Report: $42 Million From Seven Foundations Helped Fuel The Rise Of Islamophobia In America

[Keith Millea]

Published on Friday, August 26, 2011 by Think Progress

Report: $42 Million From Seven Foundations Helped Fuel The Rise Of Islamophobia In America

by Faiz Shakir

Following a six-month long investigative research project, the Center for American Progress released a 130-page report today which reveals that more than $42 million from seven foundations over the past decade have helped fan the flames of anti-Muslim hate in America. The authors Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matt Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and myself worked to expose the Islamophobia network in depth, name the major players, connect the dots, and trace the genesis of anti-Muslim propaganda.

The report, titled "Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network In America," lifts the veil behind the hate, follows the money, and identifies the names of foundations who have given money, how much they have given, and who they have given to:

THE FUNDERS THE AMOUNT THE RECIPIENTS

Donors Capital Fund$20,768,600
Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), Middle East Forum (MEF), Clarion Fund (Clarion), David Horowitz Freedom Center (Horowitz)

Richard Scaife foundations$7,875,000Counterterrorism & Security Education and Research Foundation (CTSERF),

Center for Security Policy (CSP), HorowitzLynde and Harry Bradley Foundation$5,370,000MEF, CSP, HorowitzRussell Berrie Foundation$3,109,016IPT, CTSERF, MEFAnchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund$2,818,229IPT,CTSERF, MEF, CSP, Clarion, HorowitzFairbook Foundation$1,498,450IPT, MEF, CSP, Jihad Watch, Horowitz,

American Congress for TruthNewton and Rochelle Becker foundations$1,136,000IPT, CTSERF, MEF, CSP, Clarion, Horowitz, American Congress for TruthTotal$42,575,295

The money has flowed into the hands of five key "experts" and "scholars" who comprise the central nervous system of anti-Muslim propaganda:

FRANK GAFFNEY, Center for Security Policy "A mosque that is used to promote a seditious program, which is what Sharia is…that is not a protected religious practice, that is in fact sedition." [Source]
DAVID YERUSHALMI, Society of Americans for National Existence: "Muslim civilization is at war with Judeo-Christian civilization…the Muslim peoples, those committed to Islam as we know it today, are our enemies." [Source]
DANIEL PIPES, Middle East Forum: "All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most." [Source]
ROBERT SPENCER, Jihad Watch: "Of course, as I have pointed out many times, traditional Islam itself is not moderate or peaceful. It is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers." [Source]
STEVEN EMERSON, Investigative Project on Terrorism: "One of the world's great religions which has more than 1.4 billion adherents somehow sanctions genocide, planned genocide, as part of its religious doctrine." [Source]

These five "scholars" are assisted in their outreach efforts by Brigitte Gabriel (founder, ACT! for America), Pamela Geller (co-founder, Stop Islamization of America), and David Horowitz (supporter of Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch). As the report details, information is then disseminated through conservative organizations like the Eagle Forum, the religious right, Fox News, and politicians such as Allen West and Newt Gingrich.

Over the past few years, the Islamophobia network (the funders, scholars, grassroots activists, media amplifiers, and political validators) have worked hard to push narratives that Obama might be a Muslim, that mosques are incubators of radicalization, and that "radical Islam" has infiltrated all aspects of American society including the conservative movement.

To explain how the Islamophobia network operates, we've produced this video to show just one example of how they have mainstreamed the baseless and unfounded fear that Sharia may soon replace American laws:

Much more info. can be found here: full report.

© 2011 ThinkProgress

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/26-8

[Peter Lemkin]

Published on Friday, August 26, 2011 by Think Progress

Report: $42 Million From Seven Foundations Helped Fuel The Rise Of Islamophobia In America

by Faiz Shakir

Following a six-month long investigative research project, the Center for American Progress released a 130-page report today which reveals that more than $42 million from seven foundations over the past decade have helped fan the flames of anti-Muslim hate in America. The authors Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matt Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and myself worked to expose the Islamophobia network in depth, name the major players, connect the dots, and trace the genesis of anti-Muslim propaganda.

The report, titled "Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network In America," lifts the veil behind the hate, follows the money, and identifies the names of foundations who have given money, how much they have given, and who they have given to:

THE FUNDERS THE AMOUNT THE RECIPIENTS

Donors Capital Fund$20,768,600
Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), Middle East Forum (MEF), Clarion Fund (Clarion), David Horowitz Freedom Center (Horowitz)

Richard Scaife foundations$7,875,000Counterterrorism & Security Education and Research Foundation (CTSERF),

Center for Security Policy (CSP), HorowitzLynde and Harry Bradley Foundation$5,370,000MEF, CSP, HorowitzRussell Berrie Foundation$3,109,016IPT, CTSERF, MEFAnchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund$2,818,229IPT,CTSERF, MEF, CSP, Clarion, HorowitzFairbook Foundation$1,498,450IPT, MEF, CSP, Jihad Watch, Horowitz,

American Congress for TruthNewton and Rochelle Becker foundations$1,136,000IPT, CTSERF, MEF, CSP, Clarion, Horowitz, American Congress for TruthTotal$42,575,295

