In this FrontPage article I discuss why attendees at the recent Arab American Institute conference should have watched what they ate. (News links in the original.)
When the Arab American Institute held its national conference in late October, presidential candidates hurried to Dearborn to go a-courting. Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel and Ron Paul were there. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards addressed the conference via video hookup. Obama also sent an adviser, Tony Lake, and Edwards sent his campaign manager, David Bonior. Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean was there as well, as well as Senators John Sununu (R-NH) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI); Congressmen Charles Boustany (R-LA), John Dingell (D-MI) and John Conyers (D-MI); Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer; and Michigan Republican Party Chairman Gerry Mason.The AAI was flexing its political muscle. The Detroit Free Press article noted how much times had changed: “In 1988, Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis rejected the endorsement of a major Arab-American group.” But now? “This year, Democratic party leaders gave the candidates permission to address the conference despite a campaign boycott of Michigan because legislators moved up the date of the state’s primary.”
The assembled politicians probably didn’t even notice that among the sponsors of the AAI conference was the La Shish restaurant chain. They should have: as Debbie Schlussel has noted, in May 2006 the owner of the fifteen-restaurant chain, Talal Chahine, was indicted for tax evasion and accused of funneling $20 million to Hezbollah. Chahine fled to Lebanon to escape prosecution, and maintains his innocence. Schlussel asks:So, you ask, why would a restaurant owned by a fugitive who owes millions to the federal government continue to be open? Wouldn’t the government seize or freeze its assets . . . like they do with every other income tax cheat?Well, those are great questions. I’ve asked them, too. But the Justice Department and U.S. Attorney Murphy won’t answer them. They’ve allowed fugitive tax cheat/Hezbollah financier Chahine to continue to operate and collect income and revenue from La Shish for 1.5 years and counting after they indicted him.
And why would the Arab American Institute accept sponsorship from a group that has not disproven government allegations of ties to Hezbollah? If the AAI doesn’t support Hezbollah, wouldn’t it want to avoid even the appearance of impropriety? But the AAI has been focusing the bulk of its attention not on acts of violence committed by Muslims in the name of Islam, but on attempts by law enforcement and government officials to head off that violence. Jean Abi Nader, the AAI’s managing director and chief operating officer, summed up the organization’s concerns in a 2003 address at the University of Buffalo.
“Since 9/11,” Abi Nader claimed, “Arab-Americans have watched their dream of being fully a part of American society subject to the stresses of federal initiatives—new laws, policies and procedures—that produce fear and intimidation in their community.”
Abi Nader might at that point have recommended that Arab Americans face squarely the reason why these new laws, policies and procedures were instituted: the reality of Islamic terrorism. He might have called upon Arab and non-Arab Muslims to confront the elements of Islamic teaching and tradition that jihadists use to justify their actions and make recruits among peaceful Muslims, and work to formulate ways to end their ability to incite to violence.
Instead, he made the fantastic claim that “within a month of Sept. 11, more than 2,000 hate crimes were committed against Arab-Americans and Muslims in this country, and who knows how many more went unreported.” His claims about how anti-terror efforts victimized Arab-Americans were no less hysterical: “So the civil liberties of Arab-Americans and American Muslims came under attack, and we have been treated increasingly as second-class citizens in this country. Not only do we see it at airports in terms of profiling, but also in a whole series of federal initiatives that in any other circumstance would not have been acceptable but are now acceptable because this country is at war.” And he decried the “systematic degrading of Islam by conservative Christians, neoconservatives and the right wing.”
Abi Nader made no mention of the systematic degrading of Islam perpetrated by Osama bin Laden and other jihadists — who routinely justify acts of mass murder by invoking Islam. Like so many other commentators, Abi Nader pretends that “conservative Christians, neoconservatives and the right wing” have invented a link between Islam and terrorism, when in fact no one would have thought to link them if Islamic terrorists themselves hadn’t been connecting the two so energetically.
The same story played out at the AAI conference in October. Richardson vowed to “protect these values we have compromised through unwarranted surveillance and ethnic profiling.” Obama, according to the Detroit News, “reminded the potential voters that he has introduced legislation to make police profiling illegal,” and Kucinich emphasized his consistent opposition to the Patriot Act. Howard Dean told the crowd that they had been “singled out unfairly and unjustly...by politicians who hope to have a cheap electoral trick” and said that the Arab American community “is under siege by those who would divide America in order to win elections.”
Such words were particularly ironic coming at a conference partially sponsored by a business owned by a man who has been indicted for funding a terrorist group. Just who is under siege by those who would divide America in order to win elections, and who is doing the besieging, may not be the groups Howard Dean had in mind at all – but the siege itself is real, and ongoing.
For me, the antics of certain Mohammedans on 9/11 made the connection between Islam and terrorism.
My abject apologies for my blindness to those who have suffered from terror attacks for so much longer.
I wonder if our political leaders of the 1940's would have attended any pro nazi meeting by german americans?
