Like most Leftist rags, Salon Magazine has been all over the Shaima Alawadi murder, publishing at least five stories about the case, which is five more than it usually publishes about any given murder. This one, of course, seemed to fit the Leftist/Islamic supremacist narrative perfectly, with its Muslim victim a casualty of "Islamophobia" and a symbol of its pervasiveness. "What we do know," wrote Mónica Novoa confidently on March 30, "is that Alawadi 17-year-old daughter Fatima, found a note next to her slain mother’s body that read, 'This is my country. Go back to yours, terrorist.' Those words and the animosity and bigotry experienced by Muslim communities of diverse racial backgrounds is rooted in years of ignorant stereotypes."
We now know that we didn't really know any such thing. The murder of Shaima Alawadi has been found not to have been a hate crime, but rather a murder much like this one in New Jersey: one that the murderer tried to cover up by making it look like an "Islamophobic hate crime," that ever-elusive fiction that Islamic supremacists have to invent in the absence of any examples of the real thing.
The only real question now about the Alawadi case is that of whether she was killed by her husband because she was seeking a divorce, or by her daughter because the daughter feared being murdered herself after being caught having sex in a car.
This places the Leftist press and deceptive, opportunistic Islamic supremacists like Boy Reza Aslan in a difficult position. Aslan, still busy hastening his professional demise as a commentator anyone takes seriously, has responded on Twitter with venomous contempt and more prepubescent geek insults to calls to apologize and walk back his "Islamophobic hate crime" claims, and here Salon tries to rally its dispirited troops and save face by conceding that Shaima Alawadi was not killed by an "Islamophobe" but really, guys, there really is a lot of "Islamophobia," no kidding, and Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are the real villains: "Shaima Alawadi’s murder: Hate crime or honor killing?," by Arun Gupta in Salon, April 7:
EL CAJON, Calif. – On March 21, an unknown assailant shattered Shaima Alawadi’s skull with a tire-iron-like weapon in the living room of her home. An Iraqi immigrant and mother of five, Alawadi was found by her 17-year-old daughter, Fatima, who said she was “drowned in her own blood.” Alawadi was rushed to the hospital, still alive, but she was soon taken off life support and died March 24. It was, by all accounts, a heinous crime. But was it a hate crime?After her mother’s death, Fatima said she found “a letter next to her head saying, ‘Go back to your country, you terrorist.’” The accusation sparked outrage and brought national media attention to the murder. And yet, within days, publicity-craving Islamophobes Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer were pushing an alternative motive: that Alawadi’s death was, in fact, an “honor killing.” Geller crowed, “I surmised that the murder of Shaima Alawadi appeared to be Islamic, rooted in Islamic teachings and culture …”
Salon's eagerness to cover up the Islamic justifications for honor killing is nothing short of obscene, and will only help ensure that there are more honor murders. But note that under the defamation and contempt is the tacit admission that Pamela Geller and I were right all along.
I journeyed to Alawadi’s adopted hometown of El Cajon in Southern California to find out more about her death....“There is a hate crime problem in El Cajon,” says Basma Coda, an Iraqi-American who works at the Chaldean-Middle Eastern Social Services. “We have documented six physical attacks since 2007 in which Iraqi refugees were beat up and had broken bones. All had to go the hospital. They were all over 50, and one was a 75-year-old man with Parkinson’s disease.” (The El Cajon police department did not return calls about the alleged crimes.)
“There are a lot of anti-Islamic groups and know-nothings here,” says California State University professor Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism in San Bernardino. Nonetheless, he and other hate-crime monitors are skeptical of some of the alleged details of Alawadi’s death. “Why are the police so quick to say it is an isolated incident? That suggests to me they are looking at other motives. There is the possibility this could be some sort of personal attack or revenge attack.” Mark Potok, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups nationwide, says that when he first heard about the threatening notes, “I raised an eyebrow. It’s too perfect. It’s highly unusual to have notes that spell out the motive on paper.” As for the crime itself, Potok says, “It is quite unusual to invade someone’s home, especially a woman, and violently beat her to death in the dining room.”
When a hardcore Leftist ideologue and liar like Mark Potok says your story that just happens to fit the Leftist narrative to a T is actually full of holes, you know it's Swiss cheese.
