[wvns] Islamofascism Awareness Week unites the Ummah

The Paradigmatic Career of David Horowitz
by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni @ aol.com)

David Horowitz' career provides a lens through which the intellectual,
political and social developments of an important segment of the
American Jewish community can be analyzed for the period from the
1930s until today.

David Horowitz was born in 1939. His parents were Russian Jewish
American communists loyal to the Soviet Union at least until
Khrushchev denounced Stalin. While he was an undergraduate at
Columbia, Horowitz passed through a phase of Schachtmanism, which was
a variant of Trotskyitism less hostile to the Soviet Union. As a
graduate student at Columbia, he was active in the New Left. After his
graduate studies, he became an editor at the leftist magazine
Ramparts. At this time period he become involved with the Black
Panthers as an expression of his civil rights activism. An accountant
friend was killed while she tried to straighten out Black Panther
finances, and an attorney friend was crippled while attempting the
Black Panthers.. As a consequence, according to Horowitz he became
disenchanted with the Black Power movement, and the mass killings of
Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge in combination with the apologetics of
the Left and growing left hostility toward Israel eventually caused
him to break with the Left and become a Neocon even if he rejects this
label for himself. Horowitz differs with Christian evangelical
conservatives primarily because of his support for homosexual rights.

Nowadays, Horowitz despises affirmative action and rejects reparations
for slavery. In 1989 he founded the Center for the Study of Popular
culture whose name was changed to the David Horowitz Freedom Center in
2006. This think tank has raised about $1 million per year primarily
from the ultraconservative Olin and Scaife foundations. Horowitz
opposed US intervention in Kosovo but has supported every US military
action against Muslims since the 1970s. Controlling academic discourse
especially with respect to Israel is a major project of the Freedom
Center, and since 2001 the Center has been heavily involved in
inciting Islamophobia.

The secular Russian-Jewishness of Horowitz' career is striking.
Russian Communism was to a large extent the revenge of Russianized
populations that were denied the same political access as the Russian
elite. Russian Jews took leadership roles in Russian communism because
of their higher level of education and experience in organizing.
Russian Jewish Americans brought this pattern to the USA even though
the degree of exclusion of Jews from positions of power in the USA was
nowhere as strict as it had been in Czarist Russia. Jews became union
organizers and leaders in left-wing and radical politics. Support for
African American civil rights was to some extent opportunistic because
the higher African Americans rose socially and politically, the less
alien American Jewish elites began to appear to traditional American
white Christian elites. Jewish activists in the civil rights movement
also tended to manipulate African American leaders to support Israel,
and David Horowitz' career with the Black Panthers shows examples of
such behavior.

Stokely Carmichael and other Black Power leaders drove the Jewish
leadership from the civil rights movement when they lost patience with
Jewish activists, who like Horowitz were using civil rights activism
as a means of advancing Jewish interests. In the 70s Horowitz came
into direct contact with some of the wealthiest Americans while he and
Peter Collier were researching a series of books on America's monied
elite. During the same time period a portion of unaccounted cash aid
to Israel as a result of the Egypt-Israel peace was diverted to the US
to promote Israeli interests. One can imagine that a higher income
might have begun to look quite attractive to Horowitz, and he began to
move away from leftism to a political position that could serve both
the interests of the wealthiest Americans and the State of Israel
while he enriched himself in ways that working for leftist causes
never could.

In the pattern of secular or messianic Eastern European Jewish
antinomianism that goes back to the 17th century, Horowitz dumped and
married several wives while he kept company with a succession of
college students as he worked on academic freedom issues that served
as cover for the goal of making sure that colleges indoctrinated ideas
favorable to the conservative white racist and Jabotinskian Zionist
political agenda. In attacking academics David Horowitz has pioneered
the google-smear tactic, which Professor Juan Cole of the University
of Michigan describes as follows.

It seems to me that David Horowitz and some far right wing friends of
his have hit upon a new way of discrediting a political opponent,
which is the GoogleSmear. It is an easy maneuver for someone like
Horowitz, who has extremely wealthy backers, to set up a web magazine
that has a high profile and is indexed in google news. Then he just
commissions persons to write up lies about people like me (leavened
with innuendo and out-of-context quotes). Anyone googling me will
likely come upon the smear profiles, and they can be passed around to
journalists and politicians as though they were actual information.

The attempt to control or intimidate academic discourse corresponds to
a Central and Eastern European Jewish pattern. The Downfall of the
Anti-Semitic Political Parties in Imperial Germany by R. S. Levy
describes in detail how German Jewish advocacy organizations like the
Zentralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (Central
Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith) used the legal system

* to force perceived enemies into bankruptcy,
* to attack members of the academic community believed unfriendly,
* to ban books or
* to force publishers to change offending passages.

Horowitz works with Daniel Pipes's CampusWatch in the ongoing attempt
to intimidate university professors under the aegis of the following
Freedom Center programs describe at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Horowitz_Freedom_Center.

* FrontPage Magazine -- an online "conservative" political
magazine and website, edited by Horowitz, that is the successor to
Heterodoxy (see below). Its main focus is on issues pertaining to
foreign policy, war, and terrorism.
* Discover the Networks (previously, and still often referred to
as, "Discover the Network") - A database of what it describes as
organizations and "activists for leftwing agendas and causes --
egalitarians, socialists, and opponents of American 'imperialism'",[7]
with a Java applet to display their interconnections in graphic
form.[8]This description can include Jihadists, "anti-American"
strains of anti-Iraq War activists, etc. After two years of
development, went online in February, 2005, with a staff of two at a
cost of about $500,000. [9]
* Students for Academic Freedom- claims chapters on 150 campuses.
Opposes "indoctrination".[10]
* Wednesday Morning Club - In 2006 the Center held twenty-one
Wednesday Morning Club events with speakers ranging from former
Speaker Newt Gingrich, Victor Davis Hanson, Wafa Sultan, General
Georges Sada,Judge Charles W. Pickering, Dennis Prager, Shelby Steele
and Melanie Morgan with Catherine Moy. Speakers in 2007 include Dinesh
D'Souza, Dore Gold, Bruce Herschensohn and John O'Sullivan. In
previous years speakers have included then-Governor George W. Bush
(1999), then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, Robert Bork,
Representatives Tom DeLay and Henry Hyde, Senators Trent Lott, Bill
Frist and Joseph Lieberman, Christopher Hitchens, Bill Kristol, Fred
Barnes and George Will.[11]
* Jihad Watch (or Jihadwatch; also Dhimmi Watch) - blogs and
articles on the ongoing "Jihad".[12]
* The Individual Rights Foundation - Organization of lawyers to
fight speech codes and political correctness on campuses and
elsewhere. Participated as Amicus Curiae in Boy Scouts of America v.
Dale, the successful defense of the Boy Scouts of America against the
ACLU in the Supreme Court. [13][14]
* Libertas - A forum for promoting conservative films in
Hollywood. It presents the conservative Liberty Film Festival.[15][3]
* Restoration Weekend - Annual conservative fundraising and
networking event.

Note that JihadWatch/DhimmiWatch is for the most part run by the
non-Jewish Robert Spencer, who lately has been meeting with the
European extremist anti-Muslim right in order to coordinate
anti-Muslim political efforts. (See
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-21-2007/0004686363&EDATE=
.)

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is the latest Islamophobic project of
the Freedom Center. If Horowitz is trying to increase suspicions of
American Muslims, the silliness of his program seems to create
contempt for the Freedom Center while it inspires non-Muslim American
interest and conversion to Islam.

According to http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/23/horowitz-islamofacism/,

Kareem Shora, the Executive Director of the American-Arab Anti
Discrimination Committee, said that Horowitz was dramatically
overstating the number of participating schools:

o We contacted those institutions, alerting them to the fact
that their name was being used, and wondering what exactly was taking
place. … It's important to note though, after we contacted those
institutions, most of those institutions indicated that no such events
is taking place on those campus. And many contacted the sponsors and
told them, "do not use my institution's name in your campaign,"
including some very renowned universities such as Yale and Princeton.

Shora also said that the president of Liberty University, the
evangelical school founded by Jerry Falwell, also had their name
removed from Horowitz's list.

Much of the criticism that Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week speakers make
about Islam also applies to Orthodox Judaism. Possibly Horowitz et al.
are so ignorant of Judaism that they are unaware of the similarities
of Islam and Orthodox Judaism, but it is more probable that the
Islamophobes are just trying to recast Islamophobia according to the
model of late 19th and early 20th century anti-Semitism and are
focusing on critiques that worked against Judaism in the past.

Horowitz may not care about the effectiveness of Islamo-Fascism
Awareness Week. He may be able to raise money simply on the basis of
presence at American universities and the degree of controversy that
he creates. If such is the case, attempts to suppress Islamo-Fascism
Awareness Week may benefit Freedom Center fundraising. Instead of
becoming defensive, American Muslims should go on the offensive and
strengthen alliances with progressive and conservative non-Muslims,
who are aghast at the damage that Zionists and extremist American Jews
have managed to do to American society and to US foreign policy..

