K. A. Paul Joins the Gainesville Circus

Politico reports:

“We have a challenge to the imam in New York,” said [Pastor Terry D. Jones], appearing with Christian evangelist KA Paul outside the church in Gainesville, Fla. Paul, who said he had been advising and praying with Jones, then gave his phone number, urging Rauf to call him and set up a meeting.

“I was shocked at what had happened yesterday,” Paul told reporters, referring to conflicting reports Thursday that Jones called off his protest because he had a deal with Rauf. “There is a confusion going on and we want to clear that confusion. For Imam Faisal, the challenge is crystal clear.”

I previously blogged on KA Paul in 2006 – he’s another self-publicist, who garnered headlines by blagging his way into a private meeting with Dennis Hastert. I noted some background then, including a profile that had appeared in the Houston Press a few months prior:

The investigation revealed a story much different from the one spun by Anand Kilari [Paul] and his supporters. It’s the story of an egomaniac with a doctored past and an obsession with an airplane that receives more money than starving orphans in India, a man whose hubris and deceptions have burned nearly every bridge that was supposed to lead him to his true, unspoken goal: to show the world that where there once was Mother Teresa, Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., there is now Dr. K.A. Paul.

The paper accuses the would-be “Billy Graham of India” of a number of dishonest activities, such as pretending that an Indian leper colony was being run by his ministry, when in fact it belonged to an unconnected organisation. Paul, however, is not shy at lashing out against those who have thwarted his plans for self-aggrandisement, including – somewhat unexpectedly – the Israeli government, the Republican Party, the Southern Baptist Convention, and both Condoleezza Rice and Olusegun Obasanjo:

Kilari is incensed that Condoleezza Rice and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo took credit for inducing [Charles] Taylor’s surrender. Three years ago, he says, they also stole credit for Taylor’s resignation. Kilari wants them both impeached.

In 2003, on the day Nigerian authorities took Taylor aboard a plane bound for his new home in Nigeria, television footage showed Kilari trying to board the plane as well, only to get shoved away like a nerd attempting to sit at the cool kids’ table. They treated him like he was a nobody, and to Kilari, that is the greatest injustice of all.

This particular “injustice” was also remarked upon by Taylor himself. The New Yorker reported in 2003:

Charles Taylor, having laid waste to Liberia, has been trying to set the record straight about who persuaded him to surrender his Presidency and go into exile in Nigeria. “I will say that 99% of [the credit] goes to Dr. K.A. Paul alone,” he wrote on August 16th, in a letter to the Times. Since Taylor was on the verge of losing a civil war, and three African heads of state went to Liberia to usher him out of the country—and since President Bush made his exit a precondition of American peacekeeping help—this is no small nod to Dr. K.A. Paul.

However, the Times declined to print Taylor’s letter, and so Paul arranged for a PR firm to circulate it:

“The man is risking his very life,” Dr. Paul cried. He meant that Taylor’s letter could perturb his host, Nigeria’s President, Olusegun Obasanjo, who believes that he deserves much of the credit for getting Taylor out of Liberia, and who is under some international pressure to hand Taylor over to Sierra Leone, where he has been indicted for war crimes. What’s more, President Obasanjo apparently dislikes Dr. Paul because, according to Dr. Paul, he is jealous of the great crowds and the great press that Dr. Paul gets in Nigeria for his evangelical crusades.

…To increase his clout in Washington, Dr. Paul recently hired a dozen defeated American political candidates, including four former congressmen, as lobbyists and consultants. They should be helpful, he has said, with fund-raising—and so, presumably, should Nelson Bunker Hunt…

Paul’s dispute the Israeli government, meanwhile, concerned its unwillingness to give him a multi-entry visa that would have allowed him to use his plane to drop off and pick up an American Jewish group while he toured the middle east. The group concerned, Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, had paid Paul $850,000 for the transport, and they sued him for its return. Paul subsequently accused Israel of “arrogance” for not treating him in a manner that befits his status.

As for the Republican Party – the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported in 2006:

Voters should oust congressional Republican leaders because U.S. foreign policy is delaying the second coming of Jesus Christ, according to a evangelical preacher trying to influence closely contested political races.

