jr., responded to Welch’s allegation with condemnation. “How can the John Birch Society be an effective political instrument while it is led by a man whose views on current affairs are, at so many critical points . . . so far removed from common sense?” Buckley asked. “That dilemma weighs on conservatives across America.” Buckley’s condemnation helped marginalize the John Birch Society from the mainstream conservative movement for decades.

In Horowitz’s FrontPage magazine on Feb. 3, 2011, Spencer wrote, “[Muslim] Brotherhood operatives are in the American government and working closely with it, thanks to Barack Obama.” On Sept. 12, 2011, Spencer criticized President Obama’s choice of a Bibleverse read at the 9/11 commemorations as evidence of the president’s “remarkable, unqualified and obvious affinity for Islam.” The list of similar allegations from Spencer is not short.

This new dilemma should weigh on conservatives across America. David Horowitz, Robert Spencer, and the rest of the Islamophobes we name in our report are the modern version of the John Birch Society. Judging Robert Welch’s allegations of President Eisenhower’s supposed Communist sympathies to be beyond the pale, William F. Buckley denounced them in the pages of National Review. It’s unfortunate that, rather than do the same in response to Welch’s heirs, today’s National Review gives them a platform.

— Matt Duss is a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress and the director of the Center’s Middle East Progress project. He is a co-author of “Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.”

==

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https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/us/:{church-militant:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:-theology-is-put-to-new-and-politicized-use.html?_r=0

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In an October 13 article, CBSNews.com political reporter Brian Montopoli notes that the "notion that Sharia law is coming to America has been percolating in the conservative media for a while." Montopoli cites examplesfrom Fox News' Sean Hannity, Brian Kilmeade, and Newt Gingrich, among others. He later reports that "fears of an outbreak of Sharia law seem overblown at best. Even if there is somehow a serious push for the imposition of Sharia law - or any other religious law - it would quickly run up against the first amendment to the Constitution."

From the CBSNews.com article:

The notion that Sharia law is coming to America has been percolating in the conservative media for a while. Fox News' Sean Hannity suggested the arrest of the Christian missionaries in Dearborn reflected the possibility that "Sharia law is taking over in Dearborn," as did Fox News' Brian Kilmeade, who interviewed one of the men who was arrested.

At the Values Voters summit in September, Newt Gingrich said - to a standing ovation - that "[w]e should have a federal law that says Sharia law cannot be recognized by any court in the United States." He has also warned that jihadists are trying "to replace Western civilization with a radical imposition of Sharia."

To support his argument, Gingrich cites a 2009 judgment in New Jersey that a man had not sexually assaulted his wife because his behavior was "consistent with his practices." The decision was later overturned, and stands as "the one and only instance of stealth sharia that anyone has been able to find," according to the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson.

The outcry over Sharia law has been tied in large part to the controversy around the Islamic cultural center two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks, as well as other mosques around the country. In August, Dick Morris said on Fox News that the cultural center will be used to "train and recruit Sharia law advocates who become terrorists."

[...]

All this isn't to say that there isn't the possibility that a greater Muslim presence in the United States won't have some impact on the law; Christian-backed blue laws, which limit the sale of alcohol on Sundays in order to foster religious observance, are a good example of such religious influence.

But considering that there are perhaps two million Muslims in the United States, a country with a population of more than 310 million, fears of an outbreak of Sharia law seem overblown at best. Even if there is somehow a serious push for the imposition of Sharia law - or any other religious law - it would quickly run up against the first amendment to the Constitution.

"Were not going to see hand chopping off, were not going to see retaliatory violence, we're not going to see underage marriages, were not going to see polygamous marriages," Clark Lombardi of the University of Washington Law School told NPR. "The U.S. courts simply wouldn't do it."

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Fear, Inc.

The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America

By Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz Shakir Posted on August 26, 2011, 9:00 am

Download this report (pdf)

Read the report in your web browser (Scribd)

Download individual chapters of the report (pdf):

• • Introduction and summary
  • Chapter 1: Donors to the Islamophobia network
  • Chapter 2: The Islamophobia misinformation experts
  • Chapter 3: The grassroots organizations and the religious right
  • Chapter 4: The right-wing media enablers of anti-Islam propaganda
  • Chapter 5: The political players
  • Conclusion

Video: Ask the Expert: Faiz Shakir on the Group Behind Islamophobia

On July 22, a man planted a bomb in an Oslo government building that killed eight people. A few hours after the explosion, he shot and killed 68 people, mostly teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on Norway’s Utoya Island.

