Interesting that he suggests that the Jewish lobby is strong because Muslims are weak. But most preposterous is his shoot-the-messenger assertion that “Western propaganda” has damaged the image of Islam. Osama bin Laden has damaged the image of Islam. The jihadists whose statements and actions I report and comment on here have damaged the image of Islam. But Ahmad has nothing to say about them. Instead, it’s all the fault of those who tell the American public about these things. From GulfNews.com, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
Abu Dhabi: The Muslim world needs a strong media presence to counter Western propaganda that damages the image of Islam, an American Muslim leader told Gulf News.
Responding to a question about the media in the West and its portrayal of Islam and Muslims, Khalid Ahmad, president of American Congress of Muslim Youth, said it was the weaknesses of Muslims that had led to the deteriorating image of Islam.
“To an American, most of the terrorist activities are coming from the Muslim world. I suggest Muslims need to have a strong media front to counter the Western media and improve the image of Muslims,” he said.
Ahmad said Muslim and Arab countries, particularly the GCC states, need to give full support to American Muslims to help form a strong lobby in the United States to serve Muslim interests and influence American foreign policy and decision-making.
Despite a population of seven million Muslims in the US, Jewish interest groups have a strong lobby and hold considerable sway over American foreign policy, he said.
“The Jewish lobby is strong because all Muslims in the US are not citizens, thus they have no right to vote and influence policy.
“Muslims are divided, in a sense, when they migrate to the US. They stick to their own communities. For example, we black Muslims care for domestic issues rather than political issues linked to the Muslim world. We care about taxes, social services, employment and so on. Israel is the last thing we are concerned about. But Arabs are more concerned about the political uncertainty in the Middle East.”