By Ghali Hassan | 02 October 2010
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As usual, this year’s commemoration of the 9/11 attacks is marked by hate of Muslims and Islam. From New York to Florida in the U.S. to Europe, Muslims are under siege and living in fear. In order to incite fear among Western population and promote anti-Muslim propaganda, Western politicians, Zionists and the Zionists-controlled media have created a mythical powerful enemy and resorted to a smearing campaign to justify an all out war against Islam. Early in September 2010, Lee Hamilton, the former 9/11 Commission co-chairman, said: “I think the American relationship with the Islamic world is one of the really great foreign policy challenges of the next decades. We are not going to solve it in a year or two or five or even ten years”. In releasing a new report by the Bipartisan Policy centre’s National Security Preparedness Group (NSPG), Hamilton urged the U.S. government to counter domestic terror and “radicalisation” of Americans. (See Report here).
| “We are not at war with Islam”
President Barack Obama 10 September 2010 |
The term “Islamic world” is designed to create a powerful menacing enemy. There is no such thing as “Islamic world”. There are 48 countries where Islam is the major religion of the population, and the governments in most of these countries claim to be “Islamic”. Economically, they are dependent on export of natural resources (e.g. oil in the Gulf monarchies) and militarily, they are weak despite the enormous wealth wasted to buy arms from the U.S. Only Iran and Turkey have managed to build defence capabilities. There are few Islamic countries that claimed to have ‘democratic’ system, but only Turkey and possibly Iran have free elections. Most Islamic governments are authoritarian monarchies and dictatorship republics rife with corruption. They do not use Islamic law or adhere to Islamic law. Most of these Islamic countries have governments that are allied with the government and serve U.S.-Zionist objectives no matter how imperialist and anti-Muslim U.S. policies. For example, the Gulf States are vital bases for U.S. military, projecting war against other Islamic countries. Their relations with the U.S. lack the minimal of mutual respect.
It is true that most ordinary Muslims worldwide are bounded by the Qur’an, but politically, Islamic countries are less likely to be united to defend their common interests; they are divided whatever their rhetoric. Some Islamic countries, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan have conspired with the U.S. and Britain to destroy Iraq. Indeed, without the support of some Muslim countries (particularly, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan), the U.S. wouldn’t have illegally invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, and murdered so many innocent Muslims. Since 1990, the U.S. and Britain were directly responsible for the death of more than 3 million Iraqis, mostly women and children, while the majority of the Islamic countries stood silent. How could an “Islamic world” stand still while Muslims in Iraq and in Afghanistan are murdered on daily basis by U.S.-NATO forces? How could an “Islamic world” stand idle while Zionist Jews occupied and annexed Jerusalem? How could the 20 Arab nations, including the rich Arab states, who claimed to be “Islamic”, remain silent while 1.5 million Palestinian (Mostly Muslims) are besieged in the Nazi-like Israeli-besieged Gaza Concentration Camp? In short, there is no hegemonic “Islamic world” to defend Islam and Muslims’ common interests. That is why the U.S. and Israel are at ease to invade and terrorise any Islamic country. Just take a look at the deafening silence shown by most Islamic countries toward the growing U.S.-Israel threat against Iran. It is ironic that Congressman Hamilton called a collection of U.S.-backed despots an “Islamic world”.
As one of the 9/11 Commission top leaders, Hamilton blamed Muslims for the 9/11 attacks without providing any hard evidence. A large body of scientific evidence rejected the Commission Report findings, as misleading and without proof. “The official account put forth by NIST violates the fundamental laws of physics and chemistry”, said Professor Niels Harrit of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen and was the lead author for a 2009 peer-reviewed study that revealed evidence of high tech explosives throughout the WTC dust. (See: The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, 2, 7-31, (PDF).
The Commission was the most fraudulent commission of its kind, because it discarded hard evidence and failed to uncover the truth. Today, the official story remains unsubstantiated and unproven, and a growing majority of Americans continue to question its reliability. Most Americans believe “their” government “is hiding something”. Some two-thirds of Americans no longer accept the findings of the 9/11 Commission Report. In addition, a growing majority of public opinion outside the U.S. do not trust the official story and believe the attacks were an “inside job” executed as a pretext for war. (See for example: World Public Opinion.Org, 10 September 2008).