By midday, pundits were speculating as to who had perpetrated the greatest massacre in Norwegian history since World War II. Numerous mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, speculated about an Al Qaeda connection and a “jihadist” motivation behind the attacks. But by the next morning it was clear that the attacker was a 32-year-old, white, blond-haired and blue-eyed Norwegian named Anders Breivik. He was not a Muslim, but rather a self-described Christian conservative.

According to his attorney,Breivikclaimed responsibility for his self-described “gruesome but necessary” actions. On July 26, Breivik told the court that violence was “necessary” to save Europe from Marxism and “Muslimization.” In his 1,500-page manifesto, which meticulously details his attack methods and aims to inspire others to extremist violence, Breivik vows “brutal and breathtaking operations which will result in casualties” to fight the alleged “ongoing Islamic Colonization of Europe.”

Breivik’s manifesto contains numerous footnotes and in-text citations to American bloggers and pundits, quoting them as experts on Islam’s “war against the West.” This small group of anti-Muslim organizations and individuals in our nation is obscure to most Americans but wields great influence in shaping the national and international political debate. Their names are heralded within communities that are actively organizing against Islam and targeting Muslims in the United States.

Breivik, for example, cited Robert Spencer, one of the anti-Muslim misinformation scholars we profile in this report, and his blog, Jihad Watch, 162 times in his manifesto. Spencer’s website, which “tracks the attempts of radical Islam to subvert Western culture,” boasts another member of this Islamophobia network in America, David Horowitz, on his Freedom Center website. Pamela Geller, Spencer’s frequent collaborator, and her blog, Atlas Shrugs, was mentioned 12 times.

Geller and Spencer co-founded the organization Stop Islamization of America, a group whose actions and rhetoric the Anti-Defamation League concluded “promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy “American values.” Based on Breivik’s sheer number of citations and references to the writings of these individuals, it is clear that he read and relied on the hateful, anti-Muslim ideology of a number of men and women detailed in this report&a select handful of scholars and activists who work together to create and promote misinformation about Muslims.

While these bloggers and pundits were not responsible for Breivik’s deadly attacks, their writings on Islam and multiculturalism appear to have helped create a world view, held by this lone Norwegian gunman, that sees Islam as at war with the West and the West needing to be defended. According to former CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman, just as religious extremism “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged,” the writings of these anti-Muslim misinformation experts are “the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.” Sageman adds that their rhetoric “is not cost-free.”

These pundits and bloggers, however, are not the only members of the Islamophobia infrastructure. Breivik’s manifesto also cites think tanks, such as the Center for Security Policy, the Middle East Forum, and the Investigative Project on Terrorism—three other organizations we profile in this report. Together, this core group of deeply intertwined individuals and organizations manufacture and exaggerate threats of “creeping Sharia,” Islamic domination of the West, and purported obligatory calls to violence against all non-Muslims by the Quran.

This network of hate is not a new presence in the United States. Indeed, its ability to organize, coordinate, and disseminate its ideology through grassroots organizations increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Furthermore, its ability to influence politicians’ talking points and wedge issues for the upcoming 2012 elections has mainstreamed what was once considered fringe, extremist rhetoric.

And it all starts with the money flowing from a select group of foundations. A small group of foundations and wealthy donors are the lifeblood of the Islamophobia network in America, providing critical funding to a clutch of right-wing think tanks that peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islam—in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted talking points that anti-Islam grassroots organizations and some right-wing religious groups use as propaganda for their constituency.

Some of these foundations and wealthy donors also provide direct funding to anti-Islam grassroots groups. According to our extensive analysis, here are the top seven contributors to promoting Islamophobia in our country:

• • Donors Capital Fund
  • Richard Mellon Scaife foundations
  • Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
  • Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust
  • Russell Berrie Foundation
  • Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund
  • Fairbrook Foundation

Altogether, these seven charitable groups provided $42.6 million to Islamophobia think tanks between 2001 and 2009—funding that supports the scholars and experts that are the subject of our next chapter as well as some of the grassroots groups that are the subject of Chapter 3 of our report.

And what does this money fund? Well, here’s one of many cases in point: Last July, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned a conservative audience at the American Enterprise Institute that the Islamic practice of Sharia was “a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United Statesand in the world as we know it.” Gingrich went on to claim that “Sharia in its natural form has principles and punishments totally abhorrent to the Western world.”

