Obama tells Muslim world: 'America is not Islam's enemy'

Extracted from Daily Mail, UK, 27.01.09

In the his first major interview with an Arabic television station, President Obama also told Dubai-based satellite TV station Al Arabiya that it was his job to tell the Muslim world: 'Americans are not your enemy'.

He spoke as his new Middle East envoy arrived in Cairo today on a tour to kick off the new administration's efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and shore up a shaky Gaza truce.



George Mitchell, a former U.S. senator, was due to meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak tomorrow at the start of a week-long trip that will also take him to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, France and Britain.

'Sending George Mitchell to the Middle East is fulfilling my campaign promise that we're not going to wait until the end of my administration to deal with Palestinian and Israeli peace. We're going to start now,' Mr Obama told Al Arabiya.

'He's going to be speaking to all the major parties involved. And he will then report back to me. From there we will formulate a specific response.'

He added that he had told Mitchell to 'start by listening'.

'Now, my job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries.

'What I want to communicate is the fact that in all my travels throughout the Muslim world, what I've come to understand is that regardless of your faith - and America is a country of Muslims, Jews, Christians, non-believers - regardless of your faith, people all have certain common hopes and common dreams.

'And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives.
'My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy.'

He praised Saudi King Adbullah for putting forward an Arab plan for peace in the Middle East.

He said: 'It is impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not think in terms of what's happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan.

These things are interrelated.'

Mr Obama said his administration had begun to fulfill his campaign promises by naming former U.S. Senator George Mitchell as a Middle East peace envoy and sending him to the region within days of becoming president. Mr Mitchell was travelling to the region on Monday evening.

He added: 'Ultimately we cannot tell either the Israelis or the Palestinians what is best for them.
'But I do believe that the moment is ripe for both sides to realise that the path that they are on is one that is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people.

'And that instead, it's time to return to the negotiating table.'

The President urged people in the Muslim world to judge him by his actions, pointing to the decision to close the U.S. prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, where detainees in the U.S. war on terror are being held. He said he also would begin to follow through on his pledge to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq.

Jewish settlers desecrate Hebron mosque and graves

Well we usually hear about Jewish graves through Europe being desecrated by facsist now it seems that Jewish Settlers (majority who had left the same parts of Europe) are doing what facsists had done to their communities!

Taken from Google News, By AFP

HEBRON, West Bank — Jewish settlers angry at an Israeli court order for their eviction from a house in Hebron desecrated a mosque and tombs in the flashpoint West Bank City before dawn on Thursday, witnesses said.

The settlers scrawled "Mohammed is a pig" and "Death to the Arabs" on the front of a mosque and drew the Israeli emblem, the Star of David, on several gravestones in a Muslim cemetery, the witnesses said.

The mosque and cemetery both lie near the Hebron house where dozens of hardline Jewish settlers are defying the order by the Israeli High Court setting last Wednesday a deadline for them to leave or face eviction.

Israeli soldiers are on round-the-clock patrol in the tense neighbourhood.

The ruling, which was slammed by settler leaders, follows a series of violent clashes between Israeli security forces and hardline Jews seeking to erect unauthorised outposts in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967.

The court rejected an appeal by two right-wing organisations against a government order to evacuate the Hebron house, which the settlers claim they had purchased from a Palestinian, who denies selling the house.

The four-storey house at the centre of the dispute was occupied in March 2007 by dozens of hardline Jewish settlers who have dubbed it "the house of peace".

The court ruling said the settlers "should turn to the appropriate legal bodies to prove their ownership over the house and refrain from taking the law into their own hands by occupying the property against the will of its owner."

The settler representatives claimed the house had been bought for 700,000 dollars, but Palestinian Faez Rajabi said he had documents proving he was the legal owner and that the deal had never been completed.

While the court ruling said there were "contradictions and queries" in Rajabi's claims, it also said that documents presented by the settlers in a bid to show ownership "were found by police investigators to be forged."

Israel Builds Museum on Muslim Graves

Taken from Islamonline, Thu. Oct. 30, 2008

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — An Israeli court ruling allowing the construction of a Jewish museum over graves of some companions of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) in Al-Quds is sparking a controversy.

"Israeli is declaring a global war on Muslims and Arabs," Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, told a press conference on Thursday, October 30.

"A general of the [prophet's] Companions is buried in this cemetery."

Sheikh Salah noted that thousands of other Muslims have been buried in the cemetery, putting the number at 70,000 thousands until 1948.

Israel's High Court on Wednesday, October 29, rejected an appeal by two Muslim groups to halt the building of a Jewish museum on the site of a Muslim cemetery in central Al-Quds.

The court argued that the cemetery has been in public use since the municipality authorities put a parking lot over a small section of the graveyard in the 1960s.

It claimed that a proposal put forward by the museum planners to rebury the bones or cover the graves was "satisfactory" to resolve the issue.

The court said the construction of the museum, halted in 2006 after human remains were discovered during the digging, can resume immediately.

The Mufti of Al-Quds, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, said the verdict was a "grave decision which harms the Muslim holy sites."

He described the construction of the $250-million museum by a Los Angeles-based Jewish group as "act of aggression."

Help Plea

Sheikh Salah appealed to the Muslim world to intervene to halt the construction on the Muslim cemetery.

"We have sent messages to the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to stop this crime."

The Muslim leader said the court verdict was part of the Israeli policies to judaize the holy city.
"But we will not give up our rights."

Israel captured Al-Quds in the 1967 war and later annexed the holy city, in a move not recognized by the international community.

The city is home to Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine and the first Qiblah [direction Muslims take during prayers].

Al-Quds is also home to some of the holiest Christian worship places, including the Jerusalem Church and the Greek Orthodox Church.

Archmandrite Atallah Hanna also criticized the Israeli court ruling.

"This is the true face of the occupation," he told the same press conference.

The Christian clergy reaffirmed the unity of Palestinian Muslims and Christians in the face of Israeli aggressions.

"We stand shoulder to shoulder in the same trench."

18 Koreans Kidnapped In Afghanistan

Taken from Yahoo News, Fri Jul 20 2007
By By FISNIK ABRASHI, The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants threatened Friday to kill at least 18 kidnapped South Korean Christians, including 15 women, within 24 hours unless the Asian nation withdraws its 200 troops from Afghanistan.

In the largest abduction of foreigners since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, several dozen fighters kidnapped the South Koreans at gunpoint from a bus in Ghazni province on Thursday, said Ali Shah Ahmadzai, the provincial police chief.

"They have got until tomorrow (Saturday) at noon to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, or otherwise we will kill the 18 Koreans," Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, told The Associated Press on a satellite telephone from an undisclosed location. "Right now they are safe and sound."

Outmatched by foreign troops, the Taliban often resort to kidnapping civilians caught traveling on treacherous roads, particularly in the country's south, where the insurgency is raging. The tactic hurts President Hamid Karzai's government by discouraging foreigners involved in reconstruction projects from venturing into remote areas where their help is most needed.

The abductions came a day after two Germans and five of Afghan colleagues working on a dam project were kidnapped in central Wardak province.

Ahmadi said the Taliban were also holding the two Germans, and threatened to kill them if Germany did not withdraw its 3,000 troops from a NATO-led force by noon Saturday — the same deadline as he gave South Korea.

Germany's Foreign Ministry said it was "aware of the statement by the so-called spokesman of the Taliban" but that it contradicted a statement the previous day that the Taliban was not holding the Germans.

"We will continue to carefully monitor developments of the situation," ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said. "All necessary steps have been taken. The crisis team continues to work toward a swift release of the two kidnapped men."

On June 28, another German man was kidnapped in western Afghanistan, but was released after a week.