Before the dust even settled on the streets of New York, Western politicians and the Zionists-controlled Western media accused Muslims for the attacks. The Muslims attacked us because “they hate our freedom” and we have to fight them, argued the U.S. Zionists-rightwing ruling establishment. Of course, the argument makes children laugh. Meanwhile, the so-called “anti-establishments” Western “Left”, largely co-opted by power, twisted the argument slightly. The British journalist Robert Fisk and the American academic Noam Chomsky offered the “Left” version: “They [the Muslims] attacked us because we have been attacking them”. It sounds a plausible argument to ordinary people, but without proof. “I have no doubt the Arabs did it”, claimed the British imperialist. It is Fisk’s trademark of blindly accusing Muslims and Arabs, in particular. The accusations are without a shred of evidence, but according to Western hypocrites, ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’. Accusations were first directed against Palestinians before a dozen of Saudi names appeared in the media. The other section of the “Left”, the less co-opted, claimed that “the Israelis knew about the attacks, but they failed to tell us”, careful not to break a U.S. taboo of criticising Israel.
We all know that there was no evidence (and never will be) to substantiate the involvement of any Muslim nation in the 9/11 attacks. All Muslim nations and organisations worldwide have unequivocally condemned the attacks. Sadly, all Muslim nations, including all Arab nations, failed to challenge U.S. accusations and accepted a guilty verdict. They accepted that a dozen of Arab men were able to penetrate the U.S. security apparatus and attack New York and Washington, using box cutters (as we told). None of the tens of thousands of Arabs and Muslims arrested and interrogated by the FBI after the attacks has been convicted of terrorism offence.
Many People, including most Americans have been coerced and indoctrinated to believe that it was morally justified to attack Muslim nations as a response to the 9/11 attacks. Islam was officially declared the “enemy” of the “West”. The attacks provided an “opportunity” to justify an all out war against Islam and Muslims and further instil fear and disseminate hate of Muslims propaganda among Western populations. The bogeyman of “al-Qaeda” (U.S. military base) is invented to provide a cover for every act of U.S. terrorism and aggression.
The attacks were a surprise to everyone, even to Osama bin Laden (a long-time CIA valued asset and ‘al-Qaeda leader’), but not to American ruling elites. Bin Laden did not know about the attacks and denied any involvement. He told the Pakistani media: “I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. Neither I had any knowledge of these attacks nor [do] I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people …. Whoever committed the act of 11 September are not the friends of the American people. I have already said that we are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed.” We never heard from the real Osama bin Laden since.
On few occasions before the war on Afghanistan, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan – who posed no threat to the U.S. and its allies – offered to discuss bin Laden’s surrender to U.S. authorities if the U.S. provides proof of his involvement in the attacks. The U.S. dismissed any peaceful negotiation, because the Bush regime planned to attack Afghanistan and Iraq long before the 9/11 attacks.
The U.S. wars against Afghanistan and Iraq were illegal an unprovoked aggressions based on lies. Countless innocent Muslims have been killed and continue to be killed by US forces on daily basis in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iraq alone bears the brunt of U.S. aggression. Since 1990, U.S. governments and U.S. policies toward Iraq have been responsible for the death of over tree million innocent Iraqis. It is premeditated and deliberate war against mostly Muslim women and children. An entire Muslim nation is deliberately destroyed in a barbarian Nazi-like fashion to reinforce Israel’ Zionist expansion and enhance U.S. imperialist interests.
