Recently in MPAC Category

Once again it turns out that the Brotherhood is involved in resistance to counter-jihad efforts, and is calling the shots even among America's legislators.

"TheDC Exclusive: Dems at radicalization hearings recite Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group’s talking points," by Matthew Boyle for The Daily Caller, March 11 (thanks to Twostellas):

The Daily Caller has acquired the talking points that the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a group with deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, supplied to its supporters as an aid in attacking the Muslim radicalization hearing New York Republican Rep. Peter King held Thursday. Save for Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s incoherent ramblings on Thursday, Democrats’ statements and testimony against King’s hearing, whether intentionally or unintentionally, largely mirrored MPAC’s talking points.

MPAC recommended that its supporters accuse King of “pure political posturing,” and told them to say, “these hearings appear little more than a political circus with Rep. King as the ringleader.” MPAC also recommended supporters say that the “hearings hurt our national security” because of their “narrow scope.” Finally, it said supporters should say that the hearings were unnecessary because “active” partnerships between law enforcement and the American Muslim community already exist.

California Democratic Rep. Laura Richardson hit on the “pure political posturing” point in the MPAC memo. She compared King’s hearings to those of the McCarthy era.

Rep. Al Green, Texas Democrat, asked why King wasn’t investigating the Ku Klux Klan, something that plays right into the MPAC “suggested message” that the “hearings hurt our national security” because of a “narrow scope.”

“I think that all criminals should be prosecuted. I think that all terrorists should be investigated which is why I said we ought to investigate all of them and that would include the KKK,” Green said. “Over a hundred years of terrorism why not investigate them too. They are rooted in a religion as well. Check their website out. You’ll see.”

Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison regurgitated all the MPAC talking points in his testimony at the beginning of the hearing.

“Ascribing the evil acts of a few individuals to an entire community is wrong; it is ineffective; and it risks making our country less secure,” Ellison said. “Targeting the Muslim American community for the actions of a few is unjust. Actually all of us–all communities–are responsible for combating violent extremism. Singling out one community focuses our analysis in the wrong direction.”...

The new Fritz Kuhn's mask slips yet again

Reza Aslan has become a Jihad Watch case study in how the media elites are either ignorant of or complicit with the Islamic supremacist agenda. Aslan is a vaunted media-saturated "moderate" Muslim whose Islamic supremacist ties and proclivities are becoming more ill-concealed by the day. Given that his actual output consists essentially of vapid and/or deceptive platitudes salted with embarrassingly puerile ad hominem attacks, his relative prominence can only be ascribed to the media's anxiousness to prop up Muslim "moderates" and further their program of glossing over and obfuscating Islamic jihad and Islamic supremacism.

But Aslan keeps making it more difficult for them by doing things that are anything but "moderate." He is, for example, a Board member of the National Iranian American Council, a group that genuine Iranian pro-democracy forces regard as an apologetic vehicle for the Islamic Republic of Iran. He has tried to pass off Iran's genocidally-minded President Ahmadinejad as a liberal reformer. He has called on the U.S. Government to negotiate with Ahmadinejad himself, as well as with Hamas -- that is, with two of the most barbaric and murderous adherents of Sharia. He has even praised the jihad terror group Hizballah as "the most dynamic political and social organization in Lebanon," as well as the Jew-hating, women-hating, kuffar-hating Muslim Brotherhood.

He has also spoken at events sponsored by the Muslim Students Association, a Brotherhood group. And now he is speaking at an event co-sponsored by the Los Angeles chapter of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and moderated by none other than Edina Lekovic.

Edina Lekovic is the Muslim Public Affairs Council flack whom Steve Emerson caught lying on national television, denying she was editor of a Muslim student publication that praised Osama bin Laden as a great mujahid. Emerson produced copies of the rag showing Lekovic's name on the masthead as editor on the very same page on which the praise for Osama appeared.

Aslan's mask just keeps slipping.

"You're Invited to 'The Domestic Crusaders' West Coast Book Tour & Culture Show Extravaganza on Feb. 12th," from the Muslim Public Affairs Council:

McSweeney's, in association with MPAC, CAIR-LA and The Before Columbus Foundation invite you to celebrate the historic publication of the first major play about Muslim Americans - "The Domestic Crusaders" - at the IMAN Cultural Center on Saturday, Feb. 12. [...]

Guests and performances include:

* A conversation with author Reza Aslan and Wajahat Ali, moderated by Edina Lekovic, MPAC's Director of Policy & Programming...

Big surprise here. War Is Deceit Update: "An IPT Investigation: Islamic Group's Database Found to be Fraudulent," from IPT News, December 9:

A database used by Islamist groups to support claims that the Muslim community is responsible for helping to break up one-third of terrorist plots is based on flawed and selective use of data, an Investigative Project on Terrorism analysis shows.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) claims in its study that "almost 1 out of 3 al-Qaida-related terror plots threatening America since 9/11/01" were thwarted in part because of help from the Muslim community. However, the MPAC study is full of mistakes, faulty data, contradictions, selective use of information, and demonstrably dishonest analysis:

• MPAC overstates the role of "community assistance," including plots that were broken up by intelligence assets overseas and other plots that had little or nothing to do with the U.S. Muslim community;

• MPAC selectively defines what is a "terrorism incident," ignoring a huge set of cases involving the domestic support of terrorist organizations, as well as those involving threats outside of al Qaida, such as Hamas and Hizballah;

• MPAC ignores traditional law enforcement techniques, specifically avoiding the use of informants, a technique that the organization frequently condemns.

Despite its flaws, the MPAC study continues to be cited by the media, with the New York Times recently inflating the statistics and stating--without bothering to review the underlying data--that according to a recent MPAC study "almost 4 of every 10 Qaida-related terrorism plots," were broken up with the help of "community assistance." They accepted MPAC's claims without bothering to review the underlying data.

Another big surprise.

Community help in all forms of crime prevention, not just terrorism, is critical. But the MPAC report is totally dishonest. The report suffers from a number of flaws--namely that it selectively defines what a "terrorism incident" is, overstates the role of the Muslim community in the cases identified, and seemingly ignores the contributions made by informants, a group that MPAC has condemned and falsely claimed to have instigated terrorist plots.

There is a great deal more. Be sure to read it all.

Muslims in Portland and elsewhere are angry because undercover agents helped the jihadist plan the attack; apparently they're trying to paint a picture of a naif led along and ultimately framed by unscrupulous and "Islamophobic" agents. The lingering question, however, is this: what would it take to lead you to participate in a terrorist mass-murder plot? If undercover agents approached you and tried to entice you into working to kill large numbers of innocent people, how hard would it be to convince you to do it? Speaking strictly for myself, I have absolutely no worries of ever being entrapped in this way; there is simply nothing, under any circumstances, that anyone could say to me to convince me to blow anyone up. If Mohamed Mohamud had not already had jihad and murder on his mind, he could never have been cajoled into participating in this plot -- if, indeed, he needed to be cajoled at all.

"Terror Cases Strain Ties With Some Who Can Help," by William Yardley and Jesse McKinley in the New York Times, November 30:

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The arrest in a plot to bomb a popular Christmas tree-lighting ceremony here has renewed focus on the crucial but often fragile relationship that many Muslim communities have with federal law enforcement agencies.

Note how topsy-turvy that is: a Muslim tries to kill thousands of Americans. In response, Muslim communities in this country ought to be redoubling their efforts to show that they're loyal Americans, and that they're teaching against the Islamic ideas that inspired Mohamed Mohamud. But instead, a Muslim tries to murder non-Muslims in the name of jihad, and non-Muslim authorities rush to repair their "fragile relationship" with Muslims -- as if, once again, it's all our fault, as it always is: Islamic supremacists never, ever take responsibility for their own bloody actions.

Many Muslim leaders nationwide say they are committed to working with the authorities to fight terrorist threats and applauded the work in Portland. But some say cases like the one in Oregon, in which undercover agents said they helped a teenager plan the attack, risk undermining the trust of Muslim communities that federal agents say is essential to doing their jobs.

The failed Portland plot is one of several recent cases, from California to Washington, D.C., in which undercover agents helped suspects pursue terrorist plans. Some Muslims say the government appears to be enabling and even sensationalizing threats that can lead to backlashes against Muslim communities.

On Sunday, a mosque in Corvallis, Ore., was firebombed. It had been attended by the Portland suspect, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a naturalized American citizen from Somalia.

"Unlike the so-called plot at Pioneer Square, that was a real terrorist attack, against a house of worship," said a man who attends the Islamic Center of Portland and Masjed As-Saber, another mosque where Mr. Mohamud worshiped.