South Korea has about 200 troops serving with an 8,000-strong U.S.-led force, which is separate from the 40,000-member NATO-led force.

It was unclear what the Koreans were doing in Afghanistan.

A year ago, hundreds of South Korean Christians were ordered to leave Afghanistan amid rumors they were proselytizing in the deeply conservative Islamic nation. A member of that group promised they would return to the country in smaller groups, but denied charges of spreading Christianity.

Yonhap reported that most of the hostages were members of the Saemmul Community Church in Bundang, just south of the South Korean capital, Seoul.

An official at the Presbyterian church confirmed 20 of its members were in Afghanistan for volunteer work. The group left South Korea on July 13 and was to return on July 23, she said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to talk to the media.

There were conflicting reports on how many Koreans were kidnapped.

The South Koreans' bus driver, released late Thursday, said there were 18 women and five men on the bus, Ahmadzai said. The Taliban spokesman said 15 women and three men were seized.

And the South Korean Foreign Ministry reported the abduction of 21 Koreans, including 16 women, according to the country's news agency, Yonhap.

The Koreans were seized as they traveled on a privately rented bus along the main highway from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar, Ahmadzai said. The militants drove the bus into the desert before abandoning the vehicle and forcing the group to walk for about one hour, he said.

He said the group was in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif before it arrived in Kabul.

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According to the CIA World Factbook, Afganistan represents Sunni Muslim 80%, Shi'a Muslim 19%, and other 1%. This brings me to the question raised in the article - what were these South Korean Christians doing in Afganistan other than to spread Christianity in an occupied country that is represented by Muslims? This gives a bad message to the Muslim world i.e. We, the allied countries have delibrately occupied the country, there is no sign of Bin Laden, all captured terrorists that were taken to Gitmo are released without compensation because (apart from one or two) are all innocent and now we are sending missionaries to convert all Muslims into Christians, all this approved by a puppet government we support, oh and i forgot to mention that production of drugs has increased to record levels whilst we are occupying the country - need I saw more?

Srebrenica Buries More Victims

Taken from Al-Jezeera News Agency, WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 2007

The families of victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslims have gathered to bury the remains of 465 newly-identified victims.

For the first time, the anniversary commemoration took place in an atmosphere of raised hopes that justice will be done.

There are signs that many of those responsible for the massacre may finally be prosecuted.

On Tuesday, Miroslav Lajcak, the new Bosnian peace overseer, moved to sack a senior Bosnian Serb police official and suspend 35 policemen believed to have taken part.


Muslims want self-rule for Srebrenica but the Serbs are opposed [EPA]

War crime
Ratko Mladic, a Bosnian Serb army general, seized the former UN "safe zone" of Srebrenica in July 1995 and in the following days carried out what is considered Europe's worst war crime since World War Two.

Elmana Mehic, a Srebrenican who came to bury the remains of her uncle, said: "God grant that what was done yesterday bears fruit. Twelve years have passed and nobody has done anything for us. They are only playing with us."

Mehic's uncle's remains were collected from three different mass graves. She also lost her father, husband and many relatives in the massacre.

Several senior Bosnian Serb army officers have been sentenced by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague for the massacre, and others are bring tried in Bosnia.

Self-rule
However, top genocide suspects Mladic and his political boss Radovan Karadzic are still at large.
The Dayton peace accords, which ended the 1992-95 war, split Bosnia into two parts, the Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb republic.

Srebrenica, 70 per cent Muslim before the war, went to the Serb republic. Muslims want self-rule for the town but the Serbs are opposed.

In his last act before handing over to Lajcak this month, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, a former peace envoy, issued a ruling that the memorial complex in Potocari near Srebrenica should be under the protection of the Bosnian state.

'No return'
Srebrenica families welcomed the news, but complained that the same people who killed their relatives were still wearing the uniforms of the Bosnian Serb police and guarding the tombs of the victims.

