Zarqawi: We will fight 'Until Islamic rule is back on Earth'

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — A recording purportedly made by the mastermind of bombings and beheadings in Iraq threatened to assassinate Iraq's interim prime minister and fight the Americans "until Islamic rule is back on Earth."

The audio, found Wednesday on an Islamic Web site, is supposedly from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the same Jordanian-born terrorist whose group claimed responsibility for the beheading of American hostage Nicholas Berg and Kim Sun-il, a South Korean whose decapitated body was found Tuesday evening between Baghdad and Fallujah. South Koreans reacted with sorrow and anger to Kim's beheading Wednesday, with President Roh Moo-hyun calling it a "crime against humanity."

After the slaying, U.S. forces launched an airstrike on what the Americans said was an al-Zarqawi hideout in Fallujah. Three people were killed and nine wounded, said Dr. Loai Ali Zeidan at Fallujah Hospital. It was the second U.S. airstrike on Fallujah since Saturday.

"In both cases we believe we hit significant numbers of al-Zarqawi lieutenants and al-Zarqawi fighters," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the coalition's deputy operations chief. The airstrikes also destroyed large ammunition stores, Kimmitt said Wednesday in an interview with Associated Press Television News.

Kim's body was found two days after he appeared on a videotape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, pleading "I don't want to die" and begging his government to pull its soldiers out of Iraq.

South Korea refused and said it would go ahead with plans to send another 3,000 forces here by August, which will make it the third-largest troop contributor after the United States and Britain.

"When we think of his desperate appeals for life, our hearts are wrenched with grief," Roh said Wednesday in a national television address.

In the audiotape, the speaker thought to be al-Zarqawi told Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, that "we will continue the game with you until the end." The speaker said "we will not get bored" until "we make you drink from the same glass" as Izzadine Saleem, the Iraqi Governing Council president killed last month in a car-bombing claimed by al-Zarqawi's group.

"We will carry on our jihad against the Western infidel and the Arab apostate until Islamic rule is back on Earth," the voice said.

An official with Allawi's office dismissed the threat, saying it would not derail the transfer of sovereignty next week. Click for larger view.

Elsewhere, a roadside bomb exploded near Baghdad's Kindi Hospital on Wednesday, killing a policeman who was handling the bomb and a mother and her child who were riding in a taxi, Iraqi police said. Another man, his shirt off, was seen being led away in handcuffs.

In Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 60 miles west of Baghdad, gunmen killed two policemen and wounded a third in a drive-by shooting, witnesses said.

A roadside bomb also exploded as an Iraqi National Guard patrol passed in the northern city of Mosul, killing one Iraqi soldier and wounding four others, the U.S. military said.

The beheading of Kim, 33, who worked for a South Korean company providing supplies to U.S. forces, stunned South Korea and prompted the Seoul government to order all nonessential civilians to leave Iraq as soon as possible.

Late Tuesday, the Arabic language satellite television channel Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape of a terrified Kim kneeling, blindfolded and wearing an orange jumpsuit similar to those issued to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Kim's shoulders were heaving, his mouth open and moving as if he were gulping air and sobbing. Five hooded and armed men stood behind him, one with a big knife slipped in his belt.

One of the masked men read a statement addressed to the Korean people: "This is what your hands have committed. Your army has not come here for the sake of Iraqis, but for cursed America." South Korea is a U.S. ally in Iraq.

American troops found Kim's body between Baghdad and Fallujah about 5:20 p.m. Iraq time, South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Shin Bong-kil said. The body was identified by a photograph sent by e-mail to the South Korean embassy.

The killing and kidnapping was claimed by Al-Zarqawi's group, Monotheism and Jihad.

The grisly killing was reminiscent of the decapitation of Berg and of American helicopter technician Paul M. Johnson Jr., 49, who was beheaded by al-Qaida militants in Saudi Arabia. An al-Qaida group claiming responsibility posted an Internet message that showed photographs of Johnson's severed head.

Also Tuesday, two American soldiers were killed and another wounded in an attack on a convoy near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad. The dean of the University of Mosul law school was murdered in another attack against the country's intellectual elite. Gunmen also killed two Iraqi women working as translators for British forces in Basra, Iraqi officials said.

