Imam of Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero refuses to condemn Hamas

Did we expect anything different? Will this make an impression on the NY City Council or on Mayor Bloomberg? I'm sure it won't. They will accept his answers and his explanations, as transparent as they are. Look at the Fort Hood situation. They knew Maj. Nidal Hassan was communicating with terrorists and they experienced his hostility, yet let it all slide. This atrocious fortress of Islam will likely rise at Ground Zero. It shouldn't happen. Americans oppose it. But our rulers want it. They won't look at any evidence. They believe what Muslims tell them. All the while the Muslims can't believe what fools they are. And they are.

Sadly, "progress" redefines truth. That's why little episodes of real truth mean nothing to the "progressive" types.

this man should be deported!!

It would be great to link today's Supreme Court ruling to the activities of this subversive traitor.

This mosque will be a tax-exempt entity, taking in "offerings" and soaking up all the police, fire, street, and city services it can.

It will be the perfect place to collect and divert money to Hamas, Hizbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc.

And don't think the building trades will abstain from erecting this fortress; enough of them would build their own gallows if they were paid union scale to do so.

Come on, people, he's a PEACE BUILDER! He's the Mr. Rogers of islam!
"It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood, in the islamic Ground Zero neighborhood. Won't you be my dhimmi?
Won't you be my fool? I knew that you would..."

When the NYC mayor and others have their head buried in the sand like ostrich, how can they hear what the mega mosque imam is saying???

Yeah he is defending the rights of Muslims in NYC to build this atrocity right next to the holy ground zero and defile it, the rights and voices of Americans whose lives were brutally terminated be damned. According to our leaders and MSM the Muslims can do no wrong - they can't see what Muslims did to their city and country and are always looking to do more harm to New Yorkers - the latest being Time square bomber, Shahjad and Jazi the Afghan who wanted to blow up the subways. How many more jihadis are waiting for the right opportunity to harm the city???

Wake up New Yorkers

This guy Rauf is the 21st Century's Muslim poster child for the 'new Muslim': smooth, calm, erudite, way too slick.
I heard his interview with Klein: you could sense that he was seething that he wasn't dealing with someone who was going to through creampuff questions his way.
This guy has become used to being treated with kid-gloves, being treated with due deference and respect, as per the liberal, Left's worship of cultural 'diversity'.
The question should be put to ALL so-called Islamic imams and 'scholars' of every type: this guy's answers will not fly anymore.
There once was a time in this country where there was no such thing as moral 'equivalence', where hemming and hawing, all sorts of insane rationalizations for murderous acts, would never be heard or countenanced, by any sector of the American public.
Now, you have people parading in cities in this country, and in Western Europe, people who have been educated at the university level, in support of Hamas.
The litmus test for US citizenship should be simple: if you are found to approve of a group that advocates the murder of innocent civilians: women and children, via their intentional targetting in acts of terror, you don't deserve to be in this country, you don't deserve citizenship, as stated before, you should be deported.
Terrorism isn't complicated. Ask the Orthodox Jewish mortuary squads that descend on the scene of buses and restaurants that have been blown-apart by suicide bombers, the ones who have to pick up the bits and pieces of human beings, sop-up the pools of blood, for proper burial.
Ask them if they know what terrorism is.
It's brutally, savagely clear and simple: any human being with an ounce of humanity left knows what it is when he sees it.

Common, New York citizens, don't be usefull fools! Show the rest of the world how to deal with aggression!
---------------
We are Guardians Of Asgaard!
(c) Amon Amarth

"The issue of terrorism is a very complex question," he told interviewer Aaron Klein.

Yeah, and so is the issue of cancer.

*** Bukhari Vol 2 Bk 24 Nbr 555 ***

Cancer works via deformed cells. Jihad war terror works via deformed people.

*** 92:8 ***

In other words, Moslems.

Imam of Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero refuses to condemn Hamas

"I've been trying to tell you about this guy. You wouldn't listen."

