Islamophobia American Style

[Lord Balto]

It has long been my suspicion that the Moslems serve, in the Jewish psyche, as substitutes for the Germans. It is clearly impossible to exact any kind of satisfying sadistic treatment on the Germans, who remain untouchable at the heart of Europe. So a certain subgroup, mainly consisting of the Israeli right and their fellow travelers in the U.S., sublimate their hatred of the Germans into a hatred of the Moslems. If the Israeli military flew a nuclear armed bomber over Berlin, the [white] world would be horrified. Take out radioactive Iranian reactors, or drop bombs on Gazan children, or rough up folks at check points, not so much. One wonders what Herr Dr. Freud would think of all of this.

This situation will never resolve itself until the majority of Jews come to terms with their own history and the yawning contradiction between the notion of the "chosen people" and the reality of the holocaust, for which the Moslems were not responsible, but for which the Christian Germans were.

[seemslikeadream]

Here’s What Happened at the Anti-Islam Protest and 'Draw Muhammad' Contest in Arizona

By Troy Farah

May 30, 2015 | 10:10 am
Dubbed the "Freedom Of Speech Rally Round II," a large anti-Islam protest in Arizona drew a crowd of 500 or so on Friday evening outside the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix (ICCP). Organized by Jon Ritzheimer, a Marine Corps veteran, the protest was a response to the Curtis Culwell Center attack in Garland, Texas on May 3, where two gunmen opened fire at a Muhammad drawing contest.

The Freedom of Speech Rally exploded on social media around 24 hours before the protest as organizers, including a motorcycle clan called RidersUSA, encouraged folks to also exercise their Second Amendment rights, i.e. to come fully armed.

Tensions ran high as police blocked off roads in the neighborhood, forcing protestors to park several blocks away. A few helicopters circled the area, and several high-tech security cameras were installed on street lamps the night before. The protest — especially the part about folks bringing guns — made several local businesses and a charter school uneasy, so they closed early for the day.

Related: Amid Death Threats and Attacks on Muslims, Garland Remains Divided in Wake of 'Draw Muhammad' Shootings



Photo by Troy Farah

Wearing blue shirts, playing music, and holding signs that advocated for love and world peace, volunteers and members of ICCP organized a solidarity wall to protect people attending prayers at the mosque. Valley Anarchist Circle and Wave of Action PHX, another local anarchist chapter, organized a counter-protest in what they called an "Emergency Antifa Call To Action." Antifa is a common abbreviation for anti-fascism.

By 6pm, the protest was well under way, with a large police and FBI presence and enraged demonstrators from both sides standing nose-to-nose. Chants of "U-S-A" and "Islam is evil" clashed with shouts of "pussies" and "cowards" from the anarchist side. After one demonstrator angrily got in the face of a police officer, cops in riot gear separated the two sides with police tape and barricades.

An hour beforehand, a Muhammad drawing contest was held at Washington Park, just a few miles from the mosque. Several dozen people arrived, many on motorcycles, many with American flags, many well armed. Standing on the back of a white pickup truck, Ritzheimer addressed the crowd wearing a shirt that read "Fuck Islam."

Related: Two Gunmen Killed in Texas 'Draw Muhammad' Contest Attack Identified



Photo by Troy Farah

"Anyone who wants to utilize their First Amendment rights and draw a picture of Muhammad, you can do so knowing there's plenty of armed Americans that support your freedom of speech," Ritzheimer said. Only two people took up the offer. Ritzheimer announced that both "cartoonists" had won the contest, and gave each $100 in proceeds he made from selling his "Fuck Islam" shirts.

"I want the American people to have the freedom to draw a cartoon if they want without having to be threatened or have their lives threatened," Ritzheimer told the crowd. He claimed that his address was posted online, and that he and his family were forced into hiding after receiving death threats.

"I shouldn't have to go into hiding in my own country for a cartoon or a shirt. Nobody should," he said.

"I don't care if I offend anyone," said Paul Griffin, a man in a large straw hat and "Fuck Islam" shirt. "This is America. If you don't like it, tough shit."

'I don't care if I offend anyone. This is America. If you don't like it, tough shit.'
Griffen also claimed that hate speech does not exist. "You're allowed to be offended," he said. "You don't have to like it and I don't have to care."

