Tonight on 'Anti-Climax Theater'

After 11 months we’ve finally reached a point in the Imam Abdullah case where we can say, “Enough, already.” (“Cox: No laws broken in fatal FBI shooting of imam”).

According to the Michigan Attorney General’s office, investigators are reporting “undisputed evidence that Mr. Abdullah resisted arrest and fired a gun first in the direction of the agents. Under Michigan law, law enforcement agents are justified in using deadly force in these types of situations, and therefore we found no crimes.”

We’ve recently criticized AG Mike Cox, who lacks personal credibility, over how long it’s taken him to make this report public. Regardless, Cox’s problems don’t necessarily cast his investigators in a poor light. This overdue report clarifies once and for all that “Abdullah making a series of decisions that resulted in the use of deadly force against him -- and ultimately his death. None of Abdullah’s follower who complied with the police commands were injured in any way.”

Right on cue, and determined to keep the story alive forever -- which is how long I reckon it would take for CAIR to restore its undeserved facade as a legitimate organization -- Dawud Walid began demanding the surveillance footage of the raid.

“Walid’s group also requested test results showing whether Abdullah fired a weapon and the caliber of bullets that struck the FBI dog to see if the bullets were fired by Abdullah or a law enforcement agent.” It’s interesting that the AG’s report includes a conversation with CAIR’s retained pathologist, who concluded that abrasions on Abdullah’s face could only be explained as dog bites -- based on his scientific reasoning: “what else could it be?” (Right, as if aliens can be ruled out just that easy).

Walid believes there’s still a chance to prove the FBI conducted a “targeted assassination” of their K-9 Freddy while they were busy assassinating Abdullah. Whatever that would prove. (The AG’s office reports that bullet fragments reovered from the K-9, Freddy, are consistent with Abdullah’s handgun, and not the rifles used by the FBI.)

So we say: Enough already.

Why don’t we all just let Abdullah deflower his 72 virgins with whatever he has left to do it with.

And let Freddy rest in peace.

Four Missionaries Acquitted in Dearborn

The four missionaries charged with “inciting a crowd” while evangelizing at the Dearborn Arab International Festival last June were acquitted on Friday. One of the four, Negeen Mayel, was found guilty of failing to follow a police officer’s order. (“4 missionaries acquitted of inciting crowd”).

I’m glad the four were acquitted of the incitement charge, which was pure nonsense from the get-go. I’m also glad Ms. Mayel was convicted of disobeying a police officer. When I listened to Negeen on the tape of her arrest using what I have to describe as an unbearable girl-victim stage voice (“Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”) I simply couldn’t find it in me to resent that poor cop for doing whatever it took to shut her up.

Don’t get me wrong. That kind of passive-aggressive wheedling, while clearly meant to be provocative, was hardly an incitement of a crowd, which is what the four were charged with. I support the cause of this acquittal because I support our cause of pushing back Shariah in Dearborn. I also support the First and Fourth Amendments, which tooka pretty bad beating with these arrests.

When this first happened, I was supportive of the missionaries. As things progressed, and I spent many tedious hours trying to make certain that these folks weren’t all the horrible things Jack O’Reilly said they were, I found myself liking the Acts 17 individuals less and less -- but not because I think they ever did anything that is against the law in Dearborn.

No matter: whether I find David Wood puffed up, or disapprove of the way Ms. Mayel exploits being itty-bitty enough for toting around in Paris Hilton’s handbag, the big facts about all this are impossible to miss.

First, these charges should have never been brought. This was a clear instance of the Dearborn executive authority being abused, (and the taxpayer’s money wasted on this hopeless trial), to prove to Dearborn’s Muslim leaders that in any public rumble that has gives an appearance of “Muslims against non-Muslims,” Dearborn government intends to outdo itself proving its prior commitment to take the Muslim side.

