The Saudi / Harvard Influence On Public School Text Books

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Black and White All Over

If Marx didn’t create identity politics, he certainly memorialized it. And if you wanted a perfect display of identity politics, whereby any reasoned criticism must be an attack on the identity of the object of criticism, Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson provides it. See if you can find the racism directed against Obama that Professor Patterson finds in Hillary Clinton’s "3 a.m." ad.




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Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson goes off the deep end, making an argument in the op-ed page of the NYT that seemingly would place any reasoned criticism of Obama within the rubric of racism. It is a sophomoric argument and its basis, even he admits, is not obvious:

On first watching Hillary Clinton’s recent "It’s 3 a.m." advertisement, I was left with an uneasy feeling that something was not quite right — something that went beyond my disappointment that she had decided to go negative. Repeated watching of the ad on YouTube increased my unease. I realized that I had only too often in my study of America’s racial history seen images much like these, and the sentiments to which they allude.

. . . To be sure, [the ad] states that something is "happening in the world" — although it never says what this is — and that Mrs. Clinton is better able to handle such danger because of her experience with foreign leaders. But every ad-maker, like every social linguist, knows that words are often the least important aspect of a message and are easily muted by powerful images.

I have spent my life studying the pictures and symbols of racism and slavery, and when I saw the Clinton ad’s central image — innocent sleeping children and a mother in the middle of the night at risk of mortal danger — it brought to my mind scenes from the past. I couldn’t help but think of D. W. Griffith’s "Birth of a Nation," the racist movie epic that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan, with its portrayal of black men lurking in the bushes around white society. The danger implicit in the phone ad — as I see it — is that the person answering the phone might be a black man, someone who could not be trusted to protect us from this threat.

Professor Patterson is a man whose vision of the world is so distorted that all he sees he interprets through the prism of black and white – or in the word’s of Marx, the "oppressed and the oppressor." That still does not explain how he can see anything affirmatively racist in this advertisement. Professor Patterson explains for the benefit of liberals still unsure why they should feel guilt at this ad:

The ad could easily have removed its racist sub-message by including images of a black child, mother or father — or by stating that the danger was external terrorism. Instead, the child on whom the camera first focuses is blond. Two other sleeping children, presumably in another bed, are not blond, but they are dimly lighted, leaving them ambiguous. Still it is obvious that they are not black — both, in fact, seem vaguely Latino.

Is this man warped or what? To follow this logic, any communication from a white individual that does not contain some affirmative statement of non-racism is to be considered racist. It is the stain of original sin with the person so stained being guilty unless proven innocent - on a case by case basis.

Finally, Hillary Clinton appears, wearing a business suit at 3 a.m., answering the phone. The message: our loved ones are in grave danger and only Mrs. Clinton can save them. An Obama presidency would be dangerous — and not just because of his lack of experience. In my reading, the ad, in the insidious language of symbolism, says that Mr. Obama is himself the danger, the outsider within.

How is Hillary Clinton answering the phone at 3 a.m. in a business suit the "insidious language of symbolism?" Perhaps this is symbolism only an intensely delusional Harvard Professor can see? It is lost on me, however. I am far more likely to interpret it as Hillary still awake waiting for Bill to return home from a night out with his new best friend, Eliot.

For more than a century, American politicians have played on racial fears to divide the electorate and mobilize xenophobic parties. Blacks have been the "domestic enemy," the eternal outsider within, who could always inspire unity among "we whites." Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy was built on this premise, using coded language — "law and order," "silent majority" — to destroy the alliance between blacks and white labor that had been the foundation of the Democratic Party, and to bring about the Republican ascendancy of the past several decades. The Willie Horton ad that George H. W. Bush used against Michael Dukakis in 1988 was a crude manifestation of this strategy — as was the racist attack used against John McCain’s daughter, who was adopted from Bangladesh, in the South Carolina Republican primary in 2000.

This is clearly more of the same delusion, but let me ask in particular about the Willie Horton ad. Willie Horton was a dangerous criminal pardoned by Dukakis who then committed rape and murder, if I recall correctly. Is the incredible poor judgment displayed by Dukakis in that decision somehow off limits because of the color of Horton’s skin? Would that same ad been acceptable to Professor Patterson if Horton was white or asian?

It is significant that the Clinton campaign used its telephone ad in Texas, where a Fox poll conducted Feb. 26 to 28 showed that whites favored Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton 47 percent to 44 percent, and not in Ohio, where she held a comfortable 16-point lead among whites. Exit polls on March 4 showed the ad’s effect in Texas: a 12-point swing to 56 percent of white votes toward Mrs. Clinton. It is striking, too, that during the same weekend the ad was broadcast, Mrs. Clinton refused to state unambiguously that Mr. Obama is a Christian and has never been a Muslim.

Obviously the fact that Mr. Obama has no foreign policy experience, no military experience, and has threatened to neuter both is not a reasonable cause for concern raised by the 3 a.m. ad. Somehow, the ad effectively convinced a large swath of people not to vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. And as I recall, Hillary said that to the best of her knowledge, Obama was not a Muslim. That is precisely the truth and to go beyond that would have been false. Clinton cannot possibly know more than what Mr. Obama has said. But according to the Professor, simply saying the accurate truth is racist.

