Zahra Billoo Speaks at UC Irvine

Zahra Billoo


Today, CAIR's Northern California director, Zahra Billoo, spoke before the Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine as part of the MSU's week of anti-Israel events. This week's theme was "Oppression", so much of what Billoo had to say centered around that theme. There were about 25 or people in the room, about 20 of whom were Muslim students and the rest local community members who held a quiet protest outside the room prior to the event holding posters about anti-Semitism and passing out pamphlets about CAIR.  I was present at Billoo's event and videotaped almost all of it until my battery ran out. (See below.)

This is the second time I have heard Billoo speak at UCI. She is a good public speaker and uses a low key conversational style. She spoke without notes, and her talk didn't really have any organization to it; she basically spoke about oppression going from one aspect of that to another. The constant theme was Muslims and people of color as victims of oppression. Billoo is not a fan of law enforcement as her words and actions have proved over the years. She opened up by referring to the "guests" in the room with their video cameras (like me).

Billoo made references to the recent events in Sri Lanka, San Diego and New Zealand expressing solidarity with all the victims. She spoke of the oppression of the Palestinians in what she always referred to as Palestine. That led a couple of women in the audience to vocally object. Sporadically, one or both of the ladies would say that she was speaking lies. That drew a warning from the dean of students, who was present. At one point, Billoo told the ladies that they would have the opportunity to participate in the q and a. (More on that later.)

Billoo acknowledged that there was oppression in Muslim-majority countries, but only mentioned "minorities" or political opponents. She did not go into the oppression of religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries. She also added a lot of talk about how Muslims only commit violence in self defense, no compulsion in religion, and all those goodies.

Basically, the theme was victimization. One notable statement that she made was that in the past five years, police have killed nearly 1,000 unnamed black people in California!!! (You can find that remark in the last video below at the 6:43 mark.) At one point, she informed the audience that just today, the FBI in Los Angeles had announced a terror arrest. She said something to the effect that they were still trying to find out what happened-and what the FBI's role in all this was. (Billoo does not like the FBI. In fact, she was the one who put out that poster several years ago which advised Muslims not to talk to the FBI if they came knocking on the door.)



After speaking for about an hour, there was a short break, after which the time was reserved for q and a. This time, the little rascals had a new trick up their sleeve. Obviously knowing that there were some knowledgeable adults in the room who didn't share Billoo's point of view and had signs indicating their concerns about anti-Semitism. (I was wearing a yellow Jewish star reading "Jude".) a  new rule was set that only students could ask questions. So she fielded five or six friendly questions from students seeking advice on how to engage in activism, and that was it. No hostile questions allowed. Remember that Billoo had told the aforementioned two ladies that they would be able to participate in the q and a.

Previously, I have attended college events in which students were given first preference to ask questions then other audience members. That is appropriate, but to say that only students could ask questions.....well, it was obvious the game they were playing. It appeared that all the students in the audience were Muslims. I also noted that females sat on one side and males on the other.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the videotape of the speech. It appears that one 20-minute segment near the end did not upload (after the third video). Thus, the first minutes of the q and a are not recorded. Also near the end, I changed memory cards, so there is a short gap of a minute or two, and eventually it all ran out. No, there has been no selctive editing. Apologies to Ms Billoo for any missing parts, which were unintentional, but then again, she ducked our questions. But that is what CAIR does. I suppose it will be the same Wednesday night with CAIR's Los Angeles director, Hussam Ayloush.

ISNA Conference in Houston Features All Star Extremist Lineup

Hat tip Campus Watch and Middle East Forum


This year's annual conference of the Islamic Society of North America, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, is featuring an all-star lineup of Muslim extremists.


https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/articles/2018/extremists-headline-houston-convention-incl-hate


Since I am familiar with some of these characters and have personally seen them speak and asked appropriate questions of them and gotten inappropriate, non-answers, let me add a few personal details.

Hatem Bazian. The UC Berkeley professor has spoken several times at UC Irvine. The man who called for an intifada in the US in 2004 also reportedly once asked a student audience to count the buildings on campus with Jewish names on them. I tried to pin him down on those points in 2010 when he spoke at UC Irvine. All I got in return was a tap dance. In short, he did nothing to change my view that he is an anti-semite.

Zahra Billoo has also spoken at UC Irvine. I attended her presentation during Islam Awareness Week in 2013, when the Muslim Student Union was encouraging non-Muslim co-eds to don a hijab for a day. I videotaped her over the usual objections of the MSU. On this occasion, I asked Billoo about that famous poster she dug up and used to tell Muslims not to open their doors to FBI agents. Like Bazian, she tap danced around the question, explaining that CAIR (who she represents in San Francisco) "had determined that it did not represent appropriate legal advice". You can view the video of her presentation here.



I also asked her about that quaint little Islamic law that calls for death by stoning for adulterers. She was at least honest enough to answer this one by stating that stoning was, indeed, the punishment for both men and women (although women seem to  be on the receiving end more than men, I would add).

Then there is the darling of the Southern California inter-faith crowd, Muzammil Siddiqi, a former head of ISNA. I have interacted with him on several occasions at several different places. A soft-spoken, kindly looking gentlemen, he once (2012) opened his mosque in Garden Grove to a town hall dedicated to the idea that sharia law is compatible with the US Constitution. Though he insists that there is no death penalty for those who leave Islam under sharia, on another occasion in 2012, I did manage to pin him down enough that he pretty much conceded that those who leave Islam and publicly speak out against the religion are traitors. You can read that interchange here.

The last time I saw Siddiqi, he was speaking as part of an interfaith panel at UC Irvine in 2017 with gullible Jewish colleagues. Since he was posing as a friend of the Jewish community, I asked if he thought it was good for Muslim-Jewish relations when he allowed the Muslim Student  Union to assemble their mock "apartheid walls" at his mosque. His answer was a total non-answer. You can view the video here.

Make no mistake: This conference will be a gathering of subversive, anti-semitic Islamist extremists. That they have sold themselves as moderates to so many is proof that we have a lot of gullible fools in our society.