The money has flowed into the hands of five key "experts" and "scholars" who comprise the central nervous system of anti-Muslim propaganda:

FRANK GAFFNEY, Center for Security Policy "A mosque that is used to promote a seditious program, which is what Sharia is…that is not a protected religious practice, that is in fact sedition." [Source]
DAVID YERUSHALMI, Society of Americans for National Existence: "Muslim civilization is at war with Judeo-Christian civilization…the Muslim peoples, those committed to Islam as we know it today, are our enemies." [Source]
DANIEL PIPES, Middle East Forum: "All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most." [Source]
ROBERT SPENCER, Jihad Watch: "Of course, as I have pointed out many times, traditional Islam itself is not moderate or peaceful. It is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers." [Source]
STEVEN EMERSON, Investigative Project on Terrorism: "One of the world's great religions which has more than 1.4 billion adherents somehow sanctions genocide, planned genocide, as part of its religious doctrine." [Source]

These five "scholars" are assisted in their outreach efforts by Brigitte Gabriel (founder, ACT! for America), Pamela Geller (co-founder, Stop Islamization of America), and David Horowitz (supporter of Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch). As the report details, information is then disseminated through conservative organizations like the Eagle Forum, the religious right, Fox News, and politicians such as Allen West and Newt Gingrich.

Over the past few years, the Islamophobia network (the funders, scholars, grassroots activists, media amplifiers, and political validators) have worked hard to push narratives that Obama might be a Muslim, that mosques are incubators of radicalization, and that "radical Islam" has infiltrated all aspects of American society including the conservative movement.

To explain how the Islamophobia network operates, we've produced this video to show just one example of how they have mainstreamed the baseless and unfounded fear that Sharia may soon replace American laws:

Much more info. can be found here: full report.

© 2011 ThinkProgress

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/26-8

I don't doubt one bit/jot that Zionist forces are hyping up the 'Islamophobia threat'; I only think that there are forces in the USA who are not 'Zionist' who are as well. They work together for their own purposes, but toward a mutual end. Many of these forces in the USA are Christian-Right-Millennialist groups and their supporters in the Military, Intelligence, and other structures of the USG.

[Peter Lemkin]

"Fear, Inc." Exposes the So-Called Experts and Donors Behind Islamaphobia in the United States


A new report by the Center for American Progress called, "Fear Inc: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America," shows how a small group of self-proclaimed experts backed by a host of donors are spreading fear and hostility toward Muslims in the United States. According to the report, these so-called experts peddle Islamophobia in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted anti-Islam talking points. It also notes that right-wing Norwegian murderer Anders Breivik repeatedly cited these "experts" in his so-called "Manifesto." Among those the report highlights is Robert Spencer, author of a blog called, "Jihad Watch," and leader of the group, "Stop Islamization of America," which coined the term "Victory Mosque at Ground Zero" to refer to a local effort to build a moderate Islamic center in New York City, turning it into an international spectacle. We speak with one of the report's authors, Faiz Shakir, Vice President of the Center for American Progress and Editor-in-Chief of ThinkProgress.org. "[Spencer] basically wants a society in which we are concerned about the presence of all Muslims in America," says Shakir. "This is the running theme of all in the Islamophobia network."


Faiz Shakir, Vice President at the Center for American Progress and co-author of the Center's report, "Fear Inc: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America." He is also the Editor-in-Chief of ThinkProgress.org.


AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to a report by the Center for American Progress called "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America." According to the report, a small group of self-proclaimed experts backed by a host of foundations and donors are spreading fear, hatred and hostility toward Islam and Muslims in America. These so-called experts peddle Islamophobia in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs and carefully crafted anti-Islam talking points, the report says.

It names five key players in what it calls the Islamophobia network: Frank Gaffney with the Center for Security Policy, David Yerushalmi with the Society of Americans for National Existence, Daniel Pipes with the Middle East Forum, Robert Spencer, and Steve Emerson with the Investigative Project on Terrorism. It notes that right-wing Norwegian murderer Anders Breivik repeatedly cited these U.S. purveyors of Islamophobia in his so-called "Manifesto." The report quotes former CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman saying, quote, just as religious extremism "is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged," the writings of these anti-Muslim misinformation experts are "the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged."

Well, last week on the Fox Business show Follow the Money, Steve Emerson responded to the report and his alleged role in the Islamphobia network.

STEVEN EMERSON: I sort of feel somewhat complimented, because they're attributing to me and four other people the ability to control the minds of 300 million Americans for 15 years. Look, the reality is, and bottom line is, the cause of any suspicion toward Muslims is because 65 to 70 percent of all international terrorist attacks are carried out by radical Muslims. So there's a fear based on that.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Steve Emerson.

For more on the report, "Fear, Inc.," we're joined by one of its authors, Faiz Shakir. He joins us from Washington, D.C. He's vice president of the Center for American Progress, serves as editor-in-chief of ThinkProgress.org.

Faiz Shakir, welcome to Democracy Now! Respond to what Steven Emerson says, and lay out your report, what you have found.