It is in the areas of foreign policy and the military that Obama is weakest. This is an attempt by Professor Patterson to preempt such criticism by falsely asserting that such criticism is racist. It is the penultimate identity politics argument, whereby any substantive criticism is seen as an attack on the person's identity.

I wrote several weeks ago:

If Obama supporters are allowed to make this next election an unspoken referendum on race and liberal guilt, than this is going to be a bloody Presidential election season indeed. It will be a tremendous disservice to an America where racisim is very much on the wane and equality, imperfect though it may be, is the rule, not the exception.

Obama can’t be allowed to have it both ways. If he is going to run on the platform that the color of his skin is a justification for his election to the Presidency, than he needs to say that publicly and be judged accordingly. And if he is not seeking the Presidency on his genetic heritage, than he needs to publicly denounce efforts to portray criticism of him as racist. He needs to be pressed about this in the MSM, and he needs to be pressed about it now. This is very much a substantive issue.

What I wrote in that post applies directly to what Professor Patterson is doing with his argument above.

On a final note, if this is typical of the intellectual level amongst Harvard professors, than our nation is in a lot of trouble. Professor Patterson obviously sees everything through the lens of racism. He has no business whatsoever passing on his prejudices to our nation’s best and brightest. Or if they truly are our best and brightest, than I hope they realize just how sophomoric and poisonous Mr. Orlando Patterson truly is.

Update: The WSJ arives at the same conclusions as have I:

Already, prominent Obama sympathizers, such as Harvard's Orlando Patterson, are detecting racial overtones where none exist. In a New York Times op-ed this week, Mr. Patterson said a Clinton political ad designed to question Mr. Obama's readiness as Commander in Chief contained a "racist sub-message" because none of the people depicted in the TV spot are black. Counting people of color in an ad about national security is hardly consistent with the Obama theme that "race doesn't matter."

We suppose some of the current back and forth is due to the diversity preoccupations of Democrats. But it bodes ill for an honest fall campaign if Mr. Obama and his allies are going to play the race card to blunt any criticism. A campaign in which John McCain couldn't question Mr. Obama's policies, experience and mettle without being called a racist is not what the country needs. Or wants.

Democrats have repeatedly touted the diversity of their party's White House hopefuls. And it is true that a Clinton or Obama Presidency would make gender or racial history. Americans of all backgrounds can take satisfaction in watching the country field its first black Presidential candidate with a chance to win. But voters also want their would-be Presidents properly vetted, by the media and by each other. To that end Mr. Obama would do better to focus more on answering his political critics with specifics and less on questioning their motives by crying wolf on race.

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Fjordman's Essay on the Muslim Brotherhood

The Muslim Brotherhood is a radical organization that differs from al Qaeda - one of its offshoots - only in method, not goals or ideology. Fjordman writes extensively on the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood, the dire threat it poses, and documents how it has substantially taken over as the spokesman for Islam in partnership with Europe's incredibly naive left.

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The Muslim Brotherhood is an organization that has combined with Wahhabi / Salafi teachings and Saudi petrodollars to become the vanguard of radical Islam in the West. The Brotherhood's presence in the West is extensive, with two of of its offshoots being the highly influential Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and the Muslim American Society (MAS). Just recently in the US, a person with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hesham Islam, was exposed and has been forced to resign from his very sensitive position as an advisor in the Pentagon. This from Fjordman:

. . . Robert Spencer has dealt with the Muslim Brotherhood in a number of books, for instance in Onward Muslim Soldiers. I would also strongly recommend the recent book "Global Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam," by former Muslim Patrick Sookhdeo. Sookhdeo does excellent research, particularly regarding the systematic Islamization of Britain, but the same blueprints are used in other countries, too.

The Muslim Brotherhood, today widely regarded as the largest Islamic movement in the world, was founded by Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Its member groups are dedicated to the motto: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

Research analyst Lorenzo Vidino writes about The Muslim Brotherhood's Conquest of Europe: "Since the early 1960s, Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers have moved to Europe and slowly but steadily established a wide and well-organized network of mosques, charities, and Islamic organizations." Their ultimate goal . . . [is to] extend Islamic law throughout Europe and the United States. With moderate rhetoric and well-spoken German, Dutch, and French, they have gained acceptance among European governments and media alike. Politicians across the political spectrum rush to engage them whenever an issue involving Muslims arises or, more parochially, when they seek the vote of the burgeoning Muslim community. But, speaking Arabic or Turkish before their fellows Muslims, they drop their facade and embrace radicalism."

Moreover, "While the Muslim Brotherhood and their Saudi financiers have worked to cement Islamist influence over Germany's Muslim community, they have not limited their infiltration to Germany. Thanks to generous foreign funding, meticulous organization, and the naïveté of European elites, Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations have gained prominent positions throughout Europe. In France, the extremist Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (Union of Islamic Organizations of France) has become the predominant organization in the government's Islamic Council. In Italy, the extremist Unione delle Comunita' ed Organizzazioni Islamiche in Italia (Union of the Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy) is the government's prime partner in dialogue regarding Italian Islamic issues."

The irony, according to Vidino, is that "Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna dreamed of spreading Islamism throughout Egypt and the Muslim world. He would never have dreamed that his vision might also become a reality in Europe."

