The Combating International Islamophobia Act would create an “Office to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia” at the State Department, headed by a special envoy.
In addition to those dealing with country-specific situations (Afghanistan, Yemen etc.) the department has special envoys covering issues ranging from “advancing the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons,” to climate change, to anti-Semitism.
The Omar-Schakowsky bill would also require the State Department to specifically include sections relations to Islamophobia in its annual human rights and international freedom reports.
Many abuses that would broadly fall under anti-Muslim conduct are already covered in depth in those reports – for example, atrocities against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang and Burma, or the defacing of mosques in Europe with derogatory graffiti – but the drafters want a more focused examination.
The bill calls for State Department annual reports to include “a description of the nature and extent of acts of Islamophobia and Islamophobic incitement that occur during the preceding year.”
They should detail “acts of physical violence against, or harassment of, Muslim people, acts of violence against, or vandalism of, Muslim community institutions, [and] instances of propaganda in government and nongovernment media that incite such acts.”
Furthermore, the reports should outline “the actions taken by the government of that country to respond to such violence and attacks or to eliminate such propaganda or incitement, to enact and enforce laws relating to the protection of the right to religious freedom of Muslims, and to promote anti-bias and tolerance education.”
The legislation is co-sponsored by more than two dozen Democrats, including Omar’s fellow “Squad” members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.).
“We are seeing a rise in Islamophobia in nearly every corner of the globe,” Omar said in a statement. “As part of our commitment to international religious freedom and human rights, we must recognize Islamophobia and do all we can to eradicate it.”
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Islamophobia as “irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against Islam or people who practice Islam.”
Other suggested definitions are more expansive.
“Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness,” says the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims.
A working definition proposed by two legal experts to the UN. Human Rights Council (HRC) last year said, in part, that Islamophobia was “motivated by institutional, ideological, political and religious hostility that transcends into structural and cultural racism which targets the symbols and markers of a being a Muslim.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which describes itself as the nation’s biggest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, says it has been calling for a special envoy on Islamophobia for 20 years.
“While global Islamophobia, anti-Muslim state policies and hate incidents have increased for the past two decades, the American Muslim community has consistently called for the creation of a special envoy position to monitor and combat this rising tide of hate,” CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad said on Thursday.
“CAIR is calling on congressional leadership and the Biden-Harris administration to support the Combating International Islamophobia Act and make this special envoy position a reality.”
CAIR said in a statement that “in a world where anti-Muslim rhetoric and bigotry spreads quickly on online platforms and repressive state policies, a global approach is necessary to combat it.”
The 57-member bloc of Islamic states known as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has for years been campaigning at the HRC for a greater focus on Islamophobia, citing incidents ranging from cartoons lampooning Mohammed to security profiling at airports and prohibitions against Islamic dress in parts of Europe.
Far from criticizing the Chinese repression, some of the OIC’s most influential members – including Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia – have signed statements praising Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang and echoing its denials that abuses are taking place.
40 years after joining the Lebanese resistance, Mohamad Al-Halabi still calls Israel ‘the enemy.'
Joe Kaufman is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Chairman of the Joe Kaufman Security Initiative. He was the 2014, 2016 and 2018 Republican Nominee for U.S. House of Representatives (Florida-CD23).
Mohamad Al-Ali Al-Halabi is the imam of the American Islamic Center of Florida (AICF), located in Pompano Beach. Since immigrating to the United States in 1999, Al-Halabi has become an important figure in the American Shiite community. However, it is what he did before coming to the US that is of the most interest. This month, Al-Halabi took to social media to reminisce about the past, dredging up old grievances as they relate to Israel, a nation he despises and was once recruited to fight against. He went as far as to embrace his friend’s words erasing Israel from existence. With his violent history and vengeful designs, why does Al-Halabi remain in the US?
On October 6th, Syrian-born Al-Halabi, in a lamentation about the status of Israel, remembered the Yom Kippur War, when a coalition of Arab nations, exactly 48 years earlier, in October 1973, jointly launched a surprise attack against Israel on the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. By the end of the war, Israel had humiliated those she was fighting with a lopsided victory.
Al-Halabi began by posting on his Facebook page the following in Arabic: “October is an event that remains in memory. But today, Israel is the victor, and its slogan, which was from the Euphrates to the Nile, is today, from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf.”