One reason why people aren't listening is because a basic incoherence emanating from the Anti-Islam Movement (such as it is) is contributing to the public static.

Are we against Imam Rauf because a friend of a friend of a cousin of a nephew belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood? Or are we against Imam Rauf because... he's simply a Muslim?

I say we pursue the latter with intellectual consistency and literacy. Unfortunately, it is our tendency to waffle back and forth between these two that tends to facilitate the obfuscation of the problem in the public discourse dominated by PC MCs who in turn exploit this (often sincerely with the best of intentions).

We remember that interview with Pam Geller where something in the brain of the PC MC anchorwoman went boing! and she realized that Pam is actually, in effect, condemning Islam itself. When the anchorwoman confronted Pam with this massively implicit subtext, Pam had 15 seconds to educate her and the audience in Islam 101 which requires at least several hours and the presentation of reams of evidence and argumentation. We may be able to link Imam Rauf to the Muslim Brotherhood through a sound-bite; but we will never be able to expose Islam itself that way. At best, we can have a boilerplate for such fleeting presentations and then add that there is a "mountain of evidence" which would take too much time to unpack. In the meantime, we must seek public communication venues and opportunities that afford more time.

And beyond that, we need to decide whether or not we are in fact ... Anti-Islam or not, and what this means for our position on... Muslims qua Muslims -- and not merely Muslims qua "linked to Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood or Wahhabis or the Taliban"; et al qaeda.

Playing Six Degrees of Separation from Sayyid Qutb

You can download the interview here.

It is very interesting. In the interview, Aaron Klein asks Imam Rauf about his involvement with the Perdana Peace Organization.

Ruaf says he has no involvement with Perdana after he lectured there in 2005. However, there is more to it than that. In addition to lecturing, he signed a petition to "criminalize war".

Here are some excerpts:

"* All nations must strengthen the resolve to accept the purposes and principles of the United Nations (UN) Charter and institute methods to settle international disputes by peaceful means and to renounce war;

* Armed force shall not be used except when authorised by a resolution passed by two-thirds majority of the total membership of the UN general assembly"
http://www.perdana4peace.org/klinitiative.aspx

So, what's the problem with denouncing Hamas?

Does he no longer agree with the petition he signed in 2005?

Many other people have lectured at Perdana, and have not been described at the Perdana website as a "Role Player & Contributor of the Perdana Global Peace Organisation" as late as December of last year.
http://www.perdana4peace.org/agenda.aspx?x=3

Also, Rauf says terrorism is difficult to define, mentioning the UN's inability to do so, and that would be due to the OIC's influence in the debate.

There is not much courage, or integrity on display here from "bridge builder" Feisal Rauf.

Good job, Aaron Klein!

Yeah, good one buddy!! Bring up the fact that the oic dominated un can't decide on the meaning of the term terrorist.

I often feel insulted by these inept attempts to circumvent the glaringly obvious radical histories, statements, and plans of people like rauf. Then I remember that it all too often works on the lamestream crowd!!

We may be able to link Imam Rauf to the Muslim Brotherhood through a sound-bite; but we will never be able to expose Islam itself that way. At best, we can have a boilerplate for such fleeting presentations and then add that there is a "mountain of evidence" which would take too much time to unpack.

And this is the informational fog that allows a Fictive Reality to operate, in this case the Islam Fictive Reality.

*** 92:8 ***

And beyond that, we need to decide whether or not we are in fact ... Anti-Islam or not, and what this means for our position on... Muslims qua Muslims -- and not merely Muslims qua "linked to Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood or Wahhabis or the Taliban"; et al qaeda.

All these linkages are remindful of a circle jerk taking place at a second tier college fraternity. In these couplings, the denouement, while messy, is basically harmless.

Not so when you run such a geeky sideshow around Islam. To wit, I give you the daily lineup at MSNBC -- the Bill Gates network. Hard to watch, very harmful, and very dangerous.

