While President Bush – and now, Oprah – continue to paint a rosy picture of the American-Arab Islamic community, this picture is not entirely accurate.
Certainly many American Muslims are loyal and peaceful, but
these moderates are not represented in the Islamic leadership that
President Bush and the media have recently courted and presented to
America. Moderate American Muslims, like Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani
and Khalid Duran – who are to be commended for their courage and
patriotism for opposing terrorism – are frozen out by the American Muslim
mainstream (and by President Bush and Oprah).
Instead, Bush and media icons embrace radical Islamic leaders in America
and abroad as symbols of peace and tolerance.
Take Imam Hassan Qazwini, cleric of the Islamic Center of America, the
largest mosque in America, based in Detroit. Like many U.S. Islamic
leaders, he openly promoted terrorism and hatred, but now preaches a
saccharine love of America.
Saturday, Qazwini held an open house for non-Muslims at his mosque, at
which he professed love for America. He recently told the Detroit Free
Press that he and his congregants are “praying for the victims … for
unity and solidarity. … [F]ellow Americans … we are not the
enemies; we are peaceful citizens.” He also appeared at a unity prayer
session in Detroit.
But, on Nov. 15, 1998, I attended a religious service at Qazwini’s
mosque that was anything but pro-American and peaceful. Dressed
undercover as a Muslim woman, I watched invited speaker Louis Farrakhan
preach hate and violence to a very receptive audience of over 1,000 primarily Arab Muslim-Americans.
It was chilling to watch their and Qazwini’s frenzied applause and
wild cheering as Farrakhan preached about how our government was
occupied by “forces of evil” and “people in positions of power with a
Satanic mentality” and urged, “We should perform a jihad (holy war).
[They are] frightened, and we must frighten them even more.” Qazwini
and a man whom I believe to be Osama Siblani, publisher of the
Arab-American News, called Farrakhan “our dear brother,” “a freedom
fighter” and “a man of courage and sacrifice.” (Siblani denies this
and claims it was Nouhad El-Hajj, publisher of the Arab American
Journal, but Siblani’s publication openly praises Farrakhan and his
sentiments.)
Ironically, the week before, Qazwini and Arab-American leaders protested
the movie, “The Siege,” in which Arab terrorists blow-up hijacked buses
and buildings in New York. Imagine that.
When campaigning in Michigan, Bush met repeatedly with Qazwini, and when
he held his January press conference announcing his “faith-based” initiative, Qazwini was front and center among the religious leaders on stage at the White House. Bush introduced him as “my friend from Michigan,” and according to the Detroit Free Press, Qazwini met
with Bush at his Texas ranch in December “to advise him on formulating
the pair of executive orders issued” for the program. Qazwini’s mosque,
which cheered for Farrakhan’s jihad against America, will certainly be a
major recipient of our “faith-based” tax-money.
In 1998, Mothers Against Teaching Children to Kill and Hate, was founded
to combat Palestinian Authority official textbooks’ “portrayal of
Western society as the enemy of Islam and the Arab World.” According to
a 1999 Detroit News article, “In one translation, a lesson on verbs uses
the sentence, ‘The soldier sacrificed himself as a martyr for his
homeland.'” Arab-American leaders Jim Zogby, who heads the Arab
American Institute, and Imad Hamad, Detroit leader of the Arab American
Anti-Discrimination Committee – the primary Arab American civil
rights organizations in America – justified this to the News, with Hamad
saying that Arabic language is “vague,” with “different meanings.” No,
the Arabic I studied is very clear and so is its meaning in the
Palestinian textbooks. Why have these Arab American leaders who now
claim to be against terrorism, defended schoolbooks that educate their
Middle Eastern relatives in the currency of hate against the West?
Then there is Muqtedar Khan. A political science professor at
Michigan’s Adrian College, he is supposed to be a moderate Muslim
American. A frequent op-ed writer in the Detroit News and several
other publications, he is on the board of the Center for the Study of
Islam and Democracy and the executive committee of the Association of
Muslim Social Scientists. But Khan’s Feb. 8 Detroit News
opinion column attacking one of the world’s most peaceful, humane
religious leaders – the Dalai Lama – belies the moderate tone Khan tries
to present. Khan is upset that the Dalai Lama is respected and
“legitimized … by bestowing upon him a Nobel Peace Prize.” The
Dalai Lama’s crime (according to Khan)? He actually opposes forcible
conversions to Islam. What nerve.
Khan has written for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, which
is linked to the extremist Liberty Lobby, runs ads for Holocaust
deniers and links to Arafat terrorist organization Fateh.org (which features a picture of a dead baby killed by Fateh snipers and a
chat-webmaster with the name of “Abu Jihad” – “Father of the Holy War”).
In another recent Khan gem, he attacks President Bush and urges
Arab-Americans to support Democratic Congressman David Bonior for
governor of Michigan, due to Bonior’s opposition to the use of secret
evidence and profiling against terrorists-measures that could have
prevented the Sept. 11 attacks.
Spencer Abraham, now Bush’s Energy Secretary, was Michigan’s U.S.
senator and Senate Immigration Subcommittee Chairman through the end of
2000. As the only Arab-American U.S. senator and representing a state
with the heaviest concentration of Arab-Americans, Abraham unfortunately
caved to the pressure of Arab-American Muslim leaders, such as the
Arab-American Institute’s Zogby, on national security and funding
matters. According to the Detroit News, Abraham is to blame for
delaying systems that would improve tracking of foreign visitors,
something that Arab American groups actively opposed. These systems
also might have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks.
Abraham, in the middle of a tight re-election bid and enlisting Michigan
Congressman Joe Knollenberg, sought over $268 million in tax-funded
USAID grants for Hezbollah terrorist-controlled Southern Lebanon, also
at Zogby’s request. Hezbollah, which means “Party of Allah” in Arabic,
has targeted and murdered many Americans. Reports show that millions in
USAID grants to Afghanistan were misspent on terrorist activities of the
Taliban.
Oprah, in her Friday show – “Islam 101” – presented viewers with Jordanian
Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, as an example of a moderate, modern Islamic
woman. But Queen Rania’s husband, King Abdullah, rules precariously
over a country where Osama bin Laden is the most popular figure, where
radical Islamic fundamentalism rules, and where most women do not live
the liberal, modern life of the queen. In another example of the
“moderation” of her religion and her country, Rania is a very lucky
woman. While the majority of her country is made up of Palestinians,
they are subjugated by the rule of the Hashemite minority – her husband
and before him, his father, King Hussein. In September of 1970, her
“moderate” country killed over 10,000 of her fellow Palestinian
Jordanians.
It’s time for President Bush and the media to stop promoting in phony
liberalism of radical Islamists. Giving voice to truly moderate,
patriotic Islamic leaders in America is vital to a successful war
against terrorism.