“From the Euphrates to the Nile” is a factually unfounded and mostly Arab conspiracy theory that alleges that it is the goal of the government of Israel to obtain wide-ranging borders that are derived from the Jewish Bible, which would span all of Lebanon and Jordan and significant parts of Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. “From the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf,” on the other hand, indicates the intention of a takeover of more than half the world.
Al-Halabi said that, as a result of the 1973 war, “Israel took revenge and succeeded in returning the lands that were liberated in the days of war and worked to put Arab regimes under its armpits.” The reference, of course, was the giving back of the Sinai to Egypt in return for peace. Today, Al-Halabi is concerned that recent alliances Israel has had with different Muslim countries will allow Israel to further grow in strength and prominence.
Abo Ali, a Facebook ‘friend’ of Al-Halabi’s from Damascus, who seems to know Al-Halabi personally, took offense to any notion of an Israeli victory. He told Al-Halabi that he, Al-Halabi, was “incorrect” in his assessment and proceeded to call for Israel’s destruction. He wrote, “Israel is weaker than the spider's house and soon to disappear. But you will discover this fact when you return to your country that I need you in these difficult days,” to which Al-Halabi clicked ‘like.’
Al-Halabi later clicked ‘like’ on a post that declared, “[H]ypocritical and coward governments delay Israel’s demise.” He, as well, made the farfetched claim – using an anti-Semitic trope – that “Israel rules the whole western world.”
The fanatical hatred and visceral anger that Al-Halabi exhibits towards the Jewish state did not suddenly materialize overnight. Indeed, Al-Halabi has been living with these destructive emotions and ambitions for many decades.
According to a June 2010 posting al-Halabi made on Facebook, following Israel’s invasion of Beirut, Lebanon in 1982, al-Halabi had found himself at a recruitment office to be trained in how “to defend Lebanon” from what he calls “the Israeli enemy.” He said, when asked why they were there, he and the others had one answer: “We want to fight, and we want to liberate Lebanon and Palestine. We want to die with dignity.”
After the Israeli siege against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Beirut, the government of Iran put up money to pay for recruitment centers for a new militant organization made up of religious Shiites named Hezbollah or Party of God, and its focus was in carrying out guerilla warfare against Israelis, who were conducting military activities in Lebanon.
Al-Halabi mentioned that, at the back of the volunteer line at the recruitment office, there was a “helpless” and “crippled” man, who told him that he had been “a survivor of the October war.” At the time, a large percentage of the Beirut population was Palestinian. The “October War” that the crippled man was speaking of was the Yom Kippur War.
Shortly after the recruitments, in October 1983, a little over one year following Israel’s siege, Hezbollah staged an attack against US Marine barracks stationed in Beirut, killing 241 American servicemen.
Al-Halabi’s beloved nephew, Ahmed Ali Al-Haji, is a recent member of Hezbollah, stationed in Syria. Along with pictures of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, Al-Haji has posted on social media photographs of himself dressed in fatigues, holding various rifles, and driving a Jeep with a rocket launcher. In February 2015, next to a graphic of a Hezbollah logo appended to a militant readying himself to shoot, Al-Haji wrote, “We are proud to be Hezbollah… From Syria the lion.” Al-Halabi, who has also posted images of Nasrallah on his own social media, wrote under Al-Haji’s post in Arabic, “May God protect you and grant you victory…”
Why is Mohamad Al-Halabi still in America and leading a mosque with impunity? It is a legitimate question to ask. His association with Hezbollah, a US-recognized terrorist organization, should have disallowed him from entering our shores. Yet, he has been here for over two decades. His Facebook ‘friend’ suggested he go back, and certainly it is time he does – for good – as a deportee.
Additionally, given his extremist past, hate-filled present, and support for Hezbollah, authorities would be well advised to monitor AICF and Al-Halabi’s activities there.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.
An Afghanistan Grows In Wisconsin
Biden didn’t withdraw from Afghanistan. He brought Afghanistan to America.
Wed Oct 6, 2021
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
The skies over Sparta have never been as busy as when the Biden administration decided to dispatch 13,000 Afghans, including at least one pedophile, to Wisconsin.
