Is You Is, Or Is You Ain't, My Islam?

Thomas Friedman is one of those liberals who was with us on Iraq, and not delusional about Islamic jihadism. After Ft. Hood he had some good things to say about the “Narrative” in the Arab-Muslim world that’s been driving recruitment of suicide bombers. (“America vs. The Narrative”). A few weeks back, (before the Christmas bomb plot), he gave President Obama a suggestion of something to ask his Middle Eastern audience:

Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say, ‘This is not Islam.’ I believe that. But you keep telling us what Islam isn’t. You need to tell us what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us — and to yourselves.

I don’t think I can go along with Friedman/Imaginary Obama in believing that Fort Hood categorically “is not Islam.” A couple years ago a Pew Research Center poll of American Muslims showed that 26% of young American Muslims polled say suicide bombings in defense of Islam can be justified. Is that Islam?

But I do agree that the contradiction between what the whole world sees of aggressive Islamic actions the last few decades, and what Islamic leaders keep telling us about how true Islam means peace--needs a lot more explaining.

The Facebook Muslims, for example, have decided to demonstrate against terrorism at Detroit’s U.S. District Courthouse when Farouk Abdullamutallab is brought down from Milan Prison for arraignment in January. The group apparently wants to point its protest at Abdullamutallab himself, and what they consider his unIslamic actions in trying to blow up 300 people on Christmas Day. I guess that makes some sense: the TV crews will already be there, so there’s some guaranteed publicity.

In view of the gargantuan task of convincing Americans that the world’s champion violence-producing religion is all about peace, I think a bit more imagination might have gone into the site selection for the protest. Let’s face it, we can argue about whether or not Abdullamutallab was speaking for Islam when he set his own pants on fire this Christmas in hopes of murdering 300+ people. But as a criminal defendant with a Constitutional right to remain silent (how in hell did that happen?), his jihadi spokesman days are probably over.

Which is why I think a more effective protest might involve demonstrating at UM-Dearborn, where the Muslim Students Association has a local branch. The MSA is “seeking to create a single Muslim voice on U.S. campuses—a voice espousing Wahhabism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism, agitating aggressively against U.S. Middle East policy, and expressing solidarity with militant Islamist ideologies, sometimes with criminal results.” Is that Islam?

Or perhaps they could picket the Islamic House of Wisdom, where Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi presides. Elahi is an Iranian agent who first came to the U.S. on an inspection tour of Hezbollah cells, and to strengthen Tehran’s grip on America’s Shia communities. Elahi openly advocates on behalf of the violent Islamists, including Hamas and Hezbollah, both avid practitioners of suicide bombing and targeting of civilians for mass killings. Elahi also defends the anti-Israel, nuke-hungry, regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the one that has promised to “wipe Israel off the map.” Is that Islam?

Or the Facebook Muslims may want to picket The Arab American News, where publisher Osama Siblani advocates Hamas’s anti-semitic murder regime at every opportunity.

Then there’s a group known as the Congress of Arab American Organizations (CAAO). They’re pro-Hamas/Hezbollah and anti-Israel. During the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006, they showed us in Dearborn exactly where they stood:

Daily protests occur in Dearborn. At one recent demonstration, organized by the Congress of Arab-Americans, about 1,000 people attended. College-age men asked, in call and response fashion, "Who is your army?" Protestors responded: "Hezbollah." "Who is your leader?" they were asked. "Nasrallah," the chanters responded. Many carried placards of the Hezbollah leader. A few days earlier at an even larger demonstration, more than 15,000 turned out, about half of Dearborn's Arab community.

Let’s not forget Imam Hassan Qazwini, who presides at the Islamic Center of North America. He’s publicly embraced Louis Farrakhan and his anti-semitic, anti-white hatred. According to Debbie Schlussel, he “is very open about his support for Palestinian homicide bombings.”

Or maybe they could demonstrate outside The Muslim Center in Detroit, where they held the funeral for Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the radical Islamist felon killed in an FBI raid in October. Abdullah and his followers considered themselves soldiers at war with the American government and with non-Muslims, and he encouraged his followers to remember that “revenge is Islamic.” He was killed after a Task Force with an arrest warrant demanded his surrender, and he responded by opening fire, killing an FBI K-9. He preached war on non-Muslims, the Kuffar, saying:

that Muslims need to stop fighting each other and start fighting the Kuffar. Abdullah stated:Contrary to your own [unintelligible], we should be trying to figure out how to fight the Kuffar.

Muslim leaders like Elahai, and Imam Talib Abdul-Rashid, showed up at Abdullah's funeral to praise him to the skies for his righteous life, and pronounce him a “martyr.” Nothing was reported of any of these "mainstream" leaders saying of Abdullah’s violence and hatred, “This is not Islam.”

Then you may see on Facebook where mover and shaker Tarek Baydoun promises to show up for the protest. A couple years ago Baydoun, Elahi, and some other prominent Dearborn Muslims held a “unity” rally “to let the American people know” that the borderless, Islamic ummah was “united.” What they meant was they were united against the interest of the U.S. and the West, and united with Iranian fighters trying to ruin things in Iraq, with Hezbollah's terror army trying to take over Lebanon, and Hamas savages pushing Palestinians into endless war with Israel. More support for Islamic violence. Is that Islam?

Now I'm running out of room, but I can't leave out CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood front group managed locally by Dawud Walid, and implicated nationally as an unidicted co-conspirator in supporting terrorism. The Brotherhood intends, in simplest terms, to overthrow Western civilization by means of “civilizational jihad” and replace it with Islam, by force, naturally. Is this Islam?

To many of us, it is. No one can fairly say we've reached that conclusion by failing to pay attention.

To those of you who, in good faith, intend to show us otherwise, we leave you to your proofs.