Brigitte Gabriel

Tragic Murder of Two Muslim Girls, FOX News, and the Hate Speech of Brigitte Gabriel

Normally I make a conscious effort to not watch Fox News because every time I do I end up getting angry at all the nonsense I am hearing and I am not trying to let Sean Hannity send me to a premature death by giving me a heart attack.This morning I decided to watch all three major cables news channels and C-Span to get as much coverage of the Iowa Caucus as possible from all angles and in particular I wanted to hear the conservative take on FOX regarding the victory of Mike Huckabee on the Republican side ( I was already in a good mood because of the Obama win the night before and had my fill with that).

It just so happened while watching FOX I saw the coverage of the murders of Sarah (17) and Aminah (1 Said by their father Yaser Abdel-Said in his taxi in Irvine, TX.  For those of you unfamiliar with the story these were two Muslim girls allegedly killed by their Egyptian father and there is speculation that he may have killed them because he was angry over the way they dressed and their interactions with non-Muslim boys. For now this is just speculation and we don’t really know what happened.

If this is the case of a so-called “honor killing” or there was some supposed “Islamic motivation” for this killing then that is a tragedy, not only because these girls died for no reason, but because there is nothing honorable or Islamic about these murders.

For the record there are hundreds of thousands of young Muslim women in America and the vast majority of them are well-adjusted, loved by their families, and are on paths to success. If you do not believe me go to any large college campus anywhere in America and you will see Muslim women well-represented who have not been killed by their families; but have rather been nurtured and supported into success. These young Muslim women represent the majority of Muslim women in America and are far more representative of the community than tragic isolated incidents such as those of Sarah and Aminah.

Having said that there are problems with the treatment of girls and women in our community and I have written on this topic on numerous occasions in the past. There is a problem of domestic violence, abuse, abandonment, and ill-treatment of women in the Muslim community. This is not Islam, and this is not what the Quran teaches and it is not the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) or the way of the Salaf, but it is something that occurs in the community due to backwards and outdated cultural notions.

We have to realize that Muslim girls (and boys) being raised in America and going to public schools (or Muslim schools) are not going to behave like girls back home in Muslim countries. This means that a lot of Muslim girls are going to want to behave like non-Muslim girls here and in some ways that may be good and in others it may be bad. When it is bad Muslim parents need to learn how to deal with it in a civilized manner and not make a bad situation worse by going nuts. Most Muslim parents who overreact over their daughters don’t kill them; but many give them unnecessary punishments and are basically tyrannical in the treatment of their girls.  This is an issue that needs to be addressed by the leadership of the Muslim community and is something I have heard addressed by many sisters at the recent Muslim Alliance in North American convention, Imam Zaid Shakir, Imam Suhaib Webb, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, and others.

What I saw on FOX News however made a bad situation a whole lot worse as a notorious figure of extreme hate by the name of Brigitte Gabriel was interviewed, and being that this is FOX, she was introduced as a “victim of Islamic terror”, an expert (not citing her controversial nature), and was allowed to basically ramble on a hate-filled tirade towards Muslims without being challenged even one time.

Gabriel (who for the record was never a victim of “Islamic terror” but as a Lebanese Maronite Christian grew-up in a civil war that was more of an ethnic and civil conflict in which her side practiced their own fair share of terror) used this tragic incident to go an all-out tirade against Islam and Muslims.

Her lesson from the attack? This is just another part of the plan of the Muslim Brotherhood, adopted in 1962, to take over America. The Muslim community in America is growing and Muslims are increasingly immigrated here because of this diabolical plan by the Muslim Brotherhood she says. Now, I could go on and on about this; but for those who do not know the majority of Muslim immigrants are not that religious and not that many of those who are religious have any relation or draw any inspiration from the Muslim Brotherhood. Muslims are coming here for the same reasons other immigrants yearn to come to America for superior economic, living, and political conditions.