Sparta, a small town of less than ten thousand souls, whose claim to fame is being the “Bicycling Capital of America”, could only watch as a population of Afghans outnumbering its own population created a new Afghanistan on the premises of Fort McCoy.
None of the Afghans at Fort McCoy have a Special Immigrant Visa. Biden left the SIV visa holders behind in Afghanistan. The Afghans who have overrun the Wisconsin base are the ones whom the Taliban, for their own reasons, decided to allow through their checkpoints.
And they’re living up to the high cultural standards of the Taliban.
The problems began with the toilets. Then there were issues with the rice, the sexual abuse of young boys, and Afghans simply leaving on their own despite promises of taxpayer cash.
“Afghans were confused and upset by hygiene practices,” a Wall Street Journal article described. “Every toilet on base was Western style, with a seat and toilet paper. But a number of Afghans are accustomed to restrooms that allow them to squat so they don’t have to physically touch the toilet. It led to some cases of Afghans relieving themselves outside.”
This shouldn’t have surprised anyone after two decades in Afghanistan. But political correctness has mostly suppressed accounts of even the most basic facts about the beneficiaries of our great nation building project leaving Americans confused by the behavior of the new arrivals.
A Czech journal article from the Department of Military Hygiene noted that Afghan "people in rural areas were found to defecate almost everywhere according to convenience. It is important to observe that particularly the rural population does not know or does not use toilet paper."
More accurately, Islamic law is held by some authorities to ban the use of toilet paper.
“You should consider very carefully shaking hands during the contact with the local population,” the journal article warned. Unfortunately their local population is now our local population.
An account of the toilet practices of the defunct Afghan National Army described how our soldiers were forced to “share their toilet with the ANA, as they had been ordered to do by their commanding officers” to win their “hearts and minds”. Unfortunately “it was the custom of the ANA to wipe themselves with their hands, smear their excrement on the walls of the toilet, and rinse their hands in the sink, which left the sinks reeking.”
While great care is taken by Muslims to keep their clothes clean so that they are not “impure” during prayers, bathrooms can be left in a horrifying state because they’re already unclean.
Muslim tradition teaches that toilets are possessed by demons and as a result followers of the religion may be reluctant to make contact with them because they have been taught that “Satan plays with the backsides of the sons of Adam”. Islamic teachings encourage squat toilets and forbid men to urinate standing up because Mohammed “only ever used to urinate sitting down.”
At Kandahar Air Base, the toilets were segregated because, as an officer noted, “When they use our port-a-potties, they stand on the seats and it causes quite a mess. I think it's just a cultural thing." There are a lot of these cultural things. Many of them far worse than the toilets.
Although when dealing with a group where “90% of the population are infected by a parasitic disease” and which routinely goes around with fecal matters on its hands, it is an issue.
Democrats insist that 2-year-olds should wear masks, yet invite in a population that doesn’t understand the concepts of toilets, toilet paper, or disease transmission.
But the toilets were the least of the problems at Fort McCoy.
The Afghans, who had supposedly just been saved from death, didn’t like American food.
American rice was “swapped for basmati rice. New spices, hummus and dates were added to the chow hall’s menu” which was entirely Halal. Basmati rice is one of the most expensive varieties of rice available, but nothing was too good for the endlessly complaining arrivals.
While the Afghans were complaining to reporters about "hard rice", personnel at Fort McCoy were complaining about “multiple cases of minor females who presented as ‘married’ to adult Afghan men, as well as polygamous families." This wasn’t too surprising since the child marriage in Afghanistan stands at 57%. Like the toilets, it’s a “cultural thing”.
While no action was taken on those cases, Bahrullah Noori, an Afghan refugee, was arrested for trying to undress a 14-year-old boy and behaving inappropriately with a 12-year-old boy.
Mohammad Haroon Imaad was also arrested after his wife accused him of choking her. He had also allegedly threatened to “send her back to Afghanistan where the Taliban could deal with her” and also told her “that nine women have been killed since getting to Fort McCoy and that she would be the tenth.” An estimated 87% of Afghani women face domestic violence.
Like the toilets and the child rape, choking women is just another Afghan cultural thing.
General Glen VanHerck however visited Fort McCoy and assured reporters that the enlightened Afghans were much more law-abiding than the racist Americans.
I've done some research and how that compares to populations across the United States," VanHerck declared. "For example, in six weeks in Operation Allies Welcome, in a population of 53,000, there have been eight reported cases of robbery and theft.”
