It has been just about a decade since Islamophobia exploded in this country. That was the moment that the World Trade Center and Pentagon were hit by al Qaeda terrorists. It existed prior to 9/11, but the losses that day and the general terror it inflicted upon this country made many, many Americans much more wary of Arabs and, fairly quickly, fearful of the religion the terrorists professed.
The first sign that 9/11 would be exploited to advance various agendas came from Binyamin Netanyahu, who was quoted in the New York Times as saying the attacks would be good for Israel:
Asked tonight [September 11, 2001] what the attack meant for relations between the United States and Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, replied, ''It's very good.'' Then he edited himself: ''Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.'' He predicted that the attack would ''strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror."
Netanyahu subsequently reiterated his views about 9/11, quoted here in Haaretz.
And, of course, ever since 9/11 the "pro-Israel" lobby has successfully used it to build support for right-wing Israeli policies in the United States.
But the lobby isn't alone.
It is just one of the components of an orchestrated and well-financed effort to make Americans fear and hate Muslims and Arabs.
I have to admit, however, that until I read a report published today by the Center for American Progress (CAP), I had no idea just how orchestrated and well-financed this movement was.
The report, "Fear Inc: The Roots of The Islamophobia Network in America," demonstrates that a small group of self-proclaimed experts (Frank Gaffney, David Yerushalmi, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, and Steve Emerson) backed by a host of foundations and donors (many of which also fund the lobby) have put Islamophobia on the map.
To put it simply, without these "experts," their donors, and Fox News (their media mouthpiece) you would never have heard that a Muslim community center (the "Ground Zero Mosque") was being constructed in New York City. And the center certainly would not have become a major news story. Nor would Republican (and even a few Democratic) candidates for president, Congress, and even village councils be called upon to condemn Islam and "Sharia Law" or face being labeled a supporter of terrorism. Nor would Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum make hatred of American Muslims such an integral part of their campaigns.
It all starts with the money. According to CAP:
A small group of foundations and wealthy donors are the lifeblood of the Islamophobia network in America, providing critical funding to a clutch of right-wing think tanks that peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islam-in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted talking points that anti-Islam grassroots organizations and some right-wing religious groups use as propaganda for their constituency.
Some of these foundations and wealthy donors also provide direct funding to anti-Islam grassroots groups. According to our extensive analysis, here are the top seven contributors to promoting Islamophobia in our country:
- Donors Capital Fund
- Richard Mellon Scaife foundations
- Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
- Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust
- Russell Berrie Foundation
- Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund
- Fairbrook Foundation
Most of these are new to me, although when I worked at AIPAC it was hard to miss the fact that some of them supported both AIPAC and its think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The amazing thing about the CAP report is that it exposes people who try very hard to cover their tracks. It is one thing to be known for supporting AIPAC, but it is quite another to be identified with the likes of Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes -- and the truly unhinged Pam Geller, who appears in the CAP report as only a second-tier hater but whose anti-Muslim vehemence is nothing short of disgusting. (She rationalized the killing of the kids in Norway by pointing out that the camp they attended was associated with Norway's Labor Party, which she claims is anti-Israel!)
The hate funders are particularly determined to lay low since the Oslo slaughter by a self-described Christian conservative named Anders Breivik, who said that he was influenced by Robert Spencer, Pam Geller, and David Horowitz (another prominent propagandist against Muslims and beneficiary of the various anti-Islam foundations).
But CAP followed the money, went behind the innocent-sounding foundation names, and cross-referenced them. And now we have it: the hate network exposed.
It's pretty ugly. Jews whose main concern is Israel align themselves with Christian rightists who don't like Jews. There are even a few Muslims who are dispatched by the network to tell audiences at churches and synagogues just how bad their people are. It's weird.
But it's also very dangerous, as the Norway slaughter attests.
The strangest thing about the killings is that it happened in Norway. Reading this report, you have to wonder why it hasn't happened here. Yet.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
Grace Nasri: The Surge in Islamophobia
How much of our tax payers money goes to humanitarian aid provided by the US to Mus.lim countries? We are always the first to offer aid when there is a natural disaster. We give aid to the Palestinians even though there are several super oil rich Arab countries that should be supporting them. The same for starving Mus.lim countries in Africa. We take the lead in providing aid, not super rich Mus.lim oil giants like Saudi Arabia, or the Mus.lim world "wanna be" leaders, Iran.
