Posted on 05/09/2014 7:25:44 AM PDT by SJackson
- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com -
Berkeley Prof: Terrorists Good, ‘Islamophobia’ Bad
Posted By Cinnamon Stillwell and Rima Greene On May 8, 2014 @ 12:35 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments
When interfaith dialogue, Islamophobia, boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS), and academia collide, theres a good chance that Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) will be involved. Case in point: FOSNA, the voice of the Palestinian Christians, recently held a conference with the title, Voices for Justice & Peace in the Holy Land that encompassed all four factors. It took place at co-host Christ the King Catholic Church in Pleasant Hill, California, a massive complex with plenty of room for the workshops that made up the bulk of the conference. Tables displayed with anti-Israel books, leaflets, flyers, and T-shirts lined the walls of the cafeteria; approximately 100 people attended, many sporting keffiyehs, including a tall woman wearing a patchwork-style dress composed entirely of the scarves. Radical chic was all the rage.
Hatem Baziana senior lecturer in the department of Near Eastern studies, director of the Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project at the University of California, Berkeley, and a regular at Sabeel conferences and other interfaith eventsled the workshop titled American Muslims and the Palestinian struggle for liberation. It focused on the alleged connection between Islamophobia, counterterrorism, and the pro-Israel movement.
After devoting much of his talk to defending Islamist individuals and organizations indicted in terrorism cases, Bazian went a step further by pledging the financial and legal assistance of the group for which he is co-founder and chairman, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a conference co-sponsor:
We have a total of 4,300 cases; ninety percent are Palestinian [and] regarding material support for terrorism. . . . Right now we are in the middle of planning another appeal on the Holy Land Foundation case, which already has cost us $5 million.
However, AMP does not officially engage in legal advocacy, but, rather, educational efforts, rendering Bazians claims, particularly the inflated figure of 4,300 cases, suspect. Bazian sits on the board of directors of the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA), which filed a motion to vacate the prison sentences of the five Holy Land Foundation defendants in late 2013. He may have had this in mind when he made the above statement, but his numbers still dont add up, as MLFA lists only 48 cases wherein they are involved. Bazian should either verify the existence of the alleged 4,300 cases or to stop repeating this falsehood to the public.
Bazian also outlined AMPs specific efforts to put Palestine back on the agenda, including anti-Israel bus ad campaigns, Nakba commemorations (radicals use the word Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe, to describe Israels founding), and coalition building with the anti-Israel groups Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine. Perhaps most ominously, he noted that, We are designing a curriculum for use in 475 Muslim schools to address Palestinian issues, a promise that was echoed by speakers at a recent AMP fundraising dinner in Chicago. Given that anti-Israel and Islamist propaganda masquerading as education has already infiltrated American public schools, Bazians pledge should not be taken lightly.
Bazian, who is listed in the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centers Muslim 500: The Worlds Most Influential Muslims, claimed that there is a coordinated attempt in the U.S. to demonize Muslims and create a reflexive hate, and [to] keep them out of civil society. These efforts, gain more sympathizers for Israels treatment of the Palestinians. He included pro-Israeli groups among the major Islamophobic producers, claiming that their goal was stop debate on the Palestinian issue. If that were the case, they certainly arent succeeding on college campuses where anti-Israel academics and activists dominate the debate.
Bazian singled out Investigative Project on Terrorism founder Steven Emerson and Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes as leading figures in the Islamophobia industry. In fact, both focus their work on the danger of Islamism, not Islam. Bazian accused Pipes of being committed to the demonization of Muslims, ignoring Pipess years-long contention that radical Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution.
Whether vilifying Israels supporters, advocating for Islamists and terrorists, drumming up unfounded fears of Islamophobia, bragging about nonexistent accomplishments, or slandering critics, Bazians calumnies were legion. And that is exactly what many have to come to expect from the ranks of Middle East studies. When scholars become nothing but political activists, truth is the first casualty.
Berkeley resident Rima Greene co-wrote this article with Cinnamon Stillwell, the West Coast Representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum. Stillwell can be reached at stillwell@meforum.org.
..................
Feral Government Policy:
Muslim Bombers? - Nothing to worry about.
Invite them to the White House.
Give them guns, ammo and RPGs.
Patriots armed with legal weapons?
DOMESTIC TERRORISTS !!
INVESTIGATE THEM !!
SHOOT THEM !!
STEAL THEIR COWS !!
SEND OUT THE ATF, FBI, BLM, ACLU, YMCA, FFA, NARAL, NORML !!
“Islamophobia” is just another term for “survival instinct”.
IronJack: Berserkely professor bad, unemployment for Berserkley professor good.
She is the founder of the 9/11Neocons, an online discussion group for those who, like herself, went from left to right after 9/11. Her initial column on the subject, "The Making of a 9/11 Republican," has been widely referenced in the genre of political transformation. She was featured in a Psychology Today article on the subject titled, "The "Ideological Animal."
islamaphobia bad?
Anyone with an ounce of common sense would fear a death cult!
Unbelievable. Proof enough not to send your children to Berkeley.
Too bad taxpayer dollars have to go to Berkley.
We're living in very interesting times. I would recommend Shoebat's book to anyone trying to make sense of what's going on in the world today. His argument is VERY compelling, even though his prose is pretty tedious.
I wonder if they had pancakes for breakfast.
...and taxpayers support this fool at the university????? What a screwed-up country!
WTF?
No way to win the future.
Not for the U.S., in any case.
Just how is an "Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project" get launched?
How is it funded?
Who chooses its members?
I don't expect an answer, becaue it may be too embarrassing to get the honest answers.
But it begs the question :
Can a project be created at UC Berkely to document the thousands of terrorist Islamic massacres and murders worldwide in the last 10 years alone?
I am sure we can get funding for it, just from the surviving victims and their families alone.
A very target rich environment.
What morons think that islamophobia is anything other than a puerile attempt to render tens of thousands of muslim terrorist murder victims as imaginary? Is this group for real?
Check it out yourself!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.