Matt Duss notes a Washington Independent report that Arlen Specter will deliver the opening address to a right-wing anti-Muslim conference hosted by Daniel Pipes Middle East Forum:
A coalition of conservative legal groups will host a “Libel Lawfare: Silencing Criticism of Radical Islam,” a conference on how “Islamist lawfare” is imperiling free speech in America. Confirmed speakers include neoconservative foreign policy guru Frank Gaffney, lawyer Andrew C. McCarthy (who turned down an invitation to a White House counterterrorism conference to protest administration policy), Islam critic David Pipes, and… Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), who will give the opening speech.
Not to mention Big Al Dershowitz, king of Islamophobes, who’ll be there in all his glory. What in God’s name is Specter, a newly minted Democrat, doing in such wingnutty company? In case you doubt that adjective, here is the conference agenda:
Islamists have launched a two-pronged effort to suppress free discourse on such subjects as Islam, radical Islam, terrorism, and terrorist funding:
* By filing predatory lawsuits.
* By passing “hate speech” and defamation laws.Victims of these “lawfare” attacks have included the famous and the obscure, politicians, journalists, analysts and plain citizens.
This inhibition has great consequences, for when discussion of Islam and terrorism are limited, radical Islam is empowered and Western civilization is imperiled.
Issues to be discussed…include: A close analysis of Islamist methods; the possible need for legislation to protect free speech on these topics; a comparison of the situation in Europe and the United States; and ways to prevent the United Nations from curtailing discussion of Islam.
There are many remarkable notions in this bill of attainder. First, the notion of a vast Muslim-wing conspiracy to destroy the Jewish neocon right. Second, a massive operation to impose Islamic will on the west. Third, a campaign to destroy constitutional rights. Among Pipes’ stranger, more paranoiac notions is the existence of a shadowy campaign to impose Sharia law on U.S. society.
What I find ironic in all this is the hypocritical approach to the notion of what they call “lawfare.” First, the fact that Pipesians themselves use intimidation, lawsuits, and smear campaigns against their Jewish and Muslim opponents in precisely the same way they claim Muslims do against them.
Just as an example, two members of the Stop the Madrasa campaign which led to the firing of the New York City public school principal because she was an outspoken Muslim, filed suit against her for allegedly defaming them. Rachel Neuwirth, another Pipesian, has also filed suit against me for libel for calling her a “Kahanist swine” here in this blog. I could go on and on with other examples, but you get the message. Apparently, free speech and other constitutional rights only extend to people who agree with the Islamophobes. Others need not apply.
Below, you’ll find a perfect distillation of the Pipes’ and the Islamophobic right’s bogus methods of political analysis:
[Gaffney’s] Center for Security Policy [published], The Rise of the Iran Lobby, which claimed that “a complex network of individuals and organizations with ties to the clerical regime in Tehran is pressing forward in seeming synchrony to influence the new U.S. administration’s policy towards the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Among those listed as part of the “network” were Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, Ambassador Dennis Ross, Council on Foreign Relations Committee president Richard Haas, and the Center for a New American Security, simply by virtue of the fact that “the foreign policy positions of [CNAS’s] affiliates correspond strongly to the preferred policy positions of Tehran’s mullahs.”
Ellison, Ross and others are “tied” to the Iran lobby and the regime not because of any actual evidence, but because their views allegedly “correspond strongly” to the alleged views of the mullahs. No proof provided. All smear, all the time.
In addition, this tactic of turning your opponents legitimate claims back against them is tried and true psy ops strategy. For those of us who embrace the notion that the Israel lobby exerts a noxious influence on U.S. policy, Gaffney has just attempted to turn the tables. Unlike our analysis of the Israel lobby, he has absolutely no evidence that there is any such thing as an “Iran lobby.” No organizations, no personnel, no secret meetings of the cabal. This is a “wing and a prayer” tactic meant to throw the other side on the defensive.
I would also note that I’ve reported that the Israeli embassy has been closely monitoring the schedule, views and activities of Rep. Ellison and others, as potential opponents of Israel’s interests. So what better way for the Pipesians to deflect this unsavory news than claim that Ellison is a card-carrying member of the Iran lobby?
I hope that Pennsylvanians and Pennsylvania bloggers will pick up on Specter’s involvement with this execrable anti-Muslim project and warn him away from making such a political blunder. Arlen, you’ve made common cause with a bunch of Jewish loonies. Someone should stop you before you hurt yourself. I know you’re a tired old geezer who’s lost his way politically and otherwise, but that’s no excuse. And man, do the Democrats have some soul-searching to do about embracing this exemplar of self-righteousness, self-interest, and self-absorption.
One name I half expected to see on the speaker list (and am disappointed not to see) is Jewish fascist David Yerushalmi, who also played a leading role in Stop the Madrasa and has championed the idea of establishing concentration camps on U.S. soil for American-Muslim undesirables (among other things). And where’s Joe Lieberman? He and Specter are practically Islamophobic blood brothers.
It is worth to note that the guy Hassan Daioleslam is part of the MKO terrorist group.