— Iraqi engineers said they had resumed pumping crude oil through an export pipeline between northern Iraq and Turkey that was attacked last month. Officials with the State Oil Marketing Organization said they were unaware the pipeline was back up.

— Top followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr rejected an invitation to join a national conference that will select a council to advise Iraq's interim government.

Islamofascists are networking their terrorist network in the form of mosques and other fronts right HERE IN AMERICA neighbors...how do they use mosques in Iraq? Hmmm.

>>>>>>>

Boca Raton, City of Terror
By Joe Kaufman
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 22, 2003

Across our great nation, there are hotspots of Islamist hatred. Beautiful Boca Raton happens to be one of them.

The starting point is at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). It was there that the Muslim Student Organization (MSO) decided to establish two Islamic centers, each appropriately within arms length of the school.

Three FAU professors would take key roles in the creation process. Imad Mahgoub would become president of the Assalam Center, and Khalid Hamza and Bassem Alhalabi would be co-founders of the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR).

Today, both Islamic centers are looking to expand and have purchased large tracts of land to this effect. If they get what they want, they will have two multi-faceted mosques, in the heart of Boca Raton, within blocks of each other… and of course, the university. One will be a huge 27 thousand square foot facility; the other will be built to resemble the Al-Aqsa mosque which sits on top of Judaism’s holiest site in Jerusalem, a city that the ICBR says on its website Jews have no right to and prays Allah will cleanse it of its Jewish inhabitants immediately.

Local residents have questioned why there is a need for two mosques of near identical backgrounds in such close vicinity to one another. That’s certainly a good question, but when you look at several of the people involved in the undertaking of these centers, and when you look at some of the individuals that they have associated with, this question becomes one of many.

Khalid Hamza, who was an advisor to the Muslim Student Organization at FAU, not too long ago used a Texas A & M University internet forum to defend Sami Al Arian, a Tampa professor that was recently taken into custody for his involvement as a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). I used the term “was an advisor to the MSO,” because FAU has told him that they don’t want him to return to his teaching duties, and because the Islamic Center of Boca Raton sent out an e-mail announcing that he was leaving the South Florida community.

Aside from his involvement with the Islamic Center of Boca Raton and the Muslim Student Organization, Khalid Hamza is also an author. He recently wrote a novel entitled ‘The Veil,’ which is being promoted on the MSO’s website, www.msofau.org. The book is about a Muslim family living in Boca Raton. The first member of the family, as listed in the forward, is fittingly named Jihad.

While Hamza was with the MSO, the student group brought a couple of key radicals to speak at the university. On April 21, 2001, the MSO’s second annual Scholars’ Night featured Rafil Dhafir, a man that now sits behind bars for raising millions of dollars for terrorist organizations in the guise of an Iraqi children’s charity called ‘Help the Needy.’ Dhafir has also given lectures on why Muslims must not befriend Jews or Christians and how The United States and England have had a “vicious” war on Iraq. The contact for this event was MSO president, David Johnson, who now holds a position in the FAU student government. [On November 16, 2002, the ICBR also hosted Rafil Dhafir, in a fundraiser for the new mosque.]

The MSO’s fourth annual Scholars’ Night, on the date of April 21, 2003, featured Siraj Wahhaj, a man who was named as one of the potential unindicted co-conspirators of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and someone that sits on the Advisory Board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that is a spin-off of a front for the terrorist group Hamas. The contact for this event was Khalid Hamza.

Bassem Alhalabi, the other co-founder (and treasurer) of the ICBR, was a colleague of Sami Al Arian’s at the University of South Florida, and according to his resume, wrote various publications with Al Arian around the time that Al Arian was beginning to set the groundwork for the PIJ in America. One of the publications was even featured at a conference in Damascus, the headquarters of the PIJ and the home of Alhalabi Industries, where Alhalabi was employed prior to becoming a research assistant to Al Arian. Alhalabi gave Al Arian as a reference, when he sought employment at FAU.

