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Chronology of Islam in America (2011)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
July 2011 - Page Three
July 22: Massacre in Oslo by a right-wing terrorist (Read all related stories)
PFAW Report exposes Right-Wing anti-Muslim extremist strategy
July 25: Under the guise of defending freedom and American values, Right-Wing anti-Muslim extremists are campaigning to prevent Muslim-Americans from freely worshiping and practicing their religion, curtail their political rights, and even compel their deportation says a new report by People For the American Way (PFAW). The report – titled “The Right Wing playbook on anti-Muslim extremism” – enumerates the specific strategies used by the Right-Wing to stir up destructive fears, and as a result are putting our fundamental tradition of equality and justice at risk. The PFSW report identifies the scare tactics used by the Right Wing to conjure up anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States and outlines some ways that concerned Americans can push back against anti-Muslim extremism. “Right-wing activists, elected officials and even some presidential candidates have launched an overt assault on American Muslims, using a religious minority as a scapegoat for any number of national fears and frustrations,” said Michael Keegan, President of People For the American Way. “In doing so, they compromise some of our dearest national values. Anti-Muslim extremists and the political leaders who repeat their talking points are spreading baseless and destructive fears and explicitly disregarding the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of religion and equal treatment under the law.” PFAW was founded in 1981 by Norman Lear, the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, and a group of business, civic, religious, and civil rights leaders who were disturbed by the divisive rhetoric of newly politicized televangelists.
Eight strategies employed by anti-Muslim activists
The report discusses eight strategies employed by anti-Muslim activists to cast doubt on the validity of Islam as a religion and the integrity of American Muslims in order to justify prejudice and illegal discrimination:
Strategy One: Frame Muslim-Americans as dangerous to America
Strategy Two: Twist statistics and use fake research to “prove” the Muslim threat
Strategy Three: Invent the danger of “creeping Sharia”
Strategy Four: “Defend liberty” by taking freedoms away from Muslims
Strategy Five: Claim that Islam is not a religion
Strategy Six: Maintain that Muslims have no First Amendment rights under the Constitution
Strategy Seven: Link anti-Muslim prejudice to anti-Obama rhetoric
Strategy Eight: Claim an “unholy alliance” exists that includes Muslims and other groups targeted by the Right Wing (People For the American Way)
Peter King continues anti-Muslims witch hunt
July 27: Republican Rep. Peter King continued his anti-Muslim witch hunt today with his congressional hearing on the so-called "radicalization" of American Muslims. This time the focus of his hearing was the Somali community. This was King’s third such hearing that came five days after the Oslo Massacre by the right-wing terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik who was perhaps radicalized by a group of anti-Muslim and anti-Islam American bloggers and zealots such as Bat Ye’or, Daniel Pipes, Hugh Fitzgerald, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer Walid Shoebat. Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee's top Democrat, pointed to the Norway tragedy as one reason the hearings should not solely focus on Muslim extremists. "This lone wolf extremist killed nearly 80 people in his anti-Islamic fervor," said Thompson. "It is too early to say what the people of Norway will take from this horrific national tragedy. But for me, this incident makes plain that the madness of terrorism cannot be neatly confined to any one religion, one people or one nation," Thompson said. King rejected the criticism, saying the tragedy in Norway had nothing to do with the focus of the hearings. "I will not back down from holding these hearings," he said. "I will continue to hold these hearings so long as I am the chairman of this committee."
Committee Democrats, as they have previously, said King's hearings unfairly single out the religious group, and called on him to hold no more. "Before these hearings began, I requested that their focus be broadened to include a look at the real and present threat of domestic violent extremism," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the committee's top Democrat. Thompson also questioned the danger posed by al-Shabab, which landed on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations in February 2008. "Al-Shabab does not appear to present any danger to this homeland," Thompson said, citing vigorous law enforcement efforts to track the group.
