The Pentagon & US Govt pet anti-Semite

Call it "anti-Zionist" if you want - but in this context you and I both know they are the same.

You just can't help but following the bouncing ball on these things. First I find this nugget at The Corner,

—— Original message ——
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 20:02:29 -0400
From: "Muqtedar Khan"
Subject: Re: Understanding Anti-Americanism Panel
To: [Names redacted]

Laura, I have to speak at the Pentagon tomorrow. My
workshop is from 12-4. I hope to catch the 5 pm
Acela from DC and will be back in town by 7 pm. I
will come directly, but may be late. I am also not
sure how I feel about being on the same panel with
an Israeli soldier who was stationed in West Bank.
Some people see IDF as an occupying force in the
West Bank. I am not sure that I will be comfortable
occupying the same space with him. It is not fair to
spring this surprise on me at the last moment.

Ok, let's process. Muqtedar does not what to share O2 with someone who served in the IDF. The Pentagon takes Muqtedar's advice. Well, who is Muqtedar?

He works for the Leftist Brookings Institute. No shocker there. He hails from Academia via Univ. of Delaware's PolySci shop, no shocker there.

He has his own website where he has a funny pic of Speaker Pelosi and a "Democracy Restored" article. I guess he is not a Republican; not that there is anything wrong with that.

He provides us a great service in another article, where we have this nice little quote,

Do we want to use American freedoms to learn about Islam and practice it in an intimidation free environment, or use it to spread the disease of religious intolerance? Will Muslim presence in America strengthen it or subvert it?

American Muslims have the opportunity to demonstrate that not only is Islam a religion for all times and all places but is not a threat or trial for others. We can prove that Muslims can live in harmony with non-Muslims and that the thesis of the clash of civilizations is bogus.

Ahhhhh, the sweet smell of hypocrisy. What is wrong with living in harmony with Asaf, Muqtedar?

Well dear reader, Asaf is a Jew - and he served in the IDF. You will read here that he that Asaf has no guilt about, well, anything much less being a Jew.(if one can say such a word without someone getting the vapors.

To the Muqtedars of the world - that is all the excuse you need. A Jew who defends his nation. I wonder what Rep. Emanual (D-IL) would have to say ... anyway....

Read the quote from Muqtedar again, then read what happened.

Yesterday, the University of Delaware asked Asaf Romirowsky to step down from an academic panel at the University of Delaware because another panelist, University of Delaware political scientist Muqtedar Khan, didn't want to share the podium with anyone who served in the Israeli Defense Forces.

Romirowsky, who holds joint American/Israeli citizenship and lives in Philadelphia, had been invited to join Khan, his colleague in political science, Stuart Kaufman, a staff member of the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, and a graduate student to discuss anti-Americanism in the Middle East. The program was organized by the College Republicans, the College Democrats, and the Students of Western Civilization Club. The Leadership Institute provided the funds for the panel, which met on the University of Delaware campus on Wednesday evening. The students offered Romirowsky the opportunity to come to campus next week and speak alone, with no other panel members who might object to his presence.

Nice. Anti-Semitism and PC spinelessness folded in together in a nice moral-equivalent stew.

How does the US Gov'munt get in the act of absorbing this man's thoughts? Well, from Muqtedar's site, another article,

On December 4, 2006, the national leadership of American Muslims met with key senior U.S. government officials to discuss the state of Islamophobia in America and US Muslim relations. The conference was organized by the Bridging the Divide Initiative of Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. It was co-sponsored by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists.
...
The morning keynote address was delivered by Alina Romanowski, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Professional and Cultural Affairs. ... Alina Romanowski reiterated the vision and objectives that Ambassador Karen Hughes seeks to advance at the State Department on public diplomacy. ... Nihad Awad, the Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, argued that Islamophobia was a new word but not a new phenomenon. He presented data to indicate that hate crimes against Muslims had risen by 29% in the last one year and in the ten years since 1995 that his organization [CAIR] had collected data on Islamophobic episodes, it has shown nothing but steady increase. He concluded that being critical of Islam and Muslims is not Islamophobia, but to ridicule the faith and the faithful, certainly is.

Louay Safi, the Executive Director of the ISNA leadership Development Center, insisted that Islamophobia deepens the divide between the US and the Islamic World. He argued that increasingly Islam is being presented as a violent and intolerant religion and this message is spreading from the margins to the mainstream. A report entitled “Blaming Islam” authored by Dr. Safi and published by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding was released at the event.

Imam Mahdi Bray, the executive Director of MAS Freedom Foundation expressed concern that in spite of the fact that most Muslims cherish American values, they are portrayed as seditious. He lamented the ignorance of Islam that underpins Islamophobia and suggested that occasionally some measures of the government, when in its overzealous endeavor to prosecute the war on terror it overplays its hand and undercuts Muslim civil rights, may also be contributing to the growing instances of Islamophobia. ... The afternoon Keynote address was delivered by Dan Sutherland, the Officer for Civil Rights at the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Sutherland started by observing that there is “a lot of heat but very little light” on the subject of Islamophobia. He addressed the issue of Islamophobia and the rising hate crimes and anti-Muslim discourse in America head-on. He argued, based on fifty years of statistical data, that America has progressively become less and less racist.

Sutherland then spoke at length about the stunning achievements of American Muslims in every sphere of American life asserting that the degree to which American Muslims are integrated and successful belies any claims of systematic Islamophobia in America. He did however concede that there have been several incidences of Islamophobic episodes, but he also claimed that there were many which were resolved in the favor of Muslims and discussed a few cases where the government has interfered effectively on the behalf of Muslims.

The government’s case was very clear; yes there are disturbingly large numbers of incidences that suggest that prejudice is at work, however the overall picture indicates that things are not as bad as some Muslim leaders were claiming them to be.

The final panel of the day included, Ahmed Younis, the National Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists and Muqtedar Khan of Brookings Institution. This panel sought to balance the debate by arguing that while there are disturbing indications of the growth of anti-Muslim prejudice in America, there are several surveys which speak to this reality, American Muslims must be careful how they talk about Islamophobia.

The panelists also argued that American Muslims must work with the government to not only challenge the anti-Islamic discourse that is spreading in the US but also work to correct some of the misunderstandings that the government itself maybe harboring about Islam and American Muslims.

Egads! CAIR? Do we need to say more? As for the rest, heck - Gates of Vienna covered this 6+ months ago. Let the Baron tell you. Now I know why so much of the thinking coming out of The Pentagon is so muddy-headed.

I am all for talking to all sorts of people. I am for engaging with the American Muslim community, but these guys? Terrorist sympathizers, anti-Semites, retrograde Islamists? We can do better - as taxpayers we should expect better - the the Americans that go to a Mosque and not a Church are better than those people.