Another person that Bassem Alhalabi wrote publications with is Hussam Jubara. Along with Al Arian, Jubara co-founded the Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP), a think tank that solicited funds for the express purpose of assisting families of suicide bombers. Alhalabi admits to having worked for Jubara and states that he is a “close friend.” Jubara was indicted by a federal grand jury on three counts of lying on immigration forms.

In addition, Alhalabi recently got into hot water for his negotiated shipment of a $13,000 thermal imaging device to Syria. The Commerce Department restricts the export of the device to foreign countries. In a recent news report concerning Alhalabi’s transaction, it was stated that this machine is “normally used by fire departments, military units, law enforcement and government agencies, including NASA, to produce heat-sensitive images of buildings, landscapes and ground areas.” Alhalabi claims that his brother wanted it, so that he could search for gold.

Imad Mahgoub, who was an advisor to the MSO prior to Hamza, was featured on a panel discussion with Alhalabi and Raed Awad, the former fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation, a terrorist charity that was closed down by the United States government. Awad is also said to be the imam responsible for dirty bomber Jose Padilla’s conversion to Islam. The video of this panel event is found at – where else – FAU!

At a fundraiser for the Assalam Center, to which Mahgoub is associated, on October 25, 2002, there was featured an individual by the name of Abdalla Idris Ali. Ali sits on the board of the American Muslim Council, an organization whose leaders have openly supported terrorist groups, such as Hamas. And from the years 1992 through 1997, Ali was president of the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella group for hundreds of Islamic organizations, which conducts conferences and publishes a magazine featuring a number of Islamist militants spewing hateful and sometimes violent rhetoric.

Ibrahim Dremali is the imam of the Islamic Center of Boca Raton. Questions have been raised as to a possible association of his to a militant Islamic group. On July 1, 1996, Dremali was detained by the Israeli Defense Force and told that he was not to leave Gaza indefinitely. On July 5, 1996, at 10 pm, he would set off for Cairo and was to arrive there within two hours. How do I know this? Because the information was posted to the internet by someone that signed it “LM Hashim.” Keep that in mind, as you read on.

In October of 2000, Dremali spoke at a rally where Israeli flags were burned and slogans, such as “With jihad we'll claim our land, Zionist blood will wet the sand,” were shouted. Dremali told the crowd “not to be sad for those who were martyred and to not be afraid to die for what they believe in”… obvious allusions to suicide bombers. Dremali now claims that he did not make the statement, and the 50 word paragraph that contains this information (and the picture accompanying the paragraph) has now mysteriously disappeared from the article on the website that it was written for (www.islam-online.net), though it can still be accessed via archives. The author of the article is “Um Ahmad.”

Lamyaa Hashim, or Um Ahmad as she often goes by, is a well known Islamic poet. Her poetry, including one poem which seems to be about a suicide bomber (‘My Beloved Left for Palestine’), can be seen on such radical sights as palestine4ever.net. The site belongs to the medical director for the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund, Rosemary Davis (Shadya Hantouli), and features a picture gallery of past suicide bombers. Hashim gave permission to put her poetry on the site.

You can also access more of Hashim’s poetry on her personal website, ‘Struggle in Palestine,’ which contains on its homepage a picture of someone burning an effigy that says on his (the effigy’s) chest, “WAR IS HELL, BUSH IS SATAN.” In addition, there is a link on her site to an organization associated with the terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and a link to a site praising Abdullah Azzam, the founder of the organization that became Al Qaida.

Lamyaa Hashim is also important, because she ran a Deerfield Beach, Florida charity called the Health Resourch Center for Palestine (HRCP), which as of late has closed down. Deerfield Beach is located just south of Boca Raton. Ibrahim Dremali’s brother, Ishaq, was the Gaza operations coordinator for it.

While the HRCP may be “closed for business,” as the site has stated, the website for the charity is still up, though (www.hrcp.org). The webmaster of the site is Syed Ahmad. On his personal site, he states he is an FAU student. On his personal site, he also has a homepage to the Islamic Association for Palestine, a front group for Hamas. In addition, his site sports the homepage for the Sanabel Charitable Society, what seems to be the Gaza affiliate to the HRCP; it lists Lamyaa Hashim as its United States representative.

The HRCP is interesting, because on its website, it openly claims to raise money for “shuhada” or martyrs. One can also take this term to mean suicide bombers. With this in mind, the HRCP – from June 25 through July 25, 2000 – put on a summer camp for children in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, featuring two lectures by the Grand Imam Sheikh of Al-Azhar University (Ibrahim Dremali’s alma matter), Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, someone that has announced his support (issued a fatwa) for intensified suicide bombing efforts against civilians. He has also labeled Jews “the descendants of apes and pigs,” he has said (issued a fatwa) that any Palestinian who sells land to Israelis should get the death penalty, and he has called (issued a fatwa) for an Islamic Jihad against American targets in Iraq. At FAU, there is a video of Tantawi called ‘What is a Fatwa?’

Also interesting is that the HRCP’s vice president’s name was the only name missing from the website’s list of those involved in the charity. It just said the words “Vice President” and left a blank. [Actually, now none of the names exist on the site, as much of the site has been deleted, including the page that featured the Woodcrest Bruderhof, located in Upstate New York, as a “partner.” Many claim the Bruderhof, which has met with the likes of Louis Farrakhan, is a fringe religious cult.] When you go back into the website’s archives, you find that the vice president was none other than Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, the director of the Miami-based American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA) and an appointee to the Florida Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

One would think that a group affiliated with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an organization whose main goal is to fight against discrimination, would be free from hate, but in this case, that’s just not the case. On the AMANA website, there are a number of inflammatory articles, including one telling Muslims to reject interfaith events. It states, “The Christians and Jews want the Muslims to be like them. That is why they support this deceptive call for ‘unity.’” There is also another article entitled ‘Homosexuality is Not O.K.’ that calls homosexuality an “abnormal human act.”

Rounding out the people involved in the Islamic Center of Boca Raton are the two spokesmen for the center, Hassan Shareef and Dan McBride. Actually, it’s only McBride now, because Shareef, who has called the United States government illegitimate, has now relocated to Saudi Arabia.

McBride converted to Islam not too long ago. When an antisemitic article entitled “Why can’t the Jews and Muslims live together in peace?” was taken off of the ICBR website (www.icbr.org) due to outside pressure, McBride said they took it off their site because they received some complaints, but he also said he agreed with everything written in the article. The article called Jews “usurpers and aggressors” and “people of treachery and betrayal.” The article also contained this oft used Islamic quote: “You will fight the Jews and will prevail over them, so that a rock will say, ‘O Muslim! There is Jew behind me, kill him!’”

Ibrahim Dremali claimed that the article was caused by hackers. Yet the article was taken from the same place that the majority of the other ICBR website articles are found, www.islam-qa.com. In fact, they’re all written by the same person, Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid, including the one about how the Jews have no claim to Jerusalem.

Sheikh Al-Munajjid lives in Saudi Arabia, but up until recently the technical contact for his website for some reason was located in Boca Raton. In addition, the service provider for his site was Infocom, a company that has been raided by the United States for allegedly providing “material support” for Hamas. Al-Munajjid’s name and a link to his website (which includes a link to the Hamas web site) are currently found on the ICBR site. In addition, a link to an organization that raised millions of dollars for the terrorist group Al Qaida, Al Haramain, is also found on the Islamic Center of Boca Raton website.

Dremali has also appeared in court as an expert/character witness for Adham Hassoun, an individual that was arrested in part for raising thousands of dollars for the Benevolence Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation, two terrorist charities shut down by the United States on the same day. You can judge a person by the company they keep.

The Islamic Center of Boca Raton has admitted to giving nearly 17 thousand dollars to the Global Relief Foundation. What they haven’t admitted, however, is that they received 600 thousand dollars from that same Global Relief Foundation for a Boca Raton masjid (mosque), which as of yet does not exist. In fact, according to the Global Relief Foundation website, which has since been shut down, significantly more money is listed as having been given towards a mosque in Boca than any other American city.

This was confirmed, when I went on a radio show to debate Hassan Sabri, the imam of the Islamic Center of South Florida located in Pompano Beach, concerning the building of this new mosque. Sabri stated that he heard from someone that the ICBR received 600 thousand dollars from a group to go towards the building of the new mosque. Furthermore, one of the featured speakers at an ICBR mosque fundraiser held on May 10, 2003, was Khaled Smaili, a past representative for the Global Relief Foundation.

All of this put together says to me, and I believe to you as well, that there is a problem here. Not a small problem, but a big one… and one that is happening not just in Boca Raton, but in major cities all over our country. Will our government sit back and let things happen, or will it begin to take action, so that the next 9/11 never becomes reality?

According to the Palm Beach Post, Ibrahim Dremali’s eldest son pled guilty to stabbing a fellow student repeatedly – in the back, neck and arm – with a scissors. He is now attending an Islamic school in Broward County. With regard to this, Dremali stated, “People say ‘Go back to where you came from,’ but we have no place to go back to. We are Americans.” Yet, our good imam is building a dream home in Gaza… a five-story house, complete with an elevator and polished wood trim. Of it, he states, “It's where my heart is, where I spent my childhood, where I want to return some day, G-d willing. It’s why I don’t live so well here. I’m putting all my money there.” One quote was from December 9, 2002, and one quote was from February 27, 2003. What a difference less than two months makes!

Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Citizens Against Hate and the co-founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition of South Florida. You could visit Joe Kaufman’s interactive website, at joe4rep.com.

Ping on #43 - Among Muslims, Florida is a "favored" Mecca away from Mecca. (Let's all bow to Mecca!)

_______________________________

"Khalid Hamza, who was an advisor to the Muslim Student Organization at FAU, not too long ago used a Texas A & M University internet forum to defend Sami Al Arian, a Tampa professor that was recently taken into custody for his involvement as a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). I used the term “was an advisor to the MSO,” because FAU has told him that they don’t want him to return to his teaching duties, and because the Islamic Center of Boca Raton sent out an e-mail announcing that he was leaving the South Florida community."

_______________________________

The Islamic flood has only just started . .

_______________________________

* * * * * *

FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
Radical Islam's 'plan'
to take over America
Arab-American author outlines secret
20-year strategy to undermine country

Posted: August 4, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for the last 25 years.

A refugee from the Muslim Middle East thinks he has discovered Islam's 20-point plan for conquering the United States by 2020 – a plan revealed in the latest issue of Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Anis Shorrosh, author of ''Islam Revealed'' and ''The True Furqan,'' is a Christian Arab-American who emigrated from Arab-controlled Jerusalem in January 1967.

''The following is my analysis of Islamic invasion of America, the agenda of Islamists and visible methods to take over America by the year 2020,'' Shorrosh says. ''Will Americans continue to sleep through this invasion as they did when we were attacked on 9/11?''

1. Terminate America's freedom of speech by replacing it with statewide and nationwide hate-crime bills.

2. Wage a war of words using black leaders like Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Jesse Jackson and other visible religious personalities who promote Islam as the religion of African-Americans while insisting Christianity is for whites only. What they fail to tell African-Americans is that it was Arab Muslims who captured them and sold them as slaves. In fact, the Arabic word for black and slave is the same, ''Abed.''

3. Engage the American public in dialogues, discussions, debates in colleges, universities, public libraries, radio, TV, churches and mosques on the virtues of Islam. Proclaim how it is historically another religion like Judaism and Christianity with the same monotheistic faith.

4. Nominate Muslim sympathizers to political office to bring about favorable legislation toward Islam and support potential sympathizers by block voting.

5. Take control of as much of Hollywood, the press, TV, radio and the Internet as possible by buying the related corporations or a controlling stock.

6. Yield to the fear of the imminent shut-off of the lifeblood of America – black gold. America’s economy depends on oil and 41 percent of it comes from the Middle East.

7. Yell ''foul, out-of-context, personal interpretation, hate crime, Zionist, un- American, inaccurate interpretation of the Quran'' anytime Islam is criticized or the Quran is analyzed in the public arena.

