CAIR Attacks Anti-Terrorism DVD
Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West has been dubbed "hate speech."
They obviously did CAIR’s job well, because as Dan and I stood up to leave I caught a snatch of conversation across the aisle: “It was too bad that Daniel Pearl got killed, but…”
Hence you have the mission of groups such as CAIR: to plant the “but” in people’s minds. Daniel Pearl got beheaded, but it must be America’s fault for provoking poor lil’ Khalid Sheikh Mohammed into his obsession with long knives. The film Obsession begins with the title screen, “It is important to remember most Muslims are peaceful and do not support terror. … This is not a film about them.” It may show real scenes of terrorist attacks and clerics spewing hate, but CAIR is here to twist that into “hate-filled propaganda” against Muslims as a whole.
It’s unfortunate that the worthy message within the DVD is obscured by anger not focused on the terrorists featured onscreen, but on the messenger.
The advertising buy paid for by the Clarion Fund (a shadowy Jewish conspiracy, alleges CAIR) was to distribute 28 million of the Obsession DVDs via newspaper inserts or direct mail. The Greensboro News & Record in North Carolina refused to carry the DVD at all, saying it was “divisive and plays on people’s fears and served no educational purpose.” Editor & Publisher cynically observed that the newspaper buys were in swing states, and questioned the New York Times about its policy on such inserts: “We believe the broad principles of freedom of the press confer on us an obligation to keep our advertising columns as open as possible. Therefore our acceptance or rejection of an advertisement does not depend on whether it coincides with our editorial positions,” replied the Times. The advertising buy, by the way, coincided with the film’s Sept. 11 wide release in major retailers.
CAIR filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, claiming that the swing-state distribution amounted to campaigning for John McCain. First, they cited rumors and writers’ complaints about the DVDs. Next, they laid the groundwork for their Jewish Conspiracy Du Jour:
According to the website for the Secretary of State for New York, Clarion Fund Inc. is incorporated in New York as a Delaware based foreign not-for-profit corporation. According to the Delaware Department of Corporations, Robert (Rabbi Raphael) Shore, Rabbi Henry Harris and Rebecca Kabat incorporated Clarion Fund. All three of whom are reported to serve as employees of Aish HaTorah International, an organization apparently based in Israel. Also according to the Delaware Department of Corporations, the incorporators of the Clarion Fund used Aish HaTorah’s New York City address (150 West 46th Street, New York) to incorporate Clarion Fund in Delaware.
According to the Obsession website, Rabbi Raphael Shore is the founder and producer of Obsession. Sources have reported that Rabbi Raphael Shore is an Israeli citizen who lives in Jerusalem and was employed as an executive director with Aish HaTorah International. Gregory Ross has been identified as Clarion Fund’s spokesman and communications director. According to the FEC candidate contributions database, Gregory Ross is a fundraiser for Aish HaTorah International. It was reported that distributors of Obsession asked viewers to register for a screening of Obsession by visiting an Aish HaTorah website.
The complaint urges the FEC to investigate whether the DVDs amounted to campaign contributions, and whether The Clarion Fund funnels money from foreign donors into those alleged campaign contributions. (Aish HaTorah International confirmed that the film was not made under the banner of their organization, but individual members like Shore can act independently.)
CAIR put out a blizzard of press releases in the wake of the film. One had the gall to say, without citation, that “editorial and letter writers nationwide have called the film ‘propaganda’ and even compared it to Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 pro-Nazi film Triumph of the Will.” (The strategy appears to be first, allege the massive Jewish conspiracy, then compare them to Nazis.) They linked to a story that claimed Ohio Muslims were fearful of retribution against them after the DVD was carried in the Toledo Blade. (The Blade noted that “the DVD was watched in its entirety before being accepted as an advertising supplement. Its content went to great lengths to differentiate between the practice of Islam and radical Jihadists.”) And then in another overreaction, a group called Hate Hurts America launched an “Obsession With Hate” Web site to bash the film.
