April 9th: The Toxic Cloud of Stealth Jihad Descends on NYC
by Lorna Salzman
I recently sat through an intense and rewarding 3 hour marathon webcast on Lawfare, with international participants from the legal and foreign policy communities. With luck more Americans are starting to understand the gravity and magnitude of the threat of radical Islam in all its guises. But not all; in NYC this coming Saturday, April 9, 2011, well-intentioned and less well-informed environmental and social justice activists are joining with the "usual suspects" on the extremist left and in the radical Muslim community.
Purported to be an anti-war demonstration, it reproduces the same tiresome rhetorical language of "struggle" and "resistance" to demonize not just the United States war machine but, predictably, Israel. In this coalition are Omar Barghouti, the organizer of the anti-Israel Boycott/Divestment movement, Al-Awda, the Arab organization responsible for turning the US Green Party into apologists for radical Islam, Ramsay Clark's National Action Center, Hamas' American brothel also known as Code Pink, the usual "useful idiots" waving "peace and justice" flags as they match American militarism word for word, vow to eradicate "Zionists" (a/k/a Jews), the various Maoist sects affiliated with the Revolutionary Communist Party but using various names such as World Can't Wait and Not In My Name, and assorted African and Haitian movements and radical black groups who pray five times a day not to Mecca or Moscow but for the accession of Islamists to power in the middle east revolutions.
These stealth jihad tactics are not limited to discrete acts of terrorism; one half wishes they were, because they would be more susceptible to identification and prevention. Nor is radical Islam a strictly religious crusade, though most of its participants probably see it that way. The crusade that started with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and which is now compounded by their offshoots in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, as well as southeast Asia, and exacerbated by oppressive regimes in Egypt, Sudan Yemen and elsewhere, has long included virulent, extreme leftist groups and movements (all traditionally secular and therefore historically considered enemies by Muslims) that have affiliates in the USA, many "useful idiots", or "peace and justice" groups whose anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism trumps any notion of non-violence and human rights (while justifying violence for "struggles of resistance") and of course the anti-Semites who have found a place to hang their hats, conceal their hatred for Jews, and appear credible by associating with these supposedly progressive groups. All these will be on full display on April 9th.
They deserve each other.
Lawfare, the use of the law as a weapon of war to achieve political and ideological ends, is now a major concern of legal and Constitutional scholars and particularly of those involved in international law. As a result of Islamic, Palestinian, Arab and anti-Semitic propaganda and its absorption by American liberals and leftists, we are seeing the subversion and co-optation of international institutions like the UN, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. These are tolerated and even supported by western European governments. Many of these governments, themselves vulnerable to actual Islamist violence have responded to threats of violence and intimidation by radical Muslims and out of fear of Islamic terrorism and violence are voluntarily suppressing public and press criticism of Muslims and Islamic law and prosecuting individuals for expressing what they call "hate speech". Two recent trials, one in Denmark and one of a schoolteacher in Austria, ended with the acquittal of the former and imposition of a fine on the latter. The trial of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands will resume shortly. The fabric of free speech is being sorely tested and stretched to the breaking point.
Much of the dirty work against these freedoms dates back decades to the installation of post-modern and cultural relativism thought and teachings in our universities. The icing on this poisonous cake: Political Correctness and the suppression of freedom of speech, dissent and criticism, especially of Islam, Muslims and shariah law. American liberal timorousness, fears of being accused of racism and bias, and a obsequious desire to be perceived as tolerant, have combined to allow our educational institutions, media, and religious leaders to indulge in obsequious self-censorship, as if all of this were exculpatory of past American sins, categorized as "imperialism".