Bennie Thompson, said that so far, al-Shabaab has not targeted the United States or U.S. interests abroad, and that most of those recruited in North America carried out terrorist attacks against other Muslims in Somalia. Other committee Democrats used recent events to protest the hearings' focus on Muslims. Several mentioned the anti-Muslim gunman's bloody rampage in Norway Friday to argue that extremists come from a variety of backgrounds. Another held up a front-page newspaper story about the victims of the famine in Somalia, and asked if it might not be more constructive to focus on that tragedy. Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee thought domestic “hate groups” should be of concern to the country and should be included in the Committee’s investigation.
Peter King: Al-Shabab recruits 40 Americans
King, who heads the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, released his committee's results from an investigation, which found more than 40 Americans have turned up fighting for Al-Shabab in Somalia, a higher number than previously reported. Fifteen were killed, and at least 21 remain unaccounted for and pose a "direct threat" to the United States, according to the report. Ironically, Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, a Democrat who is the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, was denied a request to testify before at a committee hearing on the so-called Islamic radicalization. According to Minnesota Post, Ellison sent Rep. King a letter Monday asking if he could testify at a hearing on the Al-Shabaab terrorist organization operating in Somalia.
According to the Christian Century Wednesday's hearing inspired far less emotion than the two previous ones held by King. The first, in March, on the so-called radicalization of American Muslims in general, prompted heated debates and headlines weeks before it happened. Protestors lined the corridors outside the hearing room. The second hearing, in June, on the ‘radicalization’ of Muslims in the nation's prisons, was less dramatic -- and less well-attended. Like King's first March hearing on Islamic radicalization, critics questioned the targeting of one religious group, particularly just days after an anti-Muslim terrorist in Norway killed 93 people.
Hearings of Peter King make us less safe
Commenting on Wednesday’s hearing, Justin Krebs, the founder of Living Liberally, says King’s Muslim Radicalization hearings make us less safe. In an article published on WYNC.ORG blog, Kerbs suggested that King could have studied home-grown terrorism and the perverting influences that turn American citizens into violent actors - but he chose to specifically focus on the threat of Islam. Congressman King is making us less safe by not dedicating resources and his platform to addressing threats that come from non-Muslim radical, violent extremists, Kerbs said adding: “And let's hope the comments of his witnesses, who make false and inflammatory statements about the nature of Islam and the extent of the threat of violence among American Muslims, don't intentionally or unwittingly inflame that imagination of a next generation of unbalanced individuals, lone gunmen and others who might really threaten our citizens and our civil society.”
Kerbs also referred to what he called inane and extreme responses to the attack in Norway by the right wing. “Alternet's round-up of the worst would be hilarious if it weren't frightening. Because so many had assumed the bombing was the work of Muslim radicals (as opposed to an anti-Muslim radical), conservative pundits had to backpedal with comments that referred to the gunman's act as "jihad," said "Islamic supremacists" had incited him to violence, and refused any comparison between the Muslim terrorism and Christian terrorism.” Of course, these quotes are cherry-picked to be the most absurd (although many of them were stated in "mainstream" media outlets) and the majority of conservatives - like all Americans - recognized that an act of radical right-wing Christian violence is extreme, but isn't unique. We've seen it in our own country, he said adding: In fact, the DHS had issued a report about the danger of right-wing militants during the Bush Administration - before the Bush Administration suppressed and challenged the findings.
“But it isn't the extreme and sensational right-wing pundits we should worry about the most, it's our members of Congress. When Representative King (who, as is often noted, backed the IRA when they were officially considered a terrorist organization) decided that his hearings weren't about the greatest threat to America, but the Muslim threat, he made a choice,” Kerb argued. (AMP Report)
Islamic heritage museum opens in D.C.
July 28: Southeast Washington is now home to a new museum commemorating Islamic heritage in the United States. The "America's Islamic Heritage Museum and Cultural Center" held a reception and media preview today. The museum, located on 2315 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, traces the history of Muslims in America. According to the press release: “More than the stories already known in mainstream America, such as those of Kunta Kinte (Alex Haley's "Roots") and Abdul Rahman (A Prince Among Slaves). But there's also many stories waiting to be heard like those of the first communities of Muslims in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, and Illinois. The museum is truly wholesome, offering the stories of the enslaved Muslims and their adeptness to keep their faith, the Nation of Islam, the Masons, as well as to demonstrate the diversity with which Islamic principles became a part of the American fabric.” The museum began as a traveling exhibit by a non-profit organization created in 1996 called the "Collections and Stories of American Muslims". According to the website, the exhibit has traveled across the country, including stops at the Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz Cultural Center in New York, Harvard University, University of Florida, The Smithsonian's Anacostia Museum and The State Department's International Visitor Program. (NBC)
March unites religious leaders against vandalism at CA mosque
July 28: In La Mirada, CA, members of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths gathered in unison last Sunday for a peace rally in light of recent vandalism targeting a Muslim mosque on Imperial Highway. The peace rally was organized by Rezaur Rahman, president of Muslim Community Services, Inc., in light of vandalism that took place July 18 at the mosque. A brick or large rock was thrown through the mosque's rear glass doors. About 100 people began a one-hour walk from the mosque, and proceeded through the streets of La Mirada in honor of religious peace in the community. Local rabbis and Christian ministers spoke at a lunch after the peace walk. Religious leaders called on the community and law enforcement to make the safety of mosque members a priority. Officials who also spoke at the event were former La Mirada Mayor Lou Piltz; Andrea Avila, spokeswoman for L.A. County Supervisor Don Knabe; Jeff Warner, LA Jews for Peace; Michael G. Witmer, Interfaith Witness, Inland Empire; the Rev. Bill Miller, Whittier United Methodist Church; the Rev. Joy A. Price, La Mirada United Methodist Church; the Rev. Jack Miranda, president, La Mirada Clergy Association; Shakeel Syed, CEO, Islamic Shura Council of Southern California; Tasneem Rahman, vice president, Muslim Students Association, Cypress College and Hafiz Ullah, adviser, Sheriff Lee Baca's Advisory Board. (Whittier Daily News)
America's rising tide of Islamophobia
July 28: What we're seeing in the US is a successful, almost mainstream, re-imaging and repackaging of the panic of European Islamophobia, of the sort that's oft spouted by far right groups from Austria, to France, to the United Kingdom. In the year since the so-called Ground Zero Mosque furor, when campaigners brought in Europeans like Geert Wilders to march for their cause, a group of conservative Americans have become increasingly vocal in their opposition to public displays of Muslim life, from opposition to mosques (which has coincided with an increase in arson attacks) to warning calls that sharia law is soon to replace our justice system. Partly, the success of our bloggers' ideology stems from America's vigorous free speech laws. On this side of the Atlantic, first amendment rights are guarded, rightfully, zealously and carefully. We can be more aggressive in our stances. But partly, their success comes from their very visibility: Geller, Spencer and, especially, Bawer are more mainstream in the US dialogue on Islam than their counterparts in Europe. Bruce Bawer's op-ed was published in the venerable Wall Street Journal. Pamela Geller is a regular on talkshows, from right to left. Their positions, like it or not, have found an audience and gained traction, if not wholesale legitimacy, in the US context. Their work has enabled Americans like Juan Williams, the former NPR correspondent who was fired for telling FoxNews he finds Muslim travellers on planes frightening, to bounce back with his new book, Muzzled.
