|
|
|
|
Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
|
April 10, 2018
|
|
|
Hatem
and Ahmed's Ironic Islamophobia Adventure
IPT News
April 10, 2018
|
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the
first of your friends to like this.
 Bigotry is awful –
and the purveyors of hatred and discrimination need to be confronted and
isolated.
But what happens when those who lament bigotry consistently engage in
their own prejudice and animus? What if they do it in concert with a member
of a designated terrorist organization who has called for the absolute
destruction of a nation?
Ahmed Bedier and Hatem Bazian had to go to Istanbul to find out.
They were among 25 irony-challenged participants at last weekend's
"Contextualizing Islamophobia: Its Impact on Culture and Global
Politics" conference organized by the Center for Islam and Global
Affairs (CIGA). Center director Sami Al-Arian served on the Majlis Shura, or
board of directors, for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist group.
In separate gatherings during the early 1990s, Al-Arian called for "death to Israel" and accepted an introduction during a fundraiser as the
head of "the active arm of the Islamic Jihad Movement in
Palestine," which rejects any peaceful settlement to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Only "the jihad solution and the
martyrdom style" can liberate Palestine, the group's bylaws say.
Four years later, he wrote a letter trumpeting a PIJ double suicide bombing that killed 21
Israelis, saying it "is the best guide and witness to what the
believing few can do in the face of Arab and Islamic collapse at the heels
of the Zionist enemy..."
"I call upon you to try to extend true support of the jihad effort
in Palestine so that operations such as these can continue..." he
added.
That's the man who organized a conference about
"Islamophobia," which is defined as an irrational fear or hatred
of Islam and/or Muslims.
"Unfortunately," Al-Arian wrote
in an op-ed prior to the conference, "Islamophobia has unleashed a
lucrative industry led by dangerous interest groups with extremist
political, social, and economic agendas. If unchecked, it threatens
perpetual wars and destruction causing immeasurable pain and
suffering."
The same can be said for radical Islamist ideology which peddles in Jew-hatred
and covets a globe dominated by Quranic doctrine.
We see that immeasurable pain and suffering Al-Arian described in Gaza,
where Hamas chooses to divert resources that can rebuild the
densely-populated coastal territory in favor of preparing for perpetual war
and destruction by building an arsenal and digging tunnels for terrorists
to sneak into Israel and try to slaughter civilians.
We see it in the thousands of dead Muslims in Syria, Libya, Iraq and anywhere that Islamic State, al-Qaida and
other terrorists try to live by the letter of Muhammad's law.
That's not the problem facing Muslims, conference participants seemed to
agree. Supporters of Israel are the problem.
Al-Arian lists Bedier, a former chapter director and fundraiser
for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), among the
"renowned scholars" participating in the conference. Bedier is
quick to toss out "dual loyalty" smears against Americans who
publicly support Israel.
Bazian is one of the leading advocates for the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divest
and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel. He was forced to apologize in December after retweeting an
anti-Semitic image of a Jewish man bragging, "I Is chosen," and
saying, "I can now kill, rape, smuggle organs & steal the land of
Palestinians."
Part of the conference focused on France's rape investigation into celebrity Islamist Tariq Ramadan, an Oxford University professor and
grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna.
"We, as Muslims, need to do something for him," said
Mehmet Gormez, former head of Turkey's religious authority.
In their remarks, Bazian and Bedier reportedly claimed
"Islamophobia" is pushed by people who want to keep Muslims
marginalized and politically weakened.
They chose to attend Al-Arian's conference just weeks after he spent
an hour on a radio show hosted by a conspiracy theorist who sees the
9/11 attacks – and virtually any act of terrorism committed by Muslims – as
"false flag" operations for which Zionists ultimately are
responsible. Al-Arian was well aware of his host's baseless, anti-Semitic
views because he'd heard some of them during a previous appearance in 2016.
But antipathy toward Jews is ingrained in Al-Arian's psyche.
PIJ bylaws, which weren't yet publicly known when Al-Arian possessed
them, call for jihad to create "a state of terror,
instability and panic in the souls of the Zionists" and demand "a
psychological barrier between the Jews and the Muslim Palestinian people
and the creation of a conviction that the coexistence is
impossible..."
Not many people would fly 5,000 miles to participate in a conference led
by someone who endorsed such violent, hateful objectives. Hatem Bazian and
Ahmed Bedier just did.
|
The IPT accepts no funding from
outside the United States, or from any governmental agency or political or
religious institutions. Your support of The Investigative Project on
Terrorism is critical in winning a battle we cannot afford to lose. All donations
are tax-deductible. Click here to donate online. The
Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation is a recognized 501(c)3 organization.
202-363-8602
- main
202-966-5191
- fax
|
|
Print
Send
RSS
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment