New York Islamic academy faces monitoring

New York Islamic academy faces monitoring

‘We want to know about curriculum, text books, teachers and CAIR’
Posted: September 6, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
The publicly funded Khalil Gibran school in New York immerses students in Islam
The Thomas More Law Center, which defends and promotes the religious freedom of Christians as well as time-honored family values and the sanctity of human life, is promising to monitor the new Arabic-themed Khalil Gibran International Academy, a taxpayer-funded school in New York City.
“The Law Center will continue to use the courts to get information on the school that the city has refused to provide,” spokesman Brian Rooney told a gathering of concerned citizens in New York.
“We want to know what the curriculum is, what text books are being used, who the teachers are, and what groups affiliated with the school like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) will have access to the children,” he added. “The Law Center will also monitor the school in order to ensure that it comports with state and federal law.
“We are concerned that the city is setting up a segregated, separate but equal public school system: one for Islam and another for everyone else,” he said.
At issue is the academy, which to be opening within days. It is set up in immerse students in Arabic culture, including its language and history.
It also will include intensive study of Middle Eastern figures – which Brooklyn teacher and activist Sara Springer said will include the life and teachings of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
Text books, lesson plans and teacher materials will be adapted from publications supplied by the Council on Islamic Education, Springer said. CIE’s chief consultant is Susan Douglass, a Muslim activist whose husband is on the Saudi government payroll as a teacher at an Islamic academy that has graduated terrorists.
Rooney also raised concerns about the agenda of the school, which has three fundamentalist Islamist imams on its board of advisers, as well as other promoters with ties to militant Islamic organizations.
CAIR, for example, has been listed by federal prosecutors as an un-indicted co-conspirator in an ongoing case involving the Holy Land Foundation, which is alleged to have provided material support to foreign terrorists, the Law Center said.
Rooney expressed concern that basic requests for information about the school have been rejected or ignored.
“This lack of response to our request for information strongly suggests that the school cannot meet state education standards,” he said. “Moreover, it continues to raise suspicions that KGIA is an anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Jewish propaganda center operating as a public school.”
Richard Thompson, the president of the Law Center, said, “Radical Islam is a threat to Western Civilization in general, to America in particular, and to NYC especially. As the New York Police Department recently said, the biggest threat to NYC is the homegrown threat. This school lends itself to subtle and covert influence of these young impressionable children. Like every other public school in America, this school should be focusing on preparing students to become citizens of the United States.”
Rooney said the center will continue to act as co-counsel with attorney David Yerushalmi in dealing with issues involving the school, which just days earlier had come under attack from a Lebanese-Christian group that said the school is misusing the legacy of a famed Lebanese-Christian poet by naming the school after him.
Khalil Gibran
The Friends of Gibran Council has fired off a letter to school officials demanding they stop using the name of Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese-American author and poet.
The Council complained that the proposed academy in Brooklyn will clash with the Christian heritage of Gibran.
“Gibran’s ancestry was Lebanese, Christian and Maronite. Therefore, the claims of teaching Arabic under the name of Gibran ring hollow as he is not ethnically Arab,” the group said in a press release. “The founders of KGIA could easily change the name of the school to honor a great Arabic writer if that is their true intent.”
The Council also expressed concerns over troubling radical associations plaguing the public school.
KGIA’s principal recently stepped down after her ties to a group glorifying Palestinian terrorism were revealed. A native of Yemen, Dhabah “Debbie” Almontaser defended the “intifada” – a Palestinian terror campaign that left 1,221 Israelis dead.
A prominent expert on Islamic terrorism agreed that the school appears to be in conflict with Gibran’s legacy.
“As an American citizen of Lebanese descent, I think that the literary work of Lebanese-American author Khalil Gibran is in full conflict with the jihadist inclination of some members of the school board,” said the expert, who wished to remain anonymous. “He (Gibran) would have preferred – and his community today certainly would prefer – seeing a school or institution developing the heritage of his culture, not the political culture of the jihadists.”

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57500

A Trying Time for CAIR

A Trying Time for CAIR
By Robert Spencer

FrontPageMagazine.com 8/28/2007
It has been a bad week for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The group that has so successfully presented itself to law enforcement and media organizations as a Muslim civil rights group is seeing a radically different portrayal of its motives and goals coming to light in the Holy Land Foundation terror charity trial in Dallas. The Associated Press reported Monday that prosecutors in that trial have produced documents establishing that CAIR was part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee. This was a group led by Mousa Abu Marzook, who once served as chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau. CAIR co-founder Nihad Awad has been placed at a meeting of Hamas supporters – which really shouldn’t surprise anyone, since in 1994, the year CAIR was founded, Awad stated publicly, “I am in support of the Hamas movement.”
CAIR Chairman Parvez Ahmed was dismissive, however, of the idea that CAIR had anything to do with Hamas. “That’s one of those urban legends about CAIR. It’s fed by the right-wing, pro-Israeli blogosphere.”
Unfortunately for Ahmed, however, the Holy Land trial itself was making this position ever more difficult to sustain. One document that has come to light at the trial sets out goals for the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, “whose members,” according to AP, “included some of the Holy Land leaders now on trial.” The memo urges Brotherhood members in the U.S. to “understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.”
Of course, CAIR would deny having any such agenda. CAIR officials have met with Presidents Clinton and Bush, and have long had the ear of the mainstream media. It has even conducted sensitivity training seminars for FBI agents. But the troubling aspects of its record are becoming increasingly well known. Shortly after 9/11, CAIR’s website called for donations for the Holy Land Foundation (under a photo of the burning World Trade Center towers), the same charity that is now on trial for funneling money to Hamas.
Consistent also with the Brotherhood memo is the now-notorious and controversial statement of CAIR’s cofounder and former Board Chairman Omar Ahmad. In 1998, he told a Muslim audience that “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant…The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” Although Ahmad now denies saying this, the reporter who witnessed his speech stands by the accuracy of her story. CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper has himself said something similar: “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.”
Several CAIR officials, including its Community Affairs Director, Bassem Khafagi; a Board member of CAIR’s Texas chapter, Ghassan Elashi; a communications specialist and civil rights coordinator for CAIR, Randall Todd Ismail Royer; and fundraiser Rabih Haddad have been convicted of various terrorism-related offenses. No current CAIR official has ever explained how these people were able to find work with the organization in the first place if it is really the moderate civil rights organization it claims to be.
CAIR is also involved in the notorious Flying Imams lawsuit. The “Flying Imams” are six imams who are suing US Airways because they were removed from a flight for suspicious behavior. They also originally brought suit against the passengers who reported them, although after immense public pressure they dropped this part of their suit. Still, the damage was done: after the wide publicity their suit against the passengers received, fewer people will dare without hesitation to report suspicious behavior in an airport or airplane. And jihad terrorists will be the principal beneficiaries. The lawyer for the Flying Imams is Omar T. Mohammedi, who as of 2006 was president of CAIR’s New York chapter.
Is the Flying Imams lawsuit, with its chilling effect on the reporting of suspicious behavior, part of a “grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within”? Maybe it isn’t. But longtime observers of the tactics and activities of the Council on American Islamic Relations, up to and including its officials’ repeated and adamant refusals to condemn Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups, can reasonably see in CAIR a pattern of behavior entirely consistent with this goal. CAIR, if it truly does not wish to see the destruction of Western civilization, has a chance now to demonstrate this by abandoning its strategies of legal intimidation and the bullying of its critics, and beginning to work honestly for the defense of that civilization.
Will it take that opportunity?

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=2C78DA37-AE8A-4DFF-A59C-86AB1CCF9986