VanHerck neglected to Google the statistics for assaulting children and women. Or to note that this isn’t a measure of Afghans having lower crime rates than Americans, but a much lower willingness to report crimes to infidels who don’t resolve problems with the use of Islamic law.
"And how long are the Afghans going to be on U.S. military bases?" the FOX News correspondent asked.
"We're prepared to be here as long as we need to conduct this mission," VanHerck replied. "We'll be ready if we need to support through the winter months and into the spring."
If only there had been the same sort of commitment to getting Americans out of Afghanistan.
Forget the ‘Forever War’ and get ready for the ‘Forever Refugees’.
VanHerck claimed that the Afghans at Fort McCoy "are appreciative of our support and eager to begin their lives in America.”
They're so eager that they're just leaving.
Some 700 Afghans have left bases like McCoy despite promises of free taxpayer cash if they just stay and wait to be resettled. The deserting Afghans are upsetting the Biden administration, not because it’s concerned about potential terror threats from the refugees, but because it makes it harder for its refugee resettlement allies to cash in on every single Afghan. And it interferes with their plot to alter demographics in red states by resettling Afghans in the South.
Meanwhile Fort McCoy is near capacity. American soldiers are back to patrolling Afghan streets and trying to win their hearts and minds by asking them to use toilets and not to abuse their women and children. But the scenes of American soldiers trying to keep the peace among Afghans and communicate American values to them are no longer taking place in Kandahar, but in Wisconsin, and in other states with the misfortune of housing Afghans.
It’s almost as if we never actually withdrew from Afghanistan.
Americans are funding three Halal meals a day for tens of thousands of Afghans, our bases are full of mosques, our soldiers are trying to keep Afghans from killing and abusing each other, and we are on the hook for every dollar in welfare spending lavished on the Afghans while Americans struggle. As the Afghans leave Fort McCoy, the occupation of America will begin.
Biden didn’t withdraw from Afghanistan. He brought Afghanistan to America.
Study: Over Half of Migrants Are on American Taxpayer-Funded Welfare
JOHN BINDER
More than half of the nation’s non-citizen population — including legal immigrants, foreign visa workers, and illegal aliens — use American taxpayer-funded welfare after arriving in the United States, a new analysis reveals.
Research by Center for Immigration Studies Director of Research Steven Camarota finds that about 55 percent of non-citizen households in the U.S. use at least one form of welfare compared to just 32 percent of households headed by native-born Americans.
Camarota’s research analyzes the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation data from 2018, showing that 49 percent of households headed by foreign-born residents, including naturalized American citizens, use at least one welfare program.
In 2017, economist George Borjas called the U.S. immigration system “the largest anti-poverty program in the world” at the expense of America’s working and middle class.
Specifically, foreign-born residents used vastly more Medicaid compared to native-born Americans and food stamps. For example, while 33 percent of foreign-born residents use Medicaid, just 20 percent of native-born Americans do so.
Likewise, while 31 percent of foreign-born residents are on food stamps, only 19 percent of native-born Americans use the program.
Camarota’s research reveals that even after years and years of residing in the U.S., foreign-born resident households continue to use high levels of welfare.
About 44 percent of foreign-born residents who resided in the U.S. for 10 years or less use at least one form of welfare. Roughly 50 percent of those who resided in the U.S. for more than 10 years are on welfare.
When naturalized Americans are excluded from that count, the level of welfare use rises significantly for those who have resided in the U.S. for a while. For example, among non-citizen households who resided in the U.S. for 10 years or less, 40 percent use welfare. For those in the U.S. for more than 10 years, about 62 percent are on welfare.
The latest data comes after similar numbers were released in March 2019 that showed that, in 2014, non-citizen households used nearly twice as much welfare as native-born Americans.
Currently, there is an estimated record high of 44.5 million foreign-born residents living in the U.S. This is nearly quadruple the immigrant population in 2000. The vast majority of those arriving in the country every year — more than 1.5 million annually — are low-skilled foreign nationals who go on to compete for jobs against working class Americans.
At current legal immigration levels, the Census Bureau projects that about 1-in-6 U.S. residents will be foreign-born by 2060 with the foreign-born population hitting a record 69 million.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty
