Judaism Discovered - Michael Hoffman - Full Interview

Published on 8 Feb 2015

~ ✟ Veritas ✟ Vincit ✟ Omnia ✟ ~

RACISME INSTITUTIONNEL 100%

ANTI MUSULMAN MADE IN FRANCE!

Salim Laibi - Islamophobie -- Les cas Zemmour/Onfray/Le Pen (26 juin2014)

Published on 29 Jun 2014

L'islamophobie comme fonds de commerce -- Les cas Zemmour/Onfray/Le Pen
Docteur Salim Laïbi - Lelibrepenseur : http://www.lelibrepenseur.org/
Plus d'infos sur http://www.sharp-infoclash.com

Ponérologie politique - Conférence de LLP 2015

Published on 11 Jun 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBaNo-6zNJI

Voici une vidéo très intéressante qui tente d'expliquer pourquoi le monde va si mal, pourquoi autant de crimes de grande ampleur se perpétuent sans qu'aucune sanction sérieuse ne vienne mettre fin au désordre ambiant, bien au contraire, puisque les criminels et autres pathocrates ne font que légitimer et renforcer leur pouvoir chaque jour qui passe. Les décorations et autres légions d'honneur sont décernées aux plus grands pédocriminels de l'histoire humaine (Jimmy Savile) ; ceci doit avoir une explication. La répétition des ratages ne peut s'expliquer que par l'incompétence des autorités. D'autant que ces mêmes autorités n'essuieront jamais de sanctions pour manque de résultats. Lorsque les banksters de la Wachovia se feront cueillir la main dans le sac de cocaïne de Guzman el Chapo, une simple amende de quelques millions de dollars suffira à leur éviter la prison à vie.

Cette vidéo présente une suite impressionnante de situations semblables à celle de la Wachovia, ce qui confirme la gestion politique des sociétés modernes par une pathocratie criminelle.

Category
- News & Politics
'Warning to the U.K.''

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RG98h4rlms

Published on 10 Sep 2014

The Hon. Louis Farrakhan delivered this powerful message at Muhammad Mosque no.32 in Phoenix, Arizona on December 22, 2002.

Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror.

He is Host of Show More

View Latest Posts >>>

Why Palestinian Davids will defeat the Zionist Goliath

By Kevin Barrett on November 1, 2015

Truth is the ultimate force multiplier

Max Blumenthal isn’t the only one noticing which side is the bully and which is the underdog. In this case, bet on the underdog.

By Kevin Barrett, Veterans Today Editor
I was recently interviewed by the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network about the new intifada in Occupied Palestine. Below is a link and transcript.

Watch the interview (warning – it’s in Farsi, though you may be able to make out my voice in English)

Gradually different dimensions of the Palestinian uprising are revealing themselves. What are the roots of the recent developments in Palestine?

The current outbreak of what looks to become the Third Intifada is rooted in the belligerent, uncompromising, expansionist and genocidal policies of the state of Israel, which have continued regardless of what the Palestinians do. We’ve seen the Israelis “mowing the lawn in Gaza” every few years, killing thousands of innocent civilians. We see ongoing brutalization of the Palestinian population that is clearly designed to make life unlivable for the Palestinians. And this amounts to genocide, as professor Lawrence Davidson of West Chester University has said. He is from a Jewish background himself. And he is far from the only person from a Jewish background who recognizes that the current policies of the Israeli government amount to genocide. So given that there has been absolutely no progress on the political front, and given that the Zionist leadership is under the domination of a certified psychopath, Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the principle authors of the September 11th Zionist coup d’état in the United States, it is clear that the only way the Palestinians have any hope of maintaining their struggle over the long term, which is what is required, is to admit that negotiations currently are not possible – and to opt for military resistance.
The third intifada is supported by Palestinian political groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. How do you evaluate this convergence?
The policies of the Israeli government under Netanyahu and some even more extremist psychopathic elements is so unreasonable that essentially no Palestinian who cares about the interests of the Palestinian people could possibly take any other route. So the Zionists have brought this on themselves, just as they have brought virtually unanimous international condemnation on themselves. They are losing their reputation in the West and around the world. And they are losing their ability to prevent Palestinians from turning to military resistance. So this is a situation in which virtually all Palestinians are going to be coming together and supporting the struggle.
Al- Zahar, one of the leaders of Palestinian intifada, believes that the uprising must enter the military operation phase against Zionist regime. What are the reasons behind such an approach? And to what extent military operation will lead to realization of Palestinian people rights?
The Zionist leadership is dedicated to suppressing the Palestinian people in every possible way. And they do have military superiority in the conventional arena. But if one studies historical conflicts between two groups in which one side has conventional military superiority, or any kind of superiority – one can extend this to sporting contests and other kinds of struggles – the underdog, that is the group that is less likely to win, based on an analysis of conventional military strength, does win about one third of the time. And when they win they always win by refusing to play by the same rules as their opponents. They don’t engage on the conventional military battlefield if they are disadvantaged there. Instead, they would use various unconventional means.