Having been raised in an area with Arab Americans (Christian ), there was never any discrimination against them. Many were business owners in our community; all were active in the various churches in the area. In fact, I married into one of the Lebanese families and my spouse's aunt was very active in one of the Arab organizations.
If there is any cause to look closer at the AAI and the American Arab population, in my estimation it's due to the increase of moslem arabs in America. For nearly a century, Christian Arabs, Lebanese, Copts, etc. lived in the US and were proud citizens and one never would have thought of linking them to acts of terrorism. Sadly, with the influx of moslems, that has changed....just read the news.
Take careful note of who shows up, or sends a representative, to what only seems to be a neutral, ethnic-identity-based group, but in fact has been taken over by Muslims and a few islamochristians -- some no doubt sensing where the money is to be made -- and therefore is not about "Arab-Americans" at all. In any case, the very phrase "Arab-American" is highly misleading, because it is an attempt by recent arrivals, Muslims, to exploit the good name, and if they can, obtain the useful-idiot assistance, of those Christians whose Arabic-using ancestors arrived, from those parts of the Ottoman Empire that now form Lebanon and Syria (with some Copts from Egypt being more recent arrivals, and Assyrians and Chaldeans from Iraq being more recent still), and who were refugees from Islam, fleeing the pressures of daily discrimination, as well as intermittent persecution, and outright murder that they faced, too often, from Muslim neighbors and authorities.
I presume that many non-Muslims, many Infidels, think as I do. I write off my list of possible acceptable candidates those who pander, in any way, to individuals, groups, or organizations that I know are promoting policies that are desired by Muslims world-wide. That's an Iron Rule, or should be, of all Infidels. Make your views known about this kind of thing. There are far more of you than there are Muslims or islamochristians whom these politicians apparently assume they can court, without losing support elsewhere.
Make sure they lose support elsewhere, and make sure their campaigns know why.
The almost unbelievable ignorance (dhimmi behavior) of Richardson, Obama, Kucinich, and. Democratic Chairman Howard Dean is down right scary.
Wondering about Dukakis rejecting the AAI's endorsement way back when.
Of course, no doubt it is because of his "Greek" and "Christian" heritage/ sarc
I'd like to hear what he has/had to say about it.
As a life-long resident of Dearbornistan, Michigan, I'd like to warn all my fellow Americans (and Westerners as well) of this one, simple fact:
Islam is not just a religion but a political ideology as well. Muslim immigrants of the past 10-12 years have arrived here more fundamentalist, more radical, more "proud" of Islam and have no desire to assimilate into Western/American values, customs, etc.
They want and do, push sharia law into civic life, especially the school system.
The only practical solution I see is to reduce Muslim immigration drastically. Otherwise, the West, full of self-hating liberal-leftists, will snivel before Islam and become dhimmis.
If Barak Hussein Obama gets the Democratic nomination for President, he will, at some point, have to answer a question about his religion. He claims to have joined a Christian church years ago and is an active member. But, what of his Muslim father? Aren't all children born of Muslim fathers considered Muslim? Will he be forced to reject that claim, becoming a apostate and putting himself in great danger, or will he claim his Muslim heritage and allow Muslims to openly say he is 'one of them?'Either way, that is a great danger for the rest of American citizens.
"The same story played out at the AAI conference in October. Richardson vowed to “protect these values we have compromised through unwarranted surveillance and ethnic profiling.” Obama, according to the Detroit News, “reminded the potential voters that he has introduced legislation to make police profiling illegal,” and Kucinich emphasized his consistent opposition to the Patriot Act. Howard Dean told the crowd that they had been “singled out unfairly and unjustly...by politicians who hope to have a cheap electoral trick” and said that the Arab American community “is under siege by those who would divide America in order to win elections.”
Cheap electoral tricks kinda sums it all up, actually. Whereas prostitution is illegal, political whoredom is alive and well and flourishing thanks to johns with petro-dollars and voting blocs.
Too much unwarranted surveillance and ethnic profiling at Los Alamos, eh, 007? As for the rest, selling out their favors at the expense of national security seems like the cheapest of tricks yet. Prostitution is a limited transaction of services for financial gain; political whoredom is an open-ended promise to serve again and again at the pleasure of whoever is buying the politician's services.
Greetings:
My father used to say that "politics was the second oldest profession; prostitutes sell themselves; politicians sell everyone they can."
"The almost unbelievable ignorance (dhimmi behavior) of Richardson, Obama, Kucinich, and. Democratic Chairman Howard Dean is down right scary.
Posted by: Mackie"
.....more scary are the voters who keep electing them.....
Let those who refused to go, to talk to these followers of islam, send Rudy, Mitt, and the others this list for ammo.
Its about islam, and it not being I.D.(d) as the real enemy, until that happens this will continue.
Who can really stand with this great nation, and want freedom for their children, the future generations, and do this?
exsgtbrown said it all.
The enemy is islam, and the trigger finger of islam is getting itchy for a pull. Then these reps will have a lot to answer for.