If it is legitimate to open up discussion of Islamo-Fascism on
American campuses, can American Jews and prejudiced Judeophiles object
to a Zionazism Awareness Week? The late but highly respected
University of Wisconsin professor George Mosse discussed the
similarities of German Nazi and Zionist ideology extensively while
Harvard Professor Jay Harris has mentioned in his classes the
superficial likeness of German Nazism and Zionism. Zionists so
casually commit atrocities against the native population of Palestine
that "superficial" is probably an inappropriate adjective.
Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is an opportunity for Muslims to open up
a discussion of the legitimacy of the Zionist state, of the damage
that the US Israel alliance does to America, and of the excessive
influence that Jewish fanatics have in the USA.

===

David Horowitz unites the Ummah
Sunday, October 21, 2007
World View News Editorial

I was surprised and delighted to find that David Horowitz managed to
do what no one else could ever do - get every major Islamic and Arab
association and every personal opinion of every Muslim as well as
anyone even remotely progressive on the same page as each other -
united against "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," united against his
Judeo-Supremacist hate campaign.

David Horowitz has moved the boundary of rational discourse on Islam
and Arabic politics so far to the right that previously unacceptable
Islamophobia and Arabophobia became acceptable or even moderate
positions in American public discourse. Juan Cole has identified
Horowitz as a pioneer of the "google-smear" method of discrediting a
political opponent where lies "can be passed around to journalists and
politicians as though they were actual information."

I have to disagree with the mainstream Muslim organizations that
"dawah" or "explaining Islam" is the best method of counter-attack
against the liar pundits who are using Muslims as scapegoats to
distract from the wars the neo-conservatives are forcing America to
wage, pay for and die for. For every lying sentence someone like
Dershowitz or Horowitz might say, it would take an hour to unravel all
the falsehoods and racist misconceptions. This is the neo-con method
of argumentation. They are not trying to understand Muslims or help
Muslims, they are trying to defeat Muslims politically and socially.
It is therefore necessary to use normal political debate tactics to
gain the upper hand. There is no evidence that dawah will likely solve
the problem of the David Horowitz's of the world. They have more money
and more media connections and they can do what they want. A more
useful approach is to work on discrediting them by talking about THEM.
Not by insisting we don't support terrorists. They are trying to wedge
you into a corner and force you to say that you support Israel's right
to murder Palestinians and take their property and sell it for
subsidized rates to American Jews at discounts funded by our tax dollars.

The important thing to point out is that pro-Israel fanatics are
disloyal to America and that they are traitors. David Horowitz in his
FrontPage newsletter openly supported putting Prof. Sami Al-Arian in
prison on secret evidence (read: no charges) and he wants all Muslims
deported. He also wants Muslims to be imprisoned. He uses the very
1980's topic of "female circumcision" as a debate tactic when the real
question is why are innocent women giving birth to babies on floors
covered in shit and why are they being raped and sodomized by US
soldiers in Guantanamo? Whose idea was that?

David Horowitz, like most pro-Israel Jews in America, wanted very much
for the US to invade Iraq and imprison its population and murder the
children. He is also strongly supportive of bombing Iran for no good
reason except for his seething hatred against the United States. The
neo-cons want to end the era of the American Constitution. David
Horowitz supports trials without evidence, without charges, Muslims
being locked up for life and tortured like Jose Padilla, who was given
so much LSD he lost his mind and was unable to speak for himself at
his own trial.

David Horowitz is part of a network of well-funded Jewish think tanks
whose goal is to enslave the American population so that we will
eternally subsidize the Israeli economy, send our children to die
fighting Israel's enemies both real and imagined, and to give up our
sovereignty.

I think it's really great that the Muslims and Arabs have united
against David Horowitz's hate campaign. But what people still don't
understand is that the anti-Islam speech is just a circus show. What
this clown is advocating is the end of the United States Constitution.
The end of civil liberties. The end of human rights. He advocates
everything that Israel stands for. He wills the destruction of the
American economy and our very moral fabric. Look at what
frontpagemag.com wrote about Prof. Sami-Al Arian, about mosques around
the country. He wants every person who is loyal to the ideals of the
United States to rot in prison.