Al-Banna may not have believed that to be possible in the short run, but he did dream of conquering areas formerly under Islamic rule. German historian Egon Flaig quotes Banna as saying: "We want the flag of Islam to fly over those lands again who were lucky enough to be ruled by Islam for a time, and hear the call of the muezzin praise God. Then the light of Islam died out and they returned to disbelief. Andalusia, Sicily, the Balkans, Southern Italy and the Greek islands are all Islamic colonies which have to return to Islam's embrace. The Mediterranean and the Red Sea have to become internal seas of Islam, as they used to be."

One of the Brotherhood's first pioneers in Europe was Sa'id Ramadan. According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Sa'id Ramadan, who was al-Banna's son-in-law, joined the Muslim Brotherhood in his youth. At the age of 20, Hassan al-Banna chose Sa'id to be his personal secretary and sent him to Palestine to establish a branch of the movement there. After World War II, when Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini returned to Palestine, Sa'id Ramadan helped him to form military groups for the struggle against the Jews. Al-Husseini was an active accomplice in the Holocaust and visited leading Nazis repeatedly. Terrorist organization Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the MB today.

After Hassan al-Banna's assassination in 1949, Sa'id Ramadan returned to Egypt and became a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1954 he went to Jerusalem with another leading Brotherhood member, Sayyid Qutb, in order to participate in the World Islamic Conference, and was elected conference secretary-general.

In the late 1950s, Sa'id Ramadan managed to persuade Saudi Prince Faisal to help him establish Islamic centers in Europe's main capitals. In 1958, he settled in Geneva and there founded the Islamic Center, which became the headquarters of Muslim Brotherhood members expelled from Egypt. In 1964, he opened Islamic centers in London and Munich, and became the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood abroad.

The oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia has for years granted an influx of money to the powerful Islamic Center of Geneva, Switzerland, now run by Sa'id's son Hani Ramadan. He was made infamous by a 2002 article in the French daily Le Monde defending the stoning of adulterers to death. His brother Tariq Ramadan, a career "moderate Muslim," later called for a "moratorium" on stoning. In 2008 it was announced that Hani Ramadan would receive SFr255,000, the equivalent of two years' salary, in damages from the canton of Geneva. He was sacked in 2004 after defending the stoning of persons guilty of adultery. An appeal commission of the education department sided with Ramadan, annulling the termination. The government also agreed to pay Ramadan's legal fees.

It was the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a follower of Hassan al-Banna in his youth, who directed the prayer at Sa'id Ramadan's funeral in 1995, as Tariq Ramadan proudly reports. Sa'id Ramadan had close contacts with Brotherhood member Sayyid Qutb, whose writings have inspired countless Jihadists around the world, for instance terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. According to writer Paul Berman, Ramadan "not only knew Qutb; he was, at the crucial moment, Qutb's most important supporter in the world of the Egyptian intellectuals. Said Ramadan was the editor who got Qutb started on what became his most important work."

According to Dr. Ahmad Al-Rab'i, former Kuwaiti minister of education, "The beginnings of all of the religious terrorism that we are witnessing today were in the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology of takfir [accusing other Muslims of apostasy]. Sayyid Qutb's book Milestones was the inspiration and the guide for all of the takfir movements that came afterwards. The founders of the violent groups were raised on the Muslim Brotherhood, and those who worked with Bin Laden and Al-Qa'ida went out under the mantle of the Muslim Brotherhood."

Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, says decadent Europe will give way to an Islamized Europe. In the 21st century, "The West will begin its new decline, and the Arab-Islamic world its renewal" and ascent to seven centuries of world domination after seven centuries of decline. "Only Islam can achieve the synthesis between Christianity and humanism, and fill the spiritual void that afflicts the West." All good people are implicitly Muslims "because true humanism is founded in Koranic revelations." In a clash with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch-Somali critic of Islam, Ramadan said it was wrong to say that Europe had a Judeo-Christian past. "Islam is a European religion. The Muslims came here after the first and second world wars to rebuild Europe, not to colonise."

Danish theologian Kirsten Sarauw writes in her article A Declaration of War Against the People of Europe that in 2007 in Vienna, Austria, a conference was held about so-called Euro-Islam. Prominent Muslim delegates formulated a strategic vision of a Europe dominated by Islam. Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia, envisioned an "upcoming Islamic era." The conference was in agreement about the first and foremost goal, namely the introduction of religious Islamic jurisprudence (sharia) in Europe, "in the beginning at least as a parallel system alongside national laws in European states." As to the real meaning of sharia, they all agreed to avoid publicity as far as possible. According to Sarauw, Tariq Ramadan proclaimed that the real intentions of this work must be concealed from the general public.

In 2007 it was announced that Tariq Ramadan was to hold the Sultan of Oman chair of Islamology at the University of Leiden. Leiden is the oldest university in the Netherlands, founded in the sixteenth century by Prince William of Orange, the leader of the Dutch struggle for independence. Dutch Education and Culture Minister Ronald Plasterk said that he did not object to Ramadan's appointment. Meanwhile, the Amsterdam city council, dominated by the Dutch Labour Party which receives many Muslim votes, developed teaching material warning school children against the opinions of Dutch Islam critic Geert Wilders.