New York Arabic Public School Draws Protests

Arabic Public School Draws Protests
Sunday, August 26, 2007 3:56 PM
NEW YORK — One of the city’s newest public schools is named for poet who promoted peace and published his most famous work while living in New York, but there has been little peace for the Khalil Gibran International Academy.
With a little more than a week remaining until the academic year starts, the school _ announced in February as the city’s first to offer instruction in Arabic and on Arab culture _ already has had to move once and has its second principal, both because of protests.
Critics have attacked the school, named for a Lebanese Christian, as a potential radical Islam training ground.
Supporters have been taken aback by the controversy.
“In fact it is a regular public school, the only difference is they’re going to use Arabic as a medium,” said Shamsi Ali, imam at the Islamic Cultural Center in Manhattan, who served on an interfaith advisory council for the school. “It is absolutely not a religious school and no one has any intention of teaching religion.”
The city Department of Education announced the school as one of 40 new schools opening this fall.
Khalil Gibran is starting with sixth-graders and will expand with one additional class every year to end up with 500 to 600 students in grades 6-12. It joins a number of small public schools in the city that are themed, covering areas from the arts to social justice to Chinese language.
The school was originally going to take space in an elementary school in Brooklyn. Parents at the school objected for a number of reasons, including whether there would be enough space and whether the ideological controversy would create a security risk.
The Department of Education gave in and moved the school to a building elsewhere in Brooklyn that houses a high school and middle school.
Khalil Gibran’s original principal, Debbie Almontaser, left earlier this month after criticism for her failure to condemn the use of the highly charged word “intifada” on T-shirts. She was replaced by acting interim principal Danielle Salzberg, a Jewish woman who does not speak Arabic.
That uproar started when an article connected Almontaser to Arab Women Active in Art and Media, a group that produced shirts imprinted with the words “Intifada NYC.” The group used office space shared by an organization that counts Almontaser among its board members.
The word “intifada” has come to represent the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Almontaser did not respond to an e-mail request for comment. The Department of Education declined to make Salzberg or any teachers at the school available for comment, but has reiterated its support for the school. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has added his voice to the support of Salzberg and the school.
The school’s opponents include an organization called “Stop the Madrassa,” or religious school, that calls the school “badly managed and inflammatory.”
Members say the city has not been upfront about details of the curriculum and the content of the textbooks, and they believe the school will have a hard time keeping Islam out of the classroom.
This past week, Salzberg met with some of the 44 students who have enrolled so far at the school, most of them not Arabic-speakers or even Arab.
At least one parent was unfazed by the controversy. Yolanda Exis said she was just glad her 12-year-old son, Allan Aluder, could take advantage of being in a smaller school. “I think the size of the classroom is most important,” she said.
Her son says: “I just want to learn the language.”