K.A. Paul railed against the war in Iraq on Sunday before a crowd of 1,000 at the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, his first stop on what he hopes is a 30-city campaign.

The Houston-based preacher said he believes that the Bush administration has delayed the second coming because U.S. foreign policy has blocked Christian missionaries from working in Iraq, Iran and Syria.

…Paul, who claimed to support conservative political leaders in the past, is launching “a crusade to save America from the wrath of God and Republicans abusing their power,” according to his press materials.

…”God is mad at this country,” Paul told the congregation. He described the war in Iraq as “unnecessary genocide.”

The Southern Baptist Convention, meanwhile, earned his wrath after it passed a vote of “no confidence” in his ministry:

Kilari denied the claims, calling them lies “from the pit of hell.” He told The Dallas Morning News, “There’s a jealousy involved…among people trying to take credit for my work.”

There was even worse news in 2005, when Paul was expelled from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. The Houston Press also notes his origins as an aide to Indian evangelist P.J. Titus, and makes allegation of unethical conduct:

Kilari has always denied working for Titus, but Titus’s autobiography includes a photo of Kilari at Titus’s desk, assisting him “in the business side of ministry,” circa 1983…Kilari had access to Titus’s mailing list, so he wrote letters to Titus’s flock, discrediting Titus and encouraging them to donate to Anand Kilari, a true Christian.

According to sources cited in the same report, Paul arranged for himself to be assaulted at a Gospel Crusade meeting with CNN present:

This news report came over the international wire service, and it was aired here in the States. As a result, K.A. Paul was able to wriggle his way into the hearts of the unsuspecting here. He was a guest on TBN [a far-reaching evangelical TV network], which gave him credibility, and then as a result he was received by many unsuspecting ministries as their guest.

An endorsement from the founder of the Promise Keepers followed:

[Bill] McCartney joined Kilari’s board of directors and wrote the foreword to Kilari’s autobiography, Left for Dead.

“I am so drawn to the fire of God I see in this man,” McCartney wrote. “I don’t know of anyone in the world who is more used by God today than Dr. K.A. Paul.”

Further letters of support appear on the website of Paul’s Global Peace Initiative:

April 25, 2002

…In February of 2002, I traveled to India as the guest of Global Peace Initiative to witness first hand the powerful and effective impact upon thousands of homeless and widowed women in the “Little Teresas” movement, as well as visiting orphanages and schools operated by Global Peace.

Dr. Paul is well known and respected in his native land of India, and it is my pleasure to commend him and his work.

Sincerely yours

Mike Huckabee

Nelson Bunker Hunt, who has served on his board of directors, adds:

March 21, 2003

…I have never known a more dynamic and committed man than K. A. Paul. I have watched him literally invest his life in 10’s of thousands of widows, orphans, the poor and needy. He seems to have the heart of a Mother Teresa or Mahatma Gandy…His humble lifestyle is testament to the fact that his concern is for others. Beyond earning the respect of businessmen like myself, he has won surprising political favor around the world…I strongly endorse GPI…

There are also endorsements from Indian politicians, such as K. Yerannaidu of the Indian Telugu Desam Party – who manages to endorse Paul while indulging in a bit of self-promotion at the same time:

I am honored to be the youngest politician to become a cabinet minister and the Party parliamentary leader, since the first Honorable Prime Minister of India, Nehru. In my political career, I have been a sincere follower of both Mahatma Gandhi and Dr K. A. Paul…even though I have been privileged to be the leader of a strategic political party of India, I have been able to maintain a good relationship with all political parties.

Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda is also an enthusiast.

A more flattering profile of Paul appeared in the New Republic back in 2004:

…All of Paul’s supporters mention the minister’s strange, undefinable charisma. The word “anointed” popped up repeatedly, and at least one adviser compared Paul to the “ravenous bird from the east” that the book of Isaiah prophecies will come in latter days to work God’s will. “He’s just overwhelmed with faith,” says Representative [Bob] Clement. “He makes things happen that others think, ‘There is no way that can happen.'”