The European Council for Fatwa and Research, headed by Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, is working on a Muslim Constitution for Europe that will be above national legislation. According to Tina Magaard from the University of Aarhus, behind these ambitions "lies decades of work." Islamic groups have for years aimed at establishing their control over the Muslim communities, and in some cases have won official recognition from government bodies. According to Magaard, "The Imams and Islamists consider the cooperation with the state institutions a transfer of power. Now it is they who rule."

Former Muslim Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, author of the excellent book "Global Jihad – The future in the face of Militant Islam," warns that the Islamization going on in European cities is not happening by chance. It "is the result of a careful and deliberate strategy by certain Muslim leaders which was planned in 1980 when the Islamic Council of Europe published a book called Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States." The instructions told Muslims to get together into viable communities, set up mosques, community centres and Islamic schools. To resist assimilation, they must group themselves geographically in areas of high Muslim concentration. According to Sookhdeo, the ultimate goal is Islamic rule in Europe.

Patrick Poole describes how discussion of a document called "The Project" so far has been limited to the top-secret world of Western intelligence communities. Only through the work of an intrepid Swiss journalist, Sylvain Besson, has information regarding The Project finally been made public. It was found in a raid of a luxurious villa in Campione, Switzerland on November 7, 2001. The target of the raid was Youssef Nada, who has had active association with the Muslim Brotherhood for more than 50 years.

Included in the documents seized was a 14-page plan written in Arabic and dated December 1, 1982, which outlined a 12-point strategy to "establish an Islamic government on earth" – identified as The Project. According to testimony given to Swiss authorities by Nada, the unsigned document was prepared by "Islamic researchers." It represents a flexible, multi-phased, long-term approach to the "cultural invasion" of the West.

Some of its recommendations include:

• Using deception to mask the intended goals of Islamic actions

• Building extensive social networks of schools, hospitals and charitable organizations

• Involving ideologically committed Muslims in institutions on all levels in the West, including government, NGOs, private organizations

• Instrumentally using existing Western institutions until they can be put into service of Islam

• Instituting alliances with Western "progressive" organizations that share similar goals.

As Patrick Poole says, "What is startling is how effectively the Islamist plan for conquest outlined in The Project has been implemented by Muslims in the West for more than two decades."

Included in this work was the powerful Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Sylvain Besson and Scott Burgess note the striking similarities between Qaradawi's publication, Priorities of the Islamic Movement in the Coming Phase and The Project. Qaradawi is backed by Saudi money and founded the major English language website IslamOnline, which has several hundred full-time employees and serves as an international outlet for his teachings. He is also leader of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, which spreads its rulings on sharia-related matters to mosques across Europe. He is based in Qatar, home to the influential Arabic satellite TV channel Al Jazeera, where he runs the popular program "Sharia and Life." The intellectual Dr. Khaled Shawkat warns that Al Jazeera "has been hijacked" by the MB "to the extent that three or four Muslim Brotherhood members sometimes appear on a single news program."

Yusuf al-Qaradawi was an important figure during the Muhammad cartoons riots in 2006 and was indirectly responsible for attacks against the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria. According to Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, "Clearly, the riots in Denmark and throughout the world were not spontaneous, but planned and organized well in advance by Islamist organizations that support the MB, and with funding mostly from Saudi Arabia." The purpose was to impose sharia-style restrictions on free speech on Western nations.

Ehrenfeld and Lappen state that the Muslim Brotherhood and its offspring organizations employ the Flexibility strategy: "This strategy calls for a minority group of Muslims to use all 'legal' means to infiltrate majority-dominated, non-Muslim secular and religious institutions, starting with its universities. As a result, 'Islamized' Muslim and non-Muslim university graduates enter the nation's workforce, including its government and civil service sectors, where they are poised to subvert law enforcement agencies, intelligence communities, military branches, foreign services, and financial institutions."

Douglas Farah writes about the largely successful efforts by Islamic groups in the West to buy large amounts of real estate. Some groups are signing agreements to guarantee that they will only sell the land to other Muslims. The Brotherhood, particularly, is active in investments in properties and businesses across Europe, laying the groundwork for the future network that will be able to react rapidly and with great flexibility in case of another attempted crackdown on the group's financial structure. Most of the money comes from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

According to Farah, the governments of Europe and the United States continue to allow these groups to flourish and seek for the "moderate" elements that can be embraced as a counter-balance to the "radical" elements: "We do not have a plan. They do. History shows that those that plan, anticipate and have a coherent strategy usually win. We are not winning."

According to journalist Helle Merete Brix, Muhammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, aided by Saudi Arabia, gives large amounts of petrodollar to various organizations at the forefront of the Islamization of Europe, such as the European Council for Fatwa and Research headed by Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Qaradawi has publicly boasted that "Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror" and that Muslims will conquer Europe and the United States.

Former CIA director R. James Woolsey estimates that the Saudis have spent nearly $90 billion since the mid-1970s to export their ideology into Muslim and non-Muslim countries alike. That may well be a conservative estimate. Since the spike in oil prices following the embargo/financial Jihad in 1973, Arab and Muslim states have received trillions of dollars from the sale of oil and gas, probably the greatest transfer of wealth in human history. A significant portion of this money has been used to buy an army of hirelings and apologists in non-Muslim countries, as well as on financing the global Jihad.

