Robert Spencer
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
A jihad plot and the usual responses.
The Muslims who were arrested last week for plotting to blow up two Bronx synagogues and bring down an airplane have exposed yet again the virulence and ugliness of Islamic anti-Semitism. Said one plotter: “If Jews were killed in this attack ... that would be all right.” Plotter James “Abdul Rahman” Cromitie, a jailhouse convert to Islam, said: “I hate those mother-------, those f------ Jewish b------ .... I would like to get [destroy] a synagogue.” Muslim groups were quick to condemn the plot. Quick to issue statements were the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and New York Muslim leaders.
Fozia Khan of the American Muslim Women’s Association said: “We believe that violence has no place in our community and is in no way a part of the tenets of Islam. Unfortunately, incidents of this kind hamper our efforts to create harmonious relationships with other religious organizations within our community.”
Since Fozia Khan’s holy book calls for warfare against Jews and Christians until they submit as inferiors to Islamic rule (Qur’an 9:29), and mandates the beheading of unbelievers (47:4), among many other belligerent passages, her assertion that violence “is in no way a part of the tenets of Islam” could bear some elucidation. None, however, was forthcoming from her. Khan complained: “In recent years, we as an organization have had to condemn far too many acts of violence committed in the name of Islam. We would like to stress that the people who commit these acts are misguided and confused and ignorant or unaware of Islam’s ideology of peace and tolerance.”
So why not teach them? One might wonder why Muslim groups don’t become more proactive, and institute programs in mosques and Islamic schools in the West (as well as in the Islamic world) to teach Muslims why the views of Osama bin Laden et al are wrong, and how the true Islam eschews violence against and hatred of unbelievers. Yet CAIR, ISNA, MPAC and the rest have never instituted or even called for such a program. They are ready with the condemnations after arrests or explosions, but why wait passively? Why not act to head off jihadist activity by Muslims?
MPAC said it was “outraged over the alleged plan of four men to carry out attacks against Jewish houses of worship in New York City.” MPAC Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati wrote to Jewish leaders of his “shock and dismay over reports that four Muslims planned to bomb synagogues in the New York City area. This criminal attitude is reprehensible and wretched.” In its statement MPAC reaffirmed “the position of condemning acts of violence against any faith group in the name of Islam.”
Strong words, good words. In fact, MPAC has been saying this sort of thing for years -- making it even odder that their “counterterror” guidelines appear to be more concerned about misbehavior by non-Muslim law enforcement officials in mosques than about the possibility of terrorist activity in those mosques. Details here.
ISNA, which has admitted its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, condemned the plots also. The Brotherhood is waging, in its own words, “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” ISNA’s statement complained that “several media reports referred to the suspects as Muslim. ISNA rejects the association of Islam with such criminality, hatred and bigotry.”
Of course, that is a tried-and-true tactic. When Islamic preachers preach hate and bloodshed in mosques, these groups say nothing. But when Geert Wilders dares to depict their preaching disapprovingly in a film, it’s...“Islamophobia”! And the whole world pretends that it is he, not the preachers, who has associated Islam with violence.
CAIR was also concerned that the media not link Islam to these plots, requesting “that media outlets and public officials refrain from linking this case to mainstream Islam and to challenge those who will inevitably exploit this disturbing incident to promote anti-Muslim fear and stereotypes.”
The inevitable question is whether it was really media outlets and public officials who linked these plots to Islam, or the plotters themselves who did so. But as always, CAIR deftly elided that distinction.
A group of Muslim and Jewish leaders last Thursday to condemn the plots. Imam Muhammad Shamsi Ali of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York said rather cryptically: “We call upon Muslim leaders to stand firm against the forces of evil.” For his part, Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and founding rabbi of The New York Synagogue, said: “It is reassuring to hear the voices of Muslim leaders speaking out in solidarity with the Jewish community and unequivocally condemning acts of terrorism and violence.”
It would be more reassuring if they were unequivocally condemning attempts to impose Sharia, whether by terrorism or other means, onto non-Muslim countries, and declaring that they believed in living with non-believers as equals in a secular society on an indefinite basis.
These condemnations are not necessarily insincere. But why are these high words never backed up with deeds? And why the lacunae in statements like Ali’s, instead of unequivocal and unmistakable language? Is it too much to ask that Muslim groups stand against the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism clearly and openly in both deed and word? And if it is too much to ask, as apparently it is, then why are these groups still so widely regarded as “moderate”?
Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of eight books, eleven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book,Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs, is available now from Regnery Publishing.
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