Second, Dearborn government, the mayor’s office and the police department, are badly compromised for the diligence at placating Muslim feelings -- real or imagine -- about all this. As Andrew McCarthy describes it, “Camouflaged as a crackdown on ‘disturbing the peace,’ [this] was transparently the enforcement of sharia’s prohibition against preaching religions other than Islam.”

O’Reilly was all in on the malicious prosecution of these four, including publishing a letter in which he pre-judged the criminal case and materially misrepresented what he had to know of the facts. O’Reilly had to know, and the police certainly did, that there was no “large crowd” gathered around the missionaries, or any “public danger.” While many may have reservations about the motives of Acts 17, there’s no doubt that both Chief Haddad and the mayor -- remember they are government officials, not private citizens -- falsely characterized events around the arrests as “incitement,” just so they could support the baseless charges they’d already laid against the four.

Even after the city lost this unnecessary trial on Friday, O’Reilly was still hurling unsupported claims against the acquitted defendants:

“It's really about a hatred of Muslims,” O’Reilly said. “That is what the whole heart of this is. ... Their idea is that there is no place for Muslims in America. They fail to understand the Constitution.”

I’ve got no idea what O’Reilly has in mind with that remark about the Constitution, because no one has suggested that any constitutional rights of Muslims were violated in this whole episode.

Unless, of course, it’s the constitutional right of hundreds of thousands of Muslims not to have to hear about Jesus Christ from four infidels.

Report: 'Shariah, the Threat to America'

From Family Security Matters:

Shariah, the Threat to America

September 15, 2010 - The Editor

A report (pdf) has just been published by the Center for Security Policy, which should be taken seriously by anyone with an interest in national security issues, and particularly those in government. The report has been written by “TEAM B”, a panel of 19 people, headed by Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin and Lieutenant General Harry Edward Soyster. From 2003 to 2007 Boykin was Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, and Soyster was a former Director of Defense Intelligence Agency and Commanding General at U.S. Intelligence and Security Command.

The 17 associates in the report include Maj. Stephen C. Coughlin (ret.), Andrew McCarthy , Ambassador Henry Cooper, Admiral James A. “Ace” Lyons - US Navy (Ret.), former Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, John Guandolo—former Special Agent, Counter-Terrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, R. James Woolsey—former Director of Central Intelligence and others.

The 177-page report itself is entitled: “Shariah, The Threat to America, An exercise in competitive analysis.” You can download it here (pdf format).

The message is simple but strong. There may be some libertarian interpretations of sharia law, such as that practiced by the late Gus Dur, an Indonesian religious leader, where sharia is seen as a guide to personal conduct. That interpretation of sharia is rare, however, and more people and most Muslim nations respect the other end of the sharia spectrum. This shade of sharia is connected with Islamic supremacists (Islamists) who are directly opposed to all of the liberties and democracy that could only have grown in the Enlightenment and later. The Enlightenment values that inspired and informed the Founding Fathers to create America, which epitomises Western Democracy, are the antithesis of the extremist – Islamist – side of sharia.

Even Tony Blair, who had allowed his government’s policies to be dictated by Islamist followers of Maududi and the Muslim Brotherhood, recently stated that Radical Islam is the world’s greatest threat.

The Team B report states:

What cannot credibly be denied, however, is that:

a. shariah is firmly rooted in Islam’s doctrinal texts, and it is favored by influential Islamic commentators, institutions, and academic centers (for example, the faculty at al-Azhar University in Cairo, for centuries the seat of Sunni learning and jurisprudence);

b. shariah has been, for over a half-century, lavishly financed and propagated by Islamic regimes (particularly Saudi Arabia and Iran), through the offices of disciplined international organizations (particularly the Muslim Brotherhood); and

c. due to the fact that Islam lacks a central, universally recognized hierarchical authority (in contrast to, say, the Roman Catholic papacy), authentic Islamic moderates and reformers have an incredibly difficult task in endeavoring to delegitimize shariah in the community where it matters most: the world’s Muslims.

The report demands that genuine moderate Muslims and Islamic reformers must be encouraged, for without them, the hardline “Islamist” ideology will prevail.