http://newsmax.com/us/arabic_school/2007/08/26/27536.html

New York Islamist Day Parade Two Days Before 9/11

New York Islamist Day Parade
By Joe Kaufman and Beila Rabinowitz

FrontPageMagazine.com 8/17/2007
On September 9, 2007, a pre-9/11 celebration of sorts will be taking place in New York City, as Islamists from across the Tri-State area will congregate there for the 22nd Annual Muslim Day Parade. If past parades are any indication, law enforcement will need to be on high alert, as the participants have been amongst the most radical in the nation. Will the city allow this denigration of a very somber day to take place, or will it remember its many victims of terrorism and shut it down?
The parade is being run by the Muslim Foundation of America (MFA), an organization located in the Astoria section of Queens that was founded in 1983, around the time of the first annual parade. In actuality, both the MFA and the parade appear to be the same entity with different names, as the MFA’s website, since it was first created in October of 2003, has been devoted almost entirely to discussing the parade.
Thousands are expected to attend this year’s event. In the past, the number of parade-goers has varied. While some participants may be coming out to experience a day of fun with their fellow religionists, others have an alternative agenda.
The Grand Marshal for the 2006 parade was Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn imam who is known for his fiery speeches, including those that have been considered threatening to the United States. In February of 1995, Wahhaj was named – along with such people as Osama bin Laden and bin Laden’s mentor, Abdullah Azzam – as a potential co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Another Grand Marshal of a past parade was Muzzamil Siddiqi, the former President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a mosque umbrella organization that was recently named a co-conspirator to the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. Siddiqi, like Wahhaj, has also verbally threatened the United States, stating in October of 2000, “America has to learn. If you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of G-d will come.” There are pictures of Siddiqi speaking at the parade, on the MFA site.
Also pictured at the parade are:
Ashrafuzzaman Khan, the ex-Secretary General of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), which is one of the sponsors of the parade and a top donor to a Pakistani charity that has been providing tens of thousands of dollars to the head of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal. Khan is accused of being a death squad leader for Al-Badr, the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan’s former paramilitary wing, during the 1971 massacre that led to Bangladesh’s independence, believed to be personally responsible for the murders of seven Bengali teachers at Dhaka University.
Dhabah “Debbie” Almontaser, the former Principal designate of the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), a controversial Arabic-language children’s school that is set to open its doors less than a week before the parade. Almontaser resigned from her position with KGIA, after it was discovered that a group she was affiliated with – the SABA Association of American Yemenis – had a connection to t-shirts calling for an intifada (violent uprising) in New York City. Almontaser defended the shirts by saying that they were an expression of solidarity with New York.
On the MFA website, in addition to the parade photo gallery, there is also a section titled, “USEFUL LINKS.” Four out of the five links listed (complete with their logos) are national organizations which have been found to be part of the violent Muslim Brotherhood overseas. They include the aforementioned ICNA and ISNA, as well as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA). CAIR was created by the American propaganda wing of Hamas, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), in 1994, and the MSA was the first organization created by the Brotherhood within the United States, in 1963.
Along with the parade, the MFA will be holding an essay contest for children and young adults. The themes for the different age groups vary. For those age 9 – 13 it is ‘Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is the best Role Model,’ for ages 14 – 18 it’s ‘The Man is the Best Creation of Allah (SWT),’ and for ages 19 – 23 it’s ‘The Purpose of my Life.’
Shamsi Ali, a member of the parade’s Board of Trustees, runs a children’s madrassa – the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens – where boys sit all day, Monday through Friday, and memorize the Quran by rote. One of his students and possible participant in the essay contest, a 13 year old named Sameer Uddin, explained to The New York Times his reasons for staying enrolled in Ali’s class. Bringing up disturbing illusions to thoughts of future martyrdom, Sameer stated, “I want to take my parents to heaven.”
The organizers of the parade state that one of their objectives is “to demonstrate and clarify Islamic values and traditions.” However, considering the individuals that have been participating in this parade, and understanding the radical nature of the groups that appear to be aligned with the MFA, we must ask what values and traditions they are talking about. Despite its name, as the American Muslim Day Parade, it is clear that this event has nothing to do with American values and traditions and has more in common with the ideology of the 9/11 hijackers.
The fact that this parade is taking place so close to Ground Zero is an insult to the memory of the 3,000 people who perished there six years before. The event should be taken as a threat to public safety and, therefore, it is incumbent on the city of New York to not only watch all of those involved, but to work to shut down the event completely, along with the sponsoring organizations.
If you are concerned about this parade taking place in New York City two days prior to the anniversary of 9/11 – if you are concerned this parade is taking place at all – contact the Mayor’s office.
Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate and the founder of CAIR Watch. Beila Rabinowitz is the Director of Militant Islam Monitor.

CAIR: YOUNGEST MEMBER OF HAMAS FAMILY TREE

By FrontPage MagazineFrontPageMagazine.com 8/13/2007
CAIR: YOUNGEST MEMBER OF HAMAS FAMILY TREE

By Charles Johnson
At Counterterrorism Blog, a look at the damning revelations about the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) that have come out in the past week, at the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas: CAIR: Youngest Member of Hamas Family Tree.
An organization headquartered in Washington, DC, tasked with political activism, born out of the IAP? Maybe a vague reference at first glance, but growing evidence points to the identity of the mystery organization listed in the bylaws as the youngest in the family of HAMAS front groups founded on American soil.
Fast forward to July 30, 1994, just weeks after the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was founded. A Palestine Committee meeting agenda lists several issues to be discussed, including a review of the reports of the “working organizations.” Listed among these organizations right beside HLF, IAP, and UASR – all members of the Palestine Committee as listed in the bylaws – is the word “CAIR.”
The same CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) that is headquartered in Washington, and whose co-founders – executive director Nihad Awad and chairman emeritus Omar Ahmad – served as president and public relations director, respectively, of the IAP.
Add to that recently-released evidence that both Ahmad and Awad were present at a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia attended by two-dozen HAMAS members and supporters. According to an FBI analysis and transcripts of wiretapped conversations, they spent three days discussing the most effective approach to derail the Oslo Accords, a peace deal with the potential to end the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
This latest document tying CAIR to HAMAS is just one more piece of the puzzle, and it raises serious questions about the organization’s political agenda in the United States. Should an organization listed on Muslim Brotherhood documents, with leaders directly tied to the movement, really escape scrutiny and be accepted as the “mainstream” voice of an entire community? Or should the American public and political establishment take another look? Sunday, August 12, 2007http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog