Garbanzo Toons

Shills for Islam

The Detroit Free Press has gone into full pro-Islamic propaganda mode today, the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There are two articles and an editorial all about the strain on Muslims since that fateful day and about how members of all monotheistic faiths are coming together to promote tolerance, and battle intolerance, and to let the world know about the tiny minority of Muslims who pervert a religion of peace, and-. But let's face it. We've been force fed this crap for the past nine years, and it is still a load of crap.

The Free Press managed to interview people of differing religions to get their 9/11 stories, and wouldn't you know it, they all agree that because of that attack, innocent Muslims have been unfairly maligned, and these fine folk have gone out of their way to improve relations between themselves and people of other faiths. The deaths of the almost 3000 Americans murdered that day actually made the interviewees better people. Wasn't that a lucky break for them? And it helped make the United States a more moral nation - well, except for that war stuff, you know, when President Bush made that reactionary, non-progressive, non-enlightened decision to fight back. At least that's the way I read these interviews. Random quotes:

I'd like to think it's made everybody more aware in a better way. But I think in some way, the paranoia hasn't helped.

and

On a personal level, I became actively engaged in conversations with my Muslim neighbors. ... Upon moving to southeast Michigan, my opportunities to work closely with Muslims have only increased due to the much larger Islamic presence in this area. Yes, I do believe that 9/11 has changed me dramatically, and ironically I believe that on a personal level, that has been for the better.

and

Since 9/11, life has been filled with more work and blessed moments to enlighten others on my faith and culture. Immediately post-9/11, I found myself overanxious, more cautious of where I went, how I traveled and the people I associated with. I felt I had to constantly defend my faith, culture and fellow Muslim brothers and sisters who were being persecuted for the actions of a rotten few.

and finally

9/11 stoked our country's best and worst sides. As a country, we mobilized with incredible speed and unity. We paid beautiful tribute to the people who lost their lives and sacrificed themselves to save lives. We lost our way through wars and still have not found the courage or means to articulate the strength of our country to ourselves and the world. Our religious hostility and fear continue toward the Muslim world. We have not convincingly articulated America's strength, goodness and promise. ... Our country began chasing demonic enemies, instead of leading ... with integrity and hope.

Either the reactions I read are kind of bizarre and twisted, or I'm the one who is nuts. For some reason, I keep thinking that we should not be accepting the words of our local imams. I've read opinion pieces by some of them in our various local news rags, and based on these writings and interviews in these same rags, I don't trust them.

But there was an editorial in today's Free Press defending the peacefulness of Islam (because that's what the Qu'ran is all about, we are told) that had a line that I do agree with:

We need more dialogue, more reading of the Quran, both inside the Muslim community and out.

Yes, we should all read the Qu'ran. My son bought a copy, but it was translated by a non-Muslim. I'm not sure how accurate it is. I'd like to find one of the ones that CAIR passed out a few years ago. I've been checking used book stores. I tried reading my son's but it is a tough slog. The narrative is kind of weak, and it seems to be full of non sequitors. I can't let that stop me though. Read, I must.

When it comes to this claim in the editorial though:

The Quran is filled with such verses calling on Muslims to practice every kind of goodness. Yet most Americans know little or nothing about them. An August Pew Research poll concluded that 35% of Americans believe Islam is more likely to encourage violence than other religions, while 24% weren’t sure.

Of course, it’s not difficult to understand why. Approaching the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, we can’t forget the violence of that day. The really ugly truth: The 9/11 attackers, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are all doing far more harm to the Quran than Jones is by burning it. By distorting the verses of the Quran to justify their violent agenda, these terrorists and their sympathizers continue to breed hostility toward Islam and Muslims. Instead of spreading the Quran's message of peace, they are spreading their own message of hatred

I have to ask: how do you distort verses like:

Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.

and

Fight those who do not believe until they all surrender, paying the protective tax in submission.

and

So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world).

and

When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in battle (fighting Jihad in Allah's Cause), smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them. At length, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly, making (them) captives. Thereafter either generosity or ransom (them based upon what benefits Islam) until the war lays down its burdens. Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam.

and

The infidels should not think that they can get away from us. Prepare against them whatever arms and weaponry you can muster so that you may terrorize them.

and I could go on and on, or I can recommend Prophet of Doom for more quotes from the Qu'ran and other Islamic sources that the apologists, and the imams, and the spreaders of "dawah" don't talk about and don't want us to talk about. We are supposed to ignore a vast body of Islamic teaching that is not as savory as the tiny verses of love and honesty, that may have even been revoked according to the the Islamic concept of abrogation.