But Mirnesa Sinanovic, 21, who came to bury the remains of her father, said: "Lajcak did a fair thing for us, the victims, because we deserved it after all these years."

Sinanovic said her family had repaired their old house in a village near Srebrenica but were still not living there.

"Until we feel safe and secure, we will not return," she said.

Germans Split Over A Mosque And The Role Of Islam

Taken from The New Yourk Times, 05 July 2007
By MARK LANDLER

COLOGNE, Germany — In a city with the greatest Gothic cathedral in Germany and no fewer than a dozen Romanesque churches, adding a pair of slender fluted minarets would scarcely alter the skyline. Yet plans for a new mosque are rattling this ancient city to its foundations.

Cologne’s Muslim population, largely Turkish, is pushing for approval to build what would be one of Germany’s largest mosques, in a working-class district across town from the cathedral’s mighty spires.

Predictably, an extreme-right local political party has waged a noisy, xenophobic protest campaign, drumming up support from its far-right allies in Austria and Belgium.


Cologne, known for its Gothic cathedral, has been jarred by divisions over plans for a mosque, to be one of Germany’s largest, for the city’s largely Turkish Muslim population. It has grown into a hot national debate.

But the proposal has also drawn fierce criticism from a respected German-Jewish writer, Ralph Giordano, who said the mosque would be “an expression of the creeping Islamization of our land.” And he does not want to see women shrouded in veils on German streets, he said.

Mr. Giordano’s charged remarks, first made at a recent public forum here, have catapulted this local dispute into a national debate in Germany over how a secular society, with Christian roots, should accommodate the religious yearnings of its growing Muslim minority.

Mosques have risen in recent years in Berlin, Mannheim and Duisburg, each time provoking some hand-wringing among residents. But the dispute in Cologne, a city Pope Benedict XVI once called the Rome of the north, seems deeper and more far-reaching.

When Turkey itself is debating the role of Islam in its political life, Germans are starting to ask how — or even if — the 2.7 million people of Turkish descent here can square their religious and cultural beliefs with a pluralistic society that enshrines the rights of women.


Bekir Alboga, top, an imam, with a model of the mosque, which he supports. Manfred Rouhs, center, opposes it as a sign of a parallel Muslim society and Ralph Giordano, a writer, sees it as “creeping Islamization.”

Mr. Giordano, a Holocaust survivor, has been sharply criticized, by fellow Jews, among others, and has even received death threats. But others say he is giving voice to Germans, who for reasons of their past, are reluctant to express misgivings about the rise of Islam in their midst.

“We have a common historical background that makes us overly cautious in dealing with these issues,” said the mayor of Cologne, Fritz Schramma, who supports the mosque but is not without his qualms.

“For me, it is self-evident that the Muslims need to have a prestigious place of worship,” said Mr. Schramma, who belongs to the center-right Christian Democratic Union. “But it bothers me when people have lived here for 35 years and they don’t speak a single word of German.”

Cologne’s Roman Catholic leader, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, is similarly ambivalent. Asked in a radio interview if he was afraid of the mosque, he said, “I don’t want to say I’m afraid, but I have an uneasy feeling.”

These statements rankle German-Turkish leaders, who have been working with the city since 2001 to build a mosque on the site of a converted drug factory, which now houses a far smaller mosque, a community center and the offices of the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs.

“The 120,000 Muslims of Cologne don’t have a single place they can point to with pride as the symbol of our faith,” said Bekir Alboga, leader of interreligious dialogue at the union, which is known as Ditib. “Christians have their churches, Jews have their synagogues.”

Mr. Alboga, a 44-year-old Turkish imam who immigrated here at 18 and speaks rapid-fire German, said the mosque would be a “crowning moment for religious tolerance.” Given Germany’s dark history, he added, “German politicians need to be careful about what they say.”