To say that there is a plot that all Muslims are a part of from taxi drivers from Somalia to Pakistani engineers in Silicon Valley to Palestinian deli owners in Chicago to Nigerian doctors in Brooklyn  is just absurd and irrational but on FOX News statements like this can go unchallenged. If there is a plot, as she alleges, where do all these Muslims go to get their orders? Who do they report to? How do they measure progress? How do Muslims in places like Morocco who sleep outside the American embassy to get a shot at the visa lottery become a part of the plot?  Are they mailed instructions on how to take over America upon getting their visa?

Americans should be alarmed because “Muslims are emboldened by the rights given to them” Gabriel says; does this mean that Muslims should not be given rights or Islam as a religion should not be allowed? She attributes the building of mosques as a part of the Muslim take-over of America; but, again, if she was questioned she would have to admit that those opening store front mosques in St. Louis don’t have any connection to, or maybe even know, people in their own cities building mosques on the other side of town. These are simple independent acts of people just trying to establish houses of worship as other faith communities do in America.

Gabriel goes went on to say that “honor killings are very very common” and this was allowed to be said again without being challenged. Does she have any evidence that killings such as this are common in the American-Muslim community?

This finally led Bridgette Gabriel to say that Yaser Abdel-Said was being hid by “some mosque or mullahs”. Does she have any evidence of this happening? Is this something that has ever happened before in the American-Muslim community? Or is this just another cheap attempt by Gabriel to advance her agenda of hate?

In closing I want to give you a quote from her this year at a Christians United for Israel event and you tell me if this does not sound like something that could have been uttered by the Ku Klux Klan or a neo-Nazi organization;

“The difference, my friends, between Israel and the Arab world is the difference between civilization and barbarism. It’s the difference between good and evil [applause]…. this is what we’re witnessing in the Arabic world, They have no SOUL !, they are dead set on killing and destruction. And in the name of something they call Allah which is very different from the God we believe….[applause] because our God is the God of love.”

The fact that this woman, such an obvious figure of hate, would be allowed to speak on this matter speaks to the absurdity of FOX News and the misusage of this tragic event in order to create further fear and ignorance towards the Muslim community.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: Two-Bit Terror Hustler and Spiritual Carpetbagger

Slate Review of his book by Holly Lebowitz Rossi

In a crowded publishing industry, marketing is everything. And Daveed Gartenstein-Ross’ new book, My Year Inside Radical Islam: A Memoir, seems at first glance to hit all the right notes, beginning with its provocative title. Gartenstein-Ross is billed as someone who barely escaped from the very grip of evil, a radical Muslim turned Christian, a counterterrorism consultant who has testified before Congress and volunteered for questioning by the FBI. Conservative commentators, from syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin to Front Page magazine’s Jamie Glazov to talk-radio host G. Gordon Liddy and Fox News’ Sean Hannity, have seized on Gartenstein-Ross as a conquering hero who resisted terrorism and extremism to emerge a Christian. “If there were justice in Hollywood, the book would have already been optioned as a movie by now,” Malkin gushed.

But there was nothing particularly radical about Gartenstein-Ross’ experience with Islam in the first place, except for a few alarming opinions that he briefly subscribed to—in his mind—as a very young man. The book is more a journey inside the developing religious conscience of a 22-year-old than inside the world of radical Islam. Along the way, Gartenstein-Ross does a serious disservice to moderate and progressive Muslims, who are too often suspected of terrorist activities, and non-Muslim Americans curious about the differences between moderate and radical Islam.

Americans tend to have a hard time comprehending the nuances of Islam. Headlines since 9/11 about the religion haven’t offered nearly enough insight into the multifaceted Muslim community and its broad spectrum of beliefs and practices. Even five years into our supposed education about the faith, what usually comes to people’s minds is still the extremism of al-Qaida and the Taliban, groups that are far removed from the faith practiced by most American Muslims. But even that modicum of knowledge is incomplete. Radical, extremist groups follow specific schools of thought, interpretations of the Quran, and religious practice. And we’re still struggling to figure out the difference between Sunnis and Shiites

Click to read on