A Conservative-Islamist Alliance

By Sam Westrop, WESTERN ISLAMISM   October 25, 2022


Images adapted from neo-Nazi cartoons illustrate Muslim and Christians standing together against Jews, blacks, homosexuals and an array of various, ostensible symbols of the evils of progressivism.

Part 1: Trouble in Dearborn

In October, Muslim protestors descended on successive meetings of the Dearborn Public Schools board, to demand the removal of “LGBTQ” books that “promote pornography” and “homosexuality” from Dearborn’s school libraries. Videos revealed angry scenes and overcrowded rooms, with loud jeers and booing directed at speakers and school board officials, while placards in Arabic and English featured denunciations of the “big sin” of homosexuality and the “grooming” of children.

Many of the protestors were there at the behest of two prominent Islamist leaders: Hassan Qazwini, head of the Islamic Institute of America, a Shia mosque in Dearborn Heights; and Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Both are well known for their radical links. In 2010, Qazwini hosted a memorial service for Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, the late “spiritual leader” of the designated terrorist group Hezbollah; while Walid, who fuses Islamism with black nationalism, has a long history of overt anti-Semitism and support for violent criminals.

A local NPR station reported that “most” protesting “were young men, some led by Muslim religious leaders— a contrast to the largely Christian groups that have led other efforts to restrict books in Michigan libraries.”

Indeed, Dearborn is a majority Arab city, a point picked up on by Qazwini in a sermon at his mosque last week, when he told his congregants: “Defend your right and lay out your demands that we don’t need those books in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights.  Take them somewhere else. The majority rules. If you are the majority of people in Dearborn, you rule.”

However, in spite of the possible underlying Islamist agendas, at a second meeting on October 13, the protestors were joined in their efforts by Republican party officials, including Trump-endorsed candidates such as the Republican nominee for Secretary of State Kristina Karamo and the Republican nominee for Attorney General Matthew DePerno, who told media: “I think you’re probably seeing a shift in the Republican Party.”

Indeed, Detroit Free Press reporter Niraj Warikoo reported that State Rep. Matthew Maddock called for Muslims and Christians in Dearborn to work together to oppose “certain books and educational materials.”

Twitter post from Michigan GOP co-chair Meshawn Maddock

Maddock’s wife, Meshawn Maddock, is co-chair of the Michigan GOP. She recently expressed praise for her new hijab-clad Muslim allies, claiming that “800 Muslim and Christian parents showed up to protest the sexualization of their kids in Dearborn Public Schools,” and had pledged to vote Republican.

Trump supporters across Twitter posted photos of “Muslim and Christian parents in Dearborn, Michigan [joining] together to protest against LGBT education in their schools.”

Prominent Right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza praised the protests as a “Conservative alliance of Christians and Muslims showing up the school board meeting and … shutting it down.” D’Souza even praised the radical Qazwini for his “socially and culturally conservative” efforts to “stir up the mobilization of Muslim parents.”

D’Souza concluded: “I think what we see here is that there is a limited opportunity for conservatives to ally with conservative Muslims … to defeat the Left across the board.”

Islamists, too, appear excited by this collaboration. Yasir Qadhi, a graduate of the hardline Salafi movement and one of the best-known Islamic religious leaders in the Western world, approvingly retweeted Right-wing coverage of the protests, and declared: “Conservative Christians and Jews need to understand that Muslims are their allies in wanting a purer and morally upright society.”

Muslim anger in Dearborn is no longer directed at Trump and his Muslim ban, but instead at left-leaning figures once considered champions of Islamist causes. The Detroit Free Press reports:

At times, the meeting appeared to be a political rally, with the crowd booing loudly for Democrats such as U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, Attorney General Dana Nessel and Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, accusing them of being in favor of LGBTQ books the protesters believe are offensive and violate their religion.

Meanwhile, the Muslim crowd reportedly booed and heckled left-leaning figures at the school board meetings who called for “unity between gays and Muslims.”

Islamist media in Europe covered the protests, noting similar Muslim anger at “LGBTQ” teachings in Britain and the Netherlands.

Across social media, Islamist activists published cartoons in response [see featured image at top], adapted from neo-Nazi publications, illustrating Muslim and Christians standing together against Jews, blacks, homosexuals and an array of various, ostensible symbols of the evils of progressivism.

Events in Dearborn are not a lone example. Increasingly, the Right’s approach to Islam and Islamism is changing. Concomitantly, many Islamists no longer regard the Left as a useful ally, but a harmful influence.

As protest leader and CAIR official Dawud Walid preached to a Muslim audience during a recent lecture, Muslims can cope with the Right, who like “wolves,” “howl and make a lot of noise.” The greater threat, Walid claims, comes from liberals, who are “the fox that smiles” and “more likely to eat your sheep.”

Part 2: The Changing Politics of American Islam

“Reliable” Conservatives

Over the past twenty years, much has been written about the ostensible Islamist alliance with the “Left.” Terms such as the “Red-Green Alliance” have been used – by both Muslims and non-Muslimsrabble-rousers and serious academics – to refer to Left-wing attempts to solicit Muslim support, as well as Islamist efforts to hijack progressivist causes.

Before 9/11, however, and especially during the run-up to the presidential elections in 2000, Muslim Americans were a key demographic for the Republican Party.

Writing in the Washington Post, Rany Jazayerli notes that American Muslims served as a “reliable pillar of support” for decades. Jazayerli claims Muslims were attracted to the GOP by Christian influence on “social issues” such as gay marriage and abortion. “Muslim support for the Republican Party did not waver in the face of its gradual Christianization,” Jazayerli writes, “On the contrary, Muslims saw common ground.”

Spotting opportunity, in 2000, George Bush explicitly sought out Muslim leaders. He was urged on, David A. Graham writes, by “Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader, who argued that because Muslims are a socially conservative, family-oriented, business-friendly group they are a natural GOP constituency.”

This strategy proved particularly important in Florida, a state which won George Bush the presidency by a mere 537 votes.

However, as with so much political outreach to Western Islam, imprudent politicians and their campaign managers ended up choosing Islamist partners. After all, it was the Islamists, as innately political actors, who appeared best prepared to provide political support, notwithstanding their actual mandate from ordinary American Muslims.

In Florida, the Bush campaign sought out the help of Sami Al-Arian, a prominent professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, and a leading Islamist activist in the state. Al-Arian served as a keen supporter of the Bush campaign, meeting with the then-Texas governor and his wife on several occasions, and campaigning for the Republicans in mosques across Florida.

Just a few years later, in 2003, Sami Al-Arian was charged with conspiring to provide funds to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated Palestinian terrorist organization. It emerged he had been under federal surveillance for a decade. He pleaded guilty in 2006, and was deported. Since then, he has lived in Türkiye, with the support of the Erdo?an regime, from where he continues to manage and lead Islamist efforts in the West.

Deported terror-supporter Sami Al-Arian now lives in Türkiye, where he works with Turkish regime entities and continues to influence American politics

Grover Norquist, meanwhile, was closely involved in Islamist circles himself, working with not just Al-Arian but also the Muslim Brotherhood-linked SAAR network, a collection of Virginia businesses and nonprofits that federal investigators later targeted in a huge terror finance investigation. Norquist was also close to Abdurahman Alamoudi, an Al Qaeda fundraiser jailed in 2004 for conspiring with the Libyan regime to assassinate the Saudi Crown Prince.

After the election, but before their arrests, President Bush welcomed both Alamoudi and Al-Arian to the White House.

A survey carried out by the Council of American-Islamic Relations claimed that as many as 70% of American Muslims voted Republican in that 2000 election. The Islamists sought to take advantage: both to enjoy the rewards of friends in high office later, as well as to help cement their growing control of American Muslim institutions.

And indeed, the Islamists, and Al-Arian, may have been indispensable. In that crucial state of Florida, it is reported that as many as 90% of Florida Muslims voted Republican in 2000. According to newspapers in the state, Al-Arian “boasted publicly that Muslims in Florida may have tipped the close presidential election to Bush.”

CONTINUE

October 26, 2022 | 2 Comments »

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  1. US politics has always involved coalitions. I support the Dearborn Muslims protesting pornography in the schools. I also support the Muslim Mehmet Oz against Fetterman. Once the Democrats are defeated, we can argue amongst ourselves.