Note the deflection strategy: the arson attack against the mosque was a real terror attack, while the jihad bomb at the Christmas tree lighting in Portland wasn't. That is absurd regarding the attempted bombing in Portland, but it also is not definitively established that the arson inside the mosque was a terror attack at all. If it was truly a retaliatory vigilante attack following Mohamud's attempted jihad bombing, then it is hateful and must unequivocally be condemned. It is important to note, however, that while the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on the FBI and local police to protect the mosque, CAIR and other Muslims have not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating "hate crimes," including attacks on mosques. 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.

Was the arson attack against the Islamic Center in Corvallis a staged event designed to deflect attention away from Mohamud's jihad attack and onto Muslims as victims? There is no way to tell unless law enforcement officials consider this possibility, which they should do given the many faked incidents in the past. But whether they will actually do so is another matter.

"What the F.B.I. did can be seen in Corvallis," the man said, one of several people who spoke with a reporter but refused to give their names out of concern that they would bring negative attention to the mosque. [...]

They're doing that just fine anonymously -- by blaming the FBI for the arson attack against this mosque. The twisted logic here is that the FBI, by entrapping Mohamed Mohamud, which is preposterous enough in itself, provoked this "backlash," which is not proven to have been a "backlash" at all, and thus bears responsibility for it. But while it is remotely possible that some vigilante idiot lit the fire, if that turns out to be the case, only that vigilante idiot would bear responsibility for the fire. Remember, these are the people who loudly decry the idea of "collective responsibility" for jihad attacks, saying that it is "bigoted" to think that Muslims should have to apologize for jihad terror attacks or even work against such ideas in their communities. That claim sidesteps the fact that jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify their actions, but the point here is that if Muslims have no "collective responsibility" for jihad violence, the FBI cannot be said to have any responsibility for one criminal's act of rage.

Hussam Ayloush, the executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said law enforcement was going too far.

" 'Forward-leaning' seems to be basically if someone has not crossed the bridge, we will push them forward, we will tip them over the edge," he said. "And that is not how a government should be treating its citizens."

"My worry would be that the F.B.I. is pushing to a point where it becomes difficult to trust the F.B.I.," said Mr. Ayloush, who added that he was a graduate of an F.B.I. Citizens' Academy. "When people start doubting, then they might feel like, 'Well, maybe it might make things worse if I call,' and we don't want this."

The New York Times makes no mention, of course, of the fact that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case. CAIR operatives, including Hussam Ayloush when I challenged him directly and repeatedly to do so during a radio debate, have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several of its former officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. Two of its other officials have made Islamic supremacist statements. CAIR also was involved in the Flying Imams' intimidation suit against the passengers who reported their suspicious behavior.

Amid the tension, Muslim leaders say their communities are doing more than ever to help in investigations -- a fact they say is overlooked by many Americans.

A November report by the Muslim Public Affairs Council said Muslim communities had helped law enforcement agencies foil almost 4 of every 10 Qaeda-related terrorism plots since the Sept. 11 attacks. The report is based on information the group draws from news media accounts, affidavits, academic studies and other sources.

"There is an enormous countertrend that has emerged within the last few years," said Alejandro Beutel, the author of the report. "People are saying: 'This is a serious issue, and we are dealing with this. We are not tolerating this.' "

The Investigative Project has a new report out on MPAC. Check it out here. Money quote: "MPAC's report, Building Bridges, sets its sights on local and federal law enforcement, which is the front line of U.S. national security. Contrary to the report's title, claiming that its recommendations will strengthen America, MPAC's superficial endorsement of methods to address radicalization, in fact, weakens American law enforcement and intelligence operations and furthers the objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood global strategy to undermine the West.

Even as federal law enforcement officials have been criticized, they say their investigations have been strengthened by their outreach efforts and good relations with Muslims, including here in Oregon. [...]

And so law enforcement officials hurry to repair relations with Muslims in Oregon. The picture here is entirely the reverse of what it ought to be.

In July 2005, I wrote this about MPAC's "National Anti-Terrorism Campaign": "the concern here seems to be less on rooting out jihadists from within American Muslim communities than on protecting Muslims from uncomfortable attention from law enforcement."

And here we are again. "MPAC's One-Way Street on Cooperation," from IPT News, September 30:

By denouncing an investigation aimed at uncovering a possible U.S. support network for terrorist organizations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) shows again it would prefer to impede law enforcement than help it.

