The Islamists Within

Jamie Glazov: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. We are gathered here this morning to discuss a topic which in many respects crystallizes why we’re here this weekend — the Islamists within.

Before we begin, Michael Finch and Jeffrey Wienir and Elizabeth Ruiz, can you stand for a minute? Let’s all give them a standing ovation, please.

(Applause)

Ladies and gentlemen, I was threatened to only speak a minute or two as a moderator. The Islamists within — I have been given the honor and the privilege of being the editor of FrontPage Magazine for about eight to nine years now. It’s not very difficult to describe what FrontPage does — it focuses on the war at home and abroad.

Now, we know about troops and tanks abroad, and explosions and shootings. So we know what a war abroad is. But what exactly is a war at home? And I thought, in my 60 seconds or two minutes, what would I say before I introduce our distinguished panel? Fifty-six thousand Americans died in Vietnam. And there was a certain mentality and psychology that controlled the leadership of America, and the culture and society of America, during those years. And because of the Left’s control, what happened is the American leadership came to the Vietcong and to the North Vietnamese and said — here is South Vietnam, you can have it. Today, that same mentality, that same psychology, reigns in Washington — controls our media, controls our culture. And after 4,500, approximately, Americans gave their lives in Iraq, and the tens of thousands wounded — all the sacrifices of Iraqis — we have a President that’s now saying to the mullahs, and to Iran and to al-Sadr, come here. Here’s Iraq. You can have it.

This is the war abroad. What is happening at home? What’s happening at home is something that I’ve dedicated my life to, to understanding the psychology of what is called the Left.

And because this psychology controls the boundaries of our discourse, because it rules Washington today, this is the situation we have — an American — or Muslim doctor, psychiatrist, in the American army that is giving lectures about the necessity of acid being poured down the throats of unbelievers, and nobody complained. Nobody said anything. In the American army. And this is because you are not allowed to say anything anymore. Because it is forbidden to say anything on the issues that should’ve been spoken, this man went on a shooting spree. I think he murdered some 13 American soldiers, wounded about 30 others, approximately. And the report that was issued afterwards by the administration — nothing was said about jihad or Islam.

This is the topic we’re discussing today. There is a man in the room, slitting our throats. And people have to remain silent in our society because of the boundaries of discourse that the Left has shaped. So today we will be discussing the enemy here, as well as the forces that are paving the road to the victory of our enemy.

We have a distinguished panel with us today. If you don’t know these individuals, I’m going to ask each individual to raise their hand, just in case they’re mistaken for somebody else.

(Laughter)

Frank Gaffney, a former Assistant Secretary of the Defense Department –

(Applause)

– and Founder and President of the Center for Security Policy in Washington. He is the lead author of “War Footing,” “Ten Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World.”

Raymond Ibrahim.

(Applause)

He told me if people don’t abide by their seven minutes, he’ll physically do something about it.

(Laughter)

He’s the Islam specialist and author of “The Al Qaeda Reader.” He has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, al-Jazeera, CBN and NPR. And he is the Associate Fellow of the Middle East Forum.

Daniel Greenfield.

(Applause)

We are so honored to have him as a Shillman Journalism Fellow at our Center. I don’t think that Dr. Robert Shillman is here today, but I’m very grateful to him. He’s given us the troops of wisdom that were on the frontlines fighting this war with thoughts and ideas at FrontPage Magazine. He’s made a Shillman Fellowship that we’ve been able to get a beautiful stable of writers.

And last but not least — oh, I’m sorry — and Daniel Greenfield is also the author of two great pamphlets of ours — “Muslim Hate Groups on Campus” and “Ten Reasons to Abolish the United Nations.”

(Applause)

And last but not least, Robert Spencer –

(Applause)

– the Director of Jihad Watch, which is a project of our Center, and the author of several bestselling books on Islam and jihad, including “The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran.”

There has been difficulty for me being the editor of FrontPage Magazine over the years. I think what is more difficult is to keep these gentlemen to the seven minutes they are entitled to. Do each of you promise that you will take seven minutes?

(Laughter)

Raymond Ibrahim, you go first.

Raymond Ibrahim: Hello, everyone.

(Applause)

It’s great to be here, not least because I almost got deported when I was in LAX, going through security, for reasons which may be obvious to you.

(Laughter)

Aside from being a large, bearded Middle Eastern man with the name Ibrahim, I was sweating profusely when I was going through LAX security. And for some reason, that kind of triggered bells for them. And they pulled me off, and they did the whole frisk, if not fondling, because I was made to stand there and go through all that.

And maybe you heard Tom Driessen’s recommendation that if they do that to you, you should moan? It doesn’t work.

(Laughter)

If anything, it seems like the frisking got a little longer.

But it all culminated, of course, with this experience, as they came and opened my bag. I was scot-free, they did the security check. And then they opened my bag. And what do they find? A big book with the title “Al Qaeda” on it.

(Laughter)

And next to it, papers written in Arabic. And the book, of course, is my book. And so then they see my name on it, and the plot thickens.

But to make a long story short, here I am, and I’m glad.

(Applause)

And while I at all don’t mind it — you know, I actually thought — I was telling the guy that was doing all this — I think you did the right thing. But then they were very quick to balance it all out. Because the next person to get the severe fondling and frisking happened to be a 70-year-old woman in a wheelchair.

(Laughter)

So I told them — well, you balanced it out. And he, in fact, laughed.

But okay. So what I would like to do now, since we have no time, and I’ve finished about half of my time trying to be funny, is — and it’s really not so bad, because so much has already been said about Islam. And this being the last panel, one can basically just comment on some of the more important themes.

And what I would like to do is address a couple of themes that have come up, some that haven’t come up, and sort of try to put it in context. Because one of my goals — we all, I think, have different approaches. And my approach is to try to always establish context.

I don’t think that there’s enough knowledge, even among the conservatives or the people who are anti-Islamist — I really don’t think they still get it fully. And so my goal is always to try to really establish that full, even playing field. And by doing that, then I think people have an even ground to actually then start talking about strategies and policies.

So one of the things that came up earlier in one of the discussions — I think, Robert, you brought it up, and we were talking about the Reformation. And Islam needs to reform. And we talked about the Protestant Reformation, and all that. And what very few people notice, and what I’ve been seeing, is that in fact this is the Muslim reformation, what you’re witnessing today.

Salafism, Wahhabism — these terms are exactly what happens as a counterpart in the Christian world. The Christian world, the Protestant Reformation was essentially — you had the printing press, and now people could actually access the primary source of their religion, the Bible. And then people — Martin Luther and others — rejected the authority of the Church. They said this is all manmade, there’s a lot of [ecretions] that have been added to our religion. We are going to the pure source, the Bible. This is what Protestantism is till this very day.

What is Salafism and Wahhabism and radicalism? It is all a break with the historical tradition of Islam. And it is what? It’s going back to the texts of Islam. It’s going back to the Koran, it’s going back to the Hadith, it’s going back to, you know, the Sunnah, the pure Sunnah, as they call it. So I think it’s important for all those who have a lot of hope that the Muslim world needs a reformation to understand that this is it.

This is what — I believe this is the reformation, in its own way. It is the same methodically as the Protestant Reformation. It is a rejection of manmade traditions, from the Church, from the hierarchy, from the clergy. And in Islam, it is the same thing — it’s a break from the tradition, the synthesis, of Islam over a millennium, and saying we reject that, we’re going to the books.

And I believe this is a product of the modern age. Because now the average person has access to the primary sources. Whereas before, just like in Christianity and other religions, Muslims didn’t have the Koran. You had to go to the imam, you had to go to the al-Ahmad, and they told you what it was.

So I think it’s important to keep this in mind. And I think this is part of the danger — in that this is the reformation. This is not something that will necessarily go. And just like with the Protestant-Catholic schism, that doesn’t mean all Muslims, of course, are going to be like this. But I believe they will always be there, these so-called Salafists and the Islamists and the people who are taking Islam at this different level.

Another point I’d like to add — because again, like I said, I like to create an even playing field intellectually for people to understand — and one thing I like to discuss is the notion of altruism in Islam. And that’s not an oxymoron. You may have heard the other day, Barry Goldberg talked about how liberals — there’s this kind of groupthink. And they don’t think of themselves as liberals, right? They think the way they think is the normal way.

This phenomenon, of course, applies to all people, of all religions, faiths, creeds, civilizations. And it’s, of course, part of the Islamic world. In the Islamic world — and let me just backtrack and say something — the reason I’m talking about this is because a lot of people — when I sit here, or others sit here and talk, and say — well, look, Islam teaches jihad and violence and deceit, and this and that — I think, on a very human level, one is tempted to reject this, regardless of all the evidence, for one simple reason. You think to yourself — are you telling me a billion people really are hell-bent on subjugating the world, and this and that?

And I think the key to understanding this is to understand that from their point of view, this is not seen as evil, it’s not seen as bad. In fact, to best understand it, I like to liken it to the historical phenomenon, 19th century, of “The White Man’s Burden,” which is basically Islam from the beginning, way before “The White Man’s Burden,” had a mission, a universalizing mission. And it was of course to bring the world under Islam. And it was seen as a good thing, just like “The White Man’s Burden” was articulated as — we need to bring civilization to the savages, for their own good. Whether it’s done through violence, force, colonialism, conquest or whatever, it is the same exact thing in Islam. And in fact, that has a longer pedigree.

And so to me, when I read Islam, and I read their text, Jihad, I always see it as “The Muslim Man’s Burden.” And it’s been going on a lot longer than the so-called “White Man’s Burden.” And in fact, there’s a lot of precedence for it in the Koran. The Koran often tells believers — jihad is prescribed for you, though you hate it. It’s your duty, but you have to do it.

So I think one of the keys to understand why it is I can say, or someone can say, that the Islamic world believes in X, Y and Z — and then you think to yourself X, Y and Z seem extremely weird and bad, and how can an entire civilization of a billion people believe this — I think you need to understand, from their point of view, this is good. And if there’s deception involved, that’s good, too. Because I’m bringing the light of Islam to you infidels, who are really miserable and are trapped in your own mire, and I’m trying to help you. And they’ve actually articulated this.

Osama bin Laden in his communiqués, which of course were partially propaganda — but he used to point out that one of the reasons he’s doing the jihad is to liberate Western women. Believe it or not. And I believe it — 100 percent in his mind, he believes this. He doesn’t — in his mind, liberating Western women doesn’t mean in the Western sense. He means by bringing Sharia law to them, having them in a hijab, and doing all this thing, because that would be for their good.

Now, of course, I’m not arguing and saying that his position is correct. I’m just trying to get people to understand that the best way to really understand how they think is to take it literally. And understand, from their point of view, they think they’re the good guys. When you see these guys who are screaming jihad and kill and destroy Israel, they think they’re the good guys. They don’t think of themselves as bad. Okay? And I think when you see that, you’ll understand that — well, a billion people could be behind this. At least, they can support it, not necessarily commit themselves to jihad, or anything like that. But they can support it because they’re being good, they’re helping. This is their way of doing it.

And I think this is one of the biggest intellectual hurdles — I always like to talk about intellectual hurdles — that we need to understand to overcome.

Am I running out of time, Jamie?

(Laughter)

Okay.

Jamie Glazov: We’ll open it up afterwards.

Raymond Ibrahim: Okay.

