Tag Archives: CAIR

Double Games: It’s not just Pakistan

Americans have had a rude awakening. The military’s liquidation of Osama bin Laden a few days ago in a million-dollar, heavily secured compound close by a Pakistani military academy has brought home to many what had previously been understood by only a few: One of the nations officially deemed a key ally in the so-called "War on Terror" has been playing us for fools.

It is called a double game and here’s how you play it: First, you cooperate in some respects with the United States in countering the "terrorists" the Americans seek to capture, kill, or at least neutralize. In return, you get paid handsomely for it – in the case of Pakistan, that translates into an annual U.S. allotment of some $3 billion and access to American intelligence, weapons, and political support. In parallel, however, you systematically sabotage the whole effort by cooperating extensively with our enemies, some of whom you support, more or less directly.

Pakistan happens to be a particularly egregious example of the phenomenon. For decades, Pakistani officials – notably in Islamabad’s intelligence agency, the ISI – have been tied to and supportive of Islamists at home and in neighboring nations. Without such assistance, the international campaign led by the United States aimed at liberating and securing Afghanistan would likely have been considerably more successful and vastly less costly.

Bin Laden’s hiding-in-plain-sight lair 35 miles from the Pakistani capital has become the most glaring example of an endemic problem: the safe havens and other forms of protection Pakistan has afforded to those seeking to murder Americans.  Denials, such as that of the Pakistani president in Monday’s Washington Post, are, to put it charitably, unpersuasive.

To varying degrees, U.S. allies elsewhere in the so-called "Muslim world" have also engaged in double games with us. For example, the Saudis have helped counter al-Qaeda inside their kingdom, even as they fund its operations and those of others, like the Muslim Brotherhood, who share the violent jihadists’ goal of imposing the politico-military-legal program known as shariah under a global ruler, the caliph.

Similarly, throughout his 30-year rule, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak maintained a cold peace with Israel and "cooperated" by sharing terrorism-related intelligence, for which his country received lavish U.S. funding and advanced armaments. Yet, he also allowed his state-controlled media, mosques, and educational system to fan rabid anti-Semitism and anti-Western sentiment. Thanks in part to this indoctrination, Egypt’s "awakening" is likely to translate into an open-ended nightmare, as the Brotherhood parlays such popular attitudes into an electoral mandate and then begins enforcing shariah.

Unfortunately, the dangers associated with relying upon such manifestly unreliable "allies" are greatly compounded by official Washington’s own version of the double game. At the same time successive administrations have waged what President Obama called Sunday "the war against al-Qaeda," cabinet officers, law enforcement personnel, military leaders, and intelligence operatives have systematically engaged in "outreach" to the Muslim-American community via known U.S.-based Muslim Brotherhood front organizations. In so doing, these groups have been legitimated, enabled to engage in successful influence operations, and emboldened in their bid to achieve the same end-state to which al-Qaeda and other violent jihadists aspire: our submission to shariah.

Now, we know (from, among other sources, evidence entered into evidence uncontested in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism conspiracy trial in Texas) that the Brotherhood in the United States has as its mission "eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within." Accordingly, after the first round of prosecutions in that case were successfully concluded, the U.S. attorney in Dallas sought permission from the Justice Department to indict several senior Muslim Brotherhood figures who had been previously listed as unindicted co-conspirators.

Washington’s version of the double game is evident in the Justice Department’s rejection of that request. Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged that his department had taken that step, but claimed that he was simply following the lead of the Bush administration before him. The fact that the Bush 43 team was also guilty of playing the double game is no excuse. That is especially the case since, as former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy has decisively explained, in the aftermath of the convictions of the first five Holy Land defendants, the case for charging Omar Ahmed of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other alleged co-conspirators is considerably stronger today than it was back in 2004.

Abraham Lincoln famously observed that "a house divided cannot stand."  The same can be said of a government or nation that seeks simultaneously to defeat an enemy and assist it. The United States cannot safely rely on other nations who behave in that fashion. And it certainly cannot continue to behave that way itself.

Originally posted at Pajamas Media

Enabling the Muslim Brotherhood in America

The Muslim Brotherhood’s mask is slipping in Egypt.  Small "d" democrats there and elsewhere are alarmed by top Brotherhood officials who now aver openly what has been utterly predictable:  Once in power they will impose shariah – the totalitarian, supremacist politico-military-legal program practiced in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Somalia, Sudan and increasingly elsewhere.

The prospect that the most populous Arab nation – one that sits astride the strategic Suez Canal and has a vast American-supplied arsenal – is heading in such an ominous direction is made all the more remarkable since evidence continues to accumulate that the Obama administration has been enabling the rise of the Ikhwan (as the Muslim Brotherhood, or MB, is known in Arabic).  Consider a few data points:

  • In May 2009, President Obama insisted that MB representatives be prominently in attendance when he addressed "the Muslim world" at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University.  As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has observed,  the message of American legitimization of the Brotherhood was unmistakable.
  • Wikileaked cables make clear that the U.S. government was working with Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition parties to bring down the Mubarak government long before the so-called "Arab Spring" of 2011.
  • Within days of demonstrations erupting in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt, President Obama was calling for his Egyptian counterpart’s immediate removal from power – the sort of statement he has studiously refrained from making in Iran or Syria where demonstrations have gone on longer, and been far more bloodily repressed.

The cumulative effect of such actions has been to encourage events and a vacuum of power that predictably would redound primarily to the benefit of the most organized, disciplined and ruthless faction.  In Egypt – as in much of the Muslim world – that is the Muslim Brotherhood.

It seems that Team Obama’s enthusiasm for the Ikhwan in Egypt is neither an isolated event nor an accident.  As the Center for Security Policy’s recently released Shariah: The Threat to America illuminates, the Brotherhood has since 1963 operated a growing number of front organizations tasked with mounting highly effective influence operations in the United States. According to the MB’s own strategic plan, their mission here is "a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within." 

In the past week, we have been given chilling insights into the success of such operations by Justice Department officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to one of Shariah: The Threat‘s co-authors, counter-terrorism expert Patrick Poole.  In two different articles published at Pajamas Media, we learn how U.S. government "outreach" to the Muslim-American community has become a vehicle for empowering and protecting enemies of this country – and affording them opportunities they systematically exploit with the goal of "destroying [us] from within."

Of particular concern is Poole’s revelation that political appointees in the Obama-Holder Justice Department have been responsible for "quashing" the prosecution of some of the Brotherhood’s operatives and organizations.  According to one DoJ source, the reason the U.S. Attorney in Dallas was not allowed to pursue the planned indictment of MB individuals and entities previously listed as Unindicted Co-Conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial was "a political decision from the get-go."  The source added: "The administration would look like absolute fools. It’s kind of hard to prosecute someone on material support for terrorism when you have pictures of them getting handed awards from DoJ and FBI leaders for their supposed counter-terror efforts."

This act of what appears, at best, to be obstruction of justice may not be an isolated incident.  In his April 16 column at National Review Online, Andy McCarthy surmises that the suppression of the Holy Land 2.0 prosecution and the absence subsequently of any similar efforts to stop material support for terrorism could have their roots in the President’s 2009 paean to Islamists and other Muslims in Cairo.

On that occasion, Mr. Obama promised to ease U.S. "rules on charitable giving [that] have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation" of zakat (or tithing).  Yet, McCarthy rightly notes the only "rules" that might fit that description are ones prohibiting funding of terrorism – a "charitable" contribution shariah requires its adherents to make – and it appears that Team Obama no longer will enforce them.

If there is any good news, it is that Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) last week became the latest congressional leader to launch a series of hearings aimed at examining the Muslim Brotherhood, abroad and here. In an interview on Secure Freedom Radio Monday, she made clear her intention to have the Terrorism Subcommittee of the House Intelligence Committee clarify the true nature of the Ikhwan and to explore, if necessary in classified sessions, its successes in penetrating and influencing our government. Chairman Myrick said, "I am very concerned how this is all playing out internally….This something that most people don’t have a clue…it’s not on their radar screen….This will undermine our way of life if we don’t get a handle on it."

It is indeed time to "get a handle" on the Muslim Brotherhood and the threat it poses to "our way of life."  The place to start is with rigorous congressional investigations of the Ikhwan‘s myriad front organizations and the effectiveness of their influence operations in warping our understanding of the threat they pose and in thwarting our efforts to defeat it.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

 

Misprision of Treason: Top DOJ officials abandon CAIR terror finance prosecutions

It is a felony offense to know or have reason to know that seditious activity is underway and do nothing about it.  The term used in the U.S. Code for such a crime is “misprision of treason.”  Counterterrorism expert Patrick Poole reveals today that political appointees in the Obama-Holder Justice Department would appear, at a minimum, to be candidates for prosecution for obstruction of justice and perhaps guilty of violating this statute.