The "Will you condemn Hamas, explicitly by name, as a terrorist organization?" question is useful. The evasive answers can be informative.

Livingengine,

Good post. Thanks.

OT

Any people from Loonwatch who are reading this thread might want to notify Danios that I had already refuted his arguments about the dhimma. See "The Dhimmis: Guilty People" thread here at Jihadwatch, where you can read my rebuttal to Danios' part 2 "Intellectual hucksters" article. My rebuttal to that part 2 article begins at June 8, and my corrections to his June 17 article in which he "challenges" Spencer (and me) are later in the thread. Danios has come up with a bizarre and unsubstantiated claim that only Muslims, not non-Muslim dhimmis, could be guilty of breaking the dhimma contract. I show his claim to be false and present evidence refuting it. For those who are interested in my responses to Danios' claims, see especially these posts:

June 8, 2010 7:37 PM | Reply
June 13, 2010 6:33 AM | Reply
June 15, 2010 8:55 AM | Reply
June 17, 2010 8:42 AM | Reply
June 18, 2010 5:06 PM | Reply
June 19, 2010 10:09 AM | Reply
June 20, 2010 4:22 PM | Reply
June 21, 2010 8:17 AM | Reply

The interviewer, Aaron Klein has written a book called 'Schmoozing with Terrorists'.

He has interviewed much tougher nuts than Imam Rauf.

Here's a review of his book, that appeared in the Jerusalem Post some time ago. (For some weird reason, the jpost link I had originally saved, doesn't work any more; luckily, I kept a complete copy of the article).

Schmoozing with Terrorists
By Aaron Klein
World Ahead Media
204 pages; $26

'"Once Islam dominates America, anyone living inside must abide by our rules. There is no choice. You don't like it? Too bad. Go somewhere else and go to hell."

'Gems such as this abound in American journalist Aaron Klein's book, which details his many one-on-one interviews with wanted terrorists. They brag. They threaten.

'They explain that their goal isn't so much to kill Jews (though they aren't shy about declaring that "the Jews are corrupting humanity on earth... they should be removed")

'as it is to please Allah by sacrificing their lives to further the spread of Islam.

'And they **do** go on about what a world under Islam will be like. Britney Spears and Madonna? Beheaded. Music? Forbidden. Islamic dress? Mandatory for everyone.

'Klein, who grew up Orthodox in Philadelphia, found himself drawn to journalism in general, and Middle Eastern journalism in particular (aided by his olive complexion) after Osama bin Laden's fatwa against the West and 9/11, motivated by a growing conviction that the vast majority of reporters covering terrorism and the Middle East "don't have the ability to tell good from evil.

'"These reporters have absolutely no moral compass whatsoever. They think being a reporter means being 'balanced'; they think it means one thing - that the truth is on both sides, that both sides are equal... They think our anti-terror operations, which target terrorists who hide among women and children, which target jihadists launching rockets from civilian apartment buildings, which target gunmen who fire from a crowd of unarmed civilians, are morally equivalent to suicide bombers or terror leaders who fire rockets into population centers."

'How refreshing to hear a member of the fourth estate telling it like it is.

'How refreshing to hear terrorists debunking with their own words such mealy-mouthed Western canards as "ignorance and poverty make them do it," "they act only out of desperation" or "they are merely defending themselves against occupation."

'Klein provides many examples of these people's shaky grasp of such basic concepts as truth, fairness and innocence,

'and of how a belief system that deems thinking itself a sin can come to dominate its adherents so thoroughly that there really is no possibility of reasoning with many of them.

'For those under the sway of the Western media, many of the frank (proud, even) revelations, motivations and goals offered by Klein's subjects will come as a very rude awakening, though of course for many people living in Israel, they are mainly old hat.

'Indeed, most of the book's attraction is to be found not in its revelations,

' but in the very spectacle of a single Jew - albeit accompanied by an intrepid interpreter - arranging to be totally alone and at the mercy of armed killers who want nothing more than to see him and all his people dead.

