CAIR quiet on massacres in India

Just checked out the website of CAIR to see if they condemned the terror attacks last week in India. Why am I not surprised that they are not condemning them.

Of course they do condemn the conviction of the Holy Land Foundation for supporting terrorism.

So can well all stop pretending CAIR isn't a terrrorist organization.

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Lessons of Kristallnacht

Lessons of Kristallnacht
By Deborah Weiss
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, November 10, 2008

November 9, 2008 marked the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht. It was a night of terror which constituted the commencement of the Holocaust. It was a horrible night, but it was merely a foreshadow of the doom yet to come. This anniversary should not merely commemorate the horrible events that took place in 1938. Rather, it should serve as a warning that we must learn the lessons of history lest we repeat our mistakes; we must take our enemies’ words seriously, and we must not be complacent in the face of evil.


Hitler disguised his plan to exterminate Jews when he first seized power in 1933. Instead of announcing his plan for genocide, he implemented more palatable anti-Semitic policies, which were incremental, systematic, and strategic. Initially, the policies deprived Jews of social, economic, and legal rights. They helped to desensitize the public to discrimination and hate. Eventually, the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 stripped the Jews of their German citizenship and they remained legally nationless.

In October of 1938, the Nazis deported approximately 17,000 Polish Jews back to their land of origin. Each was allowed to take one suitcase of belongings. Their businesses, homes, and other possessions were confiscated by the German government. However, Poland refused to take the Jews back, as they were no longer Polish citizens. They remained on the border of Poland in military stables, penniless, jobless, and in hideous conditions.


Herschel Grynzpan, a 17-year-old student in Paris, learned that this was the plight of his family. His sister, Berta, had sent him a postcard from the Polish outskirts, asking him to send money. Enraged, Herschel bought a gun. On November 7, 1938 he went to the German Embassy and fired five shots at the Third Secretary, Ernst von Rath, whom he mistook for the Ambassador. Herschel took this drastic action to draw attention to how Germany was treating the Jews. Two days later, von Rath died.


The assassination was the perfect pretext for Nazi reprisal against the Jews. Josef Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda, organized what later became known as “Kristallnacht” or “night of the broken glass.” Some historians believe that the Nazis had planned an act of violence against the Jews well before the shooting, and were merely waiting for the right moment to implement it.


On November 9, 1938, Richard Heydrich, head of the office that oversaw the Gestapo, the SA, and the State Police, issued a telegraph to all headquarters and police stations. It informed them that riots against the Jews in Austria and Germany would occur that night and into the next morning. It instructed them not to interfere with the violence and to protect only the lives and property of non-Jews.


That evening, acting under Nazi instructions, mobs of Germans and Austrians incited riots. Dozens of Jews were killed, Torah scrolls were desecrated, and hundreds of synagogues were burned to ashes, many of which had been historical houses of worship standing proudly in Germany for centuries prior. Firemen were forbidden from extinguishing the flames.


Approximately 7500 Jewish shops, businesses and homes were vandalized, pillaged and ransacked. This included orphanages and hospitals for sick Jewish children. Some standers-by joined in the rampage, including women and children. Others cried, and more remained silent. Thirty thousand young, healthy Jewish males were arrested, imprisoned and sent to concentration camps. The next morning, the streets were littered with shattered glass from the broken windows.


When all was said and done, some complained that destroying Jewish goods affected German businesses. As a result, the Jews were fined one billion marks to pay for the damage that had been done to them. Claims paid by insurance companies for the broken glass were taken by the state. It took six months for the windows to be completely replaced.


Kristallnacht signaled a dramatic shift in policy from political, social and economic persecution to physical beatings and murder. It was the inevitable progression of incremental discrimination and hate-filled policies. It was also the first violent pogrom in Western Europe in centuries. Further, it marked the end of the German-Jewish legacy which included centuries of religious scholarship, business-building, social activism, culture, science, government service and other Jewish contributions to German society. Previously, many Jews had even fought and died as German soldiers out of loyalty to their Fatherland.