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, a member of the Saudi Royal Family, is an international investor ranked among the ten richest persons in the world. In 2005, Bin Talal bought 5.46% of voting shares in News Corp, the parent of Fox News. In December 2005 he boasted about his ability to change what viewers see. Covering the Jihad riots in France that fall, Fox ran a banner saying: "Muslim riots." According to Talal, "I picked up the phone and called Murdoch... (and told him) these are not Muslim riots, these are riots out of poverty. Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from Muslim riots to civil riots."

Harvard University and Georgetown University have received $20 million donations from Prince bin Talal to finance Islamic studies. Martin Kramer, the author of "Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America," said: "Prince Alwaleed knows that if you want to have an impact, places like Harvard or Georgetown, which is inside the Beltway, will make a difference."

Georgetown said it would use the gift to expand its Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. The leaders of the Center, renamed to Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, say it now will be used to put on workshops regarding Islam, addressing U.S. policy towards the Muslim world, addressing Muslim citizenship and civil liberties, and developing exchange programs for students from the Muslim world.

Georgetown professor John Esposito, founding director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, has, probably more than any other academic, contributed to downplaying the global Jihadist threat. Kramer states that during the 1970s, Esposito had prepared his thesis under his Muslim mentor Ismail R. Faruqi, a Palestinian theorist of the "Islamization of knowledge." During the first part of his career, Esposito never studied or taught at a major Middle East center. In the 80s, he published a series of favorable books on Islam. In 1993, Esposito arrived at Georgetown, and has later claimed the status of "authority" in the field.

Journalist Stanley Kurtz has demonstrated how the Saudis have managed to infiltrate the US education system and influence what American school children are taught about Islam and the Middle East, not just at the university level but also at lower levels.

Egyptian author Tarek Heggy warns that the Muslim Brotherhood "opposes the notion of a state based on democratic institutions, calling instead for an Islamic government based on the Shura (consultative assembly) system, veneration of the leader and the investiture of a Supreme Guide. In this, they are close to the model established by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran. (…) The Brotherhood calls for a constitutional and legal system based on the principles of Shari'a, including cruel corporal punishments in the penal code (stoning, lashing, cutting off the hands of thieves, etc.)."

Despite this, Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke published an article in Foreign Affairs about the "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood, arguing that the group has "rejected global Jihad" and "embraces democracy." Several US Democratic members of Congress met with the head of the Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc at the home of the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, despite that fact that the Egyptian MB has spawned several terrorist movements.

In a memo, the US State Department told its embassy in Cairo to launch a dialogue with religious groups because clashes with them would incite more attacks against US interests. They advised Washington to pressure the Egyptian government into allowing the MB to play a larger role in Egypt's political landscape. There are signs that American authorities are reaching out to the Brotherhood. Steven Stalinsky, the executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, warns that "A lack of knowledge about the Muslim Brotherhood is evident on the part of U.S. officials who are now cozying up to the organization."

As Youssef Ibrahim of the New York Sun comments, "For years, the Soviet Union benefited from those Vladimir Lenin is said to have dubbed 'the useful idiots of the West' — reporters, scholars, leftists, and assorted romantics who said the Soviet system of totalitarianism was not so bad." He argues that the Brotherhood is now taking over this role. Ibrahim is tired of the silence from the Muslim majority: "In Islam, 'silence is a sign of acceptance,' as the Arabic Koranic saying goes. (…) The question that hangs in the air so spectacularly now — particularly as England has been confronted once again by British Muslims plotting to kill hundreds — is this: What exactly are the Europeans waiting for before they round up all those Muslim warriors and their families and send them back to where they came from?"

The current leader of the MB, Mohammad Mahdi Akef, called on its members to serve its global agenda, declaring "I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America." On its English website, the Brotherhood professes moderation and praises Multiculturalism as a way to spread Islam. However, on their Arabic website, Akef in February 2007 reassured his followers that "the Jihad will lead to smashing Western civilization and replacing it with Islam which will dominate the world." In the event that Muslims cannot achieve this goal in the near future, "Muslims are obliged to continue the Jihad that will cause the collapse of Western civilization and the ascendance of the Muslim civilization on its ruins."

Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 with the vision of restoring the Islamic Caliphate. There are signs that his disciple Yusuf al-Qaradawi hasn't given up this goal. In an interview with German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, Qaradawi said: "Islam is a single nation, there is only one Islamic law and we all pray to a single God. Eventually such a nation will also become political reality. But whether that will be a federation of already existing states, a monarchy or an Islamic republic remains to be seen." Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi, a Jordanian intellectual, states that: "The Caliphate has remained unchanged from 632 through 2004 – it has kept its primitive, simple tribal form (the elite's allegiance to the sovereigns) – an un-democratic structure, despotic, and bloody except for a brief period of 12 years during the rule of Abu Baker and Omar Bin Al-Khattab [the first and second Caliphs]. (...) Since the time of [the Umayyad Caliph] Mu'awiya Ibn Abi Sufyan through the last Ottoman Sultan, (that is from the year 661 through the year 1924), the Islamic Caliphate was drenched with blood, and ruled by fist and sword – and even today the situation is the same in most of the Arab world."

Nabulsi quotes al-Qaradawi as saying: "'There are those who maintain that democracy is the rule of the people, but we want the rule of Allah.' Such ideas] are a call for the Rule of Allah, discussed by Sayyid Qutb in his book 'The Milestones.' [Qutb] borrowed this idea from Pakistani intellectual Abu Al-'Ala Al-Mawdudi, who introduced the theory that authority is Allah's, not the people's, and that the sovereign is none other than Allah's secretary and His representative on earth."

In one essay, al-Qaradawi writes that: "Secularism may be accepted in a Christian society but it can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society. Christianity is devoid of a shari`ah or a comprehensive system of life to which its adherents should be committed." However, "as Islam is a comprehensive system of worship (`ibadah) and legislation (Shari`ah), the acceptance of secularism means abandonment of Shari`ah," and "the call for secularism among Muslims is atheism and a rejection of Islam. Its acceptance as a basis for rule in place of Shari`ah is downright riddah [apostasy]."

The adoption of secular laws and equality for Muslims and non-Muslims amounts to apostasy. Harsh words from a man who has voiced support for the traditional sharia death penalty for those leaving Islam.

According to the major website Islam Online, which is owned by Yusuf al-Qaradawi and sponsored by rich Arabs, "Islam is not a religion in the common, distorted meaning of the word, confining its scope only to the private life of man. By saying that it is a complete way of life, we mean that it caters for all the fields of human existence. In fact, Islam provides guidance for all walks of life — individual and social, material and moral, economic and political, legal and cultural, national and international."

Famed historian Bernard Lewis in 2007 told The Jerusalem Post that Islam could soon be the dominant force in Europe. He warned that this Islamization could be assisted by "immigration and democracy." It is a well-established fact that Muslims vote overwhelmingly for left-wing parties all over Europe.

According to journalist Salam Karam, "For the Muslim Brotherhood, Sweden is in many ways an ideal country, [and it] shares the ideals of the Social Democrats in their view of the welfare society. Leading figures in Muslim congregations are also active within the Social Democratic [Party], and have very good relations with Sweden's Christian Social Democrats – Broderskapsrörelsen. The Social Democrats have, in turn, and perhaps as thanks for the support they receive from the mosque leadership, shown a tendency to shy away from the fact that there is extremism in some of our mosques. This has given the Muslim Brotherhood the freedom to force its ideology upon [the mosque's worshippers]."

Writer Nima Sanandaji states that "The Social Democratic party has started fishing for votes with the help of radical Muslims clergies." They have been working with the influential Muslim leader Mahmoud Aldebe, president of Sweden's Muslim Association, which is widely believed to be inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1999 Aldebe proposed that sharia – the Islamic law – be introduced in Sweden. The Social Democrat Ola Johansson has referred to the book Social Justice in Islam by the Jihadist ideologue Sayyid Qutb as proof that the Socialist ideology could find common ground with Islamic ideas. After the elections in 2002, the Muslim Association sent a congratulation letter to the re-elected Social Democratic Prime Minister Göran Persson, hoping that his party would work for implementing some of the sharia demands of the Association in the future. In 2007, the Social Democrats launched a formalized network for cooperation with Muslims, after they lost the elections the year before.

Walid al-Kubaisi, a Norwegian of Iraqi origins and a critic of sharia supporters, believes Yusuf al-Qaradawi is more dangerous than terrorist leader Osama bin Laden: "In Europe, the Muslim Brotherhood discovered a unique opportunity: Democracy. The democratic system leaves room for freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and finances religious communities and religious organizations. This has been utilized by the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate the Muslim communities, recruit members and build the Islamist networks that have become so visible lately." Whereas bin Laden uses bombs, al-Qaradawi exploits democracy as a Trojan horse. The Brotherhood gets their activities financed from Germany, Britain etc. They gain recognition and infiltrate the democratic system.

According to Walid al-Kubaisi, the journalist Dr.Osama Fawzi has revealed that many of al-Qaradawi's trips to Western countries are for the purpose of receiving medical aid and treatment for impotence because he is married to a girl 60 years younger than himself. Kubaisi, who writes Arabic fluently, sent an email to Qaradawi's website, asking whether it was legal according to Islamic law to marry a nine-year-old girl. He got a "yes" in reply.

Muhammad himself, according to Islamic sources, married his wife Aisha when she was six years old and consummated the marriage when she was eight or nine. Since he is the perfect example to emulate for Muslims for time eternity, this is still legal in Islamic law today: Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64

Narrated 'Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).

Yusuf al-Qaradawi has been hailed as a "moderate Muslim" by people such as London's Mayor Ken Livingstone, who represents the British Labour Party. Many Muslims voted for the Labour Party in previous elections, and London has a large and growing Muslim population. The cleric visited the UK in 2004, where he was welcomed by Livingstone, and chaired the annual meeting of the European Council of Fatwa and Research at London's City Hall. In January 2008, prominent Muslims pledged to back Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London during the elections in May 2008. A statement praised Livingstone for his support of a Multicultural society and for protecting Muslim communities against Islamophobia, and said that "We pledge to continue our support for the mayor on all levels possible in order to secure his staying in office for a third term." Among the 63 signatories was Tariq Ramadan.

In February 2008, al-Qaradawi was refused a visa to enter to the UK following pressure from British Conservatives. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that it deplored the decision, while the British Muslim Initiative (BMI) described the decision to bar al-Qaradawi as "an unwarranted insult to British Muslims." Yusuf al-Qaradawi has called for the death penalty for homosexuality, for the destruction of the state of Israel, has defended suicide attacks and preaches that husbands should beat disobedient wives. He was also indirectly responsible for the torching of the Damascus embassies of NATO member states Denmark and Norway during the Muhammad cartoon riots in 2006.

Read the article here. For more on the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and its arm in America, the Muslim American Society, please see here, here, here and here.

(H/T Gates of Vienna)

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Saudi Bought Influence At Our Major Universities

Wahhabi / Salafi Islam, originating out of Saudi Arabia and exported around the world on the back of billions of Sauid petrodollars, is the ideology of Sunni terrorism. And one of the most pernicious effects of those Saudi petrodollars has been to massively fund Middle East studies programs at our major universities that, not surprisingly, turn out to be decidedly pro-Wahhabi and, indeed, quite often dissimulating about Islamic history and dogma.

For example, prior to and even after 9-11, our nation's most prestigious Saudi bought academic, John Esposito of Georgetown University, was teaching that jihad referred primarily to an internal struggle of Muslims rather than "holy war." The reality in the Middle East is decidedly different. And now, Esposito argues that terrorism should be officially dissasociated from Islam, irrespective of the fact that the impetus for terrorism is, in the vast majority of cases, Wahhabi / Salafi Islam. The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) is supposedly the top national organization for our Middle East academics, yet they do not allow membership to academics who are not pro-Wahhabi, such as our nation's premier orientalist, Professor Bernard Lewis.

This story below is about the issue of Saudi influence in our major universities. I missed it when it was first published, but will post now. Its from the Washington Times:

Two years ago this month, a Saudi prince caused a media splash — and raised eyebrows — when he donated $20 million each to Georgetown and Harvard universities to fund Islamic studies.

Although few details have been released about how the money has been spent, at Georgetown, the money helped pay for a recent symposium on Islamic-Western relations held in the university's Copley Formal Lounge. . .

Some call the Saudi gift Arab generosity and gratitude for the years American universities have educated the elite of the Arab world. Others say the sheer size of the donations amounts to buying influence and creating bastions of noncritical pro-Islamic scholarship within academia.

"There's a possibility these campuses aren't getting gifts, they're getting investments," said Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. "Departments on Middle Eastern studies tend to be dominated by professors tuned to the concerns of Arab and Muslim rulers. It's very difficult for scholars who don't follow this line to get jobs and tenure on college campuses.

"The relationship between these departments and the money that pours in is hard to establish, but like campaign finance reform, sometimes money is a bribe. Sometimes it's a tip."

The $40 million gift from the Saudi donor, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, was the latest in a tradition that started in the 1970s — Muslim donors pumping millions of dollars into American universities to fund Islamic studies, hire faculty specialists in Islam and fund books and seminars on the world's second-largest religion.

This summer, Harvard appointed its Islamic history professor, Roy Mottahedeh, to head its Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Program. Harvard is hiring the first of four endowed chairs in the program and is using some of the $20 million to preserve a collection of Islamic documents.

On Nov. 3, the university hosted its first Islamic studies conference — named after Prince Alwaleed — on "Interpreting the Islamic Tradition in the Contemporary World."

Harvard would not provide additional details about the disbursement of the funds, nor would Mr. Mottahedeh respond to numerous requests for an interview.

At Georgetown, the money was funneled toward its Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which was quickly renamed the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. The center, part of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, trains many of America"s diplomats.

The Alwaleed Center is tucked away in a small suite of offices in the Bunn Intercultural Center. Its reception area is decorated with blue and white Pakistani tile, a framed page from the Koran and mother-of-pearl depictions of a menorah, the Nativity and the Dome of the Rock. The center's aim, according to its mission statement, is to "improve relations between the Muslim world and the West and enhance understanding of Muslims in the West."

The center's director, John Esposito, a prolific writer and praised by many as being a national authority on the religion, was severely criticized by several scholars for downplaying the threat of Islamic terrorism in the 1990s when he was a foreign affairs analyst for the State Department.

Mr. Esposito, "more than any other academic, contributed to American complacency prior to 9/11," Martin Kramer, a fellow at the Olin Institute at Harvard, wrote in a Jan. 2, 2006, commentary on his blog, sandbox.blog-city.com.

"[He has] proved that he's still a magnet for Arab and Muslim money," Mr. Kramer wrote. "Prince Alwaleed apparently decided that while Esposito's reputation may be dented, the professor still has some value in him."

Mr. Esposito declined to be interviewed for this article but did defend himself in several e-mails. . .

Mr. Esposito said the number of programs sponsored by his center went from 27 last year to 22 this semester alone. The first of three new faculty, Ibrahim Kalin, a scholar on Sufiism and Islamic philosophy, is slated to come on board next fall.

A month before the gift was publicly announced, Mr. Esposito was one of four persons flanking Prince Alwaleed before a photographer at the George V hotel in Paris. It was then that the prince told Georgetown officials of their $20 million windfall — and that Mr. Esposito would oversee how the money was spent.

. . . Winfield Myers, director of Campus Watch, a watchdog group under the aegis of the Middle East Forum think tank, said it's too early to tell whether the prince is getting his money's worth. One sign of success is if a university can place its recent doctoral graduates in positions of influence.

"The prince knew very well Georgetown's in a milieu filled with lobbyists and opinion makers; thus any program of his will exert more influence there than at a university not in a power center like Washington," Mr. Meyers said. "The grant also gave Esposito a much bigger microphone. When you've got a $20 million institute, that amplifies your voice considerably."

