May 12, 2009, - 2:45 pm
The Sad Truth About Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser–Star, Narrator, & Producer of “The Third Jihad”
By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
This morning, a friend invited me to lunch with M. Zuhdi Jasser, MD, the Syrian-American Muslim who wants us to believe that most Muslims are peaceful because they don’t belong to mosques. He is in Detroit to promote, show, and answer questions on “The Third Jihad,” the movie he and the Clarion Foundation funded and have since released.
The Clarion Foundation also contacted me over the weekend, urging me to promote this movie, but they refused to respond to my questions about it and Jasser. And I don’t recommend it because of the behavior, disinformation, lies, and double-speak of Dr. Jasser. For the same reasons–which I’ve mentioned on this site previously–and others, which I note below, I declined my friend’s invitation.
You see, the message Mr. Jasser is spreading is contrary to the one he claims in the movie. The movie warns of the homegrown jihad we’ve been warning about for years, since before 9/11. But Jasser’s statements regularly contradict the movie. He’s two-faced, and a liar. And you simply can’t believe a single piece of fertilizer coming out of his mouth. He openly lied to me in an e-mail, claiming he’d never discussed a topic on Detroit radio, which he expressly did discuss on the air for a full half-hour.
Jasser has consistently appeared on Detroit radio shows and TV and radio shows around the country, saying the usual bullcrap, i.e., that Islam is a peaceful religion, that the majority of Muslims are peaceful because they don’t belong to a mosque, that CAIR and MPAC and ISNA, etc. don’t represent Islam.
Jasser also said on a Detroit radio broadcast earlier this year, that it’s unfair to blame the imam of a Minneapolis-area mosque or the mosque for recruiting a number of secular Somali boys to become terrorists for the Al-Qaeda network’s Al-Shabaab in Somalia. He claimed to know the imam of the mosque and be familiar with the mosque in excusing the two, but even the parents of the missing boys blame the mosque and the imam, and the FBI admits it’s investigating the mosque and the imam (who is on the no-fly list and has been for ages).
Sorry, but that’s baloney. Islam is not peaceful. Whether or not Muslims belong to a mosque is not the determinant of their radicalism, only an adding factor. I know some extremely secular Muslims who drink alcohol and haven’t been to a mosque in decades. But they love Hezbollah and HAMAS and hate Jews, Christians, America, and Israel. If the majority of Muslims are really peaceful and don’t support terrorist groups, why did I see ten thousand Muslims–during the workday–marching on the streets of Dearborn and Detroit in support of Hezbollah and HAMAS in both 2006 and early 2009? Why do Bin Laden, HAMAS, Hezbollah, Ahmadinejad, and Nasrallah remain the most popular figures and entities in poll after poll of Muslims? Why do a third of young American Muslims support homicide bombings?
Dr. Jasser was kicked out of his mosque in Arizona, a pretty good sign that Islam is, in fact, radical, and they don’t want his pretentious claim otherwise. I’m sorry, but CAIR, ISNA, and MPAC do represent Islam more than he does. Far more, despite his claims otherwise. It’s like when Communist fantasists and utopians used to tell me that I can’t judge Communism by its manifestation and practice in the Soviet Union or Cuba or China, because they don’t practice “real” Communism and don’t represent this silent, imaginary majority of Communists worldwide who love peace and don’t throw people in jail for a life of torture for writing a poem. Sorry, Zuhdi, but you know better. And yet, you continue to lie. I asked Jasser how many Muslim members he has in his organization, the “American Islamic Forum for Democracy,” and he didn’t respond. He’s told others it’s about 100. That’s not even negligible. It’s downright embarrassing.
Not negligible are the speaking fees and other payments and funding Dr. Jasser is getting from this speaking tour, a good chunk of it courtesy of the Clarion Foundation, which in using him as its two-faced spokesman seems not to heed its own eponymous clarion call. I dream (and will forever dream) of the day we will see a Muslim (which means an ex-Muslim) or an Arab who is actually putting forth a consistent, truthful, truly peaceful message . . . and not some uninformed double-talk, milked as a money-making enterprise. Jasser, Hanan Tudor a/k/a “Brigitte Gabriel,” Walid Shoebat, and other frauds have all made a mint after they opened up shop post-9/11 (and lying about what and who they are). Before then, they were nowhere to be seen. Apparently, the underside of the rock was quite cozy ’til then, but afterward the outside suddenly became far “greener.”
And then there’s the bold-faced lie Jasser told me, denying he’d ever even spoken of the mosque in Minnesota that recruits jihadists, when in fact he had. When I responded with the details of the interview in which he’d done that very thing at length and excused this extremist mosque and its imam–calling him on his bald-faced lie–he didn’t respond back. No surprise.
Dr. Jasser told those who attended today’s lunch with him that he’s against interfaith efforts. Yet his bio is filled with them, and he brags of them, including his participation in the “Children of Abraham,” a far-left organization run by an anti-Israel Jew by the name of Brenda Naomi Rosenberg (she authored a petition condemning Israel during the Israel-HAMAS war earlier this year). Not mentioned in his bio is Jasser’s active involvement in and repeated donations (in 2005 and 2006) to Seeds of Peace, the moral equivalency summer camp for kiddie Islamic terrorists in the making in Maine, which I told you about previously on this site. It was founded by Yasser Arafat’s favorite biographer and topics at the camp have included that the Holocaust never happened.
Below is the exchange I had with Jasser when he contacted me after I first wrote about him. Following that is my e-mail to the Clarion Foundation, after they contacted me to promote their and his movie. No response from them, either. No surprise. When the facts aren’t on your side, there are two options, lie or remain silent. Jasser does both. The Clarion Foundation did only the latter. But their disinformation campaign headlined by Jasser is not the heroic thing it’s portrayed to be.
Remember, “taqiyyah”–the Islamic concept of lying to and deceiving infidels–is something Dr. Jasser doesn’t talk about. But something he practices far more than he preaches.
From: M. Zuhdi Jasser mzjasser@gmail.com
Date: Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 5:13 PM
Subject: Correction requested
To: writedebbie@gmail.com
Dear Ms. Schlussel—We have never been in contact before. I will keep this brief. Please do not hesitate to contact me directly in the future if you have any concerns or wish to engage in a discussion with a Muslim who is unabashedly anti-Islamist. Sorry, but the excerpt below from your column is false. https://www.debbieschlussel.com/One other thing: This episode demonstrates the absolute unreliability of the statements of Zuhdi Jasser, the so-called moderate Muslim who pushes upon us the BS that the majority of Muslims are peaceful (which is why thousands of them marched on the streets of Dearborn in support of Hezbollah and HAMAS for weeks in 2006 and 2009).
Jasser kept claiming that Shirwa Ahmed’s mosque and the imam of the mosque, Sheikh Abdirahman Ahmed (who is on the no-fly list), are blameless and moderate, even though many Muslims from that mosque become radicalized by him and travel to Somalia to kill countless others.
You can’t believe a thing Jasser says. And you shouldn’t believe Robert Mueller has finally come to his senses 7.5 years after 9/11. He continues to pander to, excuse, and apologize for mosques like the one that was the impetus for Shirwa Ahmed’s Somalian one-way explosion trip.I would imagine the source you received it from must have transposed my name in their attribution meant to be of someone else. Not only have I never written or spoken publicly about Ahmed’s mosque or the Somali situation but our group (AIFD) certainly believes they are being radicalized by their leadership. I have absolutely no idea where you made this false attribution from . I have spoken in generalities to a reporter or two about my deep concerns about the radicalism of that mosque which would actually be in line with your concerns. Please refer me to the link/source from where you made this false attribution and I will get it corrected or help clarify what you may be interpreting. You mention that I “kept claiming Shirwa Ahmed..” I have never spoken of or written about this imam. Once you have verified this on your own, I would ask you to please correct your comments appropriately. All of my writings and interviews are at our website at www.aifdemocracy.org. We pride ourselves on being directly confrontational against the apologetics of Islamist groups and their imams and leadership. In fact, additionally to your other comments, I spoke at large events in Detroit expressing my dismay and disgust with the local Muslim support of Hezbullah and Hamas. That is just some of the public record I have established in this area. In fact CAIR and other Islamists in the Detroit area published this drivel after my appearance in Detroit last year: http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=Community&article=851. You can see here as well as all over the internet that the Islamists you target are certainly no fan of my work.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Regards, Zuhdi Jasser
President, AIFD
In fact, my comments about what Jasser said were not comments a source sent me as he wished had happened so he could worm his way out of it. I heard him say these things with my own ears. Here’s my response.
From: Debbie Schlussel writedebbie@gmail.com
Date: Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 5:38 PM
Subject: Re: Correction requested
To: zuhdi@jasserim.com
Dr. Jasser:
Words and facts are stubborn things. I heard you say these very words on two different appearances on the Frank Beckmann show–one while you were in Detroit and another around Christmas or the New Year. A friend who has been justifiably disturbed by your message and by Beckmann called me both times you were on. I know what I–and others–heard. And you repeatedly say that the majority of Muslims are peaceful. They are not. Sorry. And you said that it was not the mosque or its imam. I suggest that you go back and listen to both of your interviews as your apologism and claims about Muslims are disinformation. You specifically excused the Abubakar As Saddique Islamic Center and its imam. Your memory is short. Mine is long and precise. And I was sickened to hear you make these excuses for these people, while continuing to get the blind worship of less-informed lights like Frank Gaffney and extreme ignoramuses like Beckmann (who admitted on another show that he didn’t even know who John Maynard Keynes was).
