 By NAHAL TOOSI, Associated Press Writer – Mon Dec 29, 6:33 pm ET
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Taliban militants are beheading and burning their way through Pakistan's picturesque Swat Valley, and residents say the insurgents now control most of the mountainous region far from the lawless tribal areas where jihadists thrive.
The deteriorating situation in the former tourist haven comes despite an army offensive that began in 2007 and an attempted peace deal. It is especially worrisome to Pakistani officials because the valley lies outside the areas where al-Qaida and Taliban militants have traditionally operated and where the military is staging a separate offensive.
"You can't imagine how bad it is," said Muzaffar ul-Mulk, a federal lawmaker whose home in Swat was attacked by bomb-toting assailants in mid-December, weeks after he left. "It's worse day by day."
The Taliban activity in northwest Pakistan also comes as the country shifts forces east to the Indian border because of tensions over last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, potentially giving insurgents more space to maneuver along the Afghan frontier.
Militants began preying on Swat's lush mountain ranges about two years ago, and it is now too dangerous for foreign and Pakistani journalists to visit. Interviews with residents, lawmakers and officials who have fled the region paint a dire picture.
A suicide blast killed 40 people Sunday at a polling station in Buner, an area bordering Swat that had been relatively peaceful. The attack underscored fears that even so-called "settled" regions presumptively under government control are increasingly unsafe.
The 3,500-square-mile Swat Valley lies less than 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad.
A senior government official said he feared there could be a spillover effect if the government lost control of Swat and allowed the insurgency to infect other areas. Like nearly everyone interviewed, the official requested anonymity for fear of reprisal by militants.
Officials estimate that up to a third of Swat's 1.5 million people have left the area. Salah-ud-Din, who oversees relief efforts in Swat for the International Committee of the Red Cross, estimated that 80 percent of the valley is now under Taliban control.
Swat's militants are led by Maulana Fazlullah, a cleric who rose to prominence through radio broadcasts demanding the imposition of a harsh brand of Islamic law. His appeal tapped into widespread frustration with the area's inefficient judicial system.
Most of the insurgents are easy to spot with long hair, beards, rifles, camouflage vests and running shoes. They number at most 2,000, according to people who were interviewed.
In some places, just a handful of insurgents can control a village. They rule by fear: beheading government sympathizers, blowing up bridges and demanding women wear all-encompassing burqas.
They have also set up a parallel administration with courts, taxes, patrols and checkpoints, according to lawmakers and officials. And they are suspected of burning scores of girls' schools.
In mid-December, Taliban fighters killed a young member of a Sufi-influenced Muslim group who had tried to raise a militia against them. The militants later dug up Pir Samiullah's corpse and hung it for two days in a village square — partly to prove to his followers that he was not a superhuman saint, a security official said on condition of anonymity.
A lawmaker and the senior Swat government official said business and landowners had been told to give two-thirds of their income to the militants. Some local media reported last week that the militants have pronounced a ban on female education effective in mid-January.
Several people interviewed said the regional government made a mistake in May when it struck a peace deal with the militants. The agreement fell apart within two months but let the insurgents regroup.
The Swat insurgency also includes Afghan and other fighters from outside the valley, security officials said.
Any movement of Pakistani troops from the Swat Valley and tribal areas to the Indian border will concern the United States and other Western countries, which want Pakistan to focus on the al-Qaida threat near Afghanistan.
On Friday, Pakistani intelligence officials said thousands of troops were being shifted toward the border with India, which blames Pakistani militants for terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month that killed 164 people. But there has been no sign yet of a major buildup near India.
"The terrorists' aim in Mumbai was precisely this — to get the Pakistani army to withdraw from the western border and mount operations on the east," said Ahmed Rashid, a journalist and author who has written extensively about militancy in the region.
"The terrorists are not going to be sitting still. They are not going to be adhering to any sort of cease-fire while the army takes on the Indian threat. They are going to occupy the vacuum the army will create."
Residents and officials from the Swat Valley were critical of the army offensive there, saying troops appeared to be confined to their posts and often killed civilians when firing artillery at suspected militant targets.
The military has deployed some 100,000 troops through the northwest.
A government official familiar with security issues estimated that some 10,000 paramilitary and army troops had killed 300 to 400 militants in Swat since 2007, while about 130 troops were killed. Authorities have not released details of civilian casualties, and it was unclear if they were even being tallied.
The official, who insisted on anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, disputed assertions that militants had overrun the valley, but said a spotty supply line was hampering operations. He said the army had to man some Swat police stations because the police force there had been decimated by desertions and militant killings.
A Swat militant boasted that "we are doing our activities wherever we want, and the army is confined to their living places."
"They cannot move independently like us," said the man, who was reached over the phone and gave his name as Muzaffarul Haq. He claimed the Swat militants had no al-Qaida or foreign connections, but that they supported all groups that shared the goal of imposing Islamic law.
"With the grace of Allah, there is no dearth of funds, weapons or rations," he said. "Our women are providing cooked food for those who are struggling in Allah's path. Our children are getting prepared for jihad." Source: Yahoo News H/T: Jihad Watch
By Hamid Ahmed A suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up Sunday amid a crowd of demonstrators in northern Iraq who were protesting Israel's airstrikes on Gaza, killing one demonstrator and wounding 16 others, Iraqi police said. The bomber rode his bicycle into the demonstration of about 1,300 people in the center of the northern city of Mosul, said a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with news media. The demonstration was organized by the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party. The party's Mosul spokesman, Yahiya Abid Mahjoub, complained that police and the Iraqi army had not taken security precautions for the demonstration. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, the officer said. "The ones who targeted our brothers in Gaza are the same who targeted us in Mosul today. They are agents of Israel," Mahjoub said. Read more ...Source: APH/T: Weasel ZippersSunni Iraqi Islamic Party
Latest recipient of the Evil Dumbass Award
 Related: Suicide Bomber From Sunni Jihadist Group Attacks Iranian Revolutionary Guards
 By Caroline B. Glick Both Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza have been busy this Christmas week showing Christendom just what they think of it. But no one seemed to have noticed. On Tuesday Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Sharia criminal code for the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, the code legalizes crucifixion.Hamas's endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time as it renewed its jihad. Here too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn't neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools. So on Wednesday Hamas lobbed a mortar at Erez crossing point into Israel just as a group of Gazan Christians were standing on line waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas. While Hamas joyously renewed its jihad against Jews and Christians, its overlords in Iran also basked in jihadist triumphalism. The source of Iran's sense of ascendancy this week was Britain's state-owned Channel 4 network's decision to request that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad give a special Christmas Day address to the British people. Ahmadinejad's speech was supposed to be a response to Queen Elizabeth II's traditional Christmas Day address to her subjects. That is, Channel 4 presented his message as a reasonable counterpoint to the Christmas greetings of the head of the Church of England. Channel 4 justified its move by proclaiming that it was providing a public service. As a Channel 4 spokesman told the Jerusalem Post, "We're offering [Ahmadinejad] the chance to speak for himself, which people in the West don't often get the chance to see." Read more ...Source: Jewish World Review
 Posted December 29 | By Mitchell Bard
Wading into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dangerous work. It is an exceptionally charged issue, with both sides capable of as much passion as you'll experience in discussing a foreign policy dispute. Personally, I have been shocked and unnerved at some of the venom unleashed in the comments to past articles on the topic that have appeared on The Huffington Post. I can't help but think that if only people read up on the history of the conflict, they would see that things aren't as black-and-white as their fire-breathing comments would have you believe.
I am ashamed to say that the Israel-bashing has made me reluctant to write about the issue, at least in my contributions to this site. But after watching the conflict in Gaza unfold over the last three days, I have decided that it's time for me to venture into the breach and make my opinion known, damn the consequences. It's time for me to explain why I think the treatment of Israel has been unfair.