In a Pajamas Media article headlined “Did Obama and Holder Scuttle Terror Finance Prosecutions?”, Poole reports that two Justice Department sources confirm that the decision not to prosecute unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial was taken “at the top” of the department, not by the federal prosecutors in Dallas who had secured convictions of five HLF officials and had planned next to put away their helpmates.

As a result, one of the most prominent and problematic of those listed by the prosecution – the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas front known as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) – has not only been allowed to continue to run its  influence operations in Washington and elsewhere across the country.   It has been free to enjoy what is, if anything, even greater access to and influence over the Obama administration than it enjoyed during previous presidencies.

A book published late last year by Patrick Poole and eighteen other national security professionals, Shariah: The Threat to America, documents how such access advances the Muslim Brotherhood’s mission in this country of waging a kind of “grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.”  As it happens, just yesterday, Chairwoman Sue Myrick (R-NC) convened the first of what she says will be a series of House Intelligence subcommittee hearings aimed at investigating the Brotherhood and its operations, here and abroad.

One of the most chilling passages of Poole’s article is a quote from a DoJ official who, on condition of anonymity, came forward with confirmation of this scandal:

This is a national security issue. We know that these Muslim leaders and groups are continuing to raise money for Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Ten years ago we shut down the Holy Land Foundation. It was the right thing to do. Then the money started going to KindHearts. We shut them down too. Now the money is going through groups like Islamic Relief and Viva Palestina. Until we act decisively to cut off the financial pipeline to these terrorist groups by putting more of these people in prison, they are going to continue to raise money that will go into the hands of killers. And until Congress starts grilling the people inside DOJ and the FBI who are giving these groups cover, that is not going to change. My biggest fear is that Americans are going to die and it will be the very Muslim leaders we are working with who will be directly or indirectly responsible.

It is high time Congress starts “grilling the people inside DOJ and the FBI who are giving these groups cover.”  If the facts warrant impeachment and prosecution on misprision of treason or other grounds, so be it.

 

Frank Gaffney: New York State Senate Testimony

On April 8, Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney testified before the New York Senate’s Homeland Security and Military Affairs Committee regarding New York’s readiness for another terrorist attack in the shadow of the World Trade Center site in Manhattan.

At the invitation of Sen. Greg Ball, Gaffney delivered a sharp and concise picture of the penetration of Muslim Brotherhood and other Shariah-adherent organizations in the United States, highlighting both the violent Jihad as well as the stealthier “civilization Jihad” these groups are engaged in. Rep. Peter King and Nonie Darwish of Former Muslims United were among the other experts called to testify. Representing the opposition view were representatives of CAIR and the Arab American Association of New York. Gaffney held up the book Shariah: the Threat to America as a comprehensive guide to the threats that Shariah-adherent Islam pose to the state of New York and the nation.

 

Misinformation on Shariah from the Center for American Progress

On 31 March, the leftist Center for American Progress (CAP) released a document called Understanding Sharia Law. In that document, the authors asserted that "conservatives’ skewed interpretation" of Sharia law "needs debunking." It is actually the Center for American Progress that exhibits profound confusion when it comes to Shariah.

The fact is, Shariah is the enemy threat doctrine in the war being waged by the Jihadists against the rest of the world. CAP’s irrelevant assertion that Shariah is "not static" and that there is "no one thing called shariah," notwithstanding, the most ridiculous evidence that CAP cites to attempt to put Americans at ease about what is essentially a barbaric code of life is that: "Sharia is overwhelmingly concerned with personal religious observance such as prayer and fasting, and not with national laws."

Before we get into the actual evidence refuting CAP’s enabling of the enemy threat doctrine by declaring it benign, we first should analyze the gist of CAP’s analysis of shariah. By declaring that shariah is not static and that there is no one shariah, they have essentially made any interpretation or analysis of shariah impossible. According to this theory, anything that paints shariah in a negative light can be declared either outdated or not accepted by Muslims.

Unfortunately for CAP, we have written evidence that contradicts their salacious statements about the Jihadists’ threat doctrine.

That evidence comes in the form of a book called Reliance of the Traveler: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law. Originally written in 1368 by Islamic scholar Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, the book was translated into English by Nuh Ha Mim Keller in 1991. It has since been reprinted 5 times and is available on Amazon.com for anyone to purchase.

Lest you think that a book written 700 years ago has no bearing on today, think again. Reliance of the Traveler is one of the world’s most widely circulated references on the shariah law that CAP basically claims does not exist and the organizations that have endorsed it are hardly fringe elements.

The first several pages of the book contain endorsements by Islamic authorities from across the Muslim world: Abd al-Wakil Durubi (Imam of the Mosque of Darwish Pasha, Damascus, Syria); Nuh Ali Salman (Mufti of the Jordanian Armed Forces); Dr. Taha Jabir al-Alwani (President of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, Member of Islamic Fiqh Academy at Jedda, President of the Fiqh Council of North America); and Fath Allah Ya Sin Jazar (General Director of Research, Writing and Translation, Al Azhar Islamic Research Academy, Cairo, Egypt).

The IIIT is one of the most influential Muslim juridical organizations in the entire world. The Islamic Fiqh Academy of Jedda is one of the most influential educational institutions in the Muslim world for shariah scholars. And the Fiqh Council of North America serves in a similar capacity for the US and Canada. But none of these can compare to Al Azhar in Cairo. Al Azhar is nothing less than the premiere Islamic university in the entire world.

Reliance makes allowance for the various fiqhs, or schools of shariah jurisprudence under Sunni and Shia Islam and provides an amalgamation of them for reference. Here are excerpts of what this authoritative work on Islamic sacred law has to say about several vital issues according to Shariah law:

Charging One’s Wife With Adultery

Public imprecation consists of the Islamic magistrate telling the husband to repeat four times,"I testify by Allah that I am truthful in charging her with adultery" though if she is present he says,"this wife of mine," and points to her. The fifth time, after the magistrate warns him, enjoins him to fear Allah, and after he has put his hand in front of the husband’s mouth, the husband adds,"And may the curse of Allah be upon me if I am lying."

When the husband has done this, …his wife is divorced from him…She is now liable to be punished for adultery.
 

Dealing With a Rebellious Wife

When a husband notices signs of rebelliousness in his wife, he warns her in words without keeping from her or hitting her, for it may be that she has an excuse. The warning could be to tell her: "Fear Allah concerning the rights you owe to me."

If she commits rebelliousness, he keeps from sleeping with her without words, and may hit her, but not in a way that injures her.

It is not lawful for a wife to leave the house except by permission of her husband, though she may do so without permission when there is pressing necessity. Nor may a wife permit anyone to enter her husband’s home unless he agrees, even their unmarriageable kin. Nor may she be alone with a nonfamily-member male, under any circumstances.

It is obligatory for a wife to obey her husband as is customary in allowing him full lawful sexual enjoyment of her person.

 

Jihad and The Rules of Warfare

Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the world mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion.

 

The Obligatory Nature of Jihad

Jihad is a communal obligation. When enough people perform it to successfully accomplish it, it is no longer obligatory upon others.

… He who provides the equipment for a soldier in jihad has himself performed jihad.

… Jihad is personally obligatory upon all those present in the battle lines provided one is able to fight.

… Jihad is also obligatory for everyone able to perform it, male or female, old or young.

 

The Rules of Warfare

It is not permissible in jihad to kill women or children unless they are fighting against the Muslims. It is permissible to kill old men, meaning someone more than forty years of age and monks.

… When a child or woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture and the women’s previous marriage is immediately annulled.

 

The Penalty for Theft

A person’s right hand is amputated, whether he is a Muslim, non-Muslim subject of the Islamic state, or someone who has left Islam.

… If a person steals a second time, his left foot is amputated; if a third time, then his left hand; and if he steals again, then his right foot.

 

Apostasy from Islam

Leaving Islam is the ugliest form of unbelief and the worst. It may come about through sarcasm, as when someone is told, "Trim your nails, it is sunna," and he replies, "I would not do it even if it were."

… When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed.

… Someone raised among Muslims who denies the obligatoriness of the prayer, zakat, fasting Ramadan, the pilgrimage, or the unlawfulness of wine and adultery, or denies something else upon which there is scholarly consensus and which is necessarily known as being of the religion thereby becomes an unbeliever and is executed for his unbelief.