The Muslim Student Association in America

The Muslim Students Association (MSA) has over 150 university chapters across the US and is growing. They label themselves as a religious group that provides support and fellowship for Muslim students on campus. They engage in joint Friday prayers and organize social events, such as dinners. In addition, they engage in outreach to non-Muslim students and try to present a positive picture of Islam. None of that, of course, is objectionable, and having observed the issue for about 6 years, I hold the opinion that most Muslim students entering college join their local chapter for pure reasons. However, it seems that there is a troubling trend in MSA chapters that leadership positions are generally occupied by those who have a political agenda. Several past officials of MSA across the nation have gone off to join the terrorist movement. The most obvious example is Anwar al Awlaki. On September 9, 2001, two days before 9-11, Awlaki joined the UC Irvine MSU in a benefit event in defense of H. Rap Brown, aka Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, now serving life in prison for the murder of a Georgia policeman. Other former leaders of the MSA are currently in prison on terror-related charges. (Hat tip Frontpage Magazine)

MSAs also state in general terms that they are fighters for justice. That essentially boils down to being active participants in efforts to demonize Israel. Along with what can only be described as their sister organization, Students for Justice in Palestine, many MSA chapters hold annual week-long events devoted to de-legitimizing the Jewish state featuring numerous anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian speakers, some of whom are even Jewish themselves. (The SJP was conveniently formed at UC Irvine during the quarter that the MSU was under suspension as punishment for their disruption of the Israeli ambassador's speech in 2010).Yet, many of the speakers, such as those I have observed at the University of California at Irvine, also have made comments that can only be described as anti-Semitic and anti-American as well. These events have led to tension and confrontations on campus between Muslim and Jewish students who dare to express support for Israel’s right to exist. Of course, the most notorious example of this tension occurred at UCI in 2010 when the Muslim Student Union loudly disrupted a speaking appearance by the Israel Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren. (Hat tip Jewlicious)



In addition, physical confrontations between Muslim and Jewish students have occurred at other campuses across North America, such as UC Berkeley, UW-Milwaukee and York University in Toronto, to name a few.

One thing is crucial to recognize at the outset: The various MSA chapters are a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This was brought out at the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas in 2007. In that trial involving Islamic charities funneling funds to terror groups overseas, a seized document was introduced as evidence, It was a letter written in the 1980s,  from a Brotherhood official, Mohammed Akram, to numerous organizations in the US, such as the Islamic Society of North America and many others including the MSA. The document can be viewed here in Arabic and English. (Hat tip Discover the Networks) Among others, it contains this statement:

"The process of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist Process' with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal".


This is the same document and quote that I confronted Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Ibrahim el Hudaiby with on October 8, 2008, when he spoke in front of a UC Irvine class taught by Professor Mark LeVine, an activist against Israel. Hudaiby denied the authenticity of the letter and stated that there was no Muslim Brotherhood in America. He also referred to the words and writings of such people as Brotherhood founder Hasan al Banna and Brotherhood cleric Yusuf al Qaradawi, a rabid anti-Semite, as "proof" that the Brotherhood's intentions were peaceful. A bare minimum of research easily refuted those assertions, which I pointed out to Hudaiby in subsequent comment threads on my blog, Fousesquawk.

In 2012, the MSA came to national attention, when it was revealed the the NYPD was monitoring the activities of several MSA chapters in universities not only in the city, but in other parts of the Northeast.

Probably no other chapter has drawn as much attention as that of the Muslim Student Union (MSU) at UC Irvine. For the past decade, their activities on campus and the hate-filled words of many of their invited speakers have given UCI a black eye nation-wide.

My own involvement with the MSU at UC Irvine began in 2006. I had been teaching part-time at the university's extension since 1998 and did not frequently visit the main part of the campus other than to go to the library.)  As I was leaving the library and going to my car to teach a class at nearby Concordia University, I passed by a speaking event at the campus flagpole area in which a speech was in progress by Washington DC imam Abdul Alim Musa, (formerly Clarence Reams, convicted drug trafficker) one of the most vile anti-American, pro-Iranian, anti-Semitic speakers I have ever heard. I only caught the last few minutes, but it was enough to hear him say that Islam was going to take over the US. "We want it all," he said while assuring us Christians and Jews that we would be protected. I was so hot that passing by, I yelled out and called him an "idiot". He responded calling me, "home boy" (as he often does). I then yelled something to him about hating America, to which he replied, "I survived America".

Abdul Alim Musa


Subsequently, I began looking into what was going on at UCI. Why would the MSU put up a banner on a campus wall proclaiming, "Racism: The American Creed", which I personally observed around that time? So I began attending the May events every year and listening to the hate-filled rhetoric coming from people like Amir Abdel Malik Ali and Mohammed al Asi, both of whom, like Musa, do not hesitate to attack Jews as people. It was al Asi who said at UCI in 2001, "You can take the Jew out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the Jew". It is Ali, who virtually every year comes to UCI and identifies particular public figures as "Zionist Jews" as he spits the words out a'la Julius Streicher. In 2006, Ali, flanked by two young men posing as menacing-looking goons, called Rupert Murdoch a "straight up Zionist Jew" (hat tip Stand With Us). Ali was also a speaker at the MSA Western Regional Conference at UCLA in 2011 where he led the audience in the pledge of allegiance at the close of his speech. The pledge of allegiance turned out to be the Muslim Brotherhood pledge of allegiance. (Hat tip Creeping Sharia)

But the MSAs have no connection to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Amir Abdel Malik Ali at UC Irvine

In 2008, the UC Irvine MSU's  "Israel Apartheid Wall', which is hauled out every year, featured a caricature of Ariel Sharon drawn in the style of Streicher's anti-Semitic Nazi newspaper, "Der Stuermer."


But the MSU claims it is not anti-Semitic.


And who are some of the other speakers I have observed speak at UCI during the MSU's anti-Israel week? How about Cynthia McKinney, the discredited former congresswoman from Georgia (2009)?

It gets better. There is the supporter of Saddam Hussein, Syria and Hamas, British MP George Galloway, who actually conducted a fund raiser for Hamas at UCI (2009).


George Galloway (in red)


Another British radical who has spoken at UC Irvine for the MSU (2007) is Yvonne Ridley, a journalist who was captured by the Taliban when she tried to illegally enter Afghanistan to cover the war. Returning to Britain, she converted to Islam, joined the crusade against Israel, told British Muslims not to cooperate with police, and got a job reporting for Iran's Press TV until Britain shut it down.


Yvonne Ridley

There is Ward Churchill, the discredited ex-professor from the University of Colorado, who hath no love lost for his own country. He spoke at UCI during Israel-Apartheid Week in 2007 and acted like a juvenile. (Hat tip Mere Rhetoric)


Ward Churchill


In 2011, the MSU brought in Michael Prysner, an Iraqi war vet who had turned against his country, its military, and of course, Israel.

To be sure, in an effort to buttress their disclaimers at the beginning of every event that they are not anti-Semitic, the MSU at UCI has dragged in a variety of anti-Israel speakers who themselves are of Jewish origin. The most dignified of them is Hedy Epstein, a nice old woman in her eighties who was sent by her German family to London during the Third Reich thus surviving the Holocaust. I simply consider her terribly misguided. Yet, there are others who can only be described as left-wing radicals acting out their "rage against the machine". Jewish Voice for Peace has appeared at UCI (2011). They are a charming lot led by Israeli anarchist Matan Cohen, who think that any defense of Israel is "useless discourse" and not deserving of First Amendment rights. They disrupted the speech of Benjamin Netanyahu in New Orleans a couple of years back, an example of what they term, "direct action". Norman Finkelstein, a misfit professor who lost his job at DePaul University over his ridiculous "scholarship", now makes his living traveling the university lecture circuit damning Israel as "an independent scholar with a PhD from Princeton". Then there is Rabbi Ysroel Dovid Cohen of the fringe Neturei Karta sect in New York. They believe that Israel had no right to become an independent Jewish state out of some theological grounds. Weiss not only speaks against Israel, he is a personal friend and defender of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian regime, claiming that they protect their Jewish citizens. When I confronted him about Iranian treatment of gays and Baha'i, in May 2011, he refused to answer the question preferring to continue his diatribe against Israel.

To be sure, there are many others, and the people mentioned above have appeared at more than just our campus.

In addition, many MSA chapters are expanding their outreach into the local high schools, where MSA groups are also being formed. If it is strictly for religious purposes, that is one thing; if it is for purposes of early radicalization, that is quite another. It also raises the question; where is the money coming from the support these activities? Could the Council on American-Islamic Relations be involved? After all, they are still listed as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial. Just last month, their San Francisco director, Zahra Billoo, spoke at UC Irvine (as did LA director Hussam Ayloush) during Islam Awareness Week. It was Billoo who used that infamous poster urging Muslims not to talk to the FBI.



All of this brings me back to one of my original points. I address this to the families of Muslim students about to enter college. If you are concerned about the possible radicalization of your son or daughter while in college, make it a point to research what is going on at the colleges under consideration. Check out the campus MSA. Do they have a history of activism on campus, and what speakers have they invited to speak on their behalf? It is very easy to find out. If you really care about this issue, it is just as important as any other consideration in choosing a college for your children.

Muslim Awareness Week at UC Irvine (2013) Zahra Billoo

This week, the Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine is hosting their annual Muslim Awareness Week with a series of presentations. The theme of this week's events is, "Meet the Muslim Next Door". On Tuesday and Wednesday, the speakers were Hussam Ayloush, the director of CAIR in Southern California, UC Irvine professor Sohail Daulatzai, Sheikh Osman Umarji, and Imam Muzammil Siddiqi. I was not able to attend the above events. On Thursday, I attended a presentation by the Executive Director of CAIR in San Francisco, Zahra Billoo, who spoke on the topic of women's rights in Islam. Billoo is an outspoken activist most noted for the time when her office issued a poster urging Muslims not to talk to the FBI.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2011/01/cair-says-dont-talk-to-fbi.html

The speech was attended by about 50 people, almost all Muslim students, mostly female. The women and men sat on separate sides of the room. In addition, there were a few non-Muslim students in attendance who seemed to be accompanied by a female professor who was having them write reports. The event was also in conjunction with "wear a hijab" day, in which non-Muslim females would sign up to wear a hijab during the day and report their experiences that evening at another event headed by Ms. Billoo ( I did not attend this event.) The MSU was video-taping the speech, and I noted another female student intermittently taking pictures or recording video shots.

Nevertheless, a couple of minutes after Ms Billoo began her talk (I was videotaping), a male MSU student came up to me and told me politely that no video-taping was allowed. I responded politely but firmly that this issue at UCI had been decided a few years previous (when state legislator Chuck DeVore came to an MSU event and was told not to videotape), and that it was very clear that this was a public event at a public university, and that I had every legal right to videotape. At this point, the young man backed down and politely asked me to change seats (from the front to the rear, where I would not be a distraction). I agreed,  changed my seat to the rear, and kept filming (see first segment, first minute).

In her talk, Billoo spoke of the "spiritual equality" of women under Islam. She described how in pre-Islamic times in the Arabian peninsula, women had very few rights. This changed under Mohammed and Islam, according to Billoo.

Billoo spoke of how men and women, indeed, have different makeups, physically and in terms of their responsibilities. She told us that the Prophet Mohammed had said that women should be educated.

As to marital rights, Billoo conceded that men could have up to four wives (before Islam, it was much higher). She said that while a wife could not stop her husband from having other wives, she could leave the marriage if she wished. A Muslim woman also had the right to agree to a marital partner.

As to intermarriage, she said that Muslim men could marry women from the "religions of the book" (Christian or Jewish). Women did not have the same rights except under certain circumstances where no Muslim men were available.

During her talk, she made note of the fact that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had this week announced that women could now serve in combat in the US armed forces. Billoo had mixed feelings about this since on the one hand, in Mohammed's time, women had fought in combat, but on the other hand, she had negative feelings about recent US military action conducted, "not in our name".