I understand that the history of the Middle East, going back to 1948, or even to the 19th century, is messy. Any side looking to make a point can cherry pick historical facts to bolster an argument. While I would feel confident arguing the Israeli side of the issue, I know that I am not going to win over anyone in one blog post. The whole issue is just too complicated.
But what I feel I may be able to accomplish in this space is to provide a counterweight for some of the subtly biased reporting on the Israeli actions in Gaza over the last three days. From reading or watching most news accounts, you might think that Israel, virtually unprovoked, has started indiscriminately bombing in Gaza, causing massive civilian casualties. The New York Times quoted Iran's religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, saying, "The horrible crime of the Zionist regime in Gaza has once again revealed the bloodthirsty face of this regime from disguise," as if his opinion was just another equally valid point of view. I will attempt to provide some context here.
It is important to understand that threats to Israel's survival are not theoretical. From the moment of the country's formation in 1948 to the present day, it has been surrounded by hostile neighbors who have wanted to see its destruction and used force to bring such an outcome about. Israel was attacked by neighboring nations in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973. The country's seizure of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 occurred in this context. More recently, Israel has had to withstand suicide bombings, in which Palestinian terrorists would kill and wound innocent civilians inside Israel.
In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, dismantling all of its settlements and evicting its settlers, some by force. Palestinians proceeded in elections to put into power the terrorist group Hamas, which does not recognize the right of Israel to exist. With Israel gone from Gaza, Hamas seized on the opportunity to launch attacks from Gaza on civilian populations in Israel, firing more than 4,500 rockets and mortars into Israel since 2005. And Hamas used civilian areas as cover for the launching points for its attacks.
A little more than six months ago, Egypt brokered a cease fire between Israel and Hamas. The truce ended on December 19, and it was Hamas, not Israel, that refused to extend it. In fact, The current attacks began before the cease-fire agreement expired. In the last six weeks, Hamas has fired more than 400 missiles into Israel, including 40 Qassam rockets and mortars since December 19.
With Hamas attacking Israel, and with Hamas unwilling to extend the truce, Israel responded with the current offensive. While so many news reports have focused on the civilian casualties, given that Hamas uses civilians areas as cover to launch their attacks, it is shocking how relatively low the percentage of civilian casualties has been. As of this morning, of the 315 Palestinian fatalities, only 51 have been civilians. To be clear, my point isn't that 51 lost lives isn't tragic, rather it's that with Hamas putting its own people in danger by using them as cover for their assaults on Israel, the fact that roughly five in six fatalities have been military targets demonstrates that Israel is not indiscriminately attacking civilian populations.
And yet, Israel has continued to provide aid to Gazan residents, allowing 10,000 tons of food, tools, raw materials, medicine and medical equipment into Gaza since Dec. 7. Israel also provides 70 percent of Gaza's electricity, and Hamas has reportedly engineered blackouts to inflame the population against Israel while using the power for its own needs.
I am continually amazed when commentators and government officials assert that Israel should show restraint. How would any one of these countries and individuals react if it was their nation that was attacked daily by its neighbor, especially if that neighbor was an internationally recognized terrorist organization that didn't recognize the right of the subject of its attacks to exist and was dedicated to its destruction?
But that is the situation with which Israel is faced. Hamas will not recognize Israel's right to exist (calling the Jewish state "the Zionist entity"). And in retaliation for Israel's offensive, Hamas has fired rockets that have reached within 25 miles of Tel Aviv.
What is it that the critics would have Israel do? How do you negotiate with people that want to destroy you? How do you allow attacks on your civilian population on a daily basis without doing anything to protect your citizens? It feels to me like the critics ask Israel to make sacrifices and take risks that they themselves would never undertake for their home nations.
It seems to me that the critics would have Israel accede to all Palestinian demands, which would result in handing over huge chunks of land to a population bent on destroying Israel, both through attacks and assimilation, if the so-called right of return was granted. (From East Jerusalem, Hamas's rockets could hit virtually any point in Israel, including Tel Aviv, Haifa and West Jerusalem.) In my estimation, anyone who thinks Israel is somehow responsible for the current clashes with Hamas does not, in a practical sense, think Israel has a right to exist as a country. After all, short of surrendering, there is nothing that Israel could do that would satisfy Hamas, and without a right to defend itself from attack, Israel's survival would be in doubt.
I am all for a two-state solution. But both states have to respect the right of the other to exist, and nothing in Hamas's actions has demonstrated that it is in any way willing to take part in such an arrangement. Hamas wants a one-state solution, and that one state is not Israel.
(As a side note, the Palestinians still push for a right of return for those who fled and/or were pushed from the new state of Israel in 1948, which has been one of the primary issues acting as an impediment to peace, but there were an equal of number of Jews displaced by Arabs at the same time, and yet no Jews are claiming a right of return.)
Has Israel always acted correctly? Of course not. I dare you to show me a country that has conducted itself perfectly all the time. But how is it that Hamas, a terrorist organization that refused to extend the truce and fired rockets at civilians on a daily basis, gets so much sympathy, with Israel condemned for defending itself? In a vacuum, there is no defense for Hamas in this situation. So it seems to me that those that speak against Israel for its current Gaza offensive are doing so because they will never support Israel's side in the conflict with Hamas and the Palestinians. They see the West Bank barrier and the West Bank settlements and the other alleged transgressions by Israel without considering what prompted the actions in the first place (namely 60 years of attacks by its neighbors, most recently via suicide bombers killing civilians). It feels to me as though there is nothing Hamas could do to Israel that would, in the minds of Israel's critics, justify Israeli retaliation.
Hopefully, in the not too distant future, Palestinians will rally behind moderate, non-corrupt leadership, and a fair two-state solution will be hammered out under which both of the countries' citizens can live in peace and prosperity. But until that day comes, as long as the Palestinian people throw their lot in with terrorists like Hamas, who, in their name, attack civilian targets in Israel, a two-state solution cannot be put in place, and the Palestinian people will have to bear the consequences of their leaders' actions.
In an ideal world, a military action like the Israeli offensive in Gaza would never happen. No person of conscience can truly look at what is going on there and not feel sad. But at the same time, the Hamas bombing of Israeli civilians is equally disturbing, and there is no obvious alternative available to Israel to defend its citizens. It feels unfair to me when people take Israel to task without placing any significant blame on Hamas. And that is why I felt it was time for me to speak out. Source: The Huffington Post
 Michael B. Oren | December 30, 2008
CNN International's coverage of the weekend's fighting in Gaza concluded with a rush of images: mangled civilians writhing in the rubble, primitive hospitals overflowing with the wounded, fireballs mushrooming between apartment complexes, the funeral of a Palestinian child.
Missing from the montage, however, was even a fleeting glimpse of the tens of thousands of Israelis who spent last night and much of last week in bomb shelters; of the house in Netivot, where a man was killed by a Grad missile; or indeed any of the hundreds of rockets, mortar shells, and other projectiles fired by Hamas since the breakdown of the so-called ceasefire.
This was CNN at its unprincipled worst, grossly skewering its coverage of a complex event and deceiving its viewers.
Yet Israel should not have been surprised.
Over the past few weeks, as the tahdiyah ("period of calm" in Arabic, the term similarly preferred by the Hebrew press) unwound and finally dissipated, Israel's policy has been to refrain from responding militarily to Hamas rocket fire.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni went to Egypt and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared on al-Arabiya TV to bear the message that Israel did not want war with Hamas; instead, Israel was committed to renewing the tahdiyah. The purpose was to build up a moral case for retaliating against a recalcitrant Hamas and limiting the international fallout that invariably follows any Israeli attempt at self-defence.
