That the New York Daily News, which has not been particularly energetic in covering the sources of the global jihad, would print this courageous piece by Zev Chafets may indicate that the mainstream media is finally waking up to the real dimensions of the problem we face.
The two men arrested in Albany for allegedly taking part in a terrorist plot were men of God. So friends and neighbors have been telling reporters. Mohammed Mosharref Hossain was a pillar of the local congregation. Yassin Muhiddin Aref was a prayer leader. They called their mosque the House of Peace.
The mosque belongs to the North American Islamic Trust, which runs many other mosques in the U.S. The trust is funded mostly by the Saudis. It has other enterprises, too, including a book club. One of its featured offerings is “Jihad: A Commitment to World Peace.”
Or if you are not a reader, you can express commitment to jihad in action. Like the Albany warriors who, the government charges, signed up to help gun down a senior Pakistani diplomat on the streets of New York City, using a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile.
The upstate jihadis are not unique. On the contrary, they are just the latest in a long and growing list of local Islamic “spiritual leaders” and national Muslim leaders who have been implicated in terrorist activity…..
Chafets then details some of the high-profile Muslim leaders and groups that have been implicated: Alamoudi and the Holy Land Foundation, and concludes:
At this point, I’m supposed to add The Caveat: Most American Muslims are peaceable, law-abiding, terror-hating folks. Islam itself is a “religion of peace.”
Sorry, but I’m no longer convinced. It may be that Islam in its true form is as gentle as a lamb. But in the real world, it is an aggressive, violent political ideology. It may also be that a majority of U.S. Muslims object to the jihad being waged against infidel Christians, Jews, Hindus, atheists, agnostics and democrats of all denominations. But if so, they are keeping it to themselves.
After Abdurahman Alamoudi’s confession of guilt, his lawyer, Stanley Cohen, warned that “there are those people who will seek to manipulate this plea into an attack on the entire Muslim community.”
The Muslim establishment in America uses this form of intellectual jujitsu every time one of its leaders gets caught conducting holy war. Mosques and Muslim schools and institutions are hotbeds of agitation and terrorism? Why, just making the charge is a hate crime.
This trick has worked amazingly well on Americans who pride themselves on pluralism and good manners. For years, it kept the feds away from mosques and the politicians insisting against all evidence that Islam is nothing more than another path to the God of Us All.
But almost three years after 9/11, this hocus pocus is losing its potency. “There are terrorists among us,” Gov. Pataki said after the Albany jihadis were arrested. He didn’t specify because he didn’t need to.
If America’s Muslims don’t want to be identified with America’s enemies, they are going to need new leaders and loud voices. Slapping the word “peace” over the door of the mosque just isn’t going to do it anymore.