And that is what the Palestinians have been forced to do – with rather great success militarily. Many objective American military analysts have remarked that the Palestinians have actually won the last several conflicts (in which thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed) because they have demonstrated their ability to persist. And the Zionist regime has continued to accelerate its process of discrediting itself. So today we’re seeing a kind of unconventional military resistance, in which rather than organizing an army, which of course is impossible in Occupied Palestine – meaning a conventional army that would have a chance against the Israelis – Palestinians are resorting to a kind of individual armed resistance. And this requires tremendous courage. It requires willingness to sacrifice oneself for a just cause. And this is something that the Palestinians have and the Israelis do not. The Zionists recognize, unconsciously at least, that their cause is unjust. And therefore they have very little willingness to sacrifice themselves in their unjust cause; while the Palestinians know that their cause is just, and therefore they have that willingness to sacrifice themselves.
Ultimately this is the level or dimension of this conflict that is going to lead to a Palestinian victory in the foreseeable future. And by using this kind of completely unconventional military resistance, the Palestinians are demonstrating that they will not go away, they will not surrender. And they are forcing the Zionists into an uncomfortable position in which their increasing brutality is going to backfire in the court of world public opinion. So even though the Zionists control the media today, and therefore dominate the narrative that reaches global public opinion, an ever-growing segment of that public opinion is turning to the alternative media and learning about this conflict between David and Goliath. And they are increasingly sympathizing with David.
The heroic operation of Palestinian young man in Beersheba shaken the Zionist circles and security sectors of this regime to the extent that Netanyahu may cancel his travel to Germany. Why this operation is so significant?
Netanyahu is a quintessential narcissistic psychopath who believes the world revolves around him. And he is a clever politician, let’s grant him that. And clearly when he is forced to cancel his trip to Germany due to the Palestinian resistance, there is a wave of fear in Israel that events are spiraling out of control, and that he is going to have to try to figure out an answer to this. So it is a sign that this heroic resistance of people who are willing to sacrifice themselves in a just cause is shaking the Zionists’ confidence.
The Zionist regime has lost $2.5 billion since the beginning of the Palestinian Intifada. What will be the consequences of continuation of this uprising?
The cost of the Zionist occupation of Palestine is getting higher and higher. Here in the United States, more and more Americans are waking up and realizing that since the coup of September 11th, which about one-third of Americans realize was an inside job, the United States has spent trillions of dollars – as much as four or five trillion dollars according to some counts – in wars designed to destabilize Israel’s enemies, and to ultimately work for the interests of Israel, not the United States. So the costs of the Zionist project have reached a ridiculous level. The economy of the United States has been crippled by the 9/11 wars for Israel. This (asymmetry) is perhaps the most important dimension of the asymmetric struggle between the Palestinians and the Zionists. The Zionists have to spend millions of millions of dollars to try to defend against what the Palestinians can do with a two dollar knife or a ten dollar per month internet connection.
The truth is the ultimate force multiplier here. And I think it’s the truth, more than any kind of weapon of violence, that is going to ensure the triumph of the Palestinians.

https://pressthat.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/cropped-gu.jpg

Dec

“Muslim!” Now Available In Insult Form

By Stefan 3 Comments

Categories: Islam, Islamophobia, Religion and Terrorism

Published on Jewcy.com (http://www.jewcy.com)

By Ali Eteraz

“Muslim!” is quickly becoming one of the worse insults to call someone.

When a Presidential candidate—Barack Obama—is so much as (falsely) rumored [1] to be Muslim, it is considered a smear. Mr. Obama, a Christian, and the son of an atheist and a Christian, has to keep five signed letters from Christian clergy in his office, just in case.

Even a Presidential candidate who comes from a marginalized religious background— Mitt Romney—cannot accept the idea [2] of a Muslim in the cabinet.

When a Muslim gets elected to Congress—Keith Ellison [3]—he is asked to prove his loyalty to the United States. Then, people become agitated when some shock-jock tells them that Ellison was planning on giving allegiance to the Quran, when in fact, a Congressman’s preferred holy book is just used for photo-op purposes after the swearing in on the US Constitution.

According to a survey cited by [4] the Washington Post, conducted by the Pew Center for the People and the Press [5], 45 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate for any office who is Muslim. Compare this with the 25 percent who said the same about a Mormon candidate and 16 percent who said the same for an Evangelical Christian.

