Debbie Schlussel: Lipstick on Cancer: Extremist Muslim Group Picks Woman "Leader"
All of the mainstream press is abuzz with praise over the extremist Islamic Society of North America's (ISNA) choice of a woman to lead the group. But the choice of Ingrid Mattson--a female Canadian convert to Islam--as the first woman president of the pro-terrorism group is merely cosmetic.
We'd call the choice of Mattson, "lipstick on a pig." But since Muslims don't like being compared to pigs--they just like comparing Jews and Christians to them--out of respect and in the interest of accuracy, we'll call Mattson's appointment what it really is: lipstick on cancer.
The fact is that the Saudi-funded ISNA--which has taken over most of America's mosques and Islamic private schools through it's affiliate, Saudi-funded North American Islamic Trust--is an apologist for the most extreme, repressive treatment of women in Islam. Under ISNA's growing influence on and "leadership" of Muslims in America, more and more women are under attack.
ISNA refuses to condemn these Islamic behaviors that take place against women in the Muslim world, every single day:
* female genital mutilation
* sex-selection abortions of female fetuses
* honor killings of women
* forced honor suicides
* rape of women not a criminal act; women honor-killed for being raped
* women not allowed to get divorced
* women not allowed to own property
* polygamy for Muslim husbands
* temporary Muslim sex marriages, where the woman has no rights to alimony or support
* women not allowed to vote
* women not allowed to drive
* women not considered human; just property
* women not allowed to own property
* women not allowed to leave Islam;
* forced arranged marriages;
* women forced to wear hijabs and face-covering niqabs and burqas;
* women recruited as homicide bombers;
etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam.
ISNA's new president Ingrid Mattson--as is ISNA's policy--won't condemn these practices against women. So her position as ISNA's president is meaningless. It's merely cosmetics applied on top of a growing extremist cancer.
Welcome to the new Islamic "feminism."
Then, there is ISNA, itself. When American convert to Islam Azzam Al-Amriki a/k/a Adam Gadahn surfaced over 2 years ago in FBI wanted lists, I wrote about ISNA and its long time leader, Muzammil Siddiqi, who left his leadership position only recently. Here's an excerpt:
In 1995, Siddiqi praised jihad and martyrdom in the Kansas City Star. "Those who die on the part of justice are alive, and their place is with [Allah], and they receive the highest position, because this is the highest honor."Siddiqi wants the United States to become a Muslim country through "gradual change," and that shariah (Islamic law) should become our law. "Allah's rules have to be established in all lands, and all our efforts should lead to that direction," he wrote in 1996.
He opposes Muslims serving in the U.S. military or defending the U.S. "Islam will not allow a Muslim to be drafted by non-Muslims to defend concepts, ideologies, and values other than those of Islam . . . . A Muslim shall defend non-Muslim lands not," Siddiqi said in an article entitled, "Basic Principles of Involvement in War in Islam," in 1991.
"America has to learn," Siddiqi said at an October 2000 protest outside the White House. "If you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come. Please! Please all American, do you remember that, that Allah is watching everyone . . . . If you continue doing injustice, and tolerating injustice, the wrath of God will come."
In 1989, the L.A. Times asked whether he agrees with the death sentence fatwa issued by Iran against author Salman Rushdie. Instead of saying no, he said that it would have to be determined by Islamic law.
Siddiqi is one of the most prominent Muslim leaders in America. Until late 2001, he headed the Saudi-funded Islamic Society of North America. . . .
ISNA is at the forefront of promoting extremist Wahhabi Islam and often uses extremists to take over and seize control of relatively moderate mosques. Sometimes that involves violence, such as a May 1987 scuffle at a Tampa mosque by the family of the now indicted, alleged Islamic Jihad frontman, Sami Al-Arian. In a letter, Al-Arian refers to an official at an ISNA conference agreeing to donate $20,000 to his terror efforts.
While Siddiqi headed the ISNA, the group aided Hamas Political Director Musa Abu Marzook, by giving his legal defense fund a platform at its conferences around the U.S. In an open letter published in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Marzook thanked ISNA while he was in prison awaiting extradition. Marzook was unsuccessfully fighting deportation. Now in Syria, the United States has indicted him.
This is the organization that new woman President Ingrid Mattson takes over. While the human plumbing of its leader may have changed, its extremism is increasing exponentially.
Posted by Debbie on August 30, 2006 11:31 AM to Debbie Schlussel