By Joel Mowbray FrontPageMagazine.com | May 27, 2005
In the first of its kind for an event organized by a major national Muslim organization, Kamal Nawash and the Free Muslims Coalition (FMC) recently held the Free Muslims March Against Terrorism. Not surprisingly, the leaders of every other major Muslim organization shunned the march and declined to take a public stand against terrorism and extremism.
Noticeably missing from the list of over 80 sponsors Nawash rounded up was any of the Muslim groups that claim to be moderates, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Though these groups pay lip service to opposing terrorism, they couldn’t put their money where their mouth is and bring themselves to stand side-by-side with the Free Muslim Coalition.
The reasons for the absence of the major national Muslim groups are obvious. The empirical evidence has clearly demonstrated where the true loyalties of organizations such as CAIR and MPAC lie. In this particular case, it is anathema for many Muslim groups to identify themselves with the unambiguous message of the rally. Nawash is among the few Muslim leaders—and certainly one of the very few leaders of the overtly political Muslim groups—to explicitly confront the real threat, the real root cause of terrorism: radical Islam.
Where most prominent Muslim leaders prefer ambiguity and moral equivalence, Nawash stakes out an unmistakable position, not only opposing just violent jihad, but the doctrines of Wahhabism and political Islam, as well. Nawash is, without exception, against the creation of Islamic states—anywhere. The other major Islamic organizations simply can’t take this position. Their refusal to back even Nawash’s message exposes their true sympathies. See No Evil
If other Muslim groups could even go as far as condemning specific acts of Islamic terror, that would be a step in Nawash’s direction. But organizations such as CAIR, for instance, have pointedly refused to condemn Islamic terrorist organizations, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, or even specific Islamic terrorist attacks. The best example of the latter occurred after the murder, burning, stoning, and mutilation of four American contractors in Fallujah, Iraq. CAIR only condemned the mutilation as contrary to Islam, but did not specifically condemn the murder, burning, or stoning of the men—a position that was also taken by a leading Fallujah cleric.
MPAC’s terror apologist agenda has also become transparent. In a June 1999 publication, MPAC argued that Hezbollah’s 1983 attack killing 241 Americans in Lebanon was not a terrorist attack. From its “Position Paper on U.S. Counterterrorism Policy”: “Yet this attack, for all the pain it caused, was not in a strict sense, a terrorist operation. It was a military operation, producing no civilian casualties—exactly the kind of attack that Americans might have lauded had it been directed against Washington’s enemies.”
A Deafening Silence
It is clear why Nawash poses such a great threat to groups like CAIR, MPAC, and MAS: he is a genuine moderate Muslim leader who emphatically condemns not just Islamic terror, but also any efforts to create “Islamic” states. His unflinching stances make it much more difficult for these groups to engage in verbal acrobatics by issuing vague condemnations of “terrorism” while simultaneously refusing to admit the “Islamic” influence cited by its perpetrators.
For participation in the rally, Nawash set a very low threshold: opposing terrorism. (Almost every speaker, though, was careful to condemn Islamic terrorism, and not just terrorism in the abstract.) By his own account, and by that of others, Nawash actively tried to enlist the support of other Muslim groups—but to no avail. Nawash most likely realized that no matter how low he set the bar, none of his counter-parts would endorse an event sponsored by a Muslim who unequivocally denounces Islamic terrorism and just as enthusiastically supports free societies for Muslims everywhere.
CAIR, MPAC, MAS and other Islamic leaders – shown up by the real moderate Muslims who locked arms with Nawash – were both testy and defensive. CAIR forwarded all calls to Hussein Ibish, the former Communications Director at the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), an avowedly secular Muslim who nevertheless does the dirty work of Islamists and radical Muslims. MPAC did not return calls seeking comment, and did not appear to have given comment to any other media outlet regarding the rally.
The silence of the "Moderate" Moslims is deafening. What, no riots? Maybe they should have held a Koran in their left hands...
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