Oh, one last point — one last point, two minutes. And this is –

(Laughter)

– this is kind of an arcane doctrinal point, but I want to show its relevancy. Some of you may have heard of an Arabic term ” usul al-fiqh.” And what this means is the Koran, the words of Mohammad, and some other things like the consensus of the Islamic scholars. “Usul al-fiqh” is always translated as “the roots of jurisprudence.” This is how we articulate Sharia law. We look at the Koran, we look at the Hadith, and these are the roots of jurisprudence. But now, what no one — I’ve never seen anyone say this — is the word “fiqh” — “usul al-fiqh” does not mean jurisprudence originally. It means knowledge. So what it really means is, when you say the roots of knowledge, it means Muslim epistemology — the Muslim worldview is bound by the Koran, and it’s bound by the Sunnah.

And this is — the world view of theirs is completely — now, again, I’m not saying all Muslims think this way. Some Muslims don’t care, they don’t — they live in the West, whatever. But I think it’s important to understand this term, because it really defines the Muslim worldview and its intellectual limitations insofar as what actually counts as knowledge and not knowledge.

And I’ll stop.

(Applause)

Jamie Glazov: Ladies and gentlemen, even though Raymond was misbehaving, I want to give you 30 more seconds for something. This is a very unique individual, giving a voice to something that is not really spoken. In about 30 seconds, Raymond, please — but can you tell the audience what you do that is very unique, that almost nobody’s doing?

Raymond Ibrahim: Well, what I do — I kind of — I intimated it before. And I think part of this has to do with my background. I was born and raised here; my parents are from Egypt. And they were born and raised there. So I was raised in a sort of Middle Eastern household in America. And I think what that’s done is kind of given me an appreciation to understand both mentalities, and how they see each other, and how they misread each other. And this is what’s gotten me into the field of always trying to clarify all these subtle intellectual points that are always missed by the West.

And I think the big thing that I always see, and that I know instinctively, is that the number-one problem with the Western approach to Islam is they project. Westerners project their worldview onto Muslims, okay, and then they think Muslims — this is how — Muslims can’t want to do all this; they just want what I want. And it’s not like that. And Muslims do the same thing. Muslims — if you’ve ever wondered why Muslims think the West is imperialistic and evil, and Jews want to destroy them, is because they’re projecting themselves onto the West.

So it’s been — kind of my mission is to try to take these different mentalities that are so divergent and subtle, and people don’t follow it — they see just, you know, the incidences — and try to sort of synthesize it all into something meaningful that could be helpful. Thanks.

Jamie Glazov: Thank you, Raymond.

(Applause)

Ladies and gentlemen, he has brought so much to FrontPage Magazine, and I’m very grateful. An incredible writer, Daniel Greenfield.

(Applause)

Daniel Greenfield: Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

Throughout this weekend, we’ve talked a lot about the threat of Islam, the danger of Islam. There have been some incredible speakers and some incredible scholars on this panel who are going to go into more detail on it.

But there’s one important thing that I want you to take away from it — they are afraid of us. You’re going to hear a lot about the threat of Islam here and beyond. But don’t let that intimidate you. The Muslim world is afraid of us.

Now, during the Cold War, many Americans heard a great deal about communism, about the threat of communism. What they forgot was that the communists were afraid of us. They were afraid of capitalism, they were afraid of America. They were afraid that the American model would succeed and that they would become irrelevant. And that’s what happened. The Muslim world has the same exact fear.

Have you ever had a poisonous snake or a spider in the house, and someone told you it’s more afraid of you than you are of it? That’s the same thing with the Muslim world. They’re more afraid of us than we are of them. Their terrorism, their violence — it’s fear. It’s insecurity.

Now, don’t think that their fear is of army rangers breaking into their house and shooting them, or the CIA. They’re occasionally afraid of that, but they’re not very afraid of that. Keep in mind, this is a cult that believes that life is worthless, anyway. That’s not what they’re afraid of. They’re based on honor. What they’re afraid of, what they’re insecure about, is our planes, our skyscrapers, our microprocessors, our civilization.

In the 20th century, it became more obvious than ever that Islam had failed. And an Islamic civilization could not compete with non-Muslim civilizations. And if you are a religious Muslim, if you look at that; and if you believe that you were meant to rule the world, that your way is best, that your way is right; then how can the infidels have all this? How can their culture be superior?

This was the challenge that the Muslim Brotherhood faced when they looked at America, when they looked at England, when they looked and saw that the civilizations that have colonized them — or that even walked away from the colonization — were superior to theirs. So they had to have an answer.

Now, answer number one was that there’s something wrong with Islam. Islam would have to be meaningfully reformed — not reformed by going back to the past, to the seventh century, but by going to the future. That’s not the choice that they made.

The second choice that they had to make was to eliminate the competition, was to eliminate any threat to their insecurity by subjugating and destroying any rival civilizations. That is the choice that they made. That is what we’re facing today.

They’re not simply at war with us because of power or greed — those are obvious factors. Muslim Brotherhood leaders, for example, live pretty well. They benefit from the war that they’re setting off. And they’re, in many cases, participating in a futile society, or at least in an oligarchy, and making money from it. But there’s a larger issue here. This is their civilization, this is their self image at stake.

Honor is very important in the Muslim world. You kill your daughter for honor, you kill your wife for honor. Now they’re trying to wipe out the West for honor. It’s not anything that we did to them, despite what the Left would like us to believe. It’s not because of our foreign policy, it’s not because of Israel, it’s not because there are American troops in Saudi Arabia — though the American troops in Saudi Arabia are actually closer to the point, because again, it shows that the guardians of Mecca, the guardians of Medina, can’t even defend themselves. They need Americans to do it, just like they needed the French back when the Mosque was invaded.

And they went through quickie conversions to Islam. But at the end of the day, they still needed the French to do the job for them. During the Gulf War, they needed the Americans to do the job for them. Even when they buy weapons, they’re still buying the American weapons. All this shows their own insufficiency. And this only highlights their insecurity. Why aren’t we good enough, they have to ask themselves. Why aren’t we good enough? Not because we’re not good enough, but because they’re cheating. Because they’re taking from us. Because their rule is unjust.

Now, justice is a word that Islamists love a great deal. They love it almost as much as the social justice crowd on the left does. And it’s something that the two of them have in common.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is now the Freedom and Justice Party, because freedom is, of course, the first thing you associate with Islam.