Sharia, or Muslim religious code, includes practices such as charitable giving, prayer, and honoring one’s parents—precepts virtually identical to those of Christianity and Judaism. But Gingrich and other conservatives promote alarmist notions about a nearly 1,500-year-old religion for a variety of sinister political, financial, and ideological motives. In his remarks that day, Gingrich mimicked the language of conservative analyst Andrew McCarthy, who co-wrote a report calling Sharia “the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time.” Such similarities in language are no accident. Look no further than the organization that released McCarthy’s anti-Sharia report: the aforementioned Center for Security Policy, which is a central hub of the anti-Muslim network and an active promoter of anti- Sharia messaging and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In fact, CSP is a key source for right-wing politicians, pundits, and grassroots organizations, providing them with a steady stream of reports mischaracterizing Islam and warnings about the dangers of Islam and American Muslims. Operating under the leadership of Frank Gaffney, the organization is funded by a small number of foundations and donors with a deep understanding of how to influence U.S. politics by promoting highly alarming threats to our national security. CSP is joined by other anti-Muslim organizations in this lucrative business, such as Stop Islamization of America and the Society of Americans for National Existence. Many of the leaders of these organizations are well-schooled in the art of getting attention in the press, particularly Fox News, The Wall Street Journal editorial pages, The Washington Times, and a variety of right-wing websites and radio outlets.

Misinformation experts such as Gaffneyconsult and work with such right-wing grassroots organizations as ACT! for America and the Eagle Forum, as well as religious right groups such as the Faith and Freedom Coalition and American Family Association, to spread their message. Speaking at their conferences, writing on their websites, and appearing on their radio shows, these experts rail against Islam and cast suspicion on American Muslims. Much of their propaganda gets churned into fundraising appeals by grassroots and religious right groups. The money they raise then enters the political process and helps fund ads supporting politicians who echo alarmist warnings and sponsor anti-Muslim attacks.

These efforts recall some of the darkest episodes in American history, in which religious, ethnic, and racial minorities were discriminated against and persecuted. From Catholics, Mormons, Japanese Americans, European immigrants, Jews, and African Americans, the story of America is one of struggle to achieve in practice our founding ideals. Unfortunately, American Muslims and Islam are the latest chapter in a long American struggle against scapegoating based on religion, race, or creed.

Due in part to the relentless efforts of this small group of individuals and organizations, Islam is now the most negatively viewed religion in America. Only 37 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Islam: the lowest favorability rating since 2001, according to a 2010 ABC News/Washington Post poll. According to a 2010 Time magazine poll, 28 percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, and nearly one-third of the country thinks followers of Islam should be barred from running for president.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 alone did not drive Americans’ perceptions of Muslims and Islam. President George W. Bush reflected the general opinion of the American public at the time when he went to great lengths to make clear that Islam and Muslims are not the enemy. Speaking to a roundtable of Arab and Muslim American leaders at the Afghanistan embassy in 2002, for example, President Bush said, “All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true faith—face of Islam. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It’s a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It’s a faith based upon love, not hate.”

Unfortunately, President Bush’s words were soon eclipsed by an organized escalation of hateful statements about Muslims and Islam from the members of the Islamophobia network profiled in this report. This is as sad as it is dangerous. It is enormously important to understand that alienating the Muslim American community not only threatens our fundamental promise of religious freedom, it also hurts our efforts to combat terrorism. Since 9/11, the Muslim American community has helped security and law enforcement officials prevent more than 40 percent of Al Qaeda terrorist plots threatening America. The largest single source of initial information to authorities about the few Muslim American plots has come from the Muslim American community.

Around the world, there are people killing people in the name of Islam, with which most Muslims disagree. Indeed, in most cases of radicalized neighbors, family members, or friends, the Muslim American community is as baffled, disturbed, and surprised by their appearance as the general public. Treating Muslim American citizens and neighbors as part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, is not only offensive to America’s core values, it is utterly ineffective in combating terrorism and violent extremism.

The White House recently released the national strategy for combating violent extremism, “Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States.” One of the top focal points of the effort is to “counter al-Qa’ida’s propaganda that the United States is somehow at war with Islam.” Yet orchestrated efforts by the individuals and organizations detailed in this report make it easy for al-Qa’ida to assert that America hates Muslims and that Muslims around the world are persecuted for the simple crime of being Muslims and practicing their religion.