Two weeks ago, on May 17, Ritzheimer organized a similar event. The first "Freedom of Speech Rally," held on a Sunday morning, didn't receive nearly the same amount of attendees or attention. But this rally was far more disruptive.

Among many flag-waving, gun-toting demonstrators was Brother Dean Saxton, who VICE interviewed last year about his "slut-shaming" practices. He was tearing pages from a copy of the Quran and spitting on them.

Not everyone in attendance was spewing hate. Harris Khawaja, a Muslim and full-time med student at Midwestern University, was giving water bottles to demonstrators on either side. He said he attends this mosque every Friday for prayer and this day was no different, although this time he did sneak around back.

Related: Exclusive Interview with 'Charlie Hebdo' Cartoonist Luz



Harris Khawaja. (Photo by Troy Farah)

"I didn't want anything to spark, I came here to take care of the peace [on] both sides," Khawaja told VICE News. "They can misrepresent my religion all they want, as long as I'm being peaceful, my community is being peaceful, as long we're doing what we're supposed to do, it doesn't really bother me what they're saying to me. Growing up in Arizona you get barbs for being Muslim, for being any sort of color."

Khawaja added, "The drawings, those were hurtful, man … [but] at the end of the day it's just a piece of paper with some scribbles on it."

Jim Mullins, a pastor at Redemption Church in Tempe, helped organize the blue shirt-wearing solidarity wall. He told VICE News that after 9/11 he was just like the anti-Islam crowd at the rally.

"I was like the folks over there," Mullins said. "I had hostility towards Muslims and I had some friends that challenged me on it. They said that I was inconsistent with who Jesus is… I started on a journey to discover what it really looks like to love my neighbor, love my Muslim neighbor in a post-9/11 world."

Related: Islamic State Claims Responsibility for Texas Attack on 'Draw Muhammad' Event



Photo by Troy Farah

Mullins said he found "a common humanity" with Muslims, and that some of them became his closest friends. He even said his Muslim friends had saved "my wife's life and my life in various settings."

"One of the main reasons why we set up here on this sidewalk right now is to create a physical barrier between the mosque and our Muslim friends and potential violence and hostility," Mullins added. "So that if they suffer, we suffer with them. To stand in between the potential pain and danger they are in in the same way that Jesus stood in between it for us."

By 9pm, the protest had dwindled down to almost no one, and no violence had broken out

.

Hundreds gather in Arizona for armed anti-Muslim protest

By Evan Wyloge May 30
Protesters gather in Arizona for armed anti-Muslim rally(1:23)
Protesters gathered outside a Phoenix mosque on Friday as police kept the two groups sparring about Islam separated on opposite sides of the street. (AP)
PHOENIX —About 250 mostly armed anti-Muslim demonstrators — many wearing T-shirts bearing a profanity-laced message denouncing Islam — faced-off against a crowd of roughly the same size defending the faith in front of a Phoenix mosque Friday night.

Demonstrators yelled and taunted one another across a line of police separating the two sides but violence did not break out.

Jon Ritzheimer, the organizer of the protest, called it a patriotic sign of resistance against what he deemed the tyranny of Islam in America.

“I would love to see more of these events pop up in other states,” Ritzheimer said. “I want fellow patriots standing right here next to me. This isn’t about me. Everybody’s been thinking it, I’m just saying it.”

Usama Shami, president of the Islamic center, said he was not surprised by the event.

“This is not new. Hatred, bigotry, racism — that’s old. It’s the same thing,” he said. “No different from Nazis or neo-Nazis. They don’t believe society should be multicultural or multiethnic. They think everyone should believe like them, I guess.”

Ritzheimer began demonstrating after two Phoenix residents carrying assault rifles were killed by police outside a Muhammed cartoon-drawing contest in suburban Dallas earlier this month. In the days following the shooting, Ritzheimer began making and selling the T-shirts. Nearly two weeks ago, he organized a protest at the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix, where a few dozen others joined him.

Ritzheimer said he’s received threats from terrorists on Twitter, and that he and his family no longer feel safe in their home. He said he asked participants to bring guns in the Facebook invite as a precautionary measure. Some brought two or three firearms, from pistols and revolvers to shotguns and assault rifles. Ritzheimer carried a 9mm Glock 26. Some wore military fatigues.

The event kicked off with Ritzheimer inviting his supporters to draw cartoons of Muhammed and bashing the religion’s prohibition against creating depictions of the Islamic prophet.