The Saudi Embassy's press office did not respond to requests for comment on this article, and a spokeswoman for Prince Alwaleed said he was "too busy" to respond.

According to one Saudi press organization, the grants are meant to promote understanding and change America's perceptions of Islam in the most fertile place, the university campus.

"The tendency, in some quarters, to identify Islam with fanaticism or even terrorism persists and has not been completely erased from the popular mind in the West," observed a commentator in a March 1, 2002, article in Ain al-Yaqeen, a weekly controlled by the Saudi royal family.

To that end, it continued, the late Saudi King Fahd paid for a "number of academic chairs in some of the most respected universities in the developed world."

The practice started around 1976, when the Saudi government established a King Faisal Chair in Islamic Studies for $1 million at the University of Southern California.

In 1979, Saudi Aramco World magazine published a list of recent Middle Eastern gifts, including $200,000 from the Saudis to Duke University for a program in Islamic and Arabian development studies; $750,000 from the Libyan government for a chair of Arab culture at Georgetown University; and $250,000 from the United Arab Emirates for a visiting professorship of Arab history, also at Georgetown.

In 1986, Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi donated $5 million toward a sports center to be named after him at American University. Since then, grants for endowed chairs in Islamic studies and Middle Eastern studies centers have popped up at the University of California/Santa Barbara; Columbia University; Rice University; University of Arkansas; University of California in Los Angeles; and the University of California/Berkeley, among many others.

"Arab studies at Berkeley were totally revitalized by this money," said Emily Gottreich, vice chairman for UC/Berkeley's Center for Middle Eastern Studies. "We redefined what Arab studies is."

In 1998, the Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud Foundation announced a $5 million gift to fund visiting professors and scholars, research and outreach funds and new quarters for Berkeley's Arab and Islamic Studies Center.

"Our post-docs have gone on to important tenure-track academic jobs," Ms. Gottreich said, listing 11 institutions, including Oxford, DePaul, Fordham and Harvard universities. "There's a market out there for PhDs with expertise in the Middle East."

. . . There are 17 federally funded centers on American college campuses devoted solely to Middle Eastern studies centers and another 30 to 40 that do not receive federal aid, according to Amy Newhall, executive director of the Middle East Studies Association at the University of Arizona. Not counting several positions at Georgetown University, she estimated at least 10 chaired professorships currently funded by Saudis at major universities.

"With all the talk of the Israel lobby, no one talks about the Saudi lobby," Mr. Meyers said. "There is no counterweight to Saudi influence in American higher education."

Indeed, Ain-al-Yaqeen reported that King Fahd has spent "billions of Saudi riyals," around the world.

"In terms of Islamic institutions, the result is some 210 Islamic centers wholly or partly financed by Saudi Arabia, more than 1,500 mosques and 202 colleges and almost 2,000 schools for educating Muslim children in non-Islamic countries in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia," the paper reported.

. . . Mr. Kramer, also the author of "Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America," says American universities have allowed themselves to be purveyors of Saudi influence and opinion.

"Universities generate ideas, and [Prince Alwaleed] regards one idea — the 'clash of civilizations" — as positively dangerous to Arabs and Muslims," he wrote on his Web site, martinkramer.org. "So he has embarked on a grand giving spree, to create academic 'bridges" between Islam and the West, and specifically between the Arab world and the United States ...

"The mind boggles at the possibilities, when you think of the purchasing power of the world's fifth-richest man," Mr. Kramer continued. "Of course, this is why we can't ever expect to get the straight story on Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism and oil from people who operate within Middle Eastern studies. If you want a fabulously wealthy Saudi royal to drop out of the sky in his private jet and leave a few million, you had better watch what you say — which means you had better say nothing."

Prince Alwaleed, 52, — who slipped from the fifth richest person in 2005 to the 13th this year, according to Forbes magazine — is best known to some Americans as the man who offered $10 million to the victims of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. That money was rejected by Rudolph W. Giuliani, then the mayor, after the prince scolded the U.S. for favoring Israelis over Palestinians.

Prince Alwaleed found more welcoming recipients in academia.

In 2002, he donated $500,000 to the George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship Fund, established by the Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. In 2006, he donated $10 million to the Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

He defends such gifts in interviews, saying that he has financed study programs about American culture overseas, including a $10 million gift to found a Center for American Studies at American University in Cairo and $5.2 million for a similar center at American University in Beirut.

Prince Alwaleed's Cairo and Beirut projects explain American culture, but according to their Web sites, offer no courses in Christianity — America's majority religion. Meanwhile, typical courses at the Georgetown center are "Islamic Theological Development" and "Islamic Religious Thought and Practice."

Zuhdi Jasser, a Phoenix physician and a Muslim who is chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, says Islamic governments are looking for a free pass.

"Islamists such as the radical fundamentalists seen with the Saudi Wahhabis exploit American universal tolerance to provide a vehicle for the dissemination of their propaganda free of critique," he said in an e-mail. "It is important to emphasize — 'free of critique' ... it is the tolerance which permits that.

"But I would hope that we correct our response not by changing our tolerance but by intensely critiquing political Islam and its incompatibility with our pluralistic democracy. America"s laboratory of freedom and liberty should not change."

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