Bernie Sanders at the Islamic Society of North America (Part 1)
BY HUGH FITZGERALD
JIHADWATCH.ORG
SEP 9, 2019
The organizers of the Islamic Society of North America’s (ISNA) convention, held in Houston at the end of August, had invited all the Democratic candidates for President to address them. It was a great disappointment to the group – which would prefer that the public not be reminded that it remains an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land case – that of the 15-odd Democrats invited, only two, Bernie Sanders and Julián Castro, accepted the invitation. And of those two, Sanders received the greater media attention and audience applause.
Sanders was indignant about the “bigotry” he claimed was abroad in the land: “We must speak out at hate crimes and violence targeted at the Muslim community and call it what it is: domestic terrorism.” Apparently the hate crimes and violence aimed at non-Muslims by Muslims, domestic terrorism which has been far more deadly than “hate crimes” targeting Muslims, were of little concern to Senator Sanders. He never mentioned, nor alluded to, “hate crimes and violence” aimed at non-Muslims. Perhaps he needs to be reminded of what has happened in this country in recent years. Has he forgotten about the Muslim terrorist attacks, not just in New York and Washington on 9/11/2001, but subsequently, in Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, in Fort Hood, Little Rock, Orlando, San Bernardino, Chattanooga, Chapel Hill, Arlington, Virginia, Garland, Texas? Could Senator Sanders have forgotten all about these Muslim terrorists who have so often set the country on edge? He has been so determined to see Muslims as victims that he apparently is unable to recognize their role as perpetrators of terrorist attacks.
Sanders gave over much of his speech to matters of general, not Muslim-specific, interest. He’s against climate change. He thinks health care “is a human right.” He wants the “billionaire class” to pay their “fair share of taxes.” He wants to “cancel all student debt.” He wants public colleges to be tuition free. “Bold leadership must take bold action.” And so on and so predictably forth. He might have made those banal points anywhere. Then, having delivered the left-liberal boilerplate, he had some tailor-made messages of support sure to win favor with the Islamic Society of North America.
First, Sanders declared he was against Trump’s “Muslim ban” and was proud, he said, when thousands of non-Muslim Americans “rushed to airports” to show their solidarity with Muslims harmed by the ban. Sanders said nothing about the non-Muslim countries – North Korea, Venezuela – included in the ban, nor about the fact that the ban was directed only at countries that were unable or unwilling to share certain information about their citizens with the American government, thereby posing a security threat. He said nothing about why Trump’s security measure had been upheld by the Supreme Court in Hawaii v. Trump. Nor did he mention that two Muslim countries – Iraq and Chad – had been dropped from the list of countries whose citizens were banned, once they improved their collection and sharing of information about those citizens. Most telling of all, 95% of the world’s Muslims remained unaffected by what some, including Sanders, continue misleadingly to call a “Muslim ban.” Sanders did not want to complicate his simple-minded morality tale of Trumpian “bigotry.”
He kept addressing his Muslim audience, cloyingly, as his “brothers and sisters.” I wonder if, in addressing an audience of Catholics, or of Evangelicals, or even of fellow Jews, he would call them “brothers and sisters.” I suspect not. And how many of the 7,000 in his ISNA audience could possibly think of the Jewish senator as their “brother”?
Sanders told the audience that he was “the proud son of Jewish parents.” His father, he told the audience, left Poland to escape poverty and antisemitism. It would be fascinating to find out what Senator Sanders knows about present-day antisemitism in Europe, and who today are the main carriers of that pathological condition. Does he know why Jews are fearful of wearing yarmulkes in many European capitals? Does he know why Jews have been leaving Malmö, in Sweden, moving out of certain neighborhoods in Paris and London, some even leaving Europe altogether, for reasons of safety, to make Aliyah to Israel? Does he know how many Jews have been set upon, harassed, and beaten, by Muslims all over Western Europe? Does he know about the more than a dozen Jews murdered by Muslims in France, including small children shot in front of their father (before he was then killed) outside a Jewish school, and two elderly women stabbed to death in separate incidents, one of them then set on fire and the other thrown out of a window, by Muslim neighbors they had befriended? It seems that Bernie Sanders hasn’t been following the news about antisemitism in Europe. He should look into it. It might provide a salutary shock.
Bernie Sanders could stand to learn more about the Muslim terrorists in Europe, who have murdered non-Muslims in attacks in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris (many times), Nice, Toulouse, Tours, St. Etienne-du-Rouvray, London (many times), Manchester, Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Malmö, Helsinki, Turku, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Beslan. Those attacks should make a deep impression, even on the likes of Bernie Sanders. And what would he make of the fact that Muslim terrorists have been responsible for more than 35,000 terror attacks around the world since 9/11? Anything? Nothing?
Sanders almost certainly does not know what the Qur’an says about Jews – indeed, I suspect he’s never read the Qur’an — but it’s not too late for him to find out. There are several dozen verses instructing Muslims on the topic. Robert Spencer has gathered them for easy reference: “The Qur’an depicts the Jews as inveterately evil and bent on destroying the wellbeing of the Muslims. They are the strongest of all people in enmity toward the Muslims (5:82); as fabricating things and falsely ascribing them to Allah (2:79; 3:75, 3:181); claiming that Allah’s power is limited (5:64); loving to listen to lies (5:41); disobeying Allah and never observing his commands (5:13); disputing and quarreling (2:247); hiding the truth and misleading people (3:78); staging rebellion against the prophets and rejecting their guidance (2:55); being hypocritical (2:14, 2:44); giving preference to their own interests over the teachings of Muhammad (2:87); wishing evil for people and trying to mislead them (2:109); feeling pain when others are happy or fortunate (3:120); being arrogant about their being Allah’s beloved people (5:18); devouring people’s wealth by subterfuge (4:161); slandering the true religion and being cursed by Allah (4:46); killing the prophets (2:61); being merciless and heartless (2:74); never keeping their promises or fulfilling their words (2:100); being unrestrained in committing sins (5:79); being cowardly (59:13-14); being miserly (4:53); being transformed into apes and pigs for breaking the Sabbath (2:63-65; 5:59-60; 7:166); and more.”
The Rest…HERE