'It's like watching a mouse interviewing a series of snakes.

'And perhaps that very novelty explains why Klein is still alive, and why so often his subjects dropped many of the polished lies and half-truths they usually feed the media.

'Klein notes that "a lot of the Palestinian leaders I met were somewhat fascinated at the prospect of meeting a Jewish reporter. For many, I was the first Jew they'd ever knowingly interacted with."

'So brutal and revealing are the resultant statements, so shameless the hypocrisy exposed, that one can overlook Klein's merely pedestrian talent as a writer.

'To his credit, Klein doesn't limit his focus to the Middle East.

' Rather, he goes into considerable detail about how naive American actors and well-meaning citizens are actually supporting and paying for the spread of the very cancer that looks ready to subvert their country and destroy their way of life."

More on Aaron Klein, who faced off against Imam Rauf.

An article by Ruthie Blum, that appeared in Jerusalem Post on July 16 2008: 'One on One: Out of the Mouths of Bombers'. Blum is interviewing Klein about his book.

Again, I can't provide a link: the link I originally saved doesn't take you to the article but just to today's J POst homepage.

So here's the whole thing. It is completely relevant to Imam Rauf, given the Hamas connection and everything else.

Jul 16, 2008 22:17 | Updated Jul 17, 2008 9:54

One on One: Out of the mouths of bombers
By RUTHIE BLUM

"The one thing the terrorists don't like," says author Aaron Klein, "is being called terrorists."

'This is why, says Klein - the Jerusalem bureau chief for the right-wing news Web site WorldNetDaily.com, and a columnist for the equally conservative Jewish Press - the subjects of his best-selling book, Schmoozing with Terrorists (published by World Ahead Media), are unhappy with its title.

'"They prefer to be called 'jihadists,'" explains Klein, noting the apparent nuance that is a clear-cut distinction in the eyes of those who believe it is their religious duty to spread Islam throughout the world, by any means at their disposal.

'"My response was to tell those who complained to me about my use of the word that when someone violently targets civilians, that's what he is."

'That members and leaders of every major Palestinian terrorist organization ever agreed to talk (via translators) to Klein - a 28-year-old "nice Jewish boy" from Philadelphia - let alone continue to contact him after reading what he writes, seems surprising, if not unlikely.

' Klein disagrees. Not only does he insist that any journalist who wishes to interview terrorist leaders "can simply phone them up," but, he asserts, "they are proud of their goals and achievements, and glad to have a platform for promotion."

'Which begs the question: Why provide such a platform?

'Because, argues Klein, the West in general, and Western media in particular, tend to play down or ignore the realities of radical Islam.

'Klein believes it's necessary, therefore, "to educate people on what the war on terrorism is really about," by giving a genuine glimpse into the psyche of suicide bombers and their recruiters.

'In an hour-long interview in Jerusalem last month, Klein tried to do just that.

'Q: What makes terrorists tick?

'A: That's a good question.

'A lot of people think that terrorism is about pieces of territory - that Hizbullah just wants to get the Shaba Farms back, for example. Others think that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the whole rest of the alphabet of Palestinian terrorists simply want to destroy Israel or that al-Qaida wants America out of the Middle East.

'But one thing that has really been driven home to me in all my talks with terrorists - which is the thesis of all of my work - is that **they are looking to serve Allah by spreading Islam around the world. That's what makes them tick** {my emphasis - dda}.

'Q: It is often said of terrorists that desperation and poverty - sometimes mental illness - is at the root of their actions. Is there truth to that?

'A: It's true that if you watch CNN or read The New York Times, you would get that impression. Because whenever there's a suicide bombing in Israel, right away they present human interest stories about how the bomber is poor and living under Israeli occupation.

'And this is in spite of the fact that in the history of modern civilization, there's no other instance of people under occupation blowing themselves up.

'But, about a year and a half ago, I met with a 22-year-old Palestinian (sic: local Arab Muslim - dda) who had been recruited to become a suicide bomber for Islamic Jihad and his recruiter in Jenin, and I specifically asked them whether they were carrying out their operations because of poverty and desperation.

'Their response was to get offended and call it Zionist propaganda.

'They explained that suicide is forbidden in Islam, and that blowing oneself up in the midst of innocent men, women and children does not constitute suicide, but rather jihad for Allah - that therefore it is not only allowed, but it is the creed.

'Do the bombers actually believe they're going to paradise?

'The suicide bombers themselves, and even some of the mid-level terrorists, absolutely believe they're going to paradise, where they will be met by 72 dark-eyed virgins.

'The senior leaders, however, don't seem to believe a lot of what they tell their acolytes.

'What is interesting about the 72-virgin thing that recruiters and would-be bombers repeat all the time is that it is not in the Koran.

'The Koran describes a paradise for martyrs as having virgins and full-breasted maidens, but the number 72 doesn't appear. That comes later, in the Hadith [oral tradition].

'Anecdotally, once I was meeting with the senior leadership of al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigade in Nablus, and I brought along an American radio host, Rusty Humphries. And Humphries kept pushing them to show us where the bit about 72 virgins appears in the Koran.

'So they began flipping through the pages, pulling out all sorts of verses that had nothing to do with 72 virgins. Ultimately they conceded that it wasn't in there. But they didn't like being challenged, and they told me later not to bring Humphries back there ever again.

'This underscores the heart of the problem - that at its very foundation there is no argument for terrorism.

' It's so easy to deconstruct.

'**But most of the media out there take the terrorists' lying responses and move on to the next question without challenging them** {my emphasis - dda}.

'Another thing worth noting is that whenever I meet with terrorist leaders - who constantly tell me how brave they are, and how they're not afraid of the Israeli Zionists - **they are always surrounded by women and children** {my emphasis - dda}.

'Q: Is this because they believe Israelis try to avoid killing women and children?

'A: Absolutely.

'Q: Do they say so, or is this your interpretation?

'A: When I ask them about it, they absolutely don't acknowledge it.

'But my problem is not with the terrorists who don't acknowledge it; it's with the reporters who don't acknowledge it.

'Because whenever there's an Israeli anti-terror operation in which Arab civilians are killed, right away we have this moral equivalency between the side that tries to minimize civilian casualties and the side that tries to maximize them.

'Q: Are you saying that your goal in interviewing these terrorists is to educate the West about what they're really up to?

'A: Indeed. And I always find that terrorists are very proud of their goals and ideology, unlike the media that report on them.

'**Talk to any terrorist and he'll be very open about his aim to destroy Israel as a stepping stone to achieving his ultimate goal of spreading Islam across the world.** {my emphasis - dda}' I actually enjoy talking to terrorists more than politicians, because when I ask terrorists why they're blowing themselves up, they give me an honest answer.

'Q: How is it they're willing to talk to you if what you're doing is exposing them? Aren't you killing their lobby, in effect?

'A: Maybe that's the way you see it, but they think I'm doing them a favor - and perhaps I am - by giving them a platform from which to explain themselves. I don't analyze what they say; I quote them, and they are very thankful for this.

'Q: You say that you might be doing them a favor. In what way? By getting their message out to like-minded brethren?

'A: I don't think that I'm doing them any favor. I'm saying that they want to get their ideology out there, and so maybe they believe that the best way to do it is to have an open microphone.

'From my perspective, what I'm doing is trying to educate people on what the war on terrorism is really about.

'**We often embolden terrorists without even realizing it, through policies of evacuation, withdrawal, dialogue and negotiations** {my emphasis - dda}.

'The terrorists are very open about the fact that **if you evacuate territory, they are going to use that territory to stage further attacks toward your annihilation** {my emphasis - dda}.

