Rise of Islamists in Middle East increases Middle East Threat
Statement
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Rise of Islamists in Middle East increases Middle East Threat
Attack on NY Federal Reserve and killings by Al Qaeda in Libya reveal what’s to come with empowered Islamist ideologues in control
PHOENIX (October 18, 2012) – Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and author of “A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith” issued the following statement on behalf of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy on the current threat from the Middle East:
“Americans were shocked to hear of the latest attempted attack against the United States yesterday at the NY Federal Reserve Building. It came just a little over one month after elements of Al Qaeda successfully attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya killing four Americans and mobs of inflamed Muslims throughout the Middle East attacked American embassies in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. The mob successfully put a salafi flag over the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.
These attacks come in the wake of the Obama Administration presumptively claiming for weeks in campaign speeches that Al Qaeda “is on the run” and “on its heels.” This clearly is not the case and in fact the Islamist regimes that have come to power, and that the administration has embraced, are fueling extremist ideologues in the region.
All of this points again to the failure of this administration to connect the dots of extremism. Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis attack at the Federal Reserve was not done in a vacuum. The mobs that attacked our embassies were not spontaneous actions in response to a movie.
It begins with the ideology of Islamism that breeds the supremacist mindset by its adherence that they are divinely inspired. Islamism is the fertile ground for fascists to control the masses. The administration has finally admitted that the attacks in Libya had nothing to do with the film. In Egypt the mobs were not spontaneous, but rather fueled by Islamists state run TV which increased its coverage of the English language Innocence of Muslims that ultimately drove the protests. Those small Islamist mobs were not the millions of the Egyptian “Arab Spring” of 2011. The Islamist establishment of Egypt from the Muslim Brotherhood to al-Azhar University seized on the film to push an anti-western narrative against freedom of speech and liberty domestically and abroad. The direct link to militant Islamists was revealed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, a former member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood praised the protestors in Cairo as “honest and zealous.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center reported last week that Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie had made anti-Semitic statements in the Egyptian state run al Ahram newspaper, calling for a “Holy Jihad” against Israel and stating Jews spread “corruption on earth, spilled the blood of believers and in their actions profane holy places, including their own.” Badie is the spiritual leader of The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist party in power.
In a written letter taking responsibility for his attack, Nafis, like the Times Square bomber and so many others before him, stated he wanted to “destroy America.” This mindset is fed by comments like Badie’s. It is nurtured in a narrative that America is at war with Muslims and Islam.
By empowering Islamist regimes and movements, the administration has at best appeared weak and at worst facilitated movements that espouse a virulent hatred of America. Unless we change our policy, our natural allies of secular liberals in the region will turn far away from American influence and our real enemies the Islamists will only gain in strength as they invoke more acts of irrational violence and direct attacks on our home soil.”
About the American Islamic Forum for Democracy
The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD’s mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/.
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