Rep King Caves to Jihadist Pressures

King’s decision drew quick criticism from Steve Emerson, the executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, who sent the Long Island Republican a strongly worded letter this morning:

Your interview with Politico announcing that I am not going to be a witness came as a shock to me especially in light of the fact that I have been told over and over and over again that no witnesses had been selected. I have dutifully worked with your staff in trying to help you prepare for these meetings but obviously you don’t need my input. To be told over and over again for more than 8 weeks that no witnesses had been selected, beyond having worked with you and your staff for the last 8 years, only to read your interview yesterday, shows me that calculated deception is at play here. I apologize for having to use those words but there is no other explanation.

Emerson continues:

During the days of Senator McCarthy, innocent writers were blacklisted and had to write under pseudonyms because of fear from the accusations of the dictatorial Senator. That you have caved in to the demands of radical Islamists in removing me as a witness, in light of the fact that no one in this country has done more empirical investigations about the attitudes and statements of the established Muslim leadership, shows me, to my utter horror, that McCarthyism is still alive today. Don’t take my word about my qualifications; just ask FBI agents, DOJ prosecutors, DHS agents, Treasury investigators, NYPD ct officials, etc.

Glenn Beck Attacks Social Justice

When Glenn Beck vilifies “social justice” as a “perversion of the Gospel” and slanders churches and pastors as “Nazis” for pursuing it, he too is trespassing a bright line. The Fox News personality—who rants and weeps like the late Joseph McCarthy, a fellow alcoholic—urges his listeners to run away from any congregation where social justice is preached. He instructs them to denounce any pastor who even mentions the term. He even held up pictures of a swastika and a hammer and sickle to somehow demonstrate that “social justice” is a code phrase whose hidden meaning is identical to Nazism and communism.
Poor Beck evidently does not realize that his own Mormon church is deeply committed to the social justice teachings of the Gospels—or that the Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and adherents of other faiths in this country all share similar values on that question. By attacking them, in his megalomania and ignorance, he has ripped into an ethical tradition that unites our country.
The best historical parallel to these extremist trespasses can be found back in the 1950s, when McCarthy, the John Birch Society and other elements of the far right were riding high. What brought them down were their excesses: in McCarthy’s case, when he and his staff sought to implicate the United States Army in the communist conspiracy; and in the case of the Birchers, when they proclaimed that President Dwight Eisenhower and the Supreme Court, among other august persons and institutions, were wittingly aiding the communists.
Our current crop of crazies is approaching that point of no return—and if we are fortunate, they will keep going.
Joe Conason writes for The New York Observer

A Jewish Confusion

Warmongering Jews use McCarthyite tactics that advance the notion that the Holocaust was ‘God’s Will’ for the Jews. They believe that all Israelis must die to usher in the End of Days [the death of mankind and the coming of the Messiah].

“UPDATE IV: One of the points which the Haaretz Editorial made in opposing the exclusion of Finkelstein is that right-wing Jewish-American extremists who, unlike Finkelstein, do pose a real security threat, are regularly allowed entry into Israel: "the decision is all the more surprising when one recalls the ease with which right-wing activists from the Meir Kahane camp -- the kind whose activities pose a security threat that no longer requires further proof -- are able to enter the country."

At Open Left, Paul Rosenberg examines an analogous inequity: while even the mildest critics of Israel on the Left are routinely demonized by neocons as "anti-Israeli" or "anti-Semitic," truly extreme hatemongers on the Right -- such as John Hagee -- are not only tolerated but embraced. Thus, Joe Lieberman, who previously compared Hagee to "Moses" in the midst of bathing Hagee with lavish praise, still refuses to repudiate Hagee or cancel his scheduled appearance at a Hagee event even in the wake of Hagee's comments that Hitler and the Holocaust were "God's will" to drive Jews back to Israel. Few things are more destructive than those like Lieberman who transparently exploit "anti-Israel" and "anti-Semitism" accusations to silence debate and for their own political gain.”

-- Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

Bush Mars Israel's Birthday and Insults Her People

Bush Attempts to Frighten Israelis as He Does with Americans

Bush Suggests Obama is an Appeaser

Ed Henry, CNN

JERUSALEM (CNN) – President Bush launched a sharp but veiled attack Thursday on Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats, suggesting they favor "appeasement" of terrorists in the same way some Western leaders appeased Hitler in the run-up to World War II.

The president did not name Obama or any other Democrat, but White House aides privately acknowledged the remarks were aimed at the presidential candidate and others in his party. Former President Jimmy Carter has called for talks with Hamas.

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said at Israel's 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to Israel's parliament, the Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

The remarks seemed to be a not-so-subtle attempt to continue to raise doubts about Obama with Jewish Americans. Those doubts were earlier stoked by Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2008 presidential election, when he recently charged that Obama is the favored candidate of the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas, which the U.S. government has listed as a terrorist group.

Obama last week called the Hamas allegation a "smear" and lashed out Thursday at Bush's speech in Israel.

Note: Anyone interested in Barack’s eloquent refutation of Mr Bush’s remarks has several links to them.

Mr Bush chose our 60^th birthday to launch his tired propaganda. Since his political party may cease to exist shortly, he desires justification and institutionalization of preemptive war as a replacement for diplomacy.

Others have tried this approach – including the Emperor of Japan, Mussolini and Hitler – only to fail miserably.

