Dreams of a Muslim Dictator - Obama: Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Ed Said, Mariam Cort...

Dreams of a Muslim Dictator - Obama: Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Ed Said, Mariam Cort...: Barack Obama at the Arab American Action Network gala

The photo shows Michelle ( with glasses) and Barack listening in rapt at...

Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Ed Said, Mariam Cortas and Bill Ayres all friends

Barack Obama at the Arab American Action Network gala

The photo shows Michelle ( with glasses) and Barack listening in rapt attention to the keynote speaker, PLO advisor Edward Said [with Obama, at left], who died in 2003.

On Friday, an anti-terrorism task force of the FBI conducted eight raids in Chicago and Minneapolis. Among the targets was Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of the Arab American Action Network Network (AAAN). Agents seized laptop computers and other evidence from Abudayyeh's Chicago home. This much has been reported in the media.

What has received less coverage is the connection between the AAAN and the President of the United States. This photo of Michelle and Barack Obama was taken on May 24, 1998 in Burbank, IL, where state senator Obama was an honored guest at a gala dinner. Hosting the event was -- drumroll, please -- the Arab American Action Network.
















In this photo, Obama is speaking with the keynote speaker, PLO advisor Edward Said, who passed away in 2003.

Michelle and Barack Obama at a PLO dinner Supporting the destruction of Israel
Obama was the toastmaster of this dinner  sitting with Ed Said ( deceased ) and his wife Mariam Cortas,

The organization hosting the gala dinner, the AAAN, had been funded by Barack Obama, his terrorist friend Bill Ayers [here, standing on the American flag] and other directors of the Woods Fund. The AAAN had been established by another one of Obama's friends, Rashid Khalidi.  

As many of you know by now, the LA Times has video of Barack Obama toasting and praising Jew-hating PLO operative (and Yasser Arafat henchman) Rashid Khalidi at a 2003 event. As many of you also know, the LA Times is refusing to release the video.
Ben Smith at The Politico is puzzled by the Times’ decision, saying that Politico would have made it public.

The paper hasn’t explained its unwillingness to release the video, and Peter Wallsten, who found the tape and wrote about it, declined to discuss it with me last night. He forwarded an e-mail that the paper has sent readers who have complained as conservative blogs raise the issue.
“Over six months ago the Los Angeles Times published a detailed account of the events shown on the videotape. The Times is not suppressing anything. Just the opposite — the L.A. Times brought the matter to light,” wrote the readers’ representative, Jamie Gold.
L.A. Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan wouldn’t discuss the decision not to release the tape in detail.
“When we reported on the tape six months ago, that was our full report,” she said, and asked, “Does Politico release unpublished information?”
The answer to that question is yes — Politico and most news outlets constantly make available videos and documents, after describing them in part, which is why the Times’ decision not to release the video is puzzling. My instinct, and many reporters’, is to share as much source material as possible.

The Times is now claiming that they can’t release the Khalidi tape because they promised their source they wouldn’t. Which just raises more questions. What’s on that tape that the Times’ source doesn’t want the public at large to see?
And on top of all of this, who could imagine the Times sitting on a similarly inconvenient video for John McCain? Can anyone imagine the Times letting the wishes of some source get in the way of releasing a video that could damage John McCain? Or Sarah Palin?
Of course not.

an Obama Lie!

