Post-American Presidency (29 page)

The Islamic faith has shaped the United States since 9/11 in leading to the spending of billions on antiterror measures, and to the ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to Guantánamo, and to so many features of the modern political and social landscape that they cannot be enumerated.

Of course, it is certain that Obama had none of that in mind. But what could he possibly have had in mind? His statement was either careless or ignorant, or both—not qualities we need in a commander in chief even in the best of times.

AMERICA, A MUSLIM COUNTRY

Obama got even more careless and ignorant in a June 1, 2009, interview with the French press. Sounding one of his favorite themes, he said: “I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam.” Apparently the post-American president’s idea of effective education was to depart from reality altogether: “And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.”
⁷

It was one of the most bizarre statements of a bizarre presidency—and it wasn’t remotely true. Indonesia has a population of over 200 million Muslims; India is second with over 160 million Muslims, and Pakistan has 150 million Muslims. The United States, by contrast, is home to 2.3 million Muslims, according to the Pew Research Center.

No mainstream media reporter, not surprisingly, ever challenged Obama about this, and so he never explained what might have motivated him to make this odd assertion. But it was all the more noteworthy
in light of the fact that two months earlier, Obama had said that “one of the great strengths of the United States is… we have a very large Christian population—we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”
⁸

Yet less than eight weeks later, America had become a Muslim nation. Obama was just about to make his major speech in Cairo, and perhaps he wanted to impress his Muslim hosts. And he may well have done so. But he also opened the door to more accommodation of Islam, including—if not especially—its political and supremacist aspects, than had ever before been seen in the United States of America.

Some of it was symbolism, like Obama’s abrupt cancellation of the National Day of Prayer, hitherto a White House event with a pronounced Christian flavor.
⁹
However, it would have been imprecise to say that it was “mere” symbolism. The symbolism, like Obama’s statement about America being one of the world’s largest Muslim countries, carried important implications.

OBAMA ABANDONS THE JEWS AND LEGITIMIZES “KAPO COUNCILS”

The post-American president in April 2009 hosted a Passover seder at the White House—the first seder ever hosted by a sitting president. But it was a small, muted affair: the White House announced that “President Obama and his family will mark the beginning of Passover with a seder at the White House with friends and staff.”
¹⁰
Valerie Jarrett attended, as well as Obama’s personal aide Reggie Love; an aide to David Axelrod; White House videographer Arun Chaudhary; and some other family members and friends. The guests all sat around one large table with the president.
¹¹

The smallness of the affair confused some Jewish Obama supporters.
One White House staffer revealed that when the seder was announced, “apparently Jewish [residents] here and in neighboring states are now calling wondering why they have not been invited.”
¹²

No such hurt feelings attended Obama’s September 2009 Ramadan iftar dinner: there was plenty of room for everyone. The Obama Ramadan bash was a lavish affair, attended by three Cabinet members, senators, congressmen (including, of course, the nation’s two Muslim congressmen, Keith Ellison (D-MN) and André Carson (D-IN)), seventeen ambassadors and six other diplomats, and over thirty invited guests, including Ingrid Mattson of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an unindicted coconspirator in a Hamas terror funding case.
¹³

At the Ramadan iftar, Obama went out of his way to praise the Muslim contribution to American society: “Islam, as we know, is part of America.… Indeed, the contribution of Muslims to the United States are too long to catalog because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country. American Muslims are successful in business and entertainment; in the arts and athletics; in science and in medicine. Above all, they are successful parents, good neighbors, and active citizens.”
¹⁴

His Passover greetings contained no similar praise for Jewish citizens; instead, Obama included a veiled call for further Israeli concessions to the Palestinians: “As Jewish families gather across America to enjoy the magnificent and hard-earned gift of freedom, let us all be thankful for the gifts that have been bestowed upon us. And at the same time, let us also work to alleviate the suffering, poverty, and hunger of those who are not yet free.”
¹⁵

It was in these seemingly small details that much was revealed: Obama’s priorities, his predilections, and his prejudices. And he made no secret of them.

Worse still, on September 11, 2009, the eighth anniversary of the
worst terror attack ever on American soil, an attack carried out by devout Muslims, the post-American State Department sent out an invitation to employees from the South Asian–American Employee Association (SAAEA) for a screening of the film
Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think
. This film, a soothing whitewash of the jihadist sentiments among Muslims worldwide, premiered in June 2009—and all State Department employees got an invitation to attend that screening as well.
¹⁶

This is systemic. Employees are encouraged and rewarded for abetting the spread of comforting half-truths and outright deceptions about Islam and terrorism. And some of the statements on the department’s blog were unsettling (all spelling and grammar is as in the originals). One official suggested that the film screening be turned into a “public diplomacy event by inviting foreign diplomats and representatives from civil society.” Another suggested: “I like the idea to bring back having Iftars at the white House or even at the department of state for Muslim civil employees.” Separation of religion and state? That is so twentieth century! Another State official wrote: “Happy Ramadan to everyone. I think it would be a great idea to have an Iftar party from DOB or WH not only to celebrate the Muslim’s holy month, but also to support the ‘Diversity’ initiative is currently being taken by Secretary Clinton.”
¹⁷

A QUIET HANUKKAH

The State Department was busy actively cultivating Muslim goodwill. And so it came as no surprise, then, in November 2009, when the news was leaked that the White House Hanukkah party guest list was to be cut to half of its 2008 number.
The
Jerusalem Post
reported: “Though several Jewish leaders expressed understanding for the economic and other reasons behind the cut, they acknowledged that it would likely
help feed feelings in some quarters of the American Jewish community that the White House is giving them the cold shoulder.”
¹⁸

There was blowback to this Hanukkah snub after an opinion piece appeared in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Tevi Troy, who had been a liaison to Jewish groups in the Bush administration, suggested that Obama was taking Jewish votes for granted, citing as evidence the administration’s call for a freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The Hanukkah guest list cuts, according to Troy, left “a nagging sense that there may be a studied callousness at work here.”
¹⁹

It wasn’t lost on those who watched such things that the Ramadan iftar celebration was a spectacular gala event. Barack Obama never gave any quarters of the American Muslim community any cause to think that he was giving
them
the cold shoulder. His overtures to them that began on his Inauguration Day, during his Inaugural Address, continued throughout his first year in office.

MUSLIMS IN HIGH PLACES

In June 2009, Obama appointed a Muslim, Kareem Shora, to the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Shora had been executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a group that had generally opposed antiterror efforts since 9/11. But more worrisome was Obama’s appointment of another Muslim, Arif Alikhan, to be assistant secretary for policy development at the Department of Homeland Security.

These appointments were obvious attempts to show the Muslims of the United States and the world that antiterror efforts were not anti-Islam or anti-Muslim. Shora and Alikhan would stand as moderate Muslims within the DHS, living illustrations of the iron dogma that all Muslims aside from a tiny minority were loyal Americans who abhorred Osama bin Laden and everything he stood for.

But when he made the appointment, Obama didn’t notice, or didn’t care, that as deputy mayor of Los Angeles, Alikhan (who has referred to the jihad terrorist group Hizbullah as a “liberation movement”) had blocked an effort by the Los Angeles Police Department to gather information about the ethnic makeup of area mosques.
²⁰
This was not an effort to close down Los Angeles mosques, or to conduct surveillance of them. There was no wiretapping or interrogation involved. No one would be jailed or even inconvenienced. Los Angeles deputy chief Michael P. Downing explained in 2007: “We want to know where the Pakistanis, Iranians and Chechens are so we can reach out to those communities.”
²¹
But even outreach was too much for the hypersensitive Muslim leaders of Los Angeles: they cried racism, discrimination, and “Islamophobia” until the LAPD dropped the plan.
²²

And Arif Alikhan spearheaded their drive against this initiative.

Would he bring to the Department of Homeland Security a similar sensitivity to the quickly wounded feelings of Muslims?

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ENFORCING SHARIA

In Cairo on June 4, 2009, Obama boasted that “the U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it.… I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal.” Five days later, as if to show that Obama was serious about what he said in Cairo, his post-American Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Essex County, New Jersey, charging that the county had discriminated against a Muslim woman, Yvette Beshier.

Beshier was a corrections officer, and had been forbidden to wear her khimar, or headscarf, while working. When she refused to comply, the Essex County Department of Corrections (DOC) first suspended and then fired her—the khimar was not part of the uniform, and corrections
officers were expected to conform to uniform policy. But such policies, of course, were drawn up before the days of politically correct multiculturalism. Instead of simply expecting employees to conform to company rules, now the company had to adapt to the religious particularities of its Muslim employees: Barack Obama’s Justice Department sued on Beshier’s behalf.
²³

When Obama in Cairo boasted about fighting for hijab-wearing women in the United States, he promised to “punish” infidels for not submitting to the dictates and whims of Islam. The lawsuit that followed less than a week later showed that he was in earnest.

It was almost certainly the first time that the United States Justice Department had filed a lawsuit in order to enforce an element of Sharia, Islamic law.

On duty, Yvette Beshier, like all her fellow corrections officers, should have worn religiously neutral garb. Off duty, she could have dressed any way she wanted. But ultimately the Justice Department’s suit wasn’t really about the dress code at the Essex County Department of Corrections at all. It was about asserting Islamic practices in the United States, and establishing and reinforcing the precedent that when Islamic law and American law and custom conflicted, it was American law that had to give way. As of this writing, the suit is still pending in federal court.

ENABLING JIHAD FINANCE

In his June 2009 Cairo speech, Obama said: “Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways in which we protect it. For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That’s why I’m committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill
zakat
.”
²⁴

Zakat
, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is the Islamic obligation to give alms. Since jihad is also a key obligation for Muslims, it should not be surprising that all too often Islamic charities in the United States have been found to be funneling charitable contributions to jihad groups. Former prosecutor and terror analyst Andrew McCarthy explained several days after Obama’s Cairo address: “The inconvenient fact is that numerous Islamic charities have proved to be fronts for terrorist activity, at least in part. These include the Holy Land Foundation (whose top operatives were recently convicted for underwriting Hamas in a prosecution that exposed CAIR [the Council on American-Islamic Relations] as an unindicted co-conspirator) and the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, one of the world’s largest Muslim charities, headquartered in Saudi Arabia (which hosted the president for private talks last week).”
²⁵

In light of these inconvenient facts, Obama’s claim that “in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation” strained credulity. This fantastic assertion was right out of the Frank Marshall Davis/JeremiahWright playbook, as if some inherent racism and xenophobia in the American system were hamstringing innocent, pious Muslims who were simply trying to fulfill their duty before God. Asked McCarthy: “Do we really have ‘rules on charitable giving’ that, as the president claims, make it especially difficult for Muslims—as opposed to others—to give? No. What we have are federal laws against material support for terrorism. These were enacted by Congress in 1996. They have been the bedrock of the DOJ’s anti-terrorism enforcement ever since.”
²⁶
Do they target Muslims? Of course not. They target anyone and everyone who is trying to give financial support to terrorists.