Mr. Alboga said he was particularly dismayed by Cardinal Meisner, because the Catholic Church, along with Germany’s Protestant churches, has long supported the mosque. Ditib, he said, is a moderate organization that acts as a “bulwark against radicalism and terrorism.” It plans to finance the project, which will cost more than $20 million, entirely through donations.

The group must obtain a building permit before it can break ground, but Mr. Alboga said he was confident the mosque would not be blocked. Ditib has agreed to various stipulations, including a ban on broadcasting the call to prayer over loudspeakers outside the building.

Public opinion about the project seems guardedly supportive, with a majority of residents saying they favor it, though more than a quarter want its size to be reduced.

Cologne, with one of the largest Muslim populations of any German city, already has nearly 30 mosques. Most are in converted factories or warehouses, often tucked away in hidden courtyards, which has contributed to a sense that Muslims in Germany can worship only furtively.

The new mosque would put Islam in plain sight — all the more so because the design calls for a domed building with glass walls. Showing off a model designed by a German architect who specializes in churches, Mr. Alboga said, “Our hearts are open, our doors are open, our mosque is open.”

In some ways, the mosque seems calculated to avoid touching nerves. It would not be built near a church or loom over its neighbors, like the new mosque in Duisburg. It would be flanked by multistory office buildings and a giant television tower, which would dwarf its minarets. At 180 feet tall, they would be only one-third the height of the cathedral’s spires.

Yet the Turkish community has run into fervent and organized opposition. The far-right party Pro Cologne, which holds 5 of the 90 seats in the city council, collected 23,000 signatures on a petition demanding the halting of the project. The city says only 15,000 of them were genuine.

On June 16, Pro Cologne mobilized 200 people at a rally to protest the mosque. Among those on hand were the leaders of Austria’s Freedom Party, which was founded by Jörg Haider, and the extremist party Vlaams Belang, or Flemish Interest, from Antwerp. Both advocate the deportation of immigrants.

Cologne’s deputy mayor, Elfi Scho-Antwerpes, a Social Democrat, appeared with Turkish leaders at a counterdemonstration across the street. Mayor Schramma, she noted, did not attend.

Manfred Rouhs, a leader of Pro Cologne, said the mosque would reinforce the development of a parallel Muslim society, and encourage the subjugation of women, which he said was embedded in Islam. “This is not a social model that has any place in the middle of Europe,” he said.

In this, he has found common ground with Mr. Giordano, an 84-year-old Jew who eluded the Nazis in World War II by hiding in a cellar. Mr. Giordano, who dismisses Pro Cologne as a “local chapter of contemporary National Socialists,” nonetheless agrees that the mosque is a threat.

“There are people who say this mosque could be a step toward integration,” Mr. Giordano said in an interview. “I say, ‘No, no, and three times no.’ Mosques are a symbol of a parallel world.”

Mr. Giordano said Germany needed to face the fact that, after three generations of Turkish immigration, efforts to integrate the Turkish minority had failed. Immigrants, he said, sought the privileges of membership in German society but refused to bear the obligations.

Germany’s “false tolerance,” he said, enabled the Sept. 11 hijackers to use Hamburg as a haven in which to hatch their terrorist plot. Cologne, too, has struggled with radical Islamic figures, most notably Metin Kaplan, a militant Turkish cleric known as the caliph of Cologne.

“I don’t want to see women on the street wearing burqas,” said Mr. Giordano, a nattily dressed man with the flowing white hair of an 18th-century German romantic. “I’m insulted by that — not by the women themselves, but by the people who turned them into human penguins.”

Such blunt language troubles other German Jews, who say a victim of religious persecution should not take a swipe at another religious minority. Henryk M. Broder, a Jewish journalist who is a friend of Mr. Giordano’s, said he should have avoided the phrase “human penguins.”

But Mr. Broder said that his underlying message was valid, and that his stature as a writer gave him the standing to say it. “A mosque is more than a church or a synagogue,” he said. “It is a political statement.”

