Knock me over with a feather! “Muslim-American Organizations’ Anti-Radicalization Effort ‘A Sham,'” from the ADL, January 11:
New York, NY, January 11, 2010 … As the number of American Muslim extremists allegedly involved in terror plots in the U.S. and abroad continues to grow, major Muslim-American organizations have publicly acknowledged the existence of a problem in their community and vowed to tackle it head on.
But the initial effort to root out radicalization – announced by a few of these groups in the wake of the arrests in Pakistan of five Muslim-American students from Virginia for allegedly attempting to join a terrorist group – has proven to be a sham and a cover for anti-Semitism and extremism, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
The Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) held a major community convention in Chicago in December 2009 where the convention chair called for an Islam “clean and clear of all extremism.”
But the convention, which had been specifically identified by MAS and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as the venue to begin the effort to combat radicalization, failed to seriously address the problem. In fact, it provided a platform for extremist views, according to ADL. The Chicago convention, which attracted more than 1,000 participants, served as a forum for religious scholars and political activists to rail against Jews, call for the eradication of the state of Israel and accuse the United States government as waging a war against Muslims at home and abroad.
“It is shocking that this conference, identified by some major Muslim-American groups as the venue to start the process of reform at a time of growing attacks and threats by American Muslim extremists, was a sham and nothing more than a cover for the dissemination of hateful anti-American and anti-Israel views and anti-Semitism,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. “The fact that it provided a platform for extremist views calls into question the sincerity of the effort to serve as a legitimate counterbalance to radicalization. No legitimate blueprint for change can emerge from a convention permeated by messages conveying hatred of Jews, the denial of Israel’s right to exist and the idea that the U.S. is at war with Islam.”…