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6 episodes with american islamic relations
6 episodes with american islamic relations
6 episodes with american islamic relations
2 episodes with american islamic relations
6 episodes with american islamic relations
4 episodes with american islamic relations
3 episodes with american islamic relations
3 episodes with american islamic relations
4 episodes with american islamic relations
Usama Dakdok is the founder of the Straight Way of Grace Ministry. He is the speaker on the daily radio broadcast, Revealing the Truth About Islam. Born and raised in Egypt, Usama learned about Islam just as every other student does in a Muslim country. He also studied for a university degree in Egypt which included the study of Sharia, which is Islamic law. He first came to America in 1992.President Donald Trump is in the Middle East working out numerous agreements. Some of the actions he's taken are concerning to a number of individuals. This includes the lifting of sanctions against Syria, the signing of a $142 billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia, a $1.2 trillion dollar economic commitment with Qatar and the offered gift from Qatar to provide a jumbo jet to serve as Air Force One.Meanwhile, this morning the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on nationwide injunctions including the injunction on ending what is known as "birthright citizenship." It's a move that the Council on American Islamic Relations calls, "dangerous and unconstitutional." The issue of birthright citizenship and its implications for Islam in the U.S. is just the beginning as Usama also turned his attention to the Abraham Accords, the EU providing 11 million dollars to highlight the contributions of the Qur'an and Islam to European civilization, a Canadian Islamic scholar who praised children who die for Islam (Jim provided audio), the latest concerning the exclusive Islamic city taking shape near Dallas and special news for listeners in Pennsylvania and Florida.
Usama Dakdok is the founder of the Straight Way of Grace Ministry. He is the speaker on the daily radio broadcast, Revealing the Truth About Islam. Born and raised in Egypt, Usama learned about Islam just as every other student does in a Muslim country. He also studied for a university degree in Egypt which included the study of Sharia, which is Islamic law. He first came to America in 1992.President Donald Trump is in the Middle East working out numerous agreements. Some of the actions he's taken are concerning to a number of individuals. This includes the lifting of sanctions against Syria, the signing of a $142 billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia, a $1.2 trillion dollar economic commitment with Qatar and the offered gift from Qatar to provide a jumbo jet to serve as Air Force One.Meanwhile, this morning the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on nationwide injunctions including the injunction on ending what is known as "birthright citizenship." It's a move that the Council on American Islamic Relations calls, "dangerous and unconstitutional." The issue of birthright citizenship and its implications for Islam in the U.S. is just the beginning as Usama also turned his attention to the Abraham Accords, the EU providing 11 million dollars to highlight the contributions of the Qur'an and Islam to European civilization, a Canadian Islamic scholar who praised children who die for Islam (Jim provided audio), the latest concerning the exclusive Islamic city taking shape near Dallas and special news for listeners in Pennsylvania and Florida.
Usama Dakdok is founder of the Straight Way of Grace Ministry. He's the speaker on the daily radio broadcast, Revealing the Truth About Islam. Born and raised in Egypt, Usama learned about Islam just as every other student does in a Muslim country. He also studied for a university degree in Egypt which included the study of Sharia, which is Islamic law. He first came to America in 1992.The infiltration of Islam continues in the U.S. This past February, Crosstalk warned listeners about the formation of "EPIC City" near Dallas, Texas (EPIC stands for East Plano Islamic Center). The city will eventually have exclusive Islamic grocery stores, schools, elderly assistance centers and more.Just a few weeks ago, the Houston Chronicle wrote about thousands of Muslims that gathered at the Sugarland, Texas, town square for what organizers said was the largest, open air Iftar celebration in the region. Then at the end of March, the White House sponsored an Iftar dinner. There's also a CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) linked event that hopes to place Muslim-Americans in federal jobs. These efforts prove how Islam is affecting America. Next on their agenda is an event set to take place on April 28th-29th. That's when the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations is hosting the 10th annual National Muslim Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C. The event will bring in Muslim leaders, activists, as well as constituents from all across America. The goal is to directly engage with members of Congress as they promote the theme: Defending rights. Shaping policy.
Usama Dakdok is founder of the Straight Way of Grace Ministry. He's the speaker on the daily radio broadcast, Revealing the Truth About Islam. Born and raised in Egypt, Usama learned about Islam just as every other student does in a Muslim country. He also studied for a university degree in Egypt which included the study of Sharia, which is Islamic law. He first came to America in 1992.The infiltration of Islam continues in the U.S. This past February, Crosstalk warned listeners about the formation of "EPIC City" near Dallas, Texas (EPIC stands for East Plano Islamic Center). The city will eventually have exclusive Islamic grocery stores, schools, elderly assistance centers and more.Just a few weeks ago, the Houston Chronicle wrote about thousands of Muslims that gathered at the Sugarland, Texas, town square for what organizers said was the largest, open air Iftar celebration in the region. Then at the end of March, the White House sponsored an Iftar dinner. There's also a CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) linked event that hopes to place Muslim-Americans in federal jobs. These efforts prove how Islam is affecting America. Next on their agenda is an event set to take place on April 28th-29th. That's when the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations is hosting the 10th annual National Muslim Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C. The event will bring in Muslim leaders, activists, as well as constituents from all across America. The goal is to directly engage with members of Congress as they promote the theme: Defending rights. Shaping policy.
This Ramadan, support an alternative Muslim media platform rooted in faith, thought, and enlightened activism. Your donation is an investment in Sadaqah Jariyah, bringing you rewards that will last long after this life. Become a monthly member today and be part of The Thinking Muslim's sacred mission. Become a member here:https://www.thinkingmuslim.com/membershipOr give your one-off donation: https://www.thinkingmuslim.com/donateThere has been what can only be described as an intense disinformation campaign in recent days regarding Syria. If we were to believe it, there exists an unholy alliance of the American right, Assadists, Iranian propagandists, and Russian trolls who argue the new Syrian government is intent on eradicating minorities in the western coastal cities and towns of Syria. Much of this has been driven by naked propaganda to undermine the new liberated Syria. However, is there any truth in the claims that civilians have been caught up and perhaps even targeted in reprisals as forces attempt to deal with a pro-Assad insurgency? And how should we understand the demands of Israel, which has suddenly become the protectors of the Druze in the south? Are we poised to see sectarianism used as an excuse to destabilise the new Syria?To assist us in untangling fact from fiction, we have Hussam Ayloush on the show. He is the CEO of the California chapter Cair (Council on American Islamic Relations) and hails from Damascus, Syria. You can find Hussam Ayloush here:X: https://x.com/HussamAAlso, for the past 16 months, we all know how difficult it has been for food and essential supplies to reach the beleaguered people of Gaza. This, Insha'Allah, is changing. We have partnered with a charity, Baitulmaal, because now, more than ever, there is a need not only in Gaza but also in Turkish controlled Northern Syria and in all the places we routinely talk about in this program where our ummah is subject to abject poverty. We have chosen this charity because Baitulmaal is a non-profit with people on the ground who organize well-thought-out projects and serve the most needy.To donate to their Critical Aid campaign, please visit the link on our screen now and in the description. To donate to Baitulmaal's Critical Aid campaign, please visit: http://btml.us/thinkingmuslim - Please do remember that charity never reduces our risk and gives Barakah to our wealth. Let me remind all viewers that to help us continue to engage critical thought at this time, Please consider becoming a Member: https://www.thinkingmuslim.com/membershipYou can also support The Thinking Muslim through a one-time donation: https://www.thinkingmuslim.com/DonateListen to the audio version of the podcast:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7vXiAjVFnhNI3T9Gkw636aApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-thinking-muslim/id1471798762Sign up to Muhammad Jalal's newsletter: https://jalalayn.substack.comPurchase our Thinking Muslim mug: https://www.thinkingmuslim.com/merchFind us on:Squarespace Membership: https://www.thinkingmuslim.com/membershipTwitter: https://twitter.com/thinking_muslimFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Thinking-Muslim-Podcast-105790781361490Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkingmuslimpodcast/Telegram: https://t.me/thinkingmuslimBlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/thinkingmuslim.bsky.socialHost: https://twitter.com/jalalaynHost IG: https://www.instagram.com/jalalayns/Website Archive: https://www.thinkingmuslim.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
When government agents surrounded Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil and his pregnant wife outside their New York City apartment over the weekend, it marked a chilling escalation in the battle over free speech in America. Those agents weren't enforcing immigration policy; they were sending a message about the consequences of political expression. After serving as a negotiator during campus protests against Israel's war on Gaza, Khalil became the target of what his attorney called "a profound doxing campaign for two months related to his First Amendment protected activities" — harassment so severe he had desperately sought help from university leadership.Despite being a lawful permanent resident entitled to constitutional protections, Khalil was transported to a detention facility thousands of miles away, effectively "disappeared" for over 24 hours. The political motivation became explicit when President Donald Trump celebrated the arrest on social media, calling it "the first arrest of many to come." On this week's episode of The Intercept Briefing, we discuss the profound implications Khalil's case raises for free speech and due process with Edward Ahmed Mitchell, civil rights attorney and national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and Columbia Journalism Review reporter Meghnad Bose."It's very clear the administration is waging a war on free speech — free speech for Palestine. They said they were going to do it when they took office. And that is what they are doing. Their issue with him is that he is a Muslim who is a lawful, permanent resident of America and he exercised his right to speak up for Palestinian human rights," says Mitchell. Bose adds, “ It's this sort of thinking that if you are somehow critical of a certain position of the United States government, except this isn't even a position of the United States government. You're basically saying, if you're critical of the position of a foreign government — in this case, the Israeli government — that you can be penalized in the United States, even if you've not broken any law.” Mitchell warns even U.S. citizens face risk: "American citizens should be safe in all this, but Stephen Miller and others have said they want to review the naturalization of citizens to see whether or not there are grounds to remove their citizenship. So in the worst-case scenario, you can imagine them trying to find or manufacture some way to target even the citizenship status of people who were lawful permanent residents and then attained citizenship. So they're going all out to silence speech for Palestine."Bose says it's not just about immigration status; the government has other draconian tools at its disposal as well. "They can jail U.S. citizens too. They don't have to deport you or take away your citizenship, he says. “They can incarcerate U.S. citizens too."Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Comprehensive coverage of the day's news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. House Homeland Security Committee hearing sees Republicans blast waste fraud abuse, Democrats say DOGE is the real waste House narrowly passes Trump-backed government spending bill that Dems call blank check for Musk and Trump agenda Judge blocks deportation of Palestinian legal permanent resident who helped lead Columbia student protests against Gaza war Council on American-Islamic Relations report “Unconstitutional Crackdowns” says Islamophobia at all time high, emboldened by political climate State agency heads uneasy about prospects for 2025 water year, fear federal staff and funding cuts President Trump buys Tesla as show of support for Elon Musk, but says he's not allowed to drive so White House staff can use it The post House passes Trump-backed government funding bill; Council on American-Islamic Relations report says Islamophobia at all-time high – March 11, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.
The trial for six-year-old Palestinian Wadea al-Fayoume’s murder begins in Chicago. Joseph Czuba faces hate crime charges, but his killing reflects a growing wave of anti-Palestinian hate in the US. As Islamophobia rises post-October 7, will this trial deliver justice? In this episode: Ahmed Rehab (@ahmed.m.rehab), Executive Director, Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago Episode credits: This episode was produced by Ashish Malhotra, Sonia Bhagat, and Tamara Khandaker, with Sarí el-Khalili, Chloe K. Li, Marcos Bartolome, Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Melanie Marich, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Kylene Kiang. The Take production team is Marcos Bartolomé, Sonia Bhagat, Sarí el-Khalili, Tamara Khandaker, Phillip Lanos, Chloe K. Li, Ashish Malhotra, Khaled Soltan, Amy Walters, and Noor Wazwaz. Our editorial interns are Melanie Marich, Hagir Saleh and Hanah Shokeir. Our guest host is Kevin Hirten. Our engagement producers are Adam Abou-Gad and Vienna Maglio. Aya Elmileik is lead of audience engagement. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio. Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads and YouTube
GDP Script/ Top Stories for February 8th Publish Date: February 8th From the BG AD Group Studio Welcome to the Gwinnett Daily Post Podcast. Today is Saturday, February 8th and Happy Birthday to dave Farrell ***02.08.25 - BIRTHDAY – DAVE FARRELL*** I’m Keith Ippolito and here are your top stories presented by Gwinnett KIA Mall of Georgia. Suwanee Police Release Images Of Vehicle Involved In Fatal Hit-And-Run Parkview student brought unloaded gun to school Legislation invites lawsuits against cities and schools that ignore immigration law All of this and more is coming up on the Gwinnett Daily Post podcast, and if you are looking for community news, we encourage you to listen daily and subscribe! Break 1: 07.14.22 KIA MOG STORY 1: Suwanee Police Release Images Of Vehicle Involved In Fatal Hit-And-Run Suwanee Police are investigating a hit-and-run that killed 60-year-old David Wayne Anglin on Old Peachtree Road last month. Security footage shows a dark-colored sedan with dark rims speeding near the scene, now identified as a vehicle of interest. Police have released images and are seeking public help to identify the car and its occupants. Anyone with information or dash cam footage is urged to contact the investigating detective at 770-904-7650. STORY 2: Parkview student brought unloaded gun to school A Parkview High student was arrested Thursday for bringing an unloaded gun to school, discovered after a classmate reported it. Administrators quickly located the student and found the firearm in their book bag. Principal David Smith assured parents that no threats or harm occurred but emphasized the seriousness of the incident, which violates school policy and the law. Officials urge parents to discuss the dangers of bringing weapons to school and encourage students to report concerns via text, the "GCPS Tips" app, or P3Campus.com/5105. Smith praised the community for prioritizing safety and vigilance. STORY 3: Legislation invites lawsuits against cities and schools that ignore immigration law The Georgia Senate Public Safety Committee advanced Senate Bill 21, which would allow lawsuits against school districts and governing bodies that violate state laws requiring cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. The bill targets "sanctuary city" policies and mandates compliance with federal immigration detainer requests. Critics, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, warn it could lead to lawsuits against teachers, while the Georgia School Boards Association raised concerns about accusations triggering legal action. Supporters argue the bill enforces accountability by waiving sovereign immunity for noncompliance, potentially imposing financial penalties on violators. We have opportunities for sponsors to get great engagement on these shows. Call 770.874.3200 for more info. We’ll be right back Break 2: 08.05.24 OBITS_FINAL STORY 4: Raffensperger looking to feds to withdraw election lawsuit Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is urging the U.S. Attorney General to drop a federal lawsuit challenging Georgia's 2021 election reform law, Senate Bill 202. The law requires photo ID for absentee voting, limits ballot drop boxes, and restricts distributing food and drinks near polling lines. Democrats opposed the bill, leading to economic boycotts, including MLB relocating its 2021 All-Star game. Raffensperger called the lawsuit "frivolous," citing polls showing 98-99% of voters reported no issues voting in recent elections. He also accused the Biden administration of political motives in pursuing the case. STORY 5: Gwinnett/Walton Habitat for Humanity Receives $125K Grant from Publix Super Markets Charities Gwinnett/Walton Habitat for Humanity received a $125,000 grant from Publix Super Markets Charities to support building one of 11 homes planned for 2025. The nonprofit will construct homes in Monroe (including a Veteran Build), Lilburn, and Loganville to address the need for affordable housing in the area. Director of Philanthropy Jan Mayheu highlighted the grant's role in fostering strong communities and helping families achieve homeownership. The organization relies on donations, sponsorships, and volunteers to continue its mission. To get involved, contact Mayheu at 770-931-8080. Break 3: STORY 6: NFL ALUM: Norcross Dedicates Lorenzo Carter Strength and Conditioning Center Norcross High School honored NFL player Lorenzo Carter by naming its renovated weight room the Lorenzo Carter Strength and Conditioning Center. Carter, a Norcross alum and Atlanta Falcons linebacker, donated funds for high-end equipment and remains actively involved with the school, mentoring students and promoting community involvement. Carter, who starred in football and basketball at Norcross, expressed gratitude for the recognition and emphasized giving back to inspire future generations. With seven NFL seasons under his belt, Carter is currently a free agent but cherishes his time playing for his hometown Falcons. STORY 7: Norcross City Events Schedule 'Packed With Excitement' Norcross city officials promise an exciting 2025 with a packed lineup of events, including cultural fiestas, lively concerts, thrilling car shows, and festive holiday celebrations. Locals and visitors alike can look forward to a year full of fun and community spirit. Don’t miss out—mark your calendars and join the excitement! We’ll have closing comments after this Break 4: Ingles Markets 6 Signoff – Thanks again for hanging out with us on today’s Gwinnett Daily Post Podcast. If you enjoy these shows, we encourage you to check out our other offerings, like the Cherokee Tribune Ledger podcast, the Marietta Daily Journal, or the Community Podcast for Rockdale Newton and Morgan Counties. Read more about all our stories and get other great content at www.gwinnettdailypost.com Did you know over 50% of Americans listen to podcasts weekly? Giving you important news about our community and telling great stories are what we do. Make sure you join us for our next episode and be sure to share this podcast on social media with your friends and family. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home Briefing and be sure to like, follow, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Produced by the BG Podcast Network Show Sponsors: www.ingles-markets.com www.wagesfuneralhome.com www.kiamallofga.com #NewsPodcast #CurrentEvents #TopHeadlines #BreakingNews #PodcastDiscussion #PodcastNews #InDepthAnalysis #NewsAnalysis #PodcastTrending #WorldNews #LocalNews #GlobalNews #PodcastInsights #NewsBrief #PodcastUpdate #NewsRoundup #WeeklyNews #DailyNews #PodcastInterviews #HotTopics #PodcastOpinions #InvestigativeJournalism #BehindTheHeadlines #PodcastMedia #NewsStories #PodcastReports #JournalismMatters #PodcastPerspectives #NewsCommentary #PodcastListeners #NewsPodcastCommunity #NewsSource #PodcastCuration #WorldAffairs #PodcastUpdates #AudioNews #PodcastJournalism #EmergingStories #NewsFlash #PodcastConversations See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode of "The Caroline Glick Show," JNS senior contributing editor Caroline Glick is joined by Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli (Likud Party) for a discussion covering some of the biggest challenges facing Israel and Diaspora Jewry. Learn how Qatar and seemingly innocuous organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations have infiltrated American society to further their efforts at spreading Islamism. They also discuss Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's dream of a renewed caliphate and what the West must do today to preserve its values for the next generation. Catch every story from Israel and the Jewish world:Latest news: https://bit.ly/jewish_news_serviceSubscribe to our free newsletter: https://bit.ly/subscribe_to_JNSYou can join the fight against media bias! Donate here: https://bit.ly/Support-JNS
This Day in Legal History: Georgia Bans LynchingOn December 20, 1893, Georgia enacted the nation's first anti-lynching law, making lynching a felony punishable by up to four years in prison. The move marked an early, if largely symbolic, legislative response to the epidemic of racial violence that gripped the United States during the late 19th century. While Georgia's statute was groundbreaking, it was neither robustly enforced nor particularly effective at curbing mob violence, particularly against Black Americans. The systemic racism entrenched in law enforcement and the judiciary often allowed perpetrators of lynchings to escape accountability despite the new law.Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a prominent journalist and anti-lynching activist, highlighted the shortcomings of Georgia's legislation in her 1899 pamphlet Lynch Law in Georgia. She chronicled specific cases of mob violence in the state, exposing how the justice system failed to protect victims or prosecute offenders effectively. Wells-Barnett's work underscored the inadequacy of anti-lynching laws that lacked mechanisms for federal oversight or impartial enforcement.The Georgia law represented a small step in acknowledging lynching as a legal and moral wrong, but its impact was limited by the pervasive culture of white supremacy. Over the following decades, activists like Wells-Barnett continued to advocate for stronger federal anti-lynching measures, culminating in legislation like the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, signed into law in 2022. The 1893 Georgia statute remains a pivotal, though imperfect, historical moment in the struggle for racial justice and the rule of law.Starbucks Workers United, the union representing baristas at over 500 of Starbucks' 10,000 U.S. stores, has announced a five-day strike starting Friday after a breakdown in final-stage bargaining sessions with the company. The strike will initially affect unionized stores in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle, with the union expecting the action to expand to hundreds of stores by Christmas Eve. The dispute centers on the company's failure to offer immediate pay raises for unionized baristas in its latest proposal. This marks the first strike since February, when both sides agreed to resume negotiations, and follows high-profile strikes like last year's Red Cup Day walkout. Starbucks claims the union prematurely ended the bargaining session and states it is ready to continue negotiations, highlighting agreements reached on over 30 worker-focused issues. The company also emphasized its average compensation package of $30 per hour for baristas working at least 20 hours weekly, while reaffirming its commitment to improving the worker experience.Starbucks Union to Strike Friday in LA, Chicago, Seattle (2)The U.S. government faces an impending shutdown as a Republican-backed funding proposal failed in the House, exposing deep divisions within the GOP. President-elect Donald Trump opposed a bipartisan funding deal, demanding debt ceiling changes, but his alternative plan failed to unify his party. Thirty-eight Republican lawmakers joined Democrats to reject the measure, highlighting challenges in advancing Trump's agenda despite Republican control of Congress and the presidency.House Speaker Mike Johnson, struggling to manage the crisis, vowed to propose a new solution but faced mounting criticism. Trump and ally Elon Musk condemned the bipartisan deal and pressured Republicans to hold firm, complicating efforts to pass even a stopgap measure. The shutdown threat could furlough federal workers and disrupt essential services during the holiday season.The discord underscored the GOP's internal fractures and Trump's polarizing influence as he pushes aggressive policy demands. While Trump framed the impasse as a fight against excessive government spending, Democrats criticized his demands as political maneuvers to advance tax cuts and other priorities. With the midnight deadline looming, no resolution was in sight, leaving federal agencies and workers bracing for a shutdown.Trump-Backed US Funding Plan's Failure Showcases GOP FissuresNine Palestinian Americans have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, accusing it of failing to evacuate them and their families from Gaza amid ongoing conflict and a severe humanitarian crisis. The plaintiffs allege discrimination by the State Department, claiming it neglected to offer the same evacuation efforts typically extended to Americans in other conflict zones, such as Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Sudan. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, names President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as defendants.The lawsuit, supported by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and attorney Maria Kari, argues the U.S. violated the plaintiffs' constitutional right to equal protection. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the litigation but emphasized that ensuring the safety of U.S. citizens is a priority and noted prior evacuation efforts from Gaza.The conflict, which escalated after Hamas' October 2023 attack on Israel, has led to over 45,000 deaths in Gaza and displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million residents. Plaintiffs argue that the U.S. has failed to adequately address the safety of Palestinian Americans amid accusations of war crimes and genocide in the ongoing violence.Lawsuit alleges U.S. failed to evacuate Palestinian Americans trapped in Gaza | ReutersThis week's closing theme is by Béla Bartók.Our closing theme for this week is String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17 (Sz. 67) by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, a towering figure in 20th-century music. Born in 1881, Bartók was not only a celebrated composer but also a pioneering ethnomusicologist, deeply committed to collecting and incorporating the folk music traditions of Eastern Europe into his compositions. His work often fuses the rhythmic vitality and modal scales of these traditions with innovative harmonic language and formal structures, making him one of the most distinctive voices of his time.Composed between 1915 and 1917, Bartók's String Quartet No. 2 reflects both personal and historical turmoil. The piece emerged during World War I, a period of great upheaval, which undoubtedly shaped its emotional intensity. This three-movement work alternates between lyrical introspection and passionate turbulence, mirroring Bartók's exploration of the tension between Western classical forms and the folk influences he revered.The opening movement (Moderato) is contemplative and almost nostalgic, its long, flowing melodies underscored by a subtle tension. The second movement (Allegro molto capriccioso) bursts forth with ferocious energy, driven by dance-like rhythms and aggressive interplay between the instruments. Finally, the third movement (Lento) brings a return to introspection, its sparse and haunting textures evoking a sense of profound melancholy.Bartók's String Quartet No. 2 is both challenging and rewarding, offering a glimpse into the mind of a composer navigating a complex emotional and cultural landscape. Its raw expressiveness and structural ingenuity make it a fitting conclusion to our week, capturing both the struggles and the beauty of human creativity.Without further ado, Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17 - enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe
In the span of a few days, two houses of worship in Minneapolis are facing threats and vandalism.Minneapolis Police are currently investigating the defacing of Temple Israel, a synagogue in Minneapolis. On Monday, a suspect spray-painted swastikas on the doors and pillar of the building. On Friday, Abubakar As-saddique Islamic Center, or AAIC in Minneapolis received an online threat, threatening violence to members of worship at the mosque. Minneapolis police determined the threat to be unfounded, but it still contributed to fear and concern in the Islamic community. Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman, the senior rabbi at Temple Israel and Osman Ahmed, Director of Advocacy with Minnesota's Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations joined Minnesota Now host Nina Moini to talk about their response to the threats.
Whether organic or artificial, the recent reports of flyers being dropped in London threatening Zionist-Jews, and the recent UK incident of Jewish kids on buses being attacked by other kids off the street, are examples of a rising chaos that is without context. However, we know that a woman in Canada holding her arm up like a National-Socialist and saying ‘Final Solution' was doing so as a Jew to smear Palestinian protestors; we know a man in the US putting swastikas on signs had a Jewish name and was looking to smear Republicans; we know that Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans in Amsterdam were ripping flags down from a private residence in a foreign country, disturbing the peace of a flood victim memorial, and attacking cab drivers, all while chanting “death or Arabs,” long before mobs gathered in resistance or some random person said ‘cancer Jews'; we also know that an Atlantic hit piece, written by the Jewish Franklin Foer, on the incoming presidential administration in the US being ‘the most Anti-Semitic Cabinet in Decades' is totally in contrast with nearly every appointment-pick being a Jewish-Zionist, Christian-Zionist, or zealot looking for war in Iran. What this tells us, alongside of 79% of Jews voting for Democrats, who receive half their campaign money from Jews, and $100 million dollar given by the Jewish Mariam Adelson to her ‘savior' who won the US Presidential election, there are multiple factions looking to make Jews victim in order to just censoring speech, protest, press, and even guns in the case of the Jewish Michael Bloomberg.We also know that according to the Council on American Islamic Relations that nearly 49% of Muslim students are being harassed or mocked in schools simply for being Muslim, most having never been to a protest. This is a constant theme that has been increasing since 2013, and a true definition of rising anti-semitism, a term which has been hijacked like the words holocaust or pogrom. In fact, despite the blatant disregard for peace or the law in Amsterdam by Jewish fans, Benjamin Netanyahu accused respondents of attacking Jews “just for being Jews,” and said that the response was nothing more than a “pogrom,” a term that refers to the calling for massacre of a particular group of people - Palestinians, Russians, etc. As is the case with holocaust being a mass killing by fire - Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Either way you divide this issue you find one group or another being made victim and given special protections against the rights of others; you find common Jews being made victim to violence by bigots fed either leftwing or rightwing propaganda; you find calls for war. All of this is setting the stage for literal armageddon, when even that is metaphoric like the Promised Land. This show is about understanding, peace, and context. If we neglect to approach these subjects as such then we are reduced to the rhetoric of the Jewish Communist Ilya Ehrenburg, who called to kill all Germans, just as today there are calls to kill the Russians, Palestinians, Ukrainians, Americans, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and so on.-FREE ARCHIVE (w. ads)SUBSCRIPTION ARCHIVEX / TWITTER FACEBOOKWEBSITEPAYPALLEAVE A REVIEW ON APPLECashApp: $rdgable EMAIL: rdgable@yahoo.com / TSTRadio@protonmail.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tst-radio--5328407/support.
Mere days aways from Election Day 2024, Parvez and Omar are rejoined by Civil Rights Attorney and Activist Zahra Billoo to discuss the Muslim vote and the 2024 Presidential Election. Are Muslims simply approaching who to vote for with the "lesser of two evils" calculus? Is there a long game and what are the short term consequences of playing the long game? All this and more for the show's special Election 2024 episode! About Zahra Billoo Zahra Billoo serves as the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR-SFBA) office, the oldest CAIR chapter office. Since joining in 2009, Zahra has led the organization through a period of six-fold growth. Today, she manages one of the largest CAIR offices in the country with a team of civil rights and social justice advocates dedicated to the empowerment of American Muslims through legal services, legislative advocacy, and community organizing. Under Zahra's leadership, CAIR-SFBA has filed lawsuits against the United States Department of Justice, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Southwest Airlines, representing American Muslims facing discriminatory treatment. CAIR-SFBA has also significantly expanded its capabilities to provide know-your-rights sessions on a nearly weekly basis to mosques and community members in the San Francisco Bay Area, while also providing direct legal representation to Bay Area residents facing numerous civil rights violations, including FBI interviews, employment discrimination, airport harassment, school bullying, and hate crimes. Zahra's advocacy has included media appearances in local and national media, including MSNBC, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, and even FOX News. Among her awards, she received the 2017 Human Rights Award from the Society of American Law Teachers and the 2018 Community Builder Award from People Acting in Community Together (PACT). She was also listed by the San Jose Mercury News as a “Woman to Watch” in March 2017 for Women's History Month, as well as by the Chronicle of Philanthropy in their January 2018 cover story on millennials who lead. She is currently a fellow with Levi Strauss Foundation Pioneers in Justice, a senior fellow with the American Leadership Forum's Silicon Valley Chapter and an alumna of Rockwood's Fellowship for a New California, LeaderSpring's Executive Directors Fellowship, and USC's American Muslim Civil Leadership Institute. Zahra earned her undergraduate degrees from the California State University, Long Beach, and her Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Hastings. She is licensed to practice law in California.
On October 8, an Oklahoma City man who was born in Afghanistan was charged in federal court for an alleged terror plot. 27-year-old Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi faces one count of conspiring to conduct a terrorist attack, according to an affidavit filed by the FBI. While the story has made international news and went viral on social media, few are examining the potentially negative impact it could have on Oklahoma Muslims, including over 1,000 Afghan refugees who resettled in Oklahoma after the Taliban seized power. Shonda Little spoke with representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Western Oklahoma about the positive impact this community brings to Oklahoma.In a state grappling with the boundaries of religion in public education, State Superintendent Ryan Walters' directive to incorporate Bible teaching in classrooms has sparked controversy and confusion. As schools reopen, the implementation of this mandate remains unclear, with educators, students, and religious leaders voicing diverse opinions on its appropriateness and constitutionality. Venson Fields has the story.Tuesday, November 5 as people across the country head to the polls to vote for President, and in other federal and local elections, history will be on the ballot in Tulsa. Monroe Nichols is running for mayor. FBO was at Nichols's election watch party as the results came in showing Nichols had won the most votes in the mayoral primary. If he wins the vote on the first Tuesday in November, he will be the first Black Mayor of Tulsa in the city's history. In the fall of 2020, Michael Hill, a Black citizen of the Cherokee Nation, woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of someone banging on the windows of his home. He called police for help, but the police arrested Michael in his own front yard. When trying to get his case heard in tribal court he was rejected because though he has tribal citizenship, he has no blood quantum and by federal law is not legally an Indian. His story is told in a newly released Audible Original documentary called Tribal Justice: The Struggle for Black Rights on Native Land, reported and written by two award-winning indigenous journalists, Allison Herrera and Adreanna Rodriguez. The following excerpt is the first installment of FBOs broadcast of the documentary.Ever been thrown from a horse? If you have, congratulations! You've just experienced the rodeo rite of passage: the ground's unwavering embrace. It's a lesson learned from Chaz Stephens' father, a retired cowboy with a knack for sage advice and questionable humor. But while rodeos might seem like a wild ride of bucking broncos they're also vibrant celebrations of Black culture, where community ties are as strong as calving ropes. Chaz Stephens brings us the first of a three part series on Oklahoma's Black Rodeos This series, as well as a photo exhibition featuring Black Rodeo photos by Jamie & Richard Glisson of ImpressOK Studio, is funded by a grant from Oklahoma Humanities. Please visit rodeo.kosu.org and sign up to receive further details on the February 1st, 2025 exhibition opening event.
Hutt and Chad discuss The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, on Tuesday raising concerns about the "unusual hostility" behind the New York Jets' decision to fire coach Robert Saleh. OutKick Host “Don't @ Me”, Dan Dakich joins the show to share his thoughts on when a loss is a good thing and why he likes to do sprints in his backyard. Plus, OutKick Senior College Writer, Trey Wallace on the NCAA voting to shorten the transfer portal window and and renewal of the Red River Rivalry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today marks one year since the Hamas attack on October 7th, 2023. We are joined once again by Khury Petersen-Smith, Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he researches U.S. empire, borders, and migration The U.S. continues to openly endorse Israel's expansionist foreign policy, moving more U.S. military assets into the region as Israel escalates its attacks in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and the West Bank. The devastation in Gaza and Lebanon is incomparable to what has taken place in prior wars, yet western media continues to diminish Israel's indiscriminate killing of civilians or report on other evidence of war crimes. The U.S. was not simply led by Israel into this war, but willfully joined in. Internal emails recently obtained by Reuters reveal that the Biden Administration knew as far back as October 13, 2023 that the weapons they provided to Israel were being used to target civilians in violation of international law. Brett Murphy, who reports for ProPublica's national desk, found that members of the Biden Administration worked overtime to expedite weapons transfers to Israel despite the concerns of White House officials that displacing Palestinian civilians en masse would lead to a humanitarian disaster. His reporting also exposes the outsized influence that defense industry lobbyists have on U.S. foreign policy. See Brett Murphy's reporting here: https://www.propublica.org/article/israel-gaza-america-biden-administration-weapons-bombs-state-department In the wake of this news, CAIR—The Council on American-Islamic Relations is now renewing its calls to dismiss Secretary of State Antony Blinken and administration official Brett McGurk. Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of CAIR joins us to explain the political thrust of those demands. This week's Resistance in Residence artists are Gabriele Christian and Chibueze Crouch who make up the performance duo OysterKnife. You can learn more about them on their Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_oysterknife_/ — Subscribe to this podcast: https://plinkhq.com/i/1637968343?to=page Get in touch: lawanddisorder@kpfa.org Follow us on socials @LawAndDis: https://twitter.com/LawAndDis; https://www.instagram.com/lawanddis/ The post Palestine Post: One Year Since October 7th appeared first on KPFA.