Chapter 4 deals specifically with the Muslim Brotherhood, and other subsections of Chapter 5 deal with Hamas, al-Qaeda, Khomeinism, Hezbollah, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Tablighi Jamaat and Jamaat al-Fuqra.

For too long, governments in the West, including those in America, have taken on board a fictional version of Islam, a myth. This has allowed (p.17 of the report) individuals like Abdurahman Alamoudi to be an adviser at the White House, even though this Muslim Brotherhood member supported terrorist groups and was himself subsequently jailed for 23 years for terrorist offenses.

Alamoudi had claimed in 1996, at the time that he was nominating and vetting chaplains for the U.S. military and prisons, that: “either we do it now or we do it after a hundred years, but this country will become a Muslim country.”

Other people who have masqueraded as “moderates” and have had the ear of government in America have had the same attitudes. Omar Ahmad, founder of CAIR had stated in 1998 that:

“If you choose to live here [in America]… you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam. Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.”

You can read the rest here.

Hunting Season Opens for Hamas

Do peace talks mean it’s open season for Hamas to murder Jews?

Caroline Glick writes this for The Jerusalem Post:

AND THIS brings us back to Tuesday evening's highway massacre. Predictably, the Obama administration led the way in framing the terrorist violence as a bid by Hamas to derail the newest round of negotiations. For example, after meeting with Netanyahu Wednesday Obama said, "The tragedy that we saw yesterday where people were gunned down on the street by terrorists who are purposely trying to undermine these talks is an example of what we're up against."

The only party that rejected the administration's rationalization of the attack was Hamas, whose operatives reportedly carried it out. In an interview Thursday with the London-based Asharq al Awsat, Hamas leader Mahmoud A-Zahar said that the talks have nothing to do with the attack. As he put it, "The bid to link this operation to the negotiations is completely wrong. When people have the opportunity, the capability and the targets, they act."

The truth is probably found neither in A-Zahar's claim nor in Obama's assertion. In all likelihood, Hamas was testing the waters. Iran's Palestinian proxy wanted to know whether the regular rules for peace processes have kicked into gear yet. Those rules -- as the families of the hundreds of Israelis murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the peak years of peace processes will attest -- involve Israel giving free rein to terrorists to murder Jews during "peace talks."

Since Yitzhak Rabin first shook Yassir Arafat's hand on the White House lawn 17 years ago, successive prime ministers have opted to not to retaliate for murderous attacks when peace talks are in session. They have justified their willingness to give the likes of Hamas a free hand to murder by claiming that fighting back would be tantamount to allowing terrorists to hold the peace process hostage. Conducting counter-terror campaigns in the midst of negotiations, they have uniformly argued, would endanger the talks and so, Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad must all be given a carte blanche to murder.

Echoing these sentiments precisely, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin all reportedly objected to launching any response to Tuesday's attack. According to the media, the three closed ranks against Netanyahu who reportedly wished to attack Hamas targets in Gaza following the massacre.

Wednesday's roadside shooting attack, in which a man and his wife were wounded, was a clear indication that Hamas and its ilk received the message. Just as A-Zahar said, they are always looking for an opportunity. And in not responding to Tuesday's attack, Israel told them that for the duration of these negotiations, Hamas can again kill with impunity. (“The New Netanyahu?”).

Ground Zero Crater: Nine Years of Lies Have Only Made it Deeper

You’ve noticed how much news coverage is being devoted to stories about alarmed Muslims taken aback by the sudden outpouring of xenophobic anger because of the Ground Zero mosque. (All the more curious, as we’ve monitored CAIR’s regular declarations that Islamophobia reached Kristallnacht levels after 9/11 and more or less remained constant).

For instance, from the Detroit Free Press:

“This year, the commemoration [of 9/11] follows a stunning summer in which opposition to a planned Islamic community center near the World Trade Center site escalated into a national uproar over Islam, extremism and religious freedom.” (“9/11, Ground Zero mosque uproar put Muslims on alert”).

The New York Times:

“Now, many of those same Muslims say that all of those years of work are being rapidly undone by the fierce opposition to a Muslim cultural center near ground zero that has unleashed a torrent of anti-Muslim sentiments and a spate of vandalism.” (“American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?”)

From CAIR:

(CNSNews.com) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is putting some of the blame on both the Tea Party and the Republican Party for what it sees as a growing tide of anti-Muslim anger. CAIR officials said the rise in “Islamophobia” stems from the controversy surrounding the Islamic center and mosque that Muslims plan to build a few blocks from Ground Zero. (“CAIR Director: 'Tea Party and Republican Party Have Given the Green Light for These People to Defame and Stereotype Muslims'”).

The misleading question planted in all these stories is, “Why, nine years after the 9/11 attacks, are Americans more mistrustful of Muslims than they were before?”

The misleading answer the reader is supposed to find, in one form or another, runs along these lines: Only because misinformation about Islam is being spread by extremists, Islamophobes, tea party supporters, the Republican party.

Buying it?

Not me. The narrative’s a phony. Skeptical questions about how Americans could still dare to think ill of Muslims nine years after 9/11 (it can only be explained by a mass sinking into bigotry and Islamophobia!), presumes that what happened on that date was a one-off crime that was no more the fault of Muslims than Charles Manson’s Helter Skelter murder rampage was the fault of The Beatles. “It was so long ago,” runs the script, “and besides, we were targeted, too.”

Never mind if Muslims were targeted, too. (Muslims weren’t targeted. It was a matter of indifference to bin Ladin who he killed accidentally alongside his infidel victims--hardly the same thing). Americans learned after 9/11 that the act of war committed on 9/11 only confirmed the declaration of war bin Ladin had made in 1996 against the United States on behalf of the Ummah.

At the time the September 11 attacks were called my generation’s Pearl Harbor -- the sudden blow that awakened a sleeping giant. But the comparison doesn’t go far. One difference is the way the other that started at Pearl Harbor was very publicly seen to end (thanks to the energetic focus of the sleeping giant), on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri in August 1945. Along with the war ended the final acts of Japanese belligerence against Americans. Healing between the two nations was possible because Japanese hostilities had ceased -- and because the Americans are not a grudge-carrying people. We can be accused of a lot of things, but having a long memory is NOT an American quality. I doubt anyone was asking in 1954 why Americans were still mad at the Japanese, and I know no one is asking it now.

But unlike what finally happened with Japan after Pearl Harbor, Americans have witnessed no final defeat, no surrender, no U.S.S. Missouri event to put to rest September 11. There has been no peace with Islam. The closest we’ve come have been off-key protestations of peace from a mismatched choir of: sincerely wrong non-Muslims, insincerely wrong leftists who share Islam’s lust for destroying Western values, and double-tongued cons like Ibrahim Hooper and Osama Siblani, who are flat out lying every time they talk about their religion.

If you have to ask how it is that, nine years after the Twin Towers fell, Americans still have a negative impression of Islam, consider this: From September 11, 2001 forward, we have fought two bloody wars against savage Islamist fighters, and we have witnessed, in no particular order or priority, the shoe-bomb attempt, the gruesome murders of Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg, the mutilated corpses on the Fallujah bridge, the London and Madrid subway attacks, the murder of Theo van Gogh, the cartoon riots, the foiled British airliner attack, the Bombay massacres, the Fort Hood massacre, the foiled Fort Dix attack, massacres in Bali, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, suicide bombings so numerous they rise into the tens of thousands, the failed underwear bombing over Detroit, honor killings of daughters by their own fathers, the six imams suing U.S. Air, the president of Iran promising to destroy us with an atomic bomb, Hezbollah promising to destroy Israel and every Jew, and only last week Hamas murdering four Israeli civilians, one of them pregnant: every last one of these sons of bitches signing their work with an unmistakable profession that Allah is Great.

