Neal Boortz

A controversial Washington-based Islamic lobby group today is highlighting as "Islamophobia" a heated radio talk-show exchange in which host Neal Boortz tells a Muslim caller Islam is a "cult," not a religion.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said in its daily e-mail dispatch today an audio clip of the conversation – the date is not indicated – "is circulating on anti-Muslim Internet hate sites."

A copy of the clip was posted on YouTube.com Oct. 8, 2006.

The caller began: "Sir, I'm calling because of some statements you've been making in the past week about the religion of Islam and … "

Boortz interrupted: It's a cult, it's not even a religion. … "

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After a long list of crimes perpetrated all over the world in the name of Islam, the talk host told the caller, "You don't have a word of condemnation in you until the non-Islamic world rises up and starts to make it clear that we are fed up with your damned religion. We've had it up to here.

"And somebody, like I said yesterday, somebody needs to grab the Muslim world by the shirt collar, backhand it a good one, knock it into the damn corner and say straighten up or we're gonna eradicate you beetles from the face of the Earth. … "

CAIR asked its constituents not to contact Boortz, because he "can and will use any comments to further defame Islam and Muslim."

"This clip was offered only to demonstrate the growing level of Islamophobic rhetoric in our society," the group said.

CAIR, which brands itself as a mainstream promoter of civil rights, has been named with two other prominent U.S. Islamic groups as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a plot to fund the terrorist group Hamas. Jury selection is under way for the trial in Dallas.

CAIR is a spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Several CAIR staffers have been convicted on terrorism-related charges, and CAIR founder Omar Ahmad allegedly told a group of Muslims they are in America not to assimilate but to help assert Islam's rule over the country.

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