For Mr. Alboga, though, the line between frank debate and racist demagoguery is not so clear.

“This is like thinking from the Middle Ages,” he said, “and it is sending the racists to the barricades.”

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The decison to build the mosque & it's size should lie with the local government that runs Cologne. If they don't object then it should not become a problem.

Under the European Unions Freedom of thought, conscience and religion - everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance. They also have the right to conscientious objection is recognised, in accordance with the national laws governing the exercise of this right. According to the Equality law, everyone is equal before the law Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited. So what is the problem?

Scrutiny Increases For A Group Advocating For Muslims In U.S.

Taken from The New York Times, March 14, 2007
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

With violence across the Middle East fixing Islam smack at the center of the American political debate, an organization partly financed by donors closely identified with wealthy Persian Gulf governments has emerged as the most vocal advocate for American Muslims — and an object of wide suspicion.

The group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, defines its mission as spreading the understanding of Islam and protecting civil liberties. Its officers appear frequently on television and are often quoted in newspapers, and its director has met with President Bush. Some 500,000 people receive the group’s daily e-mail newsletter.

Yet a debate rages behind the scenes in Washington about the group, commonly known as CAIR, its financing and its motives. A small band of critics have made a determined but unsuccessful effort to link it to Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been designated as terrorist organizations by the State Department, and have gone so far as calling the group an American front for the two.

In the latest confrontation yesterday, CAIR held a panel discussion on Islam and the West in a Capitol meeting room despite demands by House Republicans that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, not allow the event. The Republicans called its members “terrorist apologists.”

Caley Gray, a spokesman for Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey Democrat who helped book the room, rejected that label in a phone interview and said CAIR held similar meetings when Congress was controlled by Republicans. Still, Mr. Gray called back to specify that Mr. Pascrell did not endorse all of the group’s positions.

Last fall, Senator Barbara Boxer of California issued a routine Certificate of Appreciation to the organization representative in Sacramento, but she quickly revoked it when critics assailed her on the Web under headlines like “Senators for Terror.”

“There are things there I don’t want to be associated with,” Ms. Boxer said later of the revocation, explaining that her California office had not vetted the group sufficiently.

CAIR and its supporters say its accusers are a small band of people who hate Muslims and deal in half-truths. Ms. Boxer’s decision to revoke the Sacramento commendation provoked an outcry from organizations that vouch for the group’s advocacy, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the California Council of Churches.

“They have been a leading organization that has advocated for civil rights and civil liberties in the face of fear and intolerance, in the face of religious and ethnic profiling,” said Maya Harris, the executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Northern California.

Government officials in Washington said they were not aware of any criminal investigation of the group. More than one described the standards used by critics to link CAIR to terrorism as akin to McCarthyism, essentially guilt by association.

“Of all the groups, there is probably more suspicion about CAIR, but when you ask people for cold hard facts, you get blank stares,” said Michael Rolince, a retired F.B.I. official who directed counterterrorism in the Washington field office from 2002 to 2005.

Outreach to all Muslims via groups they support is an important aspect of ensuring that extremists cannot get a foothold here as they have in Europe, Mr. Rolince said.

The cloud kicked up by the constant scrutiny is such that spokesmen at several federal agencies refused to comment about the group and some spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

After a brief interview, Ms. Boxer declined to answer additional questions about the commendation to the Sacramento representative, Basim Elkarra. A spokeswoman, Natalie Ravitz, said in an e-mail message that the senator had decided “to put this entire incident behind her.”

Joe Kaufman, who Ms. Boxer’s office said first drew her attention to CAIR’s reputation, is the founder of a Web site that tracks what he calls the group’s extremism, cairwatch.com. Other critics include the Investigative Project, a conservative group that tries to identify terrorist organizations, and the Middle East Forum, a conservative research center that says its goal is to promote American interests in the region.