PIPESIANS: Islamists have launched a two-pronged effort to suppress free discourse on such subjects as Islam, radical Islam, terrorism, and terrorist funding…By passing “hate speech” and defamation laws
A RELATED ARTICLE – “Unintended Consequences” – By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, 05/12/09
(EXCERPT)…Since the passage of the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act in 2004, the US Department of State is required to monitor anti-semitism world wide. The State Department is not required to monitor anti-Americanism or sentiments against Christians, Muslims or Arabs. Thus, the act created a specially protected class worthy of careful monitoring by the US Department of State of negative sentiments expressed against Jews.
In order to monitor anti-semitism, the term must be defined. The definition is subjective and will be widely, rather than narrowly, interpreted. The State Department has come up with its attempt. The State Department’s approach could include any truthful statements about Israel and its behavior toward the Palestinians that the Israeli government or AIPAC or the Anti-Defamation League would deny or contest.
Anti-semitic speech can be interpreted as inciting hatred. Inciting hatred can be interpreted to be a violent act. “Excessive” criticism of Israel is a subjective, undefinable concept that can be used to determine anti-semitic speech. It is easy to conflate “excessive” with “strong.” Thus, demands that Israel be held accountable for war crimes committed in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, or elsewhere become acts of the hate crime of anti-semitism.
(Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.)
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts05122009.html
There is Islamo fascism in the world. The Taliban for example, are NOT kind and wise governors.
To oppose Islamo-fascism is not an ethical problem in my book.
The problem is to identify it, and to do so without ANY implication of harming the baby with the bathwater, is needed.
There are two errors. Both are errors of assuming that all Muslims are …., or even that a society comprised of Muslims identifying as Muslims is …..
The first error is to assume that all Muslims are terrorists, untrustable. The second is to assume that all Muslims are benevolent.
Muslims are human beings, deserving of a predisposition of respect, confirmed or negated by individual and collective behavior. And, as human beings, they are motivated by their private concerns, sometimes in harmony with the greater good and synnergistic to relations to others, sometimes skew to the greater good and neutral to relations to others, sometimes in conflict with the greater good and harming to others.
There IS Jewish fascism in the world as well. Why the obsession with Islamo-fascism but not Jewish fascism? You are aware are you not Richard that “Islamo-fascism,” while an insulting & meaningless slur, is an invention of the Jewish neocon right? I hate this term, Richard. Don’t use it again here.
i WISH Ross was tied to the Iran Lobby!!!!
I dare not say anything about Pipes. The last time I said something about Popes, he threatened to sue me and the newspaper I had written for.
After noting our “apology” on one of his blogs, Pipes suggested the incident “should send a signal to responsible media everywhere to decline his tendentious writings”.
Since then, I continue to be published all over the place. Now what I need is for Ayatollah Daniel to issue a fatwa against my book …
Islamo fascism is a construct..a FICTION…but what is NOT fiction is zionist fascism…much has been written (and forgotten) about this long history and Jabotinsky’s fondness for Mussolini’s brown shirts..read about the rise of the Zionist right..Ze’ev Jabotinsky…the extremist Kach who are present in Lieberman’s Beitenu extremist fundamentalist rightwingers all…and Pipes is merely a foil for it all!
HYPOCRITES!! thy name is PROJECTION…pure-dee classic example of pyschotic PROJECTION….truly UNBELIEVEABLE..
Ripley (of believe it or not fame) …would never believe this…too far-out fictional and bloody crazy…but the bigger the lie the more likely it will be picked up and presented as fact on Fox noose.?
I am still waiting for my comment to be published. What is your reason for censoring it?
I have no idea what you’re talking about. I suggest you communicate with me via e mail & provide more details so I can figure out what you’re talking about.
Lord, you must be kidding. You attempt to publish this trollish comment & then wonder why I haven’t bothered to publish it?? You certainly have a lot of chutzpah. So here’s your comment & then my reply follows:
First, I am not Tikkun Magazine, with which you are confusing me. Tikun Olam is a blog, not a magazine.
Right wing swine have called me far worse than “swine” including calling for my beheading, genital mutilation, etc. I’m puzzled why you express no sympathy for me, while you express sympathy for an individual who admits that she called an ordained Orthodox rabbi a “kapo.” It seems to me you have your priorities screwed up.
Could you please tell us what you or Rachel Neuwirth have done to express sympathy for anyone other than settlers and right-wing pro Israel nationalists? And what specifically have you or she done to repair the world? Not just the right wing settler world, but the entire world. I’ll be waiting patiently for your answer.
I don’t publish trollish comments. So if you reply in the same manner as you have already then you’ll have no guarantee to see your comment published. But if on the other hand you have something of substance or value to say, pls. do write a comment. I won’t hold my breath though.
Zionists have been preaching ‘Islamophobia’ all over the West for the benefit of Zionist regime in occupied Palestine.
Italian Sandro’s whining of Pope’s visit to the Middle East as a “friendly” gesture towards 1.7 billion-strong world Muslim population – is nothing but another Zionist propaganda crap. Pope Benedict XVI’s visit was nothing but a PR drama for the Zionist state of Israel……
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/rotterdam-scares-islamophobes/