“I can’t let my kids grow up in a society where tyranny is reigning over. I’ve got ISIS posting my address. This is terrorism at its finest, right here in America,” he said. “My family has to go into hiding.”

Paul Griffin, a Phoenix resident, said that the rally exposed Islam as contrary to American rights.

“They want us to cower in fear because of a cartoon that somebody drew? What the hell happened to this country?” Griffin said. “I don’t care if I offend anyone. This is America.”



Ali Yoseph, a 28-year-old Phoenix resident, was among the protesters opposing Ritzheimer.

“We’re all American here,” he said. “If this was a Christian church right here, or if this was a Jewish church, I swear to you, I would be right here to protect it. Because this in the end is a house of God.”

His brother, 26-year-old Ya Ali Yoseph, said that while he found the drawing of Muhammed objectionable, he hoped people would gain understanding about Islam and its practices.

“Of course it’s offensive,” he said of the cartoon drawing that took place. “We have 124,000 prophets in Islam. Prophet Muhammed was the last prophet. We don’t draw pictures of our prophets. Jesus was a prophet. We don’t draw pictures of Jesus… In the Koran, there’s a quote that says, Allah made you different groups, different tribes, different races, so you can go and learn from each other, so we can come closer to each other. This is a test, to see how you treat people of different color, different ethnicity.”

As the event wound down around 9:30 p.m., Ritzheimer told the crowd that he felt he is now forced into hiding because of his opposition to Islam, and the threats he said his family has received.

“Was this worth it? You know what, let’s ask our founding fathers if it was worth it for them to sign the Declaration of Independence. They jeopardized their families. They put their families into jeopardy, if they would have been caught… Yeah, it was worth it. We have to draw the line now.” Ritzheimer said. “(Am I) done with the cause? No. I can never be done with the cause. I’m still a patriot.”

Although the event was marked by inflammatory messages and a tangible divide between the two sides, it wasn’t without some reconciliation.

Jason Leger, a Phoenix resident wearing one of the profanity-laced shirts, accepted an invitation to join the evening prayer inside the mosque, and said the experience changed him.

“It was something I’ve never seen before. I took my shoes off. I kneeled. I saw a bunch of peaceful people. We all got along,” Leger said. “They made me feel welcome, you know. I just think everybody’s points are getting misconstrued, saying things out of emotion, saying things they don’t believe.”

Paul Griffin, who had earlier said he didn’t care if his t-shirt was offensive, assured a small crowd of Muslims at the end of the rally that he wouldn’t wear it again.

“I promise, the next time you see me, I won’t be wearing this shirt,” he told one man while shaking his hand and smiling. “I won’t wear it again.”

Usama Shami, the president of the ICCP, invited anyone to join him and the 800 members of the mosque for a prayer.

“A lot of them, they’ve never met a Muslim, or they haven’t had interactions with Muslims,” he said. “A lot of them are filled with hate and rage. Maybe they went to websites that charged them with this hatred. So when you sit down and talk like rational people, without all these slogans, without being bigots, without bringing guns, they will find out that they’re talking to another human.”

[Jerky]

What I have taken away from these last few articles is that, as soon as one of these haters actually comes face-to-face with a real life Muslim... they kind of change their tune a bit. It's difficult to keep hating someone once you see with your own eyes that they're basically just like you in so many ways - indeed, that they are often nice, quiet, hard-working, friendly people. It isn't easy to keep on hating someone you can so easily see being a good friend and neighbor. And so many Muslims are VERY good neighbors.

MT

[82_28]

Hahahaha! That really is hilarious and embarrassing for all of humanity. Racism will never cease to amaze me. Also sticking it out in the heat of Phoenix for something like this "standoff" won't cease to amaze me. Everybody knows Phoenix should not exist because of God making it one of the most miserable places on Earth.

[82_28]

Maybe he was going after making the slam dunk illegal in accepted basketball rules? I slam good! But I don't agree with the rules -- so FUCK - I SLAM. I'm sure that is what it was about. He likes layups. We should come up with a shirt or something along those lines to fuck with these morans. Wasn't the original viral moran in AZ as well? I seem to think so.

[82_28]

Nevermind. It was in MO and not AZ upon "research". Still, whatever.

[seemslikeadream]

United Tells Muslim Woman Passenger ‘No Soda For Terrorists’



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TobU0hk8RAI

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 90957.html

California man brutally beat 82-year-old Sikh grandfather he mistook for 'one of those people'



An 82-year-old Sikh grandfather was brutally beaten with a steel pipe by a man who reportedly targeted him for looking like one of “those people”.

Piara Singh was attacked outside his gurdwara in Fresno California where he was preparing free meals to give to the homeless. He suffered a punctured lung and head injuries and was left lying in a pool of blood, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Two years later, members of Mr Singh’s Sikh community say that while his physical wounds have healed, they are still waiting for closure in the case because of a third delay in sentencing.

The assailant, Gilbert Garcia Jr who was 29 at the time of the 2013 incident, was initially charged with attempted murder but admitted elder abuse and a hate crime in February.

And as they wait for Garcia to at last be sentenced, community advocate Ike Grewal told local KFSN news that the attack was all the more troubling because it is believed the attacker confused Mr Singh for a radical Muslim.

“The Sikhs have been attacked all over the United States after 9/11 and this is not acceptable because we have been mistaken as radicals when we are not,” Mr Grewal said.

Speaking to the LA Times shortly after the incident itself, Mr Singh’s nephew Charanjit Sihota said that police told him they found Garcia hiding behind a tree in a neighbour’s garden, and that as he was arrested he shouted that he hated “those people” and wanted to bomb their places of worship.

Even if his attack was misdirected, legal expert Tony Capozzi told KFSN, it can still be classed as a hate crime. “His hatred was the focus, the driving force, towards that belief," he said. "And the fact that the victim wasn't of the religion he thought it was is of no consequence."

[Twyla LaSarc]

That 'F Islam' T is LOL.

The double excamation point says it all.

The printing is bad, most printers with a shop wouldn't touch this subject at all and surprise, it looks badly printed.

[Twyla LaSarc]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/california-man-brutally-beat-82yearold-sikh-grandfather-he-mistook-for-one-of-those-people-10290957.html

California man brutally beat 82-year-old Sikh grandfather he mistook for 'one of those people'



An 82-year-old Sikh grandfather was brutally beaten with a steel pipe by a man who reportedly targeted him for looking like one of “those people”.

Piara Singh was attacked outside his gurdwara in Fresno California where he was preparing free meals to give to the homeless. He suffered a punctured lung and head injuries and was left lying in a pool of blood, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Two years later, members of Mr Singh’s Sikh community say that while his physical wounds have healed, they are still waiting for closure in the case because of a third delay in sentencing.

The assailant, Gilbert Garcia Jr who was 29 at the time of the 2013 incident, was initially charged with attempted murder but admitted elder abuse and a hate crime in February.

And as they wait for Garcia to at last be sentenced, community advocate Ike Grewal told local KFSN news that the attack was all the more troubling because it is believed the attacker confused Mr Singh for a radical Muslim.

“The Sikhs have been attacked all over the United States after 9/11 and this is not acceptable because we have been mistaken as radicals when we are not,” Mr Grewal said.

Speaking to the LA Times shortly after the incident itself, Mr Singh’s nephew Charanjit Sihota said that police told him they found Garcia hiding behind a tree in a neighbour’s garden, and that as he was arrested he shouted that he hated “those people” and wanted to bomb their places of worship.

Even if his attack was misdirected, legal expert Tony Capozzi told KFSN, it can still be classed as a hate crime. “His hatred was the focus, the driving force, towards that belief," he said. "And the fact that the victim wasn't of the religion he thought it was is of no consequence."

I get pissed off when people target Sikhs. In years of shopping at small asian grocery stores, they have always been the most gracious and least sexist shopkeepers.

[Elvis]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/j ... rimination

Tahera Ahmad: 'This isn't about me and a soda can, it's about systemic injustice'

The Northwestern University chaplain denied unopened Coke over weapon fears continues United Airlines boycott as company refers to ‘misunderstanding’



Tahera Ahmad’s allegations of discrimination on a United Airlines flight over the weekend spread like wildfire.

“People know this isn’t just about a can of diet soda,” she told the Guardian after arriving back in Chicago on Monday evening. The level of interest, she said, shows “there’s something greater to the story that resonates with many minority groups not only in this country, but all over the world”.

Ahmad, who is a chaplain at Northwestern University, has received support from countless people on every corner of the globe, which she finds to be proof that her experience isn’t uncommon.