Last Friday, FBI agents carried out raids in Chicago and Minneapolis to discover evidence of support for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), both designated terrorist organizations. Speaking about the raids, Steve Warfield, an FBI spokesman in Minneapolis said:

"the warrants are seeking evidence in support of an ongoing Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism."

MPAC, however, joined other organizations in criticizing the searches as "fishing expeditions." In its press release, MPAC argued:

"squelching healthy and necessary discourse on public policy concerns sends one loud and clear message: The U.S. government has no regard for nonviolent work. Unless there is clear and convincing evidence that these activists were planning terrorist operations, then the justification of the raids is absurd."

Such arguments reveal that MPAC either doesn't understand what activity is proscribed under U.S. law, or simply doesn't care. The government doesn't need to show that these so-called "anti-war activists" were "planning terrorist operations," in order to prosecute them. It is a crime for any person to provide "material support or resources" to a designated FTO. Proscribed support includes:

"any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instrument or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals who may be or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials)."

There is more.

MPAC unsavory? See here.

I've got a better idea for Mary Sanchez and MPAC: if they really want to "unravel" Americans' "misperceptions" of Islam, here is an easy way they can do it without going to all the time, trouble and expense of finding and hiring a slick PR man:

1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. In line with this, clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by stating unequivocally that American and Israeli civilians are innocent people.
3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

If Muslims do those five things, voila! "Misperceptions" of Islam will no longer hold sway among Americans. And "outright bigotry"? Forget it! It will be about as common as outright anti-Buddhist bigotry!

"Wanted: A calm, credible voice to soothe Americans' fear of Islam," by Mary Sanchez for the McClatchy Newspapers, April 9:

Here's a job posting worthy of only the most stellar applicants. In fact, only those rare individuals with near-superhuman powers to untangle the crossed circuitry in the American mindset need apply.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council is seeking "high-energy candidates" for a communications coordinator. I'd love to eavesdrop on those interviews.

"What do you believe would be the best approach for unraveling the misperceptions and outright bigotry toward Muslims that goes virtually unchallenged daily in the U.S.?"

Yes, the American Muslim community needs a Walter Cronkite, conceded Haris Tarin, a director in the council's Washington office. Muslims need a spokesperson with the credibility to soothe and educate their suspicious countrymen. Despite consistently condemning acts of terrorism, American Muslims find that the No. 1 charge against them is that they do not denounce terrorism.

As Tarin and others point out, Muslims in the United States do not control their own story telling. And far too often, they leave a vacuum only too readily filled by those who view Muslims as anti-Christian terror suspects first, foremost and sometimes completely.

Muslims need to imprint a more positive image in the public mind, and the best way to do that is by pointing out more effectively who they are, rather than taking a defensive posture....

Naivete. "Moderate Muslims speak, but they are rarely heard," from the Houston Chronicle, March 18:

Recently two events have occurred that describe opposing views of how some Muslims see the world. The reactions of Muslims in the United States to these two events will affect how their non-Muslim fellow citizens view this new and growing minority.

One of the events occurred March 7 when Adam Gadahn, an American-born "spokesman" for al-Qaida, called for terrorist attacks on American targets, including "mass transportation systems." Many non-Muslims will hear about this through the widespread media coverage it got and will wonder, "Where are the moderate Muslims among us? Why don't they speak out?"

But they have been speaking out. For example, the Muslim Public Affairs Council issued the following statement March 7: "MPAC rejects this latest call for criminal acts by al-Qaida, considering it a failed attempt to deliver its bankrupt ideology to Western Muslims, who have continued to reject terrorism in all its forms."

The Islamic Society of North America has also emphatically rejected Gadahn's statement: "American Muslims ... reject al-Qaida's attempts to lure our young men and women to their revolutionary fantasies. ... Adam Gadahn and his masters have deviated from justice by calling for the indiscriminate murder of vast numbers of people on American soil."

The other event occurred March 2, when Pakistani-born Sheikh Tahir ul-Qadri, a prominent theologian, launched a seminal fatwa in London condemning terrorism in all its forms. "Terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it, or any kind of excuses of ifs and buts. The world needs an absolute, unconditional, unqualified and total condemnation of terrorism."

This is only one of many such statements that have been issued by Islamic scholars since 9/11, but it is significant because it is one of the few that was issued in English and publicized in the United Kingdom, where most British-born extremists have family or cultural links within the Muslim community.

Regrettably, our news media will probably devote significant coverage to Gadahn's statements, and too few non-Muslims will hear of the condemnations of his statements issued by American Muslim groups, or of ul-Qadri's fatwa. [...]

We are part of a group of Jews and Muslims who have come together to understand each other's narratives under the auspices of Interfaith Ministries and the Institute for Sustainable Peace....

What could go wrong? Plenty.

MPAC was formed out of the Islamic Center of Southern California, whose leaders are known members of the Muslim Brotherhood. MPAC's Senior Advisor, Maher Hathout, has close ties to the Brotherhood.

ISNA, for its part, has admitted ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

The Muslim Brotherhood "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- Mohamed Akram, "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America," May 22, 1991, Government Exhibit 003-0085, U.S. vs. HLF, et al. P. 7 (21).

And what more enjoyable way could they have found to sabotage our miserable house than to sucker the naive kuffar into buying that groups like MPAC and ISNA are really opposed to jihad?

Al-Marayati: Fool me once...

Salam al-Marayati is the slick, albeit charmless and bullying, head of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. According to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report (thanks to Rosanne), he "traveled to Europe last month at the invitation of the State Department to speak about religious freedom and free speech."

And what's wrong with that? The Report explains:

[...] MPAC was established initially in 1986 as the Political Action Committee of the Islamic Center of Southern California whose key leaders likely had their origins in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Since that time, MPAC has functioned as the political lobbying arm of the U.S. Brotherhood. MPAC has opposed virtually every count-terror initiative undertaken or proposed by the U.S. government. At times this opposition was said to be on civil-rights grounds but, just as often, MPAC claimed that U.S. counter-terror efforts were aimed at the U.S. Muslim community itself. MPAC has constructed and consistently espoused an elaborate ideology defending the use of violence by Islamists and Islamist organizations. More than any other U.S. Muslim Brotherhood organization, MPAC has developed extensive relationships with the U.S. government which have included numerous meetings with the Department of Justice and the FBI.

And that's one reason why we're in the fix we're in.

The Muslim Brotherhood, you may recall, is dedicated in its own words to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within, and sabotaging its miserable house...so that God's religion [Islam, of course] is victorious over other religions" -- which latter is a political statement more than a religious one.

While Britain bends over backward to make sure Muslims don't feel as if anyone thinks they have anything to do with terrorism, the Muslim Public Affairs Council of the UK carries this less conciliatory article at its website, blaming the Jews for terrorism -- and don't miss the accompanying illustration, which is entitled "Great Satan." Do they think Jews have horns at MPACUK? (Thanks to Paul for the link.)

The Jewish campaign to effectively silence any critic of Israel may well be the biggest contributing factor in this birth of world terrorism we see today.

In his weekly radio address, two days after the London bombing attacks, President Bush said: "We are now waging a global war on terror - from the mountains of Afghanistan to the border regions of Pakistan, to the Horn of Africa, to the islands of the Philippines, to the plains of Iraq."

I wanted to scream and yell, "What about Israel, President Bush? If you really want to fight a war on terrorism, then the first place you need to go to is Israel. Stop wasting your time in those places you just mentioned and go to the source of terrorism. Go to where all the terror began. You can bring about a victory on the war on terrorism without sacrificing more than 1,700 American servicemen, and over $1 trillion of U.S. taxpayer money. Iraq isn’t the place where terror began. Go to Israel. Go to where it all began and continues today."

The note on the author at the end of the article reads:

James J. David is a retired Brigadier General and a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College, and the National Security Course, National Defense University, Washington DC. He served as a Company Commander with the 101st Airborne Division in the Republic of Vietnam in 1969 and 1970 and also served nearly 3 years of Army active duty in and around the Middle East from 1967-1969. He is a regular contributor to "U.S. Policy in the Middle East has been the greatest recruiting tool that the terrorists could possibly have. Its lopsided support of Israel is the main reason we have so many problems we have today."

If this is true, it is embarrassing that such a man was ever a General, and that he would assert all this in blithe ignorance of 13 centuries of jihad warfare fought before Israel was founded.

ADDENDUM: Charles at LGF has discovered that MPACUK this "Great Satan" image from a Nazi website.