 
There are many other examples in the 1200+ page book and I urge everyone to obtain a copy of Reliance of the Traveler yourself to verify the truly all-encompassing nature of Shariah to see if the Center for American Progress is correct in the assertion that "Sharia is overwhelmingly concerned with personal religious observance such as prayer and fasting, and not with national laws."

To close out this article and to offer further evidence of Shariah as the enemy threat doctrine, I offer these quotes from some infamous, but not insignificant, Muslims about the importance of Shariah to their Jihad. For one reason or another, their view of Shariah does not match that supposed by the Center for American Progress. We ignore their views on Shariah at our peril.

 

 Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda Ideologue:

  • The sharia has forbidden us from taking infidels as confidants, inducting them into our secrets.
  • The sharia forbids us from appointing infidels to important posts.
  • The sharia forbids us from adopting or praising the beliefs and views of the infidels.
  • The sharia forbids us from assisting infidels against Muslims; even the one who is coerced has no excuse to fight under the banner of the infidels.
  • The sharia commands us to battle infidels–both original infidels and apostates, as well as hypocrites. As for waging jihad against the infidels who have usurped the lands of Islam, this is a duty considered second only to faith, by ulemaic consensus.
  • The sharia does not accept the excuses made by hypocrites–that they befriend the infidels because they fear the vicissitudes of time.
  • We are duty-bound by the sharia to help Muslims overcome the infidels.
  • Democracy is based on the principle of the power of creatures over other creatures, and rejects the principle of God’s absolute power over all creatures; it is also based on the idea that men’s desires, whatever they may be, replace God absolutely, and on the refusal to obey God’s law. In Islam, when there is a disagreement or a difference of opinion, one refers to God, his Prophet, and the commands of sharia.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hizballah: 

  • From the point of view of ideology and sharia, we are required to establish God’s rule over any part of this earth, regardless of particularities and details. This can only happen, however, if the nation adopts this ideology and safeguards it.

Ayatollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1979-1989)

  • The laws of the shari’a embrace a diverse body of laws and regulations, which amounts to a complete social system. In this system of laws, all the needs of man have been met: his dealings with his neighbors, fellow citizens, and clan, as well as children and relatives; the concerns of private and marital life; regulations concerning war and peace and intercourse with other nations; penal and commercial law; and regulations pertaining to trade and agriculture.
  • Reason also dictates that we establish a government in order to be able to ward off aggression and to defend the honor of the Muslims in case of attack. The shari’a, for its part, instructs us to be constantly ready to defend ourselves against those who wish to attack us. 
  • It will be the duty of the Muslims to engage in an armed jihad against the ruling group in order to make the policies ruling society and the norms of government conform to the principles and ordinances of Islam.
  • If the enemy attacks the lands of the Muslims or their borders, it is the duty of all Muslims to defend them by any means possible, including the sacrificing of one’s life and the expenditure of one’s wealth. With respect to this matter, there is no need to seek the permission from a shari’a judge.

Osama Bin Laden, founder of Al Qaeda

  • Regarding which shared understandings, exactly, is it possible that we agree with the immoral West?… What commonalities, if our foundations contradict, rendering useless the shared extremities-if they even exist? For practically everything valued by the immoral West is condemned under sharia law. As for this atmosphere of shared understandings, what evidence is there for Muslims to strive for this? What did the Prophet, the Companions after him, and the righteous forebears do? Did they wage jihad against the infidels, attacking them all over the earth, in order to place them under the suzerainty of Islam in great humility and submission? Or did they send messages to discover "shared understandings" between themselves and the infidels in order that they may reach an understanding whereby universal peace, security, and natural relations would spread-in such a satanic manner as this? The sharia provides a true and just path, securing Muslims, and providing peace to the world.
  • …Offensive Jihadis (are) an established and basic tenet of this religion. It is a religious duty rejected only by the most deluded. So how can they call off this religious obligation [Offensive Jihad], while imploring the West to understandings and talks "under the umbrella of justice, morality, and rights"? The essence of all this comes from right inside the halls of the United Nations, instead of the Divine foundations that are built upon hating the infidels, repudiating them with tongue and teeth till they embrace Islam or pay the jizya [tribute] with willing submission and humility…. Muslims, and especially the learned among them, should spread sharia law to the world-that and nothing else. Not laws under the "umbrella of justice, morality, and rights" as understood by the masses. No, the sharia of Islam is the foundation.
  • They say that our sharia does not impose our particular beliefs upon others; this is a false assertion. For it is, in fact, part of our religion to impose our particular beliefs upon others.
  • Thus whoever refuses the principle of terror[ism] against the enemy also refuses the commandment of Allah the Exalted, the Most High, and His sharia.

Soros, Obama & ‘Responsibility to Protect’

Earlier this week, Frank Gaffney appeared on Fox Business News with Eric Bolling to discuss the civil war in Libya. First, Aaron Klein of WND reports on Obama national security adviser Samantha Power’s relationship with far-leftist George Soros and their common affinity for the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ provision in the UN’s Libya resolution. The left correctly sees this ‘Responsibility to Protect’ at least as a blow to American sovereignty; it’s time all Americans get to know the implications of this dangerous new precedent.

Also featured in the clip is San Francisco attorney Yasser Tabbara, appearing as a representative for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted coconspirator in the largest terrorist finance trial in American history. Tabbara– just back from Egypt– accuses Frank of demonizing the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

New Study on Hate Crimes Debunks the Myth of a Growing Trend in Muslim Victimization

The Center for Security Policy today released a revised edition of their groundbreaking longitudinal study, Religious Bias Crimes 2000-2009: Muslim, Jewish and Christian Victims –  Debunking the Myth of a Growing Trend in Muslim Victimization, based on FBI statistics reported annually in the Uniform Crime Reporting Program. The Center’s study contradicts the assertions that religious bias crimes against Muslims have increased, and that the alleged cause is widespread “Islamophobia” in America.  In fact, the study shows that religious bias crimes – also known as hate crimes – against Muslim Americans, measured by the categories of incidents, offenses or victims, have remained relatively low with a downward trend since 2001, and are significantly less than the numbers of bias crimes against Jewish victims.

The Center’s study also contradicts the assumption of increased hate crimes against Muslims which has been asserted by Senator Richard Durbin’s (D-IL) Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, and is the topic of hearings being held today.  Printed copies of the study were delivered to each member of the U.S. Senate early this morning.

According to the Center’s analysis, in 2009, Jewish victims of hate crimes outnumbered Muslim victims by more than 8 to 1 (1,132 Jewish victims to 132 Muslim victims). From 2000 through 2009, for every one hate crime incident against a Muslim, there were six hate crime incidents against Jewish victims (1,580 Muslim incidents versus 9,692 Jewish incidents).  Even in 2001 when religious bias crimes against Muslims increased briefly for a nine-week period, total anti-Muslim incidents, offenses and victims remained approximately half of the corresponding anti-Jewish totals.

The study provides hard data that disproves the counterfactual statements made by a small number of highly vocal Muslim lobbying groups, many linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as leftwing activists.   Citing these false assumptions concerning America’s alleged “Islamophobia” and a supposed rising trend in hate crimes against Muslim Americans, these organizations  argued against holding the March 10, 2011 House Committee on Homeland Security hearings on Muslim American radicalization, and have argued for today’s hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution.  The study shows that these arguments against the March 10 hearings, and for today’s March 29 hearings, are not based on facts but rather on a political agenda.

Frank Gaffney, President of Center for Security Policy remarked:

This report is important because it exposes a false belief perpetuated by a few vocal groups that religious bias crimes against Muslims are on the upswing.  The truth is quite the opposite.  These arguments, unsubstantiated by hard factual data, are corrosive to community relationships at every level of American society, and a potential threat to national security.

Note: This Center for Security Policy Occasional Paper is available as a PDF, or is reprinted below.

 

Religious Bias Crimes (2000-2009): Muslim, Christian & Jewish Victims – Debunking the Myth of a Growing Trend in Muslim Victimization

Clare M. Lopez, Roland Peer & Christine Brim

 

Introduction

Misperceptions about religious bias hate crimes in America are widespread.  This study is a longitudinal comparison of religious bias hate crimes, as reported by the FBI, from the pre-9/11 year of 2000 through 2009, the most recent year for which statistics were available.[1]  The assertion that religious bias hate crimes against one group in particular, Muslims in America, have proliferated in the years since the attacks of September 11, 2001 has gained acceptance within media and government, thanks to a steady drumbeat of assertions to this effect from a small but vocal group of advocacy organizations.