(Laughter)

In Turkey, it’s the Justice and Development Party. Of course, justice means Sharia. So their society is just, and we’re the unjust.

Now, when the New York Times begins talking about moderate Islamists — which apparently means that they’re only going to cut off a few fingers from a thief’s hand instead of the whole hand, or they’re only going to throw a few pebbles at a raped woman instead of stones — the term has absolutely no meaning whatsoever. Because you can’t be a moderate if you’re an Islamist. If you believe that political — that Islam has to be completely dominant, which is a basic idea within Islam, then you can’t be a moderate about it.

You can choose different tactics, you can go about it in different ways. You can go the direct route by flying a jet plane into a skyscraper. You can go the indirect route by setting up Muslim Students Associations on campuses and moving them up through the ranks, into the leadership, and into political positions, into Congress and, maybe someday, into the White House.

But that’s not a difference between the moderates and the extremists; that’s a choice of tactics. And the choice of tactics does not make you moderate or extreme. It doesn’t make you a better person or a worse person, doesn’t make you safer or not safer to be around. It is a choice of tactics.

Now, the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in response to the confrontation with English civilization. They were founded in responses to seeing England, which was very present in Egypt — and seeing how their own failures had led to this — why aren’t we in charge of Egypt? The reason we aren’t in charge of Egypt is because of the English. Now, why aren’t we in charge of Egypt? Because of the Americans. Now we overthrew Mubarak — why aren’t we in charge in Egypt? Well, they’re going to be in charge of Egypt. But beyond Egypt, there’s Libya, there’s Tunisia, and there’s Yemen. But if we’re in charge of all these, there’s still going to be always something missing. There’s still always going to be a hole in the center of it all.

And that hole is their own failure. They can’t stop attacking us, because their own failures drive them on. They can’t actually move beyond — move up the ladder of civilization. So they’re going to have to continue this war, they’re going to have to continue fighting outside enemies, whether it’s Israel, it’s the United States, it’s the Jews, it’s the Christians, it’s the freemasons — which is a very popular belief in the Middle East, even long after it stopped being anything but a joke in the United States and Europe — it’s a very popular belief in the Middle East that the freemasons are behind everything — the CIA. They need somebody to blame, because they’re the ones who are actually to blame, they’re the ones who have failed.

And they are the ones who need to change. And that’s the message we need to take there. They’re afraid of us. They’re afraid not of our military; they’re afraid of what we have accomplished. They’re afraid of our culture, our civilization, our masterpieces, our literature, our art, our technology. They’re afraid of what we have accomplished and how it makes them look. And the more we remind them of that, the more we remind them of their failures, the more they can be driven to change.

(Applause)

Jamie Glazov: Robert Spencer was telling me he needs about an hour and a half. But Robert, you can do it in seven minutes, please?

Robert Spencer: Okay.

I’m sorry, I can’t speak sitting down. I also thought this is my only chance to look taller than Raymond Ibrahim.

(Laughter)

That was really remarkable what Daniel Greenfield was just saying about how they’re afraid of us, and it’s certainly true. It’s a fundamentally insecure culture. And you can see it running all the way through it — the death penalty for apostasy, the forbidding of proselytizing among other religious groups. In other words, they can’t defend their own beliefs, they can’t defend their own positions. And so they have to shut down opposition.

Now, when we’re talking about Islamists or Islamic supremacists in America, that’s exactly what they’re trying to do now. The lines are being drawn.

Have you noticed, now that we’re at the end of this weekend, that there has been a kind of apocalyptic tone to this Restoration? I’ve been to — this is, I don’t know, my sixth or seventh. And I have noticed this time, there is a very end-times feel to Restoration, and people talking about economic collapse, societal collapse, civil war, much more than in the past. And I certainly hope that we can avert those things. But there’s no doubt that the lines are being drawn.

And one of the things that happens in the run-up to a civil war, even if that civil war could still be averted, is that the people who are vying in the different groups no longer have any shared basis for discussion, or any shared core beliefs on which they can have any kind of meaningful dialogue. And we see that in what’s happening now.

You take, for example, the Ku Klux Klan or David Duke — no decent group, no decent organization would ever host them, have them speak, something like that. Left, right, whatever — there is no group that is within the pale of acceptable public discourse that would give a platform to somebody like David Duke. And we all take that for granted.

But what the Islamic supremacists are trying to do in the United States right now is portray anyone who speaks honestly about the jihad threat as being exactly like David Duke or the Ku Klux Klan, and not to be allowed in the public square. And meanwhile, we here in this room, and those with whom we associate and those who know us, don’t accept that paradigm at all, and have a completely different frame of reference.

So in other words, those of us on this panel, in one context, are bigoted, racist, hatemongering Islamophobes who have no right, no place, anywhere in the public discourse. And in another place, here, we are courageous truth-tellers who are piercing through the dishonesty of the mainstream. And so the context, in other words, the shared platform that forms the cohesiveness of a society is dissolving away. And it is being actively dissolved by the Islamic groups in the United States like the Council on American Islamic Relations and others that are trying to make it impossible for us to resist jihad by defaming those of us who speak honestly about it in this way.

But they have achieved great success recently. There has been a concerted effort to get the FBI to purge all its training materials of anything honest about what the texts and teachings of Islam are that jihad terrorists use to recruit and motivate new terrorists. And this is — immediate success. The Attorney General, and Robert Mueller, the head of the FBI; immediately promised — after they got pressure from far-left journalists, like Spencer Ackerman at Wired — that they would go through all the training materials and make sure there was no mention of Islam, no mention of jihad, in any connection with whatever you call that thing that’s sort of Islamic terrorism.

Friday, while we were here, 500 Muslims protested outside the New York City Police Department headquarters in Lower Manhattan, complaining about police surveillance in mosques and infiltration of mosques. And they said — one of them said — if this were happening to any other religious group, people would be outraged. And you know what, he was right. If the cops were infiltrating synagogues or churches, I would be outraged. And that’s because synagogues and churches are not sending out terrorists into the rest of the society.