8. Encourage Muslims to penetrate the White House, specifically with Islamists who can articulate a marvelous and peaceful picture of Islam. Acquire government positions and get membership in local school boards. Train Muslims as medical doctors to dominate the medical field, research and pharmaceutical companies. (Ever notice how numerous Muslim doctors in America are, when their countries need them more desperately than America?) Take over the computer industry. Establish Middle Eastern restaurants throughout the U.S. to connect planners of Islamization in a discreet way.

9. Accelerate Islamic demographic growth via:

Massive immigration (100,000 annually since 1961).

Use no birth control whatsoever – every baby of Muslim parents is automatically a Muslim and cannot choose another religion later.

Muslim men must marry American women and Islamize them (10,000 annually). Then divorce them and remarry every five years – since one can't legally marry four at one time. This is a legal solution in America.

Convert angry, alienated black inmates and turn them into militants (so far 2,000 released inmates have joined al-Qaida worldwide). Only a few ''sleeper cells'' have been captured in Afghanistan and on American soil.

10. Reading, writing, arithmetic and research through the American educational system, mosques and student centers (now 1,500) should be sprinkled with dislike of Jews, evangelical Christians and democracy. There are currently 300 exclusively Muslim schools in the U.S. which teach loyalty to the Quran, not the U.S. Constitution. In January of 2002, Saudi Arabia’s Embassy in Washington mailed 4,500 packets of the Quran and videos promoting Islam to America's high schools – free of charge. Saudi Arabia would not allow the U.S. to reciprocate.

11. Provide very sizeable monetary Muslim grants to colleges and universities in America to establish ''Centers for Islamic studies'' with Muslim directors to promote Islam in higher-education institutions.

12. Let the entire world know through propaganda, speeches, seminars, local and national media that terrorists have hijacked Islam, when in truth, Islam hijacked the terrorists.

13. Appeal to the historically compassionate and sensitive Americans for sympathy and tolerance towards Muslims in America who are portrayed as mainly immigrants from oppressed countries.

14. Nullify America's sense of security by manipulating the intelligence community with misinformation. Periodically terrorize Americans with reports of impending attacks on bridges, tunnels, water supplies, airports, apartment buildings and malls.

15. Form riots and demonstrations in the prison system demanding Islamic Sharia as the way of life, not America's justice system.

16. Open numerous charities throughout the U.S., but use the funds to support Islamic terrorism with American dollars.

17. Raise interest in Islam on America's campuses by insisting freshman take at least one course on Islam.

18. Unify the numerous Muslim lobbies in Washington, mosques, Islamic student centers, educational organizations, magazines and papers by Internet and an annual convention to coordinate plans, propagate the faith and engender news in the media.

19. Send intimidating messages and messengers to the outspoken individuals who are critical of Islam and seek to eliminate them by hook or crook.

20. Applaud Muslims as loyal citizens of the U.S. by spotlighting their voting record as the highest percentage of all minority and ethic groups in America.

Shorrosh is a member of the Oxford Society of Scholars, has traveled in 76 countries, and is a lecturer and producer of TV documentaries. ''Islam Revealed'' is a bestseller now in its eighth printing. His forthcoming 10th book, from which the 20-point plan is abridged, is titled ''Islam: A Threat or a Challenge.''

''The True Furqan'' is also available for viewing on Islam-Exposed.org. Shorrosh's new website is Focusing-on-Islam.com.

We must educate our terrorists properly - equip them with every good Jihad tool - before they try to kill us . . PING.

"APPEASE THEM UNTIL WE DIE!"

______________________________

"According to the Palm Beach Post, Ibrahim Dremali’s eldest son pled guilty to stabbing a fellow student repeatedly – in the back, neck and arm – with a scissors.

"He is now attending an Islamic school in Broward County."

______________________________

U.S. Islamic Schools Teaching Homegrown Hate

Wednesday, February 27, 2002

By Kenneth Adelman

NEW YORK — Can it be true? That Islamic schools in the United States teach hatred towards American Christians and Jews?

The Washington Post on Monday revealed that one such school outside Washington, D.C., uses textbooks teaching 11th graders that "the Day of Judgment can't come until Jesus Christ returns to Earth, breaks the cross and converts everyone to Islam, and until Muslims start attacking Jews."