“This isn’t about me and a soda can,” she said, “it’s about systemic injustice that is perpetuated throughout our community.”

Ahmad had been traveling to speak at a conference that was promoting dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian youth in Washington DC.

While on her flight to DC on Friday, she requested an unopened can of diet soda, but was told by a flight attendant that it was against policy to give passengers unopened cans because these could be used as weapons.

The flight attendant then gave the man next to her an unopened can of beer prompting Ahmad’s calls of discrimination. Another man across the aisle to say to Ahmad, “You Muslim, you need to shut the fuck up. You know you would use it as a weapon, so shut the fuck up.”

Ahmad recounted the details of her story on her Facebook page while in-flight, sparking global coverage, and leading to calls for a boycott of the airline.

The airline has since released a statement where they call the incident a “misunderstanding regarding a diet soda” and do not label it as discrimination or mention the hate speech.

“I asked United to recognize it as an act of discrimination,” Ahmad said, “my hope was they would say, ‘You know what, this should have never happened and here’s what we are going to do to make sure this never happens to anyone again.’”

But that doesn’t look to be happening, leading Ahmad and her supporters to continue their boycott of United.

According to Ahmad – who filed a formal complaint with United Airlines after exiting the plane with the pilot escorting her to customer service – there will be an investigation into her allegations, but the airline has not yet announced any plans to discuss issues around potential discrimination on their flight.

“They’re basically failing to recognize the humiliation that happened to me,” she told the Guardian. “So I am going to look into options to ensure that of course this type of discrimination doesn’t happen again. Not to minorities, not to anybody else.”

As for the alleged policy of unopened cans that led to this mishap: Shuttle America who was operating the United Airlines flight 3504 that Ahmad was on doesn’t actually have one that discusses cans being used as potential weapons if unopened.

“There is no policy difference in serving alcoholic or non-alcoholic canned beverages to passengers,” says Bob Birge, director of corporate communications at Republic Airways Holdings, which owns Shuttle America, “no differentiation in opened or unopened cans, and no policy speculating what may or may not be done with a container.”

Birge also tells the Guardian they have yet to receive a formal complaint from Ahmad on their end, unlike United Airlines, and cannot further formally address the issue with staff because like beverage services on a flight, “there is a process passengers are expected to follow if they have a complaint or issue they would like addressed”.

“The extraordinarily unprofessional and humiliating treatment of one of our community members is shockingly disappointing,” the Northwestern University president, Morton Schapiro, said in an official statement released on Monday.

As Ahmad’s story continues to garner more attention, she has also begun receiving an enormous amount of hate-filled messages and phone calls.

“Somebody called me and acted like they were a United representative,” Ahmad told the Guardian. Realizing that the caller might not be an actual employee of the airline, Ahmad asked for evidence of his employment. “So he said, ‘What? You don’t believe me? You want to see my dick? You want to suck on my dick? I know you Muslims like that.”

Ahmad’s social media account has also been continually hacked.

The hate hasn’t concerned the woman considered to be a “leading Muslim woman” by the White House. She plans to continue using the momentum of her story to elevate the conversation.

In a 2013 study conducted by Pew Research Group, 45% of respondents said that Muslim Americans face “a lot” of discrimination, and 28% said Muslims are subject to discrimination.

“Ferguson happened, ‘black lives matter’ happened, and what is it these minority groups were saying? They were saying: understand my pain; understand my injustice. There is a lot of pain there,” she continued. “And I think that’s why this story resonates with so many people.”

Ahmad is pushing for United Airlines to call this incident what many have joined her in calling it: discrimination, because “this is just one example of injustice that continues to happen and I cannot remain silent”.

Tahera Ahmad’s Facebook post recounting discrimination she experienced aboard a United Airlines flight. Photograph: Facebook

[seemslikeadream]

Islamophobia Surges on the Right

by Ali Gharib

Barack Obama seems determined to strike out at the anti-Muslim bigotry coursing through the American right. The policies being pushed by Republicans—particularly by those campaigning to be president—have reached a new low, and the ugliness driving them is unmistakable. These aren’t dog whistles any more: many on the right now explicitly support a government policy of explicit discrimination on the basis of religion. And the silence from the rest of America’s conservatives is deafening.