First on today's show, Ralph welcomes back Dr. Bandy Lee to discuss her recent conference, "The More Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership—The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump". Then, Ralph is joined by Professor Ted Postol to talk about the missiles and rockets (and other weapons) being used in the expanding war(s) in the Middle East. [Nadia Milleron] went down to Springfield, the state capitol, and met with every assembly member, saying—for future wrongful death, you should give people in Illinois the opportunity to file for punitive damages against these corporate defendants, or other similarly-positioned defendants. And she got it through—it was considered impossible to beat Boeing, and she got it through and the governor signed it. That's the determination of a parent who loses a child to corporate crimeRalph NaderDr. Bandy Lee is a medical doctor, a forensic psychiatrist, and a world expert on violence who taught at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School for 17 years before joining the Harvard Program in Psychiatry and the Law. She is currently president of the World Mental Health Coalition, an educational organization that assembles mental health experts to collaborate with other disciplines for the betterment of public mental health and public safety. She is the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President and Profile of a Nation: Trump's Mind, America's Soul.Let me clarify that there's a distinction among the evaluations that mental health experts do—one is diagnostic, the other is functional. And the diagnostic exam is the one that mental health professionals have no business doing on a public figure because that's what you do in private therapy sessions, and you diagnose someone in order to outline their course of treatment. But a functional assessment is something you do for the public—and that includes unfitness or dangerousness—and these kinds of comments are not only permitted, they are part of our societal responsibility because we are responsible not just for private individual patients, but for the public, for society.Dr. Bandy LeeDonald Trump is not an isolated phenomenon. He is a product of the system that has come before him and he is an accelerator of the dangers that succeed him. I do not believe that a Biden presidency would have been this dangerous without a Trump presidency preceding him. Dr. Bandy LeeTed Postol is Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy Emeritus in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. His expertise is in nuclear weapon systems, including submarine warfare, applications of nuclear weapons, ballistic missile defense, and ballistic missiles more generally. He previously worked as an analyst at the Office of Technology Assessment and as a science and policy adviser to the chief of naval operations. In 2016, he received the Garwin Prize from the Federation of American Scientists for his work in assessing and critiquing the government's claims about missile defenses.I do not want to appear like I don't think it matters, but at the same time, it's been provoked to the point that it's amazing that the Iranians have restrained themselves to this point. But the Iranians know that they're going to suffer heavy damage from Israel. They have not wanted to go to war. They have shown great wisdom and restraint in spite of the situation.Ted PostolWhat the Israelis want—this guy Netanyahu in particular, who I think is delusional besides being psychopath—what Netanyahu wants, he wants a decisive victory. Again, let me underscore that—a decisive victory against Iran and also Hezbollah and Gaza, these poor victims of his genocide in Gaza. He can't do that. He's going to kill God knows how many more people in his effort—which is already a crime against humanity that's beginning to look like the Holocaust—but he's not going to defeat Hezbollah in a decisive way. Ted PostolIn Case You Haven't Heard with Francesco DeSantisNews 10/2/241. ProPublica reports “The U.S. government's two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance [USAID and the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration] concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza.” Yet just days later, instead of acting upon this information, Secretary of State Antony Blinken misled Congress telling lawmakers “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance [to Gaza].” In USAID's report, the agency laid out specific examples of Israeli interference, including “killing aid workers, razing agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, sitting on supply depots and routinely turning away trucks full of food and medicine.” The State Department Refugee bureau separately concluded that “the Foreign Assistance Act should be triggered to freeze almost $830 million in taxpayer dollars earmarked for weapons and bombs to Israel, according to emails obtained by ProPublica.” Yet because Blinken refused to accept these facts and instead opted to lie to Congress, the weapons pipeline to Israel continues to flow unimpeded. Some, including Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, have called on Blinken to resign, per the Middle East Monitor.2. On September 27th, Israel assassinated Hezbollah Secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah. According to NBC, the Israelis made this decision “after concluding [Nasrallah] would not accept any diplomatic solution to end the fighting on the Israel-Lebanon border that was not tied to an end to the war in Gaza.” Through this assassination, and the assassination of Hamas Political Bureau chairman Ismail Haniyeh earlier this year, Israel has made clear that they would rather resort to extrajudicial killings than negotiate an end to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Israel now plans to invade Southern Lebanon, further escalating this conflict into a regional war, with the full backing of the United States.3. Following the pager and walkie-talkie attacks in Lebanon, the office of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib issued a statement decrying that “The Biden-Harris administration continues to allow Netanyahu and the Israeli government to operate with impunity as they carry out war crimes. After facing no red line in Gaza…Netanyahu is now expanding his genocidal campaign to Lebanon…Deploying more U.S. troops and sending more U.S. bombs will only lead to more suffering and carnage. The...administration is capable of stopping the bloodshed. President Biden must implement an immediate arms embargo to end the slaughter and de-escalate the risk of a wider regional war.” Yet, far from de-escalating, the Biden administration has stood by while Netanyahu has escalated further, with increasing signs that the situation will tip over into a full-scale regional war between Israel and Iran. Dark days indeed could be ahead.4. This week, Hurricane Helene cleaved a “500-mile path of destruction” stretching from Florida to the Southern Appalachians, per CNN. So far, the casualties include at least 128 dead and whole communities wiped off the map. Yet, this devastation is not limited merely to peoples' homes and communities. In a darkly ironic twist, “Hurricane Helene's severe flooding [in Asheville, North Carolina] knocked offline the top tracker of U.S. and global climate data, including of extreme weather…The National Centers for Environmental Information,” or NCEI. According to the NCEI, “Even those who are physically safe are generally without power, water or connectivity,” per Axios. And just outside Atlanta, Vox reports “Amid the devastation and mass flooding…A chemical fire [at BioLab] released a massive plume of potentially toxic gasses into the air.” Officials issued a shelter-in-place order Sunday evening covering Rockdale County, home to around 90,000 people. EPA testing detected signs of chlorine gas in the air. Fulton County, which includes parts of Atlanta, has reported “a haze and strong chemical smell.”5. Last week, the International Trade Union Confederation published a report accusing “Some of the world's largest companies of undermining democracy across the world by financially backing far-right political movements, funding and exacerbating the climate crisis, and violating trade union rights and human rights.” This report specifically names Amazon, Tesla, Meta, ExxonMobil, Blackstone, Vanguard and Glencore. This report cites a litany of damning acts by these corporations – ranging from union busting and environmental degradation to funding of far-right and anti-indigenous movements around the globe – but makes the fundamental point that “This is about power, who has it, and who sets the agenda. …They're playing the long game, and it's a game about shifting power away from democracy at every level into one where they're not concerned about the effects on workers – they're concerned about maximizing their influence and their extractive power and their profit…Now is the time for international and multi-sectoral strategies, because these are, in many cases, multinational corporations that are more powerful than states, and they have no democratic accountability whatsoever, except for workers organized.” Per the Guardian, “the ITUC includes labor group affiliates from 169 nations…representing 191 million workers…the federation is pushing for an international binding treaty…to hold transnational corporations accountable under international human rights laws.”6. Yet, although these corporations are being called out for their role in undermining democracy, the Biden administration is granting many of them large sums of money via the newly announced “Partnership for Global Inclusivity on AI.” According to the State Department, this partnership will bring together the Department of State, Amazon, Anthropic, Google, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI to “promote inclusivity, respect for human rights, digital solidarity, and equitable access to the benefits of AI globally.” As the American Prospect's Luke Goldstein notes, every single one of the companies listed are currently facing lawsuits or are under investigation by either the Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission, and two of these corporations were clients of Secretary of State Antony Blinken's during his time as a consultant at WestExec Advisors. And in California, Variety reports Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed SB 1047, a bill that “sought to ward off catastrophic risks of highly advanced [AI] models…[that] could be used to develop chemical or nuclear weapons.” This bill was strongly supported by SAG-AFTRA.7. A new article in the Atlantic makes the case that “Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake.” On a previous program we discussed how the “widespread legalization of sports gambling over the past five years has [led to a] roughly 28% increase in bankruptcies and an 8% increase in debt transferred to debt collectors,” along with substantial increases in auto loan delinquencies and use of debt consolidation loans. Beyond the financial damages however, this piece cites a new University of Oregon study that found in places where sports gambling is legalized, a loss by the home NFL team increases intimate partner violence by approximately 10%. As Deseret News put the question, “If, after six years, a law was discovered to be encouraging domestic violence while causing people, especially the poor, to lose what little money they could put toward savings, what would be the correct next step?”8. On September 24th, the Federal Trade Commission took action against Invitation Homes, the country's largest landlord of single-family homes, for “an array of unlawful actions against consumers, including deceiving renters about lease costs, charging undisclosed junk fees, failing to inspect homes before residents moved in, and unfairly withholding tenants' security deposits when they moved out.” The FTC complaint cites a 2019 email from Invitation Homes' CEO “calling on the senior vice president responsible for overseeing the company's fee program to ‘juice this hog'” by making additional fees mandatory for renters. This action comes as “Democrats Are Torn Between Donors and Their Base,” over the high-profile FTC Chair Lina Khan, Wired reports. While many billionaire Democratic donors have publicly called for Khan's ouster, polling shows around “80 percent of Democrats feel that the government should be doing more to take on corporate monopolies, compared to only 3 percent who say it should be doing less...[and] Nearly 90 percent of Democrats…feel that lobbyists and corporate executives hold too much power over the government.” To his credit, powerful House Democrat Jim Clyburn recently defended Khan when asked whether she should be fired, saying “… fired for what? For doing [her] job?…I suspect that people who represent Invitation Homes may want her to be replaced by somebody who would not do their [job],” per the Huffington Post.9. POLITICO Europe has published a shocking exposé documenting “the atrocities carried out during the summer of 2021 by a [Mozambican] commando unit led by an officer who said his mission was to protect ‘the project of Total.'” The “Total” in question being TotalEnergies, the French energy titan operating an enormous liquid natural gas plant in the Southeast African country. According to this report, “villagers had been caught in the crossfire between the Mozambican army and ISIS-affiliated militants. Having fled their homes, they had gone to seek the protection of government soldiers. Instead…[t]he soldiers accused the villagers of being members of the insurgency. They separated the men — a group of between 180 and 250 — from the women and children. Then they crammed their prisoners into… shipping containers…hitting, kicking and striking them with rifle butts. The soldiers held the men in the containers for three months. They beat, suffocated, starved, tortured and finally killed their detainees. Ultimately, only 26 prisoners survived.” Beyond this horrific massacre, this piece investigates the complex relationship between the Mozambican government, the Islamist insurgency, and French energy interests operating in Mozambique.10. Finally, on the eve of the inauguration of Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico's incoming president and the first ever Jewish head of state in North America, tensions are mounting between the country and its northern neighbor, the United States. On his way out, popular left-wing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, has declared a Yucatán port owned by Alabama-based Vulcan Materials a nature reserve in a move that the company is calling “expropriation.” According to Reuters, the company has quarried limestone in Mexico for over three decades and AMLO has long criticized their activities as environmentally damaging. AMLO also offered offered up to 7 billion pesos or $362 million for the land, but Vulcan rejected the offer. In response to AMLO's move, Republican Senators Katie Britt of Alabama and John Cornyn of Texas sent a letter “threatening Mexico with ‘crushing consequences' if the incoming Administration of Claudia Sheinbaum,” doesn't reverse this decision, per José Díaz Briseño of Reforma. This vague saber rattling raises the question, voiced by decorated journalist Ryan Grim, “Are Senate Republicans threatening some kind of coup”?This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven't Heard. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe
In this explosive episode of "Connecting the Dots," I sit down with Professor Dan Kovalik to expose the harsh reality of free speech under attack in America. Dan shares his chilling story of being detained for hours at Miami Airport, interrogated simply for telling the truth on RT and other alternative news outlets. He's part of a disturbing trend—journalists in the U.S. being raided, arrested, and harassed for daring to speak out. Is free speech in America on life support? We dive into Noam Chomsky's theory of controlled debate, where public opinion is tightly managed, and how today's media manipulates what we're allowed to hear. From the prosecution of dissent to the silencing of pro-Palestine voices on college campuses, this conversation reveals the frightening erosion of our First Amendment rights. Don't miss this urgent wake-up call—are we witnessing the death of free speech in the land of the free? Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube! Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey! Wilmer Leon (00:00): The linguist, Noam Chomsky tells us the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. Even encourage the more critical and dissident views that gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on. While all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of debate. That's Noam Chomsky. Let's talk about it. Stay tuned. Announcer (00:43): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Wilmer Leon (00:51): Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon, and I am Wilmer Leon is this what American mainstream media and those in Western established press are engaging in actually the violation of the First Amendment? Let's discuss this. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which these events occur. During each episode of this podcast, my guests and I, we have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode, the issue of force is very simple. The first amendment, freedom of speech, and the US government's attack on this inalienable right, and my guest is a US labor and human rights lawyer, writer, author, and activist. His latest book is entitled The Case for Palestine, why It Matters and Why You Should Care. He has been a peace activist throughout his life. He has been deeply involved in the movement for peace and social justice in Columbia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other countries in the global south. He's also taught international human rights law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law since 2012. He is Professor Dan lik. Dan, welcome. Dan Kovalik (02:26): Thank you. Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure. Wilmer. Wilmer Leon (02:30): So there are a number of events. We're going to connect a number of dots here, but let's start with the First Amendment and it reads as follows, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of people to peaceably, to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Dan, we take this as Americans, we take this for granted, but as the first amendment of the first 10, this one was very important and made number one for a reason why? Dan Kovalik (03:18): Well, because the founding fathers having come from England, where there was a king who was able to prescribe speech arbitrarily, wanted to protect the right of free spree speech, the right of religion. Of course, England had a state religion, the Anglican Church, and they wanted to make sure that Americans had the right to such things as speech and religion and freedom of the press. In England. Those things were not protected even to this day. By the way, great Britain does not have a written constitution and does not protect those types of rights in the way that the United States does. Wilmer Leon (04:05): And again, we've taken this right for granted for so many years, but we have found history shows us, particularly during times of war, when the United States feels that it is being threatened, the screws tighten on free speech, hence people get charged with sedition and other types of violations. When the government feels it's being threatened, when there is a perceived threat from outside the country, then the government will tend to tighten the screws restrict speech, and then once that threat is vanquished, then the prohibitions relax. Have you found history to prove that to be true? Dan Kovalik (04:57): Yes. I mean, one of the most famous examples, of course is during World War I, people like Eugene v Debs, great socialist from Terre Haute, Indiana. He was put in jail for publicly opposing World War I and famously his persecution and those of others like him was approved by the Supreme Court in a famous case by Oliver Wendell Holmes is one of the most celebrated jurors, and he created the clear and present danger rule. And what that says is that the First Amendment is not, as they often say, the US Constitution is not a suicide pact. He said that in cases of a clear and present danger, Congress in fact could (05:59): Limit speech. He gave the example famous example of you're not allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater, for example. And he compared incredibly advocating for peace during a time of war as tantamount to claiming there's a fire in a crowded theater. And that remains the law of the day. And so that law or that decision, which is now almost a hundred years old, I think sets the precedent that advocating for peace in the United States is somehow a clear and present danger. And so when we look to how speech is being regulated and limited today, what we often see it being regulated when people are clamoring for peace. Wilmer Leon (06:58): There's an interesting piece in consortium news entitled Free Speech in the Department of Political Justice, and it's written by former judge Andrew Napolitano, who was a superior court judge in New Jersey. And he writes in this piece, I don't want to spend a lot of time getting into the weeds of the First Amendment, but I think this is very germane to what we find ourselves dealing with. He writes, the framers of the Constitution, were debating this idea of free speech, and they concluded that expressive rights are natural to all persons no matter where they are born. And natural rights are, as Jefferson had written in the Declaration of Independence inalienable. That's why I refer to them as inalienable rights in the open stated differently. He writes, Madison and his colleagues gave us a constitution and a bill of rights that on their face recognized the prepo political existence of the freedom of speech and of the press in all persons and guaranteed that in Congress, by which they meant the government could not and would not abridge them until now. And he, in his piece, he's referencing some charges that the United States government has imposed against some Americans and some