'If you sign a cease-fire with them, they call it a hudna, which comes from the Koran. It's the truce that Muhammad signed on his way to conquering Mecca, which he later violated.

'For them, a cease-fire is the chance to rebuild and regroup and prepare for the final goal of the enemy's annihilation. So what I'm trying to do here is educate Americans on what works and what doesn't work.

'Q: You keep saying that their ultimate goal is global jihad. But there are so many different groups who oppose each other. Can you really talk about the Sunnis and the Shi'ites - or Fatah and Hamas - in the same breath?

'A: On the ground there are a lot of different factions all vying for power. But when it comes to fighting the enemy, they unite.

'Q: Do you hear support among terrorists for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

'A: Absolutely. Any dictator who threatens to annihilate Israel is admired by Palestinian terrorists. Anyway, if you pay them enough money, they're going to do your bidding for you. And Iran is giving a fortune not only to Hamas, but to Fatah's al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade, which coordinates on a regular basis with Hizbullah, which we all know is backed by Iran and Syria.

'Q: Before disengagement, critics of the withdrawal said that Israel would be abandoning the territory to an al-Qaida state in the making. Now, you and others refer to it as an Iranian proxy. Which is it?

'A: What's the difference, really, when they're all fighting for the same thing?

'Al-Qaida is certainly ideologically present in Gaza, where it has ties with Hamas. But at the moment, there isn't much difference between the goals and the way attacks are carried out between these and Iranian-backed terrorists. They're fighting the same enemies - America and America's proxy, Israel.

'Q: How informed are the terrorists you've come in contact with about American and Israeli politics?

'A: Many are well-versed, certainly on Israeli politics. Interestingly, when there was a report about [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert's health issues, I received two separate phone calls from leaders of al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade to make sure that he was OK, because they wanted to make sure that he would stay in power.

'Q: Why?

'A: Because they would rather have a Kadima-led government than a Likud-led one.

**Olmert is more accommodating; his actual election platform was withdrawal from the West Bank, and the terrorists love that, because for them a withdrawal is more territory from which to attack Israel.** {my emphasis - dda}.

' When it comes to American politics, they understand the difference between Democrats and Republicans, but they don't know so much about the particulars of the US presidential candidates.

'**They consider all Americans as infidels, but they're going to support whichever political party in America they believe will help them achieve their short-term goals** {my emphasis - dda} - and the Democrats are more outspoken on withdrawing troops from Iraq.

'Furthermore, Barack Obama is talking about sitting down with the Iranian president, so they'd all prefer to see a Democrat win the presidential election.

' In fact, I did an interview in April with Ahmad Yusuf, the chief political adviser to Hamas in Gaza, in which he endorsed Obama and compared him to John F. Kennedy.

'Q: What are you saying, then - that these terrorists want to negotiate? You claim they view all Americans as infidels, yet Ahmad Yusuf compared Obama favorably to Kennedy.

'A: They support negotiations with the West, because **they see negotiations as a sign of weakness on the part of the West** {my emphasis - dda} - as a sign that they're bringing the West to its knees.

'Q: Do they mention specific events to illustrate that they are "bringing the West to its knees"?

'A: Just a few weeks ago, al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade and Islamic Jihad attempted to attack the Erez crossing and failed. Olmert's response was to pull IDF troops a little bit further back into Israel.

'In an interview I conducted immediately after this with a Popular Resistance Committee spokesman, he said that this is a sign that the Israeli paper tiger is going to fall.

' He compared the retreat from Erez to the retreat from Gaza, to the retreat from Lebanon and to giving Palestinians territory in the West Bank.

'Q: Why do they agree to talk to you, a Jew, let alone phone you up regularly?

'A: I think it's incredible that I can phone the leaders of terrorist organizations and ask them where they are, while the IDF can't find them and doesn't take them out. But it's not me, it's any reporter. I guarantee you that if I gave you their numbers and you called them up and said you were from The Jerusalem Post, they'd love it. Any reporter who wants to interview a Palestinian terrorist will find that it's very easy to do.

'Q: Do you have to pretend that you're on their side when you talk to them?

'A: No. And this is why I think that they have some respect for me. Just as I see them as exotic for being the enemy and dangerous terrorists, they see me, too, as exotic - the pink elephant, a Jew they actually get to talk to.

'And they relish the opportunity to debate, from a religious perspective, militant Islam vs Judaism. They are as fascinated with me as a Jew as I am with them as terrorists.

'**Furthermore, they say their beef isn't with Jews, but with occupiers, which is a huge lie. Just look at the Palestinian media. It's full of Nazi-like propaganda - with Jews portrayed as pigs and monkeys. This causes many Palestinians to have a total misconception about Jews as all evil** {my emphasis- dda}.

'Q: Couldn't one argue that there are plenty of Israelis who see Arabs in general, and Palestinians in particular, as all evil?

'A: Maybe there are misconceptions on both sides, but on one side there are people telling their kids to become suicide bombers and kill Israelis indiscriminately in cafes, and on the other side, there are people advocating freedom and democracy. So you can't compare the two.

'Q: Are you not afraid that these terrorists you interview will kidnap or kill you?

'A - I understand that there's danger in what I'm doing. At the same time, if you look at the kidnappings of journalists in the Palestinian areas, you'll note that they were carried out by masked gunmen - not by a particular terrorist interviewed by a reporter. Believe it or not, when you go in, they protect you.

'Q: Have you brought up the issue of kidnapped soldiers Gilad Schalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev with the terrorists?

'A: Yes. They're very proud of these kidnappings, because they understand that average Israelis really can't tolerate even a single soldier being in such a situation, and that therefore Israel is probably going to release Palestinian prisoners or sign a cease-fire in order to try and get them back. To them, when Israel releases Palestinian prisoners, it just goes to show that kidnapping works.

'Q: Are they surprised that Israelis value each individual soldier enough to want to make big deals to get them back?

'A: I didn't ask specifically about that, **but what they do express is finding anything about Israeli society that they can exploit** {my emphasis - dda. And nota bene - 'finding anything about Israeli society that they can exploit...just substitute 'Indian' or 'Australian' or 'US' or, well, infidel country of choice, pick one, for 'Israeli', and you've got the Mohammedan mindset to a T}.

'Q: Have you discussed 9/11 with them?

'A: That's one topic they don't like discussing. The only thing they say is that 9/11 was a Zionist conspiracy. They say, "Don't pin that on us." They simply don't want to be associated with it.

'On the other hand, many al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade guys walk around with high-powered assault rifles that were provided by the US, and they told me that they used American funding, arms and training to shoot at the Israelis.

'They said that if it hadn't been for those things, they don't think the second intifada in 2000 would have been as successful as it was. They credit the American training for a lot of dead Jews.

'Q: These were weapons and training the Americans provided for Fatah to fight Hamas?

'A: That was the logic - pitting one bad guy against the other. We saw how well that worked. America gave hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, training and weapons to Fatah. Then Hamas took over Gaza - and terrorists are now showing off to me that they're using American jeeps, American assault rifles and even some shoulder-mounted machine guns to hit Israeli targets. Hamas gave me a list of all the American weapons in their possession, and I wrote an article about this. They translated my article into Arabic and posted it on Hamas's official Web site.

'Q: How do Fatah terrorists talk about PA President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen)?

'A: They say that he's their leader, and that every attack they carry out is supported by him. They don't say that he orchestrates the attacks, but that the attacks are not contradictory to Fatah's platform.** In other words, al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade is not some random offshoot of Fatah; it's the leader of Fatah's security forces** {my emphasis - dda}.

'Q: How do the terrorists you've spoken to envision the future of the region?