In the question and answer session, I was called on first. I referred to the theme of the week's events, "(Meet the Muslim next door"), and stated that I had a Muslim family as neighbors a couple of doors down. I said that I was sure that if the FBI came knocking on their door asking for information, they would happily provide them with any information they had since, like most American Muslims, they didn't want any more 9-11s or any other acts of terrorism. Yet, here was CAIR in San Francisco coming up with a flyer (which I drew from my pocket and showed her and the audience) in which CAIR was advising the Muslim community not to talk to the FBI. I added that in my view, this only increased the level of suspicion toward the Muslim community when the largest Muslim organization in America was advising the community not to talk to the FBI. In the second part of the question, I asked if she could tell us the punishment for adultery under (hudud) sharia law. (Hudud is the section which provides criminal penalties.)

Billoo replied that the flyer in question had been created decades ago and had been used by many activist organizations. She advised that CAIR (national) had not endorsed that the flyer since it "did not represent appropriate legal advice". Yet, she added that the US Constitution insured that every citizen had the right to remain silent and have legal representation when questioned by law enforcement (see second segment).

As to the second question, Billoo said that the laws against adultery in Islam applied to both men and women, and an accusation of adultery required 4 eye-witnesses, which she added was, in practical terms, almost an impossibility. In the end, she stated that for both men and women, the penalty for adultery was death by stoning (see second segment).

http://www.youtube.com/embed/bnWB1RYH5Nc 

Part 1 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/V9SSHvQke18?feature=player_embeddedllowfullscreen>

Part 2 

                                                     Part 3

The Women's March Pulls an Okie Doke

Hat tip Jihad Watch and Allyson Taylor


Zahra Billoo-The new face of feminism?


Recently, the feminist movement has dreamed up some new gimmick called The Women's March. It features left wing women at the forefront. I won't bother to name them all because my stomach will start churning, but it is noteworthy that one of their "board members" was the noted Palestinian-American anti-Semite, Linda Sarsour, who goes around in her colorful hijabs as to make some sort of fashion statement, It cannot hide the ugliness which lies below that hijab. Linda Sarsout is toxic, so toxic, in fact, that the Women's March has finally decided that she brings too much negative attention to their cause. So Sarsour is out. Problem now is....who will replace her? I guess they figure they have to have a  Muslim representative-even if they pointedly ignore all the horrors happening to women within Islam; stonings, honor killings, child brides, female circumcision etc.  They can't get involved in that. Neither could they ask someone like Muslim apostates, Nonie Darwish, Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Wafa Sultan to join their ranks. Have someone who is critical of Islam? Never.  So what do they do? They pull the old okie doke and bring on board none other than CAIR's San Francisco director, the almost-as toxic Zahra Billoo.

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/09/womens-march-drops-linda-sarsour-for-anti-semitism-replaces-her-with-anti-semite-zahra-billoo-of-hamas-linked-cair


But do they know that Billoo once put out a poster urging Muslims to slam their doors when the FBI came calling trying to get information about terrorism? Do they know that she has admitted that the ideology she so fervently professes has a death penalty for adulterers? She admitted it to me when she spoke at UC Irvine in 2013 as part of "Muslim Awareness Week".  It was in that same exchange that she gave me a lame  explanation of those posters she was putting out.

So now we have the Women's March hiring a woman to help lead them who openly says, "Yes, we have a death penalty for adulterers- but for both male and female."

Does anybody see what's wrong here? No wonder these feminists have no credibility.

Zahra Billoo and the Anti-Defamation League: Is the ADL Finally Waking up?

Hat tip Legal Insurrection 

Zahra Billoo of CAIR

Jonathan Greenblatt of ADL

A recent speech by Zahra Billoo, head of the San Francisco office of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has stirred a lot of controversy-as it should since it is full of anti-Semitic rhetoric. What's surprising to me is that even Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has spoken out in criticism. There is even a back and forth between the ADL and CAIR regarding the content of Billoo's speech.

That is refreshing.

I say that because, in my opinion, the ADL has been missing in action when it comes to reacting to anti-Semitism that comes from Islamic quarters. Since the ADL leans left politically, it has preferred to highlight anti-Semitism from white nationalists and people on the right when most of the Jew-hatred these days is coming from the left. That includes Islamic Jew-hatred. This was true when Abe Foxman was leading the ADL, and it has continued under Greenblatt, at least until now.

In all the years I have spent documenting anti-Semitism at UC Irvine-especially during the so-called Israel Apartheid weeks every May, the ADL was of no assistance in battling the problems on campus. As I have pointed out many times, I would often see their local representative present at the events but never speaking up, never challenging the speakers as I and others did during the Q and A. It was Foxman's position that there was no problem at UC Irvine-that the Jewish students and administration had it all under control. They did not.

I don't know if this Billoo flap marks a new beginning for the ADL or they will slip back into their shell when it comes to Islamic anti-Semitism. Greenblatt is a man of the left, so we shall wait and see. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

El Camino College Commencement Speaker

Jana Abulaban

El Camino College is a two-year community college located in Torrance, California near Los Angeles. There is a controversy there getting national attention. On June 9, during a commencement speech, a graduating speaker, Jana Abulaban, accused Israel of "torturing and killing Palestinian people". Abulaban, who immigrated with her parents to the US from Jordan at the age of 12, identifies as a Palestinian.

Part of the reason the news story caught my eye is that when I was playing baseball at Santa Monica Community College in 1964-65, El Camino was in our conference; thus, I had the opportunity to play against their team both at their ballpark and ours.

Of course, the more important reason is that this is an issue I care about. Thus, I would like to weigh in here. I should also note that the university has properly issued a statement distancing itself from the speaker's vitriolic remarks. Not surprisingly, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has taken issue with that. Below is what I wrote today to the campus newspaper, The Union:

First of all, the young lady has the right of free speech, so nobody is arguing that she should be prosecuted. Some have opined that her speech should have been interrupted, and she should have been removed from the stage. I don't agree with that either. But those of us who disagree also enjoy the right to speak out, and Abulaban is not protected from criticism for her remarks. It comes down to this: Is what she said anti-Semitic? That requires a long answer. Criticism of Israeli policies against the Palestinians is not anti-Semitic per se-as pro-Israel leaders and organizations concede. Yet, as I often, do, I have to go back to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's working definition of anti-Semitism. There are elements pertaining to Israel that are considered anti-Semitic: For example, comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, holding all Jews responsible for the actions of Israel, accusing American Jews of having dual loyalty, applying a double standard to Israel not applied to any other democratic country, denying the Jewish people a right to their own state, and accusing Israel of harvesting organs from Palestinian corpses, a canard that goes back to the ancient libel of Jews using the blood of Christian children to make matzo.   