Indeed, in the days after her death several revelations called the hate-crime allegation into question. On April 4, an affidavit for a search warrant about the murder was “accidentally released,” according to the New York Times. The San Diego Union-Tribune, which first received the document, claimed it shows a “family in turmoil and cast doubt on the likelihood that her slaying was a hate crime.” Alawadi was said to be planning on leaving her husband, based on blank divorce papers found in her vehicle. Last November, police investigating reports of two people possibly having sex in a car found Fatima with a 21-year-old man. After her mother was called to pick her up, Fatima allegedly jumped out of the moving car at 35 mph. While being treated at a hospital for her injuries the court records state, “Police were informed by paramedics and hospital staff that Fatima Alhimidi said she was being forced to marry her cousin and did not want to do so she jumped out of the vehicle.”The document also mentions “a neighbor reported seeing a skinny dark-skinned male running west from the area of Alawadi’s house” on the morning of the murder. According to the affidavit, as of March 27, the police had not confirmed the whereabouts of Kassim Alhimidi, Alawadi’s husband, at the time of the murder. And curiously, “a handwritten note was located at the scene that the family denied seeing before.”
Still, those who wish to portray Muslims as victims in all cases and thereby deflect attention away from the reality of jihad and Islamic supremacism were doggedly clinging to the shreds of the "Shaima was killed by an Islamophobe" narrative:
Yet some in the community are still skeptical because there is no suspect, motive or murder weapon. Hanif Mohebi, director of the San Diego chapter of the [Hamas-linked] Council on American-Islamic Relations, says, “There are definitely questions that are brought up by the article, but we should not jump to a conclusion unless there is a real fact provided. Our community is not immune to these issues.”Some observers worry that the new information in the Alawadi case will be misused. Hanif Mohebi says, “From the beginning we were very cautious about the murder because we are all human beings, and this could go any way. The Islamophobes will exploit this. If there is something that advances their agenda, they will most definitely use it.” Right on cue, Geller and Spencer began their postulations about “honor killings.”
Projection Alert: a spokesman for Hamas-linked CAIR warns about people exploiting an issue for their agenda! Who is really doing the exploiting here, and for what agenda? Well, let's see. Which group is holding a conference to honor the victims of honor killing and to call on law enforcement and government officials to take all possible steps to prevent further honor killings in the U.S.? And who, meanwhile, is trying to frame the Alawadi case as an "Islamophobic hate crime" so as to further their campaign to stigmatize, marginalize and demonize those who are trying to defend women from honor killing? In light of that, which party is the exploiter again -- Geller and Spencer, or Hamas-linked CAIR?
Be sure to register for our Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference on honor killings on April 29th in Dearborn, Michigan. Register here.
Potok also stresses that, whoever murdered Alawadi, the rise in Islamophobia is genuine. The Southern Poverty Law Center has tracked a 200 percent increase in anti-Muslim hate groups nationwide from 10 such groups in 2010 to 30 in 2011. Potok attributes the spread to “the so-called Ground Zero Mosque controversy in 2010 that was really ginned up by opportunistic activists and politicians … This is a classic case of words having consequences.”
The fact that there have been no actual consequences in terms of getting hurt doesn't deter a sleazy, well-paid propagandist and defamation artist like Potok. Where the facts don't suit his case, he just makes them up.
In reality, hate crimes against Muslims are infrequent:
Just-released New York 2009 report: Hate crimes against Jews: 251. Hate crimes against Muslims: 11.
And so in order to deflect attention away from jihad activity and try to portray Muslims as victims, so as to shame non-Muslims into not investigating or even being suspicious of further jihad activity, Islamic supremacist groups have resorted to making it up. Hamas-linked CAIR and other Muslims have not hesitated to fabricate "hate crimes." CAIR and other groups like it want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them for political points and as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat.
Here, Salon and Potok are trying to keep people on board with their sinister agenda. The only victims will be the girls who are murdered for honor in the coming months and years, who might have sought the help and protection that we are trying to provide for them.
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Well, if it was an out of control kuffar who did it, we should expect more killings with the same MO...Why stop at one, when there are so many?