In a 2004 survey [6] by Cornell university, almost half of the national respondents favored curtailing the civil liberties of Muslims. An astonishing 40 percent of Republicans wanted American Muslims to register their whereabouts (24 percent of Democrats).

Average Muslims are routinely asked to condemn terrorism (as if it was their family member that committed 9/11). Yet, a simple Google search reveals that plenty of Muslims have condemned terrorism. The first hit [7] for the query “Muslims condemn terrorism” as well as the query “Muslims do not condemn terrorism” both produce a list with hundreds of Muslim condemnations. It doesn’t get simpler than that.

Every day numerous Americans pretend as if the world is devoid of common, decent Muslims. Just as recently as Friday the New York Times published [8] an op-ed article entitled “Islam’s Silent Moderates” which wonders why Muslims did not speak out against the rape tragedy in Saudi Arabia, the teddy bear fiasco in Sudan, or the persecution of feminist writer Taslima Nasreen in India. Yet, four days prior to the publication of the article, a Muslim writing at a reputable Left magazine condemned the injustice in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India (among many others), calling his unjust co-religionists “dimwits.” [9] Yet, according to the New York Times op-ed, this Muslim doesn’t exist.

There are some Americans who recognize the demonization for what it is, and how it is comparable to previous instances of American demonization. In an email to me, a very prominent American blogger writes: “We [gays] always used to have to condemn every pedophile, as if we were in charge, and as if we were somehow pedophiles. Same line of attack. I’ve often made this point that the attacks on Muslims and gays are very very similar.”

There is a stubborn resistance among many Americans to the idea that Muslims are a multifarious and diverse group of 1.2 billion humans, living in every nation and culture of the world.

All Muslims do not act the same. Today in Canada one Muslim organization is suing a magazine for publishing what it believes is Islamophobic material, while another Muslim organization is supporting the magazine’s right [10] to publish the offending material. This is just one example of a very self-evident point. To give more examples would simply insult mine and the reader’s intelligence. Yet, perhaps such mutual insults are necessary when some of the world’s most celebrated novelists publicly exclaim [11] that “there is no individual” in Islam.

Muslims are well aware that their co-religionists are being unjust towards women, are using the name of Islam to chase political power, have killed people in the name of Islam. But the fact is: it has been Muslims who have been at the forefront of resisting these injustices, and it will always be that way, so the rest of us can either get to know these Muslims or stop pretending like we know what we are talking about.

Long before 2001 when Islamic reformation became in vogue, Muslims whose teachers were executed and who had to go into exile, were writing books about it [12].

Long before America cared about the rights of women in the Muslim world, Muslim women were launching anti-honor killing jihads [13].

One of the most far reaching attacks against Islamically sanctioned forced marriages has been a film from Pakistan [14], not a vitriolic screed written in a high-end magazine in London.

Whenever there is progress in the Muslim world, it is because of something Muslims themselves accomplish. After witnessing the insane amount of Shia-Sunni killing in Iraq, it was Muslims who were able to get together and reach an accord [15] to stymie the violence. We should not forget that the crushing blow against Soviet Union did not come from the West, it came from inside [16] the Soviet Union, and from behind [17] the Iron Curtain. Even a cursory indulgence [18] in the state of Islamic reform will reveal that the same is occurring in the Muslim world today.

Putting aside what Muslims outside of America are doing, it bears asking why American Muslims are so reviled given that they have been almost model citizens.

An April 2002 survey [19] by Cornell University showed that 26 percent of American Muslim households earn more than $100,000. An astonishing 66 percent of American Muslim households earn more than $50,000. Given that American Muslims number between 3 to 7 million in this country, that is a fair deal of taxes contributed to this country.

Further, Zogby International found [20] that while only 8.6 percent of Americans have advanced degrees, that number is 32 percent for American Muslims.

A free clinic serving underserved areas run by American-Muslims in Los Angeles was recently recognized by Congress [21]. One of my good friends runs another similar clinic in Las Vegas.

Average Americans have to stop and ask ourselves how we allowed “Muslim” to become such an insult and what to do about it. Here are some suggestions:

Make a distinction between a “Muslim” and an “American-Muslim.” The former should refer to people of the Islamic faith around the world. The latter should refer to Muslims in the United States. The two words are not interchangeable.
Consider that American Muslim organizations that purport to speak for American Muslims do not in fact uniformly do so. American Muslims organize in many ways beyond those of affiliation with national organizations.
Consider that Black and Latino Muslims in America are increasingly one of the larger subset of American Muslims. This means that nearly 1/3rd of American Muslims do not, in appearance or language, conform to the usual stereotypes. Of the seven “Best Blogs” nominated this year in an Islamic blog award [22], two are by caucasian-muslims, three by immigrant-muslims, one by a black-muslim, and one by a latino-muslim. The award has been won by a Latina-Muslim woman for two years running.
Realize that while most Arabs are Muslims, not all Arabs are Muslim (many are Christian). Further, while some Muslims are Arabs, most Muslims are not Arab. Globally, only 18% of Muslims are Arab.
It also might be advisable to make a distinction between a Muslim and an Islamist. A Muslim is someone who adheres to Islam. An Islamist is someone who wants to live under an Islamic theocracy. Most Muslims that live in the West have no interest in Islamism. In fact, most of them came here only to escape theocracies and tyrannies.

