and a Time for a Muslim
Moral Reckoning
By Daniel Greenfield
The occupant of the White House’s middle name is Hussein, every school
curriculum lists a whitewashed history of Islam that ignores the genocides and
atrocities, and there are now more positive depictions of Muslims on TV, than
there are of Christians and Jews combined. But Muslims in America
still aren’t happy.
From all the wailing and boohooing, you might think that mosques were being
shelled, the way Muslims
are attacking monasteries in Egypt. Or that Muslim politicians were being
gunned down in the street the way that
Christian politicians are in Pakistan. You might at least think that
Muslims are treated like second-class citizens, the way non-Muslims are treated
in every Muslim country in the world. But no that’s not the case.
So what has Muslim burqas wadded up in a bunch this time? Representative
Peter King wants to hold hearings to investigate whether some Muslim groups are
urging their communities not to cooperate with government authorities in
fighting terrorism. King is not inviting experts on terrorism like Steve
Emerson, or experts on Islam like Andrew Bostom or Robert Spencer. He isn’t
even inviting ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Wafa Sultan. Instead the
witness list is limited to Muslims and law enforcement officials. Despite all the
hysteria and Islamophobia-mongering, Islam isn’t on trial here.
One of those witnesses is congressman Keith Ellison, a former associate of
the violently racist Nation of Islam, who
has defended and promoted anti-semitism in the past. Since then Ellison has
been transformed into the chief spokesman for tolerance as America’s
first Muslim congressman. That tolerance however ends at the borders of Islam.
And does not extend beyond it.
In response to Congressman King’s hearings, a motley group of
organizations held a rally at Times Square, near the site of an attempted
Muslim car bombing attempt only several months ago. They made no acknowledgment
of the countless lives that would have been lost at the hands of a Muslim
terrorist. Nor did the media in any way acknowledge the radicalism of the
participants.
They called the rally, “Today, I Am a Muslim Too”. But where are the rallies
for, “Today, I Am a Copt Too” or “Today, I Am a Hindu Too” or “Today, I Am a
Zoroastrian Too”.
In Egypt, Pakistan,
and Saudi Arabia—saying
“I am a Muslim Too” will not get you equal rights. It will get you superior
rights, which is what Muslims enjoy throughout the Muslim world. And that
includes the right to oppress and massacre Christians, Jews, Hindus and
countless other minorities. Groups for whom no rallies are being held. Whose
suffering goes unheard. While the media flocks to a photo op for an orgy of
self-pity by radicals and extremist organizations.
Russell Simmons promoted and spoke at the rally. Simmon’s own transformation
into an icon of tolerance is another farce. Russell Simmons is not only close
to violently racist Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, but
actually wrote an essay calling him, “My Second Father”. In an interview,
Simmons stated, “But all of us have some kind of an array of race-related
issues. Farrakhan has the least. And his statement that he made when we were
kids that inspired us so much when we were kids and so angry, were merited. The
white man was the devil. I was happy to say it and I could say it all of the
time, I could say it now.” But of course he didn’t say it at the rally.
That would have ruined the photo ops. And the media remained silent on his love
for Farrakhan, even while the Minister’s former patron in Libya
is massacring his own people.
This was only the first flash of intolerance at a Muslim rally supposedly
dedicated to tolerance. The Facebook page for
the rally listed Al Sharpton as one of the speakers.
Sharpton has led violent harassment of Jews and Asians in New York
Sharpton has led violent harassment of Jews and Asians in New
York, which have been connected to horrifying acts of
violence on more than one occasion. He has trafficked in religious bigotry as
recently as the 2008 election. Sharpton has become a power broker among New
York Democrats, but time and time again his racial incitement has led to
murder. When Al Sharpton has gone to a neighborhood, bodies have been left
behind. There is hardly a better symbol for violent bigotry in New
York than Sharpton. Listing him as one of the
speakers sends a message about what kind of “tolerance” the rally organizers
are interested in. A tolerance that the dead of Crown
Heights and Harlem
testify to. Much as countless millions dead at the hands of Islam testify to
the tolerance of the Religion of Peace.