Barack Obama claims to be a supporter of Israel and a friend of the Jewish people. But many of the people who helped him in the course of his rise to political power, or whom he helped during his political ascent, are extremely anti-Israel, or even outright anti-Semitic. Let's examine the views and careers of just a few of Obama's anti-Israel and/or anti-Semitic benefactors and protégés:
Rashid Khalidi was the director of the PLO's press agency WAFA from 1976 to 1982, at a time when the PLO was conducting a massacre of 37 Israeli civilians in a bus on Israel's coastal road, the brutal murder of a four-year-old Israeli girl in Nahariya, and numerous other terrorist killings of Israeli civilians. The PLO was also waging a brutal war against the Lebanese Christian community during this period, and carried out numerous massacres of Lebanese Christians; the worst of these was the killing of about 500 people in the village of Damour. During this same period, Rashid's wife Mona Khalidi was an English translator for WAFA. Rashid Khalidi is now an advocate of a "one state solution" for all of "Palestine" - meaning the destruction of Israel and its replacement by an Arab state. Asaf Romirowsky and Jonathan Calt Harris, in an article in the Washington Times on July 9, 2004, summarized Rashid Khalidi's views about Israel this way: "[His] extremism comes out when he calls Israel an ‘apartheid system in creation' and a ‘racist state' that ‘brainwashed' Americans do not understand. Jerusalem, with its Jewish majority since the 1880s, he deems ‘an Arab city' whose control by Israeli ‘foreigners' is ‘unacceptable.' And so on." Khalidi also accuses Israel of "ethnic cleansing."
In 1995 Rashid and Mona Khalidi co-founded the The Arab-American Action Network, a virulently anti-Israel organization that strongly supports the Palestinian Arab terrorist movement. It regards the creation of the state of Israel as a "naqba" ("catastrophe" in Arabic). Mona Khalidi served as the group's President from its inception until some time this year, although she is now listed only as a member of its board of directors.
Rashid and Mona Khalidi became close friends of Barack and Michelle Obama during the time when both Barack and Rashid taught at the University of Chicago (1992-2003). At a lavish farewell party for Khalidi in Chicago in 2003, when Khalidi left his prestigious position at the University of Chicago for an even more prestigious one at Columbia University in New York, Obama gave Khalidi a glowing eulogy. He said that he and his wife Michelle had been frequent dinner guests of the Khalidis, and that the Khalidis had frequently babysat for the Obama children. According to a Los Angeles Times account based on a video of Obama's speech, he added that "his many talks with the Khalidis, . . .had been ‘consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation-a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table,' but around ‘this entire world.'"
Obama's assistance to the Khalidis, however, went beyond mere kind words at a farewell party. In 2001 and again in 2002, Obama, in his capacity as a member of the board of directors of the Leftist non-profit organization the Woods Fund, voted to give the Arab-American Action Network co-founded by Rashid and Mona, and directed by Mona Khalidi, $75,000 in grants.
Rashid and Mona Khalidi anticipated Obama's generosity to AAAN by holding a fundraiser in their house for Obama's unsuccessful run for Congress in 2000. It would seem that it later proved to be a profitable event for the Khalidis.[1]
Ali Abunimah is the "executive director" of The Electronic Intifada, which is the principal internet mouthpiece for the Palestinian terrorist movement in the United States. Abunimah writes that he became friendly with Obama in the late 1990s in Chicago when Obama was a frequent guest at Palestinian Arab fundraisers in Chicago. One such fundraiser was for the Deisheh refugee camp near Jerusalem - which was soon to become a base for terrorist attacks on Israelis during the "Al-Aksa Intifada" which began in 2000. At one such fundraising dinner, Obama was seated at the same table as Edward Said, the chief PLO propagandist in the United States and the author of Yasser Arafat's notorious "gun and the olive branch" speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 1974.
But it was at the 2000 fundraiser at the home of Rashid and Mona Khalidi for Obama's failed 2000 run for Congress where Abunimah says he "had a chance to really talk to [Obama]. It was an intimate setting. He convinced me he was very aware of the issues [and] critical of U.S. bias toward Israel and lack of sensitivity to Arabs. ... He was very supportive of U.S. pressure on Israel." "On that occasion and others," according to Abunimah, "Obama was forthright in his criticism of U.S. policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict." Obama was "quite frank that the U.S. needed to be more evenhanded, that it leaned too much toward Israel." He was also "very comfortable in speaking up for and being associated with Palestinian rights and opposing the Israeli occupation." Later, during Obama's 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate, at another private gathering in Chicago's (and Obama's and Khalidi's) Hyde Park neighborhood, he excused himself to Abunimah for not being "more up front" in his advocacy of the Palestinian cause: "'Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.' He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy [and said:] ‘Keep up the good work!'" The Obama campaign has denied the accuracy of Abunimah's account of this conversation. But it offered no explanation as to why Abunimah would have invented it.[2]
The story of Barack Obama's political alliance with Chicago Leftist activists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn ,the couple who had co-founded and led the Weatherman terrorist organization in the 1970s, when Obama was launching his own political career twenty-something years later, has in recent weeks received some modest attention in sections of the press; it has even been mentioned by vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. We do not have space here to review in detail the sordid history of the Obama-Ayers-Dohrn relationship, beyond mentioning that it involved the fundraiser and meet-the candidate reception at Ayers' and Dohrns' house that launched Obama's political career in 1995, and seven years of collaboration by Obama and Ayers as co-executives of two Leftist nonprofit organizations, including the one that funded the Khalidis' AAAN.
With regard to Ayers' and Dohrn's terrorist history, we will note only that the Weathermen killed five people, wounded or attempted to kill scores of others, and bombed up to 35 buildings; that Ayers boasted of these terrorist actions, affirmed his belief in their moral correctness, and allowed himself to be photographed trampling on the American flag in two interviews published in 2001; and that Obama continued to work with Ayers for at leasta year even after he made these public declarations of non-repentance for his murderous youth.[3]
Less well known are Ayers' extremely anti-Israel views. Here are some samples of his comments about the Arab-Israel conflict on his web blog: "In modern times, the founders of Israel used terrorism against the British and the Palestinians; the Palestinians use terrorism against Israel; and Israel currently employs terror in the service of settlement and occupation;" "A bombing in a café in Israel is terrorism, and an Israeli assault on a neighborhood in Gaza is terrorism;" (note Ayers'use of the moral equivalency argument here, which he also uses to justify his own terrorism in the 1970s); "We name the obstacles to our own freedom, to our humanity. We unite with others. We fight against the obstacles. U.S. war and expansion in Iraq , for example, or Israel's insistence on its right to slowly annihilate the Palestinian people. . ." " ‘How is it,' Edward Said asks, ‘that the premises on which Western support for Israel is based are still maintained even though the reality, the facts, cannot possibly bear these premises out?' ...He's right, of course." (Ayers praises the late Edward Said to the skies in his blog).
He complains about what he calls an Israeli "invasion" of New York City's public schools. According to Ayers, this "invasion" took the form of the removal from the curriculum of a New York City Board of Education teacher training program of a course concerned with the Arab-Israel conflict and the Middle East-taught by none other than his friend Rashid Khalidi, who is now "Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies" at Columbia University, and director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs.[4] Khalidi, for his part, in the acknowledgment section of his 2004 book Resurrecting Empire, thanks "Bill" for being "particularly generous in letting me use his family's dining room table to do some writing for the project.". It would seem that both the Khalidi and Ayers dinner tables were very lively places in the 1990s and early 2000s![5]
Barack Obama has never condemned or unambiguously disassociated himself from either the Khalidis' or the Ayers-Dohrn's views about Israel and the Arab-Israel conflict.
Khalid al-Mansour is a somewhat shadowy but nevertheless influential and well-connected figure. In his capacity as a lawyer, he represented the international oil cartel OPEC in an important court case in 1981. Under his birth name Donald Warden in the1960s, Mansour "mentored" the Black Panther party and its leaders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, who soon became deeply involved in terrorism. He claims to have acted as a financial and investment adviser to the Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal, whom he befriended when the prince was an undergraduate student at Menlo College in California in the 1970s (Prince Alwaleed is the man who offered New York City $10 million dollars to rebuild after 9/11, but made a public statement at the same time alleging that the United States was partially to blame for the attack because of its support for Israel; New York's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, rightly rejected the grant offer). Mansour also claims that Alwaleed introduced him to Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, and that he (Mansour) has in turn introduced King Fahd to over 50 African heads of state. While we cannot verify all of Khalid al-Mansour's claims, there is no question that he is a man with some influence in both African-American and international Muslim political-financial circles.