Most of us aren’t responding to 9/11 as explained by Rush Limbaugh. We’re responding to yesterday’s, or sometimes even today’s news crawls. We don’t need any “extremist” radio personalities to tell us what we can’t avoid seeing.

And the whole time all these things are going on we’ve got CAIR and an army of imams just daring us not to believe them over of our own lying, bigoted eyes.

Judea Pearl, father of the murdered Daniel, says he doesn’t buy the explanation that hostility to the Cordoba Center is Islamophobia, or the “product of a ‘rightwing’ smear campaign against one imam or another.

Americans are neither bigots nor gullible. . . .

If one accepts that the 19 fanatics who flew planes into the Twin Towers were merely self-proclaimed Muslims who, by their very act, proved themselves incapable of acting in the name of “true Islam,” then building a mosque at Ground Zero should evoke no emotion whatsoever; it should not be viewed differently than, say, building a church, a community center or a druid shrine.

A more realistic explanation is that most Americans do not buy the 19 fanatics story, but view the 9/11 assault as a product of an anti- American ideology that, for good and bad reasons, has found a fertile breeding ground in the hearts and minds of many Muslim youngsters who see their Muslim identity inextricably tied with this anti-American ideology.

THE GROUND Zero mosque is being equated with that ideology. Public objection to the mosque thus represents a vote of no confidence in mainstream American Muslim leadership which, on the one hand, refuses to acknowledge the alarming dimension that anti-Americanism has taken in their community and, paradoxically, blames America for its creation.

The American Muslim leadership has had nine years to build up trust by taking proactive steps against the spread of anti-American terror-breeding ideologies, here and abroad.

Evidently, however, a sizable segment of the American public is not convinced that this leadership is doing an effective job of confidence building.

In public, Muslim spokespersons praise America as the best country for Muslims to live and practice their faith. But in sermons, speeches, rallies, classrooms, conferences and books sold at those conferences, the narrative is often different. There, Noam Chomsky’s conspiracy theory is the dominant paradigm, and America’s foreign policy is one long chain of “crimes” against humanity, especially against Muslims.

Affirmation of these conspiratorial theories sends mixed messages to young Muslims, engendering anger and helplessness: America and Israel are the first to be blamed for Muslim failings, sufferings and violence.

Terrorist acts, whenever condemned, are immediately “contextually explicated” (to quote Tariq Ramadan); spiritual legitimizers of suicide bombings (e.g. Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi of Qatar) are revered beyond criticism; Hamas and Hizbullah are permanently shielded from the label of “terrorist.”

Overall, the message that emerges from this discourse is implicit, but can hardly be missed: When Muslim grievance is at question, America is the culprit and violence is justified, if not obligatory. (“Undercurrents below the Ground Zero mosque”).

Zakat’s Outta the Bag

Now just why is it that every time Muslims in America undertake a public-relations blitz to spruce up the old image and get people’s minds off all that international jihad, Hamas is always right around the corner?

Take Islamic Relief USA, the outfit that is behind the national “Day of Dignity” that came to Detroit on Saturday. (“Muslims express faith by giving on Day of Dignity”).

I looked at IR-USA’s website, and within two clicks I found out they are a partner of Islamic Relief Worldwide, (and also that one of IRW’s 21 international field offices is in “Palestine”: “You can help Palestinians who face difficult times under the siege. Please go inside to know more about the bank accounts and how to donate and help poor people.”

Ordinary Gazans are certainly entitled to get charity from whoever is willing to send it. God knows Hamas isn’t going to give it to them. But then it turns out that IRW has a history of links to Al Qaeda, Chechen rebels, and, naturally, Hamas.

Israel designated Islamic Relief a Hamas front in 2006.

But don’t all charities have questionable ties when you get down to it? Well, maybe not.