It takes a bit of time to plow through the site until you unearth what must be driving this backlash; let’s just say Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be appreciative:
Obsession exploits the legitimate apprehension that many feel in this country as a result of 9/11 and attempts to instigate a state of full-blown hysteria. Only widespread hysteria could make questionable military excursions such as the Iraq occupation a possible sell yet again.
In fact, America faces no imminent threat from Muslim nations, who are themselves wary of the minority radicals in their midst. No Muslim nation has ever attacked our homeland, and none is likely to ever initiate such an attack.
So we’ve cut through the rhetoric: They don’t want Iran attacked, and are willing to downplay the extremist Islamist threat to protect the mullahocracy — which is fine, if you approve of hanging gays, stoning women, and beating the tar out of a female for showing a lock of hair.
The film’s key message is bearing fruit: that there are people out there who can craft destructive agendas in such a way that sympathizers and even admirers will flock to their side. Ahmadinejad saw that during his recent U.N. speech, and surely there has to be pleasure in the extremist camp upon seeing that some in the west are more concerned with terrorists getting bad P.R. than with the threat itself.
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Bridget Johnson is the online opinion editor, an opinion writer, and a blogger at the Rocky Mountain News.
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24 Comments
1. RE:How long will it be before CAIR realizes that they themselves are doing a bang-up job of making Muslims look bad in American eyes? CAIR is part of the problem. They have no part in the solution.
Oct 3, 2008 - 3:05 am 2. TomP:CAIR?
Oct 3, 2008 - 5:13 am 3. HERO:I don’t.
Just another front group.
Sandler the lawyer of CAIR is also the lawyer of Obama !
Yid with Lid reports today that Obama is using Joseph E. Sandler, a member of the firm of Sandler, Reiff & Young, P.C., in Washington, D.C., who concentrates in campaign finance and election law matters, to defend him in the Philip Berg civil law suit.
Oct 3, 2008 - 5:23 am 4. HERO:From RBO:
http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/obama-sandler-and-a-dnc-conflict-of-interest/
Another Obama Crony Meets The FBI
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2008/10/another-obama-c.html
Oct 3, 2008 - 5:24 am 5. Mary Madigan:Even the Saudi government, while imposing Islamic laws on the Kingdom and embracing strict Wahhabism, brands terrorists “deviants” and takes them out when possible or convenient.
Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia is the primary supporter of world terrorism – and, not coincidentally, CAIR. The Saudi/Wahhabi government only complains about al Qaeda when their militia attacks at home. This is the standard arrangement that any government has with its army – fight abroad, no coups at home, please
Saudi charities like al-Haramain, and their spinoff group, the Muslim Brotherhood, fund the violent branch of terrorism, (al Qaeda, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, the Abu Sayyaf Group) through the Islamic banking network and offshore accounts. They use this network to fund the non-violent branches of their terrorist organization, like CAIR and Europe’s Hizb ut Tahrir.
After 9/11, many American Muslims quit CAIR, and CAIR’s. CAIR’s support mostly comes from the Saudi/al Qaeda network. It’s no surprise that they’re launching this latest attempt to stifle free speech. It’s what they’re paid to do.
Oct 3, 2008 - 6:41 am 6. ST333:CAIR’s spin on this DVD and radical islam in general accurately represents what society as a whole has become. Hardly anyone steps up and calls a spade a spade in this country without being labeled ‘racist’ or xenophobic etc…It’s really disheartening and it speaks to the character, or lack there of, of these ‘organizations’. How can an organization like CAIR keep trying to insert “yea but” into the conversation about radical islam and think they’ll be respected and taken seriously. There is no justification for cutting someone’s head off or blowing up a mosque or sending women and children into crowds a suicide bombers etc…Would it help or hurt them to admit that? Anyone with more then two active brain cells knows the clear cut answer to that. I’m actually embarrassed for CAIR now.
Oct 3, 2008 - 8:17 am 7. ak:CAIR doesn’t care about your respect or that you’ll take it seriously. It doesn’t care that it is actually destroying trust between American Muslims and other Americans. CAIR is a Wahhabi supported front organization with ties to Hamas. Even people like Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin regard it as an extremist group.