Mansour was also instrumental in securing Barack Obama's admission to Harvard University law school, and hence in his subsequent rise to political prominence. According to the now retired, but then very powerful, African-American New York City politician Percy Sutton, Mansour approached him in 1988 and asked him to intervene to secure the admission of Obama, whom he described as a "genius," to Sutton's alma mater, Harvard Law School. Mansour also told Sutton that he was raising money to finance Obama's future law studies at Harvard. Sutton duly wrote to his contacts at Harvard Law School that Obama was a "genius," although he had apparently never met him; and Obama was duly admitted, despite mediocre grades as an undergraduate at Columbia.[6]
Of course Obama's eventual graduation from the Harvard Law School immeasurably improved his prospects for a political career. But why did Mansour help Obama in this way? How, when and where did Mansour come to know Obama? Who brought these two men together? These are important questions whose answers we do not know, but we think the American people have a right to know them before they cast their ballots for the next President.
What we do know is that Mansour holds views that can reasonably be regarded as both anti-Israel and anti-Jewish, not to mention anti-white. For example, he asserts that it is a "lie" that "Ashkenazi" (European) Jews are descended from the ancient Israelites, and that they therefore have no legitimate claim to Palestine, which they "stole" from its rightful Arab owners. According to Mansour, European Jews are really descended from a Central Asian tribe known as the Khazars, not the ancient Jews. This is a theory that was invented by American (white) racists in the late nineteenth century, was strongly endorsed by the Nazis, and has recently been adopted by the PLO, other Arab and Muslim propagandists, as well as the (white racist, Aryanist) Christian Identity movement in the United States. Mansour has also said in a video-recorded speech that American blacks have a right to kill and even torture whites as revenge for the wrongs that whites have done them.[7]
We hope that by now nearly everyone who follows the news knows, as they certainly should know, of the sermon in which Barack Obama's pastor for over 20 years, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, repeatedly exclaimed, "God d*** America " just a few years ago. Some of Wright's other unpatriotic sentiments and unsubstantiated accusations against America may be less well known - for example, that he regards the bombing of the World Trade Center as "chickens coming home to roost" for America's bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, its extermination of the American Indians, its alleged support for South African "apartheid" and its alleged support for Israeli "genocide" against the Palestinians; and that he has alleged that the United States invented the AIDS virus and deliberately spread it in Africa in order to exterminate black people.
Least well known, perhaps, is Wright's fierce hostility to Israel. As we have seen, Wright has accused Israel of "genocide;" he has also repeatedly characterized it as an "apartheid" state; and he has expressed support for the terrorist organization Hamas, which openly seeks Israel's destruction and has murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians. He has supported calls for U.S. businesses to "disinvest" in Israel, and has equated the current disinvestment campaign against Israel with the previous disinvestment campaign against white-ruled "apartheid" South Africa - a standard anti-Israel propaganda line. He has compared what he regards as the vindictiveness of America towards its enemies today with what he depicts as the vindictiveness of the ancient Israelites towards their enemies, the Babylonians. Wright even went so far, in one sermon, as to call the very word "Israel" a "dirty word." Only last year, in November 2007, through his journal The Trumpet, Wright gave a ‘lifetime achievement" award to the notorious anti-Semite, Israel-hater and racist Louis Farrakhan, and lavished praise on the old demagogue.
The facts make it difficult for us to believe that Barack Obama disagrees strongly with Wright's views about either America or Israel. Wright was the pastor of the only church to which Obama has ever belonged - Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Obama remained in that church for over 20 years while Wright was its pastor, and only left it in May 31st of this year - after Wright had retired. Wright married Barack and Michelle Obama and baptized their children, as Obama himself was quick to point out when his relationship with Wright was first questioned early in the spring of 2008. Obama has repeatedly described Wright as his spiritual advisor and mentor, and has publicly lauded him as a "great leader;" he even took the title of his second book, The Audacity of Hope, from a sermon by Wright. He only publicly disassociated himself from Wright when he came under intense public pressure to do so. [8]
Louis Farrakhan's anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and anti-white views, including his description of Judaism as a "gutter religion," are too familiar to require recapitulation here. But we should note that the entire religious-political ideology of Farrakhan's organization, the Nation of Islam, is built on a foundation of racist myth; NOI maintains that blacks are "the original nation of earth," and whites are not indigenous to our planet, but were created by a mad black scientist named Jakub 6,600 years ago. We should also recall that Louis Farrakhan is widely suspected within the African-American community to having had a hand in the assassination of Malcolm X; Malcolm's daughter even tried to hire a hit-man to eliminate Farrakhan in revenge.
In spite of Louis Farrakhan's extremely dubious record, Barack Obama has done some work for him in the past; and he has apparently been rewarded for it by political support from Farrakhan in his bid for the Presidency. Obama helped Farrakhan organize the Million Man March to Washington in 1995, supposedly aimed at instilling greater self-esteem in Black men; and he addressed the assembled crowd in Washington from the same rostrum as Farrakhan, who was the principal and featured speaker. While a member of the Illinois State Senate, Obama had three members of the Nation of Islam, the organization headed by Farrakhan, on his staff. He still has a member of the NOI on his U.S. Senatorial staff, working in his Chicago office and assigned to "constituency services." More recently, Farrakhan has strongly endorsed Obama's candidacy for President, and has even suggested to his congregation that Obama may be the Messiah, or at least the Messiah's "herald." Obama, for his part, condemned Farrakhan's anti-Semitic "comments" when asked about it during a debate with Hillary Clinton; but he pointedly declined to reject Farrakhan's endorsement.[9]
Jesse Jackson denies being an official part of the Barack Obama campaign, and the campaign's headquarters supports his denial; but no one denies that Obama and Jackson have been close over the years. The way Jackson puts it,Obama is "a neighbor or, better still, a member of the family." New York Post reporter Amir Taheri points out that "Jackson's son has been a close friend of Obama for years, and Jackson's daughter went to school with Obama's wife Michelle." "We helped him start his career," Taheri quotes Jackson as having told him. "And then we were always there to help him move ahead. He is the continuation of our struggle for justice not only for the black people but also for all those who have been wronged." Jesse Jackson's son, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who represents the Illinois' 2nd congressional district, serves as a national co-chairman of the Barack Obama Presidential campaign.
It is therefore a matter of legitimate concern when Taheri reported in the New York Post that Jackson had told a meeting of a group called the World Policy Forum, which met in Evian, France in early October that "‘decades of putting Israel's interests first' would end" under Barack Obama's administration. According to Taheri, "Jackson believes that, although ‘Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades' remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.'" After an account of Jackson's remarks at the policy forum and in a subsequent interview with Taheri was published by the Post on October 14, Jackson issued a statement claiming that "The recent column in the New York Post by Amir Taheri in no way represents my views on Middle East peace and security. The writer is selectively imposing his own point of view, and distorting mine. I have a long held position of a two state solution to achieve peace in the Middle East. I stand forthrightly for the security and stability of Israel, its protection from any form of hostility, and a peaceful, non-violent resolution to co-existing with its Palestinian neighbors." Jackson specifically denied having used the word "Zionist;" but he did not deny outright the other words attributed to him by the Post reporter. Both Jackson and the Obama campaign issued statements denying that Jackson had spoken with Obama recently about the policies he intends to pursue towards Israel.
However, Amir Taheri is an experienced and respected journalist, making it seem highly unlikely to us that he fabricated Jackson's reported remarks out of whole cloth; and Jackson certainly knows Obama well enough to make at least an "educated guess" about what policies Obama will adopt, as President, towards Israel and the American Jewish community. And we should not forget the facts that Jackson employed Louis Farrakhan as a "warm-up speaker" during his own campaign for the Presidency in 1984, or that he referred to Jews as "Hymies" and New York City as "Hymietown" during that campaign. Whatever influence Jackson may have exerted on Obama's thinking about Israel and Jews over the years is most unlikely to be helpful to either.[10]
Politicians have a way of repaying the political debts that they owe to those who have helped them, directly or indirectly, to climb up the political ladder to high office. It is therefore a matter of the utmost concern to us that many of the political debts that Barack Obama owes are to Israel-haters, Israel-bashers, and/or anti-Semites.

On Monday, when Columbia University granted tenure to Joseph Massad -- the professor of Modern Arab politics whose alleged intimidation of pro-Israeli students likely doomed his first tenure bid in 2005 -- the University jeopordized its long-standing commitment to cultivating and supporting its Jewish student population.

The University has long managed to balance the often-opposing beliefs of its famously pro-Palestinian Middle Eastern Studies department and its substantial Jewish population. The department is currently home to supporters of Palestine such as Rashid Khalidi, Hamid Dabashi, Nadia abu El-Haj, and George Saliba; Edward Said, one of the most prominent American scholars in support of Palestine, taught English and Comparative at Columbia from 1963 until his death in 2003.
The Middle Eastern Studies department thrives in the midst of a student body that Hillel deemed the sixth most Jewish of all those in American private universities. Located a mere four blocks from The Jewish Theological Seminary (where students can complete a double-degree and cross-register for courses), Columbia's Jewish community boasts a thriving Hillel, a Jewish literary journal, and an active chapter of AEPi, the Jewish fraternity. Cafeterias feature extensive kosher options, and it is not uncommon to see throngs of students donning kippahs migrating across campus.
The Jewish community of alumni and current students has previously exercised its will and sheer manpower to prevent anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli opinions from gaining University support. In 2006, Jewish students successfully prevented Ahmadinejad, the famously anti-Semetic Iranian dictator, from speaking, and in 2007, they again protested his visit. Many believe that alumni efforts to prevent the Palestinian anthropology professor Nadia Abu El-Haj at Columbia affiliate Barnard College from receiving tenure caused the University to deny her bid (in her book, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, Abu El-Haj casts doubt on archaeological evidence used to legitimize Israel as the Jewish homeland).
Some believe that Massad previously failed to receive tenure due to his unflattering portrayal in the student film Columbia Unbecoming (2004), which "gives voice to students who have experienced incidents of academic abuse and intimidation at Columbia University" as a consequence of expressing pro-Israeli sentiment. In the film, Massad calls Israel a "Jewish and a racist state," and a student describes how he once demanded of an Israeli student, "How many Palestinians did you kill?" at a public lecture (the film's website notes that although Massad has publicly stated that he never taught or met the student in question, he also has never denied the claim). The film's fervor can only faintly forecast the outrage the Jewish community could exhibit come fall.
There can be little doubt that many at Columbia, Jewish and otherwise, will be incensed at the newest addition to the tenured faculty. The prospect of lending greater support to a professor who some claim bullied students -- although Massad claimed that he has "been the target of a political campaign by actors inside and outside the university" and successfully proved that "The Ad Hoc Grievance Committee Report suffers from major logical flaws, undefended conclusions, inconsistencies, and clear bias in favor of the witch-hunt that has targeted me for over three years" -- is nonetheless unsavory. Regardless of the legitimacy of the complaints lodged against Massad, the insensitivity exhibited in some of his scholarly work could create an irrevocable rift between him and the many Jews, Zionists, Israel supporters, and students who simply believe that Israelis do not deserve to be called anti-Semites, all of whom he is hired, in part, to educate.
Massad does not just critique Israeli policy in Palestine, or even question the legitimacy of Israel's right to exist. Rather, he attempts to redefine the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by removing terms like anti-Semitic, Nazi, and Jew from their historical context. In his book, The Persistence of the Palestinian Question, and in various articles for publications like The Electronic Intifada and Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Massad argues that the Zionist movement betrays colonialist underpinnings that draw from anti-Semitic rhetoric. He claims that this influence, coupled with the Zionist urge to "transform European (and later other) Jews into European Christians culturally, while continuing to call them Jews", caused a "historical process by which it was to metamorphose Palestinian Arabs into Jews in a displaced geography of anti-Semitism" and to transform "the Jew into the anti-Semite". Massad similarly likens Israelis to their one-time oppressors by comparing Israeli actions in Gaza in 2009 to those of the Nazis during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, and by claiming that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was similar to Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.
As a student just entering my second year at Columbia, I have no means to evaluate the academic legitimacy of his argument. Clearly, Massad is a distinguished scholar. However, as a student just entering my second year at Columbia, I can evaluate the effect that his inflammatory claims could have on the student body.
By reassigning the term "Jew" to the very people who tirelessly fight to eradicate the world's only Jewish state -- putting aside questions Israel's right to statehood -- Massad flagrantly disregards the ethnic, cultural, and religious sensibilities embedded in that term. It is entirely possible that, in many instances, Palestinians are the victims of Israeli military action, but no amount of theorizing can make them Jews: .2% of the world's population who, despite Western prominence, have experienced inestimable persecution.
Similarly, by calling an Israeli an anti-Semite or a Nazi, Massad shows disrespect for the years of oppression the Jews suffered under the Nazi regime. Hypothetically, the Israelis could be racist or tyrannical, but to deem them anti-Semitic Nazis is to fail to appreciate the Holocaust's lasting impact both on Israel and on the wider Jewish community. These words cannot be simply re-appropriated, no matter what the cause; they connote long-lasting and painful memories.
Undoubtedly, Massad is well aware of his argument's implications both for Israel and the Jewish people. While his novel terminology may win him points in the academic world, he will not deliver his lectures to an empty room. Students will fill those seats, and students do not come tabula rasa. Most have grown up hearing stories of oppression from parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents, be it in Vietnam, Lebanon, or Nazi Germany. For these students, a professor's disregard for historical memory transcends mere difference of opinion. On a simple, human level, I, and many others, may accept or appreciate Massad's point, but cannot respect the means with which he makes it -- outside, and according to some, inside the classroom. Such polarizing methodology creates an irrevocable divide between the professor and the students he educates.
At Columbia in particular, such disregard for a religious minority's past undermines the institution's longstanding commitment to diversity and tolerance. In sharp contrast to peer institutions like Princeton or Yale, Columbia lies in the heart of a gritty, vibrant, sometimes-violent city, and its student body reflects New York's diversity. One of the first universities to abolish quotas for Jewish students, Columbia currently boasts 50% students of color in its most recent incoming class.
By granting tenure to one professor -- admittedly a talented, accomplished professor -- Columbia will not erase that history. Its students, Jewish and otherwise, will simply have to remember that even in Manhattan, even at Columbia, Jews and liberals do not reign supreme. We must fight, just as Joseph Massad did, to retain our voices.

May 23, 2008

Obama's Good Friend Rashid Khalidi

Rick Moran 

This is getting to be a disturbing pattern for Barack Obama.

A radical association from his past comes to light and he minimizes the relationship. Additional information is gathered showing him to have much more extensive contact with the radical than he originally said, thus proving the candidate to be a liar.

End result? Media silence and the story is buried.

Today's revelations come via Rezkowatch where they quote a World Net Daily story that shows Obama had a close, personal relationship with radical professor and Palestinian apologist Rashid Khalidi.

The issue came up at a recent campaign stop in Florida where a voter asked Obama about the nature of his relationship with Khalidi:

"You mentioned Rashid Khalidi, who's a professor at Columbia," Obama said. "I do know him because I taught at the University of Chicago. And he is Palestinian. And I do know him and I have had conversations. He is not one of my advisors; he's not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the Lab school where my kids go as well. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel's policy."

But then Obama pushed back, launching a broader defense of his associations, while acknowledging that some past relationships have caused people in the Jewish community concerns.

"To pluck out one person who I know and who I've had a conversation with who has very different views than 900 of my friends and then to suggest that somehow that shows that maybe I'm not sufficiently pro-Israel, I think, is a very problematic stand to take," he said. "So we gotta be careful about guilt by association."

But just what is the nature of his association?

According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the Democratic presidential hopeful befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003 while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.

Sources at the University told WND that Khalidi and Obama lived in nearby faculty residential zones and that the two families dined together a number of times. The sources said the Obama's even babysat the Khalidi children.

Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi, who spoke to WND in February.

When is the media going to get wise to Obama's game? Trying to square what Obama told the crowd in Florida with what was revealed by WND can't be done. The candidate is obviously trying to minimize his problematic friendship with yet another radical. And he is being allowed to do this by a press that can't be oblivious to the shocking extent of Obama's association with extremists.

Note also that Obama called Khaladi a "respected scholar" - just like William Ayers - as if this washed away a litany of other sins. Perhaps Obama believes that teachers are immune from criticism.

Ayers, Dohrn, Wright, Meeks, Khaladi - and those are just the radicals we know of. There is something about radical ideology or personalities that attracts Barack Obama. And we better find out what it is before we elect him president.

 

Dreams of a Muslim Dictator - Obama: the Alcoholic Obama caves in. Lets take a drug tes...