The day after Kristallnacht, Goebbels announced, “[W]e shed not a tear for them. They stood in the way long enough. We can use the space made free more usefully than as a Jewish fortress.” He announced government-sanctioned reprisals against the Jewish community. Within weeks after the shooting of von Rath, Jewish newspapers and magazines were banned from publication, Jewish children were banned from “Aryan” state elementary schools, and all Jewish cultural activities were suspended indefinitely. The Nazis issued a “Decree on Eliminating the Jews from German Economic Life.” Jewish businesses were not allowed to re-open unless they were managed by non-Jews. Jews were no longer allowed to own radios or have driver’s licenses. They were given curfews and geographically segregated. Virtually no Jewish-German contact was permitted in public life, whether related to transportation, schooling, or hospitals.


Though many newspapers and magazines throughout the world condemned the Nazis, little action was taken to actually help the Jews in Germany. Some Jews were permitted to enter England. President Roosevelt stated that refugees already in America on visas could remain. However, the U.S. legislature voted not to open its doors to additional Jewish refugees. And for the most part, other western countries did not change their immigration policies to come to the rescue of the Jews.


The apparent apathy of the “civilized world” in response to Nazi brutality against the Jews only emboldened them. It led them rightly to believe that they could commit ever increasing acts of violence and cruelty without consequence. Jews in Germany, who were no longer citizens of any country, remained trapped in Germany without legal or physical protections from any government. They were no longer human; they were “untermenschen” (subhuman).


During the 1942 Wannsee Conference, the SS adopted the “Final Solution” as official government policy. It paved the way for them to implement policies toward a Judenfrei Europe, and to extinguish the Jewish race as humans would extinguish rodents. Heydrich, who had previously participated in the meeting to remove Jews from all economic life, was appointed Chief Executor of the Final Solution.


Today it is not Aryan supremacists who want to extinguish all Jews, but Islamist supremacists who want all countries to be ruled by Sharia. In some regions of the world, Islamists are imposing their will through acts of violence and terrorism. In the West, they are using non-violent means to achieve the same radical goals. They are lobbying, legislating, litigating, and infiltrating our governments and universities. They are fighting to obtain preferential treatment and take away our freedom.

We must stop our enemies in their first steps on the path toward evil. We cannot give them a foothold. If we do, we have been forewarned. In the face of apathy and complacency, our values, freedom, and national security will be at risk.


Edmund Burke once said “all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”. Make no mistake about it -- Hitler is back with a different name. After WWII, the world vowed never again. Today, we have another chance to look evil in the eye and take action to defeat it. Will we rise to the challenge? Or will we, once again, sit idly by?


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Deborah Weiss is an attorney and regular contributor to FrontpageMag.com

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Jihad Against Free Speech

Jihad Against Free Speech
By Deborah Weiss
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, November 06, 2008

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) is an Islamist supremacist organization. Composed of 57 member states with Muslim majority populations, the OIC is the largest Islamic body in the world. It is also the largest international organization of any kind, second only to the United Nations. It represents an estimated 1.5 billion Muslims across the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

The purpose of the OIC is to promote Islamic values, to revitalize Islam’s pioneering role in the world, to strengthen and enhance the bond of solidarity and unity among Muslim states, to support “the Palestinian struggle” and to defend Islam. Its charter claims that OIC works to promote peace, tolerance, and fight terrorism. However, its actions are dissonant with these claims, as it strives to define these words through the extraordinarily skewed views of radical Islam.


Since 1999, the OIC has been pushing incrementally and strategically toward its goal of internationally outlawing all criticism of Islam, Muslims, Muslim theocracies, and Islamic extremism. Subsequent to September 11, 2001, it professed concern about alleged backlash against Muslims.

In 2005, the OIC urged the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (“UNCHR”) to pass a resolution called “combating defamation of religions.” Although the title of the resolution referred to religions generally, the text cited concerns only Islam specifically. It lamented negativity towards Islam in the media and the use of broadcast, print and the internet to incite violence, discrimination or intolerance towards Islam and other religions. It revealed alarm over the backlash against Muslims since 9/11, and law enforcement measures that “target Muslims.” It expressed deep concern over statements which “attack” religions generally, and Islam and Muslims in particular, and concern over the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities. It alleged that Islam was frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism. Additionally, it proclaimed that defamation of religions plays a role in the denial of fundamental rights of the target groups.

