In mid February, there was an event in California to raise money for Relief USA, a charitable division of the Islamic Circle of North America that provides money for disaster relief, domestic abuse shelters and other causes. However, there was some problem with two of the keynote speakers, who might or might not have ties to terrorist organizations.
According to the Orange County Register:
Bay Area Islamic activist Amir Abdel Malik Ali spoke last year as part of “Israeli Apartheid Week” presented by the Muslim Student Union at UCI, meant to focus on Palestine.
At that event, Malik Ali stated he supports Hamas and Hezbollah.
[...]
In 1991, [Imam Siraj] Wahhaj became the first Muslim to give an invocation at Congress.A U.S. attorney named Wahhaj as a co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. He was one of 170 people who prosecutors said could have been involved in the plot but were never charged. Wahhaj – an imam at a Brooklyn mosque – has denied any involvement.
Some local residents accused the men of being radicals, and a protest of the fundraiser was planned. The protest has now gotten far more attention that the original fundraiser, because of the incredible anger on display.
Reports are that the protest, now associated with the Tea Party, lost the plot early and simply began shouting at everyone who came to give money. Gleen Greenwald sums it up:
I think what was most striking about that video is that the presence of small children didn’t give these anti-Muslim protesters even momentary pause; they just continued screeching their ugly invective while staring at 4-year-olds walking with their parents.
At 4:19: “One nation under God, not Allah.” Does that imply that the speaker (shouting protester lady) thinks it means the Christian god? Does that mean that she also thinks that the pledge of allegiance is unconstitutional?
[Not being American, I'm not familiar with the apologetic wriggles to get out of that.]
That’s easy. Freedom of religion only applies to Christians. Because if people have the right to be of a different religion, that is exactly the same as feeding Christians to the lions.
Letting homosexuals marry in California is the same as feeding Christians to mountain lions, clearly.
I was gonna get all technical, but honestly wintermute has the right of it.
I’ve never been more proud to be ‘Murican.
The ‘moderate’ Christian majority is just a nanometer away from the Phelps clan.
This is not the moderate Christian majority you are looking at. It’s the extreme Christian right.
Do not get the two confused.
I have to disagree with you on this Micheal. Where is the out cry from the moderate christians about how wrong this is? Where are these moderate christians that are counter protesting these extremist? They are few and far between and the silence from the moderates is almost the same as actually support of the extremist position. You seldom see an atheist with an extreme view go around not being called on it by the less extreme atheist. That is one the differences between a reality based view and a faith based view. We aren’t afraid to speak up against wrong within our own.
Nice. Hey let’s see if we can get the Tea Party to completely lose it’s head at Salman Rushdie. That way we can really laugh. He doesn’t care. If death threats from the Ayatollah himself don’t scare him, then nothing the tea party can throw up can faze the man.
that quote about them not being British amused me. Of course they’re not British – *we* wouldn’t want them if they begged us and bribed us to take them in. Most Brits think people like that are idiots.
Go back home? You first, you European-descended white folk. Heck, I even saw a Hispanic guy there, does he think his Tea Party buddies would stop at the brown people? And does waving an American flag at a bunch of Americans (and a few people from other places who came to the US voluntarily) really intimidate them? Is this some sort of ritual magic, that if you wave the red white and blue at Muslims it repels them?
And a member of the council openly threatened the lives of these people, saying her children and marines she knew would be happy to murder them. Surely that alone is grounds for arrest? The fact that politicians would turn up and speak at this thing is disgusting – how can such an extreme, hate-filled orgy be considered something they’d touch with a ten foot pole? And how can these people be so entirely unaware of themselves and their actions that they stand there screaming into blowhorns and stamping their feet and waving their flags, threatening death on the Muslims next door for political purposes… and accuse the Muslims of terrorism?
I have to wonder how many of those pointing out Muhammad was a child molester are Catholics or Anglicans who still go to church and donate to their churches…
Inciting racial hatred. Just… Disgusting. I don’t have the words.
I watched it with a friend of mine and we both had to pause the video a couple of times, it was just so hard to stomach all that hate at once.
The whole Mohammed being a child molestor thing… It was common for the period for people to marry stuff at ludicrous ages back then.
There is a good chance that the virgin mary was around 12 to 14… Remember back then people got married at that age almost universally. If you got to 20 without being married off then it was quite likely you ended up not married. Their prophet may be a paedo but your god did the dirty with a 13 year old too.
Now Mr. Mohammed would probably know better.
The wife they are referring to was 9, which even back then was at best pushing it. Still, you are correct that had the virgin Mary existed, she would have been very young herself.
He may have been a child molester (though there is as much evidence for him waiting until she was of age before consummating the marriage as for the opposite), but he certainly wasn’t a paedophile; of his 20 wives, more than half were widows or divorcees over the age of 40, and only one was below the age of 20; that one being a political marriage to cement an alliance between two tribes. It’s absolutely ridiculous to point to this one pairing (which wasn’t influenced by his tastes) and claim that he was sexually attracted to children.
And all these people pointing out that Muhammad was a child molester seem to ignore that their precious Jeebus never got married. Why, it’s as though he had something against heterosexual marriage or something and preferred the company of other men…
Now now. He did supposedly hang out around a hooker. Which would make Sylvio Berlusconi 12 times the man Jesus was then.
Interesting footage of Congressman Ed Royce using a U.S. flag as a table to lean on and prop up his speech on.
The best part from the Greenwald quote above which you didn’t include: “People like that are so overflowing with hatred and resentments that the place where their humanity — their soul — is supposed to be has been drowned.”
I would agree; the people in this video have lost many basic identifiers of ‘decent’ humanity, they are empathically broken, hate-filled, fear-mongering, orientalists, and religious terrorists.
Although I am not one to verbally abuse anyone, however I feel the passion of the tea party protestors is spot on considering the group of terrorist supporting individuals attending the program. If you were not a follower, you would not have attended…period! It’s not racist…not at all. If you think it is then you suffer from “useful idiot syndrome.” Ignorance in knowing who are not friends of the U.S. If you are not aware, Ali supports Hamas and Hezbollah – Islamic terrorist groups. Hamas, founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, received startup funding by Sadam Huussein. He supports suicide bombings and resistance attacks. He is a Malcolm X follower and part of the Al Masjid movement focused on creating an Islamic revolution in the US. He wants to see Islamic Law instituted in the US. He denounces “the white man” who is the enemy. He relishes in the “victory of martyrdom,” and suggests this to students “until we are victorius” in killing the Jew. He hates Jews and calls them the new Nazis. He would do worse to the protestors than they were doing to him. Shame on all of you for sympathizing this evil man and his direction. His supporters/attendees at the fundraiser are dangerous people.
Hamas and Hezbollah also happen to be democratically elected political parties in their respective territories. Funny how you don’t mention that. Is democracy only okay if people who like America get elected? Would you perhaps like a long and involved discussion about all of the shit that your country (and mine) have done to thoroughly deserve hatred from the Middle East? Because I can do that if you’d like.
The “passion” of the Tea Baggers who are YELLING RACIST INVECTIVE AND HATRED AT FOUR YEAR OLDS is most certainly NOT spot on, it is disgusting and inhuman. A bunch of people went to raise money for homeless charities, and you decided they were terrorists because of their skin colour.
I for one am waiting patiently for a Rosa Parks moment to slap ignorant biggots like you upside the head. Get back under your bigotty bridge, bigotty troll.
My prayers go out to you. Sorry that hatred and violent rhetoric overcome you. I did not ask Ali, a known terriorist supporter, to speak at the fundraiser benefitting homeless charities. Who would do that? Also, I did not say anything about skin color…you did! Stop accusing racism and wake up!
I am awake, Margaret. I’m also significantly smarter than you. I can say that because I actually question phrases like “known terrorist supporter” (questions like: “known” by who? What’s the evidence? Why has he not been arrested and charged if it’s true?), and you don’t. You are racist, because you see this man who you claim to just “know” is a terrorist supporter, and you instantly believe it. Why? Would you knee-jerk believe it of a white Christian? I doubt it.
Moving on from his politics a minute: So what if he supports Hamas? He’s supporting a democratically elected political entity. And? Does that somehow make his fundraising for homeless in America a bad thing? Do you know what proportion of American homeless are veterans, by the way? It’s high.
I also know that you’re an idiot because you post things like this:
Do you realise that not one, single thing in that sentance is true? I mean seriously, you’ve strung together your right-wing fucktard Boogie Men of the day and just randomly connected them! Moving on:
Coming from a woman who is trying to justify racial hatred aimed at four year olds, that is as laughable as it is hypocritical.
Aaaah, the fundie phrase for “Fuck you!”, used when you can’t win an argument (because you’re wrong) but don’t want to admit it or concede. You are not the first fundie who has come here trying to justify a prejudice.
There is no indication that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with Hamas. If, on the off chance, he DID supply “start-up” funding, it would have been in 1987, when Hamas was founded. In 1987, the US was busily selling arms to Hussein (this was only 3 years after Rummy went to Iraq especially to shake hands with the man). A year later he used gas attacks to commit genocide against the Kurdish minority. It wasn’t until 1990 that Saddam over-stepped by invading (oil-rich) Kuwait.
I hope you’ll support anyone who protests at Rummy’s book-signings, as it’s clear he too supports Hamas (at one remove).
Do you realise that not one, single thing in that sentance is true?
Well, to be fair, Hamas was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, so she got that right.
Of course, at the time, the most radical thing the Muslim Brotherhood was doing was building mosques, libraries and community centres in occupied Palestine, so I’m not sure that was a count against them. They were registered as a charity in Israel, and the government doesn’t seem to have had a problem with them.
Margaret, everything you say might be true, but it would be helpful if you were to provide some links. I tried googling Ali´s name and all that came up were a bunch of right wing websites that were long on allegation and short on evidence. Perhaps you can do better?
What is a “Malcolm X follower,” Margaret? Please enlighten us as to what’s so horrible about Malcolm X.
I’m assuming she’s alluding to the fact that unlike MLK, MX was ok with using violence.
Aren’t these the same people who call atheists strident?
And they aren’t atheists, therefore it’s alright. Praise geebus, doncha know?
I can’t even adequately sum up my thoughts on this. Protests like this make me ashamed to be an American.
Vaia, they should make you proud to be american. If these complete berks (I am running out of PG friendly swear words here) are allowed to talk then truly you have freedom of speech.
We are sad that they count as human. It means our average idiocy levels are a lot higher than expected.