Sadly, the current isolation of American Muslims echoes past witch hunts in our history—from the divisive McCarthyite purges of the 1950s to the sometimes violent anti-immigrant campaigns in the 19th and 20th centuries. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has compared the fear-mongering of Muslims with anti-Catholic sentiment of the past. In response to the fabricated “Ground Zero mosque” controversy in New York last summer, Mayor Bloomberg said:

In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion, and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780s, St. Peter’s on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site, and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center. … We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else.

This report shines a light on the Islamophobia network of so-called experts, academics, institutions, grassroots organizations, media outlets, and donors who manufacture, produce, distribute, and mainstream an irrational fear of Islam and Muslims. Let us learn the proper lesson from the past, and rise above fear-mongering to public awareness, acceptance, and respect for our fellow Americans. In doing so, let us prevent hatred from infecting and endangering our country again.

In the pages that follow, we profile the small number of funders, organizations, and individuals who have contributed to the discourse on Islamophobia in this country. We begin with the money trail in Chapter 1—our analysis of the funding streams that support anti-Muslim activities. Chapter 2 identifies the intellectual nexus of the Islamophobia network. Chapter 3 highlights the key grassroots players and organizations that help spread the messages of hate. Chapter 4 aggregates the key media amplifiers of Islamophobia. And Chapter 5 brings attention to the elected officials who frequently support the causes of anti- Muslim organizing.

Before we begin, a word about the term “Islamophobia.” We don’t use this term lightly. We define it as an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from America’s social, political, and civic life.

It is our view that in order to safeguard our national security and uphold America’s core values, we must return to a fact-based civil discourse regarding the challenges we face as a nation and world. This discourse must be frank and honest, but also consistent with American values of religious liberty, equal justice under the law, and respect for pluralism. A first step toward the goal of honest, civil discourse is to expose—and marginalize—the influence of the individuals and groups who make up the Islamophobia network in America by actively working to divide Americans against one another through misinformation.

Wajahat Ali is a researcher at the Center for American Progress and a researcher for the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Eli Clifton is a researcher at the Center for American Progress and a national security reporter for the Center for American Progress Action Fund and ThinkProgress.org. Matthew Duss is a Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress and Director of the Center’s Middle East Progress. Lee Fang is a researcher at the Center for American Progress and an investigative researcher/blogger for the Center for American Progress Action Fund and ThinkProgress.org. Scott Keyes is a researcher at the Center for American Progress and an investigative researcher for ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Faiz Shakir is a Vice President at the Center for American Progress and serves as Editor-in-Chief of ThinkProgress.org.

Download this report (pdf)

Read the report in your web browser (Scribd)

Download individual chapters of the report (pdf):

• • Introduction and summary
  • Chapter 1: Donors to the Islamophobia network
  • Chapter 2: The Islamophobia misinformation experts
  • Chapter 3: The grassroots organizations and the religious right
  • Chapter 4: The right-wing media enablers of anti-Islam propaganda
  • Chapter 5: The political players
  • Conclusion

Video: Ask the Expert: Faiz Shakir on the Group Behind Islamophobia

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ch 4

Spreading anti-Muslim hate in America depends on a well-developed right-wing media echo chamber to amplify a few marginal voices. The think tank misinformation experts and grassroots and religious-right organizations profiled in this report boast a symbiotic relationship with a loosely aligned, ideologically-akin group of right-wing blogs, magazines, radio stations, newspapers, and television news shows to spread their anti-Islam messages and myths. The media outlets, in turn, give members of this network the exposure needed to amplify their message, reach larger audiences, drive fundraising numbers, and grow their membership base. Some well-established conservative media outlets are a key part of this echo chamber, mixing coverage of alarmist threats posed by the mere existence of Muslims in America with other news stories. Chief among the media partners are the Fox News empire,1 the influential conservative magazine National Review and its website,2 a host of right-wing radio hosts, The Washington Times newspaper and website,3 and the Christian Broadcasting Network and website.4 They tout Frank Gaffney, David Yerushalmi, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Steven Emerson, and others as experts, and invite supposedly moderate Muslim and Arabs to endorse bigoted views. In so doing, these media organizations amplify harmful, anti-Muslim views to wide audiences. (See box on page 86) In this chapter we profile some of the right-wing media enablers, beginning with the websites, then hate radio, then the television outlets. The websites A network of right-wing websites and blogs are frequently the primary movers of anti-Muslim messages and myths. The two most influential are: • David Horowitz Freedom Center websites and online magazines, including FrontPage Magazine,5 Jihad Watch,6 NewsReal Blog,7 and its various conferences • Pamela Geller’s Atlas Shrugs blog8 Let’s look at each in turn