It's not just talking heads, but politicians: as Peter Beinart pointed out in the Daily Beast this week, Herman Cain, a Republican candidate for the presidency, has said he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet, should he be elected. Cain may be a wildcard, but he's not alone: other Republicans – including Tim Pawlenty and Newt Gingrich – have expressed equally rightwing positions on Islam, expressing fear about the "Islamicisation" of America and setting themselves up as defenders against sharia law. Those messages legitimise Islamophobia, and provide a drumbeat for action for those inclined to hear it that way. This is the ideological underpinning that motivates militias and terrorists. The Norway attacks, it might be said, were the work of a militia of one, a single man with the deranged idea that he had to destroy his society to save it. Spencer, Geller and Bawer each create the impression that western civilisation is under threat. It was not always this way. The United States once resisted that European narrative – both because we are a country of immigration and because many Muslim immigrants came in at a higher socio-economic and educational level, while a large proportion of American Muslims were converts from Christianity. Muslims in the US were, for these reasons, perceived as better integrated into our multicultural society. But that perception has changed. (The Guardian)
FBI & CIA tried to get lawyer to betray Arab and Muslim clients
July 29: Federal agents from the FBI and CIA/FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force tried to get a distinguished international lawyer to inform on his Arab and Muslim clients in violation of their Constitutional rights to attorney-client privilege. When the lawyer refused, he said the FBI placed him on a "terrorist watch list." Law professor Francis Boyle gave a chilling account of how, in the summer of 2004, two agents showed up at his office (at the University of Illinois, Champaign,) "unannounced, misrepresented who they were and what they were about to my secretary, gained access to my office, interrogated me for about one hour, and repeatedly tried to get me to become their informant on my Arab and Muslim clients." "This would have violated their (clients) Constitutional rights and my ethical obligations as an Attorney," Boyle explained. "I refused. So they put me on all of the United States government's 'terrorist watch' lists." Boyle said his own lawyer found "there are about five or six different terrorist watch lists, and as far as he could determine, I am on all of them." Despite a legal appeal to get his name removed, Boyle said, "I will remain on all of these terrorist watch lists for the rest of my life or until the two Agencies who put me on there remove my name, which is highly unlikely." Placing attorney Boyle on the Terrorist Watch List is a form of punishment that is being ever more widely applied. According to "USA Today" the list grew from 288,000 names in 2005 to 1-million in March, 2009, according to an article of March 10th of that year. "People put on the watch list...can be blocked from flying, stopped at borders or subjected to other scrutiny," reporter Peter Eisler wrote.
And "Newsday," the Long Island, N.Y., daily, reported a wholesale invasion of lawyer-client privilege, as when lawyers at Guantanamo are forced to turn over their interview notes to guards, who send them on to the Pentagon facility in Virginia that is the only place lawyers can go to write their motions and where the Pentagon attempts to edit out detainees' claims of mistreatment from the public record. What's more, "Newsday" reported, "The military has set up a system that delays legal correspondence (between lawyers and prisoners) for weeks," adding that "Detainees have alleged that interrogators have tried to turn them against their lawyers." According to "Newsday," guards and interrogators peruse prisoners' private legal papers and warn them that prisoners who have lawyers will wait longer to get out! Tom Wilner, a lawyer for 12 Kuwaiti detainees, said an interrogator asked one of his clients, "Did you know your lawyers are Jews?" (By Sherwood Ross - OpEdNews)
Rep. Allen West brings Islamophobia to Congress
July 29: This week Rep. Allen West (R-FL) sponsored an event in the Rayburn House Office Building titled “Homegrown Jihad in the USA: Culmination of the Muslim Brotherhood’s 50-year History of Infiltrating America,” presented by Peter Leitner of Citizens for National Security (CFNS), located in Boca Raton, Florida. Media Matters reported that According to its press release, CFNS’ briefing, titled “Homegrown Jihad in the USA: Culmination of the Muslim Brotherhood’s 50-year History of Infiltrating America,” will present “an unprecedented list of individual members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., and the people and organizations with which they are associated.” The report was compiled by the organization’s “volunteer members”. They noted that CFNS gives no indication as to the qualifications of those members or how the list was compiled. Here is a passage from the press release: “It details exactly how the Muslim Brotherhood’s deliberate, premeditated plan is now reaching maturity in this country in the form of homegrown Jihad,” explained Dr. Saxton, CFNS Chairman. A highlight of the briefing will be an announcement by Dr. Leitner of CFNS’s development of an unprecedented list of individual members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., and the people and organizations with which they are associated. “Thus far, this database contains thousands of names and hundreds of organizations, and is growing each day as the CFNS research project expands. It will soon be made available to the public,” noted Leitner.