Finally, it is worth considering that for Americans to make collective demands on Muslims groups should be deemed completely beyond the pale. If we as a society are going to make collective demands on a group, then we are implying that collective punishment is appropriate as well. It might be worth remembering that the rationale Bin Laden used justify his attacks against innocent American civilians was based on the idea that all Americans are collectively responsible for their country’s policies.

Source URL: http://www.jewcy.com/cabal/muslim_now_available_insult_form

Links:
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/did-you-know-that-senator_b_74710.html
[2] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/7059.html
[3] http://www.alternet.org/rights/69575/
[4] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/28/AR2007112802757_pf.html
[5] http://people-press.org/reports/
[6] http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Dec04/Muslim.Poll.bpf.html
[7] http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/opinion/07ali.html
[9] http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=14424
[10] http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ali_eteraz/2007/12/their_own_worst_enemies.html
[11] http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2224136,00.html
[12] http://www.amazon.com/Toward-Islamic-Reformation-International-Contemporary/dp/0815627068
[13] http://ecumene.org/INRFVVP/vision.htm
[14] http://eteraz.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/little-movie-defending-art-and-music-making-big-splash-in-pakistan/
[15] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-eteraz/dissent-is-now-ok-but-on_b_44824.html
[16] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago
[17] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel
[18] http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ali_eteraz/2007/10/muslim_secularism_and_its_allies.html
[19] http://www.allied-media.com/AM/
[20] http://www.allied-media.com/AM/
[21] http://www.pluralism.org/news/article.php?id=13082
[22] http://www.brasscrescent.org/

Elle détestait l'Islam et le Musulman... jolie histoire ... تكره الإسلام والتاريخ مسلم

Published on 18 May 2014

Bob Cesca Become a fan Managing Editor, The Daily Banter, host, 'The Bob & Chez Show'

Did You Know That Senator Obama Is A Terrorist?

Posted: 11/29/2007 4:30 pm EST Updated: 05/25/2011 12:20 pm EDTSenator Obama is a Muslim extremist who wants to overthrow the government. That's the rumor I read about on the front page of the Washington Post today. They're evidently in the business of whisper campaigning now.

Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a "Muslim plant" in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year.

This appeared on the front page of the very serious Washington Post and was written by Perry Bacon, Jr., whose irresponsible reporting makes frightened, dickless hooples like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Weiner Savage seem Murrow-ish. (Their dickless status is just a rumor from an e-mail circulating the internet, by the way.)
Yes, the Washington Post has elevated itself to the level of Glenn Beck's awesome question to Congressman Ellison: Prove to me that you're not working for our darkie enemies, you America-hating darkie you.
Any first year journalism student knows that the phrase "despite his denials" implies a certain level of guilt, as if Senator Obama has been forced to repeat that he's not an Islamic terrorist wherever he goes, just as Rudy Giuliani has to deny that he exploits 9/11 for political gain. Everyone knows that Giuliani is guilty of bleeding 9/11 for his own nefarious ends, even though he has repeatedly denied it -- and as recently as in Wednesday's CNN debate in which his 2-minute response to this issue included four mentions of "September 11th, 2001."
So, in other words, whenever it's reported that a politician is denying something, the general assumption is that he or she is lying. And that's one of the reasons why Karl Rove and other GOP operatives are engaged in this brand of ratfucking so often and with such effectiveness. They know the trust angles. They know the fear angles. And they can easily manipulate both with just the right kind of agitprop and rumormongering.
The infamous South Carolina whisper campaign that implied Senator McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child is arguably the most dastardly whisper campaign prior to this current cycle. The phone bank question was, "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew that he fathered an illegitimate black child?" The question doesn't outright accuse the senator, but it implies an accusation -- especially when shoved through the filter of bigotry held by certain white Americans.
Remarkably, the Washington Post and Bacon aren't that subtle. In the second paragraph, Bacon uses the phrases: "he is a Muslim" and "he had received training in Islam in Indonesia." Phrases like this, when printed on one of the most important front pages in the world -- and then taken out of context as I have done here -- have the very real potential of aiding the agendas of far-right fearmongers, racists and unapologetically ignorant rednecks.
How easy would it be for a radical right-wing 527 to produce a commercial using these phrases? Really damn easy. Imagine this:

DEEP VOICE GUY: Barack Osam--Obama. Is he or is he not working for our enemies?

Photo of Obama slowly cross-dissolves into a photo of Bin Laden.

DEEP VOICE GUY: The Washington Post says, "Despite his denials... He is a Muslim," and, "He had received training in Islam in Indonesia."

Photo of Bin Laden with an overlay of the al-Qaeda monkey bars. Slow push-in.

DEEP VOICE GUY: Prove it, Barack Obama. Are you with the terrorists? On second thought... don't prove it.

Smash cut to black. Sound effect of an explosion and people screaming.

TEXT: Paid for by Frightened Dickless Bigots For Truth.

There's nothing technically inaccurate about the wording, even though the implications are way beyond absurd. Yet considering what we've seen before, am I so far off the mark with the concept?
The Swift Boat Liars; the ads showing Senator Cleland next to pictures of Bin Laden and Saddam; that weird "call me" ad two years ago that implied Harold Ford was plotting to use his mighty African power to grab up all the white women in Tennessee... No matter how thoroughly these accusations were debunked, they all seemed to have worked. Senator Kerry, Senator Cleland, Senator McCain and Congressman Ford all came up short when squaring off against the GOP's shameless whisper campaigns. Now, in the case of Senator Obama, the GOP ratfuckers have some tasty quotes to pull.
So you watch. If Senator Obama wins the nomination, and I believe he will, this is the kind of wackaloon insanity his campaign will face every damn day, say nothing of the adversity he'll confront regarding the color of his skin.
Why? Because America has become the Fear Nation. To wit, Bacon quoted an anonymous internet freakdog who wrote:

"Be careful, be very careful."

The irresponsibility of printing this anonymous quote confounds reason, and only the quote itself is more outrageous. Give me 10 minutes and I can find anonymous internet quotes saying all sorts of crap on a stick. Why? Because most of the internet is anonymous and therefore unaccountable to the truth. That's why, for example, the Washington Post doesn't print anonymous letters to the editor.
Speaking of irresponsible journalism, there's a newspaper published locally here in eastern Pennsylvania called The Myerstown Herald. This week's banner headline: "Skid Loader Hits Boy, 2." Other headlines include: "Creepy Losers Swipe Dirt Bike," and "Dorks Damage Window With Rock, Pumpkin." Herald headlines routinely include the words "goons", "thugs" and "punks." Seriously, you have to read this thing. I thought it was a brilliant meta-joke, but it's eerily real.
Myerstown, despite the sensational tone of its headlines, is the home to roughly four people and a diner. Yet the conservative scanner-jockey who writes and publishes the Herald makes you believe that the world is being slowly digested by a Godzilla-sized version of the Hamburglar.
It occurred to me, however, that the Herald is indicative of the American fear pandemic. Be careful! Creepy loser Muslims are out to kill us all! Prove to me that you're not an Islamic goon! The Republican fear factory, which is presently injecting its distortions into the Washington Herald -- I mean, Post, can only survive by successfully producing enough artificial hysteria so as to keep half of America cowering under its security woobies and voting for authoritarians like Rudy Giuliani.
Senator Obama is clearly not a Muslim terrorist "plant." But if enough people believe it, the truth doesn't matter. That's the Republican strategy, and today they have the Washington Post to thank for the assist.
--
I've officially relaunched my personal blog at BobCesca.com. So in between my usual outraged, profanity-laced rants here, I'll be posting shorter profanity-laced rants over at my personal site.

Follow Bob Cesca on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobcesca_go

Barack Obama Perry Bacon Jr Keith Ellison Obama Muslim Whisper Campaign Glenn Beck Obama Muslim Smear 2008 Election Barack Obama Ratfucking Perry Bacon Jr Obama

Romney: Muslims not needed in Cabinet

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, asked about putting a Muslim in his presidential Cabinet, said that he “cannot see that a Cabinet position would be justified” based on the percentage of Muslims in the U.S., according to an Islamic businessman who asked the question at a fundraising reception.
Kevin Madden, Romney’s national press secretary, told Politico: “At this point, we're not focused on what Gov. Romney's Cabinet might look like. But the governor does not believe that in order to effectively fight radical jihad you need to have Muslims serving in the Cabinet.”