Targeting these villains by attacking anyone who would argue with them is the coward’s way out. Mr Bush is afraid to confront his supposed adversaries man to man so to speak. He hides behind two oceans, the US Navy and 27,000 nuclear weapons.

The POTUS operates in the style of Senator Joe McCarthy. His fear mongering reduces the US populace to so much putty unable to resist his control or question his guidance.

The POTUS has been assured by his Jewish American henchmen his scare tactics will work in Israel.

They are wrong, because the dangers Israelis face are real and omnipresent. We have lost 27,000 citizens in nine wars and endless terrorist attacks. Armed guards search everyone before he enters a public institution. The people do not congregate in shopping malls etc. We do not make easy targets; we carry firearms. Almost everyone has served in the military.

American fears are of the most harmful kind. They are imaginary. They are the product of press agents, media hacks and armchair Pentagon warriors.

There is no such thing as a war on terror.

Lieberman's Muslim Bashing Senate Report

Islamophobia: the Latest McCarthy Straw Man

Lieberman’s Muslim Bashing Senate Report

Chip Berlet, Huffington Post

A bigoted bombshell was lobbed from Inside the Beltway last Thursday when the Senate Committee on Homeland Security under the "leadership" of Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman and ranking Republican Susan Collins. The report, "Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorism Threat," (PDF) combines Muslim bashing with suggestions that would further undermine Consitutional rights in the United States.

Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, summarized the ACLU response to the awful Lieberman/Collins Senate Committee report:

Though the need to prevent criminal acts of violence is unquestionable, targeting communities based on religious beliefs is unacceptable and unproductive. We will only end up stigmatizing the Islamic community and creating a nation of Islamophobes. We should not be legislating against thought and we should certainly not be regulating religious or unpopular thought. A dynamic debate can only make this country stronger and safer. (More here)

Is Islamophobia something to worry about? I think so. Islamophobia has been simmering of the back burner of Campaign 2008 for some time.

Take the case of Debbie Almontaser in New York. There are lots of statistics and studies, but sometimes a personal story is the best illustration of a problem.

Almontaser was removed as the principal of a new Arab language public school in New York City in 2007. She was thrown to the circling wolves by her own union and the NYC department of education.

Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Almontaser explains that she began to "help safeguard my Arab, Muslim, and South Asian neighbors in Brooklyn." Aha! Typical! After all, Almontaser is an Arab Muslim immigrant from Yemen. What do you expect? Well, expect more, because Almontaser had already spent years working with a "group of Jews, Palestinians, Muslims, Christians, and others who meet on a monthly basis to talk about world issues and give each other a sense of hope and support. Immediately after September 11, some members of the dialogue called to check up on how my family and I were doing. Based on the concerns and issues I raised, I was invited by these members to go to their churches and synagogues and to speak on behalf of the Arab-American and Muslim communities in Brooklyn."

What got Almontaser fired? She became the target of right-wing media fanatics who used her to whip up fears of terrorist Muslims teaching children to become suicide bombers.

The New York Post and New York Sun led the attacks. Sun columnist Alicia Colon was especially nasty: "So whose insane idea was it to have an Arabic public school in Brooklyn open this September? Are they out of their minds? Have they learned nothing from the Netherlands about the danger of pandering to multiculturalism?"

When I first heard of this proposed school, I thought it was a joke. But then I read Daniel Pipes's column about this disguised 'madrassa' and discovered who the major principals were. Now I can't dispel this feeling of disbelief and outrage. This proposal is utter madness, considering that five years after September 11, ground zero is still a hole in the ground and we're bending over backwards to appease those sympathetic to individuals who would destroy us again. Smart, really smart.

In one online essay, Daniel Pipes, a scholar and anti-Islamic pundit, claimed that Almontaser said, "Arabs or Muslims...are innocent of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001."

The actual quote? Almontaser said "I don't recognize the people who committed the attacks as either Arabs or Muslims.... Those people who did it have stolen my identity as an Arab and have stolen my religion."

The bigoted media feeding frenzy was a disgrace. Months later the New York Times did the right thing and published a thoughtful article titled "Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School" (online here).

The Bush administration policies in the Middle East have been a disaster, and part of the blowback has been a tragic escalation of both Islamophobic and antisemitic rhetoric in volitile political debates. Muslims are portrayed as a barbarous, tribal force prompting a "Clash of Civiliaztions" in the analysis by Samuel Huntington. Jews loyal to Israel are said to be controlling U.S. foreign policy through the U.S. neoconservative movement and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. The lurid and bigoted claims wash across the Internet. Such xenophobia and stereotyping has no place in a country that aspires to be a real democracy.

Debbie Almontaser was engaged in working in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities to challenge stereotypes and build bridges across communites. There are several initiatives across the country twinning the issues of Islamophobia and antisemitism. Almontaser, an early leader in such efforts has been slapped down by fanatics. Almontaser is still fighting to clear her name and regain her position in the courts. (Read more about Almontaser and an earlier Witch Hunt here)

It is into this target rich political environment of fear and xenophobia that Lieberman and Collins toss their bombshell report. And they promise more to come. More than fifty years ago, a lawyer representing another target of a political witch hunt confronted the head of an earlier Senate committee: "You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"

History may be repeating itself. Time will tell, and history will judge our response.