Dreams of a Muslim Dictator - Obama: the Alcoholic Obama caves in. Lets take a drug tes...: the Alcoholic Obama caves in. Lets take a drug test and alcohol level test on Obama everyday We should call his regime As The World Caves...

the Alcoholic Obama caves in. Lets take a drug test and alcohol level test on Obama everyday

the Alcoholic Obama caves in. Lets take a drug test and alcohol level test on Obama everyday We should call his regime As The World Caves In  . 

STEP DOWN OBAMA!

Obama backs down and moves televised jobs speech after GOP debate clash left Boehner fuming

• Obama had booked jobs address for next Wednesday
• But Republicans plan to have debate on same night
• Boehner suggested Obama speech moved to Thursday
• Obama acceded to Boehner request to avoid clash
• However NFL season opener also takes place that night

By Mark Duell

Last updated at 3:19 AM on 1st September 2011

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2032335/Obama-set-announce-jobs-plan-week--time-GOP-debate.html#ixzz1Wfj8M2WU






It was a face-off between the two most important men in America’s political parties that threatened to get as messy as the debt ceiling debate.
But Barack Obama has agreed to House Speaker John Boehner's request to move a jobs speech by one day following a primetime booking clash.
Republican Mr Boehner was annoyed because next Wednesday night was supposed to be a showcase for the party’s eight presidential candidates.

Tough: President Barack Obama will announce his jobs plan next Thursday, after agreeing to avoid a clash with a Republican debate on Wednesday

The Republicans are having a two-hour debate in California on national TV, but Mr Obama had booked his own address for the same time.
The President wants to lay out his jobs plan to a rare joint session of Congress and speak about proposals for economic growth
He will talk about tax credits and infrastructure spending and make calls for shrinking the deficit, with the U.S. economy on the rails.
But Mr Boehner suggested the speech was moved to Thursday to avoid the clash and any ‘parliamentary or logistical impediments’.

Speech: John Boehner, left, received a letter from the President requesting to speak to both houses of Congress on the same day as a Republican debate

However that will cause trouble as Thursday is the start of the NFL season with Green Bay Packers playing New Orleans Saints at 8:30pm.
The White House wanted to avoid this clash, but it will stop Wednesday's Republican presidential debate being upstaged by Mr Obama.
Mr Obama said Washington must answer the call to put aside politics and do what is best for the country to grow the economy and create jobs.
The White House said he decided to seek to speak to a joint session of Congress because congressional action is needed to carry out his plans.
Lawmakers will have just returned from their annual summer recess.

White House: Press secretary Jay Carney said the original clash was 'coincidental' and presidential speeches always compete with other TV shows

White House press secretary Jay Carney insisted the original clash was ‘coincidental’, before the President later backed down.
Mr Carney added that presidential speeches always compete with other TV programmes, and the Republicans could shift their debate by an hour.
But Mr Boehner wrote in a letter to Mr Obama: ‘It is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening.
‘(Then) we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks.’
The Republican debate, which will be broadcast live on MSNBC, will be the first to feature Texas Governor Rick Perry.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the original scheduling was a ‘thinly veiled political ploy’, reported the National Journal


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2032335/Obama-set-announce-jobs-plan-week--time-GOP-debate.html#ixzz1WfizmkQ8

Dreams of a Muslim Dictator - Obama: Telegraph USAOne in five US Muslims knows of extre...

Dreams of a Muslim Dictator - Obama: Telegraph
USAOne in five US Muslims knows of extre...: Telegraph USA One in five US Muslims knows of extremist support in community One in five American Muslims knows of support for extremism in...

Telegraph

USA

One in five US Muslims knows of extremist support in community

One in five American Muslims knows of support for extremism in their community, new research has found, despite Muslims being far happier about the state of the US than other groups.

By Jon Swaine, New York

6:26AM BST 31 Aug 2011

As the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaches, 21 per cent of respondents told a study they had detected "a great deal" or "a fair deal" of support for extremism in their areas.

While the vast majority said that suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians to protect Islam were never justified, 19 per cent of respondents did not agree with this statement.

Peter King, a Republican congressman for New York, said the findings "reinforce the need" for him to continue holding controversial hearings on the radicalisation of American Muslims.

"There is a small percentage of American Muslims who are sympathetic to al-Qaeda. al-Qaeda is trying to recruit them. They are the ones we should be looking for," said Mr King.

The study, by the Pew Research Centre, found 56 per cent of Muslims were "satisfied with the current direction of the country", compared to just 23 per cent of the population at large.

Those two figures have grown further apart since four years ago, when 38 per cent of Muslims and 32 per cent of the general population were content with America's direction.
The study also found that 79 per cent of American Muslims rated their communities as "excellent" or "good" places to live.
However more than half of Muslims said they felt singled out for terrorist surveillance, and 43 per cent said they had personally experienced harassment in the past year.
 UK News

Radical Muslims warn of another 9/11

Muslim extremists have held a meeting at the heart of the area where the liquid bombers lived in which they warned of a British September 11.

 By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent

8:50PM BST 12 Sep 2008

One speaker at the meeting, held on the anniversary of the attacks in America, told the assembled crowd that the West should "listen to the warnings."

The meeting, in front of a 100-strong crowd at a community centre on the Lea Bridge Road in Walthamstow, east London, was also addressed by the exiled preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed via video link from the Lebanon.

His appearance was greeted by cheers of "faith" and "god is great" as he claimed to have foiled a bomb plot against him by agents of the British Government, although much of his speech was inaudible due to technical difficulties.

Walthamstow was home to two of the three members of a gang found guilty of conspiracy to murder. They face a retrial over allegations they were targeting trans-Atlantic flights.

Among the speakers were a number of former members of the banned group al-Muhajiroun, once led by Bakri from his council home in Edmonton, North London.

The most incendiary speech was delivered by Saiful Islam, from Luton, Bedfordshire, who praised Osama bin

Laden and al-Qaeda for their "courage" in retaliating against the "dictatorship and oppression" of the West.

He said: "The blame of 9/11 belongs to no one but the American government. They are the terrorists. Sheikh
Osama warned America numerous times, it was because of their own arrogance, because they thought they are a superpower and nobody could match them, that Sheikh Osama taught them a lesson – a lesson they still haven't learned."
Mr Islam warned that unless British and American troops were withdrawn from "Muslim lands" they would be to blame for the consequences, saying the West would "never achieve security until our own lands achieve security".
"Wake up. Withdraw. Listen to the warnings. Muslims will stand side to side, not just al Qaeda. The actions of the British and Americans have given prominence to al Qaeda. All of us have a part to play in stopping the violence or the next 9/11 will take place in Britain, the next 7/7 could take place locally," he added.
The meeting was led by the lawyer Anjem Choudary under the name of a group called the Association for Islamic Research.
He was the last to speak to the group of largely young Muslim men and criticised the Government for persecuting "innocent Muslims" including Syrian–born Bakri who was banned from re-entering the country in the wake of the July 7 attacks.
He also talked of the defendants in the airliner trial along with the jailed preachers Abu Hamza and Omar Brooks, another of Bakri's followers, as well as Abu Qatada, recently released on bail.
"They [the Government] say they are civilized but they don't act very civilized," Mr Choudary said. "They jailed Sheikh Abu Qatada in Belmarsh prison. Is that the way you treat your guests?"
He spoke against mainstream bodies like the Muslim Council of Britain, who condemned the September 11 and July 7 attacks, accusing them of "selling their souls to the devil".
Mr Choudary talked about the black "flag of Sharia" flying over Downing Street by 2020, saying 500 people a day were converting to Islam.
He laughed that Muslim families in places like Whitechapel and Bethnal Green in east London were having .

 USA

US Muslims concerned over Islamophobia as 9/11 and end of Ramadan clash

US Muslim groups have urged law enforcement agencies to be on guard during Eid al-Fitr, the end-of-Ramadan holiday which this year coincides with the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

 

  

  18 Aug 2010

A spokesman for the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), an advocacy group, said local and federal agencies across the country were being asked to remain vigilant during the Eid celebrations.

Edina Lekovic, MPAC communications director, said the warning came because of what she called a "heightened climate of Islamophobia" in recent months, citing protests against plans to build an Islamic centre and mosque in Manhattan, not far from the site of Ground Zero.

"We're seeing consistent cases of protests taking place in front of some mosques organised largely by Islamophobic groups," Ms Lekovic said.

"At this stage it's just a precaution because there are many mosque leaders around the country who are understandably concerned for their congregations and want to be sure that they're taking preventative measures and that law enforcement is on standby if, God forbid, there are any issues that need to be dealt with."

Ms Lekovic emphasised that Ramadan and Eid festivals in the United States usually passed without incident.
 By and large, Ramadan and the Eid holidays are peacefully celebrated by Muslims and ignored by the public," she said.
However the furore over the Ground Zero mosque and cases including a Florida church that has announced plans to hold "International Burn a Koran Day" on September 11 have triggered concerns of possible hate crimes.

"We're asking local police and sheriff's departments to be vigilant as well as federal authorities. We're asking federal authorities to examine cases where there are violent acts against Muslims or mosques," she said

Image 1 of 3

The building in New York that could be converted into a mosque Photo: EPA

Image 1 of 3

Linda Rivera holds up a sign in opposition to the proposed mosque

Statement from Anders Gravers about Breivik

Statement from Anders Gravers about Breivik

Posted by SIOE admin on August 26, 2011

Breivik’s sickening and unforgivable act of terrorism must not be allowed to stop the entirely legitimate and important Islam-critics and their condemnation of the Islamisation of our countries. It is precisely because Islam has affected our community so ostentatiously and corrosively combined with the persistent attempts at ridiculing Islam’s critics that forced this murderous act upon the people of Norway and Europe.
We must continue to keep shouting about Islam’s abomination and raising awareness that Islam stands for coercion, violence, lack of freedom and discrimination against both men and women. The more we yell and get people to wake up to reality, the more we will help to avoid people like Breivik becoming so desperate about politicians, and their wilful ignorance towards the crystal-clear facts about Islam, that they go out and exercise the kind of terror we have just seen.
We must constantly and consistently keep throwing out facts about Islam to instil them in the minds of politicians and continue to engage politically in order to reverse this suicidal decline of our countries. We refuse to be boxed in by mad fools who make crazy comparisons and contrive false links between Breivik and peaceful organisations who abhor his actions. This terrible act of terrorism must actually inspire us to become even more persistent in our peaceful methods for an ever more free, democratic, secure community that our children and grandchildren can safely grow up in.
We must reverse the insane social disintegration where our daughters and sisters are now afraid to go out alone at night. They must once again be confident to walk as carefree people in our society on an equal footing with everyone else without the fear of being assaulted and raped by subhuman monsters with their completely warped view of the female gender that has been handed down generation after generation. Europe has fought for women’s and men’s equality over the last 100 years and we must remember that women achieved universal suffrage only in the 1920s and Denmark had the first woman government minister in 1924.
We should not be afraid of “the tone of the debate”. While we still have our freedom we must use fully use it and, lest we forget, we still have our law courts where one can be punished for libellous and defamatory statements. This system still works fine. Therefore, we must continue to call a spade a spade and the so-called prophet a paedophile highwayman, for that was what he was, if one bothers to read the various Islamic texts about the so-called prophet’s life and adventures.
It is not “tone of the debate” that is dangerous. That’s the point; there is no “tone of the debate” because all debate is stifled by the abuse hurled at Islam-critics. It is the lack of debate that triggered the madman Breivik to perpetrate his act of terrorism. It is the politically correct mantra with its repeated verbal head-kicking of Islam-critics, while ignoring the facts about Islam, that is dangerous. It is the attempt to silence criticism of Islam together with the attempt to ridicule or to brand as extreme the people who fight for their country and for their children and grandchildren’s future that is dangerous. It is this kind of suppression that can help to get people like Breivik to lose their temper and go berserk. This must not happen again.
Let us together continue our work for Europe and let’s make it even more tenacious. Open the eyes of people in your vicinity and get them to understand what Islam is and what fatal influence it has on our country. Shout at your politicians and continue shouting even if you feel that they have decided not to listen. At some point it will succeed.
We must not give up for fear of being boxed in, because we know what we’re talking about and those who defend Islam either know not what they are talking about or they are prepared to convert. Neither can we take seriously. We have our countries to fight for and we have an obligation to leave our countries to our children and grandchildren in the condition we received it, namely secure, free and with equality.
We promise that we will never surrender Europe to Islam’s followers – never! 

Suspect admits killing US airmen at German airport influenced by radical Islamic propaganda online.