Internationally, the most aggressive of these is the 57 member state Organization of the Islamic Conference, with its so-called “Islamophobia Observatory.” In the U.S., the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)[2] and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)[3] have taken the lead in issuing claims that discrimination and religious bias hate crimes against Muslims are increasing.[4]  These organizations have also asserted that “Islamophobia” and statements critical of Islam, Shariah law, or political Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood may be linked to the alleged rise in hate crimes.  Alternatively, counterterrorism expert Steve Emerson has suggested “In advancing the notion that government policy has resulted in an undeserved backlash against ordinary Muslims, CAIR seeks to muster opposition to the anti-terror laws it finds objectionable.”[5]

To inform this public debate about religious bias hate crimes in America, the Center for Security Policy analyzed data from 2000 through 2009 for three FBI-identified victim groups: Jews, Muslims, and Christians (a combined statistic for the purposes of this whitepaper, combining separate FBI data for Catholics and Protestants). The source of all the religion bias crimes information cited in the following report is the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program,[6] which collects crime statistics on an annual basis and presents them online. Appendices B-T at the end of this report present those official FBI statistics in tables and charts showing the comparative incidence of religious hate crimes for Christians, Jews, and Muslims from 2000-2009.

The results may prove surprising to those who took CAIR or MPAC spokesmen at their word. For example, in 2009[7], in totals for a combined five categories of hate crime, from Simple Assault to Crimes Against Property, Jewish victims of hate crimes by religion outnumbered Muslim victims by more than 8 to 1 (1,132 Jewish victims to 132 Muslim victims). Nor is 2009 an anomalous year in terms of these numbers. Across the decade, from 2000 through 2009, Jewish victims of hate crimes by religion outnumbered their Christian and Muslim counterparts, with the exception of a nine-week period following the 9/11 terrorist acts for two categories of bias crimes: simple and aggravated assaults statistics.[8]   From 2000 through 2009, for every one hate crime incident against a Muslim, there were six hate crime incidents against Jewish victims (1,580 Muslim incidents versus 9,692 Jewish incidents).

The Center for Security Policy presents this study to inform the dialogue surrounding religious bias crimes in the U.S. and to provide a fact-based resource that analysts, researchers, and citizens can use for a reality check.

Prior Research

Although a number of European academics and institutes (particularly the British[9]) have produced studies on the general topic of “Islamophobia” in the years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, few Americans have tackled “hate crimes” from the objective perspective of a neutral academic and empirical study based on the available FBI statistics. Two studies are representative, though unlike our study, neither is a longitudinal study encompassing a ten-year period.

Jeffrey Kaplan, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh authored a report entitled, “Islamophobia in America?: September 11 and Islamophobic Hate Crime.”[10] Although this report does reference FBI hate crime statistics, it does so only for the period from 2000-2002, as Kaplan’s study focus is that period of time just after the September 11 attacks on the U.S. He concludes that “The intense phase of these attacks comprised approximately nine weeks, after which the number of hate crimes fell sharply” due, he writes, to national leadership from the U.S. president, decisive law enforcement intervention, grassroots outreach to Muslim communities across the country, and a “rapid dissolution of American moral certainty about the War on Terror.”

In other research, Steven George Salaita produced a study for the New Centennial Review in the Fall of 2006 which set out to “summarize the evolution of the Arab image in American media since Ronald Stockton’s seminal 1994 analysis, with emphasis on the role of 9/11, and advance the usage of the term anti-Arab racism as a more accurate replacement for the traditional descriptors Orientalism and Islamophobia in relation to the negative portrayal of Arabs in the United States.”[11] Unlike our study, the author approached the topic with a non-empirical framework.

Scholarly research in the area of hate crimes is increasingly a popular area for specialization, as witnessed by the Journal of Hate Studies, celebrating its 8th Volume in 2010.[12]  A useful short review of the field’s scope – though unfortunately not addressing a longitudinal analysis nor  the FBI data – can be found in Barbara Perry’s essay, “The more things change…post-9/11 trends in hate crime scholarship,” a summary of the various disciplines’ research addressing the issue of hate.[13]

Methodology and Findings

The “Religious Bias Crimes in America” study is a longitudinal look at the instances of religious bias crimes, also known as hate crimes, against Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the United States from 2000 to 2009. The use of the term “Hate Crime” is defined by the FBI in its 1996 Training Guide for Hate Crime Data Collection[14] as well as in its Uniform Crime Reporting Program,[15] which find their authorization in the April 23, 1990 “Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990.”[16] This legislation requires the U.S. Department of Justice to compile and publish an annual summary of data about crimes that “manifest prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.”  This study focuses on those hate crimes that clearly demonstrate prejudice based on bias against Christians (Catholics and Protestants combined), Jews and Muslims, as identified by the FBI.  Three other categories of religious bias crime for which the FBI collects statistics, but which were not included in this study because they are less specific for purposes of comparison are: anti-other religion, anti-multi-religious group, and anti-atheism-agnosticism.

The Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines define a bias crime:

A criminal offense committed against a person or property which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin; also known as Hate Crime.

Definitions of the various offenses against person and property are also provided in the Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines.[17]

Three broad categories of religious hate crimes are included in this study: incidents, offenses, and victims. A single incident may include more than one offense (for example, intimidation and robbery). An offense may have more than one victim.  A victim may be the target of more than one offense.  Data categories for offenses and victims are sub-divided between crimes against persons, and crimes against property. Each of these sub-categories is further broken down by specific types of crimes.  For example, crimes against persons include 1) murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, 2) forcible rape, 3) simple assault, 4) aggravated assault, 5) intimidation (by far the largest crimes against persons category), and 6) other.   Crimes against property include 1) robbery, 2) burglary, 3) larceny/theft, 4) motor vehicle theft, 5) arson, 6) destruction/damage/vandalism (by far the largest crimes against property category), and 7) other.  A third category, crimes against society, (at the same hierarchical level as crimes against persons, and crimes against property) presented only insignificant numbers for all three religions in the study (19 victims for all three religious groups from all ten years combined – see Appendix C, Table 2).

While there has been a slight variation through the years, anti-Jewish hate crimes have hovered around 70% of total anti-religious hate crime, while anti-Muslim violence has accounted for around 10%, and anti-Christian hate crime has totaled slightly less than 10%. Jewish and Muslim populations in America, as noted previously, each are estimated at 6 million persons (with an alternate estimate by Pew for the Muslim population). There was an increase in anti-Muslim violence in 2001 (exceeding both Jewish and Christian rates for simple and aggravated assault), which decreased to the 10% range in 2002, where it has remained (a temporary smaller spike was seen in 2006 against both Jewish and Muslim victims).  Even in the anomalous year of 2001, total anti-Muslim incidents, offenses, and number of victims were approximately half of the corresponding anti-Jewish totals (Muslim Incidents – 481, Victims – 546, Offenses – 554; Jewish Incidents – 1043, Victims – 1117, Offenses – 1196). That the terrorist attacks occurred relatively late in the year – in September of 2001 – suggests that the increase in anti-Muslim violence occurred over a period of a few weeks, or more specifically nine weeks as noted in Kaplan’s study. Looking at total numbers of victims over the 2000-2009 period, for every Muslim victim from 2000 to 2009, there have been over six (6.13) Jewish incidents of hate crimes.  As noted previously, in 2009 the ratio increased: for every Muslim victim, there were even more – over 8 – Jewish victims.

Most anti-religious hate crimes in the United States are not of a violent nature against persons. Aggregating anti-Christian, anti-Muslim, and anti-Jewish hate crimes against persons and property from 2000 to 2009[18], demonstrates that 64% of total hate crimes are crimes against property, and of these, 92% are cases of destruction/damage/vandalism, and the majority of the remaining 8% are burglary and larceny/theft. There have been 38 robbery offenses, or 0.3% of total hate crimes and of these, 23 were anti-Jewish. The rate of arson is very small, accounting for slightly more than 1% of total crimes against property.

Of the remaining 36% of total cases that are crimes against persons, most (77%) are classified as intimidation. Virtually all of the other 23% are simple or aggravated assault. There were no rape cases and only one murder, of a Jewish victim. There was an increase in 2006 in anti-Muslim aggravated assault (24 offenses), compared to 22 anti-Jewish offenses, and in 2009 (11 vs. 9). There were no similar spikes in cases of simple assault, and in other years, anti-Jewish aggravated and simple assault cases are double that of anti-Muslim assault cases. While cases of anti-Jewish aggravated assault decreased between 2008 and 2009 from 25 to 9, anti-Jewish simple assault cases increased sharply from 58 to 82. When compared to the overall population of over 300 million people, anti-religious hate crimes are not highly prevalent in the United States for any religious group.  Bias-motivated crime is simply not that common for any religious group in the U.S.

Comparing the prevalence of anti-religious hate crimes by religion requires measuring the number of incidents against the overall population of Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the United States. Self-identified Christians accounted in 2008 for 76% of the adult American population[19], or 173,402,000 persons, significantly higher than for Muslims or Jews, and therefore the relative prevalence of anti-Christian crimes is by far the lowest of the three. Muslim groups in the U.S. such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), with an interest in presenting the U.S. Muslim population as equivalent to the Jewish one, repeatedly have declared the number of Muslims in the U.S. to be about 6 million persons, ,[20]  Within the same range, Chicago Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, the 2010 Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions’ Board of Trustees Chairman, has cited 2001 estimates of 5.8 million and 6.7 million Muslims in America.[21] On February 3, 2011, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) similarly cited “the reality of 6 million Muslims.”[22] A lower estimate was published by the Pew Research Center in January 2011, when it put the Muslim population of the U.S. at 2.6 million.[23] The 2010 US Census estimates the Jewish population in the United States to be 6.5 million, or 2.1% of the total population in 2009, and this includes those who self-define as Jewish either by religion, ethnicity, or culture. [24] This broad definition thus can be seen as defining an upper boundary for the U.S. Jewish population, given that the FBI hate crime statistics define Judaism as a religion.

The Facts Contradict the Myths

These findings seem to contradict the popular perception that Muslims face more discrimination than Jews in the United States. For example, a Pew poll conducted in 2009 found that 58% of Americans believe there is “a lot of discrimination against” Muslims, opposed to 35% who thought the same for Jews. [25] FBI statistics do show a lower percentage of anti-Jewish hate crimes have identified offenders, which may contribute to the misperception that anti-Jewish hate crimes in the United States are not as prevalent as they really are.  Of total known offenders from the period of 2000 to 2009, 56% committed anti-Jewish hate crimes; the number rises to  67% when unknown offenders are included.

The process of local law enforcement data collection and categorization is inconsistent and both over-reporting and under-reporting may occur[26].   The goal of our analysis is to show the relative frequency of hate crimes, by religion and by type.

We have looked at primarily at some summary statistics for this report.  In addition, we include the tables here as appendices along with a selection of charts.  The spreadsheet data tables and charts are available for download in excel format at securefreedom.org.

Hate Crime Rhetoric

 Concerns about a backlash against Muslims in America arose in the aftermath of 9/11 and were given added impetus by books, studies, and other publications and statements by various organizations and Muslim leadership figures and groups. The November 2002 report by Human Rights Watch, “We Are Not the Enemy: Hate Crimes Against Arabs, Muslims, and Those Perceived to be Arab or Muslim after September 11″[27] is representative of the genre. Citing a “severe wave of backlash violence” involving “more than two thousand September 11-related backlash incidents” against Arabs and Muslims in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, the report claims such people were targeted “solely because they shared or were perceived as sharing the national background or religion of the hijackers and al-Qaeda members deemed responsible for attacking the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.”[28] Although the report goes on to claim that “comprehensive and reliable national statistics are not available,” this study cites the readily-available official FBI statistics that indeed do show a spike from 28 to 481 total hate crimes against Muslims between the years 2000 and 2001; however, according to the FBI figures, even that high mark is exceeded by a factor of two for the typical annual total of hate crimes against Jews in America.[29]

The January 6, 2010 report, “Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim Americans,” produced with funding from the Department of Justice, also cites an “increased anti-Muslim bias” in the years since the 9/11 attacks. This paper’s three authors, David Schanzer and Ebrahim Moosa of Duke University and Charles Kurzman from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, assert that Muslim-Americans bear the brunt of government counterterrorism initiatives, some of which they consider discriminatory.[30]

Then there is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which styles itself an organization “that challenges stereotypes of Islam and Muslims” and a “Washington-based Islamic advocacy group” dedicated to challenging “anti-Muslim discrimination nationwide.”[31] The CAIR website includes an extensive section on “Islamophobia,”[32] a term reportedly coined by the Muslim Brotherhood front group, the International Islamic Institute of Thought (IIIT),[33] in an effort to find a concept useful in beating back critics of Islamic law (shariah) and jihad.[34]

CAIR traces the phenomenon of “Islamophobia” to writing by Samuel Huntington in the 1990s that posited a coming “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West. CAIR claims that “when 9/11 happened,” those already prejudiced against Islam were influenced by “right wing outlets” and “pro-Israeli commentators such as Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson, Judith Miller, and Bernard Lewis” to amplify an atmosphere of “extreme prejudice, suspicion, and fear against Muslims.”[35] Deftly sidestepping the historical record of decades of international terror attacks perpetrated by Muslim jihadis well before 9/11[36], in addition to centuries of shariah-inspired jihad that preceded the current one[37], CAIR’s Islamophobia page cites a number of surveys conducted in the years following 2001 that indicate Americans believe Islam encourages violence, does not teach respect for the beliefs of non-Muslims, or that mosques ought to be monitored by U.S. law enforcement officials. Americans’ entirely rational concerns about jihadist attacks and the encroachment of shariah on American society are then described not only as the font of “discrimination, exclusion, and violence” against Muslims (without citing any official statistics to substantiate the accusation), but the naturally-to-be-expected source of Muslims’ own “disillusionment, social disorder, and….irrational violence.” [Emphasis added][38]

Slander, Blasphemy, and Insult to Islam in Shariah

It is imperative that western societies like ours understand the serious implications within Islamic law for accusations of insult to Islam, Islamic doctrine, or Muslims. Under shariah, the offense of slander is defined very differently than in U.S. law. According to the ‘Umdat al-Salik (or Reliance of the Traveller), a book of Islamic law that carries the imprimatur of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the global seat of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence, Slander “means to mention anything concerning a person [a Muslim] that he would dislike…”[39]  Several pages later, a further explanation is provided: “A person should not speak of anything he notices about people besides that which benefits a Muslim to relate or prevents disobedience.”[40] Under Islamic law, truth is no defense against an accusation of slander and the offense is held to be a Hudud crime, one deserving the harshest punishment.

Even more serious than Slander under Islamic law is the offense of Blasphemy. The Muslim authorities hold Blasphemy to be insulting or abusing that which is held sacred in Islam. This can include anything from cursing Allah or the prophet Muhammad to irreverent behavior towards Islamic religious beliefs or customs. Even expressing opinions about Islam considered at variance with normative beliefs can be construed as blasphemy under this extremely subjective definition. Not only Muslims traditionally have been held accountable under the Islamic blasphemy laws, but also non-Muslims, especially dhimmis (conquered, subjugated People of the Book, i.e., Christians and Jews). “Reviling Muslims” or “Harming the Friends of Allah Most High” are considered serious sins, termed “Enormities”.[41]  Such offenses are described in Islamic law as those that entail either a threat of punishment in the hereafter, a prescribed Hadd punishment, or being accursed by Allah or the prophet Muhammad.[42]

Islamic laws on Blasphemy and Slander should not be considered outmoded or an irrelevant remnant of the 7th century: they remain very much in effect in modern times, as the following excerpt from the authoritative Malaysian scholar Mohammad Hashim Kamali’s 1997 essay, “Freedom of Expression in Islam“, makes clear:

“However, a general observation which should be made here is that in matters which pertain to the dogma of Islam, or those which are regulated by the direct authority of the Qur’an or Sunnah, criticism, either from Muslims or non-Muslims, will not be entertained, as personal or public opinion does not command authority in such matters. Islam is basically a religion of authority, and the values of good and evil, or rights and duties are not determined by reference to public opinion, or popular vote…” [Emphasis added][43]

It might be added that Dr. Kamali, who was a Professor of Islamic Law and Jurisprudence at the International Islamic University Malaysia and also Dean of the International Institute of Islamic Thought & Civilization (ISTAC) from 1985 – 2007, and is currently Chairman and CEO of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies, Malaysia, is considered not only a leading international academic authority on Islam, but a “moderate Muslim.”  He was on the advisory group for Imam Feisal Rauf’s “Shariah Index Project” and is a listed expert at the purportedly moderate organization World Organization for Resource Development and Education (WORDE).[44]

The deadly intent of the shariah laws on Blasphemy and Slander repeatedly has been demonstrated in recent times: among examples which could be cited are the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against the novelist Salman Rushdie, the 2004 murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and Anwar al-Awlaki’s 2010 fatwa against the Washington state journalist Molly Norris (who was forced into permanent hiding for jesting online about an “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”). The consequences, therefore, of being accused by a Muslim of offending Islamic beliefs, customs, or laws should not be underestimated. The developing concept of “Islamophobia” obviously is heading in this direction.

Here is a final example. Given the centrality of this doctrine to Islam, the 21 February 2011 demand by CAIR for Fox News program host and former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, to apologize for “inaccurate and offensive” comments about Islam and to meet with Muslim leaders to discuss growing Islamophobia in American society”[45]  needs to be taken very seriously. CAIR’s leadership knows exactly what such an accusation implies under Islamic law; it is to be hoped that the Governor does, too.

There is one more aspect of the Islamic laws on Slander that needs to be mentioned in this regard. Our jihadi enemy does not want the non-Muslim infidel world (and especially our national security leadership) to understand the true character and intentions of those shariah adherents who are dedicated to “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.”[46] Specifically, the enemy reserves the right to employ taqiyya (deceit and dissimulation) as well as the Islamic laws on obligatory lying[47] to keep such information from those whose knowledge of it could lead to effective defensive measures against shariah. Attempted enforcement of this legally sanctioned code of silence about the genuine nature and objectives of the jihadist enemy is one of the key usages of the Slander and Blasphemy laws in the west.[48]

“Islamophobia” and Defensive Jihad

To carry through the Islamic legal principles inherent in the Slander and Blasphemy laws to their logical end point, it is useful to refer to classical as well as modern pronouncements on the elements that Muslim scholars hold necessary to justify and declare defensive jihad. For, in fact, this justification is where accusations of “Islamophobia”, religious “hate crimes,” and insult to Islam plausibly lead.  In fact, in numerous cases, hate crime violence or intimidating threats of violence against persons and property in response to perceived “blasphemy” has been a response in the last decade in Muslim-majority countries, and also in Canada, Europe, and the U.S.  The examples in Muslim-majority countries are too numerous to list, but a sample of U.S. cases include the jihad threats against Molly Norris, creator of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”, the South Park cartoon producers, and publications that republished the Danish “Muhammed Cartoons.”

Classical scholars of Islam, such as Al-Shaybani (8th-9th century disciple of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence and a jurist in his own right) and Ibn Rushd (12th century legal scholar known as Averroes in the West) have written extensively and assertively on the obligatory nature of offensive jihad according to shariah, simply for the purpose of establishing Islam in the world.[49] It was understood both explicitly and implicitly that defensive jihad was obligatory as well. Among the Qur’anic verses commonly cited as justification is the following:

“Fight them until there is no persecution and the religion is Allah’s entirely.”  —  (Q 8:39)

Turning to the modern Islamic scholars, Louay Safi is a Muslim author and scholar who has served at the top ranks of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in the U.S. He formerly was the Executive Director of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)’s Leadership Development Center, Executive Director and Director of Research for the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), editor of the Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, and President of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS) (1999-2003). ISNA, IIIT, and the AMSS all appear on the Muslim Brotherhood’s own list of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.”[50] Safi currently serves as Common Word Fellow at the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at GeorgetownUniversity. His credentials, in other words, would seem impeccable to speak to Islamic rulings on defensive warfare.

The slim 2001 paperback book, “Peace and the Limits of War,” was authored by Safi and published by the IIIT in response to the post-9/11 surge in public awareness of Islam and jihad. While Safi attempts to distance himself from the classical Islamic scholars on the topic of mandatory offensive jihad, he has no such compunctions when it comes to “War in defense of Muslim individuals and property.” He writes:

“When wrong is inflicted on a Muslim individual by a member, or members, of another political community….the Islamic state is obligated to make sure the individual, or his family, is compensated for his suffering, and that his rights are upheld…it suffices to say that the Islamic state should ensure that justice has been done to the wronged Muslim, even if that take a declaration of war…”[51]

Perceptions about the prevalence of hate crimes against Muslims matter, especially when considered in the context of Islamic law (shariah), which criminalizes insults to Islam as “slander” or even “blasphemy.”[52] A false belief, perpetuated by a few vocal groups, that deliberate religious bias crimes against Muslims are increasing regardless of the lack of support by hard factual data, is corrosive to community relationships at every level of American society, and a potential threat to First Amendment free speech rights and national security. Efforts at the international level, especially by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)[53], to define any questioning of Islamic doctrine as “hate speech” leading to “hate crimes”, such as  “Islamophobia” and as a “human rights violation” by way of official resolutions at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), directly create the premise for criminalization of free speech. Further, although non-binding at this time, such UNHRC resolutions conceivably could legitimize an eventual casus belli, by which an appropriate fatwa could declare justification for violent defensive jihad by the forces of Islam.  As recently as March 7 2011, James Zogby of the Arab American Institute, formerly with the Democratic National Committee, wrote of critics of the Shariah law and Islamic terrorism in America, that:

If these ‘professional bigots” have provided the grist, the mill itself was run by the vast network of rightwing talk radio and TV shows and websites and prominent preachers, who have combined to amplify the anti-Muslim message nationwide. Their efforts have done real damage. They have tormented descent [sic] public servants, created protests that have shuttered legitimate institutions, fomented hate crimes and produced fear in the Muslim community.[54]

Conclusions

This data presented in this study demonstrate that common perceptions about the incidence of “hate crimes” in America that are directed at individuals or groups on the grounds of religious identification often mistakenly ascribe the majority of such offenses to anti-Muslim sentiment. To the contrary, the 2000-2009 FBI crime statistics data used in this study indicate that the majority of U.S. “hate crimes” in fact are perpetrated against Jews. The spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes following 9-11 did not last longer than nine weeks according to prior research.  The most important conclusion may be that total religious bias crimes are few in a country of over 300 million persons.  In fact, the U.S. is a model as a tolerant country, with a significantly low (and in some cases falling) number of hate crimes, in which most Muslim Americans are fully integrated and accepted, as well as economically and socially successful, fellow citizens.

The persistence, scope, and sophistication of the campaign to portray Muslims in America inaccurately, as making up the majority of “hate crime” victims, points to an organized effort whose potential implications derive from Islamic law (shariah). Insult towards Islam, Islamic doctrine, and individual Muslims, especially by non-Muslim infidels, can carry serious penalties under Shariah law. Further, because the “crimes” of insult, slander, and blasphemy are so subjectively defined in shariah, the doorway is wide open for those with an agenda of victimology to lay a foundation that not inconceivably could lead ultimately to a declaration of “defensive jihad” against persons, property or the broader community.   “Homegrown” jihadist terrorism can find its motivation as part of the radicalization process in this heightened, and counter-factual, sense of victimization that justifies organized or “lone wolf” acts of jihad that are rationalized as defensive.

 

 

Charts & Data

Charts and data for this Occasional Paper are available in the PDF, or as Microsoft Excel files below:

 

[1] Center for Security Policy staff and interns contributed to the data entry, analysis, and verification.

[2] The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) presents itself as an Islamic advocacy group and America’s largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization. CAIR was included on the Department of Justice’s published list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation HAMAS terror funding case of 2007-2008. Its Internet home page may be found at http://www.cair.com/Home.aspx . See CAIR’s reports on bias from 2007 (http://www.cair.com/Portals/0/pdf/2007-Civil-Rights-Report.pdf)
and 2008 (http://www.cair.com/Portals/0/pdf/civilrights2008.pdf ).

[3] The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) calls itself a “Public service agency working for the civil rights of American Muslims”. According to the counterterrorism think tank The Investigative Project, “MPAC’s public advocacy often involves defending accused terror financiers and opposing law enforcement efforts to root out terrorists and their enablers.  In nearly every case, MPAC has responded to investigations by the FBI and the U.S. Treasury Department with complaints that authorities have not proven their allegations, and variations on the constant themes that enforcement actions unfairly single out Muslim groups and ‘bear strong signs of politicization.’  At the same time, MPAC has been equally diligent in defending individual terrorists uncovered by federal investigations.” http://www.investigativeproject.org/profile/181,accessed February 28, 2011.

[4] “Behind CAIR’s Hate Crimes Report,” Daniel Skinner, The Weekly Standard, may 6, 2004, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/054aycfi.asp; “CAIR’s Hate Crime Nonsense,” Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha, May 18, 2005, http://www.danielpipes.org/2627/cairs-hate-crimes-nonsense; “Fudging the Numbers on Hate Crimes,” Mike Pesca, NPR, may 23, 2005, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4662915; all accessed February 28, 2011.

[5] “CAIR Pushes Phony Charges of Anti-Muslim Hysteria, Hate Crimes,” Investigative Project, April 4, 2008.  http://www.steveemerson.com/2008/04/cair-pushes-phony-charges-of accessed February 28, 2011.

[6] The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program and its annual Crime in the United States reports are described online at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr

[7] 2009 is the most recent year for which full data are available. See the FBI Hate Crime Statistics for 2009 at http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2009/victims.html, accessed 12 February 2011.

[8]  Simple Assaults by Victim by Religion for 2001 (Muslim 66, Jewish 45, Christian 3); Aggravated Assaults by Victim by Religion for 2001 (Muslim 27, Jewish 13, Christian 1)

[9] Neil Chakraborti, editor, Hate Crime: Concepts, policy, future directions, Willan Publishing, 2010.

[10] Kaplan, Jeffrey, “Islamophobia in America?: September 11 and Islamophobic Hate Crime,” Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. Accessed 20 February 2011 at http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a737727150

[11] Salaita, Steven George, “Beyond Orientalism and Islamophobia: 9/11, Anti-Arab Racism, and the Mythos of National Pride,” CR: The New Centennial Review, Michigan State University Press, Volume 6, Number 2, Fall 2006, pp. 245-266. Accessed online 21 February 2011 at http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/new_centennial_review/v006/6.2salaita.html

[12] Journal of Hate Studies, Volume 8 (No. 1), 2010, http://journals.gonzaga.edu/index.php/johs/issue/archive accessed February 28, 2011.  The Journal’s authors defend a wide spectrum of beliefs, ranging from a positive review for the anti-jihad movie “Obsession” (Vol 5, #1) to numerous articles from a more conventional perspedctive.

[13]Perry, Hate Crime: Concepts, Policy, Future Directions, p. 17

[14] Accessed online 21 February 2011 at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/trainguidedc99.pdf

[15] The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program and its annual Crime in the United States reports are described online at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr

[16] 28 U.S.C. § 534. See Appendix C for the full text of this legislation.

[17] Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines, p. 24, http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/hcguidelinesdc99.pdf accessed February 28, 2011.

[18] This does not include the negligible number (19) of “crimes against society) from 2000-2009 for all three religious groups.

[19] “Self-described Religious Identification of Adult Population: 1990 – 2008,” U.S. Census, http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s0075.pdf, accessed February 28, 2011.

[20] Ihsan Bagby, Ph.D., Paul M. Perl, Ph.D., Bryan T. Froehle, Ph.D., The Mosque in America: A National Portrait, Council on American Islamic Relations, April 26, 2001, p.6: “Estimates of a total Muslim population of 6-7 million in America seem reasonable…”

[21] Abdul Malik Mujahid, “Muslims In America: Profile 2001,” Soundvision, http://www.soundvision.com/info/yearinreview/2001/profile.asp , accessed February 28, 2011.

[22] “Background Information on Radicalization Hearings,” Muslim Public Affairs Council, February 3, 2011.  http://www.mpac.org/programs/government-relations/background-information-on-radicalization-hearings.php# accessed February 28, 2011.

[23] The Future of the Global Muslim Population, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Jan. 27, 2011. http://pewforum.org/The-Future-of-the-Global-Muslim-Population.aspx. Accessed 7 March 2011 at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1872/muslim-population-projections-worldwide-fast-growth.

[24] Table 77, Christian Church Adherents, 2000, and Jewish Population, 2009 – States. 2010 US Census. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0077.pdf.

[25] Muslims Widely Seen as Facing Discrimination. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Sept. 9, 2009. http://pewforum.org/Muslim/Muslims-Widely-Seen-As-Facing-Discrimination.aspx.

[26] “FBI Report Notes Rise in Hate Crimes,” Deborah Tedford, NPR, November 23, 2009, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120715771 , accessed February 28, 2011.

[27] Available in PDF format and accessed 21 February 2011 at http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2002/11/14/we-are-not-enemy

[28] “We Are Not the Enemy: Hate Crimes Against Arabs, Muslims, and Those Perceived to be Arab or Muslim after September 11,” Human Rights Watch, NOVEMBER 2002 VOL. 14, NO. 6 (G) (p. 4).

[29] See Appendix D, “Hate Crime Trends: 2000-2007”

[30] Schanzer, David, Charles Kurzman, and Ebrahim Moosa, “Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans,” January 6, 2010. Accessed online 21 February 2011 at http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/229868.pdf

[31] The official CAIR website is at http://www.cair.com/Home.aspx. CAIR’s foundational organization, The International Association for Palestine, was included on a list of organizations called “our organizations and the organizations of our friends” in a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document called “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.”

[32] “Islamophobia,” http://www.cair.com/Issues/Islamophobia/Islamophobia.aspx accessed February 28 2011.

[33] The website of the Herndon, Virginia-based International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) is at  http://www.iiit.org/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx  The IIIT, like CAIR, is on the Muslim Brotherhood list of its friends and organizations of friends; also like CAIR, the IIIT was included in a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the 2007-2008 Holy Land Foundation HAMAS terror funding trial.

[34] Muhammad, Abdur-Rahman, “Whether or not Ground Zero mosque is built, U.S. Muslims have access to the American dream,” The New York Daily News as cited by The Investigative Project on Terrorism, September 5, 2010. Accessed online 21 February 2010 at http://www.investigativeproject.org/2164/whether-or-not-ground-zero-mosque-is-built-us. Muhammad is a former member of the IIIT, whose by-line states that he “now works to combat Islamic extremism in the American Muslim community.”

[35] CAIR “Islamophobia” page; accessed 21 February 2011 at http://www.cair.com/Issues/Islamophobia/Islamophobia.aspx

[36] “List of Islamic Terror Attacks Against America Before 9/11,” http://factreal.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/list-of-islamic-attacks-against-america/ , accessed February 28, 2011.

[37] Andrew Bostom and Ibn Warraq, The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, Prometheus Books, 2008.

[38] “Islamophobia,” http://www.cair.com/Issues/Islamophobia/Islamophobia.aspx

[39] ‘Umdat al-Salik (Reliance of the Traveller), A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law. Section r2.0: Slander (p. 730).

[40] Ibid, Section r3.0 (p. 741).

[41] Ibid, Section p50.0 (Hurting or Reviling Muslims) and p51.0 (Harming the Friends of Allah Most High) (pp. 686-688.

[42] Ibid, The Author’s Introduction, Section p0.0 (pp. 651-2).

[43] Kamali, Mohammad Hashim, “Freedom of Expression in Islam,” Islamic Text Society, 1997. From chapter IX. Freedom of Religion (Al-Hurriyyah al-Diniyyah). Accessed online 22 February 2011 at www.globalwebpost.com/farooqm/…/freedom/kamali_freedom.doc      

[44] “Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Biographical Highlights,” http://worde.org/specialists/ProfessorMohammadHashimKamali.php accessed February 28, 2011.

[45] “Dissemblers At Council On American Islamic Relations – CAIR – Whip Up The Discredited Bogeyman Of Islamophobia,” PipelineNews.org, February 21, 2011. Accessed 22 February 2011 at http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=cair2212011102.htm

[46] “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” a 5/22/91 Muslim Brotherhood document entered into evidence in the 2007-2008 U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation HAMAS terror funding trial.

[47] ‘Umdat al-Salik, Section r8.0, Lying (beginning on p. 744).

[48] “Shariah: The Threat to America,” Center for Security Policy, October 2010 (pp. 103-106).

[49] See “The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani’s Siyar” by Majid Khadduri and Ibn Rushd’s magnum opus, “Bidayat al-Mudtahid wa-Nihayat al-Muqtasid” for their authoritative treatments of jihad.

[50] “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” 1991. ISNA also appeared on the U.S. Department of Justice list of unindicted co-conspirators in the 2007-2008 Holy Land Foundation HAMAS terror funding trial.

[51] Safi, Louay M, “Peace and the Limits of War.” International Institute of Islamic Thought, Herndon, VA.