Poll: Two-Thirds of New Yorkers Are Ignorant, Islamophobic, Right-Wing Extremists, or, Big Apple 'Refudiates' Cordoba Center

“I mean, the extent of the ignorance- where you parse Islamophobia versus ignorance of Islam, I'm not exactly sure. But there is tremendous ignorance of Islam as a religion.” Declaring that Christianity Judaism and Islam have great similarities, he derided, “And I think, you know, the American misconception about Islam is amazing.”
--Time Magazine Editor, Richard Stengel

Then hadn’t somebody ought to alert the New York Times? Oh, wait, someone did:

New York Poll Finds Wariness for Muslim Site

By MICHAEL BARBARO and MARJORIE CONNELLY

Two-thirds of New York City residents want a planned Muslim community center and mosque to be relocated to a less controversial site farther away from ground zero in Lower Manhattan, including many who describe themselves as supporters of the project, according to a New York Times poll.

The poll indicates that support for the 13-story complex, which organizers said would promote moderate Islam and interfaith dialogue, is tepid in its hometown.

Nearly nine years after the Sept. 11 attacks ignited a wave of anxiety about Muslims, many in the country’s biggest and arguably most cosmopolitan city still have an uneasy relationship with Islam. One-fifth of New Yorkers acknowledged animosity toward Muslims. Thirty-three percent said that compared with other American citizens, Muslims were more sympathetic to terrorists. And nearly 60 percent said people they know had negative feelings toward Muslims because of 9/11.

Over all, 50 percent of those surveyed oppose building the project two blocks north of the World Trade Center site, even though a majority believe that the developers have the right to do so. Thirty-five percent favor it.

Opposition is more intense in the boroughs outside Manhattan — for example, 54 percent in the Bronx — but it is even strong in Manhattan, considered a bastion of religious tolerance, where 41 percent are against it.

UPDATE. From CNS News:

(CNSNews.com) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is putting some of the blame on both the Tea Party and the Republican Party for what it sees as a growing tide of anti-Muslim anger. CAIR officials said the rise in “Islamophobia” stems from the controversy surrounding the Islamic center and mosque that Muslims plan to build a few blocks from Ground Zero.

“We’ve seen a really strong uptick in Islamophobia recently – primarily sparked by the controversy over the Manhattan Islamic center,” Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s chief spokesman, told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. “We’ve seen hate vandalism at mosques in California; in Tennessee, we had an arson attack; at a mosque in Arlington, Texas, we had an arson attack; and something that wasn’t even reported nationwide, in May we had a bomb attack at a mosque in Jacksonville, Florida,” he said.
Hooper said the attacks could be driven by many factors: “The question is, why? Is it tied to the November elections? Is it tied to the rise of the Tea Party movement? Is it tied to the economy?” he asked. “I think it’s pretty clear that it’s been sparked…by these hate groups and their opposition to the Islamic community center in Manhattan.”

CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad was even more direct, saying that the Tea Party and the GOP have given the “green light” to a nationwide campaign to deny Muslims their civil rights and ultimately expel them from the United States. (“CAIR Director: 'Tea Party and Republican Party Have Given the Green Light for These People to Defame and Stereotype Muslims'”)

Speaking of Shibboleths

This is helpful. No sooner has Andy McCarthy suggested that refusal to condemn Hamas is a shibboleth for who should or shouldn’t lay claim to being a Muslim moderate, than Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s Cordoba Initiative fails the test.

This was reported in Wednesday’s Weekly Standard:

Ground Zero Mosque Spokesman Refuses to Condemn Hamas Terrorist Attack Moderates?

BY Michael Goldfarb

On the eve of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Hamas gunmen murdered four Israeli civilians, including a pregnant woman. Even for those who see nuance in terrorist attacks, this one didn’t leave a lot of room for argument. The PA condemned the attack and, reportedly, picked up some 150 Hamas affiliates in the West Bank for questioning. The Obama administration condemned the attack in no uncertain terms. And even J Street, the home of moral equivalence in the U.S., offered a quick condemnation of this atrocity. But the “moderate” Muslims of the Ground Zero Mosque? They’re taking a pass.