The Commission urged resolute action to prohibit “racist, and xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers… and to protect against acts of discrimination, intimidation, hatred, and defamation of religion.” It called on the international community to begin a “global dialogue” on religious diversity and to combat defamation of religions. It further required the Special Rapporteur to report on the discrimination faced by Muslims and Arabs. Not surprisingly, the countries that voted in favor of the resolution included many Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Sudan, among others. Freer nations such as the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, and Japan, all voted in opposition to the resolution.

The OIC’s insistence on prohibiting defamatory speech against Islamic countries was without reciprocity. No effort to silence anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli speech has been made. At an OIC Special Session in 2006, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad freely expressed his goal to eliminate the “Zionist regime.” Indeed, the OIC backs Iran’s nuclear program, supports Hamas, and rationalizes 9/11. Moreover, the OIC insists that the definition of terrorism should exclude the killing of innocent civilians where there is a “legitimate resistance to foreign occupation,” i.e. Israel. It is for this reason that the UN has been unable to pass a comprehensive convention against international terrorism.

At the OIC’s 2006 summit in Mecca, it adopted a zero tolerance policy regarding insults to Islam, going so far as to include “hostile glances” in its definition of Islamophic behavior. The immediate goal of the summit was to obtain “protection” for Islam in European parliaments and the UN including the Human Rights Council (which replaced the Human Rights Commission with the failed hope of becoming an effective advocate for human rights). It also proposed the creation of an “Islamic Council of Human Rights” and a “Charter of Human Rights in Islam.” Both would be based on Sharia law and run contrary to the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In 2007, the Secretary General of the OIC, Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a “moderate” Muslim from Turkey, used the “International Day of Tolerance” to assert that freedom of speech is defiling Islam. He stated, “[M]uslims around the world are the first victims of intolerance. They are facing a campaign of hatred and prejudice, what is otherwise known as Islamophobia. This growing trend of Islamophobia has subjected them to discrimination including religious profiling and stereotyping. The right to freedom of speech is being used to defile the sacred symbols of Islam.”

He continued, “[I]t is high time that the international community considers enacting legal measures against defamation of religions and religious beliefs. I would urge the Alliance of Civilizations and the Human Rights Council to take pro-active action in this regard.”

The International Humanist and Ethical Union (“IHEU”) warned that UN approval of a law combating defamation of religions would have grave implications for the freedom to criticize a religion or its practices. It explained that countries will have broad latitude in how they penalize the disrespect of religion because OIC’s resolution did not define what constitutes “defamation.” Further, the resolution failed to distinguish between defamation of religion and incitement to racial and religious violence.

In March 2008, the OIC held a two-day summit in Senegal, where it produced a battle plan to combat Islamophobia. It would defend itself against all forms of free expression that could be interpreted as criticism of Islam, including that of cartoonists, film producers, reporters, politicians or governments. Countries that already regularly deny religious freedom and freedom of speech to their own citizens, demanded legal measures to have their oppressive rules be imposed internationally. “I don’t think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy” explained Abdoulaye Wade, Senegal’s President, and Chairman of the OIC. “There can be no freedom without limits.” To support his argument, some OIC delegates pointed to European laws that criminalize holocaust denial and anti-Semitic rhetoric, as well as to UN charters that condemn discrimination based on religion. As a result of this summit, the UNHRC passed the resolution.

Instead of fighting terrorism to make obvious that Islam and terrorism need not be affiliated, the OIC unveiled at its summit, the first report on Islamophobia. It consisted of 58 pages of real, perceived, and alleged claims of Islamophobia. Under “negative incidents,” it cited numerous occurrences of Muslims threatening or committing violence against non-Muslims in response to factual reports on Muslim behavior. Negative reports about Muslims, even if true, resulted in claims of Islamaphobia.

