I KNOW MICKEY...AND YOU'RE NO MICKEY

As Hamas Grooms Next Generation Of Killers, The World Must Wake Up And Stop Pacifying Foes

by Michael Goodwin

You hear it all the time: If only the Israelis and Palestinians would make peace, the rest of the world would follow. The next time you hear it, remember that the Palestinian version of Mickey Mouse preaches death to Jews and Americans.

There can be no peace with a culture like that.

The article about Farfur, the clone of Walt Disney's gentle Mickey, in the New York Daily News on Tuesday was a shock to many New Yorkers. He sings and dances on Hamas' children's TV show "Tomorrow's Pioneers" about the need to eat right, pray — and kill. That Hamas comprises most of the Palestinian government shows Farfur is no rogue character — it is sponsored by the very people Palestinians elected to represent them.

Farfur Video 1

Farfur Video 2

To those who monitor the sewage spewing from Arab media, the only shock about the report is that many Americans don't grasp the depth of depravity. Television, newspapers and the Internet daily urge violence in the name of Islam. Cartoons and music videos are used to brainwash children.

The goal, openly stated, is to enlist children in the "culture of martyrdom" — to die fighting and killing the enemies of Islam. Suicide bombers are glorified and promised everlasting paradise. Grade-school textbooks fill children with dreams of a glorious death.

There is nothing remotely like it in our culture. Violence, especially ethnic, racial and religious violence, is universally condemned and carries extra punishment in America and much of the West. Even nasty speech is a no-no. Don Imus got booted to the curb even though he apologized for his overtly racist and sexist barbs. In most Mideast countries, Imus would be called a Western lackey, a sympathizer with the infidels, if that's the best he could come up with.

Organizations such as the Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org) and Palestinian Media Watch (www.pmw.org.il) have been warning for years about the twisted nature of public discourse in Arab and Muslim countries. Their Web sites, complete with videos and translations of material from Muslim media, offer chilling examples of the daily diet of the death culture. I have visited those sites and it is absolutely shocking to see how Arab and Iranian mainstream media promote violence and anti-Semitism.

The sheer volume of this sickening garbage makes it clear that we are a long way from peace. The images, which shift easily from cartoon violence to grisly videos of the real thing in Iraq and elsewhere, illustrate the linkage. While we in the West endlessly study and debate the impact of video games on children's behavior, the merchants of hate in the Mideast have no doubt. They know that using violent images is a surefire way to raise a new generation of madmen.

What can we do about it? Maybe nothing — except be smart. We can start by dropping any pretense that we are not at war, or that Islamic terror will stop if only we get out of Iraq. The problem preceded our invasion, and it will last beyond the resolution. Whatever we do in Iraq, we shouldn't fool ourselves about the nature of the enemy or its goals.

We also have to accept that it is wrong and hypocritical to blame Israel for Arab violence and to insist that the solution is for Israel to make concessions to pacify its enemies. Israel's first duty is to protect itself. If Palestinians want peace, they have to abide by the basic rules of civilization. Playing Mickey Mouse games with violence isn't one of them.

[I often tell people in my lectures as well as in private conversation that Westerners commonly make the deadly mistake of projecting their own values upon other cultures, assuming that all men everywhere think like we do and are, at heart, just like us. This is a myth which must be exposed for what it is...naive at best and dangerous at worst. As I have often said, this is a clash of worldviews. Worldviews which are diametrically opposed to one another and cannot peacefully co-exist. Except of course in the blithe fantasy world of Hollyweird. Make no mistake about it, this is war. And the sooner the West rouses from it's slumber and wipes the sleep from it's eyes the better. However, in the West, both the media and the academy continue to perpetuate the lie of worldwide universal brotherhood. Peace and harmony are just a Coke and a smile away. However, this is a foolish Madison Square pipe dream masquerading as foreign policy. In this era when men are saying "peace peace when there is no peace", it falls to us in The Counter Jihad to sound the alarm and, if necessary, the call to arms. - Martel]

HOW THE WEST WAS LOST - PART NINE

The Islamic States of America?
by Daniel Pipes

The hardest thing for Westerners to understand is not that a war with militant Islam is underway but that the nature of the enemy's ultimate goal. That goal is to apply the Islamic law (the Shari‘a) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with the Qur'an.

This aspiration is so remote and far-fetched to many non-Muslims, it elicits more guffaws than apprehension. Of course, that used to be the same reaction in Europe, and now it's become widely accepted that, in Bernard Lewis' words, "Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century."

Because of the American skepticism about Islamist goals, I postponed publishing an article on this subject until immediately after 9/11, when I expected receptivity to the subject would be greater. I argued there that

The Muslim population in this country is not like any other group, for it includes within it a substantial body of people—many times more numerous than the agents of Osama bin Ladin—who share with the suicide hijackers a hatred of the United States and the desire, ultimately, to transform it into a nation living under the strictures of militant Islam.