Paul and his followers are happy to recall his many amazing encounters with remarkable (if often reprehensible) people. There was the time he lectured Yasir Arafat on the evils of sending children to commit suicide, “even if you believe you are doing justice.” Then there was the time, during the Elián González mess, that Paul traveled to Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro, only to back out at the last minute–“Literally, I was in his office,” says Paul–because the Cuban leader would not let Paul use his own translator. In 1999, Paul met with Milosevic during the U.S. aerial assault. And, in 2002, he had phone conversations with Saddam and met personally with Iraqi Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan in an attempt to avert war with the United States.

Even this report, however, had to concede that Paul “is so desperate to convince you of his influence that he can come across as either a liar or a crank”.

According to a discussion thread here, Paul’s biggest donor in the past was controversial businessman John Gregory (link added):

John Gregory, founder of King Pharmaceuticals (recently sold) was the biggest donor behind K.A. but for ‘Gospel to the Unreached Millions‘ (GUM), and not for Global Peace Initiative, (GPI). John literally gave millions per year in cash for many years, and many millions more in ‘in kind’ gifts through King Benevolent Fund and others. John supported 53,000 widows per month for K.A.’s widow training program.

American Clergy Leadership Conference on Koran and Cross

2010: The American Clergy Leadership Conference (ACLC), which is closely allied with Rev Sun Myung Moon, calls for objects of faith to be treated with respect (via press release):

Christian pastors will conduct a press conference at the Imani Temple on Capitol Hill at 6th and Maryland Northeast at 10:00 a.m., Friday, September 10th  to announce an “International Day of Reverence and Respect for All Faiths.”

Christian leaders joined by leaders of many faiths are alarmed by the actions of one pastor in Gainesville, Florida who plans to commemorate the 9-11 tragedy by burning the Koran.  Christian pastors are outraged at his misguided understanding of the Christian faith and the misapplication of the message of Jesus.   

In response to this crisis, Archbishop George Augustus Stallings, Jr., Founder and Senior Pastor of Imani Temple on Capitol Hill, and Co-president of the American Clergy Leadership Conference (ACLC), is calling on pastors throughout the nation and the world to join in an International  “Day of Reverence and Respect for All Faiths,  Believers and all Holy Books at  their Sunday services this coming Sunday, September 12th.”…

2003: The American Clergy Leadership Conference (ACLC), inspired by Rev Moon, calls for churches to repudiate and destroy the symbol of the cross:

Rather than the traditional egg hunt, this group, calling itself the American Clergy Leadership Conference, sponsored a nationwide “Tear Down The Cross” day for Easter, 2003.

…One series of photos found on Moon’s web site, but purged after receiving unfavorable attention earlier this year from evangelicals, shows Massachusetts preacher John Kingara taking down the cross from his church, hauling it behind the old brick building and hoisting it into a dumpster. Another shows a ritual in Israel disposing of the cross in the earth.

Kingara, embracing the ACLC’s new gospel, declared in remarks found in the Unification News, “The fact that the cross is a symbol of division, shame, suffering and bloodshed prove that it is not of God but Satan.” He continued, “On this 18th day of April 2003, we are beginning a new history. Pastors, please, help me to bring the cross down, because it is not of God but the devil.”

Anyone Else Still Here?

The Day and the Hour

September 2, 2010

It should be pretty clear that the studies found in the book and this website look to this Feast of Trumpets 2010 (September 9th) as the time of the Rapture of the Church. That is less than a week away. Time is quickly running out…

Jerusalem sunset is 1853 on September 9th.

(Hat tip: Bulldada Newsblog Source: Here)

BBC Anti-Muslim Fundamentalist Fail

(Also spotted on Harry’s Place)

Creation House’s Anti-Islam Booklist: Why Scrub Terry Jones?

The New Yorker‘s Book Bench blog has followed up on my blog post about the decision by the publisher Creation House (an imprint of Strang Communications) to scrub all reference to the book Islam is of Devil, by Terry D. Jones. The book came out in August, shortly before Jones became globally notorious for his planned Koran-burning stunt. Notes blog author Ian Crouch:

It’s fairly straightforward that Strang would choose to distance itself from Jones, though other writers whose images have been burned in effigy, as Jones’s was on Monday in Afghanistan, have likely seen their sales rise. Still, it seems especially disingenuous to hide the book away at this point. The content is no different this week than it was last week, and seems to be in line, at least in tone, with the publisher’s other titles on Islam.