How did it get this bad? For one, George W. Bush—as Hillary Clinton pointed out in Saturday’s Democratic primary debate—explicitly disavowed that his “global war on terror” was “against Islam, or against faith practiced by the Muslim people.” Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush went to a mosque—he was the second and last president to do so—and said:

The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.
Whatever you make of Bush’s Manichean worldview and the follies of the policies he pushed in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, his active stance against anti-Muslim bigotry acted as a bulwark against hate that, in the absence of such leadership, has run rampant.

From there, the persistent campaign of bigoted right-wing activists was allowed to flourish, albeit with some pushback but obviously not enough. Jonathan Chait rightly points to the “Ground Zero Mosque” episode as a flashpoint in these activists’ struggle. Plenty of people fought back, but decidedly few conservatives. Now Republican elites seem to think that they have nothing to lose. Brian Beutler notes, again correctly, that they see in their rhetoric two types of gains. One is to fire up their base by appealing to its worst sentiments. The other is to use the hesitation of Democrats like Hillary Clinton to use the term “radical Islam” as “weak-on-terror agents of political correctness.”

So now we have arrived a point where the leading GOP contender for the party’s presidential nomination, Donald Trump, said he “would certainly implement” a program to track Muslims in a national database. Not refugees, mind you, and not immigrants, but Americans who’ll be designated by the state as adherents to a particular faith.

The Resurgence of Bigotry

It’s hard to pinpoint just when the rampart Bush had erected against widespread anti-Muslim bigotry among Republicans began to crumble. But if I had to pick a moment it would be during the 2008 presidential campaign. A Democratic candidate with the name Barack Hussein Obama was running, and some unsavory elements in American politics jumped at the opportunity to label him a Muslim. Most of the sane political classes rebuked or mocked this view. But just like conservatives during the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy, too few came out and said, So what if he is a Muslim?

There was another strain of anti-Muslim bigotry in the 2008 campaign. According to Beutler’s dichotomy, this strain didn’t seek to attack Obama but rather to leverage and further Islamophobia as a means of support. I covered one instance of this at the time: the distribution of the anti-Muslim film “Obsession,” produced by the Clarion Fund, now known as the Clarion Project. Clarion, at a considerable cost, distributed its movie in newspaper inserts to millions of homes in swing states.

The Clarion Fund story gets at something else in the debate about growing Islamophobia in the US, which is not very frequently acknowledged: the jolts of Islamophobia running through the right have been carried by the copper wire of right-wing, pro-Israel thought. Clarion itself is an Israel-based, right-wing evangelist Orthodox Jewish group, with a strong presence in and history of support for Israeli settlements. Other groups involved in distributing the video, such as the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), also came from the right-wing pro-Israel milieu.

That some of the most vociferous anti-Muslim sentiment is centered around self-proclaimed pro-Israel advocates should not be interpreted as an indictment of the pro-Israel community at large. But it’s impossible not to notice that the community’s right wing is a hotbed for this hate. Steven Emerson was a well-known Islamophobe well before the American-Israel Public Action Committee (AIPAC), the country’s top Israel lobby group, invited him to its 2013 summit. In The Nation in 2012, Max Blumenthal laid out one of the nodes of the pro-Israel/Islamophobia axis: Nina Rosenwald, a board member of AIPAC and a major donor to right-wing causes. And there are many other links between the funders of Islamophobic and right-wing pro-Israel causes.

But Clarion and its films serve as a particularly strong example. One of the things censored from a post I wrote in 2012 with Eli Clifton about the group was that Clarion’s film, “The Third Jihad,” was being shown at the time of publication at a Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. A list of screenings showed that those before Jewish and pro-Israel groups dominated. Our post dealt with the wider rebuke of Clarion’s work. The film had gotten attention because it was screened at an NYPD screening, and then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and then-police commissioner Ray Kelly, who was interviewed for the movie, denounced it. But there was little condemnation for the frequent screenings of the film among the pro-Israel crowd.

Adelson at the Nexus

There’s one important figure in the Clarion milieu who can help explain how Islamophobic rhetoric became so prevalent among the upper echelons of the Republican Party: Sheldon Adelson. Most of the casino magnate’s ire is reserved specifically for Palestinians, but he’s made troubling anti-Muslim comments, too. And he’s involved deeply in funding those organizations and figures at the nexus of pro-Israel and anti-Islam activism.