===

`ISLAMO-FASCISM' WEEK SPEAKER MEETS WITH EUROPEAN 'NEO-NAZIS'
Robert Spencer is main speaker for upcoming Islamophobic campus tour

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 10/21/2007) - The Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR) revealed today that the main speaker for an upcoming
series of "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" lectures at university
campuses nationwide recently offered a keynote address at a European
gathering that included representatives of racist or "neo-Nazi"
political parties.

Author Robert Spencer, who is scheduled to appear beginning next week
at universities such as Brown, DePaul and Dartmouth, is regarded by
American Muslims as one of the nation's worst Islamophobes. His
virulently anti-Islam website promotes the idea that life for Muslims
in the West should be made so difficult that they will leave.

Spencer recently spoke at a so-called "Counterjihad Brussels 2007"
conference in Belgium attended by those with links to far-right
parties such as Filip Dewinter of Vlaams Belang (Belgium) and Ted
Ekeroth of Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden). Both parties have been
accused of either having a racist platform, a neo-Nazi past or having
links to neo-Nazis and other racists.

Vlaams Belang is the successor to the Vlaams Blok party, which was
banned in 2004 for being an illegal racist political faction. (Vlaams
Belang's founders were Nazi collaborators in World War II.)

Of Sverigedemokraterna, the International Herald Tribune wrote:
"Sverigedemokraterna, or the Sweden Democrats, have been part of this
country's political landscape for almost 20 years, but they were
considered too close to the Nazi-inspired far-right to contend for
large numbers of votes."

Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch Board Vice President "Hugh Fitzgerald"
wrote on that hate site: "Only one group, only one belief-system,
distinguishes itself by appearing incapable of fitting in. And that is
Muslims, and Islam ... if one really knew what Islam contained ...
then how could any decent person remain a Muslim?"

He also recommended that western nations be "Islam-proofed the way a
house is child-proofed," compared Muslims to Nazis and urged that they
be boycotted: "[I]t should not be hard to find ways to limit the
spread or practice of Islam. And if in addition to whatever local,
state and federal government officials do, private parties simply
conduct their own boycott of goods and services offered by Muslims, in
the same way that they would have refused to buy, in 1938, a German
Voigtlander camera..."

Other speakers on the "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" tour include Ann
Coulter, who refers to Muslims as "rag heads," and Daniel Pipes, a
supporter of the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II and
of the views of French racist Jean-Marie Le Pen.

"All those who value religious tolerance and diversity should be
concerned about the growing links between European racists and
American Islamophobes," said CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper.

Publicity for the tour got off to a bad start when it was revealed
that the poster promoting the campus events used a photograph that
purportedly showed a Muslim woman being stoned to death, but which was
in fact an image from a fictional movie.

CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, has 33 offices
and chapters nationwide and in Canada. Its mission is to enhance the
understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties,
empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice
and mutual understanding.

CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-488-8787 or
202-744-7726, E-Mail: ihooper@cair.com; CAIR Communications
Coordinator Rabiah Ahmed, 202-488-8787 or 202-439-1441, E-Mail:
rahmed@cair.com; CAIR Communications Coordinator Amina Rubin,
202-488-8787 or 202-341-4171, E-Mail: arubin@cair.com

===

Local Muslims upset by UW campus event
By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times
The Seattle Times
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003963479_islam20m.html

A controversial week of events, billed as Islamo-Fascism Awareness
Week, launches at the University of Washington and some 100 other
colleges next week — drawing condemnations from Muslim groups here and
across the country.

The UW College Republicans, organizer of the local events, say the
week is intended to foster awareness of the terrorist threat posed by
a small number of extremists within Islam.

But some local Muslims say the week fosters Islamophobia and racism
and attempts to paint all Muslims as terrorists.

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, launched this year by a recent graduate
of Duke University and sponsored by the Los Angeles-based David
Horowitz Freedom Center, is intended to "confront the two Big Lies of
the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and
that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the
terrorist threat," according to its Web site.

The Web site includes suggested campus activities such as holding
sit-ins outside women's studies departments to protest "the silence of
feminists over the oppression of women in Islam" and holding a
memorial service for the "victims of Islamo-Fascist violence around
the world."

The UW week won't include all those elements.

"What we're going to be focusing more on specifically is the terrorist
threat," said Auggie Eck, vice president of UW College Republicans.

Beginning Monday, the group plans to hand out information sheets
describing what the week's activities are all about.

And it's hosting two events open to the public: a showing of "Suicide
Killers," a documentary about suicide bombers, at 7 p.m. Wednesday in
Smith Hall, and a talk by conservative author and talk-show host
Michael Medved at 7 p.m. Thursday in Kane Hall.

