IBRAHIM HOOPER: Yeah, it’s a very good point. The arguments used to attack Islam and Muslims in America are the same arguments that anti-Semites used in pre-World War II Nazi Germany to attack the Jewish community, you know, that all Muslims want to take over America, they want to impose their culture on us, they want to destroy the indigenous culture, they want even to lust after, you know, women of other cultures. It’s the same argumentation that is used in anti-Semitism that’s used in Islamophobia.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Ibrahim Hooper, a lot of this takes on an aspect of the Crusades again. You often hear John McCain talking about the great threat of Islamofascism that America confronts. And this video, for example, it has almost a crusade, religious crusade, mentality to it.
IBRAHIM HOOPER: Yeah. You end up with a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you project to the rest of the world that somehow you’re in conflict with the faith of Islam, there are going to be those people in the Muslim world who say, well, I’ve got to stand up for Islam and do something. You know, so the whole idea of the conflict of civilizations is self-perpetuating.
*********
AMY GOODMAN: Ibrahim Hooper, very quickly, talk about how this film Obsession was distributed to tens of millions of people. I mean, I understand although a few papers refused to put it in its pages, the DVD, about seventy, including the New York Times, distributed it on grounds that rejecting it would violate the sponsors’ right to free speech.
IBRAHIM HOOPER: Well, I have a feeling it was more on the grounds that ad revenues are going down and they need an infusion of cash. But, yeah, it’s a tremendous campaign. It’s unbelievable in its magnitude. We’re talking 28 million households, plus mailings, plus automated phone that are going to people in these swing states, saying, “We just sent you a DVD. Watch it and remember it when you go into the voting booth.” So it’s obvious they were trying to influence the presidential election by sending to only key swing states around the country.
And we still don’t know who’s behind this. The Clarion Fund, that claimed to distribute this, is really just a virtual organization. It appears to be a front for a group based in Israel called Aish HaTorah. They share—they shared offices, they shared personnel, and they’re refusing to say who is paying for this, that’s got to be a minimum $50 million campaign.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/17/smearcasting_how_islamophobes_spread_fear_bigotryThere is so much wrong with this picture, and DVD. Hate crime, inciting to crusade war? Desperate republicans throwing in the towel in despair?
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