Crouch notes titles such as Penetrating the Strongholds of Islam, about life in the Philippines, and a novel called The Y Factor. According to the blurb:

Computer scientist Eric Colburn and geneticist Alana McKinsey make a shocking discovery. While working on National Geographic’s genographic project, they uncover Muslim researcher Dr. Alomari’s plot to co-opt the program so he can prove that Ishmael is Abraham’s rightful heir. Can Eric and Alana stop him before his plan inflames the Muslim world to destroy Israel?

(This kind of fantasy is typical of the bottom-end of evangelical publishing, and Muslims are not the only target: let us recall Charles Colson’s Gideon’s Torch, in which gays clamour for aborted fetus tissue as a cure for AIDS.)

Another Islam-related volume from Strang Crouch discusses is Mohamed’s Moon, about a Muslim terrorist who comes to California, only to discover that he has a Christian twin brother, and that “the operation will destroy both his brother and the woman he believes should rightfully be his.”

Copies of Islam is of the Devil are apparently still available from Jones’s Dove World Outrearch Center in Gainesville – it looks like it may end up being a rarity.

Unlike the Koran, despite Jones’s efforts.

Anonymous Smear Attack on Tim Ireland’s Children

Tim Ireland has an update on the on-going campaign of semi-anonymous harassment which has been going on for a year or so now:

…Recently, someone involved in this ongoing campaign of harassment began publishing material targeting my wife, my children, and other members of my extended family.

This has included false accusations aimed at my kids, making specific allegations of criminal behaviour that are not only entirely untrue, but extremely damaging (and, it must be said, upsetting).

The accusations were made anonymously on a site which I have seen.

The back-story is somewhat complex, but, as I have blogged previously, the campaign began after Tim exposed the bogus origins of an Islamic terrorist scare story which appeared in the Sun in January last year. The story had been concocted from evidence planted on an Islamic forum by Glen Jenvey, who took revenge for the exposure by making anonymous postings accusing Tim of being a wanted paedophile; whether this was his own idea or was fed to him by someone else remains unclear. Around the same time, sinister “I know where you live” type comments were received from two or more individuals hiding behind fake names but associated with a musician named Charlie Flowers (in particular, Flowers’ associates are a man named Matthew Edwards and an as yet unidentified woman). After a few months, Jenvey – who has mental health problems – apologised and went off-line.

While all this was going on, Tim and I were contacted by Dominic Wightman, who knew both Flowers and Jenvey in association with his now-defunct VIGIL Network. Wightman tried to manipulate us into writing about another man, against whom it transpired Wightman has a grudge, and after Tim and I both wrote about this experience, Tim was then targeted for direct harassment once again. Twitter and other sites were used to publicise his home address, along with threats of violence and the promise that he would be forced to “go back to Australia”. Flowers has claimed that he was involved in this not because of Tim’s writings about Wightman, but because he was offended by Tim’s public controversies with an MP named Nadine Dorries (Wightman also denies any link). A few anonymous attacks were also made in my direction – indeed, just a few days ago I received a comment from someone calling themselves Cam Woodhead, making a crude sexual comment in relation to my posts on the subject.

The focus of Tim’s current post on the subject is the way in which some of his political opponents have helped to foster this situation. Tim presses his point quite aggressively in political debate, and one strategy to deflect his forensic deconstructions is to suggest that attention to detail is evidence of an obsessive nature. Pressing the point further can then be dismissed as “stalking”. It appears that Jenvey self-justified his anonymous attacks with reference to comments about Tim which had appeared on Iain Dale’s political blog; Dale only quietly removed these comments belatedly, and after accusing Tim of threatening him. Also, Tim had hoped to get the support of Patrick Mercer, an MP who had links with Jenvey and Wightman, and he asked Dale to contact Mercer on his behalf:

Iain Dale was at the time in a unique position to get word directly to Patrick Mercer. He agreed to do this, then did the exact opposite of what was requested, then claimed he had called Mercer… Dale has not gone public with any account that seeks to justify his behaviour in this respect; privately, he shares one of three different excuses…

but while Dale refuses to discuss what he said to Mercer when he eventually did contact him, Mercer obviously became hostile from this point on…

Mercer had relied on Jenvey-sourced material for a number of tabloid soundbites, and it suited him to have Tim regarded as a stalker (Mercer recently repeated the strategy in an accusation against his own ex-mistress).

A damaging role has also been played by Nadine Dorries MP, whom Tim has attacked and satirised on numerous occasions. As as I  blogged in May, Dorries retaliated by seeking  to portray a mocking Tweet as some kind of death threat, and when she later closed down her blog she claimed that she had been advised to do so following the stabbing of Stephen Tims MP – the implication being that she was in physical fear of Tim. This was despite the fact that she had closed her blog down a week before Tims had been stabbed.

At one point Dorries hinted that she had received information from some of those who were harassing Tim and had passed it on to the police; however, she later clarified that in fact she had made a police complaint about Tim, not on his behalf. This was mysterious, since, as Tim writes:

…police procedure is to interview the accused party/parties before proceeding with the expense of a full-blown investigation. I know this having been a target of harassment myself; I have never been convicted, investigated, cautioned, or even informally chatted to by police about any criminal behaviour…

In other words, it is convenient to make the cry of “stalker”, but none of those who do so are willing to test their allegations by involving either the courts or the police. And meanwhile, it’s open season on Tim – and now on his family.

I know that Tim can be controversial – but he advances his cause through words and deeds that he is willing to put his name to. He d0esn’t hide behind fake names and IDs, and he is responsible and careful with private data. He doesn’t threaten people with violence, and he’s not a party hack. In short, he doesn’t hit below the belt.

I would hope that Dale and Dorries don’t go so far as actually to take pleasure from the difficulties that Tim is facing, although clearly it’s useful for them: it distracts him from other projects, and the complex backstory to the saga means that it can be difficult to grasp an overview of the situation. The more that Tim is forced to explain and complain, the more they point and mock him as an obsessive. Either way, though, they are in a position to be of help, but instead have chosen to twist the knife in. How exactly do they sleep at night?

Meet a Veteran Defender

Staying with Loonwatch, a new article at the site notes the existence of Veteran Defenders of America, an newish outgrowth of ACT! For America (it was announced in May, although its website carries a 2008 dateline). There’s a quote from “Richard Van Waes, founder and operating chair person”, who explains that:

Quite simply, unlike any period in our long history, our freedoms are in jeopardy. Our domestic borders have been silently invaded with people who intend to harm us. There are thousands of terrorists and terror cells within the United States borders who have one goal as their agenda – the destruction of America as we know it. This simply cannot take place.

…You, as a veteran, have training, skills and experience that uniquely enable you to respond to our government’s message that encourages family and community preparedness, citizen awareness and service to our families and our communities.

The “honorary chairman” of the advisory council is retired Maj. General Paul E. Vallely. However, aside from him, Van Waes, and of course ACT!’s Brigitte Gabriel, details of who else may be involved are scarce.

From googling around, though, one other name has come up: a certain ex-Navy man named Gerard Keenan. According to his Facebook profile:

Mr. Keenan is a founding member and press officer of the non-profit IC-HUMINT (Intelligence Community-Human Intelligence) organization based in Scotland & Netherlands (being relocated to Israel) (www.ic-humint.net)… and is a member of ACT America, Long Island Chapter (American Congress for Truth), NY State Sheriff’s Association Institute, US Navy Fleet Reserve Association, the Liberty Counsel, and Veteran Defenders of America.

It seems more likely that Keenan is a paying member of VDA rather than involved at an operational level, but the association is worth noting as I’ve come across “IC-HUMINT” previously: this was in 2006, when it announced a brief association with Dominic Wightman‘s “VIGIL Network”. At that time, IC-HUMINT carried a very weird notice about “a global network to form an army to fight the Evil-World to come and to serve for the glory of Jerusalem, the city of GOD!” In 2007, this was replaced with a profile of Keenan (also known as Jerry Keenan) and a list of associate members, although “only those that have requested to be included” were provided. The list included the SAS, the Israeli Defence Forces, and British Intelligence. The reference to VIGIL disappeared, and at the VIGIL website any association with IC-HUMINT was denied.

Earlier versions of the now-removed IC-HUMINT website (see on Wayback here and here) give Keenan as the “Press Officer” and a certain Sean Elias as in charge of “Oversight”;  a UK mobile phone number was given as contact for Elias. According to a potted history from a 2004 version of the site,

During the many years of real time experiences we have built a large contact group with official gov/mil members, contracts and various associates from all over the world. To be able to better serve and maintain this exclusive group, several members of the ‘British American Friends’ have centralized this group online and called it the IC-HUMINT Group.

A later version has the tagline “Monitored by the British American Friends © 2005”. The history goes on to explain that the group was founded in 1991 in North Africa, and that group members were then sent “to former Yugoslavia, Kosovo and Belgrado” as well as to “the Baltics States, Romania and Russia” . From 1997 a secured online presence was established, called the World Security Net, but following “several mass attacks” on the network it was decided to “disclose the entire section” and to change the name to IC-HUMINT. A look through various old forums brings up a certain “Steve” as the liason officer, and Elias described himself as “Head of Operations” at World Security Net (very little on Wayback). Keenan also runs “GPKeenan Co. Int’l Security Services” as a subsidiary of an outfit called Executive Assets (old Geocities website on Wayback here).

Although the IC-HUMINT dotnet website appears to be defunct, visiting a dotcom version of site brings up an empty page titled “Camp Joshua 2010” for a moment before the broken link page again appears. A few automatic sites have captured the phrase “CAMP JOSHUA 2010. Service Verification Jerusalem 2010”, whatever that might mean.

Of course, there is no indication that the VDA has any interest in any of this. However, the VDA website does carry an advert for a 2010 “Spy Cruise” organised by Vallely’s own Stand up America organisation, at which former CIA operatives and directors are billed as speakers.

Boneheaded

Here’s one I missed from a couple of months ago: Loonwatch notes various pictures posted on the Facebook page of Stop Islamization of America, including one that purports to be associated with military servicepeople:

Why does a certain comedy sketch come to mind?

Whatever Happened to Steve Emerson’s “13 Hours” of Rauf Audio?

A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that Steven Emerson had “unearthed” thirteen hours of “audio tape” of Faisel Rauf, containing material that was both “shocking” and “explosive”:

Among the shocking revelations Emerson’s team will reveal next week — they found Rauf:

Defending wahhabism – a puritanical version of Islam that governs Saudi Arabia

Calling for the elimination of Israel by claiming a one-nation state, meaning no more Jewish State.

Defending Bin Laden’s violence

Although this caused much excitement, some of us were able to cast our minds back a whole six weeks or so to the previous time a conservative pundit had released an “explosive” recording of someone speaking; the results had not been encouraging.

And indeed, Emerson’s “discoveries” failed to deliver the goods. Most of the “exposé” turned out to be a public lecture which Rauf gave in Australia in 2005, which was freely available anyway as an mp3 from a university website; the only new material was a 2006 13-minute talk with a journalist named Mark Sommers, made when Rauf thought he was off-mic,  but there was nothing there which exposed him as  being a secret extremist. Overall, Emerson’s “revelations” turned out  to be nothing more than his own extrapolations from Rauf’s public political views – views which we all knew anyway – to an extremist motivation.

However, various sites, having hyped Emerson, struggled to make the best of it: at WND the shameless Aaron Klein seized on Emerson’s gloss on Rauf’s one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict to give the impression that Rauf had used the word “eradication” in relation to Israel (incidentally, it should be recalled that Klein and other conservatives who affect outrage at Rauf’s one-state preference themselves object to a two-state solution, for other reasons). In one quote from the 2005 lecture, Rauf discusses prejudice, observing that “If gender is not what distinguishes us we’ll look at skin colouring and say: niggers or whities, or whatever”; clutching at straws, this was headlined around the net as “Imam Rauf Drops The N Word”.

The off-mic discussion even included a point that Pamela Geller, who was Emerson’s primary conduit, was forced to contradict: that Rauf doesn’t “want a demographic Islamic state”.  Geller assured her readers that this was a lie and an example of “stealth jihad”, but a secret recording in which Rauf continues to present himself as a moderate in private is somewhat lame as an exposé. Geller, as expected, milked the subject of Emerson’s audios more than anyone, but even she’s moved onto other subjects and the topic has failed to gain momentum.