'A: They're certain of victory. They're certain they're going to destroy Israel, and that it will cease to exist. When I ask them how they can believe that, when Israel has the mightiest military in the Middle East, they point to Israel's defeat against Hizbullah in Lebanon in 2006 as proof that it's a paper tiger.

'Q: Are they unaware of other reasons why Israel might not be destroyed - such as the fact that it's a flourishing, modern society, with endless construction and other accomplishments?

'A: They know that Jews are industrious, but what they see is Israel in retreat. They don't really pay attention to its hi-tech sector, as long as they can fire rockets into the area where the hi-tech sector is located. They truly believe that missiles are going to be flying over the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway in the very near future.

'Q: But how do they envision their own society, in the event that their goals of defeating Israel and the US are achieved?

'A: That's just it. **They have no plan beyond jihad** {my emphasis - dda}.

'Look, there are a million and a half Arabs in Gaza - some would say trapped there. Can you imagine if there were a million and a half Jews trapped there? They'd build Singapore.

'When I ask the terrorists about why they haven't built anything in Gaza, they say that they can't build anything until they get all of their land back. They don't seem to have a long-term plan beyond that".

It seems to me there has been an interesting development in this case which should be pursued.

Hamas is a terrorist organization.

The SCOTUS has decided 6-3 that the Material Support law is Constitutional. That means offering Hamas material support is against the law. Material support can include publicity. It may include, but I'm not sure, failing to condemn them for being terrorists. This should be explored.

So should our State Department's aid to Hamas. Money is the ultimate fungible commodity. It works because it is fungible. So supplying ANY form of aid to Hamas is now against the law of the land.

Somebody should sue to halt our foreign aid to Hamas on this basis.

{^_^}

This only serves to bring history to mind. Wherever there was a serious Islamic victory of sorts, a mosque in that particular place would follow. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to understand the purpose for this ground zero mosque. We in America are either so "politically correct" or just so darned blind, that we ignore the obvious. Islam intends to "subjagate" the earth and that is the bottom line.

more about Rauf

Rauf says he does not belong to Perdana Global Peace, but by reading around one can find that Imam Rauf still has affection for Mahathir.

According to what I have read, Imam Feisal Rauf gave a benediction for Mahathir in 2007 when the former Prime Minister was recovering from heart surgery.
http://www.bakrimusa.com/archives/2007/09

The world is a complicated place, and sometimes our friends do not share our political views, but Mahathir is something else entirely.

It is not "lying" to ask questions about Rauf's relationship with Mahathir, and where he differs from him.

More . . .

Appearently in 1991, Feisal Rauf's father published a book in Malaysia called "Ummah: The Muslim Nation".

Here is something called the Canadian Center for Science and Education's description of this book.

" From a Muslim’s point of view, such a paradigm is reflective of that held by more moderate Muslim scholars including AlQardhawi [AlQaradawi - livingengine] (1999) and Abdul Rauf [father of Feisal](1991) who maintain that cooperation between Muslims and non-Muslims is encouraged, but not to the point of
acculturation. Whereas acculturation (Berry and Sam, 1997) describes the transformation of individual ethnic groups into a single nation with common values, the moderate Islamic perspective upholds the need to preserve Islamic identity among Muslims while giving the liberty to non-Muslims to exercise the tenets of their culture and religion, even if they are forbidden in Islam, such as drinking wine and eating pork (Abdul Rauf, 1991).”
http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ass/article/viewFile/1980/1878

That doesn't sound very moderate or enlightened to me. I would like to hear what Imam Rauf's opinion of this is.

One last thing.

A respected author, who also comments here, noted that Stevens Institute of Technology does not have a record of anyone named Feisal Abdul Rauf graduating from their school.

I took the inititive to contact Stevens myself, and with a little prodding I found that a Feisal MUHAMMAD Abdul Rauf did attend, and graduate from the Institute.

I am assuming this is the same man as the "Ground Zero Mosque" Imam, but now I have to wonder how many names does he go by?