Some of the incidents reported as Islamophobic included: Wikipedia’s refusal to cave into Muslims’ demand to remove all depictions of the Prophet from its English language website; a report accurately stating Muslims were outraged by the opening of the first church in Qatar and insisting that Qatar is a Muslim country where others have no right to build a place of worship; the fact that Florida Attorney General (and former Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime in Congress) showed the movie “Obsession” to his staff; and the fact that the European Union requested Iran to drop the death penalty in its penal code for the crimes of apostasy, heresy, and witchcraft. Reports of threats made to Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, producer of the documentary “Fitna,” were also deemed Islamophobic.

Finally, the bulletin suggested that Islamophobia poses a threat to global peace and security. It proposed the use of legal instruments to prohibit Islamophobic speech, urged monitoring and compiling lists of Islamophobic incidents, and encouraged the persuading of others to believe that Islam is a moderate, peaceful and tolerant religion.

In June of 2008, the OIC reported on the 2007 opening of its Washington, DC office which works to engage OIC politically. Karen Hughes, then-undersecretary of public diplomacy at the State Department, spoke at the opening ceremony. She lauded OIC’s effort to pass the resolution on combating defamation of religions. She also advocated a program called “citizen dialogue” which she started in order to address Muslims’ sense of isolation. However, Muslims abroad indicated that they were not interested in meeting with U.S. government officials or non-Muslim Americans, so she sent Muslim-Americans as envoys to foreign countries for the so-called dialogue.

The OIC also boasted about the inroads it has made at the UN. It pledged to place Islamophobia at the forefront of its next summit in April 2009.

Additionally, a rule has been implemented at the UNHRC, requiring that all speaker presentations and discussions omit any “judgment or evaluation about religion.” The word “sharia” does not have to be expressly stated to violate this rule. All discussions must avoid making any mention of controversial fatwas (religious rulings) or human rights abuses that are implemented as part of Sharia or in Islamic countries. This includes, for example, protests against the forced marriages of young girls.

The OIC construes the word Islamophobia very broadly, using it to include news reports, observations, and accurate accounts of violence or intolerance on the part of Muslims or Islamic theocracies. In effect, the OIC is requesting a legal exemption from free speech rights of any criticism of the effects of an extremist interpretation of Islam. Any individual, group, or government acting in the name of Islam would be entirely off limits for open debate or discussion.

The obvious result of OIC’s push to internationally outlaw defamation of Islam, would be not only to stifle free speech and freedom of religion, but to devastate efforts to fight human rights abuses and to counter terrorism. Fighting for human rights in Islamic countries might be deemed Islamophobic even if it pertains to the human rights of Muslims.

Therefore, OIC’s comment that Islamophobia jeopardizes global peace and security was not an expression of fear of Islamophobia. Rather, it was a warning that anyone who claims Islam is not a religion of peace might have violence perpetrated against him. Its simultaneous propaganda campaign to convince people that Islam is a “moderate, peaceful, and tolerant religion” demonstrates that its words and actions are at odds with each other.

It’s ironic that countries which follow an interpretation of Islam that disallows religious freedom or freedom of speech at home, are utilizing these very freedoms abroad to achieve their Islamist goals. By turning the definition of freedom on its head, free speech and religious freedom for non-Muslims can now be condemned as anti-Islamic.

Claiming victimhood can score big political points in a free and compassionate society. If the OIC can convince people that those who stone women, behead apostates, sexually abuse minors, fly planes into buildings, and blow up subway systems are really the victims of evil, rather than the perpetrators, then the OIC’s proposed restrictions on free speech will accomplish more damage throughout the west than 9/11 ever could.

It is important to understand that only individuals should be afforded rights. Ideas, thoughts and religions should not be protected from criticism. There is no such thing as defamation of religion. To the degree that it is concocted, the rights of ideas and religions will stand in direct opposition to the rights and freedoms of humans. The right of free speech is, in part, designed to offend others. The Founding Fathers of the United States Constitution erected the First Amendment for the purpose of fostering cantankerous political speech. They believed that the way to counter offensive speech and bad ideas is to engage in more speech, espousing good ideas. In this case, however, it is the OIC that clearly has the bad ideas, and not the alleged defamers. Perhaps the reason the OIC seeks to prohibit free speech rather than to rebut it, is because it too knows that free speech works.
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Deborah Weiss is an attorney and regular contributor to FrontpageMag.com

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