But the tactic has never really worked and failed this time as well. Within minutes of the first Israeli air strike, the Arabs were screaming "massacre" and the media had all but forgotten the serial assaults that provoked it.
The press once again attached the word "disproportionate" and the term "continuing cycle of violence" to describe a supremely justified and largely surgical (the targets were exclusively military, the victims overwhelmingly Hamas gunmen) operation.
At the time of writing, the UN Security Council is meeting and will no doubt find Israel and Hamas equally guilty for disrupting the ceasefire and demand its immediate restoration.
One wonders why Israel even bothers. Instead of undermining the Zionist ethos of defending Jewish lives at all costs irrespective of bad publicity and perilously broadcasting weakness to its enemies, perhaps Israel should simply declare that the slightest violation of the ceasefire - a single Qassam - will precipitate an immediate and disproportionate response.
Since it's going to be condemned for it anyway, why shouldn't Israel smash Hamas promptly and massively and reap the benefits in terms of self-respect, deterrence, and a respite for its embattled citizens?
The confusion surrounding Israel's tactics in the Gaza - Israeli tank and infantry forces are now gathering for a possible ground incursion - is indicative of a deeper bewilderment.
The Government is purportedly divided over the operation's goals, with Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak in favour of toppling Hamas, while Olmert prefers to revive the tahdiyah.
Nobody seems to know how long Israel's operation will last or the criteria for deeming it successful. No Israeli leader, whether from Kadima, Labor or Likud, has articulated a clear vision for Israel's relationship with the obstreperous Strip.
Here, too, there is nothing original. In 1949, at the end of Israel's war of independence, Israeli forces surrounded Gaza in an attempt to conquer it and annex it to the nascent Jewish state. Frustrated in that gambit, Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion secretly sought to purchase Gaza from the Egyptians in the early 1950s, and then, during the 1956 Suez crisis, Israel briefly occupied the Strip.
Israeli soldiers in 1967 received unequivocal orders not to enter Gaza, but they did so anyway, and remained there for the next 20 years until prime minister Menachem Begin tried to convince the Egyptian leadership to take control of Gaza, fruitlessly.
Israel proceeded to build settlements in the Strip, but not enough to stake a firm territorial claim. It installed a Palestine Liberation Organisation administration there, but later disavowed it as corrupt and terror-ridden. It initially coddled and finally combated Hamas.
Finally, in 2005, prime minister Ariel Sharon, former champion of the Gaza settlements, uprooted all 21 of them and their 8100 inhabitants.
Once renowned for his brutal suppression of Gaza terrorists, Sharon also ignored the 1000 Qassam rockets that flew on the heels of Israel's withdrawal. Hamas was consequently empowered and eventually took over the Strip, creating the Hobbesian conditions that Israel faces today.
Olmert began his term with a boom - a war in Lebanon in 2006 - and is now leaving with a bang - the 2008 war in Gaza. Today, however, Olmert is more experienced, more sombre, less cocky. He now plays the role of the responsible adult.
Nevertheless, this latest round of fighting provides Israel with an opportunity to end its painful chronicle of indecision on Gaza and to embark on a lucid and realisable policy.
Can Israel co-exist with a Hamas-dominated Gaza? What are the alternatives (the re-introduction of Egyptian forces, for example) to a renewed Israeli occupation of the area? To what degree will the international community accept a zero-tolerance approach to rocket attacks against Israel, and, more crucially, will the incoming US administration of Barack Obama publicly endorse that stance?
These and other questions might be answered in the coming days if Israel, withstanding the media backlash, dares to ask them.