FAIZ SHAKIR: Hi, Amy. Thanks for having me.

I think what we found in this report is that there are five individualsyou mentioned themwho comprise the intellectual nervous center of Islamophobia. For decades, they have been putting out reports and propaganda pieces to try to convince Americans that Muslims are a presence here in this country. So, for instance, Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy has produced a report saying there's a creeping sharia threat, and mosques are being radicalized to produce terrorism. These are kinds of factual reports that come out of the Center for Security Policy that make them sound very official-sounding, but in fact are just basically propaganda pieces.

And what we try to document in our report is that there are seven foundations who have been giving over $43 million to these core individuals to produce this information. And what we're trying to do is let these foundations, let these funders know that their money is going towards hate propaganda, and ask them to come out clean. Do they support this hate propaganda, or do they not?

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about these foundations, Faiz. Why don't you lay them out?

FAIZ SHAKIR: Sure. So, some of them are leading conservative organizations, like the Richard Mellon Scaife Foundation. He's been around for a while. He's donated to a whole bunch of conservative causes, including an involvement in the Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative think tank. Richard Mellon Scaife was of course famous in the late '90s for leading the effort to try to impeach Bill Clinton. He's giving money to Frank Gaffney's organization and a host of other individuals that we mention in the report, as well as the Bradley Foundation, another leading conservative foundation that gives money to a whole bunch of free market types of organizations. And it really looked odd to us that they were also engaged in Muslim bashing.

And so, that's one of the things that was interesting to us, is that some of these organizations you wouldn't expect would have a role in this kind of activity, and yet they've been doing it for decades. And I think it's possible that there's one of two scenarios here. One is that these funders know exactly what they're funding, probably didn't want their names out there, but they're pretty happy with what their money is going towards. Or the second possibility is that they didn't know what their money was going towards; they didn't realize that some of these grantees were taking the money and turning it around to produce a hate campaign against Muslims in America.

AMY GOODMAN: Faiz Shakir, I wanted to go to a comment of Robert Spencer of "Jihad Watch." This is a clip of Spencer on Fox News.

ROBERT SPENCER: This is the great, politically correct falsehood that is taught everywhere, that Islam is a religion of peace that's been hijacked. Islam is actually unique among the religions of the world in having a developed doctrine, theology and legal system that mandates warfare against unbelievers.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk, Faiz, about Robert Spencer, who he is, where he gets his funding? Why does he appear so often on Fox News?

FAIZ SHAKIR: Yeah, Robert Spencer is an author of the blog "Jihad Watch." "Jihad Watch" is sponsored by David Horowitz's Freedom Center, so that's part of the kind of network of Islamophobia. They produce information all day long, just putting out ridiculous quotes like the one that you just heard. Robert Spencer is also co-leader of a group called Stop Islamization of America. He co-leads that with Pamela Geller, another prominent right-wing blogger who spews this kind of venom. And together, Geller and Spencer were really responsible for inflaming the Park51 controversy, the quote-unquote "Ground Zero mosque." It was Geller and Spencer who really coined the term "victory mosque at Ground Zero" and turned it from a local effort to try to build a moderate Islam in New York City and turn it into kind of a national spectacle, international spectacle, that was totally misconstrued and propounded all these baseless theories about what Muslims were attempting to do there. And so, Robert Spencer has been one of the leading purveyors. And what he attempts to do frequently is use very hot rhetoric, over-the-top rhetoric, to try to scare people about Muslims.

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Spencer wrote a response to your report, "Fear, Inc.," called "The Islamic Supremacist Propaganda Machine Cranks Out Another 'Islamophobia' [Report]." He says, quote, "Without offering any substantive refutation, 'Fear, Inc.' dismisses as 'inaccurate and perverse' my statement that Islam is 'the only religion in the world that has a developed doctrine, theology and legal system that mandates violence against unbelievers and mandates that Muslims must wage war in order to establish the hegemony of the Islamic social order all over the world.' What is 'inaccurate and perverse' is the report's denial of this, since it is a matter of objective verification that all the mainstream Islamic sects and schools of Islamic jurisprudence do indeed teach that the Islamic umma must wage war against unbelievers and subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law." He goes on to say, "The report does not and cannot produce any evidence that Islam does not contain sects and schools that teach this." Those the words of Robert Spencer responding to your report, Faiz Shakir, called "Fear, Inc."

FAIZ SHAKIR: Well, I would say a couple things. First of all, the report is very clear on what it is trying to do, which is to just document how the Islamophobia network produces information, disseminates it, and is basically held up by the media and a whole host of other factors. And so, what we're trying to do is show the trail of how that information gets out, not necessarily rebut every single charge, but to show what these people are.

Secondly, the report does note that there is terrorism that is conducted, violent extremism conducted in the name of Islam by many Muslims. And that, of course, is something that the vast majority of Muslims themselves disagree with and are often our best tools in fighting terrorismthe Muslim communityand turning out informants within the community and suspects within the community. It's been fairly successful, and there's no concern that there is some complicity within the Muslim community towards this violent act of terrorism.