Overwhelming evidence shows that the Israeli Mossad agents, the CIA and FBI, and influential pro-Israel Zionists (the so-called ‘Neo-cons’) in the Bush administration had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. In fact, Israel was the only nation in the world which welcomed the 9/11 attacks. “It is very good” for Israel, said Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Israeli Prime Minister. (See: Christopher Ketcham, CounterPunch, 07 March 2007). According to the Israeli Ma’ariv newspaper, Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan University: “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq”. These events “swung American public opinion in our favour”, he added. Of course, no American dares to criticise Israel, because it would be political suicide to do so. Since the 9/11 attacks, the Zionist-fascist regime in Israel has killed more Palestinians and confiscated more Palestinian land.
The 9/11 attacks were a sophisticated operation that required state-of-the-art resources and well-connected contacts. Only Israel has the contacts and the resources in the U.S. to execute such an operation. Israel has agents in every U.S. department, including the White House, the Pentagon and the State department. It is possible that the attacks were executed by Jewish extremists carrying faked passports. After all, Israel is the one country that has benefited greatly from the attacks.
Furthermore, unlike other countries, Israel has a vast and well-funded propaganda network in the U.S. dedicated to the protection of Israel and spreading anti-Muslim propaganda. In order to deflect attention away from Israel, the Zionists-controlled media, Zionist Jews and Jewish organisations led the chorus of the accusations, and began an aggressive campaign of anti-Muslim racism in the U.S. and Europe. They had a very easy job, because the ground is fertile and any anti-Muslim bigotry will grow fast.
In Europe, racism is an incurable disease long before the 9/11 attacks. However, 9/11 legitimised racism and provided politicians and the pro-Israel Zionists-controlled media with ammunition to stir up racist and anti-Muslim hatred. Europe is now considered a bastion of Islamophobia and the persecution of Muslims proved to be a convenient tool in time of economic and social crises. Despite the widely held belief that Europeans form a benevolent society, many European politicians and governments are resurrecting old racism to manipulate the public and advance Western imperialist interests abroad.
The banning of traditional Muslim clothing in public, ongoing attacks on Muslim culture and discrimination in employment and education are just the tip of widespread Islamophobia disease. In France, Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and many more countries, far-right fascist parties (led by small clones of Adolf Hitler), supported by wealthy Zionist Jews and the Zionists-controlled media, are growing in power and influence.
In France and in Switzerland, Muslims have been told to be “discreet” about their Muslim faith and practice their religion in “secret”. In other words, Islam and Muslims should be “invisible” in a free and democratic Europe. Scapegoating of people on the basis of their ethnic and religious backgrounds (Muslims and Roma people) in time of economic and social crises is not without a parallel in European racist history.
In France, the French Senate banned the hijab and burqa in public, because it is considered a form of “oppression”. The attires are only worn by a small minority of Muslim women (few hundred in France) and are not Islamic prescriptions, but people are free to wear what they like. Of course, it is a falsehood because it had nothing to do with ‘freedom’; it is an attack on Islam. Women should have the right and freedom to choose whatever they want to wear. It is not up to some corrupt politicians in Europe and elsewhere. The ban is counterproductive and it reinforces racism and prejudice against Muslims.
Like other right-wing governments, the Sarkozy’ government in France is judging the attacks on Muslims and Roma people as a popular opportunity to divert public attention away from its unpopular right-wing policies. The deportation of Roma people by French and Hungarian police has been taken place (in secret) since early 2009, but it was criticised and publicised only when a Roma youth was killed by French police in July 2010.
In Switzerland, Europe’s so-called “neutral” enclave, the Swiss voted on 30 November 2009, to ban the construction of minarets on Muslim places of worship (mosques). The referendum was sponsored by two right-wing parties. Switzerland, where some 400,000 Muslims call home has just four minarets. A campaign poster in support of the ban depicted a woman in a burqa in front of a row of minarets shaped like missiles. You wonder why the Swiss banned minarets. Amnesty International said the vote to ban minarets violated freedom of religion and would probably be overturned by the Swiss Supreme Court or the European Court of Human Rights.
In Germany, it is revealed that Chancellor Angela Merkel has received and honoured the bigoted Danish cartoonist, who depicted Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, at a media award conference near Berlin. It is not because a racist bigot deserves an award; it is the uncivilised way in which the West has always treated Islam. Meanwhile, Germans are immersed reading Thilo Sarrazin’s anti-Muslim rubbish collection. The fascist banker has become a media household spreading anti-Muslims racist propaganda.
In The Netherlands, which in the 1930s rivalled Germany for its anti-Semitism and racism has become notorious for Islamophobia and intolerance. The well-known Muslim hater, the dirty fascist Geert Wilders is riding high in the polls and had made big gains in Dutch local elections. Wilders has been allowed to spread his hate of Muslims on prime time TVs as far as, Britain, New York and “multi-cultural” Australia.
In Australia, the situation is not much different from that in Europe and the U.S. Muslims are living in fear. Authorities have become complicit in Muslims “bashing”. In addition to discrimination in employment, education and housing, Muslims are now subject to racial profiling. The well-known Muslim lawyer Adam Huda has been arrested – for the fifth time – while walking near his home outside Sydney. Mr Huda who has a heart condition was abused and handcuffed by police, just for being a Muslim. If a well-known lawyer is subjected to racial vilification, harassment and brutality by police, what could happen to an ordinary Muslim? Racial vilification of Muslims is extremely common among white Australian elites. It is an easy way to victimise Muslim men, in particular.
Australian Muslim men have been rounded-up, imprisoned, put on show trials and convicted for their views, without the application of principles established at law. They were found guilty, not because they have committed any crime, but because who they are; Muslims. The aim of these Kangaroo’s trials is clear: to send a message that Muslims are dangerous and that Muslim Australians do not belong to this country, and to provide fuel for anti-Muslim hatred.
Fred Nile, leader of the Christian Party (CP) in the NSW Parliament advocates banning the hijab and burqa, arguing that fascist politicians in Europe and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey have done so to protect Muslim women “rights”. He wants to forbid Muslim girls going to school of they refuse to take off their headscarves. Nile is a clone of the fascist Christian Right in the U.S.
In Britain, 90 per cent of Muslims surveyed said they had been discriminated against for being Muslim. A majority of Muslims experiences significant rise in hostility, mostly by people who have never interacted with a Muslim in their lives and who receive most of their information about Islam from TV and politicians. Nick Griffin, leader of the British Nationalist Party (BNP), a Neo-Nazi party, who advocates banning Islam and deporting all British Muslims, is now popular on the BBC. During the Pope visit to London in September – taking place under the shadow of the sexual abuses of small children by ‘Catholic’ priests –, the British police arrested six Muslim men (working as street cleaners) on terrorism charges. This is the most sophisticated anti-Muslim propaganda; a false-flag terrorism to disseminate hatred of Muslims worldwide. Although the six men have now been released without charges, the damage has already been done.
Another term that invented by Westerners to demonise Muslims and Islam is “radical Islam”. Tony Blair, the former British prime minister and war criminal, is at the forefront of propagating the “danger” of “radical Islam”. Blair is duplicitous in vilifying Islam while protecting the dangerous fascist-Zionist regime in Israel. He told the BBC recently that “radical Islam” is the greatest danger facing the world today. Blair is very good at manipulating and repeating lies. In an interview in the U.S. to promote his book of lies, Blair said; “this [Iranian] regime is qualitatively different in their makeup. I see them now exporting terrorism, instability around the Middle East”. Of course, Blair failed to acknowledge that Britain has been and remains one of the leading exporters of terrorism and instability in the world. As Britain’s Prime Minster, Blair was complicit in the most outrageous war crimes against Iraq’s defenceless civilian population, supported by no other propaganda organ than the BBC, Zionism most anti-Muslim mouthpiece.
With free access to the Zionists-controlled media and protection from prosecution by European laws that allow Western war criminals to prosper, Blair has become a millionaire for his service of spreading anti-Muslims false propaganda, and from the proceeds of his war crimes. Since leaving office, Blair has converted to an “intellectual” fascist, promoting the same old fascist ideology when he was prime minister. With straight dishonesty and corrupt consciousness, Blair is the leading propagandist for a resurgent Western fascism today. Blair attacks Islam because Islam is the antithesis of Western fascism that Blair represents.
Let’s be clear, there is no such thing as “radical Islam”, which, in Blair’s criminal mind means that there aregood and bad Muslims. Most (ordinary) Muslims are opposed to U.S.-Western wars on Muslim nations. So, any Muslim who opposes U.S.-Western terrorism is by definition a “radical” Muslim. Are there “radical” Jews and “radical” Christians?
According to Mahmood Mamdani, Professor of Government and Anthropology at Columbia University in New York, this distinction is a Western-imposed division of Muslims into good Muslims (‘moderate’) and badMuslims (‘radical’). It is a racist division, because it assumes that the majority of Muslims (and Islam) is pre-modern and backward, whereas few ‘moderate’ Muslims embrace Western values, which are modern and progressive. This allows Westerners (the U.S. and its allies) to justify invading and destroying Muslim countries in order to bring them “democracy” and “liberation.” It gets worse, those Muslims, who take arms, resist and retaliate against Western invaders, are called “Islamo-fascists”.
The American Islamophobe, David Horowitz, a psychopath anti-Muslims Jew, uses the term “Islamo-fascism” to propagate hatred of Muslims and Islam on American college campuses and among American students. Of course, the term is “very tendentious and scandalously inaccurate [when used to describe Islam]. In fact, one could argue with absolute certitude that the term is an inherent and eternal oxymoron, since Islam represents the ideological antithesis of fascism, a western concept based on authoritarianism, chauvinism, jingoism, bellicosity and militarism”, writes the Palestinian journalist, Khalid Amayreh.
According to Niall Ferguson, a right-wing historian at Harvard University; “Islamofascism is a completely misleading concept. In fact, there’s virtually no overlap between the ideology of Al Qaeda and fascism. It’s just a way of making us feel that we’re the ‘greatest generation’ fighting another World War, like the war our fathers and grandfathers fought. You’re translating a crisis symbolized by 9/11 into a sort of pseudo-World War II. So 9/11 becomes Pearl Harbor, and then you go after the bad guys who are the fascists, and if you don’t support us, then you must be an appeaser”. (Niall Ferguson, cited in Smearcasting: How Islamophobes spread fear, bigotry and misinformation. FAIR, October 2008). In fact, the term is more linked and suitable to Catholicism and Hinduism than to Islam.
It is important to remember that in the U.S., there is a well-funded Zionist campaign to discredit Islam and Muslims. While Islamophobia and anti-Muslims hostilities were widespread long before the 9/11attacks, the events have multiplied the anti-Muslim hysteria. With the pro-Israel Zionist Jews in total control of America’s global media and the education system, Islam has become America’s number one enemy.
Many Americans argued that what is happening in America today is not even Islamophobia. “It’s beyond Islamophobia: its hate of Muslims”. The campaign is led by Zionist organisations such as, the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and the pro-Israel Zionists-controlled media, the disease is spreading fast.
The well-orchestrated anti-Muslim Zionist propaganda campaign is succeeding in smearing the good name of Islam. The proposed construction of an Islamic Cultural Centre – not a Mosque – several blocks from the site of the Twin towers in Lower Manhattan is attacked by Zionist Jews to promote an upsurge in anti-Muslim sentiments across America. Muslims and anything connected to Islam have become targets of violence and bigotry, as if Muslims are invading America not the other way around. Muslims are smeared because they are Muslims. Even President Obama is discriminated against. Because he is black with a Muslim middle name, he is called a Muslim, which means he is not “one of us”. Instead of calling him African American or “Nigger”, call him a Muslim.
The man behind the Islamic Cultural Centre – the Cordoba Initiative –, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is an American who took part in State Department-sponsored trips in the Middle East. In 2006, Rauf was sent by the Bush administration to Muslim countries as an “ambassador of good will” to enhance U.S. image. He was also included on a Middle East speaking tour organised by the Obama Administration. Imam Rauf rightly defended Islam as a peaceful religion and condemned terrorism. In the U.S., Imam Rauf is known as a “moderate” Muslim.