Suspect admits killing US airmen at German airport

By DAVID McHUGH, Associated Press – 13 hours ago

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — A Kosovo Albanian man confessed Wednesday to killing two U.S. airmen at the Frankfurt airport, saying in emotional testimony at the opening of his trial that he had been influenced by radical Islamic propaganda online.
Arid Uka is charged with two counts of murder for the March 2 slaying of Senior Airman Nicholas J. Alden, 25, from South Carolina, and Airman 1st Class Zachary R. Cuddeback, 21, from Virginia.
The 21-year-old Uka also faces three counts of attempted murder for wounding two more airmen and taking aim at a third before his gun jammed.
Although Germany has experienced scores of terrorist attacks in past decades, largely from leftist groups like the Red Army Faction, the airport attack was the first attributed to an Islamic extremist.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, there have been about a half-dozen other jihadist plots that were either thwarted or failed — including a 2007 plan to kill Americans at the U.S. Air Force's Ramstein Air Base.
Uka went to the airport with the intent "to kill an indeterminate number of American soldiers, but if possible a large number," prosecutor Herbert Diemer told a state court in Frankfurt.
No pleas are entered in the German system, and Uka confessed to the killings after the indictment was read, telling the court "what I did was wrong but I cannot undo what I did." He went on to urge other radical Muslims not to seek inspiration in his attack, urging them not to be taken in by "lying propaganda" on the Internet.
Uka, dressed in jeans, sneakers and a crisp white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, smiled at his attorneys as he was brought in and his handcuffs were removed. But he wept repeatedly as he recounted the attack and watched the jihadist videos he said motivated him.
"To this day I try to understand what happened and why I did it... but I don't understand," he said, at times speaking so softly that court officials had to bring in a microphone and put it directly in front of him.
Cooperating with authorities and confessing can help reduce a defendant's sentence — but Uka refused to tell the court where he obtained the 9mm semi-automatic pistol he used, which Presiding Judge Thomas Sagebiel said meant his confession was incomplete.
Uka described becoming increasingly introverted in the months before the attack, staying at home and playing computer games and watching Islamic extremist propaganda on the Internet.
The night before the crime, Uka said, he followed a link to a video posted on Facebook that purported to show American soldiers raping a teenage Muslim girl. It turned out to be a scene from the 2007 anti-war Brian De Palma film "Redacted," taken out of context.
He said he then decided he should do anything possible to prevent more American soldiers from going to Afghanistan.
"I thought what I saw in that video, these people would do in Afghanistan," he told the court, his voice choking with emotion as he wiped away tears.
Uka conceded when asked by prosecutor Jochen Weingarten that the airman driving the bus had not been going to Afghanistan. On the bus on the way to the airport to look for victims, he said he listened to Islamic music on his iPod while nursing doubts that he'd be able to follow through with his plan.
"On the one hand I wanted to do something to help the women, and on the other hand I hoped I would not see any soldiers," he told the court.
He says he now does not understand why he went through with the killings.
"If you ask me why I did this, I can only say ... I don't understand anymore how I went that far."
Prosecutors introduced evidence from Uka's laptop, cell phone and iPod, which included hundreds of files containing jihadist videos, literature, sermons and songs.
One song went, "Mother be strong, your son is on jihad," and "do not mourn for me." A video showed rifle-toting Islamic fighters in Pakistan, and a bullet-holed target with "Obama" scrawled on it.
The indictment says Uka went to the airport armed with a pistol, extra ammunition and two knives. Inside Terminal 2, he spotted two U.S. servicemen who had just arrived and followed them to their U.S. Air Force bus.
After 16 servicemen, including the driver, were on or near the bus, Uka approached one of the men for a cigarette, prosecutors said. He confirmed they were U.S. Air Force members en route to Afghanistan, then "turned around, put the magazine that had been concealed in his backpack into his pistol, and cocked the weapon," the indictment said.
He first shot unarmed Alden in the back of the head, the indictment alleged. He then boarded the vehicle shouting "Allahu Akbar" — Arabic for "God is great" — and shot and killed Cuddeback, who was the driver, before firing at others.
He seriously wounded two other airmen — Kristoffer Schneider, 26, lost the sight in his right eye, and Edgar Veguilla, 22, was hit in the jaw and elbow.
Then Uka's pistol jammed and he fled into the airport, where he was chased down by police, prosecutors said.
Some of the American airmen are expected to testify. At least one relative of the victims — Cuddeback's mother — has joined the trial as a co-plaintiff, and officials from the State Department and Air Force are observing the trial.

Dreams of a Muslim Dictator - Obama: The Path of a Young German Salafist

Dreams of a Muslim Dictator - Obama: The Path of a Young German Salafist: 08/30/2011 Arrested in Britain The Path of a Young German Salafist By Julia Jüttner , Solingen Suspected German jihadist Robert B. is und...

The Path of a Young German Salafist

08/30/2011

Arrested in Britain

The Path of a Young German Salafist

By Julia Jüttner, Solingen


Suspected German jihadist Robert B. is under arrest in Britain, 
where border authorities caught him with al-Qaida propaganda,
 including a pamphlet called, "How to Make a Bomb in the
 Kitchen of Your Mom"



A mother can't be fooled, and a mother notices when her child goes astray, says Marlies B. That's why she called the state authorities in October 2010 and asked if she needed to be worried about her son.

Her son Robert had changed. He'd converted to Islam, forsaken pork and alcohol, and now he wore a knit wool cap and wandered the city of Solingen, northeast of Cologne, in floor-length garments. Marlies B. says she'd never seen him this way. People asked her about it, and it was embarrassing. It frightened her.


Robert's mother, Marlies B., wants her son brought back to Germany.
 She disagrees with his choice of religion, but possession of jihadist
 reading material is not a crime in his home country



At the end of July -- after a period when she couldn't reach him, either on his cell phone or at his apartment -- she printed out a statement from his bank account. (Robert had given her notarized power of attorney years before.) She noticed a flight booked for €447 ($647), and "all of my alarm bells went off," she says. She drove to a national-security office in Wuppertal.
"You're son is doing well," an official told her, asking her to take a seat in the hall. Marlies B. had an uneasy feeling. A mother knows, she says. Two other officials came upstairs. They had just searched Robert's apartment, and they told her that her son had been in a London prison since July 15.

Al-Qaida Propaganda
He'd taken the ferry to Dover with Christian E., another convert from Solingen, who had a criminal record. At the border they told authorities they had planned to fly from Brussels to Egypt, but the tickets were too expensive. So they'd settled on Great Britain instead.
Officials searched their bags and found handbooks for jihadists, a bomb-making pamphlet called, "How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom," and an essay on "39 Ways to Support Jihad," written by the radical imam Anwar al-Awlaki -- all propaganda material for al-Qaida. Both Germans were sent to Belmarsh, a high-security prison in south London, and isolated in solitary confinement.
"I fear that the English justice system will crack down like it did in the recent riots, and we want to prevent that," says Robert's attorney, Burkhard Benecken. His client faces up to 10 years in prison. But under German law his actions were not punishable. This week, Benecken and Robert's mother are flying to London; it will be her first visit with her son since he was arrested.
A Victim of the Stasi
Marlies B. grew up in the GDR, the former East Germany. By the age of 13, she'd had experience with the Stasi. Her parents' bakery was bugged, and her father fled to West Germany in 1969. She later was caught trying to flee to the West and spent seven weeks in custody in Görlitz, before serving a year in prison in Hohenleuben.
She was one of the 33,755 political prisoners whose freedom was purchased by the West German government. On March 13, 1985 she arrived first at a relocation camp in Giessen, then went to Unna, and in the end arrived at a temporary home in Solingen. That is where she met Robert's father, an independent craftsman 15 years her senior. They later married.
Marlies B. is now 57 years old. She's a petite woman with deeply set blue eyes. She wears glasses, and her dyed black hair has bangs cropped short. Her faced is lined with wrinkles. She calls her first husband a "criminal swine who was locked up in all the GDR jails." He almost killed her once, she says, by smashing a bottled of sparkling wine on her head in a drunken rage.
Robert's father, she says, was the first man who was good to her. He died at the age of 46, of lung cancer caused by a grinding machine he used. His death came three days before Robert's 13th birthday. Her son missed him greatly.
Even as a child, Robert was an outsider and was bullied and chased across the school yard. He dropped out of school in the 9th grade. When he was 17 he joined the military, with his mother's approval, and volunteered to go to Afghanistan. He dreamed of riding in a tank. But he wound up on desk duty. When this duty grew boring, he started spreading right-wing propaganda on the Internet. He hung a Hitler portrait over his bunk. He was forced to leave the army.
He then earned his secondary-school school diploma. In the summer of 2010 he finished training as a warehouse clerk. But he wasn't hired. Robert had long had other plans.
A Trip to Egypt
In January 2009, Robert converted to Islam. He told his mother this in passing at lunch one day. She says she doesn't know who encouraged him to do it. Robert kept his curly hair cut short and didn't grow a beard. "He did not seem so extreme to me," she says.
She dismissed Robert's comments that she should re-orient her religion, and wear a headscarf or a burka at home, as idle chatter. She had no idea he already called himself Abdul Hakiim.
In October, he and other Muslims travelled to Egypt. "I want to learn Arabic, in order to practice my beliefs," he told his mother. She alerted German authorities, and some officials paid Robert a visit. To this day, he does not know that his mother was behind it, she says. Officials placated her by saying they had him under their radar.
Because of the unrest in Egypt, Robert took a special flight home to Germany on February 1, 2011. He checked in with his mother by phone. She cooked spaghetti with ground beef that had been slaughtered according to Islamic ritual by a special butcher in Solingen. He spent two nights in her apartment. Then he moved out, and started to live on state assistance.
He pretended to sleep in a small apartment his mother knew about, but in fact he lived in a mosque in a courtyard off Konrad Adenauer Street. "The people there are the only ones who reach paradise," he told his mother. This sentence shocked her, especially coming from her son Robert, whom she had not had baptized because she wanted him to have the freedom as an adult to decide his religion. Now that he'd decided, his mother was appalled.
Robert distanced himself from her. When his mother questioned him, he lied to her. "Maybe he didn't want to scare me," she says. She sounds doubtful and blames herself.
'Mommy, I would never kill someone'
Robert told his mother that he got up every day at 5:30 a.m. to pray. He pretended to look for a job. He still dropped by her place to get his mail. Sometimes he made comments like: "Women today are floozies."
Sometimes he left Salafist pamphlets in Arabic and German under the tablecloth. "Not every Salafist is a terrorist, but almost all terrorists that we know had contacts with Salafists or are Salafists," said Heinz Fromm, the president of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Robert did not have the courage to convince his mother of his views. When she talked to him about his life changes, he said: "Mommy, you don't need to worry. I would never kill someone." She threw the flyers in the trash can.
She now knows that before his trip to Britain he visited mosques in Cologne and Bonn. She knows he flew to Hamburg to see a presentation by Pierre Vogel, also known as Abu Hamza -- a radical German Islamic preacher and former professional boxer who had become a hero for Robert.