I think what Robert Spencer tries to do is suggest that the rational fear that you can have about a potential act of terror being committed in the name of Islam is actually something that gets blown out into an irrational fear. And he wants basically a society in which we are concerned about the presence of all Muslims in America. And this is the running theme of all the Islamophobia network. David Yerushalmi is one of the key lawyers of this group, and he has authored legislation that says, previously, that it would be 20you would have 20 years in prison if you were found to be practicing sharia. That is criminalizing the practice of being Muslim in America. That's basically the running thread of the Robert Spencers, the David Yerushalmis, is that they really just want to paint with a broad brush all Muslims and suggest that they are all a threat.

AMY GOODMAN: Police and experts point to the internet's role in spreading the racist material that shaped Norwegian accused mass murderer Anders Breivik's extreme views. However, they also highlight the difficulty in policing dynamic online forums without undermining civil liberties. J. Peter Burgess of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo said back in July, "We need to shift gear in our way of understanding right-wing extremism." Let's go to that clip.

J. PETER BURGESS: We seem to have a new generation. The first generation, associated with neo-Nazism and the Second World War, had methods that werewhich were associated with public demonstrations; simple, low-level kinds of violence; obviously associated with neo-Nazism and other historical eventsvery public, very explicit, and very much national, nationalistic. Whereas here, we have a whole 'nother kind of setup and logic, where it's networked very much through the internet, of course, and not only chat rooms, but the other resources that are available on the internet. It's international, and it's in hiding. And the methods are far, far stronger, far more radical. And the goals are quite different. Here wasthis was going to be a European revolution, according to the manifesto you mentioned. And so, quite a bit, we need to shift gears in our way of understanding this kind of right-wing extremism, and be careful that we look at it in detail.

AMY GOODMAN: That was J. Peter Burgess of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo. Breivik cited Spencer quite a bit. Faiz Shakir, how do you deal with the line between free speech and hate speech?

FAIZ SHAKIR: Well, words have consequences. I think it was President Clinton who said that we should be mindful of our words because they fall on the serious and delirious alike. And that is, when you say something crazy, most serious-minded individuals will recognize it for being a little absurd and probably not something that needs to be acted upon, but if you're delirious, you may take what Robert Spencer suggests and say that, "Oh, if Islam is a theological war doctrine against me, then I better take up arms and go fight them." And that's what we're trying to highlight, is that there is a lot of irresponsible rhetoric coming from conservatives like Robert Spencer.

And in the case of Anders Breivik, he, of course, is solely responsible for the terrorism that he committed. But what we did learn is that he was influenced and motivated by the writings of the Islamophobia network. And we have a responsibility to be more cautious in how we describe these threats. Some, I thinkas I was trying to suggest earlier, there is a rational threat, trying to identify the very small number of people who would be willing to commit terrorism in the actin the name of Islam, versus the irrational threat, the people like Glenn Beck, who say, "Well, 10 percent of the world's Muslim population must be terrorist." Ten percent would be hundreds of millions of people. And that's the kind of irresponsible rhetoric we need to tamp down on, because it can fall on the serious and delirious alike, and somebody may try to use that kind of language to commit ridiculous and terrorist and violent acts.

AMY GOODMAN: Faiz Shakir, I want to thank you very much for being with us, author of the report "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America." Faiz Shakir is with ThinkProgress.org and the Center for American Progress. He is vice president there. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, one of the first casualties of the attacks on 9/11, almost 10 years ago, was honored this weekend: Father Mychal Judge. We'll learn about his life. Stay with us.

[Peter Lemkin]

Download this report (pdf)

Chapter 1: Donors to the Islamophobia network
Chapter 2: The Islamophobia misinformation experts
Chapter 3: The grassroots organizations and the religious right
Chapter 4: The right-wing media enablers of anti-Islam propaganda
Chapter 5: The political players
Conclusion

Video: Ask the Expert: Faiz Shakir on the Group Behind Islamophobia

On July 22, a man planted a bomb in an Oslo government building that killed eight people. A few hours after the explosion, he shot and killed 68 people, mostly teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on Norway's Utoya Island.

By midday, pundits were speculating as to who had perpetrated the greatest massacre in Norwegian history since World War II. Numerous mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, speculated about an Al Qaeda connection and a "jihadist" motivation behind the attacks. But by the next morning it was clear that the attacker was a 32-year-old, white, blond-haired and blue-eyed Norwegian named Anders Breivik. He was not a Muslim, but rather a self-described Christian conservative.

According to his attorney, Breivik claimed responsibility for his self-described "gruesome but necessary" actions. On July 26, Breivik told the court that violence was "necessary" to save Europe from Marxism and "Muslimization." In his 1,500-page manifesto, which meticulously details his attack methods and aims to inspire others to extremist violence, Breivik vows "brutal and breathtaking operations which will result in casualties" to fight the alleged "ongoing Islamic Colonization of Europe."