Adelson is involved in EMET, which helped to distribute “Obsession,” and he reportedly gave away some copies of the movie himself to young American Jews touring Israel in 2007. And he funds figures like Steven Emerson as well as the more inflammatory anti-Muslim Republicans (Newt Gingrich comes to mind). When a controversy erupted in 2012, The New York Times didn’t get into specifics, but noted that Clarion had garnered support from Adelson for the films.

Adelson brings with him an irresistible war chest for any GOP candidate. He’s got millions of dollars and isn’t afraid to spend it. He’s also not afraid to make sure candidates who want his support stick to his far-right script. Remember when Chris Christie had to apologize in 2012 for suggesting that the Occupied Palestinian Territories were… Occupied Territories? It’s no surprise, then, that Republicans are saying the kind of bigoted things that Adelson is happy to hear.

Of course, it’s not all about Adelson, but one would be doing a disservice to serious analysis to suggest that his positions play no role. As Adelson’s brand of right-wing pro-Israel politics are becoming the Republicans’ party line, we shouldn’t be surprised that his tendency toward anti-Muslim bigotry does, too.

[Luther Blissett]

Two Muslim women attacked in Tampa

We're learning about attacks on two Muslim women, right here in the Tampa Bay area. Their attorney says one of the women was shot at, and another one was nearly driven off the road -- both because of their Muslim faith.

The women were targeted as they were leaving the places where they worship, according to the Florida chapter of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

An attorney from CAIR says the women were leaving mosques and wearing scarves over their heads -- a traditional Muslim head covering called a hijab.

Thursday, a woman's car was shot at as she left a mosque in eastern Tampa, about a mile from the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, CAIR Florida director Hassan Shibly told me.

And over the weekend, a woman reported a man cutting her off and throwing stones and other things at her as she drove away from a mosque in New Tampa.

Shibly told me CAIR is hearing reports like this every single day from across the state.

"The American Muslim community is proud of its contributions in society, and it's unfortunate that certain politicians are attacking the entire Muslim faith and people for the horrendous actions of a few people," Shibly said.

Mark spent Thursday with the Saleh family, a typical family in Tampa Bay. They own small businesses, they're raising their kids, and they are Muslim.

Analysts and experts say the kind of anti-Muslim attacks reported in Hillsborough County this week are literally exactly what ISIS wants.

Because ISIS has only a few thousand people, and almost all of them are on the other side of the planet, this is their strategy:

Create a divide between Muslims and non-Muslims in America, with the hopes that some Muslims will feel isolated and fed up enough to turn to radical Islam, then attack.

[Luther Blissett]

Recently a Philly cop named Jesse Hartnett was shot three times in the arm while sitting in his cruiser in West Philly by a man named Edward Archer who ran up to him, yelling about doing it in the name of ISIS while firing off 11 rounds. He was shot in the ass by Hartnett as he attempted to flee and was arrested. Hartnett is recovering.

Archer's mother said he might be mentally ill, but combined with what the officer claimed he said while attacking him, the fact that he's made an apparent pilgrimage to Mecca for Hajj and another 10-month trip to Egypt in recent years, and the long white tunic he wore in the attack (caught on surveillance), it's being talked about as a terrorist attack locally.

There are a few other details, but here's where things get dicey: an anonymous woman told police that Archer's a member of a small four-man cell in West Philly and that he is the least radicalized of the group. He's said to have worshipped at Masjid Mujahideen, near where the attack occurred, but that he was radicalized at Masjid al Jamia. That claim begs credulity, though, since that mosque is pretty well-known by the neighborhood to be very moderate, peaceful, almost westernized - it's also the North American headquarters for Islamic Charitable Projects. I eat at the restaurants all around that mosque and there's clearly a major overlap between the folks who worship there and who dine at / work at these businesses. Of course it's possible that four outcasts met there and are planning something, but it's really tough to imagine the community letting it slip.

As the man interviewed in the story below — and I believe it's one of the same guys I saw on the local news — their people are the ones who are being killed by terrorists. Another interviewee mentions that Archer is probably mentally ill, seemingly unaware of his mother's statement.

Bowie sort of disrupted this in the news cycle, and it's for the most part a local issue, but there's a small possibility that more could be coming. I've searched all over for the statement as that's what I'm most interested in. I want to know why she did it and if there's anything to it - my feeling is that there is not.

http://mobile.philly.com/beta?wss=/phil ... =364793161

[Luther Blissett]

I then found the anonymous tip. No real additional information.