Meanwhile, Walid Shoebat has tried to get in on the act, with awful disclosures of his own taken from Rauf’s statements in Arabic. His first attempt at this was in June, and he appeared on Fox in mid-August, warning that Rauf’s

…support of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic jihad movement has been expressed by him in the Arabic language. His manifesto ha s been expressed by – in Al-Ghad newspaper, and hadielislam.com, in several news media. In fact, Americans should listen to this. He says that the trend toward Islamic law and justice begins by religious movements like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic resistance. This is a straight support for terrorism.

Media Matters has some background on this:

We asked Ahmad Moussalli, a widely quoted expert on Islamic movements and professor of Political Science and Islamic Studies at the American University of Beirut, to read the Arabic sources Shoebat cited on August 18 (they can be found here and here) and to evaluate his claim that they show “a straight support for terrorism” and for “Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic jihad movement.” Moussalli responded that Shoebat’s remarks are a “blatant misrepresentation of the denotation and connotation of Mr. Rauf’s statements in Hadielislam and Al-Ghad newspaper. Rauf never expressed his support for the three organizations.”

Omid Safi, professor of Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina and expert on Sufism, also reviewed the Arabic articles and concluded that “they do not show any support for terrorism.” Safi added that “the accusation of ‘Muslim double-speak’ is one of the common accusations used by Islamaphobes like Shoebat” and said: “I would simply suggest dismissing what comes out of his mouth as much as I would dismiss anything David Duke would have to say about the essential nature of Judaism.”

Of course, Rauf has made statements and holds positions that are controversial and arguable. But if his opponents are so convinced of his essential malice, why the constant recourse to distorted quotes and sensationalised stunts?

Creation House Scrubs Terry Jones “Islam is of the Devil” Book

On 4 August I blogged on Pastor Terry D. Jones’ book Islam is of the Devil, which had just been published by Creation House. The imprint was of interest: while Jones appeared to be a marginal figure, allied to Fred Phelps but repudiated by everyone else because of his plans for a Koran book-burning, Creation House is owned by the influential neo-Pentecostal media empire Strang Communications. It seemed to me that perhaps Jones, who had been part of the controversial Maranatha organisation in the 1980s, was not as far out on the fringe as he appeared.

However, I also asked whether Creation House was now embarrassed by the association with Jones. I observed:

Mention of the book on the company’s website is confined to a small entry in a pdf catalogue, and an associated Creation  House Facebook page has recently deleted several messages from one of Jones’ fellow pastors at Dove, Wayne Sapp.

A couple of days after I wrote that, Creation House quietly revised its catalogue and scrubbed the book; although the old edition is still available from the link above, it’s an orphan document which someone forgot to remove. The Creation House frontpage links to the new version, which is almost exactly the same as the previous one except for page 19, where Islam is of the Devil has been replaced with a title by another author, entitled Snakes in the Pulpit. Meanwhile, the book is listed as “temporarily out of stock” on Amazon.

Jones, like his spiritual brother Fred Phelps, is a desperate attention-seeker: last year it was an “Islam is of the Devil” sign outside his church, and members of the congregation joined the Rifqa Bary circus while wearing t-shirts bearing the same message. His planned Koran bonfire for 11 September has brought him international attention, although he’s still keen to come up with new stunts to keep himself and his church in the limelight. His latest effort is a new video, in which he opines that the word “nigger” is not racist because (take a deep breath) “there’s white niggers, and there’s black niggers. A nigger is how you act”. Pastor Wayne Sapp then follows up with a different message, delivered in a weird passive-aggressive style: he explains that no-one should use the word, because it’s “demeaning” and “degrading”; however, it’s unfair that black comedians are allowed to use it, and he rails against the “double standard” of racism which this supposedly exposes. Bizarrely, the video ends with a snippet from the Pink Floyd song Goodbye Cruel World.

As well as being dropped by Creation House, Jones recently lost the support of a certain “Prince Shannon Carson”, who had previously promised to lead a militia to protect the church against Muslims. Gen J.C. Christian had a chat with him a few days ago.