This expanding category of Political Correctness and Moral Abdication is in some ways more dangerous than Lawfare, because it is incremental, silent, disguised in attractive language appealing to liberals, and undetectable until it approaches success. Pres. Obama himself has aided this by issuing a official government ban on such words as jihad, radical Islam, Islamic terrorism, and anything that connects Muslims and Islam to anything nefarious. Even the military continues to resist identifying the Ft. Hood killings as religiously motivated. The media now refer simply to terrorists even when they are Muslim conspirators or part of organized terrorist movements. Publishers like Yale University Press willingly censor their books or reject them entirely even when they are fiction, issuing their own fatwa of censorship like that against Salman Rushdie. Universities cancel talks by ex-Muslims critical of radical Islam or sharia law. Dark times have already descended on our democracy. And the Muslims are celebrating their victories.
It is not likely that liberals and the left are going to defend American sovereignty any more than they would defend the right of Israel to defend itself from Gazan missiles (officially at least 8,000 but actually up to 20,000 to date, all aimed at Israeli civilians), a right guaranteed in the UN charter, Article 51. Right now Palestinians and their allies are attempting to redefine this right to self-defense by portraying Israel as an aggressor and to redefine armed "struggles" and resistance as self-defense. There are also suggestions to provide the international courts with the power to override national sovereignty of all nations. Put these efforts together and you have a very frightening picture of a lawless, violent world ruled by uncontrollable Muslim and nationalist thugs with a very large list of enemies deserving (in their view) of elimination by any means necessary.
Why so many American liberals and leftists have joined forces with Islamists is puzzling, but the explanation probably lies in one or more of these places:
1)the hatred, fueled by Muslim groups, the radical left and Noam Chomsky primarily, of the USA and the motto: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend";
2)Political Correctness and cultural relativism as taught by post-modernists in universities;
3)Unexpressed anti-Semitism (I have heard some of this from nonJews and it is disturbing to see the persistence of stereotyping of Jews);
4)A strenuous effort by liberals to distinguish themselves from any and all opinions expressed by the right wing and the neo-cons, to the point of denying the facts on the ground about
Muslim misogyny, anti-Semitism, demands for favoritism, rejection of the notion of free speech, and sharia law, including its mandate to stone women, amputate hands of thieves, and assassinate blasphemers and apostates;
5)the timidity and moral abdication of many American religious leaders, including many in the Jewish community, who refuse to condemn religion-based acts or preachings of violence by Muslim leaders;
Thus, liberals ignore the more subtle events at home, which is the erosion of the freedom of speech and civil liberties, the right of dissent and free inquiry, women's rights, and anti-Semitism. The Constitution and rule of law are of no concern to those consumed by hatred and pathological political ideology which has long contaminated the American left. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood extends its tentacles, funding and influence into all sectors of our society, with its stated goal (in its 1991 Memorandum of its mission) of abolishing democratic governance and installing shariah law. They make no attempt to disguise their intent. To accomplish this it has set up hundreds of so-called charities, mosques, and foundations across the country, using Saudi money. In turn these organizations funnel money to intermediaries to disguise the ultimate recipient: Hamas. The major MB group, the Holy Land Foundation, was indicted as a conspirator in terrorism, but many other groups, notably CAIR (Council on American-Islam Relations) are unindicted conspirators due to the lack of a paper trail connecting them definitively to Hamas.
Muslims are pushing the envelope to get special treatment based on their religion, a clear sign that they despise and reject our Constitution. A schoolteacher who requested a 3 week leave to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, as required by Islam, is suing her school district for denying the leave. At a meat packing plant out west, Muslims requested time off during the work day to pray five times as Islam requires. They were denied. Huffington Post blogger Michelle Chen reported on these incidents of "Islamophobia" without providing the full story. In Minneapolis Muslim taxi drivers tried to refuse rides to airline passengers carrying alcoholic beverages. The result is that the Muslims are claiming "discrimination" because they cannot obtain special recognition for their religion, which of course is forbidden under our Constitution. Secular, "moderate" and ex-Muslims will not speak out because the penalty for apostasy is execution. But the rest of us can, and we can demand that our media stop accommodating Muslims' fake claims of "Islamophobia". As Pascal Bruckner once said, anyone who ISN"T an Islamophobe has his eyes shut.