Sunday, May 4, 2008
Youssef Ibrahim: Islamist Chickens Roosting in America's Backyard
A potential audience of one million Arab-speaking cable subscribers of Time Warner in the greater New York area can feast on the Arabic Channel known as TAC to choose a menu that includes:
- A daily dose of Islamic jurisprudence from a sheik -- most often Egyptian Amr Khaled, who wears a suit instead of a robe, advocating "peaceful jihad." He opines on how it is the duty of Arab-Americans to become first, second, and always members of the Muslim ummah. The softness of his jihad-chic demeanor belies its exclusionary message: segregation of Arab-American Muslims from fellow Americans.
- TAC also serves a nightly diet of Syrian TV News, direct from Damascus with Syria's view of the world. In this diatribe of analysis and disinformation, Iraq is an American butchery, the Zionist regime of Israel is destined for obliteration, and Syria is the greatest gift to the "Arab cause."
- For entertainment there is a sprinkling of pseudo-historic soap operas about the old Muslim empire of Europe. In Ramadan, the month-long fasting period, this proselytizing is revved up to new levels of intensity, removing footage of belly dancing and other "infidel" joys from the steady fare of old Egyptian movies.
On its website, TAC says it is now 14 years old and serves the "Greater New York City Metropolitan area, including Jersey City, Bergen County, NJ, and Mt. Vernon, NY."
The unanswered questions are who is funding it, what keeps it going, and what is TAC's mission description. What is clear is its unmistakable Islamist revolutionary footprint...
It's a front in the new culture war. One we have to win.
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