There’s already been a lot of analysis of Imam Rauf’s position on Hamas – he’s against it, kind of, but unwilling to condemn the group as a terrorist organization. When asked point blank, this “moderate US cleric,” as State Department PJ Crowley likes to call him, punted: “The issue of terrorism is a very complex question…I will not allow anybody to put me in a position where I am seen by any party in the world as an adversary or as an enemy.”

Even if that party murders pregnant women on the eve of peace talks with the aim of continuing this conflict between Arabs and Jews? Apparently, yes.

Yesterday I looked at the Twitter feed for Park51 – the Ground Zero Mosque’s primary point of contact with the media and everyone else over the last few weeks – curious to see if they’d offered some statement on the brutal attack near Hebron. There was plenty of activity – the usual fare of baiting Republican candidates like Ilario Pantano, who’s expressed his concern about their bridge-building project, accusing Newt Gingrich of “being to the right” of Il Duce, a smug invitation to Sarah Palin to come and “visit the locals” – the kind of thing you’d expect from a 12-year-old with a diary at Daily Kos. But nothing on the attack in Israel.

So I asked the folks at Park51 – “I know @park51 is loathe to call Hamas a terrorist group....but as a gesture, maybe now would be a good time to say something?”

The group’s response:

"@thegoldfarb We have condemned terrorism and will continue to do so. We are an apolitical community center. Please allow us that respect."

You’ll note that they have not, and apparently will not, condemn this attack. And no one should allow them the respect of hiding behind a claim to be “apolitical.” At this point, this mosque is entirely a political statement, and a political provocation. All its staff does is engage in political incitement – there is no swimming pool or basketball court or interfaith dialogue, just a snarky, inappropriate, hyper-partisan Twitter feed. And a blanket refusal to condemn acts of terrorism against Israeli Jews.

Update: The Ground Zero mosque supporters seem to have responded, and seem again to be unwilling or unable to condemn the murder of a pregnant Israeli woman and other innocent Jews. Via Twitter: "We have and repeatedly condemn acts of terrorism. We are a Community Center. Please do not ask us to get involved in international affairs."

Hamas the Shibboleth

Andrew C. McCarthy deploys an effective analogy to cut through some of the gobbledygook mucking up the public debate over the mosque. (Or am I imagining that, as the Cordoba Center becomes more and more unpopular with Americans in the last week or two, the media is increasing its one-sided coverage of “Islamophobia” in America?) Put simply, support for Hamas is as good a test as any for unmasking Ikhwan members set about the Grand Jihad. From NRO:

Why They Can’t Condemn Hamas

August 28, 2010 4:00 A.M.

Rauf and his friends employ different methods, but they are on the same team.

Hamas is a shibboleth. If you want to know whether an ostensible Muslim “moderate” is really moderate, ask him if Hamas is a terrorist organization.

It is really not a hard question, even if Feisal Rauf can’t — or won’t — answer it. Rauf, the would-be imam of the controversial Ground Zero mosque, is also a stud in the State Department’s stable of ready-to-travel-on-your-dime “moderates.” That same State Department has branded Hamas a terrorist organization, and we can’t even get it to say that about the Taliban, the guys we’re fighting in the overseas contingency operation formerly known as the War on Terror.

During a WABC radio interview, Aaron Klein three times pressed Rauf to admit that Hamas is a terrorist organization. Rauf bobbed and weaved in classic Islamist style. “I’m not a politician,” he replied, as if only politicians trouble themselves over whether terrorists are terrorists. “I try to avoid the issues. The issue of terrorism is a very complex question.” Avoid the issues? You don’t say!

But it is not a complex question, no more complex than “Does Derek Jeter play for the Yankees?” It is a straightforward question that Islamists complicate with clever casuistry, carefully designed to ring all the right chimes for our opinion elites and their media pitchmen.

By all means, read the entire article here.