Islamist Watch (IW) maintains an extensive archive of news items on nonviolent Islamism in the Western world. The complete collection can be found here; lists organized by topic are accessible on the right side of the IW homepage.
The following are some of the recent developments covered in the IW database:
Federal judge backs NYPD’s counterterrorism tactics
Outraging Islamists, U.S. District Judge William Martini dismissed a lawsuit accusing the New York Police Department of violating Muslims’ civil rights by covertly investigating mosques, businesses, and student groups in New Jersey to identify possible terrorists. The plaintiffs, he explains, “have not alleged facts from which it can be plausibly inferred that they were targeted solely because of their religion. The more likely explanation for the surveillance was a desire to locate budding terrorist conspiracies” after 9/11. “The police could not have monitored New Jersey for Muslim terrorist activities without monitoring the Muslim community itself.” To the extent that Muslims experienced “adverse effects,” the secret program’s disclosure by the Associated Press is to blame. “Nowhere … do plaintiffs allege that they suffered harm prior” to that, he notes. An appeal was filed; a separate suit is pending in a Brooklyn court.
The ruling is the latest vindication of the NYPD and a win for common sense. Why does counterterrorism work gravitate to the Muslim community? Because that is where terrorists tend to be found. Other police departments would be wise to ignore the Islamists’ complaints, some of which compared the NYPD’s efforts to Japanese-American internment, and instead emulate the NYPD. With the anniversary of the Boston attacks near, they should heed an Investor’s Business Daily editorial: “If Boston authorities had been as proactive as their counterparts in New York, they might have caught the radicalization of the Tsarnaev brothers at their Cambridge mosque.”
Left: Judge William Martini, a reasonable man in unreasonable times. Right: CAIR’s Nihad Awad spoke at the launch of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations on March 12. |
Same old American Islamists roll out same old umbrella group
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and other Islamists joined forces to create the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations. Its sugary objective is to promote “all that is good” and “fortify attitudes that propagate harmony between people.” The real goal is to boost Islamists’ political clout, a process that will start with a Muslim “census” certain to yield another inflated population estimate. “This is the dream of every American Muslim, to unify the approach, agenda, and vision of the Muslim community,” said CAIR executive director Nihad Awad. Anti-Islamist Muslim Zuhdi Jasser begs to differ.
Islamist umbrella groups come and go. A similar gang spawned the American Muslim Political Coordination Committee in the late 1990s and tried to take credit for electing George W. Bush. That gave way to the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, which now exhibits few signs of life. Just as a fast-food joint concocts “new” items out of the same tired ingredients, Islamists form “new” coalitions to make their stale ideology seem fresh and advance their political aims: to convince politicians that Muslims comprise a more important voting bloc than they actually do and that Islamists can deliver their support if concessions are granted.
New Jersey emergency training becomes an exercise in pandering
A Bergen Record article provides a microcosm of how the understandable desire to reach out to Muslims often ends in the accommodation and empowerment of Islamists. Officials applauded young members of three North Jersey mosques who completed a Community Emergency Response Team program, learning first aid, CPR, “terrorism awareness,” and other skills so they can assist in the event of a disaster. “We want to build bridges,” said Nidal Matahen, president of the participating Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC). But those bridges led straight to the legitimization of his radical mosque.
“The county worked with mosque leaders to address cultural considerations during training,” the Record continues. There were prayer breaks, special food, and gender-segregated CPR mats. “The students were also educating the teachers. For example, a discussion on terrorism had some ‘discrepancies’ … which resulted in changes” downplaying Islamist terror. Yet the ICPC itself has terror links. According to one profile, it “was founded by Mohammad El-Mezain, who was convicted in 2008 for fundraising for Hamas through the Holy Land Foundation. It is led today by Imam Mohammad Qatanani, whose deportation is sought by the Department of Homeland Security” due to his own Hamas ties. The mosque also raised money for the Syrian jihad. Now that is terrorism awareness!
Left: Former ICPC executive director Mohamed El Filali recently was appointed executive director of CAIR-New Jersey. Right: As if we needed it, there is yet another reason to dislike the IRS. |
Convicted terrorist abettor employed by Internal Revenue Service
An ex-policeman who pleaded guilty to misusing his access to the National Crime Information Center database to tip off the subject of a terror probe that he was under surveillance has resurfaced at the IRS, Patrick Poole reports. Weiss Russell — known as Weiss Rasool when he aided an associate of an al-Qaeda leader and conducted unauthorized checks of his own name and those of friends and family — is now a senior IRS financial management analyst. “There’s no way anyone with his conviction for abusing access to a government database and damaging a terror investigation could have been vetted and approved without outside intervention,” an anonymous IRS official told Poole.
The revelation follows news that Rasmieh Yousef Odeh, a woman convicted in Israel for bombings that killed two in 1969, had been working as an Obamacare navigator in Illinois. Her certification was revoked last fall after she was charged with immigration fraud. Who can be surprised by all this? When self-imposed blindness is the norm, terrorists and their enablers may set up shop just about anywhere. What’s next? Ayman al-Zawahiri at the TSA?
* * *
For additional news and analysis, please visit the IW website.