(Applause)

But you see that he lives in sort of a backwards world, where up is down, and black is white, and evil Spock has the beard — you remember that? And nothing is the way that it really is. Because he is trying to give us the impression that there’s nothing more to be concerned about in a mosque than there is in your average synagogue or church, which is patently absurd. There’s been a sharp uptick in jihad terror plots since Barack Obama became President. I wonder why that might be? And there’s every reason to assume that most, if not all, of those jihad terrorists actually had contact with people in mosques, and some of those plots were hatched in mosques. And so there’s every reason to pay attention to what’s going on there.

But the idea that there is nothing to this at all, as absurd as it may seem to us, is not only being asserted by these protesters in front of the New York City Police Department headquarters, but is being readily accepted by the authorities as being — yes, indeed, this is something that’s unacceptable, just as we can’t speak about Islamic terrorism. So I guess we have to make up new words when we speak of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Because obviously there is no Islamic jihad. And we’ll have to call it pink elephants.

Anyway, also, when we speak, we are being driven out of the public square with increasing frequency. Hotels have canceled several events recently that were being — that we had planned various — anti-jihad speakers had planned. I was speaking at a small Catholic college a few weeks ago, and there were people writing to the president of the college, saying — how can you have this person speak? Don’t you know this would just be like having Osama bin Laden come speak?

And so this is one of the most effective, if not the most effective, ways in which Islamization is advancing in the United States. The stealth jihad is the jihad without terrorism and is the effort, the struggle — which is what “jihad” means, after all — to make it impossible for us to resist what they are doing. And of course, if we can’t speak about it, and if it is outside the bounds of acceptable public discourse to speak about it, then we are mute and defenseless in the face of their advance.

And so above all, I would leave you, at the end of this weekend, with the absolute imperative to fight this in any way — whatever your situation in life may be — in any way you possibly can. Host your own anti-jihad conference, have speakers. Make sure that we do still have access to the public square. Make your own access to the public square. Write your own material, get it into the paper. Because if the light goes out on our ability to speak truthfully about this, then there will be nothing stopping them.

And on that happy note, thank you very much.
amie Glazov: Ladies and gentlemen, what an honor and privilege to have one of the leading warriors on the frontlines in this terror war — Frank Gaffney​.

(Applause)

Frank Gaffney: Good morning.

I want to just start out by saying — I know David mentioned that they’ve changed the name of this event once from the Dark Ages Weekend to the Restoration Weekend. I propose we change it to Thanksgiving Weekend. Because I am so thankful for David and his team, Jamie, and all of you –

(Applause)

– and the chance to be here with you. That’s to soften you up.

How many of you sat through the hour-plus that I went through on Friday afternoon?

(Applause)

Okay, well, thank God. Because I’ve got seven minutes to do the whole thing right now. And I’m going to talk very fast. So you’re going to see a lot of this stuff, and you’re going be — I’m going to go through as much of it as I can before he pulls me down. But I just want to give you a flavor of an example of the enemy within our community, and just a sense of the peril that it represents. So bear with me here quickly.

A book which we still have a few copies of is [the source] — “Shariah: The Threat to America.” I would commend it to you.

The Muslim Brotherhood​ creed I think you’ve been told about several times. It is not secular, it is not nonviolent. Its mission is a kind of grand jihad, as several have talked about, aimed at destroying us from within.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Robert has just mentioned the FBI training. This is a very crude way — you saw in 2004 the 9/11 Commission talking about the threat in very realistic terms. Some Muslim Brothers complained, and we stopped using the words they didn’t like. How could this have happened, even with the Fort Hood After Action Report, as Allen West mentioned yesterday?

Well, in part, it’s because groups like this, attached as it was to the strategic plan found in a secret subbasement in 2004, listing the Muslim Brotherhood’s front organizations, like the Islamic Society of North America, the largest in the country; like CAIR, not on this list — it came into being in ’93, but its progenitor, the Islamic Association of Palestine — had been all over our government, including in these institutions and our civil societies.

The one I’m going to dwell on is public policy entities in the civil society. It became the job of this individual, Abdul Rahman Al-Amoudi, a top Muslim Brotherhood operative, to penetrate and to subvert the conservative movement and the Republican Party. He’d earned his chops by working with these guys. They made him a goodwill ambassador for negotiating and dealing with the Muslims, including, in the Israeli-Palestinian context — they also gave him the responsibility for credentialing chaplains for the United States military and prison systems.

Evidence of Al-Amoudi’s seminal role in starting the Islamic Free Market Institute — two checks drawn on his account, each for $10,000, the tip of the iceberg. The Islamic Free Market Institute also got his right-hand man, who you’ll meet momentarily, as its first executive director. It was used to launder the credentials of Brotherhood operatives as conservatives and Republicans, thanks to this man’s help — Grover Norquist​.

If you tune into “60 Minutes​” tonight, you will see what I expect will be a very flattering portrayal of Mr. Norquist. This is not going to be so flattering — thanks to Grover, both the Bush Campaign of 2000 and the Bush Administration were penetrated by these six individuals. Just as illustrative examples — Al-Amoudi I’ve already introduced you to, here with George W. Bush in the Governor’s Mansion in May 2000, part of the campaign outreach to the Muslim American community. This was before he announced he was a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah; also before he was convicted of trying to kill the Crown Prince then, now King, of Saudi Arabia, with money from Muammar Khadafi. Subsequently, the US government, after he was sent to the slammer in Supermax for 23 years, announced he was also an al-Qaeda financier.

The gentleman on the far left is Khaled Saffuri, Abdul Rahman Al-Amoudi’s longtime right-hand man, the first executive director of the Islamic Free Market Institute. You see Al-Amoudi on the other side of George Bush, also in the May 2000 Governor’s Mansion outreach thing. Khaled Saffuri became the Muslim outreach coordinator for the Bush 2000 Campaign. Khaled Saffuri is next to Bush in the King Faisal Mosque after 9/11. The President then was there impressing the Muslim community with how sensitive and tolerant he was.

The fellow standing next to him on his left was actually one of the principals of the Islamic Association for Palestine, overheard on a wiretap founding CAIR — still runs it to this day — Niad Awad, very bad dude.

Down here in Florida, they know this chap — Sami Al-Arian​. He was shown here at Disneyworld, thanks to Grover and Khaled Saffuri, with the President in March on the campaign trail. Sami Al-Arian was at the time running Palestinian Islamic Jihad​; subsequently convicted of doing so.

Muzammil Siddiqi​, one of the worst of the Muslim Brotherhood imams in the United States, based [in] California, was for a time the president of the largest Muslim Brotherhood front, the Islamic Society of North America. Here he is in a foreign print, walking past George W. Bush. Because he was, of all Muslims, the one that was selected to represent that faith community at the Ecumenical Service three days after 9/11 in the National Cathedral. Here he is in the White House, presenting George W. Bush with a Koran, at which occasion the President said the teachings of it are peace and good.

Well, we didn’t only hear it there, thanks in part to this character, Suhail Khan​, shown with the man I believe he handles for the Brotherhood. Suhail Khan is a pedigreed Muslim Brother. His parents founded four of the organizations the Brotherhood itself claims are their fronts — ISNA, the Muslim Students Association, the Muslim Communities Association and the aforementioned Islamic Association of Palestine. He’s never repudiated his parents’ involvement in any of these organizations, nor has he distanced himself from them himself.

In fact, I’m going to show you a short clip — if, God willing, this works — on the occasion of his presentation to that largest Muslim Brotherhood front, the Islamic Association of Palestine. Excuse me — the Islamic Society of North America, 1999.

(Video played)

Work for the ummah, the Muslim world. At the time he made that speech, he was working for this gentleman. You may know him — Tom Campbell, a RINO, who used to represent Northern California in the Congress. He was his policy and press guy in that capacity. He worked to try to get a ban on something called secret evidence.

What’s that about? Secret evidence happened to be the personal priority of this man, Sami Al-Arian, you’ve already met — Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The idea being, he didn’t want us to be able to use classified information in prosecuting and deporting illegal aliens without giving them that information, which of course would compromise not only it, but also probably the sources and methods by which it was obtained. Why was he so keen on that? Because his brother-in-law was being held on the basis of secret evidence at the time — secret evidence that would also come ultimately to implicate old Sami.

So, while Suhail Khan was working for RINO Campbell, he was made a board member of the Islamic Free Market Institute, Abdul Rahman Al-Amoudi’s organization, chaired by Grover Norquist. That helped credential him, helped move him into the Bush 2000 Campaign with his friend, Khaled Saffuri, thanks to Carl Rove​, shown here in that meeting in the Governor’s Mansion in May 2000.

Sami Al-Arian got, through Grover Norquist’s help, the President — the candidate, I should say — George W. Bush, to commit, if elected in the course of this second debate with Al Gore​, to promise to get rid of secret evidence. This was made further possible by Suhail Khan being moved into the White House Office of Public Liaison after the election as a full-time volunteer, his job being the gatekeeper for the Muslim Brotherhood. In that capacity, he helped with their influence operation big time, including not only that the teachings of Islam are peace and good, but also that Islam is a religion of peace, jihad is just about personal struggle, and of course, al-Qaeda has hijacked this religion.

Sami Al-Arian hammered Suhail Khan at the 2001 ISNA convention, saying — we want the President to deliver on this commitment. He called — he hectored the crowd to send 50,000 e-mails — faxes, phone calls, meetings, what have you — to try to get secret evidence prohibited by George W. Bush. Well, interestingly enough, Suhail said — I’m on the case, we’re working it. And they finally got a date for it. Guess what date that was? 9/11.

I happen to know this because they all decamped when they couldn’t get into the White House. And this is, by the way, the access list, apparently, of that meeting — 49 Muslim Brotherhood organizations and representatives who were supposed to be at the White House to take delivery of the President’s commitment on secret evidence. Instead, they decamped to the conference room I shared with Grover Norquist, which is how I tumbled onto all of this.

Interestingly enough, Grover Norquist’s name is at the top of this Muslim Brotherhood access list. Why would that be? Well, according to James — excuse me, John Zogby, James’s brother — both Arab Americans, not, by the way, Muslim Americans, but Arab Americans — Grover Norquist was, quote — he was absolutely central to the White House outreach.

I could go on and on. I’ll try not to, because Jamie’s getting restive.

Grover got Suhail Khan, as he [is] a board member of the American Conservative Union, which runs the Conservative Political Action Conference​. Very quickly — Grover has been building infrastructure for these guys, promoting their candidates, and espousing and advancing their agenda.

Infrastructure — this is too much to get into, except he’s got these Wednesday group meetings, not only in Washington but in the states around the country. He’s using these, as you see there, in the words of one of his Muslim Brotherhood operatives — to build — rather create relations with top political leaders and Muslims.

Who are some of these guys? Well, the fellow with the striking red tie is David Ramadan. He’s just been elected to the House of Delegates, thanks to Grover Norquist’s efforts in Virginia. Shown with the House Majority leader, shown with the governor of Virginia; not shown with, but also endorsed by, the Attorney General of Virginia — three, I would argue, of the most promising young Republican leaders, all now implicated in what I believe is a rather dubious candidate. [Why?] Ken Timmerman​, an investigative reporter, noted shortly before the election, this guy is related by marriage to a major-general in Lebanese intelligence with close ties to Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. As Ken points out, you don’t get to be married to the mob without having passed muster with the mob. I believe that’s true in this case as well.

Jamie, one more second.

These are some of the specific agenda items that, I think it would probably shock you and most conservatives to know, Grover Norquist is publicly associated with and espousing. Here’s some more. Cutting defense happens to be one of my pet rocks. I’ll be at a conservative leadership meeting tomorrow, where I guarantee you he will try to get every conservative in the room to join him in gutting our military, lest we raise taxes on the rich. I will probably be thrown out of that room for arguing I’m not sure that’s the right call for our country or for our party.

Grover has been working assiduously to counter something we have been doing. Many of you wonder what we could do to stop Sharia in America. I believe American Laws for American Courts is one such initiative. He has been using his Wednesday meeting to try to prevent it. It’s a simple proposition — American laws that protect our civil rights should operate, not ones like Sharia and, by the way, other foreign laws that don’t.

He convened a meeting on the 6th of July for the purposes of denouncing this. Got some Jews to come in and say they wouldn’t be able to practice their faith if this law were the law of the land. Then he brought in these notable conservatives at the end of September to make the same general point.

He went to Dearborn, a hotbed of Sharia in America, to headline a national leadership conference with the Muslim Brotherhood and prominent leftists like George Soros​’s Center for American Progress. This is what he said on that occasion. I just have to play you this, because you got to hear it in his words.

(Video played)

Note the choking up. I’m concluding, promise you, Jamie.

The response from Grover is to shoot the messenger, here again, in his own words.

(Video played)

Sad and silly it is indeed. A classic influence operation, I would argue, in all of these respects.

What would Reagan do? We know. He rooted out communists in his day. I think what we must do — we must understand the Brotherhood is the enemy. We must not embrace them. We must recognize Sharia for what it is, which is the enemy’s threat doctrine. It is about power, it is not about faith. And I believe we must hold Grover Norquist accountable. We are not doing that now, we have not done it for 12 years that I have been warning about this.

I do want to salute, though, two gentlemen — Frank Wolfe, Congressman Frank Wolfe from Virginia –

(Applause)

– who did a statement of conscience on the floor of the House of Representatives, denouncing Grover for precisely these kinds of activities; and also our own David Horowitz, who has been a real leader on this.

Thank you.

(Applause)

Jamie Glazov: Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to open up for some questions. But I believe sometimes we take a couple seconds, though, just to recognize some of the troops that make this all possible. Craig Snider, can you stand up in the back for a minute? This is a great warrior that makes it all happen here as well.

(Applause)

Do we have a microphone? Okay, let’s start with some questions for the panel.

Unidentified Audience Member: Is it true that Barack Obama​’s father was a Muslim? Is it also true that, since he was his father, that he automatically becomes a Muslim when he’s born? And if he changes from Muslimism to another religion, is it true that he becomes somebody — an infidel who should be killed? And could you conclude by that that Barack is still a Muslim, and that he would be in favor of all these things that you’re talking about now, and he would be in favor of Iran getting the atomic bomb, and also in favor of them destroying our country, because he would still be a Muslim? Would those things follow?

Jamie Glazov: Do you have a wise man that you’re addressing this to?

Unidentified Audience Member: Yes. You. Whoever wants to handle it. Bob Spencer.

Robert Spencer: Strictly speaking, that’s true. He has a Muslim father and a Muslim stepfather. And according to Islamic law, that makes him a Muslim. He says that he became a Christian in this Jeremiah Wright​ church later on.

It must be noted — and I’m not saying that this is true in the case of Barack Obama, but a Muslim can call himself a Christian, or a Jew. Because Islam, if you read the Koran, considers itself to be the correct and true teachings of the prophets Moses and Jesus. And so when they say — like the imam — the Ground Zero mosque imam, a few years back, made everybody so excited when he said — I am a Jew. I’ve always considered myself a Jew. And they said — oh, how wonderful and tolerant and broadminded and loving he is. But he just meant — I’m a follower of the true teachings of Moses, which is Islam.

And so to call himself a Christian doesn’t mean he’s not a Muslim. And certainly in every way, as far as I can see, all his public policies have been oriented toward the expansion of Sharia and Islamic law around the world. There’s a strange inconsistency in that there’s one notable group of protesters in the Islamic world that he did not support, and those were in Iran.

Now, he’s not a stupid man. I think the golden thread there is that he sees that they were fighting against an Islamic state. Whereas all across North Africa and the Middle East, they’re fighting to install Islamic states. So in both cases, he’s acting in favor of Islamic states.

Now, does all this mean that he’s secretly a Muslim? I don’t know. He doesn’t return my calls.

(Laughter)

But certainly, I think that it’s obvious, whatever his personal dispositions may be, that he believes that Islamic law is a good, positive, stabilizing influence for societies, and he wants to foster its growth.

(Applause)

Jamie Glazov: Raymond, you quickly wanted to add something?

Raymond Ibrahim: Yeah, I’d like to add to that. I think we need to differentiate between all your questions that you raised, which are legitimate, about Obama. But I think the important thing is that — and now we come to a term that not many people are familiar with — the word “Islamicate.” “Islamicate” means that you don’t have to be a Muslim, you don’t even have to believe in Allah, or any of this — but if you grow up in that culture, so much of Islam permeates your own worldview, de facto.

And so the things that we heard about and we discussed, such as taqiyya and deception, and this sort of tribal solidarity — you don’t have to be a believer in Islam. But if you grow in that culture — and he lived there, okay — then these things do start to influence you. And so — and as I always point out, whatever he is, I know for a fact that of all the Presidents, Obama should really understand Islam more than anyone else. Because he’s lived there, and he knows how it is. And he’s not a stupid guy.

So all these factors, of course, sort of kind of contribute to what you’re saying. And I think that he understands it, he’s influenced by it. He may not necessarily subscribe to the doctrines, or say he believes in Allah or read the Koran. But all these things are part of the societies that were part of his dad’s — Indonesia, and all these places that he grew up. So they’ve impacted him and influenced him in certain ways, not least in which that they have really told him what Islam is about, firsthand experience. Whereas other Presidents have not had this.

