by Daniel Pipes*

I visited Toronto in early March 2010 and as I left the country I passed through the usual security check at Pearson International Airport. What made it different is that the next passengers after me in line were a man, a small child, and a person in niqab. (I write “person” rather than “woman” as I hardly know who was under the niqab outfit.)

Curious how the niqabi’s hidden identity would be handled, I looked back as the trio was dealing with the security agent. To my astonishment, the agent did not demand to see the niqabi’s face but was content to see those of the man and child. I wanted dearly to video this procedure on my mobile phone but dared not, thinking that this could well get me hauled in on some charge that I, ironically, was breaching security.

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by Stephen Schwartz*

John L. Esposito, professor of religion and international affairs and director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, is America’s best-known apologist for Saudi Wahhabism, the Turkish fundamentalist Justice and Development Party (AKP), and Islamist ideologies in general. To many, he personifies all that’s wrong with Middle East studies in America today.

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By Barry Rubin

In one of his out-of-control anti-Israel rants, Andrew Sullivan included in his list of alleged evils that Israel had repeatedly “defied” the United States. That point stuck in my mind and made me reflect how demonstrably untrue is that charge contrary to what people might think.

Certainly, there have been incidents of friction and disagreement–though always fairly short-lived–and at times Israel has either convinced U.S. policymakers of its position or the two sides agreed. Yet consider on all the key issues of the last twenty years how Israel did heed every major U.S. request.

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by Phyllis Chesler

We take our freedoms for granted in America and assume that everyone is either like us or wants to be. We find it hard to believe that this is not so.

Of course, I am not talking about thee and me but about all those American journalists, academics, and politicians who actually believe that the Cordoba House (the Mosque at Ground Zero) is a great idea; that women should have the “religious right” to wear the burqa in the West; that Muslims as a group must not be viewed as terrorists — even if most terrorists today happen to be Muslims who commit their bloody deeds in the name of Islam; above all, I am brooding about the American inability or refusal to distinguish between real Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents and feminists and those who pretend to come in peace (in English) but who preach hatred and war within their mosques and in Arabic. … Continue reading…

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By Andrew Whitehead

Much has been written lately about the “Cordoba House”, now known as the “Park51 Islamic Community Center”. What hasn’t been properly explored is the significance of Park51 to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); a Washington, D.C. Islamic “Muslim civil-rights group” actually created to support Hamas activities in North America.

CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper, had this to say:

“Why is all this bigotry and hatred being employed to stop the construction of a community center that will house recreational and banquet facilities, meeting rooms, an auditorium — and yes, a prayer space for Muslims and people of other faiths? … The constitutional rights of American Muslims must not be left in the hands of those who exploit and promote fear of the “other” and use the same divisive tactics that have harmed so many other societies throughout history.”

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