Breivik's manifesto contains numerous footnotes and in-text citations to American bloggers and pundits, quoting them as experts on Islam's "war against the West." This small group of anti-Muslim organizations and individuals in our nation is obscure to most Americans but wields great influence in shaping the national and international political debate. Their names are heralded within communities that are actively organizing against Islam and targeting Muslims in the United States.

Breivik, for example, cited Robert Spencer, one of the anti-Muslim misinformation scholars we profile in this report, and his blog, Jihad Watch, 162 times in his manifesto. Spencer's website, which "tracks the attempts of radical Islam to subvert Western culture," boasts another member of this Islamophobia network in America, David Horowitz, on his Freedom Center website. Pamela Geller, Spencer's frequent collaborator, and her blog, Atlas Shrugs, was mentioned 12 times.

Geller and Spencer co-founded the organization Stop Islamization of America, a group whose actions and rhetoric the Anti-Defamation League concluded "promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy "American values." Based on Breivik's sheer number of citations and references to the writings of these individuals, it is clear that he read and relied on the hateful, anti-Muslim ideology of a number of men and women detailed in this report&a select handful of scholars and activists who work together to create and promote misinformation about Muslims.

While these bloggers and pundits were not responsible for Breivik's deadly attacks, their writings on Islam and multiculturalism appear to have helped create a world view, held by this lone Norwegian gunman, that sees Islam as at war with the West and the West needing to be defended. According to former CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman, just as religious extremism "is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged," the writings of these anti-Muslim misinformation experts are "the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged." Sageman adds that their rhetoric "is not cost-free."

These pundits and bloggers, however, are not the only members of the Islamophobia infrastructure. Breivik's manifesto also cites think tanks, such as the Center for Security Policy, the Middle East Forum, and the Investigative Project on Terrorismthree other organizations we profile in this report. Together, this core group of deeply intertwined individuals and organizations manufacture and exaggerate threats of "creeping Sharia," Islamic domination of the West, and purported obligatory calls to violence against all non-Muslims by the Quran.

This network of hate is not a new presence in the United States. Indeed, its ability to organize, coordinate, and disseminate its ideology through grassroots organizations increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Furthermore, its ability to influence politicians' talking points and wedge issues for the upcoming 2012 elections has mainstreamed what was once considered fringe, extremist rhetoric.

And it all starts with the money flowing from a select group of foundations. A small group of foundations and wealthy donors are the lifeblood of the Islamophobia network in America, providing critical funding to a clutch of right-wing think tanks that peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islamin the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted talking points that anti-Islam grassroots organizations and some right-wing religious groups use as propaganda for their constituency.

Some of these foundations and wealthy donors also provide direct funding to anti-Islam grassroots groups. According to our extensive analysis, here are the top seven contributors to promoting Islamophobia in our country:
Donors Capital Fund
Richard Mellon Scaife foundations
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust
Russell Berrie Foundation
Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund
Fairbrook Foundation

Altogether, these seven charitable groups provided $42.6 million to Islamophobia think tanks between 2001 and 2009funding that supports the scholars and experts that are the subject of our next chapter as well as some of the grassroots groups that are the subject of Chapter 3 of our report.

And what does this money fund? Well, here's one of many cases in point: Last July, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned a conservative audience at the American Enterprise Institute that the Islamic practice of Sharia was "a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it." Gingrich went on to claim that "Sharia in its natural form has principles and punishments totally abhorrent to the Western world."

Sharia, or Muslim religious code, includes practices such as charitable giving, prayer, and honoring one's parentsprecepts virtually identical to those of Christianity and Judaism. But Gingrich and other conservatives promote alarmist notions about a nearly 1,500-year-old religion for a variety of sinister political, financial, and ideological motives. In his remarks that day, Gingrich mimicked the language of conservative analyst Andrew McCarthy, who co-wrote a report calling Sharia "the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time." Such similarities in language are no accident. Look no further than the organization that released McCarthy's anti-Sharia report: the aforementioned Center for Security Policy, which is a central hub of the anti-Muslim network and an active promoter of anti- Sharia messaging and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In fact, CSP is a key source for right-wing politicians, pundits, and grassroots organizations, providing them with a steady stream of reports mischaracterizing Islam and warnings about the dangers of Islam and American Muslims. Operating under the leadership of Frank Gaffney, the organization is funded by a small number of foundations and donors with a deep understanding of how to influence U.S. politics by promoting highly alarming threats to our national security. CSP is joined by other anti-Muslim organizations in this lucrative business, such as Stop Islamization of America and the Society of Americans for National Existence. Many of the leaders of these organizations are well-schooled in the art of getting attention in the press, particularly Fox News, The Wall Street Journal editorial pages, The Washington Times, and a variety of right-wing websites and radio outlets.

Misinformation experts such as Gaffney consult and work with such right-wing grassroots organizations as ACT! for America and the Eagle Forum, as well as religious right groups such as the Faith and Freedom Coalition and American Family Association, to spread their message. Speaking at their conferences, writing on their websites, and appearing on their radio shows, these experts rail against Islam and cast suspicion on American Muslims. Much of their propaganda gets churned into fundraising appeals by grassroots and religious right groups. The money they raise then enters the political process and helps fund ads supporting politicians who echo alarmist warnings and sponsor anti-Muslim attacks.

