Thursday, May 17, 2007
[I'm going to leave this one on top for a little bit. Scroll down for new stuff.]
Let me introduce you to the John Doe's of Boston.
Pajamas Media has posted my lengthy, but I hope somewhat definitive, narrative of the events surrounding the Islamic Society of Boston and its wide-ranging lawsuit that's hit TV and print news outlets, activist groups and individuals. Though a truly comprehensive report that covered all of the twists and turns would have been far longer, this should be the perfect primer in getting you up to speed or clarifying some of the salient issues.
I really believe, and I think you'll agree when you read the piece if you're not already familiar with the situation, that this is an incredibly important case that deserves more attention outside the local community than it's gotten to this point.
Update: I was just on The Right Balance with Greg Allen. The discussion got more theoretical than I was expecting, and I had a little "phone malfunction" where someone else in my office picked up the line "Hello?" "Other line..." "Huh? Hello?" "Other line..." Uggg. Still. Thanks to Greg for having me on.
I will be on The Helen Glover Show on WHJJ in Providence just after 2 and Upfront w/Vicki McKenna on WIBA-AM Madison just after 5 today.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: The Silencing.
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Hell of a story, Sol.
excellent, and very important, piece ... where the mainstream media cowers, the blogosphere towers
Sol: A definitive study is exactly right. This is wonderful; thanks for doing it.
Wow. Who knew?
That's one of the problems isn't it?
This is difficult because America was founded on the principles of tolerance and freedom of religion, and it's especially difficult for Jews because we are extremely sensitive about stereotyping. We don't want to see Islamophobia any more than we desire antisemitism or any other form of racism or hatred.
Hitchens made a comment in his recent piece "Islamophobia" about the really alarming extent to which radicals have espoused antisemitism, and he argued that in fact this is the opposite of multiculturalism.
So multiculturalism, true multiculturalism, isn't racist or xenophobic but in fact is the essence of tolerance and mutual respect.
But that means we ALL have to respect each other. How can this be when incitement is preached in a religious setting? And how can extremism be confronted without stereotyping and damaging innocent people and true moderates?
If they keep on suing, keep on claiming the right of free speech while denying it to others, and keep up the dawah, and nobody stope them - Islam will someday take over the world.
Thank you for fighting back before it's too late.
Sol-
Thanks for that excellent article- Very clear and very comprehensive!
YBM
Congratulations, Sol! This issue does indeed deserve media attention -- and it's starting to get some, thanks to you.
I don't think this can ever stand, long-term, if the citizens of Boston understand the whole story. Many thanks for doing the leg-work and getting the story out.
(And if CAIR ever issues you a fatwa -- er, excuse me, subpoena -- you're welcome to camp out at my place.)
cheers,
Daniel in Brookline
Wonderful piece, well written and summarized nicely with a graph at the end that's worth repeating, emphasis added:
"If a truly moderate, reformed version of Islam is to emerge in the West, it won’t come through funding from the Near East, and it will happen because ordinary Americans insist that emerging institutions and organizations are compatible on a deep level with American values, not simply using the trappings of the Enlightenment West — our tolerance, our courts, our freedom of speech and association — to subvert those very things that make us great."
Nicely done, thoughtful and probative.
Daniel Pipes's blog ( http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/115 ) is very clear that Policastro filed the first lawsuit.
The discovery materials that the ISB has provided show very clearly that the David Project and its friends conspired to use a combination of frivolous lawsuits and defamatory scare-mongering to prevent American citizens from exercising their democratic and constitutional rights of free assembly and unfettered practice of their religion. (See http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2007/05/emails-show-pro-israel-anti-mosque_08.html and http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2007/05/web-of-zionist-enmeshment.html, more to be published at http://eaazi.blogspot.com later this week.)
Kandil's, Abou-Allaban's, and the ISB's lawsuits represent a perfectly reasonable response of American citizens and a law-abiding religious organization to a racist legal and media attack by a criminal conspiracy of wealthy extremist ethnic Ashkenazi Americans and their non-Jewish panderers.
The proper starting point for addressing the high cost of the legal system is condemnation of the abusive practices of the organized Jewish community and not criticism of victims, who are only trying to defend themselves and who cannot afford staffs of 30 or more lawyers. In contrast, the David Project, which is backed by several extremist Zionist billionaires, employs more than 30 attorneys and paid Floyd Abrams, who is perhaps the most highly priced attorney in the USA, to argue the anti-SLAPP motion of the non-media defendants.
The need for such a costly advocate is completely understandable because of the way in which the David Project twists the American legal system.
Normally, anti-SLAPP regulations are supposed to protect ordinary American communities from wealthy predatory developers. The David Project and its friends include some of the most aggressive Boston area real estate investors. These conspirators are making a racist attack on a religious community, whose largest components consist of taxi drivers, construction workers and African American Muslims, who live in Roxbury.
I am unable to comprehend how anyone can take seriously the whining of the David Project and its friends.