In an attempt to polish Islam's image, Muslim activists usually quote verses from the Quran that were written in the early days of the Islamic movement while Mohammed lived in Mecca. Those passages make Islam appear loving and harmless because they call for love, peace and patience. Such is a deception. The activists fail to tell gullible people that such verses, though still in the Quran, were nullified, abrogated, rendered void by later passages that incite killing, decapitations, maiming, terrorism and religious intolerance. The latter verses were penned while Mohammed’s headquarters was based in Medina.

When speaking with people of Christianized/Western societies, Muslim activists deliberately hide a major Islamic doctrine called "al-Nasikh wal-Mansoukh" (the Abrogator and the Abrogated). This simply means that in situations wherein verses contradict one another, the early verses are overridden by the latter verses. The chronological timing in which a verse was written determines its authority to establish policies within Islam. Non-Muslims cannot afford to be ignorant about the full implications of the Abrogator and the Abrogated Doctrine (al-Nasikh wal-Mansoukh). When Islamic spokesmen say that Islam is a religion of peace and that the Quran does not support such things as human rights infractions, gender bias and terrorism, they are lying. This means that the Western politicians and liberal journalists, who continually spout that Islam is a noble religion of peace, are in reality propagating a deception that they have been deceived into parroting.

I'm sure they won't be discussing any of that today as the imams slide some more taqiyya past the gullible Christians and Jews, and these silly infidels won't care because they can engage in vast amounts of self-congratulation based on how tolerant, accepting, and enlightened they are. Rather than be part of that charade, I'll be thinking of those murdered in the 9/11 attacks and in all of the over 16,000 Islamic terror attacks since then.

I'm just not very enlightened.

Labels: Detroit Free Press, interfaith relations, islam, Koran, Muslims

posted by Harry @ 1:42 PM 3 comments

Reaching Out to the Muslim Community

I read Robert Sklar's editorial in the Detroit Jewish News with fascination last week. We are constantly being told that the way to a radical Muslim's heart is through dialogue. We Jews and Christians have been repeatedly encouraged to reach out to the Muslim community. But what happens when Jews and Christians do reach out? Well, for one thing, the true colors of Muslim leaders become vivid and crystal clear.

After reading the editorial, I read Rabbi Klein's Yom Kippur sermon where he tells of his experience in reaching out to local Muslims.

If you recall, the convergence of our calendars found Rosh Hashana and the first day of Ramadan on the same Monday night new moon, preceded by the Lutheran’s Church’s “World Peace Sunday”. On the Friday night immediately before Rosh Hashana we welcomed Christian and Muslim lay and clergy to our Shabbat worship, which was followed by a Saturday night program at the new Dearborn mosque, which was followed by a Sunday afternoon service and discussion in a Detroit church. The tone and tenor of all three experiences spoke of common goals and values, of shared hopes for continuing interfaith dialogue and increasing cooperation. From those Holidays to these, much has changed, and on this Yom Kippur, I ask your forgiveness for my naïve belief that we share core values with our American Muslim neighbors.

The Muslim cleric with whom I sat on a panel discussion at the church was Imam Hassan Qazwini. I was heartened to hear him speak Saturday night and again on Sunday afternoon of that interfaith weekend, about the evil of terrorism, and the terrible, tragic loss of innocent, civilian lives at the hands of suicide bombers. It was just a few weeks after that weekend, during the final week of Ramadan, that Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made international headlines with his message to university students in Teheran that Israel should be wiped off the map of the earth. Ahmadinejad declared war against the “World of Arrogance”. He called Israel the “primary front of the World of Arrogance in the heart of the Islamic world,” and he declared that the struggle against Israel was only the beginning of a war between Islam and the international non-Muslim world, a war that Islam would certainly win. “Is it possible,” he asked rhetorically, “to witness a world without America and Zionism? You had best know that this slogan and this goal is attainable, and surely can be attained.”