Jamie Glazov: Ladies and gentlemen, let’s please keep the questions to one sentence; and the panelists, the answer to just, you know, under a minute. Because we want to let as many people participate as possible. But Frank wanted to add something.

Frank Gaffney: Very quickly, on the point that Robert just made — you’d think that somebody couldn’t be a Christian if they didn’t think that Jesus was divine. Kind of a fundamental point, right? Well, there is, as part of the stealth jihad — which the Muslim Brotherhood is the prime practitioner of — as Robert has called it — they call it civilization jihad — a very concerted effort to infiltrate, suborn and otherwise undermine the interfaith community.

And one of the most insidious of these steps is something called Chrislam. There are actually churches and other houses of worship that are now promoting the idea that you can be both Christian and Muslim, because both revere Jesus. But as Robert says, Jesus is a prophet in Islam, whose principal job, as I understand it, is to kill the Christians when he comes back, because they haven’t gotten with Islam, which is a little different than most people’s interpretation of Christianity.

(Laughter)

Jamie Glazov: We got a question over here.

Unidentified Audience Member: This has been an extremely informative weekend. But what does the panel suggest or think about actions we should take tomorrow? I think everybody should act tomorrow, and start — and keep it up until we have victory.

Jamie Glazov: We want to get to as many questions — but Daniel, you haven’t spoken. Maybe, for 30 seconds, what actions can the West take?

Daniel Greenfield: Well, here’s one simple thing, which we had during the al-Awlaki case, where there was this whole controversy — can the President sign an order to execute an American citizen? There’s a simple solution — denaturalization, which was a standard principle at a certain point, until the Supreme Court decided that it was cruel and unusual punishment. Remove the United States citizenship of people who are foreign agents, who are members of the Muslim Brotherhood, who are waging war against America or have allegiance to a foreign power.

Unidentified Audience Member: Wait a second –

Jamie Glazov: Wait –

Unidentified Audience Member: I suggest that we should take — this audience should go home and take –

Robert Spencer: The first thing we have to do is raise awareness. Most people we know have no clue about the things that we have been discussing this morning. Most people you know have no idea about any of this. So that’s up to you. That’s one thing you can do. You can talk to your friends, you can talk to your family. You could have a gathering at your home and show a film, show the kinds of things that Frank was showing today, show a Ground Zero mosque documentary, or “Islam: What the West Needs to Know,” or all these resources that are out there. Start a study group. Read a book, read the Koran — that would be a fun study group.

(Laughter)

And there are all sorts of things that we need to do.

The first thing we need to do is have enough people to reach critical mass to be able to start turning this around in terms of our elected representatives. But we can’t do that when most people don’t have any idea what it is. And so, that’s something you can do right now, tomorrow.

Frank Gaffney: Right –

Jamie Glazov: Thank you. I’m begging for your cooperation.

Frank Gaffney: — quickly — Jamie, Jamie –

Jamie Glazov: I’ve just been threatened to be fired if I don’t enforce this better.

Frank Gaffney: I get one minute on this, please?

Jamie Glazov: My job’s on the line, Frank.

(Laughter)

Jamie Glazov: Okay. Under 30 seconds?

Frank Gaffney: I say we keep Jamie’s job.

The thing that you can do most immediately, and with greatest effect — let’s be honest — is to support the work of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and groups like ours that are in the frontlines.

(Applause)

Financially –

Jamie Glazov: Okay. We’re begging for questions, and not speeches.

Unidentified Audience Member: One short question — Mr. Gaffney, would you consider Grover Norquist to be naïve, deceived or corrupt?

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Frank Gaffney: This is kind of like that question that was put to the President yesterday, wasn’t it?

I think he started out just being corrupt. I think he’s gone over to the dark side. I’ve been warning about this publicly, after doing so privately for several years, including with him. He was, after all, my landlord for seven years. And so it’s not a question of him being innocent or naïve, from that point forward. And when you see some of the stuff that I showed you at the end, of sort of becoming more brazen — I mean, crimeny, participating in a national leadership conference of Islamists and radical leftists?

I was told that more recently he’s now helping teach fundraising techniques to some of these guys. This is not just venality, or sheer corruption, I’m afraid. This is an affinity.

Jamie Glazov: Thank you, Frank.

We have one more question?

Unidentified Audience Member: Frank, what did the folks at — what is the program tonight for Grover, “60 Minutes” — what did they say about this? Or, how are they not exposed to this? Or what’s going on with “60 Minutes?”

Frank Gaffney: Like Robert not getting the President to return his phone calls, “60 Minutes” hasn’t shared with me their final product. I did brief them on this. I did have a chance to brief the producer. He told me that he shared it with Steve Kroft​ — not all of it, obviously, but he reported to him. I was told that he was interested. I further reported something that I learned only recently, which is that he’s also been helping the Iranians. So this is not just the Muslim Brotherhood as a pro-Islamist program, as Robert was just saying.

My guess is what you’ll see tonight is sort of a grudging paean to the most important man in the Republican Party, which, if you think about it, is a perfect setup for a subsequent takedown. And this is one of the reasons why I think we’ve got — as a movement, as a party — both to hold him accountable and give him a choice. He can be a leader of the conservative movement whose efforts are valued — I think in some areas not so much, but in others perhaps valued. I happen to like flying in and out of Reagan Airport, which was one of his real accomplishments.

But if he wants to be an enabler of the enemy, he cannot be a leader of the conservative movement — full stop.

Jamie Glazov: Thank you, Frank.

(Applause)

Ladies and gentlemen, the next panel is going to start right away. There’s not going to be a break.

Just a very quick personal note — there’s the Geert Wilderses in Europe. I just want to say that as the editor of FrontPage Magazine on this stage — in our society, these are four Geert Wilderses that are putting their lives on the line. Let’s give them a hand.

(Applause)


To get the whole story on why the Left paves the road for our enemies’ destructive agendas, read Jamie Glazov’s book, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.