Tom Walker, president of UW College Republicans, says they're not
saying that all of Islam is dangerous.

"Our main point is raising awareness of what we feel is an extreme
brand of Islam that is spreading rapidly around the world and posing a
threat to America and the Western world," he said.

Amin Odeh, a board member with the local Arab American Community
Coalition, said he agrees that "radical anything is dangerous —
radical Muslims, radical Christians, radical Jews. Education is needed."

But Odeh says Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week makes too general a link
between extremism and Islam, and that the term "Islamo-fascism" links
fascism with an entire religion.

"Unfortunately, when people hear the term they don't think of only a
small group of extremists, but of Islam in general," he said.

Hala Dillsi, a member of the UW Muslim Student Association, believes
Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week promotes fear and intolerance. She is
distributing green armbands and encouraging people to wear T-shirts
that are green — traditionally the color associated with Islam — on
Wednesday in solidarity with local Arabs and Muslims.

The student group also is organizing a forum Oct. 29 in which
professors and local Muslims discuss and answer questions about Islam.

Members of the Muslim Student Association, along with other
organizations, also plan to hold protests outside Wednesday and
Thursday evening's Awareness Week events.

Assistant Chief Ray Wittmier with the UW Police Department said his
department is meeting with student organizers on all sides "to make
sure everybody stays safe."

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu @ seattletimes.com

===

NOT IN OUR VOICE: JEWISH ALLIANCE REPUDIATES
`ISLAMO-FASCISM AWARENESS WEEK'
Shira Gordon, Alana Krivo-Kaufman, Josh Schwartz and Shlomo Bolts
Columbia Spectator
10/22/07

We, the Progressive Jewish Alliance, repudiate the mission of David
Horowitz's "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." We reject the manner in
which he manipulates Jewish grief over the Holocaust and the situation
in Israel. As Jews and members of a larger campus coalition community,
we speak out as allies of our fellow Muslim students.

Horowitz does not speak for us. Instead, he uses symbols and rhetoric
which exploit Jewish communal memory and grief. He uses the fear
brought about by the Holocaust as well as by terrorist attacks against
our fellow Jews. He juxtaposes images of Nazi propaganda with current
Islamic extremists. By associating these images with broad groups
haphazardly labeled "Islamo-Fascist," Horowitz seeks to replace
intellectual discussion with panic. Such malevolent tactics are of no
service to the Jewish people; rather, they are an attempt to induce
Jews into sacrificing their values for a world view of oversimplified
fear.

Horowitz claims to support moderate Islam, but does nothing of the
sort. Horowitz's "Student's Guide" features a petition "appeal" aimed
at Muslim Student Associations across the country. This "appeal" is in
fact a loyalty oath, in which Muslims are forced to choose between
denouncing their entire religion as a danger to humanity and being
branded as terrorist sympathizers. Such a narrow-minded approach does
not aid moderates, but seeks to strand them between two radical and
untenable positions.

Horowitz's anti-Muslim week of action aims to create a dangerous and
false dichotomy between "Judeo-Christian Civilization" and Islam, both
on our campuses and in the world. Horowitz points to the atrocities of
extremist regimes, which are driven by a range of historical,
political, and economic factors, and claims such atrocities embody the
essence of Islam. By this logic, geopolitical conflict can only be
resolved with the end of Islam. Such a headstrong and stubborn
conviction could only result in enflaming tensions, and provoking a
New Crusade against Islam.

We refuse to lend our voice to those who attempt to parasitically draw
on the support of the Jewish community. We are not fooled by pundits
who co-opt progressive activists' language and protest forms. Instead,
we stand as allies with communities of faith and our fellow students.
Mr. Horowitz: You will not further your campaign of hate and
intolerance in our voice.

Shira Gordon is a senior in Barnard College. Alana Krivo-Kaufman is a
junior in Barnard College. Joshua Schwartz is a senior in List
College. Shlomo Bolts is a sophomore in Columbia College. The authors
are all members of the Progressive Jewish Alliance.

===

MN: ISLAMO-FASCISM A RACIST CONCEPT
Fedwa Wazwaz
Minnesota Daily
10/22/07

In his Oct. 17 letter "Not racist to criticize," Matt Kleiber states
that one of the potential speakers in the Islamo-Fascism Awareness
Week was not a racist for suggesting that Western culture is superior
to Arab culture.