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb was also listed as one of the speakers. Rabbi Lynn
Gottlieb is a leftist radical who is violently anti-Jewish and anti-Israel and
supports a boycott of all of Israel.
Gottlieb visited Iran
as part of a peace delegation in 2008 and spoke at a dinner attended by the Mad
Butcher of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. At the J
Street conference, Gottlieb delivered a hateful
rant, denouncing what she called, “Jewish privilege”, praising J
Street for being “advocates for talking to Hamas”
and demanding an end to US
military aid to Israel.
Gottlieb’s inclusion was not an isolated event. The Facebook page
lists the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (a contradiction in terms)
and Rabbis
for Human Rights, an even more misnamed organization that assaults Jewish
farmers and tries to drive them off their land. Rather than a show of
tolerance, the inclusion of such extremist organizations which have dedicated
themselves to the persecution of Jews in Israel,
highlight the xenophobia and hostility of the entire rally. And if Rabbi Marc
Schneier shared a stage with an extremist who calls for a boycott of Israel,
then the last shreds of his credibility have just gone out the window.
Many of the speakers were also supporters of the Ground Zero Mosque. Not
only was Imam Rauf listed as one of the speakers, but so was the Rev. Michael
Kinnamon. Kinnamon is not only a fierce Ground Zero Mosque supporter, but also
an opponent of Israel.
Chloe Bryer, who supports the Mosque and whose
interfaith center’s board includes Rauf, was listed as well.
At the rally Rauf insisted that “Our real enemy is not Islam or Muslims.
The enemy is extremism and radicalism and radical ideology”, one of those
profoundly stupid statements that mean less, the more you think about them. You
might as well say that our enemies are not extremists, but people with bombs.
After all that’s technically true, and yet completely pointless and wrong. To
say that our enemies are extremists is to say nothing at all. Extremism is
relative. It is a label that depends on the perspective of the labeler. On the
other hand our enemies are certainly and undeniably Muslims. Rauf may contend
that they are not the majority, but the lack of human rights for non-Muslims
throughout the Muslim world is ample testimony otherwise.
Farrakhan’s favorite Rabbi, Marc Schneier, completing his divorce from his
4th wife after
she allegedly caught him cheating, showed up to mumble that, “Singling out
Muslim Americans as the source of homegrown terrorism is an injustice”. When
actually it’s a simple statement of fact. Environmentalists have no trouble
singling out cows as the source of global warming, whether or not this is an
injustice. The injustice is not that people are noticing that Muslims are the
chief source of terrorism, but that Muslims continue to practice terrorism and
act outraged when asked to fight it.
Congressman King is not holding hearings to denounce Islam. He is holding
hearings to challenge the lack of cooperation from the Muslim community
Congressman King is not holding hearings to denounce Islam. He is holding
hearings to challenge the lack of cooperation from the Muslim community. The
protest is held out of mere outrage that King dares single out Muslims as the
problem. But whom else should he single out? Buddhists, the Amish or maybe
those dreaded hordes of bomb throwing nuns?
Muslim congressman Andre Carson said that he wanted to tell “the Peter Kings
of the world: we will not take your xenophobic behavior”. But then again
holding a rally near a location of a Muslim mass murder attempt, involving
violent racists and extremists might be viewed as xenophobic. And denouncing a
fellow congressman as a xenophobe because he wishes to work together with the
Muslim community in fighting terrorism reveals a basic intolerance on the part
of Andre Carson.
Last May, Carson
claimed that Tea Parties are one of the largest threats to our national
security, but acts outraged when someone notices that the violence is actually
coming from people who read the Koran and take its bloody tenets literally.
Blanket condemnations are supposed to be reserved for him. The media which has
no problem denouncing the entire Tea Party as violent or gun owners as
potential terrorists, swallows Carson’s
line, hook and sinker.
And Carson should know about
intolerance, because just like Russell Simmons and Keith Ellison, he has his
own ties to Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan
endorsed Carson at his own grandmother’s funeral and Carson received a
donation from a man
investigated for terrorism ties. The man was Yaqub Mirza and his
organization, the SAAR Foundation was raided in 2002. Those raids led to the
conviction of SAAR’s Abdurahman Alamoudi who was engaged
in a terrorism conspiracy together with Libyan madman Khadaffi. Khadaffi had
also provided millions to the Nation of Islam, which both Ellison and Carson
have been associated with.
Over in Libya,
Khadaffi is showing what real tolerance looks like. Khadaffi is not just a
friend of Farrakhan, but also of his associates. Obama’s own mentor, the
Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Wright and Farrakhan paid a call in 1984
on the robed madman. And Khadaffi described his relationship with the Nation of
Islam as a breach in the American fortress. How many other Muslim leaders see
Farrakhan and his congressmen in the same way? We’ll never know, because the
media is too busy picking up Andre Carson’s denunciation of Peter King.
A rally featuring bigots and their associates that turned up a few hundred
people got front page coverage from a media that refuses to hold Muslims
accountable for their intolerance. And that is the source of the problem. That
is part of what King’s hearings need to address. Muslims in America
are not victims, more often they are victimizers. And why would it be
otherwise? Muslims did not come here as a persecuted minority, but as the
majority. There are Muslim majorities in most of the countries that they
emigrated from. And those Muslim majorities are violently intolerant of
minorities. There are hardly any Jews left in the Muslim world. And the
Christians are vanishing almost as swiftly.
Muslim xenophobia has led them to wage violence against Buddhists in Thailand,
Hindus in Kashmir, Zoroastrians in Iran,
Christians in Egypt,
Jews in Israel
and even engage in violent conflict with their own sects. America
does not have a problem tolerating Muslims. Muslims have a problem tolerating
Americans. Self-indulgent rallies that promote the myth of Muslim victimhood
just enable the violence and the denial that has become a constant part of the
narrative. America
has embraced Muslims. And in return, Muslims have reacted with violence, hate
and smear campaigns. In August 2001, America
issued its first stamp commemorating a Muslim holiday. One month later, Muslims
murdered 3,000 people. This in microcosm is the relationship between Americans
and the Muslims living in their country.
Callous lack of Muslim empathy toward the suffering that their religious
ideology has caused
No, there is no Islamophobia here. Only a callous lack of Muslim empathy
toward the suffering that their religious ideology has caused. It’s time that
Muslims made a moral reckoning by confronting that suffering, from the waves of
ethnic cleansing and genocide that rippled across the Middle East destroying a
multicultural region, to the modern day atrocities in the 20th century. It is
time for Muslims to confront the genocides of Turkey
and Indonesia.
Time to humble themselves before the murdered Christians of Pakistan, the raped
Chinese women of Jakarta, the
massacred Jews of Hebron, the beheaded Buddhist teachers of Thailand
and every spot in the world where Muslim blades and bullets have shed the blood
of the innocent in the name of the Koran.
“Today, I Am a Muslim Too” reminds me of the courageous words of Ali Sina of Faith Freedom, who
explaining his decision to leave Islam said, echoed Lincoln’s “As I would not
be a slave, so I would not be a master”, by saying, “As I would not be a
dhimmi, so I would not be a Muslim.” There is a weight of moral responsibility
in these words entirely out of the grasp of the preening and posturing speakers
on the rally stage. Muslims wish to retain the privileges of the oppressor and
the moral stature oppressed—but they cannot have both. They must choose whether
they wish to be the oppressors or the oppressed—but not both at the same time.
It is time for Muslims to stop hiding behind the lies and make a moral
reckoning of their guilt and bring an end to the violence. Only when Muslims
take moral responsibility for the violence of their hands, can there be peace.
