We are all aware of the barbaric acts of ISIS, al Qaeda and the others flying the Black Flag. Sadly their violence continues to kill innocents around the world and here at home. They fight in the cause of Jihad to impose their totalitarian religion on all people. But they are not the only ones working toward that goal. There are other Islamist groups who seem much less dangerous on the surface, but actually represent an even more insidious threat to free western society. They seek to use our very freedoms as weapons against us.
On Thursday of last week, this site published a video on its YouTube channel. As of yesterday, YouTube has pulled that video declaring it a violation of its “hate speech” policy. The irony is that the video was appreciated by Muslim reformers such as CounterJihad’s own Shireen Qudosi, who pointed out that to reformers like her it was actually helpful speech.
We spoke with Jim Hanson, Executive Vice President of the Center for Security Policy and the official in charge of the video’s production. “I am stunned,” he said, “that the policy that YouTube developed for the express purpose of fighting Islamic State propaganda is now being used to silence critics of radical jihad.” He pointed out that this means that supporters of groups like the Islamic State (ISIS) have managed to turn YouTube’s own policies against it. “Instead of counteracting radical propaganda online,” Hanson said, “these policies are now being used to silence the very speech that YouTube said it wanted — speech that challenges ISIS.”
Hanson appears to be correct that YouTube initially developed its policies with countering ISIS in mind. In an article in the Huffington Post, Jaweed Kaleem interviewed a number of content producers that YouTube had specifically contacted in order to generate content that would overwhelm ISIS with alternative viewpoints.
“The words “Islamic State” appeared nowhere in the note asking Muslims like Ali to ‘change the discourse,’ but the message was clear. The terrorist organization’s vast media arm, with its slick recruitment videos, was winning the propaganda war.”
YouTube solicited this kind of content, from Muslims like our Shireen Qudosi, for the express purpose of contesting its space with ISIS propagandists. Somehow, its own policies have been turned against it.
“YouTube’s removal of CounterJihad’s factual analysis of the threat of ISIS and radical Islam is a devastating blow against credible counter-terrorism efforts,” Qudosi said. “No company or individual can legitimately say they support free speech and at the same time set up blockades against the very people doing the work necessary to counter the ideology. There is no other way to look at this.”
The text of the video is posted below.
Terrorism seems to be everywhere, and it’s getting worse. The bad guys have lots of names—ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram—but they have one thing in common. They are all killing for a cause: Islamic Law known as Sharia.
Sharia is a return to medieval Islam. Sharia demands a Holy War called Jihad. The most widely available book of Islamic Law in English says: “Jihad means to war against non-Muslims.”
There are two kinds of Jihad. Violent Jihad is horribly simple, slaughtering innocents and forcing submission. Violent Jihadists want to conquer land for their Caliphate – essentially an Islamic State where Sharia Law is supreme.
But there is another kind of Jihad. In their Explanatory Memorandum, the Muslim Brotherhood, calls this, “civilization jihad,” saying, “The [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers…”
Civilization Jihad has the same goal as the Violent Jihad—to conquer land for their Caliphate—but instead of waging war or staging terror attacks like their brothers in the violent jihad, these Civilization Jihadists wear suits and ties, and their work is much more subtle.
So what do they do? They file lawsuits for Muslim truck drivers who don’t want to drive beer. They convince schools to hold Muslim Day, where the girls wear head scarves and the kids say Muslim prayers. They complain when our government watches to see if their violent buddies are hanging out with them.
They call anyone critical of Islamic Law an “Islamophobe,” a term they invented to make people scared to speak out—like the neighbors of the terrorists in San Bernardino who knew something was wrong, but didn’t want to say anything because they’d be accused of profiling.
These bad guys have lots of names, too: the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); the Muslim Student Association (MSA); Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). The Justice Department found that these groups were, in fact, started by the Muslim Brotherhood.
These groups like to say that terrorism has no religion, but only Islam has Sharia and Jihad.
Not all Muslims practice Sharia or support it, but an awful lot do. They believe that anyone who insults Islam can be killed; they believe that women are property; that gaysshould be killed; and that little girls should be mutilated and forced to marry old men they’ve never men. These things are simply not allowed in our free society and are against the Constitution.
There are plenty of Modern Muslims who want to “live and let live,” but unfortunately the groups that speak most often for the Muslim community follow the medieval version based on Sharia.
They are working to make the US more like the Caliphate. They have to go.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Obama administration have joined in endorsing a heckler’s veto on freedom of speech in violation of America’s most deeply-held political principles.
In sharia, the word translated as “slander” is the Arabic word ghiba. It means to say anything about someone that they do not like, even though it is true.
Ambassador Ron Dermer said that the Southern Poverty Law Center claims to defend tolerance for those who "look different," but works to suppress those who "think different."