As long as we keep tying ourselves in knots over the mindless, sniveling, anti-intellectual drivel of political correctness, groups like CAIR will continue to thrive. They *bank* on us being unwilling to call a spade a spade.
Oct 3, 2008 - 9:51 am 8. John Dubya:If Muslims ever heard the conversations that take place around this cowboy’s campfire they’d really know what “hate speech” was all about. I don’t think there is a more despised breed within the species. CAIR is just the top of the pile.
Oct 3, 2008 - 11:37 am 9. mike clark:Just wait until some of our peace loving muslims kidnap a school bus or blow up a shopping mall here, and even our demo friends will have to admit that we are in a war of civilizations : the secular, modern, west against the thirnteenth century, crazy with religion, muslim extremists. Frankly, I think they are all a bit off to believe as they do. Someday, and not too far into the future, we are going to lose New York and, or, DC, to an Iranian nuke, and I hope we have the guts to forget political correctness long enough to create a huge parking lot where Iran is now. Or, maybe our very own Barrack can talk them into apologising.
Oct 3, 2008 - 1:19 pm 10. Ben:Obsession, What the West Needs to Know and Fitna are factually accurate, as far as they go. I will go further, to the source of terrorism: 3:151, 8:12, 33:26-27, 59:2, 59:13 & Bukhari 4.52.220. You can enter those citations into your favorite search engine.
Allah said he would cast terror, he did cast terror, and Moe bragged about winning with it.
Islamic law: Reliance of the Traveller, Book O, Chapter 9, Paragraph 8 tells us that “The Caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians…”. O1.1 tells us that it is done annually.
Is there no one with the SISU to stand up and point out this fatal fact?
Oct 3, 2008 - 6:01 pm 11. Ahmed:CAIR is a Nazi-like organization that has no place in a Western society made up of open-minded, free people. CAIR is an organization that blatently supports terrorism both financially and ideologically. CAIR is made up of evil people, and the vast majority of Muslims in America reject them. CAIR has no intention of helping Muslims assimilate into America – they in fact encourage us not to. CAIR is part of a jihad in America. I love America and its people and its principles. I hate CAIR.
Oct 4, 2008 - 11:29 am 12. Judy, NYC:the association of obama yet again with another muslim connection, and of course, it is a nutjob one, really fills me with confidence if he is elected. the crazy islamists like CAIR, even if they weren’t trying to kill us, are so dumb and strange i would hate them anyway. it’s great that this dvd has been distributed to millions of americans. if some think it’s hate speech, maybe they were out of the room when muslim dirtbags cut off the head of the journalist, daniel pearl and took a video of it…which they then distributed. if it were possible to spray them with insect killer, i would be happy to see them drop dead in front of me.
Oct 4, 2008 - 3:39 pm 13. Omar:Thanks for that, Ahmed – what do you think of Jasser and the work he’s doing? I understand he’s featured prominently in the new DVD, “The Third Jihad”. Jasser and his formulation seems to me to be the best route for muslims in America, as both peiople of faith and people who can accept and embrace the separation of church and state . . . is he well known? Is he hated? Do you have any sense of how viable his ideas are? I must admit, I harbor great skepticism that islam is capable of the necessary reform . . . And then you read someone like Jasser and a few others and you say, well, maybe . . .
Oct 4, 2008 - 4:37 pm 14. dad:This DVD is not hate speech at all, it points out the literal truth concerning Islamic-Neanderthals and their violent quest for Global Islamic Theocracy. This DVD shows facts, not conjecture. Its plays scenes and rants from both the Muslim and Western worlds. When a Muslim cleric espouses death and destruction , when Islamic children are actively being taught to hate and kill how can one say that the basis of Islamic radicalism is not death. This is absolute fact. What is wrong with the truth? CAIR of course will attack anything that points out the evil in Islamic-Neanderthals hearts. CAIR is just one contingent of the North American Islamic Invasion.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:44 am 15. David H:The truth will always get out, Obsession is an excellent DVD in explaining Islam. There may be moderate Muslims (Omar, Ahmed to name just two on this thread and they will not like this next part) but Islam is not and never will be moderate.
“I have been made victorious through TERROR!!!” I wonder who said that?
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:50 pm 16. Pennsylvanian:I got this DVD in my paper a few weeks ago and watched it. It was excellent. Many Muslims were commentators. The jist of it was to show that among the fanatics, their DUTY is jihad and killing non-Muslims and that they are taught this from the time they are born.
It quashes the notion that we must’ve done something to provoke the suicide/homocide bombings. THAT is the message that CAIR and its ilk wish to censor.
They want Americans to anguish with questions like “Why do they hate us?” rather than understand that the fanatics hate anyone who is not Muslim and are even willing to kill some Muslims in a homocide bombing if they get to kill non-Muslims.
The film is filled with actual Muslims who have lived thru the terrorism and who know what the ideology is in comparison with their sane religious beliefs.
CAIR wants the fanatics to gain ground in the world with the West being politically correct to its doom.
Oct 6, 2008 - 10:54 am 17. aramkr:Khalid al-Mansour funded Obama’s Harvard career. Look it up!
Oct 6, 2008 - 6:57 pm 18. Docjohn52:Sander is the lawyer who sued Savage…
On topic, I don’t know what the uproar is all about. I watched the video, and saw the anti-american hate rants, and the shots of the burned and abused american bodies, and I know that Islam is the religon of peace.
It kind of makes me want to join the templars and call for (yet) another crusade…
Oct 7, 2008 - 12:11 pm 19. southerngrace:CAIR sucks! I hate to be so 9th grade about it but they want the citizens of the US to basically “bend over and take it” from Islamic terrorist. Yeah that’s right, I said it! Islamic Terrorist and I will keep saying it until this country wakes up and faces the threat of Islam.
Oct 7, 2008 - 1:54 pm 20. DeltaMike67:Look at http://www.actforamerica.org and join them. We are building a grass roots organization to stop the “cultural Jihad” that would eat away our institutions, liberties and traditions a bite at a time.
The groups in the Mosques pressure local officials to make accomodations. With no one to back the local officials, they cave! That’s where WE come in. If we are there to counter the demands of the funny little men with robes caps and beards, then we can give our local officals a little back bone! Otherwise, in 50 years, the Islamics settle and displace us. This is what they have announced publicly as their intention! Their latest demand is for NYC public schools to recognize Islamic holidays. The next step will be to eliminate pork in the school cafeterias, then books with pigs in them, then to change the textbooks to speak of Islam only as the “Religion of Peace” and to take swipes at “The Christians and Jews!”
Our Western reaction is to compromise, be non-confrontational and try to dialog, reach out to, “get along” and understand. But understand! the Islamics feel superior to us, and have nothing but contempt for us. Tolerance and getting along is a two way street. if they have said publicly they will NOT tolerate us, then we need to respond in kind and save our civilization.
Oct 15, 2008 - 9:55 pm 21. Pajamas Media » President-Elect Obama Faces a Dangerous World:DM67
[...] have a radical, extremist Islamist ideology to counter — and many on the left would rather complain about documentaries on the subject than face the threat [...]
Nov 4, 2008 - 11:09 pm 22. President-Elect Obama Faces a Dangerous World « Thoughts Of A Conservative Christian:[...] have a radical, extremist Islamist ideology to counter — and many on the left would rather [5] complain about documentaries on the subject than face the threat [...]
Nov 5, 2008 - 10:24 am 23. WestGuard:Cair = a cell of Baghdad Bobs working for the Islamic Supremecist cause
Nov 27, 2008 - 6:54 pm 24. Dave:Islam thinks it is the ultimate authority. The problem when it comes to the American Constitution and Islam is the Constitution violates Islamic Law. How can you have Islam in the United States when it attempts to remove the very freedoms that make up America?
Mar 15, 2009 - 8:00 pm