Hiiraan Online

Tuesday February 23, 2016
By Leo Hohmann

Crime scene following chase of vehicle driven by San Bernardino shooters Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who killed 14 people at a Christmas party. Americans are fearful of Islamic terrorism but CAIR sees it as merely ‘Islamophobia’

A new coalition has formed in Minnesota and launched its first event Saturday in Minneapolis – a rally and march through the Cedar Riverside community, which is home to the nation’s largest community of Somali refugees. CAIR plans similar events nationwide to build awareness about discrimination and “hatred” against Muslim Americans.

The rally and ensuing panel discussion was titled, “Stop Islamophobia, Defend the Muslim Community.”

Minnesota’s Somali refugees have been brought there over the past 25 years by the U.S. State Department in cooperation with the United Nations. WND has reported recently about the growing backlash in St. Cloud, where native-born Minnesotans feel they have been saddled with high tax burdens to provide for the education, health-care and other welfare needs of the Somalis.

In “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance,” renowned activist Pamela Geller provides the answer, offering proven, practical guidance on how freedom lovers can stop jihadist initiatives in local communities.

Not to mention the security risks.

The FBI confirms that more than 30 Somalis have left the country since 2007 to fight for overseas terrorist organizations such as al-Shabab and ISIS, causing Minnesota’s U.S. attorney, Andrew Luger, to acknowledge in April 2015 that “we have a terror recruitment problem in Minnesota.”

Dozens of other Somali-Americans have been charged with and/or convicted of providing material support to terrorist organizations.

One participant in the rally, Bilal Mustafa, told CBS Minnesota he hoped to change the association between Islam and terrorism.

But CAIR is not the organization best suited to build bridges between American Muslims and their non-Muslim countrymen, says Dr. Mark Christian, founder of the Global Faith Institute and son of a Muslim Brotherhood operative in Egypt.

CAIR has its own dubious connections to extremist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, while several of its officials have been convicted over the years for their support of terrorist organizations.

Christian told WND the term "Islamophobia" was an invention of the Muslim Brotherhood, which created many fronts for its extremist agenda, one of which is CAIR. The term "Islamophobia" was designed to cast Western Muslims as victims.

Rather than being so concerned about cultivating victimhood among Muslims, the people at CAIR should be more concerned about stopping young Muslims from engaging in terrorism, he said.

"Will fighting Islamaphobia stop terrorism? Will it stop the propagation of the lethal ideas that are claiming lives every day around the world?" asks Christian, a one-time child imam who converted to Christianity as an adult and changed his name from "Muhammad" to "Mark."

He said the Brotherhood solicits and "preys upon the poor Muslim community here in America to abuse them and use them to further their own agenda, to install in their minds the victim mentality, a very dangerous thinking that does nothing other breed more violence and the loss of innocent lives."

A divide and conquer strategy

Muslim Brotherhood fronts – such as CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America and the Muslim Student Association – have a clear agenda.

"They won't stop until they destroy the fabric of the United States, turning Americans against each other and paving the way for our destruction by their own hands exactly as they pledged to do so back in 1949," Christian said.

Christian author Carl Gallups, who served 10 years in law enforcement before he became a full-time Baptist pastor and radio host, said CAIR is banking on Americans being intimidated by political correctness.

"Either we cave to the political correct pressure of the Muslim fanatics and the labeling leftists that appear to have hijacked America’s collective commonsense, or we insist upon and enforce the laws of the constitutional republic that brought us this far through history," said Gallups, author of "Be Thou Prepared: Equipping the Church for Persecution and Times of Trouble."

"We have to decide whether or not we are going to be the United States of America, or a banana republic. We the People are at another historical crossroads," he said.

Islam expert Robert Spencer chronicled the development of the term "Islamophobia" in his article "How the term 'Islamophobia' got shoved down your throat," in which he traces the invention to the early 1990s by a Brotherhood front called the International Institute for Islamic Thought.

"On examination, the term 'Islamophobia' is designed to create a modern-day thought crime, while the campaign to suppress it is an effort to abolish the First Amendment where Islam is concerned," Spencer writes in another article co-authored with David Horowitz. "The purpose of the suffix – phobia — is to identify any concern about troubling Islamic institutions and actions as irrational, or worse as a dangerous bigotry that should itself be feared."

How to deal with charges of 'Islamaphobia'

Gallups said he approaches the "Islamophobia" label from three levels: historical accuracy, national security and personal day-to-day relationships and ministry responsibilities.

"Historical accuracy reminds us that the Ottoman Empire was birthed on the back of barbaric Islamic conquest," he said.

That barbarism was not relegated only to the “junior varsity” of Islam or a “radical sect,” according to Gallups.

"It was, and is, the foundational philosophy of the majority of the Islamic world – conquest in the name of Allah," he said. "Also, we must never forget that the United States’ very first war and naval battle were the Barbary Wars – fought against a barbaric Islam that was destroying our merchant ships and enslaving and murdering the crews."

From a national-security perspective, Gallups said Americans should demand that their leaders be prudent in how the U.S. receives immigrants and refugees holding the Islamic faith – "and especially those from areas where Islamic terrorism is the norm."

Even some of the most liberal of America’s past presidents have expelled Muslims from America and denied entrance to others, he said.

"President Jimmy Carter immediately comes to mind. I think what most American’s “fear” is that their government is not being precautious enough in the matter of Islamic relocation in America – especially since ISIS has made it clear they are using the refugee crisis as a Trojan horse ruse."

On a personal level, Gallups advises Christians to build day-to-day relationships with Muslim neighbors, saying they should "go about our lives being as gracious and respectful to all people, of all faiths – as much as it is possible with us (Romans 12:18). This is a hallmark of the real America. And, it is one of the defining characteristics of a 'real' Christian."

And by all means, share the gospel with your Muslim neighbor, Gallups said.

He also has advice for American Muslims.

"Rather than 'organizing' to combat 'Islamophobia attitudes' among other Americans, why not organize to promote peace and cooperation among all Americans, of all faith systems?" he asked. "Do you desire to be a Muslim living in America, who is grateful for the America that affords you and your family the blessings you possess – or do you desire to 'change' America to be more 'Muslim?' You see, it is often not the attitudes of non-Muslim Americans that are driving Islamophobia. More often than not, it is the attitudes of Muslims in America creating the Islamophobic atmosphere. Muslims really could do a lot to make Islamophobia virtually disappear in the United States … if that is really what they desire."