The attack on Rauf’s efforts to build an Islamic Cultural Centre is orchestrated and funded by pro-Israel Zionist Jews and organisations, including the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and the Anti-Defamation League. According to an article by Ken Vogel and Giovanni Russonello in Politico; “There’s also big money behind the mosque opposition, as highlighted by the relationship between [David] Horowitz’s Los Angeles-based nonprofits, Jihad Watch – the website run by [Robert] Spencer ‘dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology play in the modern world’ – and Joyce Chernick, the wife of a wealthy California tech company founder”. The Freedom Centre funds Jihad Watch, both are anti-Muslim, Nazi-like propaganda organs committed to denigrating the image of Islam. The attack has not much to do with the Islamic Centre, it is about demonizing Muslims and Islam across America (For more, see Stephen Salisbury: Extremism at Ground Zero (again), The Huffington Post, 26 September 2010). Even the bigoted Dutch fascist, Geert Wilders was invited to address the anti-Muslim crowd in New York.
While few American Jews, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have supported the Islamic Cultural Centre and they should be praised for their courage, their intention was not sincere. Their aim is to manipulate public opinion that the U.S. war on Muslim nations is a “war on terrorism”. This is reminiscent of George Bush stating that “Islam is peace” on 17 September 2001, while a day earlier he declared a “crusade” against defenceless Muslim nations. At the same time, his henchmen and FBI agents were rounding up innocent Muslims and Arabs and throwing them in prisons across America. None of the countries accused of terrorism and attacked by the U.S. has anything to do with terrorism or posed a threat to the U.S. In fact, the U.S. should stop its war of terror against Muslims.
It is important to remember that, Mayor Bloomberg and groups of pro-Israel powerful Jewish organisations and individuals were behind the forced resignation of Ms. Debbie Almontaser, founder and Principle of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a dual-language Arabic public school in Brooklyn where Islam and Arabic are taught.
The front-page article of the New York Times (28 April 2008) is a sad story of an American educator whose vision and dream of a school for teaching New York City kids Arabic were destroyed by an anti-Muslim hate campaign led by pro-Israel Jews. A story of mainstream hates masquerading as patriotism destroyed projects designed to promote peace and understanding. Debbie Almontaser knew that very powerful groups of Jews in New York, and in America as a nation, have no interest in promoting peace and harmony among Americans, but to foster fear and hate. She was vilified as “radical” and accused of supporting Palestinians in the Israeli-besieged Gaza Concentration Camp.
“In newspaper articles [– led by Murdoch’s fascism mouthpiece, the New York Sun –, pro-Israel Zionist websites], on televisions and talk radio, Ms. Almontaser was branded a ‘radical’, a ‘jihadist’ and a ‘9/11 denier’”, writes Andrea Elliott of the New York Times. Ms. Almontaser stood accused of harbouring unpatriotic leanings and of secretly planning to proselytize her students. Despite Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a Muslim “moderate”, her critics quickly succeeded in recasting her image. According to FAIR, Ms Almontaser was persecuted not for anything she said, not for anything she did but because the New York Sun twisted what she said. (For accurate analyses and expose of anti-Muslim fascists in the U.S., see:Smearcasting. FAIR, October 2008).
The fascist who led the charge to smear Ms. Almontaser was none other than the pro-Israel and anti-Muslim psychopath, Daniel Pipes. Of course, Pipes is known – with his friend, Michelle Malkin (a former prostitute from the Philippines) – for his campaign advocating the internment of all American Muslims, like Japanese-Americans in World War II. Pipes called the program absolutely “correct and right”. His chilling implication was that such a program would probably be necessary for Muslim-Americans as well. Furthermore, most of the hateful rumours about Barack Obama’s “Muslim upbringing” can be traced back to Daniel Pipes, who on his Website insists that President Obama ‘practiced Islam’.