Justin Elliott checked out the groups website and found that: “One section describes the group’s “task forces,” which “focus on, or support, the academic community, Congress, the media, and other establishments and professionals where intelligence and national security issues are in play.” Some of the six are devoted to tracking what the group calls the “Muslim Brotherhood in North America.” And then there’s this: TASK FORCE 4. Identify “Islamic” businesses, social and religious organizations, schools, etc. throughout North America. Note that’s not qualified as “extremist” or “terrorist”—just “Islamic,” with inexplicable scare quotes. Can this be described as anything other than outright bigotry?”
So, an anti-Muslim Congressperson plans an event in which a relatively unknown organization will present its findings collected by volunteers to prove that American Muslims are dangerous. This group is collecting the names of individuals they believe are dangerous - 6,000 so far, but more being added each day, and they will make these names available to the public. (Sheila Musaji - The American Muslim)
Muslim groups applaud actions to prevent alleged Fort Hood attack
July 29: American Muslim civil rights and advocacy groups have applauded the actions of law enforcement officials and members of the public who prevented an alleged attack on soldiers stationed at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo was arrested yesterday by police in Killeen, Texas, after allegedly buying bomb-making supplies. In a statement, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a leading American Muslim civil advocacy group, said: "We applaud the actions of local law enforcement authorities and members of the public in preventing the alleged plot to harm military personnel in Texas. While every individual has the right to the presumption of innocence, we condemn any plot to harm our nation's safety and security." CAIR noted that the reported motive for the alleged plot was personal, not religious. According to CNN, Abdo, who joined the infantry in 2009, refused to deploy to Afghanistan on religious grounds. The Army approved his request to be discharged as a conscientious objector, but on May 13, he was charged with possession of child pornography on his computer. The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), another prominent American Muslim civil advocacy group, thanked law enforcement for thwarting a potential terrorist attack. In a statement, the MPAC said: ”As information continues to emerge regarding the arrest of Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo amidst allegations he was collecting bomb-making material, MPAC reaffirms its call to all members of Muslim American communities to be in contact with local law enforcement for the safety and security of their communities, their institutions and their country.”
Abdo appears in Texas court
Naser Abdo appeared today (July 29) in U.S. District Court in Waco, Texas. The court ordered Abdo should be held without bond. He is charged with possession of an unregistered destructive device in connection with a bomb plot and has yet to enter a plea. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Abdo was arrested on July 28 after a gun-store clerk told authorities he bought six pounds of smokeless gunpowder, shotgun ammunition and a magazine for a semi-automatic pistol on Tuesday -- while seeming to know little about what he was buying. According to court documents, Abdo told investigators he planned to construct two bombs in his motel room using gunpowder and shrapnel packed into pressure cookers and then detonate the explosives at a restaurant frequented by soldiers. FBI Agent James E. Runkel said in an affidavit filed in federal court that police found Abdo carrying a backpack containing two clocks, wire, ammunition, a handgun and the "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom" article. In court, Abdo refused to stand when the judge entered -- U.S. marshals pulled him from his seat -- but he answered the judge's questions politely. On his way out, he yelled "Iraq 2006!" and the name of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl who was raped that year before she and her family were killed. Five current or former U.S. soldiers went to prison, one for a life term, for their roles in that attack. He also shouted the name of Hasan, an Army major and psychiatrist who is charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood.