...

https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/08/pdf/islamophobia_chapter4.pdf

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babin ltr

:{:{he 17 Freedom Caucus members who have joined with Babin, also a caucus member, to sign the letter to Ryan are as follows: Dave Brat of Virginia, Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee, Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Andy Harris of Maryland, Jody Hice of Georgia, Walter Jones of North Carolina, Steve King of Iowa, Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Mark Meadows of North Carolina, Matt Salmon of Arizona, Randy Weber of Texas and Ted Yoho of Florida.}::{}:

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/09/only-37-republicans-back-plan-to-defund-muslim-refugees/#efgAA3Z8GobctoJH.99}:

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https://www.cair.com/islamophobia/islamophobia-reports-other-documents.html

gaffney, geller, spencer

uprising 7/25/16

core and assoc

Table of Contents

ISLAMOPHOBIA AND ITS IMPACT IN THE UNITED STATES | LEGISLATING FEAR

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https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/03/28/meet-anti-muslim-leaders-advising-donald-trump-and-ted-cruz

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02 The Inner Core 17

Act! for America, Brigitte Gabriel 17

American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and its project Stop the Islamization of America 18

American Freedom Law Center, David Yerushalmi 19

American Public Policy Alliance 20

American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), Dr. Zuhdi Jasser 20

Americans Against Hate, Joe Kaufman 21

Atlas Shrugs, Pamela Geller 22

Bare Naked Islam 23

Bay People 23

Center for Security Policy (CSP), Frank Gaffney 23

Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI), Bill French 24

Christian Action Network 24

Citizens for National Security 24

The Clarion Fund 24

Concerned American Citizens 25

Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment (CCFA) 26

Counter Terrorism Operations Center (CTOC), Sam Kharoba 26

David Horowitz Freedom Center, David Horowitz 26

Debbieschlussel.com, Debbie Schlussel 27

ii Council on American-Islamic Relations

Dove World Outreach Center, Terry Jones 27

Florida Family Association, David Caton 27

Former Muslims United, Nonie Darwish 28

Forum for Middle East Understanding, Walid Shoebat 29

Gates of Vienna 30

Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), Steve Emerson 30

Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer 31

Middle East Forum, Daniel Pipes 32

Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) 33

Militant Islam Monitor 34

SAE Productions 34

Society of Americans for National Existence 34

Stop the Islamization of Nations 35

Strategic Engagement Group, Stephen Coughlin, John Guandolo 35

Tennessee Freedom Coalition, Lou Ann Zelenik 36

The Shoebat Foundation 36

The United West 36

The Virginia Anti-Sharia Taskforce

https://www.cair.com/images/islamophobia/Legislating-Fear.pdf

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splc:

Following the attacks in Brussels on March 22, GOP Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz issued a call for the United States to "immediately halt the flow of refugees from countries with a significant al-Qaida or ISIS presence."

Surprisingly, he also called for a "need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized." Such statements, coming from a leading presidential candidate, are only the latest examples of anti-Muslim rhetoric making the jump from the firing of hate groups to mainstream political discourse. But such jumps are not random and, in fact, have come after years of planning.

The Center for Security Policy, a hate group that serves as the anti-Muslim movement's premier think tank, has worked hard to earn the ear of elected officials and has sadly succeeded in this strategy. Of the eight people appointed as advisors to 2016 candidates Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, all have connections to CSP and half hold ranking positions within the group, including its founder, Frank Gaffney.

Listed below are detailed profiles of the eight anti-Muslim advisors Cruz and Trump have appointed to advisory roles in their campaigns.

Frank Gaffney, president of Center for Security Policy, appointed to Ted Cruz's National Security Coalition on March 17

Frank Gaffney is the founder of the anti-Muslim movement's preeminent think tank, the Center for Security Policy (CSP). He also is one of the most outspoken anti-Muslim activists in America today, propagating conspiracy theories about the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating the White House and producing reports calling for a ban on all Muslim immigration to the U.S.