“You can’t fight a war on terrorism directly when you are acting with a terror front,” said Mr. Kaufman, who advocates shutting down the organization.

Founded in 1994, CAIR had eight chapters at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the group, but has grown to some 30 chapters as American Muslims have felt unjustly scrutinized ever since.

Broadly summarized, critics accuse CAIR of pursuing an extreme Islamist political agenda and say at least five figures with ties to the group or its leadership have either been convicted or deported for links to terrorist groups. They include Mousa Abu Marzook, a Hamas leader deported in 1997 after the United States failed to produce any evidence directly linking him to any attacks.

There were no charges linked to CAIR in any of the cases involved, and law enforcement officials said that in the current climate, any hint of suspicious behavior would have resulted in a racketeering charge.

The group’s officials say the accusations are rooted in its refusal to endorse the American government’s blanket condemnations of Hezbollah and Hamas, although it has criticized Hamas for civilian deaths.

Several federal officials said CAIR’s Washington office frequently issued controversial statements that made it hard for senior government figures to be associated with the group, particularly since some pro-Israeli lobbyists have created what one official called a “cottage industry” of attacking the group and anyone dealing with it.

Last summer, the group urged a halt to weapons shipments to Israel as civilian casualties in Lebanon swelled. In September, it held a dinner for former President Mohamed Khatami of Iran at a time when much of official Washington had ostracized that Islamic republic. In November, the group sponsored a panel discussion by two prominent academics who argue that the pro-Israeli lobby exercises detrimental influence on United States policy on the Middle East.

“Traditionally within the government there is only one point of view that is acceptable, which is the pro-Israel line,” said Nihad Awad, a founder of CAIR and its executive director. “Another enlightened perspective on the conflict is not there, and it causes some discomfort.”

When Mr. Bush visited a Washington mosque in 2001, Mr. Awad was among the Muslim leaders he met. But Dana M. Perino, a White House spokeswoman, said Mr. Awad had not been invited to any recent iftars, annual dinners to break the fast during the holy month of Ramadan. She offered no explanation.

This year, when Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales met with the leaders of half a dozen Muslim and Arab-American organizations in his office, no representative from CAIR was invited.

When Karen P. Hughes, the close adviser to Mr. Bush and under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, started interacting with the group, she was criticized as dealing with “Wahhabis,” shorthand for Saudi-inspired religious extremists, a State Department spokesman said.

CAIR has raised some suspicion by accepting large donations from individuals or foundations closely identified with Arab governments. It has an annual operating budget of around $3 million, and the group said it solicited major donations for special projects, like $500,000 from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia to help distribute the Koran and other books about Islam in the United States, some of which generated controversy.

The donations are a source of contention within CAIR itself. Several branch directors said they had avoided foreign financing and had criticized the national office for it.

Officials at other Arab-American and Muslim organizations said there was a decided split between how the national office operated and how the branches did. The branch offices, which raise their own money and operate largely as franchises, concentrate on local civil rights problems and hence develop close working relationships with law enforcement.

When the Southern California chapter threw itself a birthday party last November, nearly 2,000 people packed the Anaheim Hilton’s ballroom to hear guests of honor praise the organization, including J. Stephen Tidwell, the director of the F.B.I.’s Los Angeles office.

“I am very excited to be here,” Mr. Tidwell told a reporter covering the fund-raiser for an Arab-American television news channel, calling CAIR “an important bridge for the F.B.I. into the Muslim, Arab-American community.”

The Washington office, the officials at the other Arab-American and Muslim groups said, tends to fight more image battles because its main staff members have backgrounds in public relations. Still, they said, CAIR’s contrarian image helps with fund-raising both in the American Muslim community and among Arab governments because both believe that the federal government is biased against them.

Some Muslims, particularly the secular, find CAIR overly influenced by Saudi religious interpretations, criticizing it for stating in news releases, for example, that all Muslim women are required to veil their hair when the matter is openly debated.