Why is it people like you always blame the US for everything bad that happens in the world, but never give us credit for the good we do? Then of course, all the bad we do is some how tied in to our support of Israel. You need a serious reality check to wake you up to what is actually going on in the world.
1. The nature of the problem
2. How to identify the enemy
3. The appropriate response
http://www.danielpipes.org/10094/obama-counterterrorism-policy
Doing so indicates only that you haven't bothered to read the CAP report that is at the heart of this MJ article, because if you did you'd see that Pipes has a prominent place in the roll-call of islamophobic rabble-rousers.
So I'll top your:
http://www.danielpipes.org/10094/obama-counterterrorism-policy
with this one:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/08/islamophobia.html
And anybody who has been to the middle east can tell you just how much endorsement extremism and violence in the name of islam gets from mainstream clerics and scholars.
Note how the article carefully avoided mentioning the fact that that the report features an equal number of liberal Islamic voices who participate in the anti-Islamist movement.
Of course, one cannot mention them because this would mess up the whole Islamophobiic Jews shtick pitched here..
"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor."
http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-netanyahu-says-9-11-terror-attacks-good-for-israel-1.244044
Google "A Clean Break"
"tapping into themes of American administrations during the Cold War which apply well to Israel."
In other words, manipulate the public through fear and propaganda like it was done with Communism. Except now it's Islamophobia.
Anyone who doubts it can talk residents of Mumbai, Madrid, Islambad, Bali, London, Moscow, Sderot, New York, and hunderds of otehr places thretened by this repgressive and pernicious ideology.
If you want to sit it out, that's fine. Butr do try to stay out of the way.
I have dozens of Muslim friends in the United States, Turkey, Great Britain, Germany, Poland, and Saudi Arabia just to name a few. In the times that I've come to visit them I was treated with respect, was able to have a conversation on just any topic, including criticism of Pakistan and Saudi where alleged funding of terrorists went...and surprisingly....no one tried to kidnap me, behead me, or blow me up...as our media asserts they would.
Islamophobia benefits two nations. Israel, by enabling it to do as it pleases in the Middle East with little risk of reprisal from the West; and the United States...as it seeks to exert express control over larger and larger portions of oil-rich countryside. Criticizing Israel's attack on Muslims is equated with anti-semitism and being un-American in short, because "Those Muslims Attacked WTC."
The world, however, is now starting to wake up.
Again, most who are being killed today are other Muslim. For that reason, Muslim themselves should speak out. It is eerily silent, each time, Muslim decapitate, murder, attack, or blow themselves up in Mosques, murdering other worshippers. That the world reacts to that with horror, and that the frequency of it colors our perceptions of all Muslim, is not Muslim-baiting.
another palestinian monsterous terror attack on israeli teens at the "oman 17" night club in tel- aviv.
http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html
On 19 August 2011, many armed Israeli settlers from “Beit Eil” settlement, north of Ramallah, stormed al-Banabee’ area in Dawar Al-Qare’ village to the north of the settlement. They set fire to two cars belonging. Palestinian civilians were able to extinguish fire in one of the cars, but the other one was completely burnt.
On 20 August 2011, a number of Israeli settlers from “Ramat Magron” settlement, which stands on the lands of Mikhmas village, southeast of Ramallah, violently beat a Palestinian child, while he was grazing animals with another child. He was injured in the head.
On 23 August 2011, a number of Israeli settlers from “Bat Ain” settlement in the north of Beit Ummar town, north of Hebron, uprooted dozens of fruitful trees belonging to the Slaibi family in Wadi Abu al-Reesh area. They uprooted 5 olive trees, 25 grape trees and 22 plum trees.
On 25 August, dozens of Israeli settlers set fire to more than 100 olive trees in Mikhmas village southeast of Ramallah.
On 27 August, Settlers cut down Palestinian-owned olive trees in Salfit in the northern West Bank.
property can be restored but a person cannot return from death.
second, you really don't want me to mention the hundreds of palestinian terrorist attacks on israel over the past decade. you don't want me to mention about the palestinian arsons & the stealing of jewish property inside 67 lines.
(here is one example: palestinians steal israeli cars: http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=22426)
third, the judical system in israel (unlike the palestinian police and court) punishes all the settelers who did this and made them to compensate the pals on numerous occasions!!!
a palestinian court never did the same...