Russians, and it's not even a matter of challenging war as much as it is challenging the established government narrative. Your thoughts? Dan Kovalik (08:35): Yes. So again, this is very similar to laws and regulations that have come down before during World War I and also around the same time you had the pomades against socialists and union leaders. Of course you had the McCarthy period, which also really represented an abridgement of peace of speech and of course very, I think relevant to today because of course the McCarthy period, at least ostensibly involved the persecution of communists. Though of course a lot of people persecuted were not communists, though a lot of the people who were persecuted were communists. Most notably in my mind, the great Paul Robeson who went, he and I went to the same law school. By the way, it's a big reason I went to Columbia Law School is because Paul Robeson went there, one of my heroes. Wilmer Leon (09:31): He was a few years ahead of you though. Dan Kovalik (09:33): A few years, yeah, yeah. I know I look old, but I'm not quite old enough to cross paths with Mr. Robeson. But why is that important? Because of course that involved claims that the communists were somehow how stooges of the Soviet Union. And now of course you have people making allegations that those opposing US foreign policy are pawns of Russia and Vladimir Putin. Right. So it's the same old trope that we've been hearing for years and years, and we see this manifested in the last two weeks with the Justice Department announcing indictments against people associated with rt, formerly known as Russia Today News based in Moscow. You had Anthony Blinken statements over the weekend that RT should be considered an espionage organization that means a spy organization. And of course the implication being that those Americans that work with it are spies. And then you had Hillary Clinton chiming in, I believe yesterday, saying that people spreading propaganda, Russian propaganda should be civilly if not criminally prosecuted. And so again, welcome to McCarthyism 2.0. It's a very scary time for people who, I'll just say like me, I'll only speak for myself who want to advocate for peace, but also specifically advocate for peace with Russia who say Russia's not our enemy who go to Russia. I've been to Russia five times in the last two years. (11:26): I've been to the Donbas three times to Crimea once to the Kherson region of what was Ukraine once. And I have worked with RT proudly so, but I and others like me are now in the crosshairs of the US government. And they're not even hiding it. They're being very clear that we are enemy number one at this point. Wilmer Leon (11:51): And this is important for people to understand because as you just mentioned, they've indicted two Americans living in Russia who are Russian citizens. They work for rt. The Feds are accusing them of spreading propaganda. And what they are basically doing is they're challenging the narrative of the Biden administration. And unlike what transpired during World War I, as you talked about Eugene Debs, and also what happened during World War ii, right now, last I checked, the United States has not declared war on Russia. So we are not in a war footing or on a war footing right now. These are individuals that, and I am one who is challenging the narrative of the Biden administration as it relates to what's going on in Ukraine as it relates to what's going on with China over Taiwan, what's going on in Venezuela, what's going on in the Middle East. There are a number of areas where I believe, and I think I have historic and current evidence to support the position that the established stated narrative of the administration is flat out wrong. Dan Kovalik (13:18): Yes, absolutely. And again, Anthony Blinken was very specific about that. He said that rt, that its alleged propaganda has undermined the cause of the war in Ukraine. But as you say, while the US is defacto at war with Russia, it is not officially at war with Russia. It is not declared war on Russia. And as you know, the US rarely declares war anymore. Only Congress can declare war. And rarely does it do that. We usually go to war again, not officially unofficially with countries without declaring war. So we are not officially at war with Russia, which means that those who work with Russia or Russia related entities are not engaged in sedition of any kind. (14:12): But that is what is being claimed. Now, I mean, that is being specifically claimed that we are in fact involved in sedition. And by the way, I know people, Wilmer friends of mine that are fleeing the country. Oh, really? Oh yeah. A number of people and some to Russia, but some to other places, Canada, other places for fear, they're going to be prosecuted because of their work with rt. And no, it's very serious. I know several people, I won't name them. I think I can name one because he's already done it. So he is safe there. And that's Jackson Henkel. Wilmer Leon (14:55): Oh, okay. Dan Kovalik (14:57): But there's others in the process of doing that. Some people have urged me to do that. So we have a very serious situation, and I understand why people would make that choice, because really the government is signaling that they may go after us. So it makes some sense, Wilmer Leon (15:21): And we're going to get to that with you in just a few moments because there, there's another, there are a number of facets of this that if you look at these things individually, people may have a tendency to think, oh, well, this is just a one-off here, or a one-off there. But when you start connecting these dots, what you find out is the government is engaged in incredibly fascist behavior, and they are establishing policies. When Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, former First Lady comes on television and starts talking about people who are spewing propaganda need to be considered for facing criminal charges. What's the difference between her saying that here in the United States and some of the incredibly repressive policies that have been and are in place by some people that she and other members of the current administration label as dictators label as strong men label as fascists? Dan Kovalik (16:37): No, I mean, of course there's no difference. I mean, and think about it. The US has voice of America, which again, openly broadcast US viewpoints around the world and in particular in countries that the US is hostile towards. Radio Liberty is a similar one in Europe, but frankly, you don't even have to point to those because now frankly, most of the US media operates like those. They're nothing but mouthpieces For the US government, I would put NPR in that category, C-N-N, M-S-N-B-C, and of course the iron. And if those stations or those broadcasting systems are jammed in other countries or people associated with those entities are arrested or persecuted, of course the US is the first one to claim foul. Right? But of course, the other irony here is that M-S-NBC, which is the station that Hillary Clinton made her statements on, and Rachel Maddow, they have been propagandists themselves in terms of pushing these lies about Russian interference. They've been pushing these lies for eight years now. And Hillary Clinton herself was one of the main origins of that lie, which has been debunked, (18:02): Almost entirely and right. So they are pushing propaganda and they're pushing war propaganda again, specifically against Russia. They themselves are guilty of war propaganda, which is by the way, a war crime under international law. But so talk about calling the kettle black, or in fact, they're calling the China, the China plates black when they're the ones that are engaged in propaganda. Wilmer Leon (18:32): In fact, there's a, I'm trying to pull it up right now. There's an NBC story from a while ago from 2022 where they admitted to using propaganda to fool American people. And in fact, the author of the story is a journalist, Ken Delan, who by the way I believe had been dismissed from the LA Times because he was clearing stories through the CIA before the stories were being submitted to his editors at the LA Times. That's history. But there was a story back from 2022 where NBC admitted that they're involved in his propaganda war with Russia and that they will lie to the American people in order to get out in front of a story before the Russians can tell the story or to mislead the Russians. And so the United States government em, it does it to the American people itself Dan Kovalik (19:41): All the time. We know this happens all the time. Another classic case was Judith Miller at the New York Times, who was doing nothing but writing CIA propaganda at the behest of the CIA, which led it helped lead us to the war in Iraq. And in fact, the CIA credited her reporting for helping pave the way to the war with Iraq. And of course one of the big lies of the war, the weapons of mass destruction was a lie that she promoted and incredibly, she's landed on her feet. She was let go or forced to resign for the New York Times because that came out. But now she works for CNN. I mean these folks, it's really not a negative mark on their career if they do this sort of thing. John Stockwell just mentioned John Stockwell, I don't know if you remember him well, I do. But he was a CIA Bureau chief at Angola. He talked about how the CIA would write stories that they would've published in the press, and he gave one example. He said, we once wrote a story about Cuban troops who were fighting US backed forces in Angola, and who by the way helped liberate Southern Africa and South Africa, as you know, Wilmer. (21:06): He said they would claim Cuban troops had raped these women in Angola. Then they'd write a story saying the Cuban troops were killed. And then he said, incredibly, they'd write another story about the same Cuban troop unit somehow revived from the dead doing something else. And yet the press printed it without question. And this happens, and Hollywood's the same way. Hollywood is very much under the sway of the ca. If I can just give one example of that famous interesting example, if you've ever seen the movie, which I like quite a bit, meet the Parents, pretty funny movie. There's a scene in which Ben Stiller, the main character, goes into Robert De Niro's layer for the first time and discovers he's with the ccia. Originally, the script had it that he found he was with the CIA because there was a CIA torture manual de Niro's desk. Well, the CIA who reviewed the script and reviews many scripts in Hollywood, you can't do that. So they ended up just having photos of De Niro with Bin Laden and Clinton and different things. So a lot of what we watch on TV in the movies and reading the newspaper, a lot of that is clear through the ccia, if not utterly based on CIA misinformation that they feed to the press. Wilmer Leon (22:42): And let me connect these dots. I found the story and here's the headline. This is from NBC News in a Break with the Past. Now that's a lie. Us is using intel to fight an info war with Russia, even when the intel isn't rock solid. It doesn't have to be solid intelligence. One US official said it's more important to get out ahead of them, the Russians Putin specifically before they do something. So this is NBC admitting that they're using less than accurate intel in stories that they're telling to the American public. They're basically lying in order to further a narrative. And we can take this back to the Iraq War with the Office of Special Plans, which was set up in the Pentagon to take intel that hadn't been vetted and spin it into stories that would support the US narrative about why the United States needed the whole idea of weapons of mass destruction. And Dick Cheney's letter about yellow cake uranium coming from Niger, okay, why are we getting into these weeds? Because the United States government is attacking American citizens, independent journalists for telling the truth about stories that are challenging the standard narrative when the United States government admits itself, it's lying to you. And this is in violation of the First Amendment, professor Dan Kalik. Is that a good summation of the issue? Dan Kovalik (24:38): It's a very good summation. You often hear, for example, someone like myself will say, oh, there's neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Which by the way, before 2022, even a lot of the mainstream press reported on that, right? Wilmer Leon (24:55): I won't say even Barack Obama said, one of the reasons we don't want to send weapons to Ukraine is because we don't want to give weapons to the Nazis. Dan Kovalik (25:01): Yeah. Not only did Barack Obama talk about it, there was a law passed by Congress that I think Obama signed saying that the US could not fund neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Well, I don't think they passed the law just because theoretically there might be because they knew there were Nazis in Ukraine, and then in fact, that law was repealed because they later decided, oh, well, we need to support Nazis in Ukraine. Okay, so everyone admitted there's Nazis in Ukraine. Then once the special military operations of Russia began in February of 2022, all of the press all of a sudden pretended, oh, there's no Nazis there. Okay? So now after that, if someone like me who's actually been to the Don Bass, which was part of Ukraine, says, oh yeah, there's neo-Nazis in Ukraine. They're like, well, that's a Putin talking point. Well, the fact it's a Putin talking point doesn't mean it's untrue. If Putin says the world is round, it doesn't mean the world is flat. (26:00): But that's what's happening. That is really the claim leveled against people who are trying to give a more balanced picture of what's happening in Ukraine as they're being portrayed as somehow being controlled by the Kremlin, when in fact they're just saying what the truth is. Even though, yeah, it may happen to correspond with what the Kremlin is saying, which I will say, I find the Kremlin a lot more credible on many of these issues than the White House, but other people have to judge that. But again, the fact that my views may overlap with those of the Kremlin at times doesn't mean I'm under their sway. Wilmer Leon (26:47): And let me give the reference those who want to look this up for themselves. Again, the headline of the story is in a Break with the Past US, is using intel to fight an in full war with Russia, even when the intel isn't rock solid. And the story is from April 6th and 2022 written by Ken Delan and others. And again, it's important to remember that again, Ken Delan was dismissed from the LA Times for writing stories, for sending stories to the CIA, having the CIA edit the stories, not telling the editors at the LA times that this was being done. So again, this shows you the kind of work and the kind of propaganda that is being sold to you as news. Now, there's another element to this because as we talked about before, there are a number of facets of this, and that is, again, in Consortium News, pro-Palestine students and faculty Sue UC, Santa Cruz, the lawsuit seeks to vindicate the fundamental democratic and constitutional rights to free speech, free assembly and due process against overreach by university authorities. So basically what has happened, and this story came was last week, September 11th, 2024. So if you all remember back in the spring, there were a number of protests across college campuses all over this country in support of the Palestinian efforts, and they were protesting against the genocidal action of Israel against Palestinians at the United States is supporting. And a number of students were arrested, and some students that were arrested at UC, what did I say, UC, Santa Barbara or UC, Santa Cruz (28:52): In the spring have now still been put off campus in violation of campus regulation. So they are suing the University of Santa Cruz to have that overturned. And just Tuesday, the University of Maryland now finds that care, the Council of American Islamic Relations, Palestine Legal, they are suing University of Maryland for canceling. And this is who would ever think to do something this horrific Jewish and Palestinian student groups holding an interfaith vigil? Dan Valick, the country is going to hell in a hand basket. Dan Kovalik (29:44): Yeah, absolutely. It's outrageous. I mean, what we see is violations of the First Amendment in many different ways. Not only the violation of free speech, of freedom of assembly, but of course freedom of religion because of course, the interfaith vigil would be an expression of religion. I don't see how these actions by Santa Cruz, which by the way, is part of the University of California system, that's a public school system. It means they are subject to the First Amendment. I don't see how those actions can stand if they do stand, if the courts allow them to stand, then we have entered a brave new world, my friend. I mean a very dangerous world by any precedent of the court, at least recent precedent, they should be permitted to have these types of protest in vigils. And I hope they win in the courts. They should win. Wilmer Leon (30:42): In fact, I remember saying after September 11th, as we looked at the crackdown that the United States government was imposing upon American citizens, that when a country violates its own constitution in reaction to action taken by terrorists, the terrorists have won. Dan Kovalik (31:06): Yeah, well, that's absolutely true. And of course, what we saw after nine 11 was an abomination in terms of the rights, not just of US citizens, but of others that were curtailed. The people put in Guantanamo Bay without charge. It turned out most of them had done nothing. Some died in jail, some died of torture. (31:34): It was a huge mark on American democracy. I believe there's still people there. It has not been there. I think there's a couple survivors still hanging on. It's an amazing thing. And of course then you had Barack Obama who decided he could murder American citizens with drones abroad on his own authority. And he killed one man who was claimed to have been a terrorist again, that had never been proven, that he had not been, that had not proven in a court of law. And then incredibly, they murdered his son, his 16-year-old son. And in defense, one of the White House spokespeople said, well, he chose the wrong father. Wilmer Leon (32:25): Eric Holder came out and said when he was the Attorney General, that an American president can execute American citizens anywhere in the world without judicial review. Dan Kovalik (32:37): Yeah, incredible. An incredible thing. And it's bad enough, frankly, Wilmer, that the government has done these sorts of things. But the sad part also is there's been so little resistance to this, so little criticism. And that's what allows these things to continue and not only continue, but to escalate Wilmer Leon (32:59): Quickly going back to the campus issue. So we're told that there has to be this prohibition against protesting in support of the Palestinians because we have to be mindful of the sensitivities of Jewish students, and we can't have these Jewish American students feeling threatened and feeling unsafe on the college campuses amidst these peaceful protests, ignoring the fact that a lot of the protestors are the very Jewish students who the authorities claim their rights are being protected. I believe I submit to you attorney Kovalik, that that is merely a cover or a pretext for the protection of these interests of these students is a pretext, is a cover that is being used by the government to violate our First Amendment rights the same way the Israeli government claims it has to engage in genocide of Palestinians as it attacks Hamas. Dan Kovalik (34:22): No, exactly right. Because the other issue, I mean, of course you're right that many Jews are protesting for Palestinians, but also what about the Palestinians rights? There's Palestinian students on campus, there's Arab students. What about their rights? Right? Wilmer Leon (34:37): What about my rights? I'm neither Palestinian nor Jewish, and I have this problem, and I know I'm nuts, Dan. I got a problem with genocide. I admit it. I admit America. I admit it to the world. I got a problem with genocide. Dan Kovalik (34:52): It's an incredible thing. Wilmer, what we've all been taught since World War II is that the worst crime in the world is genocide, right? It is the high crime. It is the most abominable crime. And even one of the worst things you could say about someone is they're a genocide denier, right? Wilmer Leon (35:15): Oh, yeah. Heaven forbid. Dan Kovalik (35:16): And now all of a sudden when people are protesting against genocide, they're the bad guys. And yet it's an incredible thing that is happening. It's an amazing Rubicon we've crossed, and no one can really defend it. That's the problem. And that is why there's repression. The universities, including some of the best in the world like Columbia University, which may be the main offender on this, they can't defend their actions. They can't defend the genocide. They can't defend against those saying it's a genocide. So they've decided we just have to shut the speech down because we as an institution, we have no argument. We can't ideologically defend this. We can't ideologically defend the United States. And so we're just going to say, students, you can't talk, which goes against every notion that anyone has about what the university is supposed to be, a space of free speech and free debate. And Zionists should have a right to their views. They should have a right to peacefully protest. And those are against Zionism. And the genocide should also have that right. And that is so obvious and so clear, and the fact that the universities have decided to go the other way and only repress one kind of speech, and that is pro-Palestinian and not pro-Israel. It's abominable. It just shows the corruption of our institutions from the universities all the way to the White House. Wilmer Leon (36:55): And it also, I believe, shows the power of the military industrial complex, or what Ray McGovern called the Mickey Mat, in that once you start challenging the narrative via free speech, you now threaten the defense budget. You now start threatening the billions of dollars in weapons that are being