But they still support its civil rights work and endorse the idea of anyone working to make American Islam a more integral part of society. One Arab-American advocate compared CAIR to “the tough cousin who curses at anyone who speaks badly about the family.”

Some activists and academics view the controversy surrounding the group as typical of why Washington fails so often in the Middle East, while extremism mushrooms.

“How far are we going to keep going in this endless circle: ‘You are a terrorist!’ ‘No, you are a terrorist!’? ” said Souleiman Ghali, one of the founders of a moderate San Francisco mosque. “People are paying a price for that.”

David Johnston contributed reporting.

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It does seems that there is a witch hunt against CAIR from a few powerful minority. I can't really see the difference between CAIR and AIPAC or CAMERA. All these groups try and raise the profile and awareness of their interests (although with AIPAC it is not always in the best interests of the US). If the members of CAIR are found to promote racial hatred or promote any kind of terrorism in the US or anywhere around the world, then theses people should be arrested and dealt with severely - otherwise they have not done anything wrong and we should all stop the scaremongering. Maybe people like Joe Kaufman have an agenda against Muslims? We should try and get along together whatever our religions and beliefs.

Limit Muslim Migration, Australia Warned

Taken from The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, February 16, 2007
Barney Zwartz

LIFE can become untenable when the Muslim population of a non-Muslim country reaches about 10 per cent, as shown by France, a Jewish expert on Islam says.

The Australian Jewish News yesterday quoted Raphael Israeli as saying Australia should cap Muslim immigration or risk being swamped by Indonesians.

Professor Israeli told the Herald that was a misunderstanding. But he said: "When the Muslim population gets to a critical mass you have problems. That is a general rule, so if it applies everywhere it applies in Australia."

Professor Israeli, an expert on Islamic history from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has been brought to Australia by the Shalom Institute of the University of NSW. The Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council is co-hosting many of his activities.

He said Muslim immigrants had a reputation for manipulating the values of Western countries, taking advantage of their hospitality and tolerance.

"Greeks or Italians or Jews don't use violence. There is no Italian or Jewish Hilaly [a reference to the controversial cleric Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly of Lakemba mosque]. Why?"

Professor Israeli said that when the Muslim population increased, so did the risk of violence.

"Where there are large Muslim populations who are prepared to use violence you are in trouble.

If there is only 1 or 2 per cent they don't dare to do it - they don't have the backing of big communities. They know they are drowned in the environment of non-Muslims and are better behaved."

In Australia, Muslims account for about 1.5 per cent of the population.

Professor Israeli said that in France, which has the highest proportion of Muslims in Europe at about 10 per cent, it was already too late. There were regions even the police were scared to enter, and militant Muslims were changing the country's political, economic and cultural fabric, and demanding anti-Semitic and anti-Israel policies.

"French people say they are strangers in their own country. This is a point of no return.

"If you are on a collision course, what can you do? You can't put them all in prison, and anyway they are not all violent. You can't send them all back. You are really in trouble. It's irreversible."

Professor Israeli said that in Australia a few imams had preached violence. "You should not let fundamentalist imams come here. Screen them 1000 times before they are admitted, and after they are admitted screen what they say in the mosque."

He said some Muslims wanted to impose sharia (Islamic law) in their adopted countries, and when propaganda did not work they turned to intimidation.

Professor Israeli said his task was to describe, not prescribe. He also said his warning did not include immigrants, including Muslims, who simply wanted to improve their lot. As long as they respected the law and democracy, their numbers — Buddhist, Muslim or Jew — were immaterial. It became material when a group accepted violence.

"The trains in London and Madrid were not blown up by Christians or Buddhists but by Muslims, so it is them we have to beware," he said.

Keysar Trad, of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, said "Not only religious clerics need to be screened before entering Ausralia but also academics … this type of academic does nothing but create hatred, suspicion and division … We should review not only what the man has said but also those who have sponsored him, to see if they endorse those comments."