I wonder how many members of your organization are actually Muslims and not just people who like your message. I’d bet there are very few Muslims. FYI, your friend Frank Beckmann, on his show, repeatedly legitimizes open Hezbollah supporters Imad Hamad (a “former” PFLP terrorist and Hezbo/HAMAS supporter, and FBI Award revokee) and Ali Jawad (a man who openly supports Hezbollah, a well known agent for the group, and who was convicted of insurance fraud in federal court). The more you appear on that show, the more it tells me about you–not just by your apologism for some mosques and many Muslims, but by your very presence on the show.
I am well aware that many Muslims don’t like you because they are extremely Orthodox and they think you are helping the enemy, but as even Stephen Coughlin admitted when questioned after he spoke in Detroit, your message–that Muslims are mostly peaceful–is fraudulent and hurts our cause. Ditto for your apologism for the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center and Imam Abdirahman Ahmed, whom you specifically excused from culpability.
Unlike your lemmings like Frank Beckmann who is an ignoramus former sportscaster, I actually can correctly pronounce Zuhdi (I know it isn’t Judy, unlike him), and I don’t buy into your fraudulent message. Islam–not a few extremists, as you claim–is the problem.
DS
***
From: Clarion Fund press@clarionfund.org
Date: Sun, May 10, 2009 at 12:56 PM
Subject: “The Third Jihad” Premieres in Washington, DC – CAIR Declines the Invitation
To: writedebbie@gmail.com
Debbie Schlussel-
We just wanted to drop you a quick note to tell you about the premiere of the Clarion fund’s newest documentary film, “The Third Jihad.” The event will take place this Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and will include a screening of the full version of the feature-length film as well as a media briefing with the film’s narrator, Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, and its producers about the threat of radical Islam in America.
Though Clarion invited several American Muslim groups to participate in a roundtable discussion with Dr. Jasser – a devout Muslim and chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) – all of them declined the invitation. Among those organizations to decline the invitation was the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a surprising turn of events considering the group’s usual insistence that a representative of their “mainstream Muslim” staff be present at such events to offer a “balanced perspective.” In fact, since the beginning of 2009, CAIR has requested such representation in at least three U.S. events focused on radical Islam.
While we hope to distribute this release to the media tomorrow, we wanted to give the blogging community the first shot at it: who better to begin the discussion about “The Third Jihad” – and continue the discussion about the threat of radical Islam in America ‚Äì than the talented men and women of the blogoshpere [DS: sic].
Sincerely,
The Clarion Fund
***
From: Debbie Schlussel writedebbie@gmail.com
Date: Sun, May 10, 2009 at 1:25 PM
Subject: Re: “The Third Jihad” Premieres in Washington, DC – CAIR Declines the Invitation
To: Clarion Fund press@clarionfund.org
I just wanted you to know that it has come to my attention that the Clarion Fund is sending money to something called the Sam Adams Alliance, or at least that’s what Sam Adams’ CEO Eric O’Keefe claimed to me. You should know that Sam Adams Alliance’s web director and trainer, on her blog, praised and defended Muslim death threats against my life, which included Holocaust denial. Are you, in fact, giving a dime to Sam Adams Alliance? You should also know that Zuhdi Jasser in two interviews on Detroit radio said:
1) that it is not right to blame the Muslim imam of the mosque who is recruiting Somalis to become terrorists back home, when even the FBI and their families acknowledged he is the one recruiting them; and
2)that the majority of Muslims in America and elsewhere are peaceful and don’t support terrorism, which is interesting given that 10,000 Muslims marched in favor of Hezbollah and HAMAS daily in Dearborn during the Israel Hezbollah war; and when Bin Laden and HAMAS are still the most popular entities in poll after poll around the Islamic world.
Does Clarion agree with these misguided viewpoints expressed by Zuhdi Jasser?
Like I said, no response. Of course, not.
**** UPDATE, 05/14/09: The Clarion Foundation did indeed finally respond, four days after I contacted them:
From: Clarion Fund media@clarionfund.org
Date: Wed, May 13, 2009 at 4:20 PM
Subject: RE: “The Third Jihad” Premieres in Washington, DC – CAIR Declines the Invitation
To: writedebbie@gmail.com
Debbie-
We did not “refuse” to answer your questions as you posted on your blog. Rather, we checked with every department within our organization to make absolutely sure that no such donations to the Sam Adams Alliance were made. After much research, we are quite sure that Clarion Fund has not donated anything to the Sam Adams Alliance. Please correct this inaccuracy.
Regarding Dr. Jasser, the Clarion Fund remains 100% committed to our goal of educating Americans on threats to national security, and Dr. Jasser is a close and important partner for us in our drive to accomplish this goal.