Michael B.Oren is a professor at the school of foreign service at Georgetown University. He is author of Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present. Source: The Australian
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today condemned Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip that left more than 200 people dead and called the death toll a "massacre carried out using U.S. taxpayer-funded weapons." More than 700 people, including women and children, were injured in the attacks. SEE: Israeli Strikes Kill 229 in Gaza (Reuters) http://tinyurl.com/9xgjxk The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement: "Despite the public 'green light' given to the Israeli military by the Bush administration, American Muslims join our fellow citizens who respect international law and the sanctity of human life in repudiating this massacre carried out using U.S. taxpayer-funded weapons." "It must be clear by now that the only future offered to the Palestinian people by the outgoing administration was one of perpetual subjugation and humiliation at the hands of the Israeli occupiers. Unfortunately, our nation's timid response to this tragic episode will only serve to fuel anti-American sentiments in the Muslim world." Read more ...Source: PRNewswireH/T: LGFCAIR
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
Christian Giordano, professor for social anthropology at the University of Freiburg, argues in the Tangram journal (of the official commission against racism) that Sharia should be partially implemented in Switzerland. In this way Giordano intends to take the wind out of the sails of those who want to ban minarets. Giordano wants to implement Sharia in civil, financial and family law, so as to take into account cultural peculiarities and in order to deal with the cultural chasm between Swiss and immigrants. Integration expert Thomas Kessler objects, saying that judges already take the personal background of the accused into account when passing sentence. Source: Tages Anzeiger H/T: Islam in EuropeChristian Giordano
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
Recently, I spoke to a number of young Muslim about Jesus Christ. They said "Jesus was not crucified" and "It is crusifiction." I asked the for their sources and and they proclaimed the Quran. This brings me to the point that education in contemporary Islam is full of misquotations and false propaganda. Islam its self must correct its education system and listen to the early histories of the world. For example, that Jesus was crusified, and that is a historical fact:
"Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed." Tacitus, Annals 15.44
"On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness. The rocks were rent by an earthquake and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Savior falls on the day before the passover. But an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. And it cannot happen at any other time... Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth-manifestly that one of which we speak." THALLUS, Chronography XVIII, 47
"The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day- the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account... It was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers from the moment they are converted and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws..." LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA, The Death of Peregrinus 11-13
It must therefore be noted that the Ancient Historical References all say that Jesus was crusified. Therefore the Quran must also be checked for historical chronology and accuracy.
 By William Mayer December 28, 2008 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a filing by Michael Paulson in the Boston Globe's religious section [see, Articles of Faith, December 28] statements by MPAC [Muslim Public Affairs Council] and CAIR [Council on American Islamic Relations] regarding Israel's long-postponed, much needed move to end Hamas' incessant jihad against the Jewish state, were included. There are a number of serious difficulties appended to such a practice. One of these is that neither of these groups speak for Islam on a religious basis, hence their inclusion is inappropriate. Both CAIR and MPAC are political organizations, CAIR bills itself as a "civil rights" group and MPAC self-identifies as an "institution which informs and shapes public opinion." More fundamental however is the nature of both of these groups. CAIR can no longer escape it closely being linked to Islamic terrorism, having been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the recently concluded, successful prosecution of Hamas terror funder the Holy Land Foundation, a fraudulent Muslim charity which funneled at least $12 million to Hamas. One of those found guilty in this case was Ghassan Elashi, the founder of the Texas Chapter of CAIR. It's hard to imagine a more clear connection between a domestic organization and Islamic terrorism. MPAC similarly serves as a mouthpiece for radical Islam. In a September 11, 2001 radio broadcast originating in Los Angeles, a statement attributed to MPAC reads, "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," and others, equally guilty of fraudulently operating under the mantle of moderation. [source, New York Times] MPAC has been an ardent supporter, along with CAIR of confessed Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist Sami Al-Arian, "The Muslim Public Affairs Council today welcomed the release of former professor Sami Al-Arian from federal custody...Since his arrest five years ago, Al-Arian's case has become an example of what many American Muslims perceived to be numerous post-9/11 political persecutions of individuals using tactics that amount to little more than guilt by association..." Read more ...Source: Militant Islam Monitor
Source: Honest ReportingH/T: Gramfan
 |
|
|
Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
|
|
|
Posts