The receptivity indeed was greater, but still the idea of an Islamist takeover remains unrecognized in establishment circles – the U.S. government, the old media, the universities, the mainline churches.

Therefore, reading "A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America," in the Chicago Tribune on Sept. 19 caused me to startle. It's a long analysis that draws on an exclusive interview with Ahmed Elkadi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader in the United States during 1984-94, plus other interviews and documentation. In it, the authors (Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Sam Roe, and Laurie Cohen) warily but emphatically acknowledge the Islamists' goal of turning the United States into an Islamic state.

Over the last 40 years, small groups of devout Muslim men have gathered in homes in U.S. cities to pray, memorize the Koran and discuss events of the day. But they also addressed their ultimate goal, one so controversial that it is a key reason they have operated in secrecy: to create Muslim states overseas and, they hope, someday in America as well. …

Brotherhood members emphasize that they follow the laws of the nations in which they operate. They stress that they do not believe in overthrowing the U.S. government, but rather that they want as many people as possible to convert to Islam so that one day—perhaps generations from now—a majority of Americans will support a society governed by Islamic law.

This Brotherhood approach is in keeping with my observation that the greater Islamist threat to the West is not violence – flattening buildings, bombing railroad stations and nightclubs, seizing theaters and schools – but the peaceful, legal growth of power through education, the law, the media, and the political system.

The Tribune article explains how, when recruiting new members, the organization does not reveal its identity but invites candidates to small prayer meetings where the prayer leaders focus on the primary goal of the Brotherhood, namely "setting up the rule of God upon the Earth" (i.e., achieving Islamic hegemony). Elkadi describes the organization's strategic, long-term approach: "First you change the person, then the family, then the community, then the nation."

His wife Iman is no less explicit; all who are associated with the Brotherhood, she says, have the same goal, which is "to educate everyone about Islam and to follow the teachings of Islam with the hope of establishing an Islamic state."

In addition to Elkadi, the article features information from Mustafa Saied (about whose Muslim Brotherhood experiences the Wall Street Journal devoted a feature story in December 2003, without mentioning the organization's Islamist goals). Saied, the Tribune informs us, says

he found out that the U.S. Brotherhood had a plan for achieving Islamic rule in America: It would convert Americans to Islam and elect like-minded Muslims to political office. "They're very smart. Everyone else is gullible," Saied says. "If the Brotherhood puts up somebody for an election, Muslims would vote for him not knowing he was with the Brotherhood."

Citing documents and interviews, the Tribune team notes that the secretive Brotherhood, in an effort to acquire more influence, went above ground in Illinois in 1993, incorporating itself as the Muslim American Society. The MAS, headquartered in Alexandria, Va. and claiming 53 chapters across the United States engages in a number of activities. These include summer camps, a large annual conference, websites, and the Islamic American University, a mainly correspondence school in suburban Detroit that trains teachers and imams.

Of course, the MAS denies any intent to take over the country. One of its top officials, Shaker Elsayed, insists that

MAS does not believe in creating an Islamic state in America but supports the establishment of Islamic governments in Muslim lands. The group's goal in the United States, he says, "is to serve and develop the Muslim community and help Muslims to be the best citizens they can be of this country." That includes preserving the Muslim identity, particularly among youths.

Notwithstanding this denial, the Tribune finds MAS goals to be clear enough:

Part of the Chicago chapter's Web site is devoted to teens. It includes reading materials that say Muslims have a duty to help form Islamic governments worldwide and should be prepared to take up arms to do so. One passage states that "until the nations of the world have functionally Islamic governments, every individual who is careless or lazy in working for Islam is sinful." Another one says that Western secularism and materialism are evil and that Muslims should "pursue this evil force to its own lands" and "invade its Western heartland."

In suburban Rosemont, Ill., several thousand people attended MAS' annual conference in 2002 at the village's convention center. One speaker said, "We may all feel emotionally attached to the goal of an Islamic state" in America, but it would have to wait because of the modest Muslim population. "We mustn't cross hurdles we can't jump yet."

These revelations are particularly striking, coming as they do just days after a Washington Post article titled "In Search Of Friends Among The Foes," which reports how some U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials believe the Muslim Brotherhood's influence "offers an opportunity for political engagement that could help isolate violent jihadists." Graham Fuller is quoted saying that "It is the preeminent movement in the Muslim world. It's something we can work with." Demonizing the Brotherhood, he warns, "would be foolhardy in the extreme." Other analysts, such as Reuel Gerecht, Edward Djerejian, and Leslie Campbell, are quoted as being in agreement with this outlook.

But it is a deeply wrong and dangerous approach. Even if the Muslim Brotherhood is not specifically associated with violence in the United States (as it has been in other countries, including Egypt and Syria), it is deeply hostile to the United States and must be treated as one vital component of the enemy's assault force.