These efforts recall some of the darkest episodes in American history, in which religious, ethnic, and racial minorities were discriminated against and persecuted. From Catholics, Mormons, Japanese Americans, European immigrants, Jews, and African Americans, the story of America is one of struggle to achieve in practice our founding ideals. Unfortunately, American Muslims and Islam are the latest chapter in a long American struggle against scapegoating based on religion, race, or creed.

Due in part to the relentless efforts of this small group of individuals and organizations, Islam is now the most negatively viewed religion in America. Only 37 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Islam: the lowest favorability rating since 2001, according to a 2010 ABC News/Washington Post poll. According to a 2010 Time magazine poll, 28 percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, and nearly one-third of the country thinks followers of Islam should be barred from running for president.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 alone did not drive Americans' perceptions of Muslims and Islam. President George W. Bush reflected the general opinion of the American public at the time when he went to great lengths to make clear that Islam and Muslims are not the enemy. Speaking to a roundtable of Arab and Muslim American leaders at the Afghanistan embassy in 2002, for example, President Bush said, "All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true faithface of Islam. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It's a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It's a faith based upon love, not hate."

Unfortunately, President Bush's words were soon eclipsed by an organized escalation of hateful statements about Muslims and Islam from the members of the Islamophobia network profiled in this report. This is as sad as it is dangerous. It is enormously important to understand that alienating the Muslim American community not only threatens our fundamental promise of religious freedom, it also hurts our efforts to combat terrorism. Since 9/11, the Muslim American community has helped security and law enforcement officials prevent more than 40 percent of Al Qaeda terrorist plots threatening America. The largest single source of initial information to authorities about the few Muslim American plots has come from the Muslim American community.

Around the world, there are people killing people in the name of Islam, with which most Muslims disagree. Indeed, in most cases of radicalized neighbors, family members, or friends, the Muslim American community is as baffled, disturbed, and surprised by their appearance as the general public. Treating Muslim American citizens and neighbors as part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, is not only offensive to America's core values, it is utterly ineffective in combating terrorism and violent extremism.

The White House recently released the national strategy for combating violent extremism, "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States." One of the top focal points of the effort is to "counter al-Qa'ida's propaganda that the United States is somehow at war with Islam." Yet orchestrated efforts by the individuals and organizations detailed in this report make it easy for al-Qa'ida to assert that America hates Muslims and that Muslims around the world are persecuted for the simple crime of being Muslims and practicing their religion.

Sadly, the current isolation of American Muslims echoes past witch hunts in our historyfrom the divisive McCarthyite purges of the 1950s to the sometimes violent anti-immigrant campaigns in the 19th and 20th centuries. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has compared the fear-mongering of Muslims with anti-Catholic sentiment of the past. In response to the fabricated "Ground Zero mosque" controversy in New York last summer, Mayor Bloomberg said:

In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion, and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780s, St. Peter's on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site, and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center. ... We would betray our values and play into our enemies' hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else.

This report shines a light on the Islamophobia network of so-called experts, academics, institutions, grassroots organizations, media outlets, and donors who manufacture, produce, distribute, and mainstream an irrational fear of Islam and Muslims. Let us learn the proper lesson from the past, and rise above fear-mongering to public awareness, acceptance, and respect for our fellow Americans. In doing so, let us prevent hatred from infecting and endangering our country again.

In the pages that follow, we profile the small number of funders, organizations, and individuals who have contributed to the discourse on Islamophobia in this country. We begin with the money trail in Chapter 1our analysis of the funding streams that support anti-Muslim activities. Chapter 2 identifies the intellectual nexus of the Islamophobia network. Chapter 3 highlights the key grassroots players and organizations that help spread the messages of hate. Chapter 4 aggregates the key media amplifiers of Islamophobia. And Chapter 5 brings attention to the elected officials who frequently support the causes of anti- Muslim organizing.

Before we begin, a word about the term "Islamophobia." We don't use this term lightly. We define it as an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from America's social, political, and civic life.

It is our view that in order to safeguard our national security and uphold America's core values, we must return to a fact-based civil discourse regarding the challenges we face as a nation and world. This discourse must be frank and honest, but also consistent with American values of religious liberty, equal justice under the law, and respect for pluralism. A first step toward the goal of honest, civil discourse is to exposeand marginalizethe influence of the individuals and groups who make up the Islamophobia network in America by actively working to divide Americans against one another through misinformation.

[Jeffrey Orling]

Lemkin,

Do you think that if the *coup* (shadow government) perceived some individual as a real threat... ie revealing the details about what they are doing, who they are, how they are doing it, how 911 was done and so forth... that this person would be *neutralized* by any one of several means up to including assassination?

Those who are not perceived as threats... such as you or me are allowed to rant and rave and no one pays any mind to a thing we say and so no threat from us... and *we* become fodder for humiliation so as never to be taken seriously by the left, right or center. We're a collection of conspiracy nut jobs... and there will always be nuts with weird theories... who are not to be believed.

[Magda Hassan]

White Supremacist Leads the GOP's Anti-Sharia Crusade (and He's Pam Geller's Attorney, to Boot)

8th March 2011

" … The surge of legislation across the country is largely due to the work of one man: David Yerushalmi, an Arizona-based white supremacist who has previously called for a war against Islam' and tried to criminalize adherence to the Muslim faith. … "

By Tim Murphy
Mother Jones | March 1, 2011

Last week, legislators in Tennessee introduced a radical bill that would make "material support" for Islamic law punishable by 15 years in prison. The proposal marks a dramatic new step in the conservative campaign against Muslim-Americans. If passed, critics say even seemingly benign activities like re-painting the exterior of a mosque or bringing food to a potluck could be classified as a felony.
The Tennessee bill, SB 1028, didn't come out of nowhere. Though it's the first of its kind, the bill is part of a wave of related measures that would ban state courts from enforcing Sharia law. (A court might refer to Sharia law in child custody or prisoner rights cases.) Since early 2010, such legislation has been considered in at least 15 states. And while fears of an impending caliphate are myriad on the far-right, the surge of legislation across the country is largely due to the work of one man: David Yerushalmi, an Arizona-based white supremacist who has previously called for a "war against Islam" and tried to criminalize adherence to the Muslim faith.
Yerushalmi, a lawyer, is the founder of the Society of Americans for National Existence(SANE), which has been called a "hate group" by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). His draft legislation served as the foundation for the Tennessee bill, and at least half a dozen other anti-Islam measuresincluding two bills that were signed into law last year in Louisiana and Tennessee.
With the exception of SB 1028, much of Yerushalmi's legislation sounds pretty innocuous: State courts are prohibited from considering any foreign law that doesn't fully honor the rights enshrined in the US and state constitutions. Because a Taliban-style interpretation of Islamic law is unheard of in the United States, the law's impact is non-existent at best. But critics of some of the proposed bills have argued they could have far-reaching and unintended consequences, like undoing anti-kidnapping statutes, and hindering the ability of local companies to enter into contracts overseas.
But Tennessee's SB 1028 goes much further, defining traditional Islamic law as counter to constitutional principles, and authorizing the state's attorney general to freeze the assets of organizations that have been determined to be promoting or supporting Sharia. On Monday, CAIR and the ACLU called for lawmakers to defeat the bill.
"Essentially the bill is trying to separate the good Muslims' from the bad Muslims,'" said CAIR staff attorney Gadeir Abbas in an interview with Mother Jones. "Out of all the bills that have been introduced, this is by far the most extreme."
Reports about the rise of the anti-Sharia movement have typically focused on Oklahoma's voter-approved constitutional amendment, which explicitly prohibited state courts from considering Islamic law (a federal judge issued a permanent injunction against the amendment in December). But the movement began much earlier, with a sample bill Yerushalmi drafted at the behest of theAmerican Public Policy Alliance, a right-wing organization established with the goal of protecting American citizens from "the infiltration and incursion of foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines, especially Islamic Shariah Law."
In a 40-minute PowerPoint that's available on the organization's site, Yerushalmi explained the ins and outs of the sample legislation. His bills differ from the failed Oklahoma amendment in one key way: They don't mention Sharia. Instead, they focus more broadly on "foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines." As Yerushalmi explained in an interview with the nativist New English Review in December, the language is "facially neutral," thereby achieving the same result while "avoiding the sticky problems of our First Amendment jurisprudence."
Since crafting the sample legislation, Yerushalmi's services have been been in high demand as an expert witness. In mid-February, he flew to South Dakota to testify in support of a bill modeled on his "American Law for American Courts" plan. (He also offered to provide pro-bono legal support for the state if the law produced any legal challenges.)
Ultimately, the bill died in committee, after the state's attorney general testified that the bill could lead to lawsuits. "I am a little chagrined by the fact that none of the opponents of the bill have actually read it with any care," Yerushalmi told the committee. "Something else is at work here."
But it's not just Muslims who draw Yerushalmi's scorn. In a 2006 essay for SANE entitled On Race: A Tentative Discussion (pdf), Yerushalmi argued that whites are genetically superior to blacks. "Some races perform better in sports, some better in mathematical problem solving, some better in language, some better in Western societies and some better in tribal ones," he wrote.
Yerushalmi has suggested that Caucasians are inherently more receptive to republican forms of government than blacksan argument that's consistent with SANE's mission statement, which emphasizes that "America was the handiwork of faithful Christians, mostly men, and almost entirely white." And in an article published at the website Intellectual Conservative, Yerushalmi, who is Jewish, suggests that liberal Jews "destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite." Unsurprisingly, then, Yerushalmi offered the lone Jewish defense of Mel Gibson, after the actor's anti-Semitic tirade in 2006. Gibson, he wrote, was simply noting the "undeniable Jewish liberal influence on western affairs in the direction of a World State."
Despite his racist views, Yerushalmi has been warmly received by mainstream conservatives; his work has appeared in the National Review and Andrew Breitbart's Big Peace. He's been lauded in the pages of the Washington Times. And in 2008, he published a paper on the perils of Sharia-compliant finance that compelled Sen. Minority Whip John Kyl (R-Ariz.) to write a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Chris Cox.
More recently, Yerushalmi co-authored a report on the threats posed by Islamic lawamong other things, he worries Sharia-compliant finance could spark another financial collapsethat earned plaudits from leading Republicans like Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra. The report was released by Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy, for which Yerushalmi is general counsel.
In 2007, he pushed legislation to make "adherence to Shari'a" a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. That same proposal called for the deportation of all Muslim non-citizens, and a ban on Muslim immigration. The United States, he urged, must declare "a WAR AGAINST ISLAM and all Muslim faithful."
Neither Yerushalmi nor the American Public Policy Alliance responded to a request for comment for this article.
If his racially infused writings and rhetoric are any indication, it's Yerushalmi, not his Muslim bogeymen, who seems most determined to remake the American political system. Per its mission statement, SANE is "dedicated to the rejection of democracy and party rule," and Yerushalmi has likewise criticized the universal suffrage movement. As he once put it, "there's a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote."
Click here to read David Yerushalmi's response.
Tim Murphy is an editorial fellow at Mother Jones. Get Tim Murphy's RSS feed.

On David Yerushalmi and Pamela Geller

From: "David Yerushalmi and (in)SANE," by Sheila Musaji

… Yerushalmi is Pamela Gellers personal attorney and has represented her group SIOA (Stop the Islamization of America). Yerushalmi incorporated American Freedom Defense Initiative which is the non-profit under which she and Robert Spencer produce their blogs. He is also the legal counsel for Frank Gaffney's anti-MuslimCenter for Security Policy and served in the same role for Stop the Madrassa, the group which got Debbie Almontaser fired as principal of the Khalil Gibran Academy. **
Yerushalmi's name comes up whenever anti-Sharia or "creeping Sharia" is the subject. The most recent anti-Sharia bill in Tennessee was actually drafted by Yerushalmi:
"The Tennessee bill goes further by proposing criminal penalties for following Shariah. Matheny said the bill was model legislation, given to him by the Tennessee Eagle Forum, a conservative advocacy group. Bobbie Patray, state president of the Eagle Forum, confirmed that the law had been drafted by David Yerushalmi, a Chandler, Ariz.-based attorney. Yerushalmi runs the Society of Americans for National Existence, a nonprofit that says following Shariah is treasonous. He also has close ties to Frank Gaffney, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy." Bob Smietana
Yerushalmi also published a racist article that he must now be ashamed of, as Alex Kanepoints out "Yerushalmi has deleted as much evidence of the "On Race" article as he could; he removed it from the Internet Archive and the Google cache, and put his entire website behind a registration wall. But here's a PDF that contains the full article, and it's as ugly and twisted a piece of racism as anything I've ever seen. Yerushalmi opens by calling Islam "an evil religion," and "blacks … the most murderous of peoples."
Yerushalmi is also the former employer of Dave Gaubatz, his one-time "Director of Intelligence and Counter-terrorism Studies" and author of a Muslim-bashing book. In 2007, Yerushalmi's group paid Gaubatz $148,898 for "research." Gaubatz has a long history of bigotry targeting Islam and Muslims. He has called Islam an "evil ideology" and a "terminal disease." Along with his past rhetorical attacks Islam, Gaubatz has called President Obama a "crack head" and wrote that "a vote for Hussein Obama is a vote for Sharia Law." Nihad Awad
A key leader of the group opposing a new, Arab-focused public school in Brooklyn is a virulent opponent of a democratic Jewish state who denounces "Zionist Israel" and calls on it to "cast off the yoke of liberal democracy." Stop the Madrassa leader David Yerushalmi also condemns democracy in the United States and, in comments that evoke classical anti-Semitic stereotypes, says he finds truth in the view that Jews "destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite." … In a message to a pro-Israel rally last June he asked: "What interest does America have in a strong Israel? If your answer is democracy in a liberal or western sense, know you have sided with the Palestinians of Hamas." Jewish Week
Yerushalmi represented SIOA (Stop the Islamization of America) in bus ad lawsuit
Geller founded AFDI (American Freedom Defense Initiative) with attorney David Yerushalmi **. AFDI is the parent organization of SIOA (Stop the Islamization of America) which has been named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/

[Peter Lemkin]

https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...lamophobia

[Jan Klimkowski]

Some of these foundations and wealthy donors also provide direct funding to anti-Islam grassroots groups. According to our extensive analysis, here are the top seven contributors to promoting Islamophobia in our country:
Donors Capital Fund
Richard Mellon Scaife foundations
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust
Russell Berrie Foundation
Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund
Fairbrook Foundation

Many of the usual suspects.

It's like finding a reference to the implausibly deniable cutout known as the Human Ecology Fund during the era of MK-ULTRA....

For starters, here's Sourcewatch on

Scaife

Bradley