I immediately called Imam Qazwini at the Islamic Center of America, but for two days, could only reach the mosque’s answering machine. So I emailed him, expressing my hope that he would publicly distance himself from the President of Iran, especially in light of that month’s interfaith weekend. I said that as religious leaders, we must quickly and publicly denounce this kind of hateful rhetoric, lest it become even more difficult for our faith-communities to build bridges of friendship and cooperation. I never heard from him. Al chet sh’chatani, for the sin I committed in dismissing the history of our local Muslim leadership, for the hope that a moderate Islam was growing in Dearborn.


This summer, during Israel’s war with Hezbollah, the Dearborn community rallied beneath Hezbollah flags, shouting “Death to the Zionists”. The Arab American Political Action Committee, and the Congress of Arab American Organizations condemned Israel and America’s support of Israel, equating the Jewish nation with Nazi Germany, calling the Jewish state “occupied Palestine” and praising the dedication of Hamas and Hezbollah “freedom fighters.” Reported in the press was a gathering at the Bint Jabeil Cultural Center, held the last week of July, at the height of the Lebanese war. The report described a blistering call for the destruction of Israel and death to its Zionist lackeys in the west. Imam Qazwini was there, as were other Muslim clerics.

Read the whole thing. And then remember what Robert Sklar says in his editorial:

There are rules for dialogue, and one clear rule is that one side should not be advocating the destruction of the other.

Apparently, Rabbi Klein's sermon has been speeding around the Internet. This led to an article in today's Detroit Free Press.

On the holiest day of the Jewish year, Rabbi Joseph Klein rose before his congregation in Oak Park last month to deliver a stunning sermon in which he apologized for working with local Muslim leaders and vowed to boycott interfaith events.

He accused Muslim leaders of complicity in "hate-filled and violence-promoting rallies" against Israel in Dearborn this summer, referring to protests in which Muslims carried signs equating the Star of David with a Nazi swastika.

The sermon was a thunderclap marking the edge of a storm that has been building for more than a year as local Jewish and Muslim communities pulled apart. Now, the tensions are open and obvious. Rabbis are avoiding events attended by imams and, when they do show up, conversation often becomes strained.

As a result, after years of pioneering efforts in southeast Michigan to create a haven for dialogue among Jews, Christians and Muslims, metro Detroit's world-famous interfaith tapestry is unraveling.

A month after they were spoken, Klein's words still are echoing across the Internet, cut and pasted into e-mails circulating among Christians, Muslims and Jews and leaving a trail of shock and sadness.

It should be made clear however that the fault of this "unraveling tapestry" is not the fault of Rabbi Klein, but the fault of local Imams who pretend that they are really interested in working with the Jewish community. This is no time to shoot the messenger. Rabbi Klein merely pointed out that the actions of these Imams speak louder than their words. This past summer, instead of speaking out against Hezbollah as they provoked a war with Israel, Qazwini and others from the local Islamic community went to Washington D.C. to condemn Israel and the United States for supporting the only democracy in the Middle East. This was inbetween a busy schedule of hate-filled rallies in Dearborn supporting Hezbollah.

As usual the local press pays no attention to the two-faced actions of local imams. They have to present an "even handed" report and avoid all traces of racism or "islamophobia." In other words, they whitewash the situation, absolving Muslims of all rightly deserved blame for the hatred they spew.

In the Free Press article, Qazwini claims,

. . . Klein is unrealistic if he thinks Muslim leaders based in Michigan can cool the world's religious hot spots.

Nobody's asking him to do that. What he can do though, is be honest and stop pretending he's working for peace rather than Islamic supremecy in the United States.

Labels: interfaith relations, islam

posted by Harry @ 11:22 PM 0 comments