The Associated Press said the allegations and Abdo's defiance in court contrast with the words he used as he was petitioning for conscientious objector status. In an essay he sent to The Associated Press last year he said acts like the Fort Hood shootings "run counter to what I believe in as a Muslim." "Overall, as a Muslim I feel that I will not be able to carry out my military duties due to my conscientious objection," Abdo wrote in his application for the status. "Therefore, unless I separate myself from the military, I would potentially be putting the soldiers I work with in jeopardy. "In this instance, I would be failing in my duty to my unit, my army and my god." As the first anniversary of the 2009 Fort Hood rampage approached, Abdo sent to the AP the essay describing how he became a "different Muslim" after going through basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., and enduring religious harassment. "Often times, during basic training the trainees would insult Islam and insult Muslims," he wrote. As a result, Abdo said he grew reclusive and stopped socializing. (AMP Report)
The FBI recommended new recruits to read anti-Islam books
July 29: The FBI was teaching new recruits about Muslims with a power point presentation that recommended they read anti-Islam books, according to a grainy copy of the PowerPoint obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union’s Northern California chapter and the Asian Law Caucus, a San Francisco-based civil rights group. The two groups filed a Freedom of Information Act request last year inquiring about government surveillance of American Muslim communities. The 62-page document, first reported by the Danger Room, was designed to help agents perform “successful interviews/interrogations with individuals from the Middle East.”
Spencer Ackerman of the Danger Room says as recently as January 2009, the FBI thought its agents ought to know the following crucial information about Muslims: (1) They engage in a “circumcision ritual.” (2) More than 9,000 of them are in the U.S. military (3) Their religion “transforms [a] country’s culture into 7th-century Arabian ways.” Ackerman went on to say that the FBI “recommended reading” about Islam included: (a) A much-criticized tome, The Arab Mind, that one reviewer called “a collection of outrageously broad — and often suspect — generalizations“ (b) A book by one of Norwegian terrorist suspect Anders Behring Breivik’s favorite anti-Muslim authors.
Tellingly, the books included on a "Recommended Reading" slide were The Politically Incorrect Guide To Islam and The Truth About Muhammad by anti-Muslim blogger Robert Spencer, who was cited 64 times by the Oslo massacre terrorist Anders Behring Breivik in his manifesto. It may be recalled that Robert Spencer, who runs anti-Muslim Jihad Watch blog, is the co-founder of Stop the Islamization of America, which “promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. He is also one of the ringleaders of the protest against the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” in New York.
Another book cited is The Arab Mind, by Raphael Patai. The Racism Watch organization reported in June 2004 that Columbia University director of African American Studies, Manning Marable, had called for immediate action to be taken to end the U.S. military's use the book. This was followed by a surge of media interest in the book during the summer of 2004. The book was described by Guardian Newspaper correspondent Brian Whitaker as one that presents "an overwhelmingly negative picture of the Arabs." In an article in the New Yorker magazine, Seymour Hersh said that he was told by an academic that the book was "the bible of the neocons on Arab behavior." [Wikipedia]
The FBI has now stopped using the PowerPoint
The FBI says that the presentation in question was a rudimentary version used for a limited time that has since been replaced and that Spencer’s book was no longer recommended to new recruits but said the FBI agents were encouraged to seek out a variety of viewpoints. This came in a statement the FBI issued in response to queries from Danger Room of Spencer Ackerman about the PowerPoint: “The FBI new agent population at Quantico is exposed to a diverse curriculum in many specific areas, including Islam and Muslim culture. The presentation in question was a rudimentary version used for a limited time that has since been replaced. It was a small part of a larger segment of training that also included material produced by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point.”
Mike German of the ACLU expresses concern
Mike German, a former FBI agent who now works for the ACLU, told TPM that educating agents with that type of material can only lead to abuse down the road. "Certainly I was concerned with the approach the FBI was taking post-9/11, which is why I'm no longer with the FBI," Mike German said. "I am shocked to see that this type of training material was produced in 2009." "The FBI is made up of human beings, and human beings make mistakes, but one would have thought by 2009 they would have understood this issue a little more clearly and realized how offensive that material would be read," German said. "Clearly there needs to be some greater oversight, because it is dangerous to put disinformation in the hands of law enforcement officers who are later going to be responsible for implementing FBI programs and policies," German said. "It could seriously have a detrimental effect if agents are trained in a biased manner." (AMP Report)
NY Times exposes bigot behind anti-Sharia movement
July 30: A confluence of factors has fueled the anti-Shariah movement, most notably the controversy over the proposed Islamic center near ground zero in New York, concerns about homegrown terrorism and the rise of the Tea Party. But the campaign’s air of grass-roots spontaneity, which has been carefully promoted by advocates, shrouds its more deliberate origins. In fact, it is the product of an orchestrated drive that began five years ago in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in the office of a little-known lawyer, David Yerushalmi, a 56-year-old Hasidic Jew with a history of controversial statements about race, immigration and Islam. Despite his lack of formal training in Islamic law, Mr. Yerushalmi has come to exercise a striking influence over American public discourse about Shariah. Working with a cadre of conservative public-policy institutes and former military and intelligence officials, Mr. Yerushalmi has written privately financed reports, filed lawsuits against the government and drafted the model legislation that recently swept through the country — all with the effect of casting Shariah as one of the greatest threats to American freedom since the cold war. The message has caught on. Among those now echoing Mr. Yerushalmi’s views are prominent Washington figures like R. James Woolsey, a former director of the C.I.A., and the Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann, who this month signed a pledge to reject Islamic law, likening it to “totalitarian control.” The more tangible effect of the movement, opponents say, is the spread of an alarmist message about Islam — the same kind of rhetoric that appears to have influenced Anders Behring Breivik, the suspect in the deadly dual attacks in Norway on July 22. The anti-Shariah campaign, they say, appears to be an end in itself, aimed at keeping Muslims on the margins of American life.
The Mapping Shariah project
The movement took root in January 2006 when Mr. Yerushalmi started the Society of Americans for National Existence, a nonprofit organization that became his vehicle for opposing Shariah. On the group’s Web site, he proposed a law that would make observing Islamic law, which he likened to sedition, a felony punishable by 20 years in prison. He also began raising money to study whether there is a link between “Shariah-adherent behavior” in American mosques and support for violent jihad. The project, Mapping Shariah, led Mr. Yerushalmi to Frank Gaffney, a hawkish policy analyst and commentator who is the president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington. Well connected in neoconservative circles, Mr. Gaffney has been known to take polarizing positions (he once argued that President Obama might secretly be Muslim). Mr. Gaffney would emerge as Mr. Yerushalmi’s primary link to a network of former and current government officials, security analysts and grass-roots political organizations. Together, they set out to “engender a national debate about the nature of Shariah and the need to protect our Constitution and country from it,” Mr. Gaffney wrote in an e-mail to The New York Times. The center contributed an unspecified amount to Mr. Yerushalmi’s study, which cost roughly $400,000 and involved surreptitiously sending researchers into 100 mosques. The study, which said that 82 percent of the mosques’ imams recommended texts that promote violence, has drawn sharp rebuke from Muslim leaders, who question its premise and findings.
The Tea Party, another opening for Yerushalmi
With the advent of the Tea Party, Mr. Yerushalmi saw an opening. In 2009, he and Mr. Gaffney laid the groundwork for a project aimed at state legislatures — the same year that Mr. Yerushalmi received more than $153,000 in consulting fees from Mr. Gaffney’s center, according to a tax form filed by the group. Also last fall, Mr. Gaffney’s organization released “Shariah: The Threat to America,” a 172-page report whose lead author was Mr. Yerushalmi and whose signatories included Mr. Woolsey (a former director of the C.I.A.) and other former intelligence officials. (New York Times)
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