Best,
The Clarion Fund
My response:
From: Debbie Schlussel writedebbie@gmail.com
Date: Wed, May 13, 2009 at 6:29 PM
Subject: Re: “The Third Jihad” Premieres in Washington, DC – CAIR Declines the Invitation
To: Clarion Fund media@clarionfund.org
I e-mailed you on Sunday. It’s now 6:30pm Wednesday afternoon. I operate on Internet turnaround, not 1800s printing press deadlines. I will correct that, but I think you should let Eric O’Keefe from Sam Adams Alliance know that you want him to stop claiming he’s getting money from you.
Do you agree with Zuhdi Jasser that Israel and the West Bank are “the occupied territories” as he told Pamela Geller on her radio interview? Do you agree with him that it’s not right to blame the imam of the Minneapolis mosque for brainwashing and recruiting terrorist to go blow themselves up in Somalia? Do you agree that it’s right that he would flat-out lie to me and deny that he’d ever discussed that mosque when he had on the air for about a half hour? Also, do you agree with Zuhdi Jasser that most Muslims are peaceful and don’t support Hezbollah or HAMAS? Clearly you don’t follow the polls or watch the streets when Muslims hold protests, if you believe that.
Islam is a national security threat, and every time you promote Jasser’s view that he and his 100 Muslims out of a billion Muslims are representative of the real Islam, which is “peaceful,” you are lying about the true national security threats. Wake UP.
***
From: Clarion Fund media@clarionfund.org
Date: Thu, May 14, 2009 at 6:54 AM
Subject: RE: “The Third Jihad” Premieres in Washington, DC – CAIR Declines the Invitation
To: writedebbie@gmail.com
Debbie-
Thank you . . . We will be in touch with Mr. O’Keefe to set the record straight.
Best,
The Clarion Fund
***
From: Debbie Schlussel writedebbie@gmail.com
Date: Thu, May 14, 2009 at 11:04 AM
Subject: Re: “The Third Jihad” Premieres in Washington, DC – CAIR Declines the Invitation
To: Clarion Fund media@clarionfund.org
You should be aware that his director of web development and blog trainer, Emily Zanotti, defended Muslim anti-Semitic Holocaust denial death, rape, and torture threats on my life. I certainly hope you will never give $ to such an organization, and I was incensed when he told me you were. You still haven’t answered my questions on Zuhdi Jasser, though.
Nice job Debbie. I know from you the truth about Steven Emerson and Walid Shoebat (very disappointing to me, particularly in the light of the high value of Emerson’s documentary “Jihad in America”) but what is the problem with Brigitte Gabriel?
To know from a credible source like you that she is a fraud would devastating blow because she appears to be doing so much in raising awareness across the U.S. with her organization “Act for America.”
I don’t agree with many of your opinions, but I value your blog because you do some of the most cutting edge research that I have ever seen. However, an underrated blog is not enough to organize Americans to resist the jihad.
If Brigitte is a fraud, is there any legitimate organization we can join to resist the jihad?
[PD: UM, THIS IS NOT AN “UNDERRATED BLOG” AND IT GETS FAR MORE READERS AND TRAFFIC THAN HANAN TUDOR (GABRIEL’S REAL NAME) DOES. BUT THANKS FOR THE INSULT. SHE HASN’T ORGANIZED AMERICANS TO RESIST JIHAD. SHE’S ORGANIZED DUMMIES AND LAPDOGS TO PAD HER BANK ACCOUNT. SHE OPENLY PRAISED AND FUNDRAISED FOR AN ORGANIZATION THAT DEFENDED MUSLIM JIHADIST HOLOCAUST DENIAL DEATH THREATS AGAINST MY LIFE. THIS IS “RESISTING JIHAD”? YOU THINK YOU NEED TO JOIN THIS PHONY AND HER LEMMINGS TO RESIST JIHAD? WAKE THE HECK UP. I WILL BE WRITING MORE ON THIS COMPLETE PHONY, HANAN TUDOR A/K/A BRIGITTE GABRIEL, WHO IS NO EXPERT IN THE LEAST ON JIHAD. SHE’S PRAISED PRO-HAMAS/HEZBOLLAH BENAZIR BHUTTO AS A “MODERATE” AND SHE TOLD BILL O’REILLY THAT OBAMA IS DOING A GREAT JOB REACHING OUT TO MUSLIMS, “BETTER THAN BUSH.” AND SHE SAID SHE HAD NO PROBLEM WITH IT OTHER THAN HIS BOW TO THE SAUDI KING. IF THIS IS FROM WHOM YOU ARE TAKING DIRECTION, YOU ARE A COMPLETE FOOL. DS]
Pavlov's dog on May 12, 2009 at 4:52 pm