It would be an understatement to call anti-Muslim Zionists and Islamophobes, fascists. People like Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, Alan Dershowitz, Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Friedman, Rash Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, Robert Spencer, Glen Beck and Pat Robertson, just to name few chosen from a long list, are far worse than fascists. Because they are not only targeting Islam and Muslims, they are also targeting Americans to defend the fascist policies of another country, Israel. American Zionists and Islamophobes spread an infectious and deadly virus that has infected a large section of the American population and caused a great suffering to millions people.
The Washington Post (09 September, 2010) reported that, there’s a direct link between American public anti-Islam sentiment and public opposition to the construction of Islamic Cultural Centre. The poll, Washington Post poll, by Post polling director Jon Cohen, shows that 66 per cent of Americans oppose the Islamic Cultural Centre. Separately, a plurality, 49 per cent, has generally unfavourable views of Islam. According to theWashington Post, two-thirds of those who oppose the project (the 66 per cent) have generally unfavourable views of Islam, versus only one-third who view Islam favourably”.
According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) more than 4 in 10 Americans admit to anti-Muslim prejudice. A survey by the Gallup Centre for Muslim Studies, Religious Perceptions in America: with an In-Depth Analysis of U.S. Attitudes toward Muslims and Islam (PDF), shows that almost two-thirds of Americans say they have little or no knowledge of Islam. It adds: “Respondents who did not personally know a Muslim exhibited a greater level of bias” and ignorance, thanks to U.S. Zionists-controlled media demonising Muslims and Islam nonstop.
Furthermore, a shocking example of Americans’ ignorance is that 49 per cent of Americans believe that pro-Palestinian activists were to blame for the death of the 9 unarmed peace activists who were murdered in cold blood by Israeli commandos on board of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May 2010. Only 19 per cent of Americans believe that Israel was to blame. Another 32 per cent said they were not sure, thanks to the pro-Israel Zionists-controlled media. A recent report by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) ‘panel of international experts’ has concluded that Israel committed war crimes, and violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in its ‘clearly unlawful’ attack on the Turkish-flagged vessel the Mavi Marmara.
As the role of the Zionist media controlling Americans’ attitude increases, America has become a nation of violence-loving people. A recent Fox News poll (if it is true) shows that almost 6 in 10 (58 per cent) American voters think, the U.S. “did the right thing” in Iraq. Only one-third (35 per cent) of voters think the U.S. “did the wrong thing” in Iraq. Sadly, after seven years of murderous U.S. military Occupation that killed over a million innocent Iraqi lives (the majority women and children), looted, tortured and destroyed an entire nation, Americans remain unperturbed. What kind of a society is American society, and is it too late to change it for the better? There is a need for increased educational outreach efforts of Americans by Muslims in America and to counter the Zionists false propaganda machine.
Far away from New York, a lunatic Christian-fascist ‘pastor’ in Florida has threatened to burn the Qur’an to commemorate the 9/11 attacks and get attention for his Christian-fascist church. Few Americans felt outraged by this despicable action. The apparent ‘outrage’ by politicians and even President Obama has nothing to do with respect for Muslims and Islam – millions of Muslims have been killed by U.S. war on Muslims –, but much to do with concern for U.S. troops perpetuating bloodbaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. They argued that burning the Qur’an will encourage Muslim “extremists” to attack the troops. Obama said: “Our war is not with Islam”.
To pretend that an act of bigotry like burning the Qur’an – aimed at fuelling the flame of anti-Muslim hatred – is insignificant for the overwhelming majority of Muslims is misleading and outright racist stereotype. It is not burning the Qur’an that harms Muslims most; it is U.S. ongoing war against Islam.
President Obama’s words, “We are not at war with Islam”, are fine words, but we must never forget that they are just words. Since his election as President, Obama has escalated and expanded U.S. wars against Islam, including his endorsement of Israel’s Zionist-fascist policies in Palestine.
If Obama is serious about peace, he still has an opportunity to reverse course; free America from the clutches of Zionism, end America’s wars on Islam and steer America on the road to a peaceful and civilised nation. If he cannot, then he should stop preaching peace to the victims of America’s wars.
| Ghali Hassan is an independent political analyst living in Australia.
AxisofLogic.com |