"There are also indications that Robert was influenced by Ibrahim Abou Nagie," says Robert's attorney, Burkhard Benecken. "He leads movement called 'The True Religion,' which is known among radical Muslims. If that's true, then my client was heteronomous," meaning subject to foreign laws.
Marlies B., meanwhile, says her fighting spirit hasn't flagged. "The Stasi did not break me, and the Salafists will not break me," she says. When Robert is home with her again, she won't accuse him of anything. Maybe, she says, he just wanted a second family with the Islamists.
In prison, in any case, Robert reportedly asked first for his "mommy."

Dreams of a Muslim Dictator - Obama: Bomber prematurely detonates explosives, killing h...

Dreams of a Muslim Dictator - Obama: Bomber prematurely detonates explosives, killing h...: Bomber prematurely detonates explosives, killing himself, companion in Pakistani city KARACHI, Pakistan — A senior police official ...

Bomber prematurely detonates explosives, killing himself, companion in Pakistani city

Bomber prematurely detonates explosives, killing himself, companion in Pakistani city

KARACHI, Pakistan — A senior police official says a suspected suicide bomber riding on a motorcycle in Pakistan’s largest city prematurely detonated his explosives, killing himself and his companion.
Ahsan Umar says the two men were traveling through a residential area in the southern port city of Karachi when the blast occurred Tuesday. It is unclear where the bomber was headed. Umar is one of the top police investigators in Karachi.
The city has experienced fewer Taliban attacks than other major cities in Pakistan. But the city does have a long history of political, sectarian and ethnic violence.

Dreams of a Muslim Dictator - Obama: Muslim Riot Breaks out at Playground and Park Over...

Dreams of a Muslim Dictator - Obama: Muslim Riot Breaks out at Playground and Park Over...: From Atlas Shrugs ... Thanks Pam! Muslim Riot Breaks out at Playground and Park Over Safety Rules, 10 Arrested Here again we see the bullyi...

Muslim Riot Breaks out at Playground and Park Over Safety Rules, 10 Arrested

From Atlas Shrugs ... Thanks Pam!

Muslim Riot Breaks out at Playground and Park Over Safety Rules, 10 Arrested

Here again we see the bullying and unreasonable demands of Islamic supremacism in the public square. In this case, public safety be damned, the sharia is all that matters. A New York Playland Park became the victim of a Muslim riot when park officials adhered to their safety rules in order to keep park attendees free from harm. The park implemented a headgear ban over four years ago to keep hats and other head coverings from landing on tracks and derailing rides.

“It’s a safety issue on rides. If it’s a scarf, you could choke."

Muslim visitors got angry that the park was enforcing their safety rules, and "a large disturbance broke out."
The action was staged by Muslim Brotherhood group, Muslim American Society. They organized the outing and were well aware of the safety rules. The rules were not new. I believe that this was a deliberate action and MAS knew exactly what they were doing in challenging the Park to break their safety rules and put the lives of attendees in jeopardy in an act of supremacism, demanding adherence to the sharia. Despite Parks officials “painstakingly” telling the MAS organizer about the headgear ban, Muslim visitors got angry and caused a large disturbance, resulting in the arrest of at least 10 people.
This is part of a systematic campaign to impose the sharia on the secular marketplace. Muslim workers suing Disney over their sixty-year-old dress code or Muslim cashiers suing Wal-Mart and Target over their refusal to handle meat that is not halal is all part of a much larger supremacist effort. It has succeeded in Europe, which is all but doomed. They mean to replicate it here. This is well documented in my book (in stores next week), Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.

Dispute over Muslim headwear sends scores of police to Playland; 10 arrested LoHud.com (hat tip Van)
UPDATED, 6:20 PM: RYE — A large disturbance broke out at Playland Park today when Muslim visitors got angry that the park was enforcing its ban on headgear by prohibiting the women from wearing their traditional head coverings on some rides. Police from at least nine other agencies converged on the park beginning at 3 p.m. after county police sought assistance in responding to the disturbance, which involved about 30 to 40 people. At least 10 park visitors were arrested, mostly for disorderly conduct, and two park rangers were injured, authorities said.
The park was crowded with Muslims celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr, one of Islam's two major holidays. Most were from community groups around New York City as part of a day-long event arranged by the Muslim American Society of New York.
Parks officials had “painstakingly” told the organizer about the headgear ban, said parks spokesman Peter Tartaglia, but he said that the rules might not have been communicated by the organizer to some attendees. The ban was implemented about four years ago to keep hats and other head coverings from landing on tracks and derailing rides.
“It’s a safety issue on rides. If it’s a scarf, you could choke,” Tartaglia said.
Accounts of what had happened varied, but everyone agreed the dispute began after park-goers were told the headgear ban applied to women wearing traditional Muslim head coverings, known as hijabs.
Tartaglia said once word of that got out there were “a lot of unhappy people.”
He said park officials were in the process of arranging refunds when members of the Muslim group got into a scuffle with each other.
The two rangers, seasonal county police employees, were hurt trying to break it up, he said. He said one suffered an injured knee and the other an injured shoulder.
Lola Ali, 16, of Astoria said she had witnessed a group of girls and women wearing hijabs go to park security to confront them about the headgear issue.
She said the women were upset and yelling. She said the security officers started pushing them away and the girls stood their ground, at which point the security officers grabbed them, pushed them to the ground and handcuffed them.