When asked at an event in 2015 about Somali refugees working at meat processing plants in the U.S., for example, Gaffney stated, "I don't know about you, but it kind of creeps me out that they are getting jobs in the food supply of the United States." Gaffney has also made efforts to associate with loud-and-proud racists. In September of 2015, Gaffney invited on his radio show Jared Taylor, one of the most prominent white nationalists in America, to discuss the Syrian refugee crisis. During the interview, Gaffney called Taylor's openly racist American Renaissance website "wonderful."

Despite such ties to known racists, Gaffney does not operate on the political fringe. In recent years, he and his organization have grown closer to Cruz, with whom he has frequently shared a stage at anti-Muslim events.

In February 2014, Gaffney spoke on a panel titled, "American Security and The Iranian Bomb: Analyzing Threats at Home and Abroad" with Cruz. A month later, Cruz spoke at a "National Security Action Summit" organized by Breitbart News, which featured a host of anti-Muslim activists including Gaffney and three other members of Cruz's National Security Coalition. In September 2014, Cruz spoke via video at another CSP co-sponsored Action Summit.

A year later, in February 2015, Cruz spoke at the CSP's "Defeat Jihad Summit." Gaffney also held four "National Security Action Summit" events last year in Nevada, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa, all key primary states. Cruz attended the first, in South Carolina, and submitted a video speech for the other three. The CSP summits featured a number of GOP presidential hopefuls speaking alongside notorious anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant figures.

In September 2015, Cruz teamed up with his rival Donald Trump to organize a rally in opposition to the nuclear treaty signed with Iran. CSP co-sponsored the event in D.C.

Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin(Ret.), Executive VP of the anti-LGBT Family Research Council, Appointed to Ted Cruz's National Security Coalition on March 17

Boykin works for the anti-LGBT Family Research Council (FRC), but is more known for his activism in the anti-Muslim world.

In the past, Boykin, who brings with him a decorated career in the U.S. Army, has worked closely with the Center for Security Policy and has openly stated that Islam should not be protected under the First Amendment. In 2012, Boykin infamously claimed, "The continent of Europe is dark, it is hopelessly lost and it's going to get worse. Every expert will tell you that by the middle of this century the continent of Europe will be an Islamic continent, and they can't reverse it, they can't stop it. It is because they took Jesus out of their societies and it's been replaced by darkness."

Last month, Boykin endorsed Ted Cruz for president, claiming Cruz was "a man of character integrity and courage." It wasn't a surprise, considering Boykin and Cruz have shared the stage before. In February of 2015, Cruz and Boykin both spoke at the CSP's "Defeat Jihad Summit" in Washington, D.C. In March last year, Boykin participated in Frank Gaffney's National Security Action Summit in South Carolina. A year earlier, both Cruz and Gaffney spoke at the Breitbart-sponsored National Security Action Conference in DC.  Boykin also attended and spoke at the Cruz/Trump anti-Iran nuclear deal rally in D.C. in September of 2015.

Claire Lopez - VP for research and analysis at the anti-Muslim Center for Security Policy, Appointed to Ted Cruz's National Security Coalition on March 17

Lopez, a longtime Gaffney ally, is a key figure at CSP, previously serving as a fellow before becoming vice president of the think tank.

Like her boss Frank Gaffney, Lopez peddles anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. She has long claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood has "infiltrated and suborned the U.S. government to actively assist … the mission of its grand jihad." In 2013, she wrote a report linking Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to the Muslim Brotherhood - a favored allegation that has never been proven. Also in 2013, she stated at a speaking engagement,  "When people in other bona fide religions follow their doctrines they become better people - Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Jews. When Muslims follow their doctrine, they become jihadists." In 2014, she said that because Obama's father was Muslim, that "de facto makes him [Obama] a Muslim," which in turn explains why the president "attacks and punishes Israel while allowing the Islamic State to grow and conquer."

Lopez has also participated in a number of events featuring Cruz, including the March 2014 National Security Action summit in Washington, D.C. and the "Defeat Jihad Summit" in February of 2015.

Andy McCarthy - Columnist for National Review, Appointed to Ted Cruz's National Security Coalition on March 17

McCarthy, like Boykin, is not employed by an anti-Muslim group, but he is very active in the movement, especially on the anti-Muslim speaking circuit.

McCarthy recently claimed that Islam is not a religion and therefore may not deserve legal protections.