Steve Emerson, the courageous and indefatigable pioneer of anti-jihadist investigations in the United States, reveals some disturbing but unfortunately unsurprising facts about the California Democratic Party's pandering to radical Muslims -- by attacking those who are exposing them -- in a piece in today's FrontPage magazine: "Jihad in California". Read the whole thing, but here are some substantial excerpts:

"For years, the Democratic Party, in California and across America, stood for justice and decency and fairness and equality and peace. For years, the Democratic Party embodied principles and beliefs that define America, and led our nation to a better, stronger, freer day. Thus, it is deeply troubling to find that the leader of the Democratic Party in California, Art Torres, has chosen to engage in the most vicious form of demagoguery in his recent appearance before the annual convention of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) held in Long Beach, California on December 20-21, 2003.

"This is not a charge I choose to make casually. But don't take my word -- judge for yourself. So, here are Mr. Torres' own words, quoted verbatim:

"'... there has been a steady stream of attacks in the Qu'ran including specific verses taken out of context and on the Prophet. These attacks are vicious. They're mean spirited and politically motivated.'

"Sounds familiar, the notion of twisting the Qu'ran and attacking the Prophet Mohammed for evil purposes? This is exactly what Salman Rushdie was accused of; and as a result, a fatwa calling for Mr. Rushdie's death was issued by Iran and supported by militant Islamic groups around the world. Bookstores were bombed. Translators of Mr. Rushdie's book were stabbed and assassinated. Mr. Rushdie was consigned to live under the permanent threat of being executed.

"But here we have the head of the Democratic Party issuing the exact same language issued by radical Islamic groups against Salman Rushdie.

"And, according to Mr. Torres, who are those carrying out the attacks on the Qu'ran and the Prophet Mohammed? Well, to my unpleasant surprise, he named me and Daniel Pipes. Mr. Torres' comments were rather chilling:

"'And a second stream of attacks have been against American Muslims in particular - and this type of attack is focused on tarring the community with the label Islamist, and these attacks have been led by Daniel Pipes and Steve Emerson. We need to remember these names because they're getting away with it, because we don't confront them with their vitriolic hatred as implemented in our media waves...in America.'

"So here we have the head of the Democratic Party in California using the same exact tactics as Islamic militants used in claiming that Salman Rushdie defamed Islam. In the typically inverted and conspiratorial logic of Islamic extremists in which they are self-portrayed as the 'victims' of hate crimes, Rushdie was deemed the proponent of 'hatred' against Muslims. Mr. Torres invokes the exact same murderous conspiratorial logic in claiming that Daniel Pipes, a noted scholar and expert on Islamic fundamentalism, and I have been engaged in a campaign of hatred against Islam. . . .

". . . whenever Islamic militants were exposed, as they were in my film ["Jihad in America"], radical groups claimed that it was Islam that was under attack. It represented a deliberate deceit to have the public believe that criticism of militant Islam was the equivalent of criticizing mainstream Islam.

"And so, after my documentary aired in 1994, I found myself the subject of constant attacks by militant Islamic groups that I had tarred all Muslims, that I defamed Islam, etc. Within a year after the documentary was broadcast, I was forced to go in hiding because I was informed by federal law enforcement officials of an assassination plot against me.

"The incendiary language and the fabricated allegations used against me since 1994 by various radical Islamic groups were chillingly reminiscent of the language used by Art Torres. In fact, the incitement by Torres was lifted directly from the attacks against me by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group created by Hamas front groups in the United States, the American Muslim Council (a Saudi created group whose leader was just indicted on secretly working for Libya in the US and who had been secretly affiliated with Hamas and Al-Qaeda leaders) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).

"MPAC? The very group that Mr. Torres addressed. And if anyone has even the smallest doubt as to what MPAC stands for, well then, just as Mr. Torres' words speak volumes, so do the words by MPAC and its officials.

"On September 11, 2001--the day of the devastating terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center--Salam al-Marayati, Executive Director and one of the Founders of MPAC, stated during an appearance on KCRW-FM's 'Which Way, LA?' program that 'we should put the State of Israel on the suspect list':

"'If we're going to look at suspects, we should look to the groups that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and I think we should put the state of Israel on the suspect list because I think this diverts attention from what's happening in the Palestinian territories so that they can go on with their aggression and occupation and apartheid policies.'

"Al-Marayati has also maintained that al-Qaeda has no American supporters. In reality, numerous American citizens have been found working with al-Qaeda, including Ali Mohammed, who worked for the American army, and Wadih El-Hage, who was Osama bin Laden's personal secretary and was convicted for the U.S. Embassies bombing plot in Africa:

"'The only known American supporter of al-Qaeda and bin Laden is John Walker Lindh...If the attorney general has any evidence that there are other supporters of al-Qaeda in our community, then that should be disclosed immediately and due process should be followed in order to preserve the civil liberties we all cherish and aim to protect. This fishing expedition will not help the war against terrorism. It will only hurt America's image abroad.' . . .

"The MPAC 2002 Annual Banquet featured Ali Mazrui, a SUNY-Binghampton professor who said:

"'There is also suspicion that some members of the Bush administration in collusion with Israel are more than ready to plunge the Middle East into turmoil in the hope that the final outcome would be to the territorial advantage of Israel and the strategic advantage of the United States. All this is part of the emerging external sadism of the United States, a readiness to hurt others abroad.'

"In a 2001 press release, MPAC justified a Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 16, including 6 children:

"'[The Jerusalem bombing] is the expected bitter result of the reckless policy of Israeli assassination that did not spare children and political figures.... MPAC holds Israel responsible for this pattern of violence.' . . .

"In a November 1997 speech at the University of Pennsylvania, MPAC Co-Founder and Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati, refused to call Hizbollah a terrorist organization:

"Question: 'You mentioned Hizbollah, do you consider it to be more of a, I guess a national liberation movement or a terrorist group?'

"Al-Marayati: '... I don't think any group should be judged 100% this or that, I think every group is going to have, um, its claim of liberation and resistance ...there's the part that deals with the military confrontation with Israel and if you look at the numbers though, Hizbollah attacks against Israeli civilians are like a fraction of Israeli attacks against the Muslims.'

"During the same speech at the University of Pennsylvania in 1997, Al-Marayati justified Hamas' existence as a political entity, and equated Hamas with the PLO in terms of social programs and 'educational operations':

"'Yesterday's terrorists in the Middle East are today's leaders. The PLO is the number one example of this [unclear word]. The PLO 35 years ago was considered a terrorist organization, nobody should deal with them, no terrorists can hide, so on and so forth. But they became the people in authority, in Palestine, today. So Hamas today, the way it's being viewed, is exactly how the PLO was viewed 30 years ago. And in fact, even Hamas in terms of its social and educational operations is doing exactly what the PLO was doing 35 years ago, as well as its quote unquote military operations.'

"Finally, at the University of Pennsylvania speech in 1997, Al-Marayati equated 'jihad' to the statements of Patrick Henry:

"'And, the person who we think in America would epitomize jihad would be Patrick Henry, who said, "Give me liberty or give me death." That is a way of looking at the term jihad from an American perspective.' . . .

"While that is but a very, very small sample, you get the idea, even if, perhaps, Mr. Torres does not. Those few quotations tell us all we need to know about MPAC - and also about Mr. Torres.

"What is left to be said? What can be said? That Mr. Torres chose to legitimize a group that supports Islamic terrorism and that he himself parroted the same incendiary rhetoric issued by MPAC and other extremist organizations shows that the murderous deceit that led to 9/11 is still alive and well, at least in California."

Reader Scandinavian infidel last night sent me this story, in which the Muslim Public Affairs Council of the UK calls upon Muslims to protest an illustration in a book:

"It has been brought to our attention that a British company has published the above 'portrait' of Allah's last prophet, Muhammad (peace be upon him) to illustrate the topic of Shariah in their book, 'The History of Punishment'. Why would anyone paint the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) surrounded by naked women?! Why have they chosen to cause so much hurt to Muslims? Is a tiny bit of respect really too much to ask?"

No, not really. I am not in favor of insults to anyone's religion. But I could do an Internet search right now and find thousands of insults to mine, and no one would take me seriously if I set out to get them all removed: America and Britain are, at least at this point, pluralistic societies, in which freedom of speech has a long history. If everything that insulted someone else were banned, what would remain of that freedom?

MPAC also includes a bit of saber-rattling: "This picture is possibly the most disgusting insult against our prophet since 'The Satanic Verses' was published. This humiliation will not stop while most Muslims remain too pacified to lift a finger to stop this."

The Satanic Verses drew a death sentence that sent Salman Rushdie into hiding for years. Is that the sort of response that MPAC would like to see to this "humiliation"?

In any case, I see in LGF that like a good dhimmi, the publisher immediately agreed. "The company's representatives have said that the portrait was unwittingly reproduced, without the realisation that it would cause offence. Negotiations are currently underway to resolve the matter - Amber will be placing a statement on its website."