Other accredited Islamic schools in America have world maps on classroom walls that exclude Israel. Some such schools promote class discussions that portray Usama bin Laden as "simply the victim of … prejudice" against all Muslims in America.

These astonishing facts were broken by Post reporters Valerie Strauss and Emily Wax in their front-page piece, too tepidly entitled, "Where Two Worlds Collide: Muslim Schools Face Tension of Islamic, U.S. Views."

But their reporting was anything but tepid.

Americans generally assume Islamic hate teaching resided "out there" — in Cairo or Riyadh. And yet it's right here — in the elite Islamic Saudi Academy just outside Washington, D.C. "At stake," the two ace reporters say, "is how the next generation of Muslims coming of age in the United States will participate in the country they live in."

As with all educational institutions, the stakes are high. But the prospects here are low.

I don't know precisely what new immigrant schools taught when waves of Catholics or Jews first flocked to America. But I suspect they adopted and spread the basic American values — tolerance, freedom and patriotism.

Surely not the hatred propagated in many Islamic studies classes. At the Al-Qalam All-Girls School in Springfield, Va., seventh graders learn that Usama bin Laden may be not a villain but a victim of Americans' biased views toward great Islamic leaders. Hence "some students question the government's claim that bin Laden is responsible for the terrorist attacks — disputing that videotapes actually show him taking credit."

The Post reporters questioned "Fawzy, a 19-year-old who will graduate from George Mason University in 2003, [who] … wonders whether the United States just needed someone to blame and picked a Muslim. 'A lot of the students can't make up their minds if [Usama] is a good guy or a bad guy,' Fawzy said. 'The thing is, we don't have any real proof either way. I think a lot of people feel this way.'"

Classrooms of the Washington Islamic Academy, which teaches kindergarten through fourth grade, feature world maps without Israel. "Upstairs in Al-Qalam girls school, the word is blackened out with marker, with 'Palestine' written in its place."

When the reporters asked about this, academy officials "defended the maps, pointing out that some of the students are refugees from Palestine and want their heritage represented."

These school officials attempt to delegitimize Israel. I would delegitimize them — removing them from any role in shaping the beliefs and instilling knowledge in young Americans.

With the massive immigration of Muslims over recent decades — primarily because of the wretchedness of most native Islamic states — these parochial schools are increasing. Throughout America now are 200 to 600 Islamic day schools, teaching at least 30,000 full-time students and thousands more on weekends. The Washington Islamic Academy, outside the nation's capital, teaches some 1,300 kids, including children of Arabic-speaking diplomats.

It may rank among the worst of these academies, as it is funded by Saudi money. Its high school textbook, in the reporters' words, "says one sign of the Day of Judgment will be that Muslims will fight and kill Jews, who will hide behind trees that say: 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.'"

According to Strauss and Wax, "Several students of different ages, all of whom asked not to be identified, said that in Islamic studies, they are taught that it is better to shun and even to dislike Christians, Jews and Shiite Muslims.

"Some teachers 'focus more on hatred,' said one teenager … 'They teach students that whatever is kuffar [non-Muslim], it is okay for you' to hurt or steal from that person."

What can be done about this outrage?

First, reveal it, for which Valerie Strauss and Emily Wax and the Post deserve a Pulitzer Prize. Other reporters and top media outlets should follow in their steps.

Second, stop the accreditation of these hate schools. This, too, the reporters investigated when contacting an official at an accrediting agency of the Islamic Academy. His response was typical bureaucratese: the Secondary and Middle School Commission of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools "does not delve into curriculum extensively but … would be 'concerned' about such material being taught."

Well, he can stop being "concerned" and start de-accrediting the place.

Third, stop the Saudi funding. After Sept. 11, we were shocked to realize that "our friends, the Saudis" gave us Usama bin Laden, 15 of the 19 terrorists of Sept. 11 and more than 100 of the 150-plus terrorist leaders now confined in Guantanamo Bay cells. They also fund the Islamic schools spreading hate around the world towards Christians, Jews, America, freedom, and our sacred values.

Now we learn that Islamic hatred is being spread here at home, molding young American minds in what is shaping up as a real fourth column.

U.S. Islamic Schools Teaching Homegrown Hate

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