Mansoor Ijaz, a New York financier and commentator of Pakistani ancestry, says the exchange with Romney occurred at a closed fundraiser in Las Vegas in mid-November. Ijaz describes himself “an American-born citizen of the Islamic faith.”
Fundraisers for Romney’s Republican presidential campaign are generally closed to the press, so the full context of the comment is unavailable.
As Ijaz recounted the exchange in an opinion piece in Tuesday’s Christian Science Monitor, “I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his Cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that ‘jihadism’ is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today.
“He answered, ‘ ... based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a Cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration,’” Ijaz wrote.
Ijaz apparently did not care for the answer. His piece is titled, “A Muslim belongs in the Cabinet.”
Romney told CNN's ''Situation Room'': "Suggesting that we have to fill spots based on checking off boxes of various ethnic groups is really a very inappropriate way to think about how we staff positions. I'm very pleased that, among my Cabinet members, for instance, I had several African-American individuals. I had people of different backgrounds."
Avi Zenilman contributed to this story.
Mike Allen is chief White House correspondent for Politico.

Civil Liberties

Keith Ellison: First Muslim in Congress Makes His Mark

Thanks to post-9/11 hysteria, American Muslims are one of the most ostracized minority groups in the U.S.

By Ali Eteraz / AlterNet

December 6, 2007

COMMENT NOW!

Eleven months have passed since America's first Muslim congressman -- Keith Ellison, from Minnesota's fifth district -- was elected to office. In that time he has exposed bigotry in the media and Congress, and served as a bridge for American relations with the Muslim world.

Throughout his meteoric rise from an anonymous state legislator, Ellison has had unanimous support among American Muslims. Ellison is now using that goodwill to bring a minority group that has been demonized, politically apathetic and often extremely socially conservative into the American political mainstream (and without being pushy, towards the progressive wing of the Democratic Party).

Ever since Ellison's election, much of the focus has been on the venom that greeted him. He received death threats from what he calls "some crazy right-wingers," and last November, Glenn Beck, who regularly has the lowest ratings of the various CNN commentators, brought Ellison onto his show only to ask him, "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." Soon after, Virgil Goode, a Republican congressman from Virginia, tried to turn Ellison's election into a fear-mongering campaign, telling his constituents that, unless "the Virgil Goode position on immigration" was adopted, there would be many more Muslim lawmakers.

On the heels of these two smears came an open case of Islamophobia. Supported by radio host Dennis Prager and WorldNetDaily, members of the far-right, and some conservative bloggers argued that Ellison should not be allowed to take his congressional oath for office on the Quran.

Ellison dealt with these attacks with grace and sensibility. He told Beck that he didn't need to prove his patriotic stripes to anyone. The rebuke caught Beck off guard who clarified, absurdly, that he hadn't really wanted Ellison to prove anything. Ellison told Virgil Goode that he was an African-American who could trace his familial roots to pre-revolutionary America. As far as swearing on the Quran, Ellison clarified that no representative actually swears on any religious book -- the oath is sworn upon the Constitution, and the Bible has traditionally been used only for a photo-op afterward. Then, just to remind his critics about the legacy of religious pluralism in the United States, the Quran he used in his pictures was a 1767 edition that belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Finally, after his confirmation, in a move caught on C-SPAN, Ellison offered his hand to congressman Goode.

Over the next eight months, Ellison went with Nancy Pelosi to Syria and Saudi Arabia, as well as Kuwait and Iraq. Most recently, he returned from Israel-Palestine (his second trip to the troubled area). He endorsed Barack Obama, called for withdrawal from Iraq, supported impeachment against Dick Cheney, and as a former criminal defense lawyer became the co-author of a bill that would restore habeas corpus, repeal warrantless wiretapping and shut down the prison at Guantanamo Bay. In short, Ellison had not only survived, but also arrived and, according to his field director in Minnesota, became a "rock-star" at every Democratic Party event he attended.

He has now set his eyes upon the American-Muslim community.

When it comes to political participation, American Muslims are one of the most ostracized minority groups in the United States. A large part of it has to do with the post 9/11 atmosphere, smear campaigns by pundits and the demonization of Islam upon which the war on terror and the war in Iraq have been propped. David Horowitz's Islamofascism Awareness Week is a recent example of this depressing trend.

Another part of American Muslim silence has to do with the fact that they have not always known what to stand for. On one hand, in light of their socially conservative mores -- last year's Pew Survey showed that American Muslims favor state interference in morality even more than Christian Evangelists -- they have leaned towards the Republican Party. On the other hand, in light of their liberal views on civil liberties, social justice and foreign policy, they tend to lean towards Democrats. The conundrum has caused a great deal of schizophrenic thinking in American Muslim political activism. In 2000, Muslims voted as a bloc for President Bush. In 2004, they swung to the other side, with 74 percent of their vote going towards Kerry.

Keith Ellison is out to address both of these issues -- marginalization and lack of vision -- and is doing it by educating and helping American Muslims learn to trust American political institutions.

His address to the full auditorium at the Islamic Center of Nevada discussed the example of other minority groups that went from being disenfranchised to politically involved. Naturally, his focus was on African-Americans but included references to women and Hispanics as well, emphasizing the importance of voting and voter registration to the American civic experience.

The contents of his talk to the Islamic Center consisted of a number of lessons on political participation couched in theological vocabulary that the average Muslim could understand. He appealed to the history of certain Muslim leaders who had worked together with other non-Muslim communities for the sake of the common good. He spoke about the virtues of the American Constitution, the rights enshrined under it and the consistency of American ideals with Islamic principles of social justice. He put significant focus on the issues of poverty and healthcare, and challenged the vast number of American Muslims in the healthcare profession to use their influence and position to push for universal healthcare as soon as possible.

Ellison's appeal prompted Qasim Khan, one of the leading physicians in the community, to jump on stage and make a pledge to create a national organization of Muslim doctors that would provide free healthcare coverage to underserved communities. The physician asked Ellison to join the board of directors, and in an apparent moment of amusement, Ellison responded, "I will if it is legal." What he meant, however, was that he needed to check whether congressmen could serve on the boards of private organizations.

As it stands today, there are two local Muslim clinics -- one in Los Angeles and a new one in Las Vegas -- that serve poor urban areas. The Los Angeles based UMMA Clinic received congressional recognition last year. Meanwhile, the Las Vegas-based clinic, headed by a 20-something activist and realtor, Usman Malik, currently operates on the weekends and is looking to go full-time in the near future. Having followed up with Dr. Khan since Ellison's visit, I learned that Khan took his idea to the Islamic Society of North America convention in Chicago -- where Howard Dean made an appearance -- and met like-minded Muslim doctors who are interested in philanthropy and supportive of a national organization. If the venture is successful, some of the credit should go to Keith Ellison as well.

However, in his activism Ellison is coming into confrontation with some American Muslim isolationism. Before his lecture, a distinguished Arab-American businessman dressed in slacks and a starched shirt, grasped Ellison as he passed by and pulled him close.

"Let me ask you directly," said the man. "You are a Muslim, but how can you support gay marriage?"

Without the slightest hesitation, Ellison imparted the basic lesson of representative government.

"I am a politician, not an imam," he said with a smile. He explained that it was a legislator's duty to represent the views of his constituents, not to impose the mandates of his religion upon others. Then, indirectly demonstrating that there was nothing inconsistent in his views in politics and his Islamic faith, he joined the sun-down prayer in the hall, standing, despite being the guest of honor, in the last row, considered by Muslims to be a mark of humility.

Evidence that Ellison's views are resonating with American-Muslim communities can be gleaned from an episode that occurred late into his speech.

A man at the back of the lecture dressed in traditional dress stood up and began scolding Ellison. "You have undermined my faith," said the protestor. "When you take an oath on the U.S. Constitution, you make a mockery of Islam!" It was the typical argument of certain Muslim fundamentalists who believe that Islam is incompatible with democratic pluralism. Calmly, the congressman reminded the protestor that his conscience was his own to dictate and he found the Islamic ideals of justice and equity clearly present in the American Constitution. The direct response silenced the fundamentalist protestor.

And in support of Ellison, the crowd burst into raucous applause.

Ali Eteraz is an international finance and human rights lawyer.

Foes Use Obama's Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him
By Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 29, 2007

In his speeches and often on the Internet, the part of Sen. Barack Obama's biography that gets the most attention is not his race but his connections to the Muslim world.
Since declaring his candidacy for president in February, Obama, a member of a congregation of the United Church of Christ in Chicago, has had to address assertions that he is a Muslim or that he had received training in Islam in Indonesia, where he lived from ages 6 to 10. While his father was an atheist and his mother did not practice religion, Obama's stepfather did occasionally attend services at a mosque there.
Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a "Muslim plant" in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year.
In campaign appearances, Obama regularly mentions his time living and attending school in Indonesia, and the fact that his paternal grandfather, a Kenyan farmer, was a Muslim. Obama invokes these facts as part of his case that he is prepared to handle foreign policy, despite having been in the Senate for only three years, and that he would literally bring a new face to parts of the world where the United States is not popular.
The son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, Obama was born and spent much of his childhood in Hawaii, and he talks more about his multicultural background than he does about the possibility of being the first African American president, in marked contrast to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who mentions in most of her stump speeches the prospect of her becoming the first woman to serve as president.
"A lot of my knowledge about foreign affairs is not what I just studied in school. It's actually having the knowledge of how ordinary people in these other countries live," he said earlier this month in Clarion, Iowa.
"The day I'm inaugurated, I think this country looks at itself differently, but the world also looks at America differently," he told another Iowa crowd. "Because I've got a grandmother who lives in a little village in Africa without running water or electricity; because I grew up for part of my formative years in Southeast Asia in the largest Muslim country on Earth."
While considerable attention during the campaign has focused on the anti-Mormon feelings aroused by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R), polls have also shown rising hostility toward Muslims in politics. It is not clear whether that negative sentiment will affect someone who has lived in a Muslim country but does not practice Islam.
In an August poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 45 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate for any office who is Muslim, compared with 25 percent who said that about a Mormon candidate and with 16 percent who said the same for someone who is an evangelical Christian.
In Ellison's case, much of the controversy focused on his decision to take his oath of office with a Koran, one owned by Thomas Jefferson.
"It's good for America to have a president who has diversity at many levels in his background. That would be a benefit in reaching out to the rest of the world, particularly the Islamic world," said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based civil rights and advocacy group for Muslims. "But that kind of thing provides talking points for political detractors."
Obama aides sharply disputed the initial stories suggesting that he was a Muslim, and in Iowa, the campaign keeps a letter at its offices, signed by five members of the local clergy, vouching for the candidate's Christian faith. Aware that his religious belief remains an issue, Obama has denied a separate charge: that he does not hold his hand to his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. This rumor stemmed from a photo that was taken while the national anthem was being played.
"If I were a Muslim, I would let you know, " he said in Dubuque, Iowa, recently, according to CNN.com. "But I'm a member of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. We've got the best choir in town, and if you want to come and worship with us, you are more than welcome."
In the past few months, Obama has actively touted his Christianity, particularly in South Carolina, where his campaign hosted a gospel tour to appeal to black voters. He describes his movement from a "reluctant skeptic" to a believer during his 20s while he was working with black churches in Chicago as a community organizer. The title of his second book, "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream," comes from a sermon by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ.
An early rumor about Obama's faith came from Insight, a conservative online magazine. The Insight article said Obama had "spent at least four years in a so-called madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia." It attributed this detail to background information the Clinton campaign had been collecting.
After Obama denied the rumor, Jeffrey Kuhner, Insight's editor, said Obama's "concealment and deception was to be the issue, not so much his Muslim heritage," and he suggested that the source of the madrassa rumor was the Clinton campaign. The Clinton campaign denied the charge.
Human Events, another conservative magazine, published on its Web site a package of articles called "Barack Obama Exposed." One of them was titled "The First Muslim President?"
Robert Spencer, a conservative activist, wrote in Human Events that "given Obama's politics, it will not be hard to present him internationally as someone who understands Islam and Muslims, and thus will be able to smooth over the hostility between the Islamic world and the West -- our first Muslim President."
Conservative talk-show hosts have occasionally repeated the rumor, with Michael Savage noting Obama's "background" in a "Muslim madrassa in Indonesia" in June, and Rush Limbaugh saying in September that he occasionally got "confused" between Obama and Osama bin Laden. Others repeatedly use the senator's middle name, Hussein.
The rumors about Obama have been echoed on Internet message boards and chain e-mails.
Bryan Keelin of Charleston, S.C., who works with an organization of churches there, posted on an Internet board his suspicion that Obama is a Muslim. "I assume his father instructed him on the ways of being a Muslim," said Keelin, who described himself in an interview as a conservative Republican who will vote for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.
"The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out," says one of the e-mails that was posted recently on a blog at BarackObama.com, the campaign's Web site, by an Obama supporter who warned of an attempt to "Swift Boat" the candidate. "What better way to start than at the highest level, through the President of the United States, one of their own!"
Another e-mail, on a site called Snopes.com that tracks Internet rumors, starts, "Be careful, be very careful." It notes that "Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim," and that "since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when you are seeking political office in the United States, Obama joined the United Church of Christ to help purge any notion that he is still a Muslim."
A CBS News poll in August showed that a huge number of voters said they did not know Obama's faith, but among those who said they did, 7 percent thought he was a Muslim, while only 6 percent thought he was a Protestant Christian .
"The underlying point is that if you can somehow pin Islam on him, that would be a fatal blow," Hooper said. "It's offensive. It speaks to the rising level of anti-Muslim feeling in our society."
Obama's advisers say they are not worried that the candidate will hurt his campaign by invoking his connections to the Islamic world. "He understands that there are scurrilous attack e-mails going on underground that distort his religious affiliation and worse, but his judgment is that he trusts the American people more than that," said David Axelrod, a top Obama strategist. "He genuinely believes. . . . that people want to have a president that the world looks at and says, 'I believe this guy has an understanding of us and how we fit together on the planet.' "
Staff writer Alec MacGillis contributed to this report.

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