Kleiber needs to understand that the very notion of Islamo-Fascism is
a racist concept and any speaker that speaks in such an event is a
racist. These speakers are not criticizing any Arab country or
particular policy but instead are attacking the faith of 1.5 billion
people by likening Islam to Fascism. A better analogy is a conference
held by the KKK attacking Jews or holding a Judeo-Fascism Awareness Week.

Or how would Kleiber feel about a West-Fascism Awareness Week that
seeks to show how Western women are oppressed as sex objects and
citing the human trafficking problem where women are sold as sex slaves?

Not everything Muslims do is right; Muslims do not always represent
Islam, just as Christians and Jews do not always represent their
faiths. There are many problems in the Muslim world today and there
are just as many in the Western world. Both societies need to own up
to them by forums that open up an exchange of ideas and educate the
masses.

However, there is a difference between a forum that criticizes
cultural practices in a given society and one that demonizes a group
of people. An awareness week that paints all Muslims with the same
brush does not promote understanding but rather increases intolerance,
fear and bigotry in a climate of prejudice toward Muslims that is
already at an unprecedented level.

It is documented that campaigns that demonize an entire group of
people are one of the many gradual steps toward genocide. Please read
"The six Steps from Discrimination to Extermination" by Bart Charlow.
Charlow mentions that step one is to spread myths or stereotypes about
people that result in denigration and social distancing from them.

Freedom of speech when embraced in the spirit of elevating the truth
is a needed value in every society. However, it is important to
understand that hate speech which vilifies an entire group can have
dangerous consequences in the form of hate crimes and violence.

Fedwa Wazwaz is a University staff member.

===

`ISLAMOFASCISM' - DEBUNKING A CONSERVATIVE SMEAR TACTIC
Annika Carlson and Sarah Dreier
Campus Progress
10/22/07

In the days following 9/11, Americans across the ideological spectrum
united in support of increased protections against terrorist attacks
on U.S. soil. But a handful of conservatives used the attacks to
promote division among Americans and their allies abroad. For example,
conservative writer Stephen Schwartz employed the term "Islamofascism"
in a Weekly Standard article to describe the ideology of America's
enemies in its newly minted "war on terror." Unfortunately, the
moniker stuck with many prominent conservatives. Right-wing pundits,
policy makers, and journalists started using the term, and even
President Bush has employed it to describe terrorist networks in the
Middle East.

That's a shame, because Islamofascism is a misleading and harmful
label: Instead of correctly identifying America's enemies, it
inaccurately describes modern terrorism, wrongly demonizes Islam as a
violent religion, and dangerously obscures America's real national
security threats.

Here are the top four reasons why conservatives should stop using the
term Islamofascism, and an explanation of what ideas and policies they
should be promoting instead.

Islamofascism misrepresents modern terrorism and Islam.

It makes little sense to use the word "fascism" to describe today's
terrorism threat. Al Qaeda and other 21st century terrorists do not
rely on the nation-state concept that defined 20th century fascism.
Whereas fascists used violence to create control out of disorder,
contemporary terrorists derive ammunition from chaos. (MORE)

===

CA: WEEK'S FOCUS STIRRING CONTROVERSY
Bruin Republicans' "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" met with criticism
from Muslim students
Lucy Benz-Rogers
Daily Bruin
10/22/07

A weeklong series of events called Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, put
on by Bruin Republicans, is beginning today amid some controversy.

Similar events will be held at hundreds of campuses across the nation
as part of a terrorism-awareness project started by conservative
writer and activist David Horowitz.

"The idea is to raise awareness about the threat of Islamic terror and
Islamic radicalism," said David Lazar, chairman of Bruin Republicans
and a former Daily Bruin Viewpoint columnist.

Horowitz emphasized that, while his group developed the idea for the
event, the specific details were up to student coordinators such as Lazar.

The week will focus on abuses against women, such as genital
mutilation and honor killings, Lazar and Horowitz both said.

"This isn't about a problem we have with Islam," said Lazar. "Our
focus is on things that I hope we are all able to condemn as
horrible," he added.

Event organizers stressed that they encourage moderate Muslims to join
them in opposing Islamic fundamentalism, though Lazar admitted he did
not expect much support from Muslim Student Association members.

The reason for this is Lazar's definition of the term moderate, said
Naqib Shifa, president of the Muslim Student Association, which he
believes does not align with that of most Muslim students.

Randa May Wahbe, president of Students for Justice in Palestine, agreed.

"The way the week is stamped ... is that it's not a moderate week. I
don't see it as a week that would draw moderates at all," she said.

In response to the event, those opposed to it will be wearing green,
and Shifa said his group plans to set up a table on Bruin Walk to pass
out information about Islam to peacefully counter what he called the
"hate-themed" events.

Shifa said that, while the Muslim Student Association condemns human
rights abuses in the name of Islam, he still believes the way these
issues are being presented is offensive to Islam. (MORE)

===

PA: SANTORUM'S SPEECH ON MUSLIMS SPARKS ANGER
Brett Lieberman
Patriot-News
10/22/07

Ten months after leaving office, former Sen. Rick Santorum is back in
the thick of controversy over whether he and other conservatives'
"hate speech" is stirring up anti-Muslim sentiments.

Santorum is headlining an event on the campus of Penn State University
Tuesday night that is part of a controversial line-up of conservative
speakers in Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.

Commentator Ann Coulter also is scheduled to speak at campuses in
California and Louisiana. The talks are part of a series of events at
more than 100 colleges being organized by the Los Angeles-based David
Horowitz Freedom Center.

===

IN: ISLAMO-FASCISM AWARENESS MISFIRES BY TARGETING PROFESSORS
Indiana Daily Student
10/22/07

Starting today, a coalition of conservative organizations will be
holding "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" at college campuses across the
country. Organized by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, the event
will include demonstrations, petitions, distribution of political
materials and speeches by figures such as Horowitz, Ann Coulter and
U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who will all confront "the two Big Lies of
the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and
that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the
terrorist threat." Islamo-Fascism Week's protests are directed against
the "academic left," who, the organizers claim, serve as apologists
for radical Islamist terrorism and work to undermine the U.S.
government's efforts against it.

And herein lies our problem with Islamo-Fascism Week: It's less about
educating students about radical Islamist terrorism than it is about
bashing liberals. Groups like al-Qaida do murder innocent civilians in
order to intimidate populations into surrendering to their despotic
rule. They wish to force women to become subservient, second-class
citizens; to execute gays, non-Muslims and anyone who doesn't abide by
their cultural rules;. But, instead of focusing on this genuine
threat, Islamo-Fascism Week's organizers would rather invent one
namely left-leaning professors. "Never mind those with the bombs,"
they seem to think. "It's academics who criticize U.S. foreign policy
and society, who are reticent about military force, who keep repeating
that the vast majority of the world's Muslims aren't terrorists and
that Westerners need to better understand their cultures, and who fret
about global warming who are the real enemy." This is a load of rubbish.

If the event's organizers really want to combat "Islamo-Fascism," they
need to have actual scholars (not conservative pundits) teach about
how terrorist groups work, familiarize students with the political and
cultural context that gave rise to these groups, sponsor debates on
how to counter them and otherwise do things that are actually
educational. (MORE)

===

WI: `ISLAMO-FASCIST' MONIKER MEANINGLESS
Michael Crichton
Badger Herald
10/22/07

As a former military intelligence soldier with eight years in uniform
and two tours in Iraq under my metaphorical belt, I would like to
point out how freaking idiotic the "Islamo-Fascist" neologism really
is. For one, "fascist" and "totalitarian" are not synonyms, no matter
what Bill O'Reilly might have told you. The only way to describe
al-Qaeda as "Islamo-Fascists" is to stretch that category so wide that
Stalin and Mao become "Communo-Fascists" and Louis XIV is dubbed a
"Solar-Monarcho-Fascist."

You'd be slightly more accurate in describing the Islamists as
"Islamic Totalitarians," but even that has problems. Many of them
don't want a single, monolithic state, which is a prerequisite for the
"totalitarian" label. They'd rather have a relatively weak central
government with most of the authority handled by regional councils of
"the faithful." In this way, they're not so different from the small
government conservatives we have over here. Why not just say "Islamic
militants" or "fundamentalists?" You know, the labels that are
actually accurate?

In summation, would people please stop using words they don't know the
meanings of to describe groups whose methodology and motivations they
don't understand? Those of us who actually know something about the
matter in question would appreciate it.

===

No need for students to fear right wing blowhards
Rebecca Mahfouz
10/23/07
http://media.www.themichiganjournal.com/media/storage/paper255/news/2007/10/23/Perspectives/No.Need.For.Students.To.Fear.Right.Wing.Blowhards-3050520.shtml

President George W. Bush is asking taxpayers for another $46 billion
to maintain his Iraq destroying hobby, the global economy is a
shambles and Americans are being spied on (mostly during phone calls,
as they chat about how their jobs have been outsourced and how they
can't afford to see a doctor). All these minor happenings aside, the
issue that, according to the far right, Americans should really be
focusing on is why it's still important to hate Muslims.

That's right folks, it's Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. David Horowitz
and his frantic minions will spend this week visiting universities
across the country to inform us all that the "Islamofascists" have
taken over our universities and are especially likely to be lurking in
women's studies departments.

According to the Terrorism Awareness Project's Web site, "The nation
will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest
ever--Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on
200 university and college campuses." The University of Michigan is,
of course, included on the list of campuses about to be "rocked."

The week's festivities will include sit-ins at women's studies
departments and campus women's centers "to protest their silence about
the oppression of women in Islam," as well as "teach-ins" on the very
same subject. Additionally, the list of luminaries who have signed on
to speak at campus events is astonishing. Such intellectual giants as
Ann Coulter and Daniel Pipes will lend their paranoiac screechings to
the cacophony of hysterical anti-Muslim voices set to converge on
America's universities.

Although the group is trying to frame the event in terms of "raising
awareness" and fighting back against the "lies of the political left,"
it's actually an opportunity for Horowitz to give vent to his
pathological hatred of Muslims and for his followers to intimidate and
harass students and faculty who don't share their hateful views. There
will, of course, be those students who are willing to jump on board
the Muslim-bashing train, but I'm confident that most will let this
silliness pass unremarked. A few will protest, or try to shut down the
ersatz crusader gatherings on their campuses, but really, there's no
need to put up much of a fuss in the face of this particular display
of far-right idiocy.

Naturally, many students are distressed at yet another attack on
Muslims, and are worried that the events and speakers will feed
Islamophobia among college students. Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,
however, will likely have the opposite of its intended effect. While
the aim of the week's theatrics is to dehumanize Muslims and blame all
the world's ills on a single religion and its adherents, the
organizers seem unaware that universities are where the educated and
those who intend to become so tend to congregate.

By using a Bushism in the very title of their event, by accusing
benign organizations like the Muslim Student Association of ties to
terrorist groups and by inviting the foulest of right-wing hatemongers
to represent them, they've made it unnecessary for reasonable people
to so much as acknowledge the presence of the loons on their campuses.
The melodramatics of the organizers of "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week"
undermine whatever small credibility it might have had.

===

Horowitz Inflates Number Of Schools Participating In His Divisive
`Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week'
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/23/horowitz-islamofacism/

On college campuses across America this week, conservatives are
gathering together to listen to right-wing luminaries such as Ann
Coulter and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) as part of David
Horowitz's Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.

Horowitz is claiming that it will be "the biggest conservative campus
protest ever" and "a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and
college campuses" about "the enemy." But on CSPAN's Washington Journal
this weekend, Kareem Shora, the Executive Director of the
American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, said that Horowitz was
dramatically overstating the number of participating schools:

We contacted those institutions, alerting them to the fact that
their name was being used, and wondering what exactly was taking
place. … It's important to note though, after we contacted those
institutions, most of those institutions indicated that no such events
is taking place on those campus. And many contacted the sponsors and
told them, "do not use my institution's name in your campaign,"
including some very renowned universities such as Yale and Princeton.

Shora also said that the president of Liberty University, the
evangelical school founded by Jerry Falwell, also had their name
removed from Horowitz's list. Watch it:

Horowitz's efforts have come under fire from critics, who say it will
spread "racism and religious hatred" through the use of a loaded
political phrase like Islamo-fascism. Others, such as Middle East
expert Juan Cole, say that "Fascism is not even a very good
description of the ideology of most Muslim fundamentalists."

Former CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid has said that "even adding
the word Islamic" is counterproductive to keeping extremism "from
becoming mainstream."

The tactics encouraged by Horowitz and his followers, however, are
intentionally fashioned to stoke negative reactions from moderate
Muslims "as evidence that they're on the side of `our terrorist
adversaries.'" For instance, Horowitz is distributing a "student
guide" that encourages participants to draft offensively-worded
petitions in an intentional effort to stir divisiveness on campuses by
forcing groups to "declare their allegiances":

Perhaps most importantly, a petition forces students and faculty
to declare their allegiances: either to fighting our terrorist
adversaries or failing to take action to stop our enemies. For this
reason, we encourage you to make a special effort to bring this
petition to those groups who might be least likely to sign it, for
example to campus administrators, student government officers, and the
Muslim Students' Association.

As Ali Eteraz notes, "this `awareness' week is not about awareness at
all, but using anti-Muslim animus to achieve political ends" by
attacking Horowitz's true "enemy": "the political left."

*********************************************************************

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