By Diana West
I wasn't going to write about Ramadan in official Washington this fall
season not again. But I just can't resist.
First, there are all the holiday trappings of this by-now annual column
such seasonal staples as my all-time favorite "war on terror" quotation
from Abu Qatada, the al Qaeda-linked cleric. I just love to trot it out
around Ramadan after President Bush has said something utterly ignorant
about Islam meaning peace, or, addressing the Muslim pooh-bahs he
always has in to the White House for a fast-breaking Iftar dinner,
about how the jihadists have "twisted" Islam.
"I am astonished by President Bush when he claims there is nothing in
the Koran that justifies jihad violence in the name of Islam," Abu
Qatada said about six years ago. "Is he some kind of Islamic scholar?
Has he ever actually read the Koran?" Ah, me. Good stuff.
Then there's the holiday excitement of combing through the White House
Iftar dinner guest list looking for unindicted co-conspirators. Since I
had to put this column together before White House Iftar 2007, I turned
to White House Ramadans past, reading through the president's old
speeches-2001 through 2006 to see if I'd missed anybody he'd singled
out for a mention.
And I had. White House Ramadan is so much better than bingo. In 2003
and 2004, Mr. Bush asked Faizul Khan, who is affiliated with the
Saudi-funded Islamic Center of Washington and serves on the board of
directors of the Islamic Society of North America, to give the
blessing. This year, the Justice Department officially labeled Islamic
Society as a U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement aiming
to establish a global Islamic empire, and also as an unindicted
co-conspirator in the Hamas fund-raising Holy Land Foundation trial
still awaiting a verdict in Dallas.
Then again, maybe the Islamic Society score doesn't count in this
holiday game since the official co-conspiratorialness of the group is
practically brand new. Still, as Steven Emerson has pointed out, the
Islamic Society has "never condemned terror groups like Hamas and
Hezbollah by name," which really should have come under White House
consideration, if, that is, anyone at the White House ever considered
anything. Heaven knows it's hard enough finding good moderates these
days. Look too closely and they might find a Shariah supporter.
Shariah, of course, is Islamic law — wholly antithetical to
Western-style liberty.
Take Talal Eid. In 2006, Mr. Eid gave the blessing at the White House
Ramadan dinner, and this year Mr. Bush appointed him to the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom. As Robert Spencer has
reported, Mr. Eid is a Wahhabi-trained imam certified by the
anti-American Muslim World League who has actually called for the
establishment of Shariah courts in the United States to regulate the
family affairs of American Muslims.
Is a proponent of Shariah in the United States someone the leader of
the Western world should be honoring? Hmmm. Let's ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali,
the courageous former Muslim opponent of Shariah from the Netherlands
whose collaborator, Theo van Gogh, was assassinated in 2004 for their
film critique of the Islamic repression of women under Shariah.
Oops. I forgot. This very Ramadan week, Ms. Ali had to leave Washington
and return to the Netherlands for security reasons. Too bad Mr. Bush
"forgot" to invite her to the White House before she left — not to
mention all the other brave critics of Islamic repression, including
Bat Ye'or, Brigitte Gabriel, Nonie Darwish and Wafa Sultan.
But in these post-September 11 days, only supporters of Shariah get
those coveted holiday invites. Take the ambassadors from the countries
of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The organization
not only coddles terrorists and lobbies against freedom of speech at
the highest diplomatic levels, but it also supports a code of human
rights derived from Shariah, which, of course, denies human rights to
women and non-Muslims.
These are the people who sup with the president every Ramadan, and, I
imagine, chuckle discreetly through Mr. Bush's remarks, as in 2006,
about Islam's "commitment to tolerance and religious freedom." How do
you say "we sure pulled the camel wool over his eyes" in Arabic? Under
Shariah, of course, there is no religious freedom.
But who's checking? No one at this White House. What about the next
administration? I hereby pledge to vote for the presidential candidate
who promises to stop submitting to Shariah suppers at Ramadan — even
though that means I'll have to think of something else to write about.
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