He entered the US on a student visa but never attended college. Did he perhaps have any other plans for his stay in America? From the Philadelphia Inquirer, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
A 28-year-old Palestinian convicted in Israel of membership in the militant organization Hamas was sentenced to a year in prison yesterday by a federal judge in Philadelphia.Atef Hasan Ismail Idais had lived in Philadelphia since he arrived from the Palestinian territories in 2000. He was arrested Sept. 9, 2004, on a charge of falsifying a visa application and has been in federal prison since.
When Idais is released, possibly today, he will be delivered to immigration authorities, who intend to deport him, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy Winter.
Under advisory federal sentencing guidelines, Idais faced zero to six months in prison. But U.S. District Judge John Padova said the case was unusual, given Idais' conviction in Israel.
Idais smiled as the judge delivered the sentence. He had pleaded no contest to making a false statement on a U.S. visa application.
Winter said that Idais had lied repeatedly and tried to manipulate the court and immigration service.
Idais entered the United States on a student visa but never attended college. He was charged with failing to disclose a 1999 conviction in Israel for throwing stones, disturbing the peace, and membership in Hamas.
On the witness stand, Idais said, "I have never been a member of Hamas."
Stephen Schwartz has made the transition to full-time Muslim apologist and taqiyya artist. I've been watching him struggling with his new identity. Now his assimilation is complete. This brings into question every so-called moderate Muslim. Schwartz was a reasonable person at one point. I've been reading his stuff for some time now. Intelligent people can get sucked into this role, excusing brutality and revising history. It's a tragedy.
Schwartz's thesis: the western media has been too hard on Islam. The great edifice is simply too complex for the uninitiates.
*making circling gestures around my ears*
Look at the first bullet point if you don't believe me that he's lost it:
Unstated and obviously false premise: Ottoman rules govern Islam. The Koran and other texts make it clear the penalty is death.
His escape hatch is "all." I'm sure YOU don't believe it Stephen. Thus, you have made a technically true statement.
I read it Beagle!
Schwarz is not simply an 'apologist' - he is a full blown Islamo-protagonist who is hell-bent on pulling the wool over our ears and I can only hope that he doesn't find too many willing gobblers, who will gobble it up and swallow it whole...
All you need to do is log on to an Islamic Chatroom in Yahoo. I've done it MANY times. I have NEVER been able to get a single Muslim to condemn the punishment for apostacy. Not once.
"Under advisory federal sentencing guidelines, Idais faced zero to six months in prison."
WTF was the "Patriot Act" for, if membership in Hamas plus using deception to enter the U.S. only leads to zero to six months in prison?!?
The good news: we caught one. The bad news: we let them go anyways.
WTF.
The Ottoman caliphate abolished death sentences for apostasy from Islam more than two centuries ago.....
Well, we will beleive it when the Muslims stop slaughtering the pagan/infidels...
"The Ottoman caliphate abolished death sentences for apostasy from Islam more than two centuries ago, but Western media still widely report that all Muslims believe the penalty for apostasy must be death."
-- from a posting above, quoting Muslim convert Stephen Schwartz
This is flatly untrue. In fact, even the so-called Tanzimat Reforms of 1839, designed to alleviate the condition of non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire, were not put in to effect whenever and wherever local officials could get away with dragging their feet. After all, it was only the superior power of the Western world that made the Ottoman rulers even go through the charade of easing up on non-Muslims -- the same kind of charade can be seen in Mubarak's "free and fair election" held yesterday.
Ultimately, there were some changes in the treatment of apostasy, but only limited ones, in a few places. And today it is not only in Saudi Arabia and Sudan and Iran where one can find such a punishment still on the books. Think of the outcry over the Qambar case a few years ago -- in (choose your adjectives: tiny, pro-Western, grateful-for-its-rescue-by-America) Kuwait.
Schwartz, who from being that curiously unappealing thing a "convert to Islam" (after a bout of Trotsky, and the Summer of Love, and so on, he apparently wandered around, and in Bosnia he finally found, the Belief-System True) decided to present himself to the world as an "expert on Islam" (nice title if you can get it, and you can get it if you simply write the sign yourself, and then paste it on your forehead), now enjoying his faith-based junkets to Muslim countries (Uzbekistan, Indonesia) where he can spout off about Islam, and enjoy his self-assigned role as Slayer of Wahhabi Idols. And don't overlook the money, radix malorum, for the role of "moderate Muslim" is now a virtual ticket to government and foundation grant money, the seed money, the feed money, the keeping-up-appearances money that no one would ever think of throwing the way of the true heroes, those ex-Muslims, the articulate defectors from Islam, such as Ibn Warraq and Ali Sina, who could make scholarly mincemeat of Schwartz any time they bothered to notice him. But they have more important things to do.
Hugh said "Schwartz ... decided to present himself to the world as an "expert on Islam" (nice title if you can get it, and you can get it if you simply write the sign yourself, and then paste it on your forehead)"
Well, there is one other condition for being an "expert on Islam", and that is that you can never, ever, ever say that Islam is anything but the "religion of peace". If you do, you are instantly stripped of your expert status and exiled to Islamophobia.