Arizona Islamist Media- (Issue No. 2.0)– “Arab Voice Highlights itself as a leader in meetings with a Congressional Candidate of the 3rd District and also opines that America is a Camel”

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[This next piece presented in its entirety appeared in the April 2006 issue of the Arab Voice on page 3]- translation provided by AIFD. “A Meeting between Arab personalities and the Democratic candidate for Congress in Phoenixﾔ by the Arab Voice. (this piece also featured a photo with the individuals listed and the Democratic Congressional Candidate for the 3rd District, Herb Paine) ﾓA meeting was held with several personalities from the Arabic community organized by Mr. Safai Arkawi and Miss Janice (sic). Miss Janice is the organizer for the Democratic Party in Arizona.ﾔ ﾓ The meeting was held with the Democratic candidate from the Third District in Phoenix, Arizona. The meeting included Mr. Mohamed al-Abassi, Amjad Abu-Alhalla, Zohair AlSulti, Wajdi Abdeen and Marwan Ahmed, the publisher for the Arab Voice.ﾔ ﾓAnd there was a complete discussion of points of importance to the local Arabic community among which was immigration issues, health insurance locally, and also issues related to Iraq and Palestine at the foreign policy level.ﾔ AIFD Comment: The Arab voice highlights its representative(s) and their inclusion in this meeting presenting them as tacit representatives of the local Arizona Arab community. It makes no qualms about presenting itself as the representative of the local Arabic community with a candidate for Congressional office (note the comment–‘a complete discussion of points of importance to the local Arabic community’). Interestingly, this supposition is made only to a select audience in the Arabic language. Do the Arabs in the Valley which this article purports to represent agree with or are even able to accept the political extremist positions put forth by this Arabic language Arab Voice? Does the Arab Voice and its Islamist ideology represent the majority of the local Arizona Arabic community? How aware is Congressional candidate Herb Paine, or some of our current local elected officials on both sides of the aisle and their handlers of the ideological reality of the Arab Voice? Do they know that these meetings and photo-ops are only used to demagogue an image of leadership for the Arizona Arabic community which has no other print media voice? Do they also know that this piece is positioned next to another Arabic language piece from the same publisher which is translated below and hideously compares America to a camel? Moreover, would most of the local Arizona Arabic and Muslim community if made aware, acquiesce to allowing their community to be represented by a newspaper distributing these ideologies? ———————————————————————————– [This next piece presented in its entirety also appeared in the April 2006 issue of the Arab Voice on page 3]- translation provided by AIFD. America a Camel by Ahmed Bakkadi (a feature editorial) ﾓThe camel is among Godﾒs strange creatures and the Qurﾒan ascertained exactly that when it said, ﾑdid you not see how the camels were created?ﾒ The camel is strange because it is characterized with body characteristics that are strange and behavior that is even stranger. And if you look carefully to the body structure of the camel, it starts looking like it is a combination of several creatures put together in one. His head is small out of proportion to the rest of his body which is gigantic. His neck is long and curved, and his legs are very long and bent. His stomach (sic) is big, and he has a big hump over his back and his tail is short. This is only what appears of his strange anatomy.” “His internal structures and his behavior are many and no one can explain it but a veterinarian scientist. Among the strange behaviors of the camel that he is known not to forget bad things made towards him which he holds as a deep feeling of vindictiveness against whoever hurt him and the camel is used as an example of a creature who does not know his own shortcomings while he is fast in recognizing the shortcomings of others. There are stories about the camel being sarcastic about the weak and thin structure of the neck of the deer.” “As it is known there are people who try to make similarities between animals in their shape or behavior to countries. There are some similarities between animals and people thare are used such as the elephant which is a sign for the Republican Party that governs America today.” “But it would have been better if that party and even America took the symbol of the camel because America is characterized by a lot of the characteristics of the camel that God ordered us to think of its creation. There is not enough time or place here to include all of the characteristics of the American camel but we will be satisfied to refer to the fact that America cannot, like the camel, see the curvature of its own neck. The best example of that is how America cannot see the violations of human rights while it violates the human rights of others through its military, diplomatic, and internal security agencies, like in the prison of Abu Ghraib and Guantanemo Bay and the other secret prisons in different parts of the world from Asia to Syria.” “America did not mention a letter about what it committed in violations of human rights that is so known that it became stories that were parts of the legends of the old with its familiar words and expressions.” “So did I not tell you that America is the camel that does not see the curvature of his own neck.” AIFD Comment: This feature editorial from an Arab Voice frequent columnist is obviously pedestrian and its examples are illogical and shamefully inappropriate. Its metaphors are absurdly antagonistic and are poorly contrived to say the least. More importantly and substantively, this type of grossly negative generalization about America is classic for Islamism. It dispenses with facts. It uses the tired highlights of old anti-American polemics and seeks simply to malign the image of America in the Arabic language among the Arizona Arabic community rather than educate or inform. The Islamist goal is simply to continually paint vague negative images of the ﾑgodlessﾒ secular America which is confused and animal-like in its behavior when compared to the societies represented by the fantasies of theocratic Islamists. The reality, however, is that these anti-American opinions exist in a denial vacuum where many of these local blinded Arabic language writers live. They should rather be reminded that in the entire Middle East whose despotic governments this newspaper has rarely if ever appropriately critiqued, there is not a single Arab nation where human rights have any meaning whatsoever. The Arab Voice should be ashamed of itself. Its writers need to learn from their own camel and turn their crooked head and look at their own hump. The whole world plainly sees it despite Arab columnists like this attempting to deny its existence while at the same time blaming others for having it. ——————————————————————————– This report and translation is provided as a service to our community. We pray that this type of extremism and lack of moderation in opinion does not represent the majority of Muslims and Arabs in the community. See “Why AIFD provides the ‘Arizona Islamist Media Reports” for our commentary which clearly explains our intentions in providing these reports.

Muslims in the crosshairs- Part 2 of 3

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By M. Zuhdi Jasser

Published August 3, 2006

Part two in a three-part series. published in the Washington Times

So far the ideological battle against political Islam has proven to be a fight few Muslims want to participate in. It has taken five years since September 11 for conventional wisdom to even begin to attempt to understand “moderate” Muslims let alone engage their ideology.

Far more important than a debate over who or what defines a moderate is our need in the United States to focus discussions upon the ideology of Islamism and political Islam. If radical Islamist terrorism is a means to an end, we should be pressing American Muslim leaders about where they stand regarding al Qaeda, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood or Hezbollah.

Islamism, as I see it, is an overriding philosophy of Muslims who believe in a society guided by a system of government founded upon clerical interpretations of religious law as derived from their own interpretation of the Koran and Sunnah. Argumentation within Islamist governments and parties is based upon clerical interpretations of God’s law, not upon a reasoned deduction of effectiveness of human law. No matter how moderate Islamists present themselves, they will always hold on tightly to the notion that a majority Muslim state must be identified as an “Islamic state” with clerical guidance of their society’s proximity to the Muslim path.

Islamism is clearly in direct conflict with Americanism. Yet, an Islam which is anti-Islamist is not. Americanism as Islamists see it is defined by our Constitution and our legal precedents as a system based in legislative liberty for all faiths – true pluralism. Americanism uses a language of legislative debate not derived from religious precedent or clerical interpretation of one faith, but rather from the reasoned precedent of our secular courts and legislatures. Until this great chasm of thought between Islamists and American ideology is made clear, we are actually facilitating the spread of Islamism among American Muslims.

Make no mistake. There are many Muslims who do understand that anti-theocratic societies like the United States are preferable for the free practice of their own private faith and that of all others. In fact, many Muslims are inherently anti-Islamist by virtue of being pious Muslims demanding to be free of coercion. That is why many of our families immigrated to the United States. But virtually no efforts are underway to find these Muslims, who are our greatest untapped resource since September 11.

Islam, as a personal faith, and its inherent spirituality, worship, moral code and practices can and should be looked upon as entirely separate from all that is political Islam. This is the profound challenge of anti-Islamist Muslims of this generation. While this separation is admittedly hard to find, its existence is essential to our victory in this ideological battle.

Muslim ideological moderation is not achieved by a declaration of nonviolence. It is not demonstrated by a belief in elections and representative democracy. The radical Islamists simply ride along with moderate Islamists toward the same arena. They repackage themselves as moderates while still residing within an Islamist construct.

For example, Europe’s radical, pretend moderate, Imam Yusef al-Qaradawi, the international spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Grand Islamic Scholar of Qatar, has recently been pushing for a “wasatiya” (middle way) movement, often preaching to his followers to moderate and tolerate. Yet, he continues to have the blood of American soldiers and innocent civilians in Iraq on his hands, with his endorsement of the religious legitimacy of suicide bombing in Iraq. He moderates his language for European audiences and reverts back to his fundamentalism for his Al Jazeera audiences. His fundamentalist stances are misogynistic, anti-Semitic, anti-Western, pro-Islamist and anti-freedom.

In the current American discourse, we should be curious to learn whether Muslims agree with leaders like him and why. Unless my fellow Muslims are willing to take on the likes of al-Qaradawi ideologically, they will continue to facilitate Islamism and its associated threat to American security.

When we fought the ideological battle against communism during the Cold War, was there a moderate Communist ideology? The public intellectual debate was clear that Americanism and communism were entirely incompatible. The Soviet goal for global domination was an imminent threat to our security. Similarly, the Chinese, North Vietnamese, North Koreans and Cubans, to name a few, had central conflicts with American ideology. Are we as aware of the threat posed by “moderate” Islamists regardless of their denunciation of militancy? Those who know American Muslims will tell you that the violent jihadists are a small minority of the world’s Muslim population and hard to find in our local communities. This militant minority, including members of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and others, certainly needs to be found and reckoned with swiftly and forcefully on the battlefield. However, the jihadists use barbaric methods to achieve change toward a theocratic political end – political Islam.

Political Islam, on the contrary, has great support within the Muslim population. It should be engaged relentlessly in our public arena. Only anti-Islamist Muslims can change that tide. But, for now, our private and public-sector thought leaders should first wake up and force the debate.

M. Zuhdi Jasser is chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a former Navy lieutenant commander.

Renowned Syrian Poet “Adonis”: The Arabs are Extinct, Like the Sumerians, Greeks, and Pharaohs; If the Arabs are So Inept They Cannot Be Democratic, External Intervention Will Not Make Them So

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