THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 46, March 16, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CAIR ATTACKS THE FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
THE ISLAMIST FIFTH COLUMN IN THE U.S.A.: ISLAMIST LAWFARE AGAINST FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION & AGAINST
AMERICA'S EDUCATIONAL & CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS -- ACTIVITIES OF THE COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS
-- THE CAIR'S ASSAULT ON HONEST DISCUSSION & ANALYSIS OF ISLAM -- TURNING THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS INTO
INSTRUMENTS OF PRO-ISLAMIST PROPAGANDA & INDOCTRINATION -- CAIR STAFF'S ANTI-WESTERN, ANTI-SEMITIC, &
RACIST STATEMENTS
FULL STORY:
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is up to its usual assault on the discussion of Islam.
Its Philadelphia chapter is holding a press conference on March 17, at which it plans "to announce the launch of a nationwide
campaign to challenge anti-Islam bias in a series of children's books that the Washington-based Muslim civil rights group
says promote 'hostility toward Islam and suspicion of Muslims'."
The reference is to a ten-volume series for middle schools and high schools titled the World of Islam, produced by the
Foreign Policy Research Institute, and published by Mason Crest Publishers. (For the record, in 1986-1993, I served as Director
of the Foreign Policy Research Institute; I had no role in the World of Islam series.)
In advance of the press conference, it may be helpful to review an incriminating e-mail exchange among the CAIR staff about
the series. It took place on December 9, 2009, when Moein M. Khawaja, "Civil Rights Director" for CAIR's Philadelphia office,
sent a memo to the CAIR staff. Khawaja reported that he had gone through some of the Mason Crest volumes and flagged
materials he disapproved of (such as, "The burqa is a visible symbol of European Muslims resistance to assimilation in
society").
Relying on an informant at Mason Crest, Khawaja then wrote:
"I've been given the entire order list for this series (orders
that came in up until yesterday). This list shows which
school districts and libraries have purchased the
individual books or entire series -- It is a nationwide
campaign. This is valuable information, because we can
contact each of them and explain that they really got
propaganda. I'm not sure what legal issues there are
here -- but there has to be some sort of thing about
masked propaganda in schools and libraries?"
Karen Dabdoub, of CAIR's Cincinnati chapter, replied latter that day that she shared Khawaja's concerns.
"Many of these authors have names that, at the very
least, sound Jewish, and none that sound like Muslim
names. While I know we can't judge a book by its
cover, it still gives me reason to doubt the balance of
the information in these books. I also noticed another
book [published by Mason Crest -- DP] on Islamic
Fundamentalism and the glowing review they quote is
from the Association of Jewish Libraries."
Still on December 9, Babak Darvish, of CAIR's Columbus office, replied:
"Good call Sr. Karen, the names do sound like that ...
one of them sounds almost Serbian/Romanian. It
sounds like everybody that has a beef with Islam is
producing books to brainwash the youth with for the
next generation. This is really hateful, and would be
like Neo-Nazis writing books to teach about Judaism
in Public schools."
Presumably, the "almost Serbian/Romanian" name is that of the late Michael Radu, my onetime co-author and author of the
recently published book, Europe's Ghost: Tolerance, Jihadism, and the Crisis of the West (Encounter).
Comments:
(1) This episode raises unsettling questions: What is CAIR doing with an "informant" inside Mason Crest Publishers?
How many other publishing houses has it penetrated? And which other cultural institutions have staff more loyal to CAIR
than to their employers?
(2) Remarks about authors' names "that, at the very least, sound Jewish" and one that "sound almost Serbian/Romanian"
give a sense of how CAIR staff think and write when they think they are not being watched, with biased and even racist
attitudes toward Jews and Balkan peoples very much at odds with their usual public face. (That public face, too, sometimes
lapses, as I documented at Look Now Who's Profiling -- CAIR's Staff Is.)
(3) Even more alarming is the conclusion from the authors' names that the Mason Crest series "is really hateful" and a
comparison of it to "Neo-Nazis writing books to teach about Judaism in Public schools." Implicit to this reasoning is the
false and demeaning assumption that Jews and Balkan peoples may not write about Islam.
(4) I challenge Mason Crest Publishers to investigate which employee smuggled its proprietary information to CAIR and
then inform the public of his or her identity.
(5) And I challenge CAIR to disown and disavow its staff's anti-Semitic and racist statements.
© Daniel Pipes 2010
Originally Published in Front Page Magazine, March 16, 2010
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, March 16, 2010
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/8097/cair-attacks-foreign-policy-research-institute
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
The Islamist Fifth Column -- America's Internal Enemies:
Disloyalty, Subversion, Sedition, & Treason
Lawfare -- The Use of Law as a Weapon in War & Politics:
Islamist Lawfare & the "Legal" Jihad Against America & the West
Education, Training, & America's Schools:
Institutions of Elementary, Secondary, & Higher Education
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
Founder of Campus Watch, Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a
signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former
adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a
former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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