(here is an example:http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4048471,00.html)
and btw, no one can compensate you for your death.
Posting off topic stuff over and over is spamming, and is against HP posting guidelines.
So technically Jews don't necessarily believe that there is only one god, just that the god of Abraham is our only god.
It was only later that the Christians and the Muslims decided that their one god must be the only god.
To be clear though, the fighting amongst the Christians and Muslims (and to a lesser extent the Jews) is more about dogma, culture, ethnicity, and territory than anything else. God generally doesn't enter into it, except as an excuse for pushing one's claims about those factors.
So technically Jews don't necessarily believe that there is only one god, just that the god of Abraham is our only god.
Thank You
FAIL
But here is the reason that so many Americans may feel a little less than full support for the 99.999% of Muslims that are peaceful, loving people - not enough Muslim leaders speak out against the extremists - not enough come out and say that the fatwah against David Letterman is wrong. Where are their religious leaders? Why are Iraqis blowing up each other and thinking it is OK?
It isn't unfounded and it isn't without some thought MJ that Americans feel some nervousness around Muslims - we don't know who the good guys are - because they are silent.
(2) American soldiers are being attacked because they have invaded another country. Attacking an army that is occupying your country is called "PATRIOTISM".
What they are doing is not Patriotic, it is attacking a force that would be more than happy to leave if they weren't killing each other.
If you don't hear them, you're not listening.
Media Matters' founder and CEO is David Brock. John Podesta, former chief of staff in the Clinton administration, is head of the "progressive" Washington, DC think tank, the Center for American Progress. "In 2004 Podesta provided Brock with office space for his fledgling enterprise. Soon after, Media Matters received over $2 million in seed donations from a roster of affluent donors including Leo Hindery Jr., a former cable magnate; Susie Tompkins Buell, a co-founder of the fashion company Esprit and a close ally of Senator Hillary Clinton; James Hormel, a San Francisco philanthropist who nearly served as ambassador to Luxembourg during the Clinton administration; Bren Simon, a Democratic activist and the wife of shopping-mall developer Mel Simon; and New York psychologist and philanthropist Gail Furman. Media Matters, which can accept tax-deductible contributions under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, has also benefited from the patronage of Peter Lewis, chairman of Progressive Corporation and a longtime consort of billionaire financier George Soros."
That info is from the beginning of this [http://goo.gl/1oocO].
Relevant to the author's arguments?
Well, the author does cite CAP in his article?
Might have been worth disclosing that MM is just a big juicy boil
growing from the forehead of CAP.
... just to help the readers, and such.
Otherwise, they might think this is all a little creepy and incestuous.
I ask because he used to say things that sound remarkably like the author of this article. Such as: "In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, all four media giants, eagerly tapping into the country's mood of vengeance and fear, latched onto the Al-Arian story, fudging the facts and ignoring the most rudimentary tenets of journalism in their haste to better tell a sinister story about lurking Middle Eastern dangers here at home."
A jury of el-Arian's peers disagreed.
He took a plea deal on ONE CHARGE OF CONSPIRACY to avoid being retried on the charges, probably to avoid going bankrupt.
Wow, talk about weak propaganda!
Compliments of j_ewish lobby pressure groups to make Hamas a terrorist organization. Do you think this organization is going to bomb some little ole town in Iowa or Texas?? Utter BS.
In other words, the Republican “powers that be” purchased the Democratic Party.
except that both the elite democrat brokers and the elite gop brokers
have been purchased.
Then again, rich folk all look the same to me.
Where I'm from, the guy on the line at GM who votes dem and pays taxes
still drinks beer with the guy who owns the garage down the street,
votes gop, and pays taxes.
After all.... what better way is there to control the agenda; by simply, creating advocacy groups for causes you don't believe in.
In other words, they could hate both the Jews and the Arabs, or be pro Palestinian rights...my gut feeling is they are pro Palestinian rights groups, funded and sponsored by the Arab states.
Don't believe everything you read in the news.
America has also installed and/or supported dictators in Muslim counties (you do know, don't you, that America orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953?) for decades as well.
And you wonder why Muslims 'hate' America!
That being said, it is just as clear that islam, itself is inherently violent and political, and that any sign of political islam condoning violence (as you have in europe) should be stamped out immediately. After all, even in the moderate muslim population of america, 25% of young muslims believe killing civilians in the name of their religion can be justified.