wasted in Ukraine, that are being wasted in Gaza, that are being wasted as the United States is trying to foment a Middle East war. And heaven forbid those billion dollar contracts that are going to Lockheed Martin, that are going to Boeing, that are going to ge, Raytheon, heaven forbid, people start asking questions about why is so much money being wasted on genocide? Dan Kovalik (37:53): Yeah, no, exactly. That's correct. When we look around our cities, we look around this country, we see so many problems that need fixing, and people are saying, Hey, why aren't you fixing our problems instead of sending money abroad to these wars in Ukraine and Gaza? Those are very inconvenient people to the powers that be, and not just to the military industrial complex, but apparently we know that in the case of Columbia University, that they responded to calls by millionaires in New York City who asked them to repress the protest. So we know the ruling class is very much in the tank for Israel, very much in the tank for the genocide in Gaza, and that they are influencing these universities and how they respond to this. Wilmer Leon (38:45): And let's connect another dot. And that is the trial in Tampa, Florida that just wrapped up last week in the Uru, the African People Socialist Party, also known as the Uhuru movement or the Uhuru three. There was an incredibly confusing verdict that came down in that trial. It was alleged that the defendants were doing the bidding of the Russian government by sowing discord in America's political process by promoting political views that were contrary to those of the United States government and favorable to those of the Russian government. Now, I got to reiterate, they're not talking about overthrowing the government. They're not talking about attacking the government sowing discord, their own words in America's political process by promoting political views, not military political views that are contrary to those of the United States government. So well, go ahead, Dan. You want to say something? Dan Kovalik (40:00): Yeah. Well, that's exactly what the First Amendment is supposed to protect, are controversial views that go against the government. I mean, right? You don't need the First Amendment to protect speech that is pro-government, right? I mean, that's kind of obvious. If the First Amendment only protected pro-government speech, it wouldn't be much of a protection at all. As people say, you have to protect inconvenience speech and dissident speech. And so it's amazing that this prosecution went forward. Apparently, I guess they were convicted of conspiracy, but not some of the other charges. And by the way, let's say a couple things about it. First of all, I'm not sure they influenced anyone. I never heard of this organization to be totally honest, until this, right, until this indictment came down. And so number one, so they don't have much influence at all. Number two, I think this was over like 500 bucks in a donation they got for some Russian 500 bucks. Meanwhile, APAC is giving over a hundred million dollars in this election cycle to people's election campaigns. APAC owned Wilmer Leon (41:15): And Corey Bush Co Bush lost because of those efforts. And Jamal Bowman in New York lost because of those efforts. So not only is APAC donating and it's a hundred million by their admission in the New York Times, they were successful in their efforts. Dan Kovalik (41:36): They claim they were successful in every effort, every person, they backed one. And this has been true for years, of course, this type of influence. In fact, John F. Kennedy tried to make APAC liable under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which is the act that the Arru group was prosecuted. And of course, Kennedy was not able to do so, and he was actually killed shortly after. You can draw your own conclusions. APAC has been this huge elephant in the living room, a huge influencer of American politics for many, many years. And yet, who's getting prosecuted for that? No one. No one. They go after these small fish Wilmer Leon (42:28): To make a big point. Dan Kovalik (42:29): Yeah, Wilmer Leon (42:30): Small fish to make a big point. And so this was an incredibly bizarre verdict because they weren't, as you mentioned, they weren't found guilty of failing to register as agents of the Russian government. They were convicted of conspiring to fail to register as agents of the government. Dan Kovalik (42:54): Incredible. It's absolutely incredible. Wilmer Leon (42:57): So the jury said that Chairman Omali Yeshitela and the other two defendants agreed to become unregistered agents of the Russian government, but didn't actually become agents of the Russian government. Dan Kovalik (43:15): They wanted to be agents, but Russian didn't care. They didn't want them to be agents, whatever. It's absolutely bizarre. And that we could talk about this all day. I mean, again, I'm a lawyer. I study criminal law, and that sort of, to get someone on that, that becomes just a thought crime. They literally did nothing they made, Wilmer Leon (43:35): Which by the way, isn't a crime, Dan Kovalik (43:36): Right? No, you're right. I mean, again, because that would be a First Amendment violation. We were not supposed to prosecute thoughts. And the idea is, oh, I wanted to do something. Well, that's not enough to convict someone. I mean, it's completely outrageous. And I think their case is on appeal, if I'm not mistaken. If it is, I really hope they win. I mean, God bless 'em. They really are the test case here for the rest of us. I mean, I think the government went after this small group that no one heard of because they figured no one would support them. They go after them first, make some bad precedent for the rest of us, then start going after the rest of us, which means it's a very important case. Wilmer Leon (44:22): And the prosecution, the government was unable to present hardly any witnesses. They had hardly any evidence because this was 95% fiction. It was just flat fiction. And I think what also the government didn't expect was the attention that this was going to bring. The courtroom was full of supporters for the Uhuru. They've been around since about 1972, and they've done incredible work in the communities that they work in. And so now final data point, as I understand it, you Dan Kalik we're coming back into this country last week. Dan Kovalik (45:14): Yeah, Friday. Last Friday, yeah. Wilmer Leon (45:16): I'll let you tell the story. Dan Kovalik (45:19): Yeah. So I was coming back from the anti-fascist Congress in Venezuela. Wilmer Leon (45:26): Yeah, Dan Kovalik (45:27): I believe, Wilmer Leon (45:28): Oh, wait a minute. See, I knew when I saw that white jacket, when I saw that white jacket Dan Kovalik (45:32): Knew something was bad. Yeah, they used to say they were premature. I guess that's what I'm, but anyway, I came back through Bolivia. And to be, make a long story short, I was held for four hours. I was interrogated where, what airport in Miami, which is not the airport, you really do want to come back through. But I was asked about my travels, about who I meet with, about my connections, my political beliefs. They Wilmer Leon (46:07): Asked you about your political beliefs. Dan Kovalik (46:09): Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, it was all about what countries do you like? What countries do you not like and do you feel most comfortable? What countries are you most afraid of? I said, honestly, the one I'm in right now because I get treated like this. And then Wilmer Leon (46:27): What was their reaction to that answer? Dan Kovalik (46:29): Well, they were a little defensive, but tried to continue with the conversation and then, well, even before, so before they got deeply into the questioning, they searched all my bags and took my cell phone and my computer. By the end of the evening, I did get my computer back, but my phone, I did not get back. And I just got it back this morning. So that would've been about three or four days they had it. And we know, I mean, you can Google this. There's a lot of stories about it. They have the right outside New York City. We can get into the exception outside of JFK and LaGuardia. They have the right everywhere else to take your phone and copy the whole thing, copy your computer, which I imagine they've done, which is an incredible privacy violation. As you can imagine. Most people have a heart attack if that happened to 'em. And it was clear, it was motivated by my trips to Russia, Venezuela, other countries. And in fact, I've been subject to secondary interrogation, which is what it's called at the border in the airports a number of times since I first started going to Russia about two years ago, I've been stopped. That was probably my fourth or fifth time being stopped. (48:02): I was told in Chicago when I was stopped some months ago, that I have a case number with the State Department that marked me for this type of interrogation. And other people like Danny Shaw, who's a friend of mine, a colleague of mine, he also was stopped Wilmer Leon (48:21): Friend of ours. Yeah, Dan Kovalik (48:23): Stopped for three hours. His phone was taken. I mean, he's Scott Ritter. Wilmer Leon (48:27): That was in Chicago. Dan Kovalik (48:28): Danny was stopped Wilmer Leon (48:29): In Chicago. Dan Kovalik (48:29): Chicago. Scott Ritter's house in New York was raided by the FBI. They took his phone and computer. So look, the hunt is on. There's no question about that. I do want to give one caveat, I mentioned this exception in New York City. There is a judge in New York, the federal court in New York who held in her court district, in her court jurisdiction, which covers JFK and LaGuardia. They cannot take your computer and phone without a search warrant. So people out there, Wilmer, if you're doing international travel, try to come back through JFK because Wilmer Leon (49:13): Thank you. I was just going to ask you about the warrant because this seems to be another violation. You're supposed to be secure in your person and your papers. Last I checked, and I'm not a lawyer. I did go to law school and I did stay at Holiday Inn Express. So there seemed to be a number of violations beyond the First Amendment when they start to detain you and they start to seize your property without warrants. Dan Kovalik (49:50): Yes. Well, the problem we have, Wilmer is outside the jurisdiction in New York, the courts have held that customs has the right to hold you even up to 72 hours, Wilmer without a lawyer interrogate you and to take your phone computer and copy it. They have held that until you get through the customs and immigration, Wilmer Leon (50:20): You're not officially in the country. Dan Kovalik (50:22): You're not in the United States of America. The Constitution does not apply to you. That's an incredible, incredible thing. Most Americans have no idea of it, and most Americans won't experience the repercussions of that. (50:36): But what that means, until you go through passport control and get your bag and go through those double doors and push on those double doors and go into the main terminal, they really have the power of God over you. And again, most people have no idea about that. And so what the government's decided to do is, okay, we're not going to even worry about getting a warrant. We won't even send the FBI to Dan Aleks home. We don't have to do that. We wait until he leaves the country. He comes back because he travels all the time, and we'll do things to him and take things from him. We could never do without a warrant and without an attorney being present if he's interrogated, et cetera. It's an incredible violation of our rights, as you say, Wilmer. But it is totally sanctioned, at least at this moment by the courts, except for that court in New York City. Wilmer Leon (51:33): So and where did they approach you? You're coming through the jet way. You're coming off, you're deplaning, you're coming through the jet way. So when you come out of the jet way to the terminal, what happened? Dan Kovalik (51:51): Well, so just as almost every time, so only one time this happened to me in Chicago recently. They were waiting for me off the plane. Right outside the plane. In theJet. (52:05): Yeah. The only time that happened, in fact, as we were descending, they announced in the plane is we were descending. Please have your passports ready when you exit the plane. They checked everyone's passports. When they got to me, they stopped checking because they had their guy and they took me to be interrogated. Now, there was only time that happened every other time, including this time in Miami. I get off the plane, I walk all that way. Usually it's a long walk all the way to passport control. I get in the line, I get up to the passport agent, she checks my passport, had a few questions, and I'm thinking maybe I'm going to be okay this time. And then she said, please stand over there. And I knew what that meant. Wilmer Leon (53:00): Did you say, go stand in the corner Dan Kovalik (53:02): And face the wall, basically. And she put a little orange slip over my passport and another guy comes out, he takes my passport and says, come with me. And I'm brought into another room with a bunch of other people, and I sat there for probably an hour. Other people were getting processed very quickly. After an hour, a customs officer came and said, please come with me with your baggage. And she said, now she begins, I'm sorry, Wilmer. She lied. Okay. She begins to make up this story. She says, you're subject to a random drug search from Bolivia because a lot of people are bringing in drugs. So we're going to check your bags and then I'm going to ask you a few questions. We'll let you go. And this is just a random, but she checks all my bags that she does, but she doesn't have a sniffer dog and she doesn't check my prescription pill bottles, which could have drugs in them. She didn't check my coffee I brought in, which could have drugs in them. Clearly this is theater. (54:08): And she says, as part of our search, we can take your phone and your computer. We're going to do that, but we're only going to search for issues related to drugs. Whether you told someone you have drugs or you swallow drugs. But then when she takes me to another room for interrogation, there's no questions about drugs. It's all about what countries do you visit? Do you meet with government officials? Do you know government officials? Do you know presidents of other countries? Again, what countries you feel comfortable in? What countries do you not feel comfortable in? (54:45): That sort of thing, which indicates that was the real reason for me being pulled over was my travels and political beliefs, not the drug stuff. That was just a lie, I think, to get me feeling comfortable enough to talk to them. So there you go. That's what happened. Again, it took me days to get my phone back again. You can read about it. The customs now copies thousands of phones a year. They put 'em on a database. All of that information is on the database for 15 years, and all 3000 customs officials have access to it. So some guy in whatever Oklahoma's board during his lunch can go eat his sandwich and look at my data. I mean, it's an amazing thing. Wilmer again, most Americans have no idea this is happening. Wilmer Leon (55:48): Wow. The land of the free and the home of the brave. So it's also important for people to understand this is happening during a democratic administration. Dan Kovalik (56:00): Yes. And especially because it's democratic. We know from the New York Times, an article about three weeks ago, talked about the FBI, investigating people for connections with Russia and rt, and they said specifically that this was ordered by President Joe Biden. So this is not an accident. This isn't just the bureaucracy doing what they do or the deep state. This has been ordered by a democratic president to happen. Wilmer Leon (56:30): And we also know that more whistleblowers were prosecuted during the Obama administration than any other administration in history. Dan Kovalik (56:40): Indeed, indeed. Wilmer Leon (56:44): Dan Kovalik, professor Dan Kovalik. Man, thank you so much for your time. I truly, truly appreciate. First of all, I'm very sorry that you as an American went through this. I'm even more aggrieved that you as a friend went through this. Thank you. But thank you for joining me today, Dan Kovalik (57:04): Wilmer. It's always a pleasure and you are a friend, and I admire you a lot, and I look forward to the next time we talk. Wilmer Leon (57:11): Well, man, appreciate it. And folks, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting to Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wiler Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You can see all the links below in the show description. And remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge, talk without analysis is just chatter. And we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out Announcer (57:51): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
For this hour, we hear from two Muslim women who resigned from the Biden administration in reaction to the administration's support for the genocide in Gaza. Maryam Hassanein, was a special assistant in land minerals and management at the Department of the Interior. Hala Rharrit is a former career diplomat with 18 years in the U.S. Foreign service. Her last assignment was as an Arabic language spokesperson for the State Department in the United Arab Emirates. In April 2024, Rharrit became the first American diplomat to publicly resign in protest of the Biden administration's Gaza policy, condemning it as failed, illegal and inhumane. They were both interviewed in an online forum sponsored by CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, on Tuesday, August 27, 2024. The show is made possible only by our volunteer energy, our resolve to keep the people's voice on the air, and by support from our listeners. In this new era of fake corporate news, we have to be and support our own media! Please click here or click on the Support-Donate tab on this website to subscribe for as little as $3 a month. We are so grateful for this small but growing amount of monthly crowdsource funding on Patreon. PATREON NOW HAS A ONE-TIME, ANNUAL DONATION FUNCTION! You can also give a one-time or recurring donation on PayPal. Thank you!
*) Hamas says leader Ismail Haniyeh killed by Israel in Iran Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of Palestinian resistance group Hamas, has been killed in Iran, according to a statement from Hamas and Iranian officials. Hamas said its leader was killed early on Wednesday following an Israeli raid targeting his residence in Tehran. In a statement, the group mourned the death of Haniyeh, 62, who it said was killed in “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran after participating in the inauguration ceremony of the new Iranian president.” *) Hamas vows assassination of Haniyeh won't ‘go unpunished' Hamas has said the assassination of senior leader Ismail Haniyeh is a “grave escalation”. Al-Aqsa TV cited senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk saying the assassination of the Hamas leader is a “cowardly act that will not go unpunished”. Hamas and Iran's Revolutionary Guard confirmed the killing of Haniyeh during his visit to Iran, with Hamas saying Israel targeted his residence in Tehran. *) Druze reject Netanyahu''s attempt to exploit Golan Heights tragedy Mourning Druze of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights have distanced themselves from Israeli attack on Lebanon. Druze accused Israeli leaders of leveraging their tragedy for political gains. Scores of Majdal Shams residents came out to protest Netanyahu's visit, many donning traditional Druze caps, saying the community rejects the “attempt to exploit the name of Majdal Shams as a political platform at the expense of the blood of our children”. *) India mobilises military as landslide death toll jumps in Kerala Multiple landslides triggered by torrential rains in southern India have killed at least 122 people, and many others are feared trapped under the debris, officials said, with rescue operations being hampered by bad weather. The landslides hit hilly villages in Kerala state's Wayanad district early on Tuesday and destroyed many houses and a bridge, but authorities have yet to determine the full scope of the disaster. Rescuers were working to pull out people stuck under mud and debris, but their efforts were hampered due to blocked roads and unstable terrain. *) US anti-Muslim incidents rise by 70% in first half of 2024: CAIR Discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Palestinians have risen by about 70 percent in the US in the first half of 2024 amid heightened anti-Muslim hate due to Israel's war in Gaza, the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group said. Human rights advocates have reported a global rise in anti-Muslim hate and anti-Palestinian sentiment since the eruption in October 2023 of Israel's war on Gaza which has killed tens of thousands civilians and caused a humanitarian crisis. In the first six months of 2024, CAIR said it received 4,951 complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian incidents, a rise of nearly 70 percent compared with the same period in 2023.
Vice President Kamala Harris met yesterday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, unlike President Biden who did the same separately, she spoke to the press afterwards. Kamala simultaneously acknowledged Israel's right to defend itself and sharply denounced how the Jewish State is doing so. Presumably her remarks played well with the pro-Hamas rioters who burned our flag and defaced our monuments in Washington on Wednesday. Indeed, some were reportedly bussed in from a campaign rally she had in Wisconsin the day before. Courageous Muslim reformer Asra Nomani investigated the riot and quickly established that the busses and demonstration were organized by the “Red-Green axis” – notably, ANSWR, a North Korean-backed Marxist organization, and the Council on American Islamic Relations and other Sharia-supremacist front groups. Kamala is to be commended for denouncing the rioters. Will she also disassociate herself from their organizers? This is Frank Gaffney.
Ken interviews Julia Shearson of the Council on American Islamic Relations about the month of Ramadan. Also, investment strategist Dr. Joseph Belmonte explains how to find growth stocks in both rising and falling markets. More at http://krobcollection.com
0:08 — Zahra Billoo serves as the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR-SFBA) office. Molly Sampson, BUSD parent. 0:33 — Jack Poulson is an independent journalist writing about the intersection of technology and the military. He is also the Executive Director of Tech Inquiry, a tech accountability non-profit organization. The post Department of Education Will Investigate Berkeley Unified District for Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Arab and Islamophobic Discrimination; Plus, New Documents Reveal Latest Israeli Plan to Control Gaza War Narrative in the United States appeared first on KPFA.
Jonathan Tobin, Editor-in-Chief at JNS.org I spoke with Jonathan Tobin about The phenomenon of an army with a country, which is an apt description for Israel rather than a country with an army. We also explored what's going on with the internal politics, notably with Israel's military, and what it means for the war effort against Hamas and inevitably ultimately Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. Christopher Holton, Senior Analyst and Director of State Outreach Christopher Holton and I discussed the need for clarity about the Sharia supremacists operating under the banner of the Muslim Brotherhood. We also explored its assorted front organizations, of whom arguably the worst of the bunch is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CARE, and the rising interest in states across the country to discourage their law enforcement and other agencies from engaging in outreach to that Hamas supporting operation. Bill Walton, Host of The Bill Walton Show Bill Walton and I discussed what is taking place with respect to the oversight of the U.S. intelligence community. We also explored the important contribution that I believe will be made to it by a new member of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. We also discussed the status of the dollar as the reserve currency of the world, whether it is an imperiled fact or whether there's still no viable alternative.
For the show's 150th episode Parvez & Omar are joined by the second guest ever to appear on the podcast, Zahra Billoo , Civil rights Attorney and Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR-SFBA). Zahra brings her years of tireless Civil Rights work and activism to bear as she discusses the recent protests and encampments taking place across college campuses placing them within the broader Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and discussing their overall goals and objectives. The conversation also tackles the criticisms that such protests and encampments have garnered from voices outside of and within the Muslim community, as well as certain initiatives and organizations that some argue seek to normalize relations with the State of Israel and Zionism. About Zahra Billoo Zahra Billoo serves as the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR-SFBA) office, the oldest CAIR chapter office. Since joining in 2009, Zahra has led the organization through a period of six-fold growth. Today, she manages one of the largest CAIR offices in the country with a team of civil rights and social justice advocates dedicated to the empowerment of American Muslims through legal services, legislative advocacy, and community organizing. Under Zahra's leadership, CAIR-SFBA has filed lawsuits against the United States Department of Justice, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Southwest Airlines, representing American Muslims facing discriminatory treatment. CAIR-SFBA has also significantly expanded its capabilities to provide know-your-rights sessions on a nearly weekly basis to mosques and community members in the San Francisco Bay Area, while also providing direct legal representation to Bay Area residents facing numerous civil rights violations, including FBI interviews, employment discrimination, airport harassment, school bullying, and hate crimes. Zahra's advocacy has included media appearances in local and national media, including MSNBC, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, and even FOX News. Among her awards, she received the 2017 Human Rights Award from the Society of American Law Teachers and the 2018 Community Builder Award from People Acting in Community Together (PACT). She was also listed by the San Jose Mercury News as a “Woman to Watch” in March 2017 for Women's History Month, as well as by the Chronicle of Philanthropy in their January 2018 cover story on millennials who lead. She is currently a fellow with Levi Strauss Foundation Pioneers in Justice, a senior fellow with the American Leadership Forum's Silicon Valley Chapter and an alumna of Rockwood's Fellowship for a New California, LeaderSpring's Executive Directors Fellowship, and USC's American Muslim Civil Leadership Institute. Zahra earned her undergraduate degrees from the California State University, Long Beach, and her Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Hastings. She is licensed to practice law in California.
It's now been nearly seven months since Hamas attacked Israel, killing nearly 1200 Israelis and taking over 200 hostage. Since then, the Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, have executed a devastating bombing campaign and sent in ground forces to "eradicate" Hamas. The death toll in the Palestinian enclave is staggering, with more than 34,000 killed, according to the Gaza health ministry.The majority of those killed are women and children. The health ministry says the sheer scale of the tragedy unfolding in Gaza is unprecedented. The UN estimates that more than 70% of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been displaced. Food and medical supplies aren't nearly enough to meet the needs. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Islamophobia and anti-Muslim incidents have surged. Nihad Awad, co-founder and national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy nonprofit joins The Excerpt to share his thoughts. For a different perspective, please see last Sunday's episode which features Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League or ADL, a Jewish civil rights organization.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Ohio State University's president responds to pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus last week that led to dozens of arrests; Ohio's Council on American-Islamic Relations condemns OSU's crackdown on protesters; Toledo 1-year-old hospitalized after eating marijuana edibles; new documentary film focuses on Olympics and Ohio State track star Butch Reynolds.
It's now been over six months since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, when more than 1100 Israelis were killed and over 200 taken hostage. These were mostly civilians. While the Israel-Hamas War has been ongoing since that day, the repercussions of that attack have also been keenly felt here in America in the form of a surge in antisemitism. On college campuses, and in communities across the country, Jews have felt targeted, threatened, and frightened. Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League or ADL, a Jewish civil rights organization, joins The Excerpt to talk about the issues. Next Sunday's episode will feature an interview with Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights organization.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations' recently published report documents a surge in discrimination against Muslims in the U.S. GUEST: Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations ___ Looking for more conversations from Stateside? Right this way. If you like what you hear on the pod, consider supporting our work.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Show Notes and Transcript The current Israeli-Gaza war has sparked much debate focussing on geo politics and historical land disputes. But few dare ask if Islam is the root cause of the ongoing tension. Robert Spencer has studied Islam for 3 decades. His dozens of books and the Jihad Watch website are all go to sources of background information on Islam and the history behind it. He returns to Hearts of Oak to ask if this is a religious problem and we start by looking at what Islam actually says about the Jews. The aggression and vitriol throughout Islamic text and the history of behaviour towards the Jewish people is an eye opener to all of us. Armed with this deeper understanding Robert then touches on how the term Palestinian was invented. The history, leader, flag and culture had to be invented as it was all non existent before. His short book "The Palestinian Delusion" goes into much more detail and is a recommended read. Enjoy the interview and get ready to see this current conflict in a whole new light. 'The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process' on Amazon https://amzn.eu/d/cPigAab Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of twenty-seven books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, The Truth About Muhammad and the bestsellers The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS and The Critical Qur'an: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research. His new book is Empire of God: How the Byzantines Saved Civilization. Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He is a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy. Connect with Robert and Jihad Watch... X x.com/jihadwatchRS @jihadwatchRS WEBSITE jihadwatch.org/ Interview recorded 26.3.24 Connect with Hearts of Oak... WEBSITE heartsofoak.org/ PODCASTS heartsofoak.podbean.com/ SOCIAL MEDIA heartsofoak.org/connect/ SHOP heartsofoak.org/shop/ TRANSCRIPT (Hearts of Oak) It's wonderful to have Robert Spencer back with us again. Robert, thank you so much for your time today. (Robert Spencer) Always good to talk to you, Peter. Thank you. Great to have you on. Always good to have guests on talking about their books. We'll get into a book that I've been delving into and got a couple of months ago, but only picked it up recently and have read it. We'll get into that in a moment. But obviously, you can find Robert: that is his Twitter handle, @jihadwatchRS. And obviously jihadwatch.org is the website. You can find everything in the links below. Make sure and use it. Make sure and sign up to it. One of the latest, I think the latest piece on that, and we're doing this just two days before the video goes out, is the U.S. Supreme Court gives Hamas-linked CAIRE a 9-0 thumbs up. And CAIR obviously is the Council on American Islamic Relations. I encourage you to delve into that, which gives some of the geopolitics, I guess, that lies behind some of the difficulties that the U.S. Faces as it engages and grapples and understands Islam, which is a massive subject. But the book that I've been delving into and enjoying is The Palestinian Delusion. Short book, 200 pages. And if you want to understand what is happening at the moment in the Middle East, I would encourage you to get a hold of a copy. Available US, UK, wherever you are. The links are in the description. Grab it. And I know you'll want to get it after this interview. But , I do want to get into modern day; what is happening? But right at the beginning, chapter two; chapter one is about the formation of Israel. If we just go on to chapter two, does religion, specifically Islam, lie at the root of the problem? What are your thoughts, Robert? And of course, you delve into this in chapter two. Yeah, absolutely, Peter. Islam is what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about. If you look at the messages from Hamas, from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, from Fatah, from the Palestinian Authority itself, they are all about Islam all the time. Yet that is the one aspect of this conflict that is universally ignored by policy analysts and by policymakers in the West. Every attempt at a negotiated settlement initiated by the President of the United States or any other entity over the last 50 years has completely ignored, 100% ignored, Islam as a factor in this conflict. And yet, from the standpoint of the Palestinian Arabs, that's what it is all about, and we ignore it to our own detriment. Now, chapter two is entitled The Roots of the hatred of Israel. Hatred is a very strong word, Robert, is it not? Yes, but it's entirely accurate in this case, because what we are dealing with is not only a hatred, but what has been termed the longest hatred, that is the hatred of the Jews, which of course is not solely the province of Muslims or Islam, but, many people in the West don't realize that there even is such a thing as Islamic anti-Semitism. Yet, it is very real and it is at the roots of the problem between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs today. Now, we all hear the term Islam being one of the great Abrahamic religions, and yet there doesn't seem to be a lot of love for the Jews in Islam in the text and the history. Do you want to just let us know; because that is a different side that many people will certainly not hear in the legacy media. Yes. Islam, the Quran teaches that Islam is the third revelation after the revelation of the Torah and the Gospel. That is the core scriptures of the Jews and the Christians, and that it confirms the message of the Torah and the Gospel. And that Moses and Abraham before him, and Jesus after him, and all the other prophets in the Bible, in both the Jewish and the Christian scriptures, are people who taught Islam. Islam was the original religion of all the prophets. We can see this particularly in chapter 3, verse 67 of the Quran, which says Abraham was not a Jew or a Christian. He was a Muslim. And you might wonder, well, this doesn't make any sense. How could Abraham be a Muslim when Muhammad is the originator of Islam in the 7th century and Abraham is many, many centuries before that? The Islamic answer is that Islam is the original religion of all the prophets and that it was their followers who twisted their teachings to create Judaism and Christianity. The only legitimate expression of the true teachings of the prophets is Islam. And that being the case, the orthodox mainstream understanding among Muslims of Judaism and Christianity is that they have no legitimacy at all. Now, this is a very important point because, then the Quran commands Muslims to fight against and subjugate the Jews and Christians, among others. And it's in part because of their rejecting the true faith and corrupting their scriptures, although that part comes from Islamic tradition. Now, the difficulty that people have with this arises from the fact that Islamic spokesmen in the West very deceptively, frequently, refer to how much they as Muslims revere and respect figures such as Abraham and Moses and Jesus himself himself. And so Jews and Christians who are uninformed about Islam hear this and they think, isn't that wonderful? How generous and open-minded and ecumenical they are. And we should do the same. We should reciprocate by acknowledging Muhammad as a prophet. And they don't realize that the Muslims do revere and respect Abraham and Moses and Jesus and the rest of them, but as Muslims, not as they are portrayed in Judaism and Christianity. I mean, everything seems to be on the terms of Islam. I knew your book: Did Muhammad Exist? Actually, I think we need to remind ourselves of the world that Muhammad, if he did exist, was born into, which wasn't an Islamic world as we know today. It was a very different world. Yes. North Africa, the Middle East, what we think of today as the heart of the Islamic world, those were Christian lands. They were 99% Christian from Morocco all the way across North Africa and throughout the Middle East. And so it was the conquest initiated by the Arabs beginning in the 630s that ultimately led to the Islamization of those various nations and the steady diminishment of the Christian population. But, it's important to keep in mind, Peter, that the Christian population did not decline because the Christians were gradually convinced of the truth and beauty of Islam. Rather, they were subjugated, as the Quran directs, under the hegemony of Islamic law and denied basic rights in the societies that had been conquered. And the only thing they had to do to free themselves from the oppression of living with this denial of rights was to convert to Islam. And so many people did over the centuries, such that, for example, Egypt was 99% Christian when the Arabs invaded, and now it's about 10% Christian. The Christians didn't all leave. They just converted to Islam over time, because of the pressure placed on non-Muslims. Well, maybe as the world talks about repatriations, especially in the BLM movement, maybe Christians need to get some of that from Egypt. Yes. If there were real reparations for slavery and for oppression, then yes, the Christian population of the entire Middle East and North Africa would be owed an immense amount of money. But nobody's talking about that. I guess we hear the term anti-Semitism and we're told that any feeling of anti-Semitism from Islam is purely misplaced and doesn't lie at the heart of it and this seems to be this distinction between kind of rogue Islamic preachers, but actually key text and that seems, I think commentators seem to want to make a wide gap between that. Yet, as you point out, this term anti-Semitism, it lies right at the basis of Islam from 1300, 1400 years ago. Yes, absolutely. The Qur'an says in chapter 5, verse 82, that the people who are most intense in hostility to the believers will be the Jews, as well as the polytheists. Now, what this works out to in practice is that the Jews are the recipients of the most hostility from the Muslims. This is also because this is not an isolated passage, but the Quran is full of passages depicting the Jews in a negative light, depicting them as schemers who plot against the plans of Allah himself and try to foil them. Who crow about the limits on the power of Allah, saying Allah's hand is chained. That's chapter 5, verse 64. They were transformed into apes and pigs by Allah for their disobedience. That's chapter 2, verses 62 to 66, rather. Chapter 5, 59 and 60, and 7, 166. and many, many, other passages all the way through the Quran depict the Jews as being rebellious against Allah and essentially enemies of Allah. Then the Islamic tradition is even worse and the Jews are depicted as plotting against Muhammad, trying to kill Muhammad, being massacred by Muhammad and punishment for their plots to kill him. Jewish woman poisons Muhammad and this ultimately leads to his death and so on. They're the real villains of the entire tradition. And this carries through to the modern age where Judaism and Jews are so stigmatized in the Islamic world that several ex-Muslims have spoken about moving to America or moving to Europe and encountering actual Jews for the first time and being shocked that they were not evil, horned creatures, devils in human form, trying to disrupt human society in every way, but just ordinary people like everybody else, some good, some bad. And they had no frame of reference to understand this, because Islam is so unanimous and monochromatic in depicting them as evil. I think if someone is watching this as a Christian, they will understand the Bible as the text that they live by, which is full of stories, explains things, not really chronological, but actually, you can read it and you can grasp a lot of its meaning. And that stands by itself outside the Christian traditions, really. Islam seems to be quite different. It seems to be not not only is the Qur'an actually impossible to understand, but actually seemingly is only supposedly, understandable. With a wealth of other writings, which seems to confuse things massively for anyone coming from a Christian background or from the West. That's right, Peter. The Qur'an in the first place is written, in many cases it tells the stories that it tells. In a way that makes it clear that it assumes that the hearers have heard them before and are familiar with the general outlines of the story. So, it leaves out important aspects of the stories, and many times it is speaking about incidents, and events, and not explaining what incident or event is involved. It's as if you were talking to a friend and I walked up and I didn't know either of you very well and didn't know what you what incidents you were talking about, and you didn't pause to explain it to me. I would have no idea what you're what you're discussing, and that's what reading the Quran is like in many ways. So, you have the voluminous hadith literature: hadith means report and it's the reports of Mohammed's words and deeds. In the hadith literature you find what is known as the Asbab al-Nuzul which is the circumstances of revelation that tells the stories of what was going on at the time among the early Muslims. And Muhammad that led to the revelation of this or that passage of the Quran. And that's all very well, but this material comes from a couple of hundred years after Muhammad is supposed to have lived. And there's no trace of it existing before that. And so, it's an open question as to whether these things really give the circumstances of revelation and the Quran passage follows from that, or if these stories were put together in order to explain what is essentially a gnomic, elliptical, incoherent text. And that seems, the latter seems to be more likely. Some philologists like Christoph Luxemburg have noted that if you strip out the diacritical marks that distinguish many Arabic letters from each other, because there are 22 letters in the Arabic alphabet, but 16 are exactly the same character, just with different combinations of dots above or below. And so if you take out the dots and repoint it as if it were Aramaic, then suddenly it's a whole different text and a Christian text in many cases. And so, Luxembourg contends that it was actually a Christian text that was repurposed by the early Arab conquerors in order to create the religion of Islam. And they did this because this is actually the fundamental thesis of my own book: Did Muhammad Exist? They did this because in those days, religions were what cemented political unity. There were no parliaments or constitutions in this era when Islam arose. And you had two great powers in this region, the Byzantine Empire, which was Christian, and the Persian Empire, which was Zoroastrian. They were held together by those religions. The idea was that to be a Roman citizen at this time, a citizen of the Byzantine Empire, meant that one was a Christian and adhered to the tenets of Orthodox Christianity. Consequently, the non-Christians were not considered to be fully citizens of the empire. And this is another story, but it was the Christian identity that was the cement that held the empire together. So, the Arabs amassed a great empire, conquering massive expanses of territory, and then they developed a religion to hold it all together. And because these were warriors who wanted to expand and defend and strengthen their empire, they made their religion belligerent, aggressive, martial, warlike, expansionist, and so on. I think in chapter two, you talk about that we all know of Muslims praying to Mecca, and only then Allah can really hear the prayers properly. But you talk in the book about initially it was facing towards Jerusalem. So, was this just Muhammad wanting to be accepted? and then later on, of course, or at that time, Muhammad wanting to be a prophet. Kind of, in my thinking, that's sheer arrogance, thinking you can be a prophet to a religion you come across. Those concepts of him wanting to be a Jewish prophet, but also praying towards Jerusalem, those are two facts that seem to be missing in any dialogue today. Yes, well, it does seem as if, at least according to the canonical traditional Islamic story; that is of questionable historical value. But there's no doubt that Muslims believe it; that Muhammad taught that he was a new prophet in the line of the prophets of the Bible. And that consequently he was the new prophet of the Jews and a new prophet of the Christians. And both groups said, you're not. The Jews said, you're not Jewish. You can't be a Jewish prophet. And the Christians said, Jesus said: it is finished on the cross. We're not looking for a new prophet. And so he was rejected by both. And this has led to the kind of cognitive dissonance that the Quran says that the Jews and Christians, the Christians in particular in chapter five of the Quran will be rightly guided if they follow the gospel. And yet the Gospel does not confirm the teachings of the Qur'an as the Qur'an insists, and it insists that it confirms the teachings of the Torah also. And so Islamic spokesmen, Islamic scholars throughout the ages have accounted for this discrepancy by claiming that the Jews and Christians corrupted their scriptures. And so, they maintain that Muhammad is indeed a prophet in the line of the biblical prophets, but that it's the Jews and Christians' fault for not recognizing him. They twisted their scriptures to erase the congruence so, that people would not see that the Quran confirms the Torah and the gospel. A s a result, the Jews and Christians are portrayed as these incredible renegades and rebels against God who have dared to tamper with the very word of God that he gave them, and created false religions of their own making. And so here again, they have no legitimacy. I do want to get on to current day but, I want to there there's another concept that comes out in your book which is a widely misunderstood word and that's the word jihad, and we are told jihad is inner struggle. It's a spiritual struggle between yourself trying to be right and to be good and live correctly. Yet, jihad is a term that's used in violence all across the world. What is this term, jihad? The primary understanding of jihad in Islamic theology is warfare against unbelievers in order to bring them under the hegemony of Islamic law. The confusion arises from the fact that jihad means struggle, and there are as many things that are referred to as struggles in Arabic as there are in English. And so you can have great struggles and small struggles. You can struggle to be on time for appointments when you're chronically late, but you can also have a great struggle between civilizations, such as World War II or something. Now, in the Islamic realm, it's the same thing. The Islamic Republic of Iran has a department of agricultural jihad, which doesn't involve blowing things up on farms. It involves trying to struggle to increase the efficiency of the farms and their fruitfulness. Whereas in Islamic theology, the principal meaning of jihad has to do with this warfare against unbelievers. So, here again, Islamic spokesmen in the West frequently confuse people. They're trying to confuse them and make them complacent about the jihad threat by saying jihad just means struggle. And it's about struggling to better yourself. And they don't tell you that Muhammad said the warfare against unbelievers is the highest understanding of jihad, that there's nothing greater than jihad in which one loses one's life and then is rewarded with paradise. In the book, you use a number of examples of what we would call hit preachers. This is in 45, the Hamas deputy minister of religious endowments on Al-Aqsa TV 2010 said: the Jews suffer from a mental disorder because they are thieves and aggressors. A thief or aggressor who took land or property develops a psychological disorder and pangs of conscience because he took someone that wasn't his. And then the next page, you have a from 2018, a program on Palestinian Authority television saying people could be deluded or think that they have no way out with the Jews. The liberation of this land is a matter of faith, which will happen despite everyone. And then the next page up, the Jews are treacherous and conniving cheaters. But again, the argument, many of the guests I have on would not look at Islam as an issue, as a problem. And they would simply say those are misguided, radical preachers, and they don't understand the true, beautiful nature of Islam. How do you speak against that criticism, I guess, that you're maybe picking things out and you're looking at these preachers that actually don't understand Islam, really? Well, in the first place, I find it difficult to believe that people who have committed their lives to understanding Islam correctly would not understand it correctly. While non-Muslims who've never picked up a Quran or have any idea what it says, they understand it perfectly well. Islam is kind of funny in that way that the more you know about it, the less you understand it. And the less you know about it, the more you understand it. We see this with non-Muslim politicians all over the West who assure us with immense confidence that Islam is a religion of peace that has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. Those are actually the exact words from Hillary Clinton a few years back, but many, many other politicians say exactly the same thing. And I know that Hillary Clinton doesn't have the first foggiest idea of what the Koran teaches, whereas I, who have read the Koran dozens and dozens of times, committed a great deal of it to memory. Published a translation and commentary of it that's my own, and have studied Islamic theology for 40 years, now. They would say, well, you don't understand Islam at all. And even more to the point, these Muslim clerics who've attended Al-Azhar or other prestigious Islamic institutions and and spend their whole lives trying to understand the Quran and the Islam properly, and they don't get it at all. So, in the first place, it's absurd. But in the second place, what these people said that you quoted, like the fellow who said the Jews are treacherous, conniving, cheaters, that's just Quranic theology. If you read what the Quran says about the Jews, just get a Quran, don't even read the whole thing. Get one with a good index and read all the passages about the Jews. And you will see that every last one of them is negative. Every last one of them portrays the Jews as scheming and conniving and cheating the righteous people. And so this is the prism through which these clerics see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They understand it through the lens of the Qur'an, because they believe that the Qur'an is the perfect word of the perfect being that is valid for all times and all places in all situations. They see the world today and they see Israel and the Palestinians. And the first place they will go to understand all that is the Quran, because they would trust Allah over any human authority, telling them what the conflict is all about. The Quran tells them over and over that the Jews are evil and enemies of Allah. So, they see Israel and they think, here are the evil Jews who are enemies of Allah. Even, the fact that they refer to Jews and not to Israelis or to Zionists or some other term of that kind indicates that they're seeing this through theological principles. And those theological principles are deeply anti-Semitic. Well, bringing us up to the present day, for over 2,000 years, the Jews did not have their homeland there in the land that is Israel. And it was under all different, we'll not go into the history, all different, I guess, occupying forces or other forces. And then 1948 happens and the Jewish homeland, modern day Israel, is founded again. And immediately, and this is chapter three, you talk about the jihad of 1948,which is an interesting term. Why that title? Well, the whole thing is a jihad from 1948, from before 1948, when the Zionist settlement began in the late 19th century. Even before that, because there there were always Jews in the Holy Land, and they were always subject to sporadic, periodic attacks. Now, after the Zionism began, these attacks intensify because in the first place, the Ottomans were alarmed when they owned the land that the Jews were moving in, because they thought that it would threaten their hegemony over it. Then when the Ottoman Empire fell, the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, gave Britain the mandate for Palestine to establish a Jewish national home. Now, why did the Arabs object to a Jewish national home? There were already large Arab states right there neighboring this territory. And so it should have been and could have been. A relatively peaceful and orderly process once the Jewish national home was actually founded. After World War II, Germany lost massive territories in the East because it fought a war of aggression and lost. And for reasons of national security, the Poles, the Soviets, and the French in the West took various territories from the Germans. The Germans who who lived in those areas, were sent to what remained of Germany. Nobody complained. Nobody raises, nowadays, some right of return or speaks about occupied German territory in Poland and Russia. It would be absurd even to think about. But it's the exact same situation with Israel. The Arabs of Lebanon, of Syria, and of Jordan are identical ethnically, culturally, linguistically, and religiously with the Palestinian Arabs. There has never been a distinct Palestinian nationality. That's a propaganda creation that was designed to be a weapon to use against Israel. So, when you have Arabs who leave, they did not actually get kicked out. They left because the Arab League told them to leave in 1948, because the Arab states neighboring Israel were going to crush it within weeks. Then they would be out of the line of fire and could return home after Israel was destroyed. It didn't work that way, because Israel actually turned out to win the war. The Arab states, after that happened, could have easily absorbed these populations. And there would be no problem today, just like there's no problem in Europe today, in regard to the German refugees after World War II. And yet they did not do that because they they wanted to keep the Palestinian refugees as stateless, as refugees, as a weapon to beat Israel with. This is what became the linchpin for what I referred to as the Jihad of 1948. The Jihad, because the Quran says in chapter 2, verse 191: drive them out from where they drove you out. It's a myth, as I just noted, it's a myth that the the Israelis drove the Arabs out. It's not a fact, but it's what the Arabs all over the Middle East and the non-Arab Muslims are taught about what happened. So, that is because it triggers the divine command, drive them out from where they drove you out. They have to have been driven out for that to kick in as being applicable. So, now millions of Muslims, Arab and non-Arab, are taught that they must drive out the Israelis, because the Muslims were driven out. It's a divine command, no less than the Ten Commandments for Christians. Consequently, it is a jihad because if it were not for these religious principles that are rooted in Islam and the Quran, the problem would have been solved by negotiations decades ago. But no negotiated settlement ever succeeds, because you don't negotiate away divine commandments. Well, that negotiated settlement, two-term, two-state solution is the phrase that comes up, and you touch on that in that chapter. And we're told this is the way to fix all the problems, if only we can come up with this mythical two-state solution. Why is that then not the solution to the issue that the world faces in the Middle East? A two-state solution would require two states. That requires at least ostensibly that the Arabs have to acknowledge that a Jewish state of some size has a right to exist there and they will never accept that, because the divine command has driven them out from where they drove you out. That does not admit of half measures. It might admit of partial fulfilment that they take over half of Israel and then the other half later. But it doesn't allow for the recognition of the right to exist of any non-Muslim entity on that land. Consequently, the Jewish state could be the size of my office here. The Jewish state could be the size of a postage stamp, and it would not be acceptable, because they have have to drive them out from where they drove you out without any exceptions. The negotiation, the two-state solution would quickly become, or even eventually, even slowly become, a one-state solution. The Palestinian state would make war against what's left of Israel and ultimately destroy it. There would never be two states in that land on an indefinite basis. In your book, one of the chapters talks about the naivety of Carter. Seemingly, every U.S. president has accepted this. Even Trump has accepted; has stated that actually he sees that as the best solution. Is that simply an absolute misunderstanding that this is a religious ideology that lies at the root of all this? Yeah, absolutely. It's because nobody in Washington knows or wants to know about the power and influence of Islam over political issues. They underestimated and misunderstood Khomeini when it was the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. And since 1948, they have misunderstood the Israeli-Arab conflict, because they don't understand Islam. They routinely discount it as having anything to do with this conflict. And yet, it's right there in the Hamas charter. Israel will arise and will remain until Islam obliterates it. Islam obliterates it. And yet, no policymaker, no president, not Carter, not any of the others. Not Trump. None of them have ever pondered. What does that mean until Islam obliterates it? How can Islam obliterate a country? That doesn't even make any sense to the policymakers in Washington, because they think of Islam solely as a religion, and they think of it because they come from Judeo-Christian backgrounds. The way Christianity operates in the West. They assume it's like that, and so, they have no idea of its political, aggressive, expansionist, and supremacist aspects. In chapter four, you say the Palestinians are invented. That's a very strong statement. Surely, we've had the land of Palestine back in the Roman era. That's surely 2,000 years old. So, there must be all this history and people: the Palestinians. Well, I'll tell you, Peter, you're right, and yet not. And I know you know. It's true. The Romans renamed the land of Judea, that is, land of the Jews. They renamed Judea Palestine in 134 AD. And they officially expelled the Jews from the area, although many of them stayed all the way through to the modern age. Now, Palestine was a name they had taken from the Bible, from the Philistines, the ancient enemies of the Israelites, in the Jewish scriptures. And they named it Palestine. They named Judea Palestine as a yet another taunt against the Jews as they were expelling them from the region. They renamed the region against their extinct enemies. But, there were never any Palestinians. And I would ask you, you know. You can find on YouTube, for example, the men on the street interviews, and people are even Palestinians are asked, name a famous Palestinian from history. And they all say Yasser Arafat. Okay, name another. If they were Palestinian since 134 AD, then, okay, name one. Give us one from the second century or the fifth or the 10th or the 15th or the 19th. There weren't any. It was the name of a region. It's like Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a city in the United States. And there are citizens of Los Angeles, but if we start talking about a distinct Los Angeles nationality that deserves its own state, people would laugh. It's the name of the city. And Palestine was the name of this region, but there were never any Palestinians. It was just the name of a place. The idea that it's a distinct nationality was invented by Arafat and the KGB in 1964. And they did it as a propaganda weapon because the whole world in those days was sympathetic to Israel. The Israelis, because they had faced off and defeated massive nations. Arab and non-Arab Muslim nations, and had stood against them even though they were vastly outnumbered and outgunned. They gained the sympathy of the entire world. And so, the KGB in Arafat in 1964 renamed the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Very small change and nobody even noticed, but it was a momentous change, because it indicated for the first time in history that there was a people called Palestinians. And now the whole world accepts it and takes it for granted, but this is an invented nationality that was designed to create an even tinier people that was menaced by the massive Israeli war machine. And that would take the wind out of the sails of Israel, the tiny underdog Jewish state facing off against these massive Arab states. And it's worked very well. Even the Israelis have admitted or accepted the existence of Palestinians as a distinct nationality when there has never been such a people in history. You can go to 1948. Go to the library, read the newspapers from the day. Read the United Nations deliberations when they offered the Arabs half of the area of Israel. We're going to establish yet another Arab state and a Jewish state. And the Arabs said no, because they wouldn't accept a Jewish state of any size. Nobody ever mentions Palestinians. It's funny, because they're the center of the conflict now. And yet, in those days, it was the Israeli-Arab conflict. There was not a single mention anywhere of Palestinians. I mean, Islam does seem to have a trend of rewriting history. And in the book you talk about a number of statements and articles referring to Jesus as a Palestinian. That would be news to Jesus, because I'm sure I read in my Bible that he was Jewish. Yeah, well, obviously this is another propaganda point that's designed to curry favour among non-Muslims with the Palestinians. Even from a historical standpoint, Jesus was not a Palestinian because it wasn't until a hundred years after Jesus that the Romans renamed the area of Judea Palestine. The Gospels are very clear. Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. That Galilee was right there next to Judea, where he grew up in Nazareth. And he says salvation is from the Jews. A very ignored statement of his. This is very clearly someone who was operating within a Jewish framework, a Jewish culture surrounded by Jews. And even the theology of Christianity is based on the theology of Judaism, that the temple Judaism before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD was based on animal sacrifices for atonement for sins. And then Jesus is presented as being, as God become man, the eternal sacrifice and the perfect atonement for sins that opens the way of heaven for the people. This is something that really doesn't even make any sense apart from Judaism. And I think Christians nowadays are getting very carried away in this Christ is King controversy that's been going on in regard to Candace Owens and the Daily Wire and so on. It risks ignoring or denying the Jewish roots of Christianity and the fundamental kinship that Judaism and Christianity actually have, despite the undeniable antagonism and the Christian anti-Semitism that was certainly operative in Europe for centuries. Well, you're right. Without Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the stories of the Old Testament, God's promised there would be no New Testament and Jesus would not be there. 100%, Robert. Just to finish off with, the last chapter is what is to be done. And it seems from this discussion that what the conflict that we see at the moment between the Palestinians in Gaza and the Israelis is just part of the wider issue of Jews and Muslims, of Islam and Judaism. So, when you say what is to be done, how do you see looking ahead? Well, looking ahead, it doesn't look good, because the American government, which is essentially the principal, if not the sole ally of the Jewish state, is betraying Israel because the Biden regime is very afraid that it's going to lose the Muslim vote, which could lose it several swing states in the November election. And end up with Biden being defeated for re-election. So, they've decided to betray Israel as a result. They're pressing for a Palestinian state. If a Palestinian state were founded, that would, as I discussed earlier, become a new jihad base for renewed attacks against what's left of Israel. They don't seem to know or care that if Israel is destroyed, then the jihadis all around the world will be emboldened like never before, and will step up their attacks in Europe and the United States. This is what we're looking at in the future unless Israel is able to destroy Hamas despite the international pressure to get it to surrender and by surrender. I mean accept a ceasefire that would allow Hamas to live and if Israel can do that then all bets are off and the post-war picture will be radically different. But right now it looks like it's going to be very tough times ahead head, both for Israel and for the West. Well, I would encourage people to get: The Passing Delusion. It's a great book and will help explain what is happening. And of course, Robert's latest book is: The Empire of God, How the Byzantines Saved Civilization. A wonderful endorsement by Victor Davis Hanson. So, if you're not sure about Robert, go to Victor David Hanson. Robert, really appreciate you coming along. Love your work over the many decades with Jihad Watch, certainly one of my go-to places on the geopolitics and deeper. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. Pleasure.
After taking a trip out of the country, leaving his home in Portland, Oregon, to visit Sudan in 2010, Yonas Fikre was approached by FBI agents who tried to recruit him as a government informant. Most likely because he refused the FBI's advances, he was arrested, tortured, and interrogated, and then placed on a No Fly list. He was stuck outside the US for 6-or-so years. That story is itself appalling, and we'll hear it in more depth in just a moment, but, on Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled with a full consensus – a 9-to-0 decision, that the government must allow Yonas Fikre to pursue a court case in which he claims that being on the official No Fly list caused him reputational harm and violated his due process. The FBI argued that since they took him off the list, the case was moot. Essentially, the Supreme Court ruling admits that the FBI's No Fly list can continue to be interrogated in court. Joining us to discuss the case is Justin Sadowsky, a trial attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR. CAIR is the organization that brought Fikre's lawsuit and successfully argued it in the Supreme Court. Justin, our guest, co-wrote many of the briefs in that case. Check out CAIR's website: https://cair.com/ — Subscribe to this podcast: https://plinkhq.com/i/1637968343?to=page Get in touch: lawanddisorder@kpfa.org Follow us on socials @LawAndDis: https://twitter.com/LawAndDis; https://www.instagram.com/lawanddis/ The post SCOTUS Unanimously Moves No-Fly List Case Forward w/ CAIR's Justin Sadowsky appeared first on KPFA.
You would think that nobody remotely close to power in the United States would praise the barbarous attacks by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas against Israel of early October 2023. But one very prominent activist group's leader did: The Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR, whose national executive director, Nihad Awad, told the American Muslims […]
You would think that nobody remotely close to power in the United States would praise the barbarous attacks by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas against Israel of early October 2023. But one very prominent activist group's leader did: The Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR, whose national executive director, Nihad Awad, told the American Muslims for Palestine convention that he “was happy to see the people of Gaza break the siege on October 7.” Joining me to discuss the background, influence, and future of CAIR are my colleague Ryan Mauro and Dexter Van Zile, managing editor of the Middle East Forum's Focus on Western Islamism (FWI).Links:Focus on Western IslamismThe Future of Hamas Is Pretty BleakCAIR Leader Says He Was 'Happy To See' Hamas Attack IsraelCouncil on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)Follow us on our Socials:Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter
Among the most despicable acts so far in the 21st Century were the horrors recently inflicted by Hamas and Palestinian “civilians,” including: the beheading of infants; rape, torture and dismembering of women; and setting entire families afire. It seems unimaginable that anyone would boast publicly of being “happy to see” such egregious crimes against humanity. Unless, that is, you're a Sharia-supremacist like Nihad Awad. They deem such behavior to be divinely ordained. Awad runs the Council on American Islamic Relations and its deep penetration of, and legitimization by, the U.S. government. He claims his comments were taken out of context. In fact, they simply confirm that CAIR is actually a fundraising and political warfare arm of the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian franchise – Hamas. CAIR must be shut down, not legitimated further. This is Frank Gaffney.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg reflects on 2023. Also, Cal OES delivers humanitarian aid to Israel and Gaza. Plus, how Palestinians across the Sacramento Valley are coping with war abroad. Finally, a snow season outlook in the central Sierra. Sacramento Mayor Year in Review Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg joins Insight to reflect on the year and look ahead to 2024– as his final year as mayor. From homelessness to the post-COVID economy in Sacramento, we ask the mayor how he measures success, as well as what are his goals for this final year in office. We also ask him about who he thinks might be the best fit to replace him as mayor when his term ends, as well as what his plans are in the future and if they include a run for higher office. Cal OES Delivers Aid to Israel & Gaza The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) has been assisting civilians impacted by the war between Israel and Hamas. Cal OES Deputy Director of Crisis Communication Brian Ferguson discusses the shipment of nearly identical supplies of humanitarian aid that arrived to Israel and Gaza. The pallets of medical supplies include a field hospital, wound and IV kits, defibrillators, wheelchairs, personal protective equipment, and other emergency-response items. Palestinians in Sacramento Valley is the Executive Director of the civil rights organization CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) in the Sacramento Valley. A Palestinian himself, Elkarra shares how the Palestinian community is coping and grappling with war abroad– many with loved ones in Gaza. Sierra Snow Outlook California saw near record-breaking snowfall from 2022-2023, with hundreds of inches accumulating in some areas. But how will the current snow season stack up? Dr. Andrew Schwartz, the Lead Scientist and Manager of UC Berkeley's Central Sierra Snow Lab provides an update on current snowfalls and future predictions, and also discusses a new sensor network the lab is rolling out this winter.
Joe Biden's son is hit with nine more tax charges and may be headed to the Big House; the head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says the quiet part out loud on supporting Hamas; and donors pull their cash from major universities over anti-Semitism. Click here to join the member exclusive portion of my show: https://utm.io/ueSEj Ep.1865 - - - DailyWire+: Watch Lady Ballers, the #1 Streaming Movie in America here: https://bit.ly/3R1dM5b Lady Ballers Official Soundtrack is available to stream now: https://bit.ly/3RxDRKs Get your Ben Shapiro merch here: https://bit.ly/3TAu2cw - - - Today's Sponsors: ExpressVPN - Get 3 Months FREE of ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/ben Birch Gold - Text "BEN" to 989898 to check out Birch Gold's Holiday Deals! Get FREE Silver today! http://www.birchgold.com/Ben Tommy John - Holiday Sale! Get 25% off sitewide: https://tommyjohn.com/BEN Current - Simplify your banking. Get $50 at sign up. Use promo code shapiro at http://www.current.com/shapiro Beam - Get 50% off for a limited time with promo code BEN. http://www.ShopBeam.com/BEN ZipRecruiter - Try ZipRecruiter for FREE: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/dailywire - - - Socials: Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3cXUn53 Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3QtuibJ Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3TTirqd Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPyBiB
Today we open with another poll related to Bidenomics and whether Americans say they are better or worse off financially under Biden. Only 14% say they are somewhat or much better off. That leaves the overwhelming majority of the country suffering under the financial incompetence of this administration. When asked about it, Michael Tyler, Biden's campaign communications director said, that's why they need four more years. They want to “finish the job.” What job are they finishing, the destruction of the lower and middle class? And, to prove the members of this administration say the opposite of the truth, we turn to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo who acknowledges the world is on fire, but is grateful Joe Biden is at the helm. Bidenomics is so bad, even illegals are fed up and leaving to return back to their own countries. To be fair, it's the democrat run strongholds where this is happening. Those cities are already overwhelmed with homeless and jobless Americans sleeping on the streets. Just imagine adding tens of thousands of illegals on top of that. Turning our attention back to Hamas, we have another interview to play, this time with two members of that terrorist group. They once again reveal their commitment to kill every Jew and they are proud to die in the process. Yet, as a reminder, the leader of Hamas, Khaled Mashal is worth $5 billion, owns a mega yacht and lives no where close to Gaza. He and his family live the life of luxury in Qatar. But, let's not kid ourselves, Hamas is here in the United States. Even if we haven't had an attack, yet, it's only a matter of time. Yet, the FBI has been investigating an agency for decades that was created as a front for Hamas – CAIR. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is the propaganda wing here in the United States, lobbying Washington, D.C. and spreading the lies of Hamas to Western media. Tulsi Gabbard recently weighed-in on the Left's desire to flood the country with illegals and to not take Islamists seriously. She says it's one of the reasons she left the Democrat party. This leads me to ask, what do you think of a party that has decided they are okay with a certain level of murders, drug overdoses, crimes and lost taxpayer revenue to host that permanent underclass? Finally, I close the show with something that's been running through my head for the last several days. Is there a relationship between church-going being at an all-time low with mental health issues being on an all-time high? Could we be where we are as a society because we have not remembered to strengthen our spiritual leg in our own lives? It's something to ponder. Take a moment to rate and review the show and then share the episode on social media. You can find me on Facebook, X, Instagram, GETTR and TRUTH Social by searching for The Alan Sanders Show. You can also support the show by visiting my Patreon page!
Today's Headlines: Israel has agreed to daily 4-hour humanitarian pauses in the ongoing conflict with Hamas, introducing a second corridor for civilians to flee Gaza. Negotiations in Qatar aim for a larger release of the estimated 240 hostages held by Hamas. The Council on American-Islamic Relations reports an alarming surge in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias in the U.S. during the Israel-Hamas war, with a 216% increase in complaints from the same period last year. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced he won't seek re-election in 2024, sparking speculation about potential presidential ambitions. In another 2024 development, Donald Trump hinted at using federal agencies to target critics if re-elected and defended past family separation policies on the Mexico border in an interview with Univision. Resources/Articles mentioned in this episode: AP News: Israel agrees to 4-hour daily pauses in Gaza fighting to allow civilians to flee, White House says Axios: CAIR reports surge in anti-Arab, Islamophobic bias since Israel-Hamas war AP News: Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin won't seek reelection, giving GOP a key pickup opportunity WA Post: Trump says on Univision he could weaponize FBI, DOJ against his enemies Morning Announcements is produced by Sami Sage alongside Amanda Duberman and Bridget Schwartz Edited by Grace Hernandez-Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
[00:30] The Junior Varsity Republican Debate (33 minutes) In the Republican presidential debate last night, the junior varsity candidates focused on foreign policy and ignored the major problems America faces. Donald Trump scheduled a rally last night at the same time as the debate, discussing subjects Americans care about like election cheating, economic turmoil and illegal immigration. [33:20] Douglas Murray Fact-checks Piers Morgan (16 minutes) Reporting from the Gaza Strip, journalist Douglas Murray fact-checked Piers Morgan yesterday when Morgan said not all pro-Palestinian protesters agree with Hamas's goals. RealClearInvestigations revealed that Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington lobbying group, has been “Hamas's biggest ally in America for the past 30 years”—and the FBI has done nothing about it. Also, new evidence proves that Gaza-based freelance photographers who work for AP, Reuters, CNN and the New York Times accompanied Hamas terrorists to the Israeli border on October 7 and sold photos of the attack to news agencies. [49:20] Feedback (6 minutes)
In this weekend's episode, three segments from this past week's Washington Journal First - We'll hear two perspectives on how the Israel-Hamas war is impacting the Jewish and Palestinian-American and Muslim communities here in the U.S. Amy Spitalnick from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, followed by Nihad Awad from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Then- automotive industry reporter Jeff Gilbert discusses the tentative agreements at Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis to end the autoworkers strike and what it means for the future of electric vehicles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Council of American-Islamic Relations is warning its Bay Area members to be alert, after hearing reports that the FBI is targeting Palestinians elsewhere in the country for questioning Reporter: Christopher Alam, KQED A small rural town in Riverside County faces an unexpected danger -packs of aggressive stray dogs. In recent months, the dogs have killed dozens of livestock and terrorized many residents. Authorities say illegal marijuana farms are to blame. Reporter: Madison Aument, KVCR In Los Angeles, attorneys have finished opening statements in the trial for the captain of the Conception. That's the diving boat that caught fire four years ago while anchored off the coast south of Santa Barbara, killing 34 people on board. Reporter: Julia Paskin, LAist
Congratulations to newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, a man with a well-deserved reputation as a principled, conservative and courageous legislator! At least as important, he's a man of integrity – all qualities the times urgently require. For example, in his previous role as a Louisiana representative, Mr. Johnson secured the adoption of a resolution encouraging that state's law enforcement not to work with a Muslim Brotherhood front called the Council on American Islamic Relations, better known as CAIR. With the Brotherhood's role in fomenting recent agitation across the country in support of its Palestinian franchise – the Hamas terrorist organization – calling fresh attention to the threat posed by these jihadists and their vast Islamic Center network and other infrastructure here, we pray that Speaker Johnson will prove to be the leader we need, among other things, in exposing and opposing them nationally. This is Frank Gaffney.
The Israel – Hamas war continues to rage on and its effects are being felt worldwide. Nihad Awad is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. He joins Tavis to share his insights about the status of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The brutal murder of six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American boy in Illinois, has left a community grieving and fearful about growing anti-Islamic sentiment during the Israel-Hamas war. Amna Nawaz discussed more with Edward Ahmed Mitchell, a civil rights attorney and national deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
A Palestinian American boy and his mother were stabbed by their landlord, in their home on Saturday, October 14. The boy died and the mother is in critical condition. The accused killer yelled anti-Muslim epithets and stabbed the child 26 times. Reset hears how media and political rhetoric of the Israel-Hamas war may have played into this attack. Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago office of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also explains what he hopes U.S. politicians and Chicagoans will learn from the tragic story.
In the third hour of The Vince Coglianese Show, Vince speaks with Chuck Ross, Investigative reporter at The Washington Free Beacon about how the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the group Biden relied on to curb Anti-Semitism in America, is now defending Hamas and the latest Bob Menendez indictment for being a foreign agent of Egypt. Bob Menendez years ago warned that Donald Trump may be compromised by the Russians while he was an agent for Egypt. Steve Scalise is expected to drop out of the race for Speaker of the House. The White House doesn't give clear answers as to whether Iran has access to the 6 Billion dollars given to them by the US. An Israeli father tells CNN he was relieved to find out that his daughter was killed by Hamas, rather than something worse. For more coverage on the issues that matter to you visit www.WMAL.com, download the WMAL app or tune in live on WMAL-FM 105.9 from 3-6pm. To join the conversation, check us out on social media: @WMAL @VinceCoglianeseSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Commemorations for the 22nd Anniversary of September 11are done, but the impact of 9/11 lives on, as do the terrorists' plans to continue to attack the West. While the White House and the Department of Homeland Security focus on so-called ‘Domestic Terrorists', and neglect the threat of Radical Islamists, like Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban, these terrorists are feeling empowered and ramping up! Indeed, Al Qaeda published a 22nd Anniversary commemorative edition of their glossy magazine, Ummah Wahidah (meaning One Ummah, one global Islamic community) to threaten a new attack on the U.S. that will be WORSE than 9/11. On the cover, they even use a quotation from the Qur'an to make their intentions clearer. At the same time, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations),terrorist-sympathizers linked to Hamas, masquerading as a civil rights group, has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Government to discontinue the Terrorism Watchlist. What could go wrong?Also in time for the 22nd Anniversary, one of the 9/11 detainees at Guantanamo, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, has just been declared incompetent to stand trial. Hear how his attorney convinced the judge that he has PTSD, psychosis and delusions, and what he blamed it on. Radical Islamists are continuing to make headway. Their recruitment is up - while American military recruitment is down. And 9/11 families are still struggling to get Congress to pass a bill that will hold terrorists and Saudi Arabia ‘accountable'. Hear whoand what are holding it up. Meanwhile, the death toll from 9/11 still mounts - as First Responders and inhabitants near Ground Zero quietly succumb to cancer and other illnesses. It's all a part of September 11 Terror 2.0….
Next stop on Parvez & Omar's Chicago sojourn is the beautiful CAIR offices on historic State Street in downtown where they had the privilege of sitting with Ahmed Rehab. Ahmed's ability to articulate a clear and convincing analysis of contemporary social and political issues while maintaining a fidelity to Islam's normative teachings and practices made for a wide ranging and thought-provoking interview. About Ahmed Rehab Ahmed is Executive Director of the Chicago Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations as well as CAIR's National Strategic Communications Director. CAIR is the nation's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy group. A prolific writer and lecturer on contemporary social issues including civil rights, media relations, and Islam-West relations, Ahmed lectures at various University campuses in Chicago and around the nation. Ahmed comments regularly as a guest on various local TV and cable news programs, as well as on radio stations. He has been interviewed by news publications such as the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Daily Herald, the Washington Post, the Orlando Sentinel, the Economist, the Boston Globe, Crain's Business Magazine, Germany's Die Zeit, and many more. His Op-Ed's have been published in numerous newspapers around the country.
GRANT NEWSHAM, Senior Fellow, Center for Security Policy, Senior Research Fellow, Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, Contributor, Asia Times, @NewshamGrant How China's military buildup has impacted the United States What goes into China's potential decision to attack Taiwan? The importance of the Ryukyu Islands to China Comparing the military strength of China and the U.S. The United States' reliance on China for various pieces of military equipment DR. ANDREW BOSTOM, Author, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism What is the Council on American-Islamic Relations? The issue of anti-Semitism throughout the world Similar tactics with respect to Iran's nuclear program that were seen under the Obama administration Dr. Bostom's investigation into COVID-19 in Rhode Island
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