[52] See “Slander (Ghiba)” in Section r2.0 of the ‘Umdat al-Salik (Reliance of the Traveller), A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law (pg. 730). For a thorough discussion of Slander and Blasphemy in Islamic law, see also the Center for Security Policy study, “Shariah: The Threat to America,” September 22, 2010. Available online at http://www.amazon.com/Shariah-America-Exercise-Competitive-Analysis/dp/098229476X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1297556949&sr=1-1

[53] Organization of the Islamic Conference: http://www.oicun.org/9/20100727101615770.html

[54] “Islamophobia can create radicalization,” James Zogby, March 7, 2011, The Nation, http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Opinions/Columns/07-Mar-2011/Islamophobia-can-create-radicalisation/1  accessed March 8, 2011.

The King Hearings were Taboo-Busters

It is not everyday that Congress breaks a major taboo and, in so doing, performs a real service to the nation.  Last Thursday, however, was one such day: Representative Pete King (Republican of New York) demonstrated impressive leadership in convening and conducting a four-hour-long hearing on "extremism" in the American Muslim community. 

For his efforts, the Homeland Security Committee’s chairman was subjected to tremendous personal attacks and partisan sniping – the wages of taboo-busting.  While those responsible for inflicting such slanderous criticism claim, in the words of one group, to have "defeat[ed] a major threat of Islamophobia," the real story is that Mr. King began a conversation about an issue that has long been deemed politically untouchable.  He also established that there is, indeed, a problem of "extremism" within the American Muslim community.

One manifestation of that problem was the determined effort made by the so-called "leadership" of the Muslim population in this country not only to impugn the chairman and several of his witnesses, but to suppress these hearings altogether.  For example, groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) lined up fifty-five House Democrats to insist that Rep. King "reconsider the scope of these hearings and instead examine all forms of violence motivated by extremist beliefs, rather than unfairly focusing on just one religious group."

One of the reasons for this demand became clear as Pete King’s witnesses shed light on the true nature of such self-appointed Muslim "leaders":  They do not speak for American Muslims and are either directly tied to the Muslim Brotherhood – an organization whose mission is to "destroy Western civilization from within" – or sympathetic to its goal of bringing shariah to the United States.

Relatives of two young men who were recruited, indoctrinated and sent to engage in jihad provided frightening insights into the ways in which Muslim organizations, mosques, cultural centers and Islamic societies stealthily advance this objective.  One means is via dawa – the proselytization of the politico-military-legal doctrine of shariah.

Particularly chilling was the account of a Somali-American living in Minnesota by the name of Abdirizak Bihi.  His nephew, Burhan Hassan, was among those who joined and was killed fighting on behalf of the Islamist terrorist group al Shabab in Somalia.  He relayed how his family was warned by community "leaders" not to go to the authorities for help lest they wind up in Guantanamo Bay or facing "eternal fire and hell."

Was this an isolated incident?  Hardly. At least since the immediate aftermath of 9/11, prominent Muslim American organizations have encouraged their co-religionists not to cooperate with law enforcement.  Among the most recent examples was a message on a CAIR website calling on its members to "Build a Wall of Resistance. Don’t Talk to the FBI."

Of course, this narrative contrasts sharply with that promoted by the Muslim Public Affairs Council and its ilk who take credit for successfully inseminating into the U.S. media the meme that they are actively "engaging" with law enforcement.  Notably, MPAC takes credit for getting Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca called to testify at the King hearing for the purpose of attesting to their good citizenship.

Unfortunately for both the officer sporting a uniform with five stars and his Islamist friends, freshman Rep. Chip Cravaak (Republican of Minnessota) asked whether the sheriff was aware of CAIR’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood’s franchise in Palestine, known as Hamas.  The sheriff professed to know nothing of those associations. When Rep. Cravaak pointed out that the Department of Justice has demonstrated in federal court that such ties do exist, Sheriff Baca demurred and simply said, if there is that evidence, then such individuals, such organizations ought to be prosecuted.

Well, no kidding. They certainly should be prosecuted.  And here is a question that future hearings of the Homeland Security Committee should address:  Why hasn’t the Council on American Islamic relations been prosecuted for being tied to Hamas, for working on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood and specifically for fostering the efforts to bring shariah to America?  After all, shariah is a seditious ideology and totalitarian program explicitly designed to hollow out, and ultimately to destroy, representative government and the civil liberties that are enshrined in our Constitution.  There is every reason for such a prosecution to go forward, and we need to know why has not it happened to date.

There was one other evident reason why the Muslim Brotherhood’s front groups were so determined to shut down the King hearings and excoriate him for having as witnesses anybody other than their hand-picked candidates – the blubbering first-Muslim-in-Congress Rep. Keith Ellison (a Democrat from Minnesota) and the clueless Sheriff Baca:  Rep. King helped credential Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a former naval officer and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, as a credible and inspiring voice for pro-American Muslims and Islamic reform.

We owe Pete King a debt of gratitude for defying those who would have shut him up and shut his hearings down.  In so doing, he has laid bare important truths about the threat posed by shariah and its adherents, empowered those like Dr. Jasser who are courageously standing up against it and broken a taboo in a way that cries out for many more hearings, as soon as possible, on these and related subjects, by his committee and by others.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

NPRgate and the King Hearings

Yesterday’s videotaped revelations by the intrepid James O’Keefe provides welcome grist for many mills. Most obviously, it offers irrefutable evidence that National Public Radio employs elitists who are hostile to Republicans, Tea Party activists, and others derided as gun-toting, white “racists.”

The principal focus of the expose filmed last month, Ron Schiller, the network’s now-departed vice president of development and president of the NPR Foundation, declared that his organization would be “better off in the long-run” without government underwriting.

Presumably, such sentiments will make it impossible for members of Congress to justify continued public funding of the organization when the Senate considers the decision taken by the House of Representatives to zero out NPR in the latest stopgap funding measure.

What is particularly instructive, however — and highly relevant to the hearings that Rep. Peter King will convene in his House Homeland Security Committee tomorrow — is the subtext of the new O’Keefe undercover videos: NPR seems to have had no problem sitting down with, and apparently entertaining the offer of $5 million from, representatives of a group that explicitly described itself as a Muslim Brotherhood organization and that promoted the “acceptance worldwide” (read, imposition) of shariah (the Islamists’ totalitarian politico-military-legal program).

Chairman King has made the focus of his first hearing what he calls “extremism” in the Muslim American community. A more accurate term for what ails that population would be shariah, for it is the adherence to that supremacist doctrine that obliges its followers to engage in jihad.

As a distinguished group of national security experts observed in a new book published by the Center for Security Policy, titled Shariah: The Threat to America, we must be concerned about more than just the threat of violent jihad. After all, according to shariah, where violence is impracticable, jihadists are supposed to use stealthy (or pre-violent) means to advance the cause that O’Keefe’s fictitious Muslim Education Action Center and the myriad real Muslim Brotherhood fronts share with al-Qaeda and its ilk: the imposition of shariah everywhere and the establishment of a global Caliphate to rule pursuant to it.

In tomorrow’s hearing and, those that will presumably follow it, Mr. King and his colleagues will have an opportunity to explore the role the stealth jihadists are playing in the Muslim American community. Muslim Brotherhood front groups like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) have, with Saudi money and that of other enablers of jihad, created organizational infrastructures.

With help from successive U.S. administrations, they have been legitimated in their bid to be seen as the sole representatives of American Muslims. Most recently, that message was communicated tangibly by the visit paid to a prominent shariah-adherent mosque in the Washington, D.C., suburbs by the deputy national security advisor to the president, Denis McDonough. In his prepared remarks, McDonough extolled one of the top Muslim Brothers in America, Imam Mohamed Magid, president of ISNA, the largest MB front in the country.

Worse yet, this top U.S. national security official actually parroted talking points pushed out by CAIR and its ilk to suppress expression concerning the threat Rep. King knows needs to be addressed. McDonough warned that, if we choose to criticize those in the American Muslim population who encourage shariah, “we risk feeding the very feelings of disenchantment that may push some members of that community to violent extremism.”

No examination of the “response” of the Muslim-American community to the “extremists” in its midst — which is the self-described purpose of Rep. King’s hearing tomorrow — would be complete without exploring the role being played by the Muslim Brotherhood and its operatives. Here’s hoping that the evidence James O’Keefe has provided of how open to penetration and influence operations are key elements of our society will provide fresh encouragement to the chairman and his colleagues to identify and root out the Brotherhood and other shariah-adherent “extremists” in the Muslim American community.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. held senior positions in the Reagan Defense Department. He is president of the Center for Security Policy (www.SecureFreedom.org) and host of the syndicated weeknightly show, “Secure Freedom Radio” (www.SecureFreedomRadio.com).