On a more practical level, I have personally seen and heard anti-Semitic images and words during anti-Israel events, mostly at UC Irvine, where I taught part-time from 1998-2016. In the name and cause of the Palestinian people, groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the UCI chapter of the Muslim Student Union (MSU) have regularly invited speakers to UCI who have crossed the line from mere criticism of Israel to outright anti-Jewish utterances. As examples, I can mention people like Washington DC-based imam  Muhammed al-Asi, Oakland imam  Amir Abdel Malik Ali,   Abdul Alim Musa, British writer Ben White, BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions against Israel) co-founder, Omar Barghouti, Cynthia McKinney, UC Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian, Council on American Islamic Relations CEOs, Zahra Billoo and  Hussam Ayloush (more on him below). 

Amir Abdel Malik Ali

I could also mention the regular disruptions of pro-Israel events by SJP and MSU, not only at UC Irvine, which I have personally witnessed, but on campuses across the nation. I could mention the disgusting stereotypical anti-Jewish caricature of Ariel  Sharon I saw at the 2008 anti-Israel week of events at UC Irvine in 2008.

I could go on and on, but I call particular attention to Ayloush, the long-time Southern California CAIR CEO, who has often been accused of anti-Semitism. In 2015, Ayloush appeared as a panelist at the Islamic Center (mosque) of Orange County in Garden Grove. It was a public event dedicated to the issue of countering violent extremism, a theme fostered during the Obama administration and centered around extremism in certain American mosques. Ayloush asked why there was so much attention placed on a few American Muslim men who went off to join ISIS and no attention placed on the thousands of Jewish American men who went to join the Israeli Defense Forces "killing the Palestinians". I was present, and I videotaped it.

Hussam Ayloush

It is this same Hussam Ayloush who the El Camino campus newspaper, The Union, communicated with to get his take on the Abulaban controversy.

In fact, CAIR is itself an anti-Jewish organization. It is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and is linked to Hamas, a terrorist organization that rules Gaza. It is an obscenity that the current administration in Washington has invited CAIR to participate in its campaign to fight anti-Semitism.

My whole point is that the entire pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel movement on our college campuses is anti-Jewish to its core. They can insist all they want that they are not anti-Jewish, only anti-Zionist. They can trot out all their misguided Jewish speakers, like Norman Finklestein, and Jewish SJP members as "proof" they are not anti-Jewish. However, their long track record speaks for itself.

Finklestein at UC Irvine. That's me in front reading the newspaper.

I am not asking El Camino College to take any negative action against Ms Abulaban.  I am not accusing her of personally being anti-Semitic. The college has issued a statement distancing itself from the words she spoke. I would just hope that the college administration,. the students and the campus newspaper be aware of what is really going on with this well-orchestrated, well-financed campus movement against Israel, and most importantly, against all the denials, that it is deeply anti-Jewish in nature.  

The Toxicity of Zahra Billoo (CAIR-SF)

Hat tip Israellycool.com

This article first appeared in New English Review.

Zahra Billoo is the San Francisco chapter leader of CAIR. I have seen her speak in person twice at UC Irvine. The first occasion was in January 2013 when she tried to sell Islam to UCI students, during Islam Awareness Week. On that occasion, her topic was women's rights under Islam! However, in answer to one of my questions during q and a, she had to acknowledge that under Islam, the penalty for adultery was death-for both men and women, she stressed. 

The second occasion was in April 2019 during the annual hate week against the Jewish state of Israel sponsored by the Muslim Student Union. It was on this occasion that I came away with the impression that Zahra Billoo is a woman who sees enemies around every corner.

Take my word for it. This woman is toxic. On second thought-don't take my word for it. You can watch for yourself. Both of the above links have videos taken of the events by Yours Truly. Here, (courtesy of Israellycool.com), Billoo is speaking last week before the annual convention of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an equally toxic organization co-founded by radical UC Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian, largely for the purpose of financing Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which Bazian also co-founded.  

Note how Billoo uses the "Zionist" dog whistle to attack Jews and Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL, the Jewish Federation, Hillel etc. ("polite Zionists") What this is is nothing more than thinly-disguised Jew-hatred.

Personally, I don't know what Billoo has against ADL, the Jewish Federation, or Hillel. They've never been a problem for the likes of Billoo because they don't really fight back against campus anti-Semitism-at least in Orange Country, their track record is pretty bleak. But I digress.

Note how Billoo goes out of her way to caution the audience against thinking that any "Zionist" no matter how progressive, can be their friend. Indeed, her words remind me of that verse in the Koran, sura 5 verse 52, where it tells Muslims not to take Christians and Jews as their friends.

 [5:52] O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. And whoso among you takes them for friends is indeed one of them. Verily, Allah guides not the unjust people.

I also want to point out Billoo's words about just because you are in the Girl Scouts together, watch how the conversation goes when you bring up "what is happening in Palestine. I don't want to paint all Muslims with a wide brush here as does Billoo with Jews. But I have personally had many experiences in conversations with Muslims and observed how the conversation went when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict came up.  How the smile disappears and is replaced by anger and emotion. I have seen it not only with people from a Palestinian background. I have seen it with Muslims with backgrounds in Egypt, Somalia, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. etc. In the above clip, Billoo states that she herself is not Palestinian. I always ask why Muslims from other parts of the world, who have nothing in common with the Middle East other than religion, feel so strongly about this particular conflict.

The answer is easy. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, first and foremost, is a conflict not over land and who the rightful owner is, rather it is a conflict over religion. To Muslims everywhere, the (mostly-Muslim) Palestinians must be the good guys and the (mostly-Jewish) Israelis must be the bad guys. In Koranic thought, it is the default position.

Check out the Muslim Student Association chapters on most campuses. There will be some of Palestinian background, but most have backgrounds from Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and many other predominantly Muslim countries. And yet, these student groups, along with their sister organization, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), have brought turmoil and anti-Semitism to their respective campuses all due to the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Zahra Billoo is an American. As an American, she should not be telling her audiences not to take "Zionists" as friends. She should be telling them that as Americans, they should take Jews as friends because they are Americans too. The fact that they disagree on a particular issue that involves a region on the other side of the world doesn't change the fact that we are all Americans. But that is not Billoo's message. Her message is one of hate and division. She is an anti-Semite and a hate monger in my view. Her use of the word, "Zionist" is part of the playbook. It simply means Jew.

The Cancer at UC Irvine

This article first appeared in Times of Israel Blogs.

Recently, we reported on the latest BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) resolution that was passed by the student senate at UC Irvine, where I taught part-time 1998-2016. The resolution against Israel passed, and the university quickly issued a statement that they would not abide by it. The damage is that these resolutions, which go on all over the nation in our universities, only direct more negative attention to Jewish students and increase anti-Semitism. Jews are perceived as universally supporting the Jewish state of Israel, which in reality, is not true. Most American Jews support Israel, but some do not. Some even join forces with those who want to destroy the Jewish state. That is the true aim of BDS.

Richard Cravatts, former president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, has also taken note of the latest out of UCI and has written about it in Frontpage Magazine. I am cross-posting it below.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/malignant-tradition-uc-irvines-hate-israel-richard-l-cravatts/

Sadly, UCI has acquired a reputation as a hotbed of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic agitation, largely due to the annual anti-Israel week of events every May. Over the last two decades, I have attended many of those events in order to document them, videotape them, and directly question the speakers. I can tell you, I have seen and heard a lot of vicious people speak at these events. 

As I have always said, 99% of the students at UCI are not involved in this ugliness, but those who are have all but destroyed the reputation of what should otherwise be considered a great university. I blame the administrators at UCI (and the entire UC system) for their weakness in allowing this problem to fester and grow.

In 2015-16, I was active with the Amcha Initiative and others in lobbying the UC Regents to draw up a suitable statement of principles against intolerance that specifically addressed anti-Semitism, as opposed to simply condemning all forms of hate. After all, it was anti-Semitism on campus that was the reason a revised statement of principles was under consideration. In 2016, the UC Regents finalized a statement that included such language. 

https://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2017/06/jewish-organizations-to-uci-chancellor.html

Unfortunately, it has proved to be nothing more than a scrap of paper that UCI can stick in the files of their Office of Inclusive Excellence and show the public that everything is just fine. But since that paper was finalized, UCI has continued to see anti-Zionist weeks every May (at least until the Covid crisis hit), and speakers like Hussam Ayloush (CEO of CAIR in S. California), Rabab Abdulhadi, (professor at San Francisco State University) and Zahra Billoo (CEO of CAIR in No. California) come to campus to spread their poison. Some progress.

Now we have another dangerous ingredient being added to the poisonous cocktail. Thanks to the latest academic creation-intersectionality- all ills of the world can be linked to Israel including the grievances of BLM. If George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis cops, it was partially Israel's fault because they trained that department and taught them the tactic of kneeling on a black suspect's neck-or something like that. And don't think the connection hasn't been made by those who ingest this propaganda. Last May, BLM rioters rampaged through the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, attacking synagogues and yelling curses at Jews from their car windows. It was a pogrom though nobody would admit it. One would think that after such an event, activists might realize that stoking hatred against Jews was a dangerous idea. Not the pro-Palestinian crowd, however. It's full steam ahead, and if they can convince American blacks that the Jewish state of Israel is their enemy too, so what if a few American Jews get beat up?

Shame on the pro-Palestinian movement for stirring up this kind of hate toward American Jews with their lies. And shame on our universities for allowing this treatment of its Jewish students. When I first got involved in this issue at UCI back around 2007, I learned that our university campuses were the focal point for the resurgence in anti-Semitism in the US. Rather than seeing it nipped in the bud, it has metastasized to society as a whole. The only positive aspect is that the issue of anti-Semitism can no longer be denied or swept under the rug. It is there for all to see. And UCI has played a role.

Another Reaction to the Islamophobia Conference at UC Berkeley

Hat tip Campus Watch and The Hill


Abraham Miller, writing in The Hill, gives his take on the ridiculous Islamophobia conference recently at UC Berkeley. Featured are Professor Hatem Bazian, who is trying to make Islamophobia a career path and CAIR's San Francisco director, Zahra Billoo.

                                             Hatem Bazian (with microphone) and friends


http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/244453-islamophobia-its-a-growth-industry#.VXh8eaXCm_Y

I have written more about Bazian on this site than I care to recount. I consider him a joke and an embarrassment to the University of California system. He is far from alone in that regard, however. He has plenty of company at Berkeley and on other UC campuses.

I should add that Billoo is the one responsible for dragging out that poster that told the Muslim community not to talk to the FBI. I confronted her with that when she spoke at UC Irvine a couple of years back. Her answer was evasive and silly. I also videotaped it.

"Billoo replied that the flyer in question had been created decades ago and had been used by many activist organizations. She advised that CAIR (national) had not endorsed that the flyer since it "did not represent appropriate legal advice". Yet, she added that the US Constitution insured that every citizen had the right to remain silent and have legal representation when questioned by law enforcement (see second segment)."



At a time when a program of genocide against Christians and other religious minorities is being carried out in the Middle East, claims of Islamophobia in the US-where Muslims are not being persecuted- ring hollow.

I think Miller has a made another salient point: Bazian and Billoo are not the kind of leaders the American Muslim community can point to with pride.

Zahra Billoo Reminds Her Followers About the FBI

Hat tip Jihad Watch

"Not appropriate legal advice"

CAIR director in San Francisco, Zahra Billoo, doesn't come across as a very smart person, in my humble estimation. When she spoke at UC Irvine in January during Islamic Awareness week, I videotaped her presentation (even though the Muslim Student Union tried to stop me) and asked her about the famous poster that her office used a few years back, which you can view above. In her answer, she advised that CAIR "had not endorsed the poster because it did not represent appropriate legal advice." She also answered another question of mine about the death penalty for adultery in stating that the penalty was death by stoning-for both women and men, mind you.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2013/01/muslim-awareness-week-at-uc-irvine-2013.html

It seems Zahra has not learned her lesson. Now she is repeating the same message in response to the words of President Obama.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/a-day-after-obama-says-the-best-way-to-prevent-violent-extremism-is-to-work-with-the-muslim-american.html

What is your response to that, Mr President?

Victicrat Conference at UC Berkeley

On April 20-21, UC Berkeley will be the site of a big victim conference whose main theme is Islamophobia. It looks like the ubiquitous UCB professor Hatem Bazian will be one of the main players. He is pretty much the chief victicrat among the Islamic movement in America. The purpose of this conference is to cry racism against Americans and to convince other Muslims that they cannot get a fair shake in this country- thus, they need all the organizations like CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, ICNA and MAS to look out for their interests, which is pure.....

Here is the agenda (aside from the agenda I just mentioned):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------




Critical Discourses on Islamophobia: 

Symbols, Images and Representations

April 20-21, 2012
Booth Auditorium
UC Berkeley Boalt Law School

This conference will be webcast!  Check back on this page for more details.

~~~

PROGRAM

FRIDAY, APRIL 20th, 2012

Opening and Welcoming Remarks 9:00am

Prof. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Center for Race & Gender Welcoming Remarks           
Dr. Hatem Bazian, IRDP and Conference Convener         

Keynote:   9:30 -10:30am

A Global Perspective on Constructing Muslim Otherness
Professor Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at the Oxford University, Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies, (Qatar), Senior Research Fellow at Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan) and Director of the Research Centre of Islamic Legislation and Ethnics (CILE) (Doha, Qatar)

Panel  1   10:30am-12:15 PM
Images and Representation of Islam and Muslims

Seeing Time: Visual Culture in the Drone Wars
Prof. Keith Feldman, Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

Beyond Individual Journalism: Deconstructing Media Framing
Sumbul Ali-Karamali, J.D. University of California, Davis, and a graduate degree in Islamic Law University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies

Framing/Reframing: The Five ‘Media Pillars’ of Islam and the Limits of the American Imaginary
Prof. Munir Jiwa, Center for Islamic Studies, Graduate Theological Union

Countering Stereotypes with Social Media: Muslim Cultural Producers in the United States
Som Pourfarzaneh, Ph.D. Candidate, Graduate Theological Union

Chair: Dr. Mahan Mirza, Zaytuna College

Lunch Break  12:30-2:00 PM

Panel 2   2:00- 3:45 PM
Europe’s Islamophobia: Contested Identities, Immigration and Racism

Islamophobia in the Netherlands and Anti-Black Racism
Prof. Sandew Hiro, International Institute of Scientific Studies, Amsterdam

Islamophobia in France
Houria Bouteldja, Dialeg Global Institute, Barcelona and Paris

Breaking the Taboo of Multiculturalism: The Belgian Left and Islam
Dr. Nadia Fadil, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven-Belgium, visiting scholar UC Berkeley

Breivik and Islamophobic Fantasies of Muslim Dominance
Jason van Boom, Ph.D. Director of Nicholas of Cusa Institute and Adjunct Professor, Star King School

Chair:  Prof. Ramon Grosfoguel, Ethnic Studies Department, UC Berkeley

Panel 3     4:00 – 5:45 PM
Race, Racism and Discourses of Otherness

Racism in the Aftermath of Islamophobia
Prof. Junaid Rana, Asian American Studies Affiliate in the Department of Anthropology, Center for the Study of South Asian and the Middle East, and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Ghettoes, Banlieues and Barrios: The Geo-politics of Muslim Hip Hop
Prof. Hishaam Aidi, Institute for Research in African-American Studies & School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Stepping Razor: Race, Muslim Identity and Perpetual War
Prof. Sohail Daulatzai, African American STudies and Film & Media Studies, School of Humanities, UC Irvine

Situated Knowledge (re)Production & Epistemic Violence: Can the Subaltern
Speak?
Prof. Rabab Abdulhadi, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative (AMED), San Francisco State University

Chair: Prof. Marianne Farina, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, GTU

SATURDAY, APRIL 21st, 2012

Panel  4     10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Security Structures and Civil Rights: Reversing the Trend!

New Kids on the Block: Islamophobia within U.S. Jim Crow History and Resistance
Monami Maulik, founder and Executive Director of DRUM - Desis Rising Up & Moving

Eroding Civil Liberties: From the War on Drugs to the War on Terror
Zahra Billoo, CAIR Northern California Executive Director

SAFE San Francisco Campaign and Civil Rights Organizing
Summer Hararah, Asian Law Caucus

Muslims: Enemies of the State: The New Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO)
Dr. Hatem Bazian, IRDP and Zaytuna College

Chair: Prof. Munir Jiwa, Center for Islamic Studies, GTU

Lunch Break  12:30 PM – 1:30 PM   

Panel     5     1:30 PM – 2:45 PM
Theoretical Framing of Islamophobia and Blind Spots

Twice Behaved, Twice Erased: Islamophobia and the Black Body
Abdul Hamid Robinson Royal, Ph.D. Candidate, Graduate Theological Union

Five Hundred Twenty Years of Islamophobia in the West (1492 to 2012): From the Early Modern Period until Today
Prof. Ramon Grosfoguel, Ethnic Studies Department, Chicano/Latino Studies, UC Berkeley

Islamophobia as a Race Marker and the “First Muslim President
Imam Zaid Shakir, Zaytuna College

Shariah and Citizenshp: Institutionalizing Fear-How Islamophobia is Creating a Second-Class Citizenry in America
Yaser Ali, UC Berkeley Boalt Law School

Chair: Dr. Hatem Bazian, IRDP, UC Berkeley and Zaytuna College

Panel     6         3:00 PM – 4:45 PM
Islamophobia Implications on the Otherized Subjects

A Measure of Islamophobia
Prof S. Sayyid, Director of the Muslim Non-Muslim Centre, University of South Australia

The psychological impact of ongoing Islamophobia and law enforcement harassment
Prof. Jess Ghannam, Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UCSF; Chief, Medical Psychology, UCSF/Mount Zion Medical Center

Media Discourse Analysis on Egyptian Revolution and Islamophobia
Yasmeen Daifallah, Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science, UC Berkeley

Islamophobia in the Palestinian Context
Dr. Ayesha Al Rifai, Dean of Education Sciences Faculty and Principal of Ramallah Women Training Center at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Ramallah - West Bank /Palestine

Chair: Dr. Mahan Mirza, Zaytuna College

Closing Remarks  5:00 PM- 5:30 PM

Dr. Hatem Bazian, IRDP, UC Berkeley and Zaytuna College

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If I may add a few comments. 

Hatem Bazian is a progressive activist who immigrated here from what he calls "Palestine" with his family. He has two main agendas: Islamophobia and bashing Israel. But you see, he is such a victim since he has obtained an education including PhD from Berkeley and is now a professor. Poor Hatem.

Hatem Bazian

Hopefully, as he is talking about how Americans hate Muslims, he might address some comments that have been attributed to him, such as telling a Berkeley audience that if they look around campus, they will see Jewish names on the buildings, or reportedly calling for an intifada in the US, or reportedly quoting that quaint little hadith that talks about the day of judgement, when Jews will hide behind trees, and the trees will call out to the Muslims to come and kill them. (I tried to get those answers from him a couple of years ago when he spoke at UC Irvine.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/05/hatem-bazian-at-uc-irvine.html

If you are attending, maybe you can ask him again and get better answers than I did. Keep it mind as you listen to him complaining about "Islamophobia". (Maybe he can define the term while he is at it.)

Then there is Tarek Ramadan, the Swiss-born grandson of Hasan al Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood and did not have a high opinion of other faiths. But this is Tarek, who was born in the West, highly educated, and a scholar when it comes to Islam. He is regarded by many as a true moderate. Yet, until Hillary Clinton lifted the ban last year, he was not allowed in the US due to some questionable donations to outfits that were considered connected to terrorism. (His defense is that he had no idea about the suspicious aspects of the organizations even before the US government uncovered them.) Ramadan also had problems when he was working at Rotterdam's Erasmus University. They canned him because he had a program on Press TV, which happens to be the English-language press organ of the Iranian government. A few years ago, Ramadan called for a moratorium on stonings in the Muslim world until Islamic scholars could study the issue and determine that they were justly applied-and not just to the poor and powerless. Most recently, Ramadan wrote an article on the Toulouse massacre, in which he painted the killer as a victim unable to assimilate into French society.

Zaid Shakir of Zaytuna College (Berkeley) will be there. Here is what Discover the Networks has to say about Shakir.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=974

Sohail Daulatzai

Here is Daulatzai's, faculty profile page from UC Irvine.

http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5300

"US imperial culture"

You get the picture.

I see Jess Ghannam of UCSF will be there too. Hardly surprising. Don't let that fancy title fool you. He is a fervent anti-Israel activist. Here is what Lee Kaplan wrote about him after attending a conference in La Mesa (Ca) in 2010.

http://homelandsecurityus.com/archives/3590

Leila Beckwith and Tammi Rossman-Benjamin also chimed in on the event, and here is what they wrote.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/04/situation-in-uc-campus-system.html

Here is one my previous mentions of Professor Ghannam:

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/04/al-awda-conference-in-orange-county.html

Another speaker is Rebab Abdulhadi, whose big claim to fame is she reportedly signed some letter of support for Bill Ayres in 2008, when his name was being bandied about with Barack Obama.

http://www.keywiki.org/index.php/Rabab_Abdulhadi

For what it's worth.

I also note that there will be a presentation on Islamophobia in France. Do you think the topic of Toulouse and the massacre that recently occurred there at a Jewish school will be mentioned? Will the name of Ilan Halimi, the young French Jew who was kidnapped, tortured over several days and murdered be mentioned? Don't hold your breath.

And a presentation about Islamophobia in the Netherlands, no less.

"The Netherlands. You mean the country where Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh had his throat slit on a Dutch street for having made a film called Fitna that called attention to mistreatment of Muslim women? The same country where Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an apostate, had to go into hiding and leave the country for having collaborated in the film? The country where Jews have been advised not to wear Jewish garb on the streets? Where Geert Wilders has to live under armed guard?"

That's the one.

So you get the picture. Let us call this what it is. This is a collection of progressive folks who want to paint Muslims as a victim group in this country. They will not acknowledge any instances of intolerance being shown around the world by Muslims towards others. They will not admit to the Jew hatred that is inherent in their belief system.  Instead, it is they who are the victims of a racist, imperialist nation, where Muslims must live in fear. That is a falsehood.

Yes, there is anti-Islamic feeling in this country, but it has not manifested itself in the kind of violence and discrimination that non-Muslim minorities are subjected to in Muslim nations. That is because the American people are cut from a different cloth. We know that it would be wrong to act out at innocent American Muslims. We know that most of them are law-abiding and don't wish us harm. Our laws on discrimination still apply. We have hate crime laws in place. There have been a few exceptions as there always will be. Yet, considering the high crime rates we have and the number of violent crimes like murder that we endure, our record in treating our Muslim citizens is pretty darn good, in my view. Hopefully, it will continue.

Another thing these folks will not admit is that there is a long-range goal on the part of many (not all) Muslim leaders to start America down the road to eventually becoming an Islamic country under Sharia law. Right now there is a full-fledged drive to present Sharia to Americans as a benign system of fairness and justice that is in conformance with American law and our constitution. It is not.

In addition, at least some of these individuals are very active in agitating against Israel.

What these figures are fighting and calling "Islamophobia" is an honest and normal  reaction to 9-11, to terror, to violent rhetoric, and to intolerance itself. Yes, we are discussing the Koran, the hadith, the life of Mohammed, what is happening every day around the world. Should we not? That is not hate, but we do see a threat to us and our freedoms. Many of us are not about to lie down and give up our freedoms in the name of "being tolerant" to forces that are intolerant. I still believe that most American Muslims understand that. I doubt that many-if any-of those speaking at this conference get it.