In 2010, McCarthy co-authored a CSP-published report titled, "Shariah: The Threat to America." The report concluded with a number of alarmist recommendations, including a call for U.S. government to halt outreach to Muslim communities "through Muslim Brotherhood fronts whose mission it is to destroy our country from within, as such practices are both reckless and counterproductive." Other recommendations included warning Imams that they will be charged with sedition if they advocate for Shariah in America. The report also called for dismantling so-called "no-go zones"-non-existent neighborhoods where law enforcement are rumored to be unable to police because they're heavily Muslim.

McCarthy praised Cruz in a December 2015 National Review column. "Cruz understands that the most immediate enemy the United States confronts on the world stage is Islamic supremacism, which ignites jihadist violence through its state sponsors, terror networks, and activist organizations." Like Clare Lopez, McCarthy has spoken at anti-Muslim events with Cruz, including the "Defeat Jihad Summit" in 2015 and the second National Security Action Summit in September of 2014.

Fred Fleitz - Senior Vice President for Policy and Programs at the anti-Muslim Center for Security Policy, Appointed to Ted Cruz's National Security Coalition on March 17

Fleitz is another Center for Security Policy staffer appointed to the Cruz team. Like Clare Lopez, Fleitz served as a CSP fellow before moving up the ranks.

Fleitz is a co-author of a 2015 report published by CSP titled, "The Secure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movement." Other authors of the report include Cruz National Security Coalition members Jerry Boykin, Frank Gaffney and Clare Lopez. The report concludes with a number of radical recommendations including stopping the immigration of "Shariah-adherent" individuals to the U.S.

Fleitz recently attacked President Obama for speaking at a mosque, claiming the mosque had "known terrorist ties."

Sen. Jeff Sessions - key politician in the anti-Muslim movement, Appointed as Chair of Trump's National Security Advisory Committee on March 3

Sen. Jeff Sessions is one of the most outspoken anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim federal officials who, unsurprisingly, endorsed Trump last month.

In 2014, Sessions received the "Daring the Odds" award from anti-Muslim hate group the David Horowitz Freedom Center for his efforts to prevent undocumented youth from receiving temporary status in the United States. Previous winners of the award include Pamela Geller, who heads the anti-Muslim groups American Freedom Defense Initiative and Stop the Islamization of America. The Center for Security Policy awarded Sessions with its "Keeper of the Flame" award in October of 2015.

In September 2015, Sessions attacked President Obama's plan to resettle Syrian refugees in the United States, stating, "It has also been reported that 3 in 4 of those seeking relocation from the Middle East are not refugees but economic migrants from many countries."

Walid Phares - Anti-Muslim activist and former Lebanese Christian Militia member, Trump revealed Phares is on his council of advisors on March 22, 2016

Walid Phares is a Lebanese Christian with a troubled past. After Mitt Romney announced in 2011 that Phares would serve as co-chair for his Middle East advisory group, Mother Jones revealed that Phares, "was a high ranking political official in a sectarian religious militia responsible for massacres during Lebanon's brutal, 15-year civil war." Earlier that year, Phares was scheduled to testify at hearings discussing radical Islam that were organized by U.S. Rep. Peter King, a close friend of a number of anti-Muslim groups. King was forced to drop Phares from the witness list after his militia ties became known.

Phares has spoken at several events organized by the Center for Security Policy, including a National Security Group Lunch on in February 2015, and another similar event in December of that year. He has also been a guest on Frank Gaffney's Secure Freedom Radio show. Phares was also a guest on an ACT! for America series in 2011. ACT! is the largest grassroots anti-Muslim hate group in America, run by Brigitte Gabriel.

Joseph E. Schmitz - Senior Fellow with the anti-Muslim Center for Security Policy, named to Trump's council of advisors on March 22, 2016

Schmitz spent three years as the Pentagon's Inspector General before leaving under a barrage of scrutiny. According to the Los Angles Times, "Schmitz slowed or blocked investigations of senior Bush administration officials, spent taxpayer money on pet projects and accepted gifts that may have violated ethics guidelines."

Today, Schmitz is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy. He has been a guest on Frank Gaffney's Secure Freedom Radio show and in June of 2013, he spoke at a CSP event. CSP also published a book penned by Schmitz, titled "Inspector General Handbook."

Schmitz is also a co-author of two CSP reports:  "Shariah: The Threat to America," and "The Secure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movement."

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Just like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Republican Governor Sam Brownback had a feeling he was not in Kansas anymore. At least not the Kansas that he once knew. His Sunflower State was teeming with unfamiliar creatures and though not tin-men or scarecrows or wicked witches, they were nonetheless outsiders and were apparently so unsettling that a law was required to prevent their influence: They were Muslims.

Last Friday, Brownback signed a bill prohibiting local courts from relying on sharia, or Islamic law, as well as other non-U.S. laws when making decisions. The fact that such a thing had never occurred in the Midwestern wheat capital did not matter. The bill was approved in a landslide vote: 33-1 in the Senate and 120-0 in the House.

Like other similar bills in 20 states, including recently enacted laws in Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee, the blueprint for the controversial Kansas legislation comes from a familiar and influential source: a growing right-wing network of anti-Muslim fear mongers. They are the Islamophobia industry and laws such as this are hallmark achievements in their quest to frighten the American population about a minority group they view with great suspicion and scorn.

The deluge of anti-Muslim legislation that has unnecessarily clogged the corridors of power (and the minds of otherwise rational politicians) can be traced back to David Yerushalmi, a 57-year-old Hasidic Jew with a library's worth of controversial statements about African Americans, fellow Jews and immigrants. A shadow agent of this fear industry, Yerushalmi has worked behind the scenes since 2001 to ratchet up an image of Islam and Muslims that is heavy on sensationalism and gore and short on context and fact. It was his organization, the Society of Americans for National Existence (with the ironic acronym SANE) that once suggested that the U.S government should declare a war on the Muslim community, that Muslims should not be granted entry visas to the U.S., and that practicing Islam should be a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

The Kansas law, and the majority of the bills that were brought before state congresses, are based on a single piece of blueprint legislation crafted by Yerushalmi titled "American Laws for American Courts." Along with former Reagan official Frank Gaffney, who is famous for suggesting that Barack Obama is a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yerushalmi marketed the plan to lawmakers throughout the country, tapping into Tea Party bases and Republican activist groups such as ACT For America that welcomed the opportunity to institutionalize discrimination in their respective states.

In drumming up support for Kansas's ban, bloggers Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller spread the word to their online bases through "Action Alerts" that warned of "Islamic supremacists" who were "seeking to impose the Sharia on non-Muslims." They urged their supporters to "flood [Brownback's] Twitter" and "jam his phones" with strong support for the bill.

Spencer and Geller co-founded Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA) in 2010, an American offshoot of Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE), a hate group that the European Union calls a "neo-Nazi organization." They also led the protests in 2010 to the Park51 Community Center (remember the Ground Zero Mosque?) in New York City. Yerushalmi and Gaffney serve as their legal counsel. When the Kansas bill was signed, Geller reacted with her usual flamboyance: "U Da Best," she wrote. "What a disaster defeat for Hamas-CAIR," she added.

Supporters of the Kansas law point to the fact that it does not explicitly mention sharia and that it only refers to "foreign legal codes." But it is clear from the people who are behind this newest manifestation of state-sanctioned Islamophobia that the statute is hardly intended to be an equal opportunity regulator. In fact, after court's ruled last year that Oklahoma's sharia ban violated the establishment clause of the Constitution's First Amendment, Yerushalmi took note of the bill's language and wiped out language that could be interpreted as targeting Muslims specifically. This growing network operates on slyness and persistence.

The Islamophobia industry is a dangerous and influential group. They have successfully attached anti-Muslim sentiment to the banner of right-wing populism and it is fast becoming identical to anti-Semitism and other such structural racisms that have the potential to spill out into the ghastly displays of violence. The Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, for example, listed Spencer, Geller and Gaffney multiple times in the manifesto that served as a guidebook for his massacre in July 2011. This network clings to the notion that foreign is bad and that Muslims are not a natural part of America's national fabric. They believe that they must not only be chastised and harassed but that local government's should discriminate against them on the basis of their religion and foreign systems of order that the everyday, law-abiding, peace-loving Muslims of America don't even follow to begin with.

There is no sharia law in Kansas. There is no sharia law anywhere in the United States. What there is, though, is a hateful band of anti-pluralists who take great joy (and make great money) in cleaving society into various fragments that war with one another. It is time to shine a bright and damning light on the Islamophobia industry.

Nathan Lean is the Editor-In-Chief of AslanMedia.com. He is the co-author of 'Iran, Israel, and the United States' (2010) and the author of 'The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims.' Visit him online atwww.nathanlean.com and follow him on Twitter at @nathanlean.

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http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/notorious-islamophobic-think-thank